I recently posted on issues with breedables food being moved to a category outside of breedables: Common Sense Required Regarding Incorrect Category Decisions. When I wrote that post there were examples of breedables food in the breedables category, whilst other breedable food had been moved to another category or unlisted from the marketplace.
Since then, things have changed. More breedables food has been moved out of the breedables category and planted under the Animals category. This goes some way to addressing the issue of fairness but does absolutely sod all in the common sense stakes.
There is some logic to the moves, there is no category for breedables food and accessories. The marketplace team don’t like people listing items in the top level of a category, that’s what sub-categories are for but the answer here is to create a category under breedables for items that are related directly to breedables, rather than moving items out of the breedables category altogether.
Food is often directly related to breedables, if you don’t feed them they don’t prosper, you can’t usually use food substitutes, it has to be the right food and it’s food that is directly related to breedables, not other animals, so it should be in the breedables category.
The same goes, albeit to a lesser extent, for interactive items. Where an item only works with a certain breedable, it should be in the breedables category. However there are areas where breedable related items do not need to be in the breedables category.
Let’s say I build a cave and label it a Dwarfins cave, it really has no business in the breedables category. I may have labelled it a Dwarfins cave, and Dwarfins Judy would be at this point be amassing an army of Dwarfins to give me a good kicking, but the cave itself is not directly Dwarfins related as it would not be dependent upon on being used with Dwarfins. The cave is a cave and in this circumstance Linden Lab would rightly tell me off and tell me to put it in the right category.
However for items that breedables creators create, which can only be used with breedables, the breedables category should accomodate them.
Breedables are a good product for Linden Lab, they require land for a start, which in turn means tier payments. Linden Lab are right to promote and encourage breedables but for goodness sake, apply some common sense. The marketplace team must surely realise they have been delisting breedables related items, make a sub-category for these items, don’t try and fit a square peg into a round hole.