A list of Big Names

@Dogsbody

Your comment really made me think about lists like these, and I have to say I agree :') Linking to others' wolves in general is always a little risky (1.10 in the code of conduct) and although one could argue that something like this falls under "solely informative reasons", a stud being on here has the potential to degrade its owner's playing experience. I think that it's perfectly fine to compile one's own list offsite of names one would like to avoid, but a collaborative list can become a resource used by players that inadvertently wipes out an entire source of income for "big name" owners. I don't have a stud on this list, but if mine did hypothetically appear, I know I  would not be happy with it.

My suggestion would be to take this down, or at least ask the owners of these wolves if they're okay with having their studs posted here. Even if the stud itself has died, there are always "big name" descendants that will carry on the line, so those players should be asked instead. And of course anyone who would like a list of big names can always compile their own offsite or look around a bit to see what studs pop up more often; I just really don't think something like this is beneficial or fair to everyone.

Hm, okay, this bears thinking about. I'm not ignoring you guys I'm just collecting my thoughts and I'll answer within the next few days.

@Fal thank you for considering this view, much appreciated !

Thinking it over, I feel like part of the problem is the myth that (quoting directly from the opening post) "all of my pack's wolves are worthless" if they're related to big names. That's just not true!

(1) No wolf is worthless if you like them! And we shouldn't have a topic calling other people's wolves worthless.

(2) Big-name wolf descendants can still be great hunters, scouts, etc. In fact, it's often their heritage that makes them great. My favorite chaser girl got her skills from her big-name leaderboard father. My lead wolf has the smarts to tutor my pack's pups because of his big-name leaderboard grandfather. And so on. It's not something to be ashamed of.

(3) Even if we're just talking about "worth" in terms of TC sales, it's still not true that big-name wolves can't be sold. I usually try and rehome my extra pups, but on the occasion I sell, I've gotten good sales on Emperor/Sunfall pups, Faelor pups, etc. Not everyone is allergic to big names.

It's a vicious self-fulfilling prophecy. If it becomes the popular perception that big-name pups aren't "worth" anything, people will avoid buying them, and their value will in fact go down. But that's a shame when we could just be enjoying cute pups instead.

Re: studs I agree it adds to a stud's value if he's not related to a large portion of his potential clients. But that doesn't make other studs worthless. I think a sizable majority of the stud fees I've paid have been to big-name studs or big-name descendants - which I'm not saying anyone has to imitate, that's just how I roll, but certainly none of those studs were worthless and I got a lot of great pups from them.

I just want to say that, after reading what you guys (Lionel, Fal, and Shadow) have said, my views on studs and 'big-names' as a whole has definitely changed. I never noticed how much of an impact things as simple as avoiding pups and wordage like "avoid", etc, could have on not only the gameplay but also the users. I never had any bad intentions, and though it's not warranted, I'm sorry. thank you guys for speaking up about it! 

Not everyone is allergic to big names, that’s true. But at the moment we each have our own idea of what’s big. If we even think in those terms. But once there is a list, publicly, it becomes The List. And it will tip folks perceptions of those names/lines. If a name is on The List it will affect its worth, because even if a player isn’t allergic themselves, they may be pushed into being so, if they want to sell pups at a reasonable amount.

maybe folks aren’t allergic now because there isn’t The List. I know I avoid a few names. Though they may not correspond exactly to those another person chooses not to use. That at least means I might be tempted by pup A because I don’t think it a big name, even if someone else thinks the pup is a big name descendant. But The List means I will then be likely to take into account my preference-and- others preferences. This reduces the pool of people not being allergic and I think it’s unfair. I’d be really upset if a pup I bought as a stud  suddenly became less attractive because a group of other people put my stud’s great grandad on a list that was then shared across the whole community!

@Dogsbody Yeah, to be clear, I don't disagree with anything you've said! I would just rather not have anyone's wolves stigmatized at all, whether there's a list or not.

@Lionel ah! Thank you for clarifying- sorry I misread you! Yes, I wouldn’t want anyone’s wolves stigmatised at all either. 

Huh.

I made this list with the intent of making implicit information, that most people that have been playing the game for some time possess, into explicit information.
Sometimes I drop games because I messed my base build because I was lacking important information, and I feel like I should restart from the beginning. This is what I was trying to avoid for other people.

I understand that people with popular studs may fear being added here and then shunned, but this list should only influence new players who decided not to inbreed. I don't want to remove the topic completely (I still think it's useful for NIB players), but it is true that I presented the topic in too negative a light. I changed the explanation at the end of the first post to make it clear that "Big Name" doesn't equal "bad", just "harder not to inbreed, some people care some don't, so usually sells for less than equivalent (much harder to get) non-popular-lineage wolves", and that NIB playstyles are a choice, not the rule.
I am now aware it might mean slightly less money for big stud owners (still not convinced it'll affect non-newbies), but if it means more money for small stud owners I'm okay with that.

It was a mistake not to curate this list, instead writing down every name on blind faith: I was trying to emulate a wiki format but not enough people are participating to get a peer-review dynamic going, so errors or debatable names are unchecked.

We need clear rules, so it's more objective, and so that anyone has grounds to dispute a wolf's inclusion to the list, and thanks to those names you all gave me I feel like I have a better idea now of how big is big and how to measure it.

The optimal way to check a wolf's inclusion in the list would be to have access to the number of living wolves descended from a specific one, and take the biggest, like, twenty wolves. Since there is no way to do that without spending an insane amount of time on it, we can get close to it and have explicit rules; for example (cpoying what I wrote in the first post):

A wolf can be considered a General Big Name in this topic:
- if it had 800+ pups and also has more than 25 pages of living relatives in the family page
- or if it has more than four descendants with 400+ pups and 10+ pages of living relatives
- or if it has a descendant that fills any of these conditions (it will be written as Descendant, son of Wolf)

For specific T3 bases (I'm counting T3 bases as a whole as one category, too), and for mutations (active albinism and melanism):
- if it fills the conditions of a General Big Name and has a rare base or an active mutation
- or if more than one third of the wolves of that base/mutation (using the Search tool and checking at least three evenly spaced random pages) have a relation to him (either directly descend from him or share an ancestor)
- or if it has a descendant that fills any of those conditions (it will be written as Descendant, son of Wolf)

The Top Three Big Names will just be the wolves of the list that look like they have the most pups and descendants also in the list.

I may also add "notable descendants", who only need half as many pups/descendants to be included, but descend from a Big Name.

For the specific base thing I checked two random pages (5 and 14) of tombacs for Mac&Cheese: 33 out of 40 wolves were related to him; Slice of moldy bread (pages 3 (20/20), 35 (7/20) and 22 (12/20)) had 39 out of 60 Serpentines related to him. But I don't think people will start breeding Tombacs or Serpentines from scratch though; I think it's too much work, and they'll just make the informed decision to stop caring about inbreeding.

I reserve the right to change rules at any time, if the list gets too unwieldy, or if I feel I haven't taken into account something important, but if I do I'll make a new post about it so you all know.

Feel free to discuss the rules if something seems unfair.

@Lionel: it was thoughtless of me to call them "worthless"; I was thinking of market value, but even that is not quite true; you're right, and I'm sorry. I changed it.

@Shadow: I am manually compiling publicly available information, so imo it falls under informative reasons. With the changes I made it should be much more objective than before.

@Shadow @Dogsbody: I don't want to need the studs owner autorisation because given your reactions I think most would refuse. I feel this is not a good reason, though, to not share publicly available facts for the people who are interested in them, just because some people think it would reflect badly on them. This is about consumer's informed choice: meat producers may be unhappy about a public list of meat-based products whose name don't make it immediately clear that it contains dead animals (like gelatin, or the E120 food colorant, for example), or a list of sweets companies that use those, but it's no reason not to make one for vegetarians. Hopefully the change of phrasing will make it more factual and less judgemental/subjective.

@Dogsbody: I'm not trying to tell people how to play, just helping those who want to play the No Big Names way do it. This is but one out of several ways to play, and I added a highlighted short paragraph to underline that.


Due to the changes of rules, I'm removing Homura till someone brings me links proving that he follows the descendants rule; I removed Skoll, Haru and Starlight (not enough pups), Toska, Serotonin, Toboe (no link to check their stats), Hanta, Ikaiq and Firefly till I can check their albino relevance, and put The MOOF in General.