Rules Applied to Board - Consequences Applied to All Site

[theappleofhiseye]

It's not secret that there are several rules people don't like about the Neopets board. Blah blah blah, cry about it elsewhere. Rules are there follow them. However, the question is about how they implement the consequences (suspension, etc.) If you break a rule specific to the forum (break their mature topics clause, or whatever) then you will get a warning, and then repeat offenders get suspended. This is fine, but you aren't just suspended from the boards. Your suspended from the entire site. Wouldn't it be more proactive to simply ban people who offend board rules from the boards, instead of from the entire site? Why should making a comment you might not even know is offensive (I've gotten posts deleted that to this day, I still don't know what was wrong with them) deprive you of your daily Meerca Chase?

 

Would it be more beneficial if minor rules broken resulted in suspension to THAT part of the site? Obviously serious offenses like scamming and cheating would apply to the whole site. But the maturity clause and spamming and things relevant only to the boards, logically, should only result in suspension from the boards themselves. Suspending people from the site entirely for making a slightly off-color joke some older teenagers wouldn't understand seems like an easy way to drive people away.

[Lamppost]

I see your point, Apple. Have the punishment fit the crime.

 

On the other hand, though, giving a punishment that is more severe than the crime, i.e., banning from the entire site, might make users more likely not to break the rules. If I want to keep my privilege to daily play Meerca Chase, I better not abuse the boards.

 

Or, another way to look at it is this: Neopets is a game. A complex game with many parts, but a game nonetheless. If I break the rules of the game, then I don't get to play anymore. If I were to break the rules in Monopoly, such as draw extra Chance cards when I'm not supposed to, my punishment wouldn't be to ban me from using Chance cards. It would make perfect sense if my punishment was that I'm not allowed to play Monopoly at all.

 

There's my "devil's advocate" thoughts.

[Unstream]

I personally agree with you, Apple. It's just a bit ridiculous how a little slip up can get you suspended from the whole site. Even if it's something like "Obama Rocks!"

 

Most online gaming sites have a forum. If you break the rules, you're suspended from the forum, not the whole game. And most games even have in-game chat. Same rules apply there - you wouldn't be able to speak in the game.

[CAV of Gang Green]

I wholeheartedly agree If you say something in a certain part of the forum, and it's worthy of suspention, then suspend the person from that part of the forum. Don't suspend them from the entire board, let alone game. unless they've done something to that level of extent.

[Unstream]

Actually CAV, I think she was talking about the boards on Neopets. Not TDNF. ;)

 

But I don't think if you break a rule in one section you're only banned in that section. You should be banned from the whole Neoboard, otherwise you could just break the rules in another section.

[Lamppost]

Actually CAV, I think she was talking about the boards on Neopets. Not TDNF. ;)

 

That's right. I thought the topic was about NeoBoards, not TDNF. Of course if you break the rules in TDNF, there will be no consequences on your Neo Account. They're completely separate, as you so articulately pointed out.

[CAV of Gang Green]

Actually CAV, I think she was talking about the boards on Neopets. Not TDNF. ;)

 

*looks carefully*

 

Oh, so she was. Now I feel stupid. :crying:

 

But my opinion still stands. Ban them from that section of the Neoboards. If they continue to break rules in other parts of the board, then perma-ban them. And if it's severe, then freeze them.

[Lamppost]

I was just browsing in the TDN Forum's General Debate section, and I came across the rules post for it.

 

http://www.tdnforums.com/index.php?showtopic=9917

 

The post describes the rules that apply only to TDN's The Debate Chat forum in the Talk, Play, and Have Fun section. However, if you break the rules, you are suspended from all of TDN's forums for 7 days.

 

It reminded me of this discussion. If you take issue with suspensions from all of Neopets for breaking NeoBoards rules, do you also take issue with TDN's consequences for The Debate Chat? Do you think TDN members who break these rules should only be banned from The Debate Chat? Also, what is the rationale behind TDN's consequences? The answer might shed light on to Neopets' reasoning.

[antiaircraft]

Well, I'm not familiar with the matter personally, but from what I know it's probable that the rationale behind TDN's penalty is simply the technical limitations of IPB (the forum software). I believe it doesn't provide the degree of granularity required to suspend users from a specific subforum, but I'm not sure.

[Lamppost]

Well, I'm not familiar with the matter personally, but from what I know it's probable that the rationale behind TDN's penalty is simply the technical limitations of IPB (the forum software). I believe it doesn't provide the degree of granularity required to suspend users from a specific subforum, but I'm not sure.

 

I can see that. And that would be a difference between Neopets and TDN - we know Neopets has the technical capability to suspend users from just the NeoBoards, or at least all of the things you can't use until you are a certain age.

[Seliphra]

Personally I agree with the way they do it, but I think they shouldn't be so quick on the 'freeze' button either. I had a friend get frozen for having an auto-buy program running -thing was she didn't and had they checked their records it would have shown her sitting in merridell foods shop for three hours waiting for a Draik Egg.

 

Slip ups in the neo forums do occur, and sometimes we don't ever even know what it is we've said to offend someone or that is against the rules. Obviously somethings are well...obvious, like saying 'Be my friend and bid 20k on my lot and I'll give you a free PB!!' should get someone banned and doesn't but other things like 'omgwtfbbq!' can. I think personally they should make it so that under a certain age you can't use certain boards but maybe for users older than a certain level they should have a special board where you can post whatever...of course with an age limit that you can't change ...then again since people can and do lie about their ages...

[user221]

In the years that I've been here people that lose their accounts for stuff they get frozen for in which they actually come back and do significant damage. Having a system where users can be forum banned while still enforcing a cap on accounts would be the more sensible way of doing it (although they can still get everything banned and go back to what I mentioned beforehand).

 

The biggest issue that I've noticed is that the rules on Neopets are not clear at all. With humans of all different backgrounds and interpretations some games I've played have allowed people to try to appeal things.

 

To a certain extent, they can and will freeze accounts based on other factors than the account being logged into.

[brody]

From what I've actually read, if they suspect ANYTHING, ever, they freeze you. Sure, you can get your account back, but they still shoot first and ask questions later. They have really strict rules which I can totally understand given the site is aimed at children, but the policies when it comes to getting hacked and getting your stuff back are extremely lax or non-existent. It's a pretty big difference on how they police the boards and how they police the use of your account. One they are all extremist, and the other they're more like, oh well you should have had a better password set in place.

 

I personally hardly EVER use the boards. Everytime I've tried to in the past someone tries to troll, or says extremely rude things out of nowhere. Plus it's just insanely hard to read anything, anyone says because they all have copy paste pre-text signatures.

[Seliphra]

It difficult to read things too because half the people use txt tlk or 1337. At anyrate, if they didn't do a full suspension than the people in question will think 'hey this isn't a horrible punishment at all' and continue what they do despite being disallowed from the forums for a week. Really it's better that the punishment is severe but I honestly think they should adopt a 'three strikes' policy where you get three warning neomails from TNT before a suspension and three suspensions before a freeze. Obviously some things -like cheating and scamming- should be an auto-freeze or with freezing for protection. I know my friend ended up having to send thirteen requests before they froze her stolen account for protection despite her having WAY more information than the thief did simply because the thief said in the profile 'I moved so my IP address changed'. I mean she had also put 'this was my main account years ago on a ten MONTH old account.

[quest_o_matic]

That's a good idea. You should only been suspended from the neoboard and neomail if you accidentally or even purposely break the rules.

[hrtbrk]

The OP should be happy because TNT implemented this today. You can be 'silenced' from Neoboards, Neomail, changing your lookups etc etc

[Rocket Surgeon]

Hang on a minute! Your account is currently silenced, which means that you cannot communicate with other users or edit your pages. Your account has been silenced because you broke the following rule: While it is unfortunate when unscrupulous users choose to cheat in KeyQuest, please do not make topics on the NeoBoards about those users as this can be considered harassment. If you would like to report a user, please fill out the form located here: http://www.neopets.com/autoform_abuse.phtml?abuse=report and we will be happy to look into it for you.

 

I got this off due to making a blacklist thread for people who quit on Keyquest deliberately and apparently, I got "silenced" due to harassment. If it weren't for this site, I'd be pretty much blind right now about TFR. Regardless, I don't see it as a harassment due to the fact that despite my actions to report the perpetrator, she wasn't even banned or suspended at all.

[hrtbrk]

Oh no! That's not good! How long are you silenced for? I saw someone get silenced for 160 hours haha

[Rocket Surgeon]

Oh no! That's not good! How long are you silenced for? I saw someone get silenced for 160 hours haha

 

This temporary silencing will end in 34 hours 45 minutes.

 

I didn't bother replying to Support since it is true that I broke rules, but seeing that the person who quit our game(I had all 5 keys and was just 2 squares away from winning) wasn't even banned for a day, She even blocked me in the Neomail before I could ask her for an explanation, It's honestly unjustifiable. It's even more demoralizing when the persons in the Key Quest board painted me as the villain in the whole scenario since I ratted down her name and "still kept raising the issue" when the person apologized that she "accidentally" left the game because her "laptop froze".

 

I was sure it was a huge lie, since she had a really good performance when it came to the minigames we were playing, and my PC can barely even handle HQ keyquest.

 

Account: eulsdivinity

 

THIS ACCOUNT HAS BEEN TEMPORARILY SILENCED.

 

 

You have been SILENCED for the following reason:

While it is unfortunate when unscrupulous users choose to cheat in KeyQuest, please do not make topics on the NeoBoards about those users as this can be considered harassment. If you would like to report a user, please fill out the form located here: http://www.neopets.com/autoform_abuse.phtml?abuse=report and we will be happy to look into it for you.

 

 

Your Silence has now ended.

 

 

Click here to indicate that you understand why you were silenced

and that you have re-read the rules so that you don't do it again!

 

Edited October 23, 2010 by Rocket Surgeon

[Fever]

The offense that would result in being banned from the entire website would be something along the following lines:

 

Extremely offensive to some members,

Extremely rude,

VERY inappropriate,

Violates NPB rules to the extreme.

 

In the case of saying "Obama Rocks!" some people (myself included) take deep offense to that statement. That warning should be MORE than enough to get you to stop doing whatever you are doing. It's very fair. The rules are extreeemely clear, you agreed to them when you signed up, and when you post on the board. So when you get that warning, you are reminded "You just broke the rules you agreed to. Stop it or you will get suspended." pretty much. Not that wording I'm sure, I've never been given a warning or frozen. You shouldn't be talking about freezable topics on Neopets, anyway!

 

Say you are frozen from JUST the boards for saying something offensive. That means you can go to your guild and talk about it, on your profile, pet pages, pet lookups, shop pages, guild pages, and of course Neomail. They only suspend you from the entire site if you have done something VERY very very wrong, and in that case, you shouldn't be on Neopets.

 

 

 

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