Dear Lee, Ron, & Kate,
I hope you all are doing well. I was asked to put forth a suggestion from the CF Pet Workers Ministry about the welfare of pets on accounts that have been abandoned for a long time. The Pet Workers are very dedicated in helping to feed these virtual animals and make sure they’re kept in perfect health, while the members are away from their account. However, every month more pets are being added to the Abandoned List and its starting to get difficult for the Pet Workers to handle. They started the Abandoned List with only 90 pets (which is still a lot), now a year later they have over 250 pets on just this list--- while still looking after all the other pets that have members who visit the site regularly. So this community of members is looking for a change in way things are handled.
It has been suggested that perhaps a policy or feature could be made to help assist the Pet Workers in order to be sure that pets that have been abandoned for a long period of time (~1 year or so) would not die from not being fed or for health reasons. Two ideas have been put forth by the pet members:
(1) After a year of not signing into their accounts, the pet on that account would be taken away from the member and be put up for adoption by the Pet Workers. The member would be notified by email and/or pm of this before it would happen and with plenty of time (1-2 weeks) to act on it before it occurs. It would also be suggested to the member that they can stop in at CF and put their pet into day care for an extended period of time--- I’m sure that the CF Pet Workers would be even willing to provide the blessings to the member in order for their pet to be in the daycare should the member not have enough blessings to do so.
I know that the Staff at CF does not touch accounts unless we really have to for some reason, so I know this may be met with some opposition. Still these are God’s creatures, even if they are virtual, and it should be seen as a responsibility of the member.
Pet information could easily be transferred over from one account to another (simply have to find the info on the member’s profile and input it onto another account) so it wouldn’t require any coding changes, just have to edit the profile via the AdminCP. The Pet Workers have foster accounts opened where the pet could be transferred onto and then put into the Adoption Center.
Also, with any new pets being made, this change could be posted for the member to read before accepting that they want to make a new pet. It was suggested that this be added into it: “If you have not been active in 12 months, your pet will be put up for adoption.”
I also offer my help, as the Community Tech Liaison, in assisting the CF Pet Workers with the contacting of members and transferring of pets over for adoption should you all decide this would be the best method.
(2) Once the member has not returned for a long period of time (once again around 1 year was suggested), perhaps it could be coded that the pets live in “perpetual bliss” with perfect health, hunger, and happiness. I believe that Erwin’s pet has been set to this type of “perpetual bliss” so perhaps it could be applied to other pets as well. The Pet Workers could design a list under which pets fall into this category and then contact a Staff member who could set the pets into that state.
We’re lucky enough to have members here at CF who are willing to take care of these pets and dedicate hours every week to making sure every pet is cared for. I think they deserve a little bit of extra help from Staff and by helping them set up a policy or feature to help deal with abandoned pets, it will be a great and highly appreciated blessing to the members.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this matter. Take care and God bless.
~Tatiana
Community Tech Liaison