Obsessed Waja Fan
The Obsessed Waja Fan, commonly abbreviated OWF, is a site function created as a way to reduce the server load by allowing users to "release" unwanted wajas into the OWF's cave (ID# 650), where their data is compressed to make room for new wajas to be created. For each waja you release, you will be credited 10,000 WC. Releasing wajas that are retired will not give you any WC because you were already credited 5,000 WC for retiring the waja.
Released wajas that have offspring will have their image replaced with a generic breed image and all but the most basic data about them will be deleted. This is so that pedigrees are not broken. Released wajas that do NOT have any offspring will be deleted completely. Please note that compression will only affect wajas that have been in the OWF's cave for at least a month.
The face of the OWF is a little red haired girl and is an NPC created by Estuko.
Releasing a Waja
To release a waja, simply go Explore -> OWF's House. From here you can check all the wajas you want to OWF (If you want to OWF them all, then go down to the bottom and click "Check All"). Click "Submit", and the wajas selected will all be sent to the OWF and you will be credited 10,000 WC for each waja released.
WARNING: RELEASING IS 100% PERMANENT. There is absolutely no way to get a waja back, or to make it no longer a Compressed waja, after it has been sent to the OWF cave. The only exception is if a custom (generation 1) waja is released by accident. In this event, you can PM a full moderator and they can return the custom to you. You cannot claim that you have OWFed a custom that you didn't own, just to try to get a custom. That is scamming, and will be treated as such.
It is important to note that the OWF is an NPC and does NOT buy wajas that are put up for sale. If a waja you had for sale ended up in the OWF, it means that a human player bought it and sent it there. Some users who do this make their display name the same as the OWF's, and sometimes the person who sent the waja to the OWF will not show up on the waja's past owners list because the turnover was done so quickly. For more on this, please see the OWFers section.
Another way that a waja may end up in the OWF's cave is if it was Wandering and the owner did not make room for it before its "wander off" date.
Why The OWF Is Necessary
Each and every waja on the site takes up a certain amount of server space. The server is only so big and can only hold so many wajas. If the site uses up all of its allotted server space, the site will shut down and likely never come back. The OWF is a way for the site to continue running and continue to allow users to breed their wajas without restrictions. By compressing wajas sent to the OWF, the site is massively reducing the amount of space those wajas take up. Replacing the waja's image with a generic image is the biggest space saver, as the image of a waja is what takes up the majority of the space.
The site admin has stated before that she cannot afford to buy another server upgrade. Having the OWF and compression is the only way that the site will continue to function. Due to controversy about this, an official news post was made regarding the OWF's purpose and function.
OWFers
Some users take it upon themselves to buy up inbred, muddy, or cheap wajas (generally priced at 100,000 WC or under) and send them to the OWF. They do this to clean up the Waja Search and to get rid of wajas they deem unwanted. In order to avoid having your wajas bought by these people, breed responsibly, OWF your own mistake wajas, and price them well above 100,000 WC.
OWFing is a costly hobby; Most are buying wajas for well above the 10,000 WC releasing will give them, meaning they are taking a loss on each waja they release. Some OWFers will put the wajas they have bought up for sale at a higher price than they bought it for in order to try to turn a profit, or at least break even. If the waja is not bought within a certain amount of time, they release it. Always remember that wajas are not always bought and OWFed because they are ugly. Other reasons that a waja may be purchased and OWFed is that they are a common design which is overrepresented on the Waja search, they may be old wajas which have been sitting on the search for a long time without selling or they may be inbred. If you find your wajas purchased and OWFed, you may want to assess why this may have happened. Sometimes increasing prices is a simple measure that can be taken.
Some users disagree with OWFing as a hobby because they argue that the effort can be counter-intuitive; The user who bought the waja to OWF it was still giving the breeder money with which they could potentially breed more unwanted wajas. Some users even try to take advantage of OWFers by breeding high LQ wajas intentionally to produce multiple pups per breeding to sell to OWFers for a slight profit per pup (referred to as Puppy Milling). Most OWFers take care to notice when a user is doing this on purpose and will avoid buying their wajas, or will only buy wajas that are over a certain number of days in age, making these attempts unprofitable.
Do NOT PM a user because you believe they released a waja you had for sale and you don't like that. After they purchased the waja, you lost all authority over what was done with that waja. If you bother them in any way about it, you can be reported for harassment.
Controversy
The OWF is a point of contention among some users. For most users, the OWF is recognized as a completely normal and necessary part of the site. However, there are some users who do not like the OWF for whatever reason. For some users, the dislike stems from a feeling that compressing a waja is "killing" it. Others like to make up stories in their head that the Obsessed Waja Fan as a character is evil or cruel and that she mistreats her wajas. This is not canon, of course, as Estuko made the character and she herself has said that the Obsessed Waja Fan is simply a little girl who loves wajas. Some are just upset that a waja they owned that they didn't feel "deserved" to be released was released by someone else.
A few users who disapprove of the OWF decide to make it their duty to "save" as many wajas as they can from being sent to the OWF, and so dedicate their cave to taking in unwanted wajas.
The "Old" OWF
When the OWF was first introduced, she had her own page and artwork. She was given the backstory of being a little red-headed girl who adores all wajas no matter what they look like. She was willing to buy any and all wajas that were unwanted by their current owners. Users could go to her page and offer a waja for her to buy from them, and she would state the price she would pay for the waja based on its stats, generation, breed, etc. Once a waja was sold to her, it was sent to her cave.
Unfortunately, there were several flaws in her initial design, not the least of which being that she would pay extraordinary amounts of WC for higher generation wajas. This led to some users taking advantage of her and Puppy Milling high gen wajas to sell to her for huge profits. Once the administration became aware of this, she was taken down from the site to later be returned in a much different, less exploitable state.
