Apologies, Thomas. I didn’t see this before. Yes, I agree that explaining the settings in the Morphpedia could take care of the confusion.
I am still not seeing it as an answer in the calculations, though. I’ll play with it later tonight and maybe it will bang me upside the head. 
Thanks for the ideas!
I see two problems. One is trying to fit all phenotypes into neat little boxes. The calculation doesn’t change, as all genes are calculated the same. its all just heterozygous and homozygous, then the hobby gives names to them. In the bp community we take it a step further and just say if you can’t normally see the heterozygous visually, its recessive, then pos hets work for hobby purposes also. which seems to be what you want to search for (possible halos)
het pied x het pied = 25% pied, 66% pos hets
halo x halo = 25% super halo, 66% pos halos
sure when you have other genes in the mix the heterozygous can show through. It’s not just pieds, there’s clown, hypo, and albino, I can show right in my own collection and I’m sure there’s more. Also The more of these triple and quad het animals that are being made now a days and defiantly not looking normal, we wouldn’t really be able to call much recessive if we went that route. So that’s where I think the other problem is the corn snake community seems to be classifying things different than the bp community. If I’m understanding everything correctly.
In my opinion, I’d be fine with both Halo/Green Blotch and Palmetto being categorized as recessive but with an information note similar to those for morph issues, that says they’re classified as such due to masking of the visual het forms by other genes. That satisfies all the classification issues, and the calculator isn’t really that big of a problem, either, if you think about it.
I do know that especially with Palmetto, a lot of breeders I talked to weren’t fond of the switch when it went to inc-dom, because that meant calling what used to be just Palmetto a ‘Super Palmetto’ and the het a Palmetto, while removing the ability to label animals that couldn’t be 100% confirmed but came from lineage that could prove out. It also undermines the naming and especially the understanding of the morph to suddenly bestow the name for the homozygous expression onto the heterozygous. Much like a “Super Halo” is actually a Green Blotch, a het Palmetto is not a Palmetto. A Palmetto is specifically the white snake with splotches of color.
It seems to me like it solves all website related issues without changing any thing else besides morphpedia information, is that correct? There’s also the social part of reclassifying things and hobby never seems to take well to that. Tho it sounds like you guys had something similar with the Palmetto, is it in the same boat as it would possibly benefit from a recessive classification for search and calc reasons? I apologize I strictly breed ball pythons so I’m just trying to understand based off this thread alone.
So what where the benefits of the switch, is i just technical accuracy? Even the above scenario I’m not familiar with technical definitions to know why it would be inc-dom or recessive. i always have to ask @t_h_wyman about things like that. It just seems like recessive classification would satisfy the search/calc part of it.
I appreciate your explanation, this has me pretty curious now. Though at first I was literally this guy:
I do not know anything about Halo so I cannot ante in there. But Palmetto is inc-dom, not recessive, The fact that it is sometimes masked by other morphs making it difficult to ID does NOT change that fact. We are not relabeling YB in balls as recessive because it is sometimes masked in complex combos. I can also point to cases where Spider is masked in complex combos (not including Blackhead), and we are not going to suddenly change it to recessive to account for that.
The purpose of Morphpedia and the calculators and the listings is to reflect the true and accurate nature of the morph. The goal is not to just cater to the “easy way of doing things”
so here my question without other mutations, YB is visual. without other mutations, het albino is not visual. however with the right combos, YB can become not visual or het albino can become visual. (I know het pied is the favorite example but I have glaring examples of het albino in my own collection) So what makes one what classification? I always had the thought of comparing a mutation to the WT version and generally thats how it seems to be classified, tho im aware that doesn’t mean its technically correct.
Their above issue, with the search and calc, it seems to be solved by at least treating it in the system as recessive, as in our system we only have recessives getting the pos hets option for search and calc output, which if im understanding correctly the calc would have more accurate output. So should we talk to thomas and john about treating it as recessive with a inc-dom label slapped over it?
Mostly, yes. But, as I noted in the other thread that this convo got split to, I have seen cases where you would be hard pressed to ID some single gene YB animals. Specter is apparently more common for this as well, reflecting on it
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This is the standard convention. The issue is that the herp hobby tends to just use a single clutch and look at only the animals within that clutch as their barometer. As opposed to the more accurate/scientific method of large diverse sample sizes and statistical significance
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I noted this in the split too. If there is a way the clickity-clacks can solve the issue without a full on change to the classification then I have no issues, I just do not know enough about the clickity-clacks.
100% concur with t_h_wyman here… The listings (and associated tags denoting the type of mutations; e.g., recessive, dominant), the calculator, and MorphMedia listings need to be factually correct. Treating Halo/Green Blotch as recessive would be a step backwards IMO.
Also, personally, I am definitely NOT in favor of introducing what would be a new term, “Super Halo”, as Green Blotched is already established in the hobby.
I wonder if just adding “pos x” for all Inc-dom traits across all species would be the better route to go.
This could especially help in ball pythons, where it’s not entirely clear if the animal has x morph(s) but might be due to the pairing (such as with BELs, high white pieds, etc.)
Just my thoughts on it!
To add to this, would it be possible, perhaps, to treat a “pos x” as an “other” trait to remove it from calculations? That way it doesn’t change the inheritance or the calculator, it’s just a marker? I.e. we’d have a gray “pos x” and then the blue & purple for the het & homo.
Adding a pos tag for inc dom genes would be a big can of worms. Everyone who is either a new breeder, or not very good at identifying geness, will label everything as pos pastel pos enchi pos OD pos YB etc. It would eliminate the need for the breeder to strive to be accurate in their IDs.
I 100% agree. I think in instances like this gene for corns that they’ve explained, can make sense. But I’d hate to see poss on every ball python listing lol
I really do appreciate all of the contributions to this discussion. I didn’t mean to disappear; there has been a family crisis which is thankfully improved but still has a ways to go. And now my physical issues are flaring
Anyhow, I’ll try and do a more thoughtful read and reply tomorrow.
Shorthand summary of my thoughts now, I still see where what I originally requested could be helpful and makes sense. I also see how it could be problematic from a usage standpoint, especially for species with many traits which are inherited in an incomplete dominant manner. (Corns have comparatively few.) No responsible person wants to see a "Possible " tag slapped willy-nilly on every other animal because people don’t know how to ID what can actually be seen. I was, am, will remain of the opinion that we shouldn’t list traits incorrectly. I still don’t know how technically feasible it is; way outside my knowledge area.
Again, thanks for the good discussions so far. I know it’s not “my” thread just because I opened this particular can of worms. No hubris meant. Just want to convey appreciation for this community.
I hope things resolve well for you and if you need an ear to bend please feel free to reach out 
Thank you, that really means a lot. I truly appreciate it. 
This is not really directly related to the “possible het tag” discussion above but seemed like a semi-related issue. Apologies if someone already suggested this (I admit I did not re-read the entire discussion above :), but would it be possible, and wouldn’t it make sense, to change the name of this mutation/category to " Halo / Green Blotch " ? Green Blotch has a much longer history of usage in the hobby and I have never heard anyone refer to a Halo as “Het Green Blotch”, even if that is genetically correct. There will certainly be folks listing Green Blotch Snows that would likely appreciate this small tweak. thanks in advance for input 
Is the proposed alteration to the trait tag to “Halo / Green Blotch” still in the works? I’ve been eagerly awaiting this change. Thanks!
That should have been put out in the latest update… let me check why it didn’t.
