TNT going OTT

[Johnnydontgo]

Yeah, they're going a little wierdo lately. My friend was having problems playing flash games. I wrote her a neomail, saying, "try clearing your cookies, aand make sure you don't have a firewall up." That was it. TNT wouldn't let the mail go through, I kept getting the "please don't send outside links" message. Now really, how can you confuse the words cookiesand firewall to be an outside link?! I ended up having to call her long distance after 30 minutes of trying in vain to get the neomail through.

[dog]

Yeah, they're going a little wierdo lately. My friend was having problems playing flash games. I wrote her a neomail, saying, "try clearing your cookies, aand make sure you don't have a firewall up." That was it. TNT wouldn't let the mail go through, I kept getting the "please don't send outside links" message. Now really, how can you confuse the words cookiesand firewall to be an outside link?! I ended up having to call her long distance after 30 minutes of trying in vain to get the neomail through.

Ugh, I hate the neomail filter. It doesn't even tell you which part of your message it won't send. A few months ago I was trying to neomail my guild members who were participating in our guild Bachelor/For Love or Money themed contest named Of Lust or Greed. I'd written out a fairly lengthy description of what they had to do for the next part of the contest, and it said I had writted something inappropriate. I edited it as best I could, taking out "bachelor", "hunky", anything I could think of that might have upset the filters. I got so frustrated that I cleared the entire message. It still didn't send. Finally I realized that the problem the entire time was the title, "L+G" (standing for [Of] Lust and Greed). If it had just said that the first time I wouldn't have had to waste a good hour of my life. :?

[Morningstar]

Ugh, I hate the neomail filter. It doesn't even tell you which part of your message it won't send. A few months ago I was trying to neomail my guild members who were participating in our guild Bachelor/For Love or Money themed contest named Of Lust or Greed. I'd written out a fairly lengthy description of what they had to do for the next part of the contest, and it said I had writted something inappropriate. I edited it as best I could, taking out "bachelor", "hunky", anything I could think of that might have upset the filters. I got so frustrated that I cleared the entire message. It still didn't send. Finally I realized that the problem the entire time was the title, "L+G" (standing for [Of] Lust and Greed). If it had just said that the first time I wouldn't have had to waste a good hour of my life. :?

Yeah, I know the feeling. Someone asked me my age in a neomail and I wrote 40+. I kept getting a refusal to send and I spent 20 minutes basically deleting bits of the message here and there except for the part about my age (which I thought was harmless but little did I know about leet). Finally, I gave up and asked my computer-literate daughter and she said "Don't you know that '40+' stands for 'hot' in leet." I guess I missed that one in my computer class.

[Johnnydontgo]

Which is one of a multitude of reasons I hate "leet". That has got to be the most rediculous addition to human language I have ever seen. Which has edged out ebonics for my top stupid additions, lol.

[dog]

Ugh, I hate the neomail filter. It doesn't even tell you which part of your message it won't send. A few months ago I was trying to neomail my guild members who were participating in our guild Bachelor/For Love or Money themed contest named Of Lust or Greed. I'd written out a fairly lengthy description of what they had to do for the next part of the contest, and it said I had writted something inappropriate. I edited it as best I could, taking out "bachelor", "hunky", anything I could think of that might have upset the filters. I got so frustrated that I cleared the entire message. It still didn't send. Finally I realized that the problem the entire time was the title, "L+G" (standing for [Of] Lust and Greed). If it had just said that the first time I wouldn't have had to waste a good hour of my life. :?

Yeah, I know the feeling. Someone asked me my age in a neomail and I wrote 40+. I kept getting a refusal to send and I spent 20 minutes basically deleting bits of the message here and there except for the part about my age (which I thought was harmless but little did I know about leet). Finally, I gave up and asked my computer-literate daughter and she said "Don't you know that '40+' stands for 'hot' in leet." I guess I missed that one in my computer class.

It really is a disappointment that a handful of users who somehow think that neopets is a dating agency have to hinder the most benign conversations as well as the offensive. And yet they just think of another combination of letters and numbers to use.

If only there was a way to assess the context of neomails rather than just the words, but until then I guess the filters are all TNT has. Still, I don't see the harm in listing the blocked words. Didn't they use to do that? Or am I think of the neoboards or guilds?

[Johnnydontgo]

I have an interesting story regarding that, dog... When PPT was down, I didn't know at first whether something was wrong with my computer, or the site. I was browsing the neoboards (don't judge me, you know you did too!), and some girl was asking what the address to ppt was. I neomailed her, saying that I thought the site was down, and gave her the address anyway. I told her to mail me back to see what she found. When I tried to send it, of course, I got the usual "don't send outside links" screen. I had never tried to send them before, so I was confused I tried to send again, and a list of 100 some odd words showed up. Pinkpt.com was one of them, along with n3opets, neop3ts, hot, ho+, etc.. very interesting. I saved it to my computer, but can't find it now. I'll have to look again.

[jellyoflight]

I have an interesting story regarding that, dog... When PPT was down, I didn't know at first whether something was wrong with my computer, or the site. I was browsing the neoboards (don't judge me, you know you did too!), and some girl was asking what the address to ppt was. I neomailed her, saying that I thought the site was down, and gave her the address anyway. I told her to mail me back to see what she found. When I tried to send it, of course, I got the usual "don't send outside links" screen. I had never tried to send them before, so I was confused I tried to send again, and a list of 100 some odd words showed up. Pinkpt.com was one of them, along with n3opets, neop3ts, hot, ho+, etc.. very interesting. I saved it to my computer, but can't find it now. I'll have to look again.

They banend people from writing Ppt and things, didn't they?

[Midnight]

NO! NOT our beloved ppt!? They don't understand the love they have for us! Neopets has gotten somewhat idiotic, all the publicity they're getting, and now they have to make Neopia a utopia. It is rather annoying when it all comes down to the fact that we ARE the inhabitants of Neopia. I mean if you keep scammers away, lovely, but no matter where you go, there will always be people who cheat, lie, and steal, and by trying to eliminate them, they are, unwittingly I admit, eliminating us as well. Automation is taking over, and these freezing bots are rather annoying, the whole charade is annoying, did they not use to watch over us like angels? Now they have receded from the clouds, and deemed themselves gods. How is this helping us? How is this giving us the chance to co-exsist peacefully, when we can't even co-exsist!?

Sorry, my rants ish done, somewhat off topic, but good to get it out

[Jasujo]

Hear hear, Midnight! Very well said. I couldn't put it better myself. I totally agree with you. I have felt the frustration of that may times.

[everconfused]

I've had 2 friends frozen for inappropriate usernames. Both accounts were 2+ years old. One by a large group of people writing in and pointing out that part of the username was an item on the site she was able to get back. But it wasn't easy. The other name? Remains frozen, we don't think that one will be unfrozen.

I agree, if a name is inappropriate, either user or pet, then the filters should stop it from being created. I've lately seen so many truly inappropriate user and pet names; it's amazing that they're all still around while others are frozen out of hand for inexplicable reasons.

The filters sure do their job when you're trying to neomail or post a message whether it's on one of the boards or on a guild board. You can't type cookie anymore, I don't know about firewall. I don't know that some of the other things that were tried in the guild neomail would have gone through -- some of those words are pushing the limits due to people who have actually tried finding a date or whatever on the site, that's beyond sad to do that.

[Johnnydontgo]

I've had 2 friends frozen for inappropriate usernames. Both accounts were 2+ years old. One by a large group of people writing in and pointing out that part of the username was an item on the site she was able to get back. But it wasn't easy. The other name? Remains frozen, we don't think that one will be unfrozen.

See that's rediculous. If a user's account is 6 months and up, they ought to leave it alone. My opinion is, if it was appropriate two years ago, then it should be appropriate now.

As for TNT banning the name PPT, my guess is they simply compiled a list of the most quoted web sites. Because the list also contained "Angelfire" and "Hotmail". So, I guess it's really a compliment, in a twisted, sadistic, completely childish sort of way.

[Midnight]

Bah, I honestly think that Neopets needs to re-evaluate thier whole banning system!

[Morningstar]

I've had 2 friends frozen for inappropriate usernames. Both accounts were 2+ years old. One by a large group of people writing in and pointing out that part of the username was an item on the site she was able to get back. But it wasn't easy. The other name? Remains frozen, we don't think that one will be unfrozen.

See that's rediculous. If a user's account is 6 months and up, they ought to leave it alone. My opinion is, if it was appropriate two years ago, then it should be appropriate now.

My guess is that, after that length of time, it was a user who reported everconfused's friend and not a bot who caught it. And that ever-so-vigilant user who doesn't know the rules from a hole in their head can get a person frozen.

Proof: When my daughter's account was frozen for "scamming," I wrote an email to William in support. Among other things, I suggested that the staff person who froze her hadn't actually read her chat topic (she was giving away Christmas gifts--no strings attached), but had instead relied on the user who had reported her. William wrote me back and admitted that to be the case. He stated that because there were so many millions of users on the chat boards, the staff members couldn't possible review each message and, therefore, had to rely on the users to report abuses on the site.

He was nice enough to reinstate her account and, coincidentally, the false reporter was eventually frozen for filing too many false reports. But, it caused a whole bunch of unnecessary tears from my daughter and took hours and hours of my time to write the letter to him. And, in the end, we were lucky. There are others, in the same boat, who haven't been unfrozen. My guess is that the same sort of thing happened to everconfused's friend--some nasty person didn't like the looks of the name and filed a report.

Great, huh? Neopets "legal system" is basically being run by the users. Talk about a power trip--the user gets to play "God" with another person's account. If you are one of the unlucky ones to be reported--even if the person doesn't know the rules--best of luck to you.

Playing Neopets anymore is getting to be like walking around in a minefield--if the glitches don't get you, the power-hungry, report-happy users will.

[Johnnydontgo]

I've had 2 friends frozen for inappropriate usernames. Both accounts were 2+ years old. One by a large group of people writing in and pointing out that part of the username was an item on the site she was able to get back. But it wasn't easy. The other name? Remains frozen, we don't think that one will be unfrozen.

See that's rediculous. If a user's account is 6 months and up, they ought to leave it alone. My opinion is, if it was appropriate two years ago, then it should be appropriate now.

My guess is that, after that length of time, it was a user who reported everconfused's friend and not a bot who caught it. And that ever-so-vigilant user who doesn't know the rules from a hole in their head can get a person frozen.

Proof: When my daughter's account was frozen for "scamming," I wrote an email to William in support. Among other things, I suggested that the staff person who froze her hadn't actually read her chat topic (she was giving away Christmas gifts--no strings attached), but had instead relied on the user who had reported her. William wrote me back and admitted that to be the case. He stated that because there were so many millions of users on the chat boards, the staff members couldn't possible review each message and, therefore, had to rely on the users to report abuses on the site.

Another hypocritical point for TNT. So they trust their users to valiantly keep the chat boards clean, but don't trust them enough to choose a freaking username. Or web address. Seriously. I don't think I need to point out the irony here.

[[angel]]

*kills TNT* Yeah, that's just ridiculous.