Kitely Market Categories and Attributes

[Ada Radius]

Hi again Ilan!
Sorry sorry, I was thinking in outline form and not Categories and Attributes, which is far better.

Thinking this through. The first section of Categories is pretty good - What It Is: Shapes, Skins, Enhancements (which needs the addition of men's facial hair tats), Eyes, Hair (or put the men's facial hair tats there), Tattoos (where some artists may end up putting makeups as they're in the system Tattoo layer and the distinction can be fuzzy - maybe all tats should go into Enhancements), Bundles and Complete Avatars. Yes.

But the Categories sections for Creatures overlaps too many of the other Categories and should be scrapped, I think, and cover those issues in Attributes instead. Or we'll go nuts trying to figure out where to put what.

In Attributes (to fit all my stuff in at least, and also I hope when people like Tooter and Grendels arrive at Kitely) I would need something like this: Department: Male, Female, Child, Other. More items here would make it worse. Avatar Type: Humanoid, Zoomorphic, Mecha, Other. Ditto on more items. Keep it simple. I thought about Mechanical a lot and like Mecha as a term better, as most inclusive and easiest to understand from an artists point of view, anyway - it can cover everything from a robot, to a huge meka war machine, or the little twisty hot copper stove avatar I was working on today: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mecha. But other opinions may vary.

I think the other Attributes - Materials, Colors, Themes etc., will cover the rest of the issues, though I think you should combine Building Materials with Clothing Materials and just call it Materials (maybe combine a few things, like suede and leather), which I would also use to classify some of my skins and eyes. My copper stove avatar would then be Department: Other, Avatar type: Mecha, Material: Metal. Theme: Steampunk. The White Sheep I was importing last week would be Department: Other. Avatar type: Zoomorphic. Material: fur, fabric. Theme: Other (until you add "Literary", that is

Anyway, more discussion needed, I see that.

Thank you thank you.

Hi Ada,

Regarding your comment about avatars, Avatar Type and Department are attributes not categories per say. They define types of body parts as well as complete avatars (and Department defines types of many other categories as well).

Do you mean you suggest we change Department from: [Boys, Girls, Men, Women, Unisex] to [Boys, Girls, Men, Women, Unisex Adult, Unisex Child] ?

Avatar Type currently includes: [Animal, Anime, Fantasy, Furry, Human, Robot] do you suggest we replace "Robot" with "Machine" (which includes the various things you mentioned in Bots & Mech), replace "Furry" with "Zoomorphic" and add "Plant"? Would doing so leave out anything?

[Ada Radius]

Just posted it - that one needed a bit more thought

[Ohn Lang]

Lots of fresh thought on the subject of categories and attributes

[Ilan Tochner]

Hi Ada,

We try to not include an Other option in Attributes whenever possible. Attributes are intended to drive people towards what they seek and an Other option creates a catch-all category that doesn't reduce user choices. When an Other option doesn't exist merchants are forced to use a more fuzzy definition of what they label which enables users to then use similar fuzzy definitions to search for things that are similar (but not necessarily identical) to what they are looking to. For example, we only create major Color types and not various shades, even when the shade has a commonly searched for name, such as Gold (which in essence is a shiny Yellow, a shiny Orange or a shiny White depending on the other metals the Gold metal has been mixed with).

Department is an Attribute which is intended to split items to age and gender appropriate groups. It currently has all for combinations of Adult/Child mixed with Male/Female + a Unisex value which is not age specific or gender specific. We welcome input whether we should split the age-unspecific Unisex value into two age-group appropriate Unisex values or reduce the number of choice in the Department Attribute to just include Men/Women/Child/Unisex or possible even just Male/Female/Unisex (with or without also renaming that Attribute to be called Gender instead of Department).

When it comes to Attribute value names it is very important that they be well recognized for what they are. Mecha is a well defined term but it is not well known by people who are not familiar with the genre. Mechanical or Machine would probably be a better name as it would be more easily understood for what it is by a larger number of people. Given the same logic Furry would probably be a better name than Zoomorphic - it may be less exact but it is more commonly used and recognized.

The reason we split Building Material from Clothing Material is that the distinctions this allows are important in Clothing (which could have been called Avatar Clothing) but counter productive in other items. We had initially set out to have a combined group (also called Material ) but we found that it would have forced merchants to label most items with very few Attribute values (leaving the rest unused) which would have made it hard to use that Attribute to quickly focus on items that are similar to what the buyer is looking for.

The Creatures category is designed for things that aren't avatars. They are quite similar for what the Avatar Type should cover but, due to the nature of what creature types are commonly used for avatars and which are only commonly used for non-avatars they are not exactly the same. That said, if we can define a manageable grouping for distinctive names that can be used for both avatars and non-avatars then we could create a single Creature Type Attribute to be used in both these categories and remove most/all subcategories from the Creatures category. If you can enumerate these values, without including an Other option then we'll have a good basis for discussing this with other content creators.

[Ada Radius]

OK, but the Attributes and Categories, as they are, don't address my classification problems, or I'll need a lot more help in figuring it out. Several other creature artists, such as the Grendels' artists (who refuse to use SL Marketplace), who might want to emigrate, would need the same. I was frustrated by the poor sales on Marketplace because the classification systems are heavily slanted toward the fashionistas, as you have as well, though I'm sure you did not intend to. I sold the most stuff by going to clubs in my creature avatars, the clubs that allow non-humans at least, and that's just too slow a way to get the word out. People really do want inventive avatars, especially couples. They just can't find them, and many are bad at searching by keywords. I really want to help fix this, for that reason.

What you said in this post re Categories: Creatures - I'm confused - if it's not designed for avatars, why do you have humanoids, birds, babies listed there? How do you want artists and customers to use it?

What do you think is a good way to approach working on this? Is there something you'd like me to work on next? I think it can work.

Hi Ada,

We try to not include an Other option in Attributes whenever possible. Attributes are intended to drive people towards what they seek and an Other option creates a catch-all category that doesn't reduce user choices. When an Other option doesn't exist merchants are forced to use a more fuzzy definition of what they label which enables users to then use similar fuzzy definitions to search for things that are similar (but not necessarily identical) to what they are looking to. For example, we only create major Color types and not various shades, even when the shade has a commonly searched for name, such as Gold (which in essence is a shiny Yellow, a shiny Orange or a shiny White depending on the other metals the Gold metal has been mixed with).

Department is an Attribute which is intended to split items to age and gender appropriate groups. It currently has all for combinations of Adult/Child mixed with Male/Female + a Unisex value which is not age specific or gender specific. We welcome input whether we should split the age-unspecific Unisex value into two age-group appropriate Unisex values or reduce the number of choice in the Department Attribute to just include Men/Women/Child/Unisex or possible even just Male/Female/Unisex (with or without also renaming that Attribute to be called Gender instead of Department).

When it comes to Attribute value names it is very important that they be well recognized for what they are. Mecha is a well defined term but it is not well known by people who are not familiar with the genre. Mechanical or Machine would probably be a better name as it would be more easily understood for what it is by a larger number of people. Given the same logic Furry would probably be a better name than Zoomorphic - it may be less exact but it is more commonly used and recognized.

The reason we split Building Material from Clothing Material is that the distinctions this allows are important in Clothing (which could have been called Avatar Clothing) but counter productive in other items. We had initially set out to have a combined group (also called Material ) but we found that it would have forced merchants to label most items with very few Attribute values (leaving the rest unused) which would have made it hard to use that Attribute to quickly focus on items that are similar to what the buyer is looking for.

The Creatures category is designed for things that aren't avatars. They are quite similar for what the Avatar Type should cover but, due to the nature of what creature types are commonly used for avatars and which are only commonly used for non-avatars they are not exactly the same. That said, if we can define a manageable grouping for distinctive names that can be used for both avatars and non-avatars then we could create a single Creature Type Attribute to be used in both these categories and remove most/all subcategories from the Creatures category. If you can enumerate these values, without including an Other option then we'll have a good basis for discussing this with other content creators.

[Ilan Tochner]

Hi Ada,

The best way to think about this is creatures which you can use as your avatar and creatures which you can't (they would be used as static or scripted props in your world, pets, automated bots, etc.). In essence the only thing that differentiates them is that the first group is technically set up to be used as avatars, wear avatar clothing and attachments, etc. and the other group isn't set up to be used as an avatar (which makes me think we should consider merging them both and just having an Attribute for Avatar: [Yes, No] like we already have for Rideable and Breedable).

Both these groups (or the combined group) may share the same type of classification if we can find a good one.

A good way to approach this would be to use the design philosophy we selected and try to come up with Attribute values for classifying creature types. Please remember we need to eliminate ambiguity in the selection process and keep the number of options manageable - the more options we provide the harder it becomes for people to decide where to find what they are looking for but not enough options and the selection doesn't get you close enough to your target. Choose generic commonly used names for each Attribute value when possible and don't try to be too specific unless the resulting value would leave too much variance to be useful. (this isn't an easy task)

We'd appreciate as much input on this and the Structure attribute values from as many people as possible.

The suggestion should be written in the form of:

Attribute Name: [Attribute Value 1, Attribute Value 2, ...]

[Ada Radius]

OK - I'll take a whack at it, it should be fun.

Another risk for misclassifications on the part of the artists, is the perception of spamming if we click a wrong attribute or category, because there isn't one that fits well enough, or there are too many that do. For example clicking on Educational for a theater, or "Pink" for my copper stove girlie avatar, even though its wrought iron macho version will be indeed be black. Or clicking on "Furry" for one of my G-rated creatures, as the Furry subgroup in SL is quite specific and, within their club culture, erotic, which they get away in the marketplace listings and LL Library items because they're animals. I researched that one by showing up at one of their clubs and getting into some conversations, lol. Anyway, I'd be spamming the Furries by using their genre name as an attribute or category of one of my creatures, so I'll be working on that.

I probably can get to this in about a week - I'm in the middle of chemo, and the next cycle of drugs starts in a few hours - I can do artwork, and write OK during, but linear brained stuff gets difficult. If I'm having lucid moments, I'll do what I can.

BTW it totally rocks that you want suggestions from your grid users. A new experience

Hi Ada,

The best way to think about this is creatures which you can use as your avatar and creatures which you can't (they would be used as static or scripted props in your world, pets, automated bots, etc.). In essence the only thing that differentiates them is that the first group is technically set up to be used as avatars, wear avatar clothing and attachments, etc. and the other group isn't set up to be used as an avatar (which makes me think we should consider merging them both and just having an Attribute for Avatar: [Yes, No] like we already have for Rideable and Breedable).

Both these groups (or the combined group) may share the same type of classification if we can find a good one.

A good way to approach this would be to use the design philosophy we selected and try to come up with Attribute values for classifying creature types. Please remember we need to eliminate ambiguity in the selection process and keep the number of options manageable - the more options we provide the harder it becomes for people to decide where to find what they are looking for but not enough options and the selection doesn't get you close enough to your target. Choose generic commonly used names for each Attribute value when possible and don't try to be too specific unless the resulting value would leave too much variance to be useful. (this isn't an easy task)

We'd appreciate as much input on this and the Structure attribute values from as many people as possible.

The suggestion should be written in the form of:

Attribute Name: [Attribute Value 1, Attribute Value 2, ...]

[Ilan Tochner]

Hi Ada,

First of all, good luck with your therapy and our best wishes for your speedy recovery.

Kitely Market will support the concept of Product Variations which means that the same product can have a variation that is listed as Color:Pink and another variation that is listed as Color:Black. You'll even be able to have different pictures for each variation and the correct ones will be shown when someone searches for an Attribute value for which you have multiple product variations.

All products (and variations) have a maturity rating which can be used to filter out content which the user shouldn't (or doesn't want to) view. A furry humanoid bunny doesn't have to be used for adult activities. It could as easily be used as a character in an Alice in Wonderland theatrical performance. The maturity rating will enable discerning the G-rated bunny from the type of bunny that is inappropriate for children.

Creating a service that is intended for merchants and consumers without asking merchants and consumers what they want is a Bad Idea(tm). We try to avoid making assumptions about what people want when we can learn what they want by asking them the right questions

[Ilan Tochner]

Following user feedback we decided to make the following changes (now posted in the blog):

Changes to Attributes:

1) Avatar Type: removed "Robot" and added "Machine", "Plant" and "Object".

Changes to Categories:

1) Creatures: removed "Robots" and added "Machines".

2) Structures: added "Entertainment Buildings" and "Landscaping Structures".

3) Interior Design: removed "Fountains, Bird Baths and Wells" and added "Lab Equipment" and "Industrial Equipment".

4) Landscaping and Plants: removed "Gazebos" and "Greenhouses".