Outdated Rules Revamp

[Rynarok]

I want to talk to everybody about Neopets and it's outdated rules that many many many people have been frozen for and it being absolutely ridiculous, whether it's just saying one time a subjective thing etc.

 

For example,

I received a warning today on a post today, because I was utterly surprised after getting a (R100 Beam Me Aboard) Booktastic Book from the Wheel of Larceny (Extravageance), I said one time [it was not being discussed or talked about] that I had had a few beers and had I not I probably would not have been AS calm as I was after getting it. If you know anything about how the board works, to get a warning from TnT you usually had to have been reported by someone for them to look it over. ALL Warnings from TnT are done by staff themselves. 

 

This comes to the question, that since we all know a vast majority of the players, [Probably close to 60-70%+] are over the age of 18, do you think stuff like this is absolutely ridiculous? Do you think jealousy comes to mind for the person who reported me?

 

Let me know what rules you find outrageous and in need of change.

 

-Matt

[pulpfreeoj]

I don't know if I can agree with you on this one. It's true that there are many adults that play neopets, but you have to remember that there are children as young as 13 (and even younger if they have parental permission) that frequent the neoboards as well. TNT have always been very upfront that they aim for neopets to be a place for ALL users to relax, free from the cares of the real world, and not everyone has positive associations with alcohol (or other drugs). If you'd posted profanity or political or religious content you'd have been warned as well. There's better places to talk about such things if you want to, and in fact neopets is one of the few places on the internet that I know of where you can't discuss such things. 

I think in this case it was fair that you were warned when you broke a rule. Whether the person (or people) who reported you was jealous or not has no bearing on the matter, IMO.

[Rynarok]

Oh, you got me wrong. I know that I had broken a rule and I own up to the fact that it's an understandable rule. However MY problem is, that I said "beer". I was not [discussing it], or even going to elaborate further. You have to remember that they relaxed all of the most "obvious" chat filters a while back because the subject in which people were slipping up and saying some words was not worth having to deal with unfreezing people for the occasional word or two when no rules were TRULY broken.

Had I been talking about beer, discussing in further details, talking to other people about it etc would have been different. I said as much as you can find and is discussed in any PG-13 Movie (which mind you has tons of adult content) TV shows, even the disney channel has moderate mentions of alcohol. 

The only reason I even bring up the issue is because the warning was for and I repeat, [DISCUSSING] Alcohol, not slipping up and saying "beer" If someone is going to get a warning for this, you might as well have the word blocked. Just saying.

[Panthersclaw]

Maybe instead of saying beers you could have said drinks. Drinks could be anything. Or you could have lied and said tea or coffee. TNT is very strict with their rules and even items on the site that happen to have inappropriate language in them aren't allowed to be typed, like grape, glass, cucumber, and snowball.  I understand that many users are adults over 18, myself included at 21, but there are still a bunch of users who are as young as 13 and TNT wants to keep content suitable for all ages, so even just mentioning beer or drugs is against the rules.

[Rynarok]

-sighs- I mentioned beer, I'm pretty sure you aren't allowed to use boards if you aren't over 13, and if you don't know what alcohol is by 13 you live a sheltered life, if you can't see from the standpoint of the fact that the rules in place aren't relaxed enough, and something like a warning wasn't necessary, especially threatening of someones hard earned account over someone using A WORD that nearly every child even knows about is silly.

 

 

Edit: Also, after looking over the rules, even though it should be a given (could not find the rule) where it says "Discussing Drugs or Alcohol is forbidden" I checked Terms, and Chat rules.

Edit 2: 

• other information that we deem, in its sole discretion, to be inappropriate for this site.

Oh okay got you, you can get in trouble for just about anything with that clause.

[life_eclectic]

It kind of reminds me of the FCC with US tv stations. They decide what is appropriate for tv audiences and some of the stuff that is restricted is confusing because a word could be okay to say, but another word will be edited and it isn't much different. However, TNT is more strict when it comes to what can't be discussed or even said. I understand wanting to make sure the site is appropriate for all ages, but as for the filters, I do think it's rather ridiculous that there are items where we can't even say the name because there is a word within the item name that is deemed to be inappropriate. Also, I'm not sure if this is hypocritical on TNT's part, but there is an item on Neopets called Wine Gums. This is named after a popular candy in the UK, which doesn't actually contain alcohol, however the candy is named after the alcoholic wine and the flavors are named after alcoholic drinks, such as port, sherry and gin. I wonder if commenting on something that is named for alcohol, or has the word in it, would be okay, for example if you said you drank a couple of non alcoholic beers, like if it is also the word, or if it is only about mentioning actual alcohol. Either way, it seems to me that a kid who is old enough to know what beer is probably is old enough to read a quick comment about someone drinking it, but these are the rules we agree to when we use the site.

[.Brianna.]

The good news is TNT has stated that they are working on revamping the current rules and outlining more concrete rules.  They haven't given us a timeframe as to when we can expect this update, but at least you're not alone in feeling like some of the rules need addressed and we know they're getting some attention!

 

Quote

☼ Hello! I saw in a recent editorial that you mentioned something about the rules being worked on? Are you guys planning on updating us with rule changes anytime soon? I was so happy and excited when I read about a possible update on the rules! :) Please remove my name! ~ vernaze
Yes we are! It's being worked on, but taking all of the written and unwritten rules and compiling them into one relevant list is quite the daunting task. We'll let y'all know as soon as it's ready for ya!

 

[alexinwonderland]

I think you're arguing over semantics here. You're taking umbrage with the fact that the warning mentioned you were "discussing" beer when you only mentioned it once. No, there wasn't a back and forth about it, but the fact that it was mentioned at all in a forum where people can respond and talk about it is the beginning of a conversation. You weren't talking to yourself. I'm not saying you're wrong for feeling irritated, but those are the rules we all signed up for - as annoying as they can be. And yes, the word should have been flagged.

[Nielo]

7 hours ago, life_eclectic said:

It kind of reminds me of the FCC with US tv stations. They decide what is appropriate for tv audiences and some of the stuff that is restricted is confusing because a word could be okay to say, but another word will be edited and it isn't much different. However, TNT is more strict when it comes to what can't be discussed or even said. I understand wanting to make sure the site is appropriate for all ages, but as for the filters, I do think it's rather ridiculous that there are items where we can't even say the name because there is a word within the item name that is deemed to be inappropriate. Also, I'm not sure if this is hypocritical on TNT's part, but there is an item on Neopets called Wine Gums. This is named after a popular candy in the UK, which doesn't actually contain alcohol, however the candy is named after the alcoholic wine and the flavors are named after alcoholic drinks, such as port, sherry and gin. I wonder if commenting on something that is named for alcohol, or has the word in it, would be okay, for example if you said you drank a couple of non alcoholic beers, like if it is also the word, or if it is only about mentioning actual alcohol. Either way, it seems to me that a kid who is old enough to know what beer is probably is old enough to read a quick comment about someone drinking it, but these are the rules we agree to when we use the site.

I know I'm going slightly off topic here, but I had no idea wine gums were named after actual wine (although googling the history, there appear to be different versions of the origin story). They're a very popular candy in Holland as well, but I'd never made the connection to actual wine (probably because they're also called 'wine gums' here, and as a kid I didn't know any English, so I never made the connection. Even now that I'm obviously familiar with the English language and the actual meaning of the word 'wine', the 'wine' in 'wine gums' will forever be only associated with candy for me. (Oh, and the alcoholic 'flavours' are actually only printed on the candies, they're not meant to represent the taste, I think? But I'm going to read up on this some more. :))

 

On topic: I think "discussing" simply means "mentioning" in this context. They even state "whether you are using them or know someone who does" in the message you posted the screenshot of. You mentioned drinking beer, and also mentioned that it has a relaxing effect on you. Regardless of wheter or not kids are aware alcohol exists (they probably are) and that it's often used by people to relax/party/whatever, mentioning/discussing it (in a positive light) might not be the best idea.
(That isn't to say that I haven't rolled my eyes at the censors on Neopets though. I've had to abandon more than one message to my mom (and just email her instead) when Neopets took issue with one of the words, but I couldn't for the life of me figure out which one. (It doesn't help that my messages to my mom are in Dutch, and what might be a completely normal Dutch word, could get flagged by Neopets' censors.))

[Rynarok]

It's very strange, I wasn't even worried about the the filter in which I broke a rule, I was more so worried about the rules in general.

 

I've been playing neopets for nearly 17 years, and as far as I have seen they have not updated the rules [in general] in over a decade. To prove the point, go find any one other Disney/Family/Child Oriented affiliated game and look at their rules and tell me the difference between ours and theirs, the different is that not only are the rules outdated, but the process in which we are warned, threatened, frozen etc is as well. As well as the ticketing system, ways of getting help, and honestly 90% of the site is outdated.

They seriously need to overhaul a lot of the more outdated functions and the rules imo is up there at the top. I could deal with a lot less materialistic events that people barely enjoy for the game to look and feel nicer.