Right. so the it's settled- TNT are jerks.

[VirtualMetal]

Just checking in.

I've seen people frozen for posting saying they were pregnant (not only the teenagers posting whether for real or for attention, but mature, married women), for saying they are (whatever preference), as well as the to me silly a/s/l boards. Heck, I've seen people warned and/or frozen for typing the word mate - and at least one was someone from Australia where that word means friend. I mostly lurk and occasionally post on charter and bdc these days.

Come on. That's exagerating a wee bit don't you think? One thing I've learned about people's reasons for being frozen. Is that a lot of the time, they expand a little on the truth to make it sound even more unfair. Either that or they genuinely have a head like a siv.

I've never in my life heard of someone being frozen for merely saying the word "mate". In a certain context it would be inevitable. But that context would be hard to miss. It's clear when you're talking about your mate down the road or going out with a few mates or slapping your mate in the face with a trout. The guy probably got done for a previous offence. It does happen.

[Morningstar]

VirtualMetal, in all of the time I have known EC, I have never once known her to exaggerate. I do know that a guild mate of mine got suspended for posting the word breast on the guild board--she had put a recipe on the board (involving chicken breasts) and didn't think to check. Another friend got a warning for mentioning that a med my daughter was taking could cause suicidal effects. Another got frozen for saying the word gay. Another got a warning for using the eupehenism pork n beans for describing a certain portion of the male anatomy (she said she wanted to kick her doctor in his pork 'n beans). And I can vouch for the character of all of these people. All adults. None of them would ever knowingly risk their accounts by using profanity. And none had ever received prior warnings. So, seemingly nonsensical warnings/freezings/suspensions do happen.

[everconfused]

Hi VM

I have no idea or way of knowing if the person had any other warnings, etc., but I know I was lurking on a board, someone said something about going out with their mate and they were gone. Watched a woman on a board get iced for typing the word bikini while people were talking about a spongebob ad. I have one warning - I typed the word ebay - this while Neo was running their charity auctions there. I think it depends on who's moderating as to what action, if any, are taken.

The filters are weird, I thought alien was okay, but aliens for some reason wasn't. Typing as bad as will be blocked, I know that Sometimes, you get that (to me) scary stop! screen saying you're trying to type something bad when you can't even begin to figure out what they're talking about.

As to any type of "I hate (whatever group of people)" boards, I've seen those, and I've seen the people responsible and those who post get warnings, suspensions and frozen.

When all's said and done, it's their site. The rules can be vague, there isn't a list of words we can't type. But there are guidelines on what types of topics are and aren't acceptable.

Here's hoping we can all get along And thanks and a big hug to Morningstar!

[Morningstar]

And a great big hug or two or three or four (hehehe) back atcha, EC!

Last edited by Morningstar on Fri Feb 09, 2007 2:39 am, edited 2 times in total.

[VirtualMetal]

VirtualMetal, in all of the time I have known EC, I have never once known her to exaggerate. I do know that a guild mate of mine got suspended for posting the word breast on the guild board--she had put a recipe on the board (involving chicken breasts) and didn't think to check. Another friend got a warning for mentioning that a med my daughter was taking could cause suicidal effects. Another got frozen for saying the word gay. Another got a warning for using the eupehenism pork n beans for describing a certain portion of the male anatomy (she said she wanted to kick her doctor in his pork 'n beans). And I can vouch for the character of all of these people. All adults. None of them would ever knowingly risk their accounts by using profanity. And none had ever received prior warnings. So, seemingly nonsensical warnings/freezings/suspensions do happen.

I know what you're saying. But if it was such a misunderstanding, why do these people never seem to chase it up? Like my cig incident? I do agree there was one point where people seemed to be getting frozen left right and centre, but now it seems to be a lot more fair. And some of those things in your guild I can kind of understand them getting funny about. Although more warning fodder than freezeworthy.

But I must say, pork 'n beans. =D Nice one. Never heard that before! But I don't bloody wonder it got warned though. I'd say meat and two veg myself. But that's well funny. Shame the staff member wasn't in a good mood. =(

Don't be offended by what I said though. I'm not trying to call you a lier. Maybe the people who get these unfair warnings freezings and the like chase them up? Or do they? I really wasn't aware staff are still doing things like this. Maybe it's because I only go on a very inactive neoboard. Or it's possible because I'm a "report happy" to quote the people who think it's right to talk about adult themes. Because it's mainly that I report.

I was warned for saying eBay a long time ago. Never since though, and if I did they wouldn't hear the end from me. I've twice now been frozen in a misunderstanding and twice had the account recovered. But when I urge people that it works, they give up, or be rude when writing to TNT. If I were staff I wouldn't want to give back an account after being called a jerk and other such insults.

By the way. Alien was a slip up in the filter. They fixed it now. There are probably other words that are there for no reason too. It's just working them out. I've often had a post not go through and haven't a bull's notion what I've said wrong.

Must warn you that it's 2:30am here. So apologies for my tired spelling and whatnot. ;-)

[Ange]

More hugs!

EDIT: For PPT and TNT staffers alike!

[Morningstar]

I didn't realize, EC, that some of this had occurred on the chat boards. The problem with the chat boards is that it appears that, at times anyway, monitors rely on the words of the person doing the reporting and might not do a sufficient amount checking to verify the context in which such things were written. I say this from personal experience. Although, it has been three years ago (and one would have hoped things would be changed by now). Three years ago, as some of you will recall (because I droned on about it so much), my daughter's account was frozen after posting on the chat boards. Perfectly innocent stuff. Giving away items. Some nasty little thing got jealous of my daughter and falsely reported her for scamming (holding a "give-away"). Being the assertive woman that I am (tee hee) I fired off a detailed, well thought out email to staff (back then you could) and pointed out a few theories of my own--one being that the monitor relied solely on the girl's report and didn't check out my daughter's post. According to the personal email I got back, the staff member admitted that there were only so many people to monitor the thousands and thousands of posts on the boards and often times they had to rely on reports instead of checking out the situation for themselves. Like I said I hope that the situation has changed since then. But it is easy to see that sort of thing happening--at least on the chat boards.

VM, I didn't take offense. So, not to worry. And, yeah, pork 'n beans. The woman who said it is a stitch. One of my bestest friends. What's funny is that she had said that several times in the past without a problem. So, I guess she figured it was OK.

Oh, and you asked why people didn't follow up? The people who were frozen did. And did get their accounts back. I do believe that the ones who got the suspensions and warnings were just too afraid to rock the boat. Afraid that if they said anything, TNT would freeze them instead of the lesser punishment.

Last edited by Morningstar on Fri Feb 09, 2007 2:51 am, edited 1 time in total.

[VirtualMetal]

I've said it and I'll say it again. They need more staff watching the boards. If they're going to have them, they really need to watch them more. I saw and watched one board asking how to use a (adult thing). Many many people posted and the board reached several pages. I looked at the time it was posted and it had been up for over 15 minuites before it was spotted. Clearly at the top of the page. There were so many people posting very wrong things on the board and I do hope most of them were frozen for it. Some of them were even risking old and wealthy accounts to discuss such a thing. I mean, you can discuss this type of rubbish on yahoo answers til your eyes bleed. Why pick neo? But better still, how is it allowed to go on. If they're going to be so strict when dealing out the warnings and freezings, they could really do with more forum staff. Of get rid of the forums all together.

Heh. Must have been a highly strung staff member. I'm afraid of saying bugger now!

That's good that they followed it up. I know most of these weird cases are misunderstandings usually. Although I agree that they shouldn't happen in the first place.

Last edited by VirtualMetal on Fri Feb 09, 2007 2:55 am, edited 1 time in total.

[Morningstar]

I agree 100 percent on that, VM. More monitors. And less fun images for us to put on our computers.

[ggagahc]

And, I agree with Cranberry. I am way sick of people calling TNT staff members jerks. They are human beings. Most of them are probably underloved and underpaid. They deserve respect, just like everyone else.

Oh I can assure you that the members of the TNT staff are EXTREMELY underloved, especially if you mention anything about "plot prizes." =D But that's good ol' underlove, nothing serious. =D

And the fact of the matter is, there are going to be people who get frozen fairly and there are going to be people who get frozen unfairly. That's just how it is - there's no helping it. I sympathize with you EXTREMELY, littleboy6326, but you should ALWAYS watch what you say online, be it on Neopets (and we all can already vouch the levels of stupidity on the Neoboards) or anywhere else. And quite frankly, I think you're getting a little defensive. Just realize that Neopets isn't 100% fair. That sucks, sure, but what can we do about it? Like other people have already mentioned - it's their site. They can strip all of us of all our NP for all they care and we wouldn't be able to do anything about it.

[Azzie]

It's not fair for me to get a worse punishment than they; as I was merely responding to THEIR POST which broke the rules; mine was more of a followup post

actually you shouldnt even have responded to the posts, you should have reported them and let neopets deal with them. i got a warning once a long time ago when someone was saying something about jews and i responded.

I think they deal with all involved there because if not it will come to a situation where people get into arguements over a certain statement and it escalates. i don't know why you got frozen unless you had earlier warnings.

[_ei]

I mean, you can discuss this type of rubbish on yahoo answers til your eyes bleed. Why pick neo?

Exactly. But it wouldn't be shocking there so the fun gets removed. I imagine.

I use the neoboards regularly and I've only ever gotten one warning (and it was for using the word suicidal I have no idea why I even typed it now). Because I use a lot of bad language in my every day speech I completely tone it down. I would most definately never say "bugger" on the neoboards, I tend to stick to the kind of language found on early morning kids TV. Although there are some things that it doesn't even ocur to me would be offensive ("hell" for example or "damn")

But yeah, I do kind of think the warnings/freezings mentioned have been fair for the most part. If it's an honest slip you can always try and get your account back.

I can't really comment on the severity of one person's punishment vs another without knowing all the details account age, history of warnings etc....

[Kiyone]

Well that's how it's always been. I've seen users purposely evade the swear filter and did not even receive a WARNING while the 'victims' that these insults were thrown at received either warnings or were iced. TNT has always been like this and I try to steer clear from the Neoboards.

[bgryph]

I knew someone on NC who was frozen for saying that she was "going off to bed now" when she was signing off for the evening.

She was unfrozen within the week, though. There are a lot of really absurd freezings that happen related to the Neoboards (which is why I say the #2 rule for staying unfrozen is to not post on the Neoboards, except possibly for insanely innocent things like asking when the current Kad feeding time is) but I think most of the really obviously absurd ones do get unfrozen when they ask for a follow-up.

EDIT: Oh, another word of advice: if you ARE going to post on the Neoboards and decide to report a thread which is breaking the rules: for goodness' sakes, don't post SAYING you've reported them. That's just opening yourself up to vindictive counter-reports. Just report it and quietly move on. Also, I would hope it goes without saying -- don't post on a thread which you think is breaking the rules for any reason. Not to tell them they're breaking the rules, not to say you're reporting them, not even to say, "Hi, everyone, I like Lupes, how about you!" Whatever ends up happening to the rule-breakers you don't want to risk getting caught in the crossfire.

But really, just keeping your NP discussion on fan boards whenever possible is much safer. Except when you out-and-out say that you're breaking the rules on a fan board (when they might freeze you if they can figure out who you are) you pretty much can't get frozen for anything you say on a fan board. Makes things much safer.

[fructy]

I didn't read the board you're talking about. I don't exactly know what was said so I can't judge whether it was right to freeze you and not the others.

However, it's always best to not reply to any boards like that. It's best to report the board and move on.