Welcome to Gaia! ::

emotion_kirakira

Hello, everyone! It's been a long time since the last update, which means more changes!! As a quick review, we'll be covering:

• Promotions
  
• Rehires
  
• Colorist Restructure
  
• SC Culture
  
• Clarifying Custom Prices
  
• Breedings
  
• MCCL Activity Requirements
  
• Domained Cosplay Restrictions
  
• Rarity

Thanks in advance for all the reading!


PROMOTIONS
First up, we have another round of promotions! Please welcome our new,

RP Manager,
Nayci

Elders,
Celestial Requiem, Kara Asumie, Sweenys_Revenge, Yumitoko II

and Seniors,
Malis Vitterfolk (Soquili), Manda, Ovarian Paint, spelldancer

Congratulations!


REHIRES
In addition, some of our staff have returned to us! Please welcome Azael_Rose as a standard colorist, and Moxxiie as a guest colorist!


COLORIST RESTRUCTURE
As our colorist staff continues to change and grow, we wanted to revisit existing expectations.

Many of us have aged with Gaia, and our staff are no exception. Our colorists are finding their Gaia time more and more limited as RL responsibilities grow. We wanted to bring in some changes to ease up the stress on our staff, prevent burnout, and bring better balance between our online and our RL time.

A part of this means addressing the changes the shop has gone through. Initially, Soquili was a low edit shop. As the ability to obtain edits became more common, we have trended towards becoming more extreme in what we offer on our pets. This means it takes longer to make each pet, and some of our staff are struggling to maintain the pace. We've implemented some changes to counteract this effect, and to better enable colorists to monitor their workloads to ensure they don’t exhaust themselves in the process. We hope you guys understand the necessity of these changes and help us make a smooth transition!

The changes we've made affect colorist categories, edit availability, and the CCs a colorist is able to do.

Categories
Rather than having soquili and familiar categories, everyone will be merged into one colorist role. Any colorist is free to color soquili or familiars based on their own preferences and comfort level. This means you might see some colorists who usually work on ponies making some familiars, and vice versa!

In addition, we have condensed the quota cycles from full, quarterly, and biannual, to just biannual. This means colorists only have to complete one quota cycle every six months. Note that this only affects the minimum activity requirements the shop expects colorists to maintain to remain on staff; it does not limit the number of slots a colorist is able to offer. Colorists are still free to open slots as often as they want, should they have the time and inclination.

Edits
Instead of having edited and unedited colorists, we will allow colorists to set the edit level for each slot opening to better manage their workloads. Colorists may still offer "Open" edit slots where any edit level is allowed, but it may also become more common for colorists to cap slots at a certain edit level.

This will be controlled internally via an approval process (wherein colorists must obtain approval to offer higher edit levels in public slots) and QC.

Colorist Choice
We have also restructured the way CCs are done to allow colorists more flexibility in the type of work they are obligated to do. The previous system allowed a colorist to CC an unlimited number of times after they'd rolled 3 slots. The new system will allow colorist to CC 1 slot for every 1 slot that is rolled.

There are three exceptions:

• The first is standard breeding slots, wherein a colorist must roll the first two slots. They may CC 2 immediately after, if desired.
  
• The second is the MCCL, which can only be CC'd from.
  
• The third are break months: after a successful quota cycle, a colorist is entitled to a break month where they are not obligated to work in the shop; however, if they choose to do so, they may opt to open CC-only slots.

SC CULTURE
Next up is SC! For most of the shop's recent history, there has been a strong expectancy to deprioritize SC work. The intentions behind this were understandable: the shop was, and still is, made for our patrons, and our focus should be on what we can do for you. However, it has become commonplace for SC work to wait years simply to be picked up, much less be completed. We do not think this is acceptable. We feel that SC work are not gifts, to be given at convenience—they are payment given for the work our staff have put into this shop. And as with any pet won in public slots, recipients of SC work should be able to feel they can expect their pet within a reasonable amount of time.

To be clear, we do not intend to change the fact that the shop is for our patrons. We simply want to reach a point where all work share the same expectations, and that work priority is shifted to focus on how long the work has been owed, as opposed to whether the work was public or purchased via SC.

Before we can reach this point, we will have to overcome the incredible SC backlog that has built up over the years. What this means is that there will be a stronger focus on SC work in the near future; many have been waiting for years, and it will take a while more to get SC work within the same 6 month expectation we hold for public work.

We have allowed the shop to grow neglectful in regards to SC, and we hope for your understanding as we work to rectify this!


CLARIFYING CUSTOM PRICES
Custom prices have not changed, but this is a reminder of the terms used:

• PWYW, including no pay: Any amount starting from 0 and up is fine.
  
• PWYW: The amount is up to the customer, but a trade must be sent. Unless the thread explicitly states that no pay is fine, please assume it is this option. If a trade is not sent, the slot may be voided and rerolled.

BREEDINGS
And of course, not all changes are a result of balancing RL obligations! We've made changes to litters in spirit breedings, mock children, and batch drop rules that we hope will rebalance the shop as its norms change over time. In addition, we've clarified the breeding form.

Having Mixed Litters in Breedings
The previous system allowed only one breed in spirit breedings. In a full-sized x mini pair, the litter could be either all full-sized or all mini, but not both. In a fox x raven pair, the litter could be either foxes or ravens, but not both. The new system will allow an offspring's base to be determined individually rather than as a litter. A fox x raven pair can now have foxes and ravens in one litter from standard breeding slots.

Allowing Mock Twins in Breeding Slots
It's possible for staff members to purchase a twin of an offspring in breedings. As it has become more common, we wanted to make this accessible to our non-staff users as well!

Colorists are now allowed to offer mock twin modifiers in breedings. Mock twins will follow mock children guidelines, meaning they will be certed as Gen 1 and will incur a custom cooldown on the recipient. The cooldown will count for the month the breeding was won. (Please note the use of "recipient"—it is incurred on the owner, not the parents. This means that parents may opt in for a mock twin even if they are on custom cooldowns themselves.) As with all modifiers, opting in will not guarantee a mock twin occurs, and the choice of which offspring is twinned will be up to the colorist. The offspring will be dropped together, and the recipient will not need a mock permission form (it will be assumed that if the parents opt in to mock children, they consent to mock children being created and potentially given away).

Batch Drop Rules
The previous system made it obligatory for breedings won in the same thread by the same colorist to be dropped off together. The new system will enforce that only for the first 6 months: after that, colorists may drop litters as they're completed.

If over 6 months has passed and you know the breeding has been completed, feel free to ask about its status in the Owed Work & Transfer Request Thread!

Breeding Form Clarification
The current breeding form includes a section for "Same Breed Variants," and what this covered was not always clear. To correct this, we've changed it so that the original:

is updated to:

For those who use the old form with only "Same Breed Variants," we will take a conservative interpretation: unless specified otherwise by the owner, a "Yes" will indicate stock templates of the same breed, and different stock hairstyles, may be used. A form with "Throwbacks?: Yes" with no listed throwbacks will indicate random breeds and variants may be used.

Finally, in recognition of the fact that our breeding forms are........ prodigious........... we have created a shorthand form:

Use of this form will assume:

• The colorist may livestream the breeding.
  
• The breeding wants the highest level of edits determined by the parents or by the edit level cap imposed by the colorist (whichever is higher).
  
• If a user's teepee has not been added to the Teepee Listing by the time the breeding is rolled, the colorist is under no obligation to look for it and may treat the soquili as if it is statless.
  
• RP bonuses, if any, are forfeited.
  
• LL bonuses, if any, are forfeited.
  
• All variants are CC.
  
• Throwbacks are CC.
  
• Modifiers must still be posted individually.

MCCL ACTIVITY REQUIREMENTS
The MCCL previously required that users kept their headers updated within the past 3 months to be eligible for selection. We are changing this so all posts are valid in the MCCL regardless of when the post was last edited. Instead, colorists will PM users if they are interested in taking on a breeding, and that user will have one week to reply. If the user misses the one week mark, the colorist will not be obligated to take on the work. Note that only the user who posts will be contacted; the other parent cannot reply if their partner is missing (although if both parents post the pair, the colorist may opt to approach the other parent instead).


DOMAINED COSPLAY RESTRICTIONS
The previous rules stated a cosplay could not have a domain, and a domained angeni could not be a cosplay. Over time, both cosplays and domains have become more accessible, as we no longer allow either to be unique. There may be 10 Harry Potters, and 10 Angeni of Fire. To continue this trend, pets will now be able to be both a cosplay and a domained angeni. For example, a Soquili could be a Harry Potter cosplay and have a fire domain.


RARITY
Finally, we are doing away with rarity levels, which include: Common, Rare, Super Rare, and Mutant rarities.

This change would mean edits like custom feathered wings and custom leg poses are no longer, by default, mutant. They may simply be heavy or extreme edits.

To be clear, we are removing the mutant rarity, but not the mutant classification. A trait will still be mutant if it doesn't fit into a breed, if it doesn't fit in a list of non-breed non-mutant traits (e.g. glows and transparent wings, which aren't part of a breed but are also non-mutant traits), OR if it fits into a breed but the owner does not want the pet to possess the breed's blood (e.g. having an Angeni with leather wings be considered a mutant Angeni, instead of it being an Angeni'lona crossbreed. Please note that a soquili that is mutant cannot be a pureblood).

As an extension of this, there will no longer be caps to hyperhybrid, mutant, or walker slots that a colorist may offer in customs.

All pets won prior will follow old rules—so if you are owed a non-mutant custom, prior rules would still apply on what you will receive—but all pets won after will follow new rules.


Whew! Thanks again for the read! We will update threads to reflect this new information when we can; however, even if a thread is not updated, it will be safe to assume that all changes apply going forward.

Thank you!

so many updates, congrats to the promotions and love the changes

Next time a shop's title says something like "Text Wall Update" I will not start reading until sleep precedes and coffee precedes or coincide with. (This is probably a lie. A future lie.) That said, I did not TLDR, and all I can say is that this is really exciting! There are some things that bothered me before that are now being changed (the SC priority as a prime example). So congrats staff! Congrats new-again staff! And as for promotions, *applies confetti cannon!* biggrin heart

Congrats on promotions and those returning to staff. Also, loving the changes heart

I guess it's evident how long I've been absent...what is SC? (Also I've apparently a need to figure out what the 'new' breeding rules are. A lot has changed!)