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The Cultivars (morphs)/Genetics Issues Discussions about genetics issues and/or the various cultivars for cornsnakes commercially available.

"AKC" type registry for reptiles?
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Old 02-23-2005, 04:26 PM   #81
Serpwidgets
Joe's description of how it could work is very close to what I think will be done. The point I was making about trying to make a living off of it is that in order to do so, someone would have to put up a lot of money and effort up front, and that might be all for naught. If they only get a handful of participants, their entire effort and investment is lost. I don't see that "risk" as part of this project for me. The only risk I see is that it would be so well received that we wouldn't be able to keep up with all of the demand. That's a pretty cool problem to have.

Hurley and I decided that we were going to do this for our own collection so that we can offer pedigrees and allow our customers to view the family trees of our own corns. That part was going to be done even if we are the only ones who ever have any "registered" corns. The point is not to assign cultivar classifications, standards, or values to any animals. The point is to allow an owner of a snake, whose ancestors are registered, to use the database to find any available information about those ancestors.

It is only a small step from that to make this available to other breeders. We just need to formalize a few things. I suspect that the vast majority of people who participate will be hobbyists, but if larger-scale breeders want to join in, that can be done, too.

The advantage is that this data doesn't become "fuzzy" over time like our memories do, nor does it require a special effort by the breeder to go look it up and then email or call the customer and relay only what snippets of data they thought the customer wanted.

At the start, we will just be compiling data. There will be check boxes, as shown in the screenshots we posted, for items that we think are useful. This does not "officiate" the validity of anything, it only makes it more easily accessible. There is an "other" field in these areas, along with a catch-all "special notes" field. For example, if someone wants to put "crimson" or "silver queen" or "Naples line" in the "special notes" field, that's not a problem at all. If one wants to register their breeder male as a "green Okeetee" color morph with "plaid" pattern and white eyes, and say in the special notes that it has wings and legs and add "John: 3-16" they can do exactly that. As long as it is not rated R, I don't see why we would not allow it in there.

We will not be going through policing the data and/or telling people "you can't call that an Okeetee" or, "we don't like the term snow bloodred so you can't put that in the notes." Nobody will be able to make a case that their animals are devalued by us not "recognizing" their naming conventions, unless their naming conventions involve use of the "F" word.

The data on a particular animal will only be as reliable as the people who registered it. That is true of any database. As they say, "garbage in, garbage out." They (whomever "they" are) also say, "consider the source." Since every registration shows the person who registered it, users can judge for themselves what that data is worth to them. The same is true of all registries.

If people see a registry entry that says the snake has feathers and eats aluminum foil, or that a snake--whose father is a cal king--says "pure corn" they can use common sense to interpret the data. (Although the "hybrid" checkbox can be set for any animal whose ancestry in the registry has any hybrids, and a "search for hybrid ancestors" feature will be included.) If some people are putting in stupid or useless data, it doesn't detract from the value of the data put in by anyone else. Putting useless or false data into a database doesn't make it true, but what it does do is provide a paper trail back to the person telling those lies.

Since corn morphology and genetics are constantly changing/growing, it is being built with the intention of being able to add or alter fields in the future with very little effort. This is why we came up with specifications and I wrote the software myself. If certain cultivars such as silver queen or anything else are mentioned often enough in the special notes, it will be easy enough for us to adjust the forms and database to allow a checkbox for it, and for me to write a quick algorithm to convert those items from "special notes" over to the new checkbox in the latest update of the database. It would benefit us to do so, because it saves space and makes the important data more accessible to those searching for it, which is the whole point of having a family tree.
 
Old 02-23-2005, 04:35 PM   #82
Jason B.
check out the system they are using at www.ballpython.com. It sounds like what is being described and you may get some good ideas from it.
 
Old 02-23-2005, 04:45 PM   #83
Serpwidgets
Quote:
Originally Posted by SODERBERGD
Once you become an element of a transaction via being an data collection entity that said snake is actually what was advertised, you become a potential yaught payment for some attorney.
So if I feed my corns crickets because I read it on this forum, and my corns die from malnutrition, I would be able to successfully sue Rich for providing this forum because he must then responsible for the accuracy and truthfulness of all of the information on this board.

Also, does that make KS.com responsible for the inaccuracies in many of the animals being sold on their classifieds? Or Reptibid?

What if you call me on the phone to tell me about a particular snake I'm interested in buying, and you lie about it. Is the phone company responsible?

LOL, it can really be carried to the absurd. I understand what you're saying, but the information in the database will be hearsay, and will not be asserted as "thruthful" or "accurate." Also, we would not be in the business of advertising anyone's stuff, just allowing people after the fact to look up records about them.

Obviously it is up to the courts to decide where to draw the lines. But we can easily have a disclaimer stating that we wherewith do not heretofore verify the truthfulness or accuracy of the data herein.
 
Old 02-23-2005, 05:04 PM   #84
Serpwidgets
Quote:
This will enable you to prove the snake you are selling is really a snake from The Snake Keeper. This should really help when you want to sell hets as some people are a little afraid of buying hets not being able to verify where they came form.
This can be done with a printed pedigree that has an identifying picture of the particular snake, relevant info (genotype, parents, etc) and a seal so that it can't be duplicated, but it can be easily transferred with ownership of the snake. This way, it is not the reseller's word that the snake is what it is, it is the originator's word. I'm sure a sworn/notarized statement could serve the same purpose. I understand the need for this with BPs since the price tags are so high.

I didn't see where they showed ancestry of any individuals though. To me that's the whole point of having a registry instead of just having a piece of paper that says, "I really mean it, this snake IS het!"

I want to know more than if it's het or not. I can tell that by breeding it. There is no concrete value in knowing the lineage, it's just "cool." And it might help in the future when new traits shows up and we want to see where they might have come from. (For instance, the whole "lavender vs mocha" controversy.)
 
Old 02-23-2005, 05:08 PM   #85
SODERBERGD
Quote:
Originally Posted by Serpwidgets
So if I feed my corns crickets because I read it on this forum, and my corns die from malnutrition, I would be able to successfully sue Rich for providing this forum because he must then responsible for the accuracy and truthfulness of all of the information on this board.

Also, does that make KS.com responsible for the inaccuracies in many of the animals being sold on their classifieds? Or Reptibid?

What if you call me on the phone to tell me about a particular snake I'm interested in buying, and you lie about it. Is the phone company responsible?

LOL, it can really be carried to the absurd. I understand what you're saying, but the information in the database will be hearsay, and will not be asserted as "thruthful" or "accurate." Also, we would not be in the business of advertising anyone's stuff, just allowing people after the fact to look up records about them.

Obviously it is up to the courts to decide where to draw the lines. But we can easily have a disclaimer stating that we wherewith do not heretofore verify the truthfulness or accuracy of the data herein.
Yes, I understand the absurdity of those examples. Imagine how shocked McDonald's was to find out that when someone ordered hot coffee, they didn't understand it was hot. The bazaar seems to describe America lately. We are a litigious society. I just wanted to throw it out there that if you put a sign in your front yard stating you're not responsible for someone tripping over your water sprinkler, you're bound to be shocked if an attorney does the tripping. Disclaimers are good deterents, but they're not the last word. I was only throwing that out there so a person sponsoring all this data will have considered everything in assessing the value of his/her product. How many times have we heard of a burglar suing a store when he cut his hand breaking into the place. Who would have thought it was possible?

Don
www.cornsnake.NET
 
Old 02-23-2005, 05:28 PM   #86
Serpwidgets
Quote:
Originally Posted by SODERBERGD
I was only throwing that out there so a person sponsoring all this data will have considered everything in assessing the value of his/her product
It was taken as exactly that. I probably should have worded it as "thanks, that is something to look into" and done some research first.

I am curious though, there has to be some precedent that protects places like KS and reptibid in particular, since they do directly "provide the means" for people to place advertisements, some of which might be fraudulent. I would think if there weren't, they'd have been successfully sued out of business by now. I will do some research into that and see what I can find. Where's that cyberlawyer banner when I need it?
 
Old 02-23-2005, 06:37 PM   #87
SODERBERGD
Yeah . . .

Quote:
Originally Posted by Serpwidgets
It was taken as exactly that. I probably should have worded it as "thanks, that is something to look into" and done some research first.

I am curious though, there has to be some precedent that protects places like KS and reptibid in particular, since they do directly "provide the means" for people to place advertisements, some of which might be fraudulent. I would think if there weren't, they'd have been successfully sued out of business by now. I will do some research into that and see what I can find. Where's that cyberlawyer banner when I need it?
I suspect there is exactly that out there. Protection as an intermediary host. Let us know what you find out.
 
Old 02-23-2005, 09:47 PM   #88
Rich Z
As long as you do not become an author, in part, with something posted on your message board or similar website, you cannot be held legally liable for what someone else posts on your site. That is a federal law - Communications Decency Act of 1996. There is some substantial legal precedent that upholds this law, so it's not like it isn't tried and true.

Now if you alter the message in any way, then you become partly the author of the work and THEN are liable for ALL of the contents. It is MUCH safer to delete a message then it is to edit it.

Now how this would apply to taking raw data in a database and massaging it to be interpreted as a reported output, I'm not at all certain. Because I think an argument could be made that you are acting as an author to create that report of the data stored on your system, even if it was entered by someone else. Certainly this is likely a gray area.

But honestly, even being dead right doesn't prevent lawsuits. It just prevents the complainant from winning. You still have to get an attorney, with all attendant expenses and headaches, no matter what. Fortunately, it is rather expensive for someone to file a lawsuit, so they do have to be suitable motivated, and be able to afford it, to do so.

My attorney once told me something that I thought was interesting to keep in mind. He said "Rich, in this country, if you cannot afford to go to court, then you really have no rights at all. Someone can take anything they want away from you for the cost of filing a lawsuit against you."
 
Old 02-23-2005, 10:12 PM   #89
Serpwidgets
Quote:
Originally Posted by Rich Z
Now how this would apply to taking raw data in a database and massaging it to be interpreted as a reported output, I'm not at all certain.
On the contrary, there's no massaging or interpretation involved. People fill out checkboxes on a form, we simply convert the same exact data into an electronic format and put it alongside other records in a downloadable format so that anyone can access any of the records. There is a 1:1 correlation between all fields in the paper and electronic formats.
 
Old 02-24-2005, 01:41 AM   #90
Rich Z
Quote:
Originally Posted by Serpwidgets
On the contrary, there's no massaging or interpretation involved. People fill out checkboxes on a form, we simply convert the same exact data into an electronic format and put it alongside other records in a downloadable format so that anyone can access any of the records. There is a 1:1 correlation between all fields in the paper and electronic formats.
Perhaps. But it would be an interesting court case, nonetheless. If someone entered in knowingly false data and utilized a program that you wrote to do a keyword search on THAT type of animal, you could theoretically be legally the "author" of that document that the person is reading as a result of their query. The only way you could avoid this is by providing EXACTLY the format as output that the users use as INPUT for the data. But heck, probably only an attorney could answer this one, and they would probably only say "maybe, maybe not"...

Hey, this is all just theoretical mumbo jumbo anyway. No one in their right mind is going to sue over a $100 corn snake. You will catch some grief over it, for sure, but heck if you want to do it, well go ahead and just do it. Life's too short to not do what you want to do while living it.

Good luck with it. I have my doubts it will work, but heck, I am just naturally a pessimist. But that just means that most of my surprises are all PLEASANT ones!
 

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