Poppecorn

I strongly believe that TNT is overly harsh in terms of what they deem to be 'bad words'. I have received a warning for saying 'cigarette' (Not encouraging the usage of that substance but whilst chatting to a neofriend) and a neofriend of mine has received a warning for saying 'drink' - as in DRINKING TEA. She has sent a ticket and received a reply - they acknowledge it's a mistake, but refuse to remove the warning. I understand TNT's concerns - any minor could be influenced by the above words in a more unacceptable context - but I truly believe they are overly harsh, ESPECIALLY considering that Neopets is made up largely not of young children, but of young adults and even middle aged women. I talked about this demographics/freedom of speech topic on the Neoboards, but the post was quickly deleted. :(

And it would also be great if they would let us have unscripted chat in Key Quest, but I don't think that's going to happen any time soon, considering how freely they give out warnings for 'bad words' and they freeze everything suspicious

It's pretty much Oceania in 1984 - the Inner Party is TNT, the Outer Party is Neopets users and the Prolls? (Forgot what they're called) are guests to the site.

:sick02: :sick01: :skull:

I strongly believe that TNT is overly harsh in terms of what they deem to be 'bad words'. I have received a warning for saying 'cigarette' (Not encouraging the usage of that substance but whilst chatting to a neofriend) and a neofriend of mine has received a warning for saying 'drink' - as in DRINKING TEA. She has sent a ticket and received a reply - they acknowledge it's a mistake, but refuse to remove the warning. I understand TNT's concerns - any minor could be influenced by the above words in a more unacceptable context - but I truly believe they are overly harsh, ESPECIALLY considering that Neopets is made up largely not of young children, but of young adults and even middle aged women. I talked about this demographics/freedom of speech topic on the Neoboards, but the post was quickly deleted. :(

And it would also be great if they would let us have unscripted chat in Key Quest, but I don't think that's going to happen any time soon, considering how freely they give out warnings for 'bad words' and they freeze everything suspicious

It's pretty much Oceania in 1984 - the Inner Party is TNT, the Outer Party is Neopets users and the Prolls? (Forgot what they're called) are guests to the site.

:sick02: :sick01: :skull:

Nope not true! You can get a warning for neomails without having any previous warnings. A while ago I got a warning for discussing my life with a neofriend. No personal information or questionable subjects were being discussed so something I probably said got flagged. Haven't gotten a warning since and I use neomails frequently.

Umm.. that's really depressing. I keep telling my boyfriend who picks at me about this game that it's really not a kids' website!

That's a really sad way to look at it o_o
Very messed up description for a "Family friendly" site critter.

I think it might need more than that. If it's between two adults - neomail, that is, they should be allowed to use all non-swearing words regardless of the context (barring the truly inappropriate like the selling of the body for money etc). And Key Quest needs to have an unscripted mode for players above the age of 18 and which have not ever received a formal warning.

I've had a few run-ins with the filter, it's a minor annoyance when you're sending a perfectly innocent NM and you get that "No bad words blah blah" warning when you're trying to send it, and for the life of you, you can't find it because you never said it! It's frustrating sometimes, but I've managed to chat openly on the NeoBoards, guild boards and NeoMails without any warnings for years now.
 
I understand that majority of the players on Neopets are adults, but the filters are in place because there are, in fact, still young teenagers out there that could be targeted by people with bad intentions. They might seem silly to you, but it's the best they can do to make sure those bad people don't get to the kids, given the amount of messages passed around each day. We can pretend those bad people don't exist or don't troll websites like Neopets, but the reality is that they're out there and given any leniency, it might put younger players in danger. There is absolutely no way to verify the real age of a person, it's so easy to put in a fake birthday. A system like that would just open up a can of worms that online predators will likely abuse.
 
No system put into place is perfect, but if you try and understand why they're there, it puts things in a different light. It would be better if the monitors put things in better context when checking out flagged messages, but I don't feel it necessarily impedes your freedom of speech.

While I do recognize the importance and purpose of the filters, they do tend to be inconvenient. Especially when innocent words are flagged as not-so-innocent because they contain bad words in them. A filter clean-up is vital because a normal human being should not have any problem with those words when they take the time to actually READ what is written.

I can see why these strict filters have been put in place. I mean it is technically a children's site regardless of the large portion of adult players. We all signed up and continued to play on this site knowing that. When I started playing my mom was very concerned about being able to access the boards and talk to strangers. It was very comforting for her to see the rules the site had in place especially when it came to filters. There's not many sites that are as safe as neopets out there for pre-teens.
 
I don't know why you would need to talk about cigarettes on neopets but I understand how the "drink" warning must have been frustrating. I would be upset with that one.
 
I don't personally have much frustration with filters. It can be annoying not knowing what hidden word is stopping your neomail from being sent but I've managed. I just know to use other words in place of "skills" or "grape" for example. If I want to chat more freely, I come here :)
 
It would be nice to see them update the filters though. I think they need a bit of a re-vamp. Such as your "drink" incident, it's not fair to have to tiptoe around innocent words. I don't talk to anyone while playing KQ anyways so I'm indifferent toward unscripted chat.
 
I am always nervous about warnings with big brother *cough* I mean TNT (or their software) watching every move we make. But they do have good intentions.

I sell my stuff so cheap that people could resell them for more. Should I not do that?

my interpretation, which may in fact be worth only one neopoint, is that a single person, even one working 24/7 to hoard an item, is not pricefixing. that pricefixing can only reach a problematic level when more than one person is in on it. i dont think they would pay attention unless you could show there was more than one person involved.
 
now, even if i am right, there's still an obvious problem in that 2 people working together to raise something by 5 k, might be freezable but 100 people who independently decide, like with the spaceship coincidence, to massively pricejack specific items from 10 np to unbuyable are not freezable simply bc they didnt actively conspire.