8/20/10 Edition
WE NEED INPUT! This is NOT supposed to be a monologue.
Back at the beginning of the year, FooMojo "retired" a number of older pet links in the interest of freeing up server space for other purposes. (Beta/WS et al leap to mind...) The mass extinction was reported at about a million and actually ran closer to 4 million, mostly yellow labs, and tux and black tabbies. A vigorous member protest to this move took place in Support, one of the reasons, we believe, that there is no longer open access to General issues. We have heard it suggested that irresponsible breeding is to blame for fooshelter crowding and abandoned/neglected pets, and while thoughtless propagation of low-stat and mixed-breed animals is a deplorable practice, it is far from being the root cause of foo overpopulation.
According to some demographic work we did recently, member breeding accounts for well under three percent of the pets on foo. This is NOT an opinion. These are the facts. There have been a little over thirty thousand breedings to date, and even assuming an average of seven per litter (the high end of the scale), that yields a quarter of a million pets, tops. Sound like a lot? Foopets and their precursor Go-Pokey (the link numbers were simply continued when it became FooPets in late 2008) are now assigning pet link numbers over ELEVEN MILLION. A quarter of a million sinks into that figure without a splash. Even the four million or so "retired" (read "deleted") comprise barely a third.
Now, some more real numbers. The percentage of animals who end up in the fooshelter at least once - often several times - is close to 90%...and this figure has been hideously steady all along. The older pets, however, were not abandoned as soon or as often as a rule until after the conversion to foopets - and not only are more pets being "dropped" immediately now, but they are being ordered and created in far greater numbers. A frightening trend we have seen - and there seems to be no safeguard in place against it - is the number of new joins who don't or can't subscribe to ClubFoo, and, in the absence of anything better to do, adopt and discard into the fooshelter pet after newly-created pet. We are personally aware of two cases where this resulted in over 50 new fooshelter inmates, primarily $300 premium adopts, per account...so far. They are still at it, despite desperate pleas to Admin to do SOMETHING to stop it. This is over and above the thousands of pets left behind to starve when new joins find no activities available and no way to find anything out about their alternatives on the site. The rate at which pets are created is five times what it was less than a year ago, and climbing rapidly - which means that the 90% attrition rate is affecting a vastly greater number of pets.
For various reasons we suspect that another fooshelter extermination is imminent. We are trying desperately to get foo to start "recycling" pets from the fooshelter as new adopts in various ways, as well as reducing the price on neutered pets to aid their homing. As the pets' creator - by their own admission - Foo shares and must start accepting responsibility for their existence and care in a manner that does NOT involve just making them go away when inconvenient.
IN OTHER (LIGHTER) NEWS...
Is anyone else fed up with the FooLette Wheel popping up in front of the pet? We are distressed to the point of cancelling it unused rather than deal yet again with the poor bewildered pet waiting, and waiting, and finally sadly walking away when no attention is paid to it. Can't it appear BEFORE the pet loads? Or - even better - AFTER all pets on the account are fed and happy?
The timer on the dogs needs some serious work...like freezing once you open the pup's profile for care. We recently took the time to pet the poor beast before dumping it into the play yard (mea culpa), and saw the timer flip from zero to "I need a walk!" as we let them out to go. They did their business, and upon returning to their scene, dropped a fresh lawn biscuit WHILE WE WERE PETTING THEM, after having just gone in the yard.
(By the way - was that Blue Jay ALWAYS there, and we just didn't notice it before?)
We think the coding for the change in the Nebelung cats' eyes may have gone viral...a Persian recently looked up at us with its eyes missing - a VERY disconcerting experience.
The whole "get a higher karma rank than your friends" craze may be getting out of hand...we have been seeing more and more cases where pets are being accelerated JUST to make them old enough to neuter. Come ON, people - the expense aside, you're stealing a year from the animal's life...karma is supposed to reflect your LOVE of the pets, not give you a new way to compete. Go play at the Arcade if high scores are what matter to you.
We are in the process of reworking our Advocated Suggestions and will discuss and post them here sometime quite soon - somehow the problems of abandoned and neglected pets, overpopulation in and out of the fooshelter, absentee breeders, and other issues affecting foo members and pets need to be addressed and resolved.
