Questions about rules regarding guilds and userlook up

[Ephemeride]

First of all I would like to know whether it's allowed to fade out the sidebar completely. Cause that's what I do since more than a year already and never got a warning. But in Help Chat I read people got warned and frozen for it. I don't see why this could be wrong as I'm not altering my stats or anything like that which is clearly wrong...

Next question about guilds! I'm council in a guild that likes to have games and contests... Most are free to enter and give out prizes. I did see guild owners getting frozen for raffles - which is clearly against the rules... But what about having games where members have to send the biggest amount of a special item e.g.? Not allowed too? Of course our guild doesn't scam members. In fact we give out generous prizes (even to anyone that enters the latter game). What about those games that don't require anything but "knowlegde" to enter? Are those ok? What about prizes? Is giving them out ok????
People do give different answers on that! So I don't really know what to do in my guild! We love our games, they are fun for everyone! But I don't want it to get shut down and the owner shouldn't be frozen either!!!
I was trying to find screenshots of warnings, as the T&C don't say a lot... But I couldn't find anything good - so could somebody plz make it more clear to me what's right or wrong???

Thx in advance!

[everconfused]

As far as I know, just fading the sidebar and/or putting up a custom sidebar (have one - needs updating for the new Neo sidebar ... again) is ok. What I have seen people get in trouble for is disabling links - any of the sidebar links, including the search and link to us little link at the very bottom of the sidebar.

If you use the css to just get rid of the yellow/words, you'll still have the clock, search and link to us I believe you should be ok. The links don't show up, but if you cursor where they would be, they do show up and you can click on them to navigate. I would recommend writing into support if you're really nervous about it.

To guilds - No contests of any kind, no raffles, no giveaways (including MOTW, MOTM, birthday, new member, etc.) are allowed - period. The word prizes is even a no-no. You can't offer a "prize" for anything.

From #3 of the T&C:

promotions offering prizes of any sort (including contests, raffles, lotteries, chain letters or any kind of giveaway)

Our guild leaders wrote to support separately many times asking basically the same questions and got the same answers from different support staff when the No Contests Rule was decided to be enforced. Our guild did have contests at one point - they were fair, no one was scammed, everyone was very happy with them and they were fun. We had one where people had to send in an item worth up to a certain np amount, with a specific theme. Then one person was picked and that person got everything that had been sent in. I believe that everyone who participated in that one ended up getting all the items at least once, so no one was "out" anything.

We also had a random Member of the Day, as well as MOTM, birthday packs, new person packs, guild "pharmacy" for sick pets - they were told none of those were allowed as they are technically Giveaways. As a result of shutting everything down, our guild has become a very inactive place, but there's nothing to be done. Better to follow the rules and have a "boring" guild, than a deleted guild - Yes they WILL delete a guild and a frozen council/people running any type of contest.

The Neopets Magazine a couple of issues ago now had an article about guilds, and even there they said no contests, giveaways, etc. I think donation shops are frowned on too, because if you're not having contests, etc., the only thing a donation shop is good for is either a) saving up for the message board or unfortunately b) getting alot of np then the person in charge closing the guild ... which I have seen many people complain has happened.

Again, I would write to support and just ask what is and is not ok to do.

[Erin]

Actually, it's been implied that you can have games (not "contests" or "competitions", the semantics here are important), as long as you don't promise prizes for the winner. If the winner should happen to receive a "gift" when the contest is over, that's apparently ok. As long as everyone understands that participating in the "game" will not guarantee any sort of prize.

Obviously, this means that you're not allowed to ask people for donations in order to pay for this very random and unrelated "gift".

[everconfused]

Ok, I had to go looking - my roommate absconded with some of my Neo magazines , but got Issue 6 with the Pirate Lupe on the cover back - there's an article in that magazine, "Keys To Creadting A Successful Guild".

Here's what the article says about contests/competitions (any typos are mine!):

Contests vs. Competitions

Often times, when attempting to generate interest in ther guilds, people will make the mistake of offering "contests." Regardless of whether their intentions are noble or not, the fact is that this is simply not allowed on the Neopets site. Any time that you say, "I will give you a reward for winning (or even participating) in such-and-such an activity," then you are entering a situation where, more often than not, people end up getting scammed.

On the other hand, if you announce to your guild members that a competition is being held (let's say, a competition to see who can make the best drawing), and you do not offer or promise any prizes as part of the competition, then that is perfectly within the rules of the Neopets site. Now, as the person running the guild, you have an active interest in getting as many people as possible to participate in your competition (because, naturally, the more people who take part, the more interest there will be in your guild).

Therefore, if you decide (after the competition has taken place) to give one/some of the participant(s) an item(s) of your own, then there's nothing wrong with that, either - after all (at least in theory) people didn't sign up for your competition because they were being told they would get something, remember? By the same token, there are no rules saying that you can't just give someone an item out the kindness of your generous little heart.; )

So, just to recap:

A contest is an activity where the participants are offered (or promised) the possibility of receiving a prize in exchange for participating in (or "winning") that activity. This is NOT allowed on the Neopets site.

A competition is an activity in which participants are never offered (or promised) the possibility of receiving a prize in exchange for their involvement. They participate solely because they want to. This IS allowed by the Neopets site. Keeping this in mind, should the proprietor of a guild decide to give an item(s) to someone who happened to be a participant in one of their competitions, then this is okay, as there are no rules against this on the Neopets site.

I don't know who on the staff wrote this - but they do have a guild. The article says nothing about donations shops, which is a shame. I would like that one put to rest once and for all myself.

I've seen many more people scammed by "donating" to a guild than by ever entering a "contest".

If these so-called "competitions" are allowed, it would explain why I've been seeing alot of posts on boards with people asking if anyone knows of a certain painted pet or petpet for a guild competition. There's nothing involved in entering such a thing, and whoever gets the most names of that certain type of pet "wins?" ... but there's never anything said about winning - usually just a time limit for finding said pets. I guess then if the guild council wants, they can just send an item to whoever found the most pets.

[Ephemeride]

First of all thx for replying so fast! Especially everconfused for replying this much - it is really helpful although it really shocked me!!

I think we need to change things about our guild a lot. Basically games are ok - and if we decide to give away a gift in the end - I hope we're safe then! Are we actually allowed to say we might be giving out a gift? Or isn't that ok too?

I'm German, so I didn't have any chance to take a look at the Neo Magazine. We do have a German support, but I don't wanna ask him about it as I'm not sure about his reaction - maybe he'll be deleting the guild immediately? I still don't think we're doing anything wrong, but in order to not have it deleted and not having our accounts frozen we'll be changing it!!!


I guess I can ask him about my look up though... I've faded the sidebar completely. The clock and search box are gone too. Of course the links are all there... And those at the buttom of every page are there too (and everybody can see them.)

[everconfused]

Ephemeride, you cannot say anyone will get anything. If someone on council decides after the fact to send something that is ok as far as I know. But saying something like "find the most ghost kaus and get (whatever item here)" is a contest.

With the new board locking system, there have already been boards locked with the reason being the No Contests Rule. Now, whether after locking a topic someone goes and looks at the guild (like if the topic was a guild ad on the guild board and lists contests, new packs, etc.) I don't know.

I can tell you that this rule has been there as long as I've been on the site (a little over 2 years), but last year they started enforcing it because too many people were being scammed. We immediately toiok everything away and posted on the guild front page that according to the rules no contests or giveaways were allowed.

Your lookup, it sounds like it should be ok as long as everything works, none of your user stats (shield, pets, etc.) are showing and people can navigate from your lookup. One other thing, don't know if you have it but music has once again been disabled on lookups. It actually was disabled before, but people found an alternate css code that let them put music up. I'm kind of surprised TNT didn't disable this new css before this since they stopped allowing it in the first place.

Selfishly for me being on dial up, I'm glad people don't have music on lookups, pet descriptions anymore. Shops I believe still can have music - I tend to not shop in those, it just takes too long for the page to load.

[Ephemeride]

I'm on this site for more than 3 years... Yeah, I've seen music on look ups before and coming back! I think it's annoying and I'm glad it's gone again! Although I still like to keep that midi in my shop... I think my look up is fine, but I'm going to mail support and ask about it... Also about donations regarding guilds.

We erased the words "prize" and "contest" now... I'm not quite sure what we're going to do with donations... We'll have figure that later.
We have a note on our guild webbie now that says that we're not giving out prizes anymore, but it's up to the councils to give away gifts if they feel like that. I hope that's ok!?
I personally think this rule is stupid. I think it's good they wanna make the site safer, but with all these restricitions it's getting rediculous. You gotta think about every little word that you are going to say. And people that want to scam find a way to do that anyway...

[cat1205123]

So then, I'm assuming that also means that if you have a 'contest' and give out 'fake' prizes, it's ok?

Let me elaborate. I'm in a Harry Potter guild. We use the 'points system' and you can get points given to your house by completing 'contests' and 'classes'.

I'm assuming that's ok because we're not giving out neopets prizes, no?


Then at the end of the year, the winning house gets little tokens of appreciation from the Headmisstress. Yet this 'giveaway' isn't advertised.

And that's ok, because it's not advertised, right?

[XenaAndGabrielle]

First of all I would like to know whether it's allowed to fade out the sidebar completely. Cause that's what I do since more than a year already and never got a warning. But in Help Chat I read people got warned and frozen for it. I don't see why this could be wrong as I'm not altering my stats or anything like that which is clearly wrong...

I'm not sure if it is just my browser ... but the winner of the "User Lookup of the Week" this week (confuzerated) ... I can't see anything on my sidebar. I can't click any of the links, I can't see the search box or the 'link to us" link, or my user name/neopoints at the top.

If this isn't just my browser, I would guess you can fade out most anything if they are going to have the first winner of the userlookup contest do it.

[everconfused]

So then, I'm assuming that also means that if you have a 'contest' and give out 'fake' prizes, it's ok?

Let me elaborate. I'm in a Harry Potter guild. We use the 'points system' and you can get points given to your house by completing 'contests' and 'classes'.

I'm assuming that's ok because we're not giving out neopets prizes, no?


Then at the end of the year, the winning house gets little tokens of appreciation from the Headmisstress. Yet this 'giveaway' isn't advertised.

And that's ok, because it's not advertised, right?

Cat I don't know ... the words contest and prizes could be enough to trigger your guild being deleted, leader frozen, etc. I would not use the words contest, raffle, giveaway, prize, or donation even. Contests of any kind are against the rules - period.

The end of the year thing, it's not advertised, the "headmistress" just sends people items, right? That should be fine, as far as I know.

Xena, the sidebar links on the winnner's lookup don't work - for anyone. I believe it was done deliberately (once you enter you don't have to keep the lookup you've entered up - you can change your lookup) and secondly, it looks like they entered back when I did - before all the topbanner/sidebar changes. Look at the link names and where they are on the sidebar.

[cat1205123]

So then, I'm assuming that also means that if you have a 'contest' and give out 'fake' prizes, it's ok?

Let me elaborate. I'm in a Harry Potter guild. We use the 'points system' and you can get points given to your house by completing 'contests' and 'classes'.

I'm assuming that's ok because we're not giving out neopets prizes, no?


Then at the end of the year, the winning house gets little tokens of appreciation from the Headmisstress. Yet this 'giveaway' isn't advertised.

And that's ok, because it's not advertised, right?

Cat I don't know ... the words contest and prizes could be enough to trigger your guild being deleted, leader frozen, etc. I would not use the words contest, raffle, giveaway, prize, or donation even. Contests of any kind are against the rules - period.

The end of the year thing, it's not advertised, the "headmistress" just sends people items, right? That should be fine, as far as I know.

Actually, we call the contests games, but we do have a donation shop. Maybe I should consider changing it to something more like guild shop, or similar?

[Jens]

So then, I'm assuming that also means that if you have a 'contest' and give out 'fake' prizes, it's ok?

Let me elaborate. I'm in a Harry Potter guild. We use the 'points system' and you can get points given to your house by completing 'contests' and 'classes'.

I'm assuming that's ok because we're not giving out neopets prizes, no?


Then at the end of the year, the winning house gets little tokens of appreciation from the Headmisstress. Yet this 'giveaway' isn't advertised.

And that's ok, because it's not advertised, right?

as long as you don't use the word 'contest' it's OK!

(BTW, nice idea of the points system)

[Ephemeride]

Ok, I got a nice mail from our German support (too bad I'm in an English guild though...)!

He sad regarding my userlook up that it's not ok that the sidebar is completely faded out! The menu (or a custom one I guess when I look at userlook up winner) must be viewable all the time! He said that it could be deleted. He won't do it though (he waits if somebody else will do...) Well, I hope deleting my look up doesn't involve a warning, being suspended or frozen, cause I'm not going to change my look up right now...

Regarding Guild contests/games he thinks these rules are silly - as they are leaving loopholes... (Yes, and that's the point that keeps me frustrated to be honest.) He said we can go on playing games and maybe giving out gifts in the end - that's ok for him!
Donations are ok according to him... The only problem I see is that my guild is English and I think other support staff or monitors aren't this nice... Well, we're going to keep our donationshop for now. However we're not asking to donate though.

[Asparagus Queen]

He sad regarding my userlook up that it's not ok that the sidebar is completely faded out! The menu (or a custom one I guess when I look at userlook up winner) must be viewable all the time! He said that it could be deleted. He won't do it though (he waits if somebody else will do...) Well, I hope deleting my look up doesn't involve a warning, being suspended or frozen, cause I'm not going to change my look up right now...

That's odd, because the userlookup winner this week had a side bar, but you couldn't click on any of the links (like news, help, shop). Why did they win if that's not allowed?

[everconfused]

He sad regarding my userlook up that it's not ok that the sidebar is completely faded out! The menu (or a custom one I guess when I look at userlook up winner) must be viewable all the time! He said that it could be deleted. He won't do it though (he waits if somebody else will do...) Well, I hope deleting my look up doesn't involve a warning, being suspended or frozen, cause I'm not going to change my look up right now...

That's odd, because the userlookup winner this week had a side bar, but you couldn't click on any of the links (like news, help, shop). Why did they win if that's not allowed?

What?! fading out the sidebar is against the rules? Since when?! I know so many people who just have the sidebar faded out, but if you run your cursor down the space, all the links are there and they work. I thought the only problem would be if the links were disabled (which usually only happens with bad css - it's an accident). I don't know anyone who's had a lookup cleared just because they faded out the sidebar completely.

I know they've disabled music again - but that was not allowed for a long time in the first place. People just found an alternate css to let them have music. Kind of a get around the system type of thing. The css to fade out the sidebar has not been disabled, there's nothing on the user pref page or the rules or in the news saying that we can't fade our sidebar. We can't cover any of our user stats - but that should be common sense anyway.

Asparagus Queen, I think first that the lookup of the week winner - if you click the link to see that lookup - things were disabled deliberately. Also, if you look at the sidebar on that lookup note that the links are not the same as now. In other words, this person made and entered their lookup pre-topbanner/sidebar changes, like alot of us did. So I don't think that is a problem.