I have more suggestions, I don't even know what's wrong with me lately. D=
I, uhm...think we need new rules for zoo pens. The last rules are from 2008 and include a lot of things which aren't up to date anymore, like sending trade PMs to the mods. So the post (it's here, by the way, if anyone doesn't want to go looking for it) needs an overhaul, yes, but I think that actually the system needs one in general.
I think everyone has noticed by now that a LOT of people in th advertisement section tell people to "check my important documents" instead about "check my pen". This is because a lot of people keep all pets in there as well, without any personality written, hence it is often far more up to date than the actual pen.
The second thing I've recently noticed is that the "About You" section gets used as a secondary pen section as well. People post their pets with personalities in threads there as well because their pens simply have become too huge, so "outsourcing" some things are nice. I am guilty of that, too; I have a separate thread for my bunnies there. On the first page of the "About You" section, I counted 12 threads - mostly the newer ones - which had character/petinformation in it. Also, a few people have posted pet information in their journals as well.
I think this all points towards the fact that we need at least some change of the rules of the zoo pens. People obviously use a lot of different sections right now to store informations left and right - if the sections were meant to be for that is a different thing. In my eyes, this is because we are only allowed to have a single zoo pen, which can very easily get so huge and because editing it is a pain thanks to the limits the forum software imposes.
I just checked the zoo pen directory. This thing is useless and out of date, a lot of the threads don't even exist anymore. I have never used it, I always just follow the links in the signatures of everyone. =/
What I suggest (finally): I suggest the "one thread only" rule in the zoo pen section gets cancelled. This way, everyone can keep their records and whatever they want in the section and the other sections don't get "abused". Also, if people want to, they can have a few, smaller zoo pens that way, which will make updating easier.
I understand that the "one pen" rule was established so that all pets were in one place. But let's be honest: A lot of pens are outdated because of the work that's needed for them. With lots of people having an "important document" file where they keep all their pets without personality blurbs anyway, that's far easier to check for everyone anyway. Hence, there is no need to not allow multiple pens. I propose that there has to be one document where everyone keeps all their pets (like the important documents these days) and which will probably be the one linked in signatures, but everyone is otherwise allowed to create multiple pens to separate their plots and pets and has an easier time with editing.