Suggestion: Remove "Delete this pet" option. POLL ADDED

[nickjr]

1. Some people make it like we have to donate or give away our pets. I don't like to be pressured into doing anything. I am sure others do not. Deleting is less convenient than giving away. But its still a choice in this virtual pixel trading game. Should that choice go away, I can still log off forever which is the same thing (pet denial)

2. Delete isn't permanent.... Yes you read that correctly. It isn't (well mostly). Because of December 18th rereleases that affect 99.97% (well once they get to rare+) of all pets on CS. No one will ever delete enough to completely erase a pet from existence (its pretty much impossible). And even if they do, guess what we will get extras of next Christmas!...

The only pets that can be deleted permanently are store pets. But since they are all headed to oblivion anyways, what does it matter if some get trashed now? If you missed the chance to buy them, it means no store pets for you (unless you trade for them). If you didn't try trading when they were in circulation, then you don't get any. If the last surviving ultra rare store pet owners die and the accounts go cold because the passwords were lost? No more of those store pets ever for anyone. (Unless CS itself changes its stance on super old store pets.)

Permanently hoarding (meaning you will never trade them ever no matter the offer) is the same as going inactive forever. No one can get them anymore. Actually hoarding can be worse since their accounts are still active. And this means fewer to no rereleases. That translates to very hard to get even though the pet may be "just a rare". And greed is the reason why pets get so costly. Not some seldom used feature most people overlook. Deleting is more self gratification than anything. I don't even think deleting means an unrecoverable pet as the staff have backup records of everything. So it can't be much of a harassment tool anyways.

3. I know that. But sometimes the way people act with their self entitlement complex pushes me to want to delete than just share. Cause they are ungrateful or just plain rude. Its why most just leave without so much as a pet/item. Cause the current climate drove them away.

Extra: Besides I am a sacrificer and the CS gods must be appeased! *prep sacrifice machine*

I've been trying to figure out how to word all of this for forever. Thank you -bows down to you- Pets go away for forever? Their IDs do, yeah, but what about December 18? As soon as a pet turns rare, it's a candidate for rerelease. If a pet is really deleted enough to go rare, then we'll get more. (And if it becomes a problem, like someone deleting a hoard of sunjewels, then I'm sure the admins will tweak the probabilities. They've got access to the numbers, after all...)

The only reasons I see that can still stand even a little bit are

> the bullying thing (which doesn't stand by itself, as I've mentioned before; it has to stand with the lack of positive usage of the delete button, and even that is arguable as shown above--no uncommons or below in The Box!)

> wanting to make life easier on our admins (I don't know how much of their time is taken up by problems that could've been prevented by not having the delete button... if it's actually a lot of time, then yeah I could see removing the delete button)

> store pets (which... officially doesn't stand well on its own, considering that store pets were originally released without the intention of having them "count" towards a complete CS collection; they were intended to just be tokens for those who supported CS; if we didn't have that reasoning then this would stand much more)

(also yes I'm pretty sure the admins have records of pets--otherwise we wouldn't have recreated pets that seemingly sit in funky places in groups haha they get the next available ID but otherwise look identical to the original pets)

[Aaron✦]

I think I have to say no support on this, too - if it's an option people want to use, they should be allowed to use it. I don't think any of the reasons given are significant enough factors on the game at the moment for it to be taken away.

[Boghound]

No support from me. It's a good button; if people wanna delete their pets, let them. This is the same rhetoric used against people who hoard: it's not fair because it takes certain pets out of circulation. As mentioned, the specific ID goes away, yes, but eventually they are rereleased thru Dec 18th-- and if it's a very common-uncommon pet, unless you're deleting millions of them (which.. will make them at least rare and given a chance to be rereleased!) it's not making much of a difference anyway.
So what if someone deletes a gift you gave them out of spite? This is a kid's game, kids (...and adults, lol) will be kids and petty and spiteful, lol. Take in a deep breath and move on.

Keep that good ol deletion button.

[General Chaos]

support 100%

[holodog]

Whew reading through 12 pages of arguments really bumps you back and forth between support/no support. I'm just going to be replying to common subjects I've seen so far.

1. Deleting true date pets is only an issue for the people who believe true dates are more valuable. There is no difference in design or rarity tag, only number. This is more of a personal issue.

2. If someone has the mindset of: "I'm quitting CS so I'll just delete my pets since I'll never have a use for them again", they have no intention of giving their pets to other players. If the delete feature wasn't there, the same player would likely just abandon the site. There is no difference between letting the pets sit in an abandoned account and deleting them. This argument is better applied to the issue of abandoned accounts.

3. I have often thought about how selfish it is to hoard rare, very rare and omgsr pets but those thoughts stem from my own desire to obtain those pets. I've thought about how selfish it is to hoard tens even hundreds of so many people's dream pets, but why is the hoarder at fault? Unless they're flaunting their collection directly to the players who want those pets, they're not doing any harm. This is an argument better applied to bullying if such a situation is frequent.

4. New players deleting rare pets/deleting pets then regretting it later on is an argument better applied to the education of new players. Perhaps there needs to be clearer emphasis on the important of rarity? Tutorials perhaps?

5. The delete button isn't a one-click process. It's impossible to accidentally delete a pet simply by misclicking. If people are accidentally deleting rare pets thinking it was a different pet, perhaps the layout of the deletion page needs to be changed to make it easier to identify the pet.

6. Chicken Smoothie's economy is not so easily shaken. The staff of this site are very smart and compassionate. They would never initiate an inflation or mass deletion. I have seen a trade system destroyed by the game's staff. I know for certain the same thing will never happen on CS. Just as the artificial rarity change project is not seeing results instantly, the trade economy will not be hurt by a few deletions.

7. Many people are missing a very important point when they say, "If a person no longer wants the pet, they should give it to someone else instead of deleting it." The point is, the "delete" option is not the issue in this situation. The issue is the owner of the pet not wanting to give their pet to another user. If this is such a problem then shouldn't the fix be redirected to teaching the CS userbase compassion?

8. Many of the arguments here are based on facts we don't know exist. People have said bullying is an issue but how many of these cases you're describing have really occured? We can't say the deletion of rare pets is really an issue unless we know the rate at which people are deleting rare pets. Perhaps with a number to reflect how often people delete pets, we may be able to determine if it's worth keeping around.

9. We also have to consider the work this change would create. I have very little experience in creating, managing and editing a website so I can't begin to imagine what sort of work this would require. If it was a simple task, a quick fix, then if the feature is not being used enough to justify its existence it might be practical to remove a useless feature (another mini point to consider, if people are using it enough to justify its existence without malicious intent then why remove it?). If it required a lot of work to remove it, then wouldn't that time be better spent focusing on larger features?

10. The attachment people have to virtual pets is more of a personal issue that would only become a site-wide issue if 100% of the playerbase shared that mindset, at least in my opinion, but if the aim is to conform to the wants of the majority then the vocal majority seem to share care for the pets being deleted, which might justify a change.
wow writing this was such a stress reliever

[Aurore]

The only reason I would oppose this is because I think that artificial rarity project to hoard & delete that common pony is hilarious.

More seriously, I don't think it matters a lot either way, since ultimately I assume very few pets end up getting deleted. I'd wager most players haven't ever even considered doing it, and it's much easier to give bulk pets to the pound than delete them all individually. But there's also zero benefit to keeping it around, so I support removing the option, especially for store pets. I think there's no merit in keeping it around for the sake of freedom to do what you want, and deleting for spite or stress relief is pretty immature.

[nickjr]

deleting for spite or stress relief is pretty immature.

So is punching a pillow for stress relief ("you know that doesn't actually do anything except ruin your pillow, right"). Or playing CS at all for stress relief, especially for adults ("why not just be an adult and face the problem?"). Might want to use a different argument

[acura,]

I completely agree with this. I’ve always found the ‘Delete this pet’ option a bit... harsh. Just because you don’t like a pet, I don’t think you should be deleting it, sending it away to another user who might enjoy the pet or to the pound is a better cause than deleting. ^^

[Shian]

Actually, for phobias and such I can see it being pretty handy.
Spiders, anyone? How about snakes? You can bet if there's ever a mukade pet, I'll delete it. Don't want it on my account for one second, much less wait around for the pound or some other user to accept a trade.

[nickjr]

deleting for spite or stress relief is pretty immature.

So is punching a pillow for stress relief ("you know that doesn't actually do anything except ruin your pillow, right"). Or playing CS at all for stress relief, especially for adults ("why not just be an adult and face the problem?"). Might want to use a different argument

According to pretty much every psychiatrist and therapist I've ever visited, doing things like punching pillows to "let out anger/stress" doesn't actually work. Instead, it only increases negative feelings. This is backed up by science: one, two, three.

"Ineffective" != "immature", especially in a society where it's accepted among the masses to "vent when you need to" and is even seen as the "mature" thing to do whereas bottling it up is seen as "immature and harmful" because it's supposedly a sign that you can't communicate like everyone else (and I haven't heard of a middle ground between venting and bottling it up, nor can I think of one...)

Ninja'd!
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Yeah, I have a folder of "scary pets"... but since a lot of people actually like zombie pets, I'm like "okay I'll put them up for trade"

I have a request in the group name to warn me if those pets are added to the trade because I forgot to put the request in earlier and someone sent a trade wanting those pets without saying which pets they wanted in the message (understandable) and I screamed when I scrolled down and upset my parents. Then I had nightmares that night and did not sleep well. (Yep this happened when I adopted the zombie fennecs in the first place. I know I'm on the extreme end of sensitivity, so I don't fundamentally mind if this keeps happening)

Too bad I have to actually look at the pets in my peripheral vision to delete them lol but it's nice to know that if having the pets on my account start to really make me nervous, then I can delete them and never have to deal with them ever again; even with the Pound I have to wait for the trade to be accepted and then that's just one more trade in my trade history with the scary pets, so if I go back through my trade history later (which I do a lot) and open that trade...