Pink Poogle Toy Forum

What is the point of freezing accounts, I ask you? I mean, if a scammer got their account frozen, what's stopping them from just making a new one?

The only thing that freezing does is annoy and hurt decent players. When their accoutns are frozen because of one small accident, or even a mistake, they lose everything, which is usually months or years of work. A worthless player loses nothing.

That's why I think TNT should abolish freezing, and instead introduce a new system of punishment: suspending accounts.

If a user is caught doing something wrong, their account should be suspended for a brief period of time, depending on the seriousness of the offense. Afterwards, their account should be returned to them.

If a user is caught mentioning another site, their suspension should last no more that 2 weeks.

If a user is caught harrasing someone, their account should be suspended for no more than 3 weeks.

If you swear or are offenisve, you should be suspended for no more than a month

Scamming and cheating should be the worst offenses and should recieve suspensions of up to 3 months.

That way, if a user is 'supposedly' scamming (when they're really not), they won't lose their account beacause some grumpy monitor had a fight with his girlfriend and wanted to vent his anger somehow.

The only time an account should be frozen if there is proof that the person is either a chronic scammer/cheater, or that they use more than one account to make np. If they use more than one account, they should be warned first, then frozen.


Soooo, what do you all have to say about that? Good Idea? Bad Idea? What do you think?

I think freezing needs to stay in touch.
Yes... I know lynch me because I said that, but we honestly don't know how many people are frozen for the right reasons because all we hear about are the wrong ones.
Because we're the ones that care.
I was frozen once, through my own fault, and I was unfrozen.
Granted, this borders on a year and a half to two years ago, so.... Meh.
But I admitted what I did, and I admitted to being stupid and not knowing better, and I was still unfrozen.
That may say a lot in itself.
I've heard a lot of people whine about how wrongfully frozen they were, when they were doing things that were freezeable offences.
I wouldn't mind them suspending accounts, but I personally feel that this won't work for everyone. Some cases yes, but some cases no.
I'm fairly sure that there are quite a few people that we just don't want unfrozen on the site.

Hear, hear!

Well, I'll give you my views based on the fact that I'm a mod on a completely different type of forum.

The forum is mainly for help, but we do have a "general" type board too.

Yes, we have Terms of Use - they're posted on the main page and again in the "general" board and also as a link in most of the mods signatures.

Our Terms are very similar to what you're suggesting. We have a 3 strikes, you're out system. First you get a warning and a note is made of that for reference. Get a second warning and you're banned for 3 days. Next is a 7 day ban. After that it's between 2 weeks and 3 months - depending on severity. Anything after that is permanent ban.

Of course, the forum is miniscule compared to Neopets or this forum.

Things like this for Neo has been suggested in one form or another numerous times, but I don't know if it can be implemented given the sheer number of people on the site. More staff to respond, investigate and reinstate wrongly or mistakenly frozen accounts would be a very good thing, IMHO. And of course, a full, complete, item by item do and don't list in the Rules would be wonderful and a huge help - to the members and the staff.

Yes, but you must remember that if a person is in fact frozen, what's stopping them from making a new account?

I mean, honest players are frozen for the exact same reason as some bad players. And if you're a bad player and your account is suspeneded, you honestly can't be bothered waiting for it to unsuspend. But if you're a good player, and you're forzen for good, you either quit or make a new account.

And just to add to it, make it that you cannot make another account using the same email address if one of your accounts that also uses that email address is suspended. Probably won't help much, but it'll still help.

And also, another freezable offence could be innappropriate usernames. I forgot to adfd that.

I prefer a strike+freezing system myself. Get a strike, have it public knowledge in your lookup and next to your name every time you post, and get x number of strikes=frozen forever. Strikes cleared every six months.

I don't think the real problem is having accounts being frozen, but some flaws in the support system.

Sure, it's a given that there must be hundreds of people trying to get accounts back, but honestly, with all the advertising Neopets does, would it hurt to hire some extra people to help get accounts returned? And sure, I think they freeze people so they will sign up with another account which boosts Neopets' total user numbers, but really, if we only mean that much to them, why even bother having the online site, they could probably do without it now.

If a scammer, etc gets their account suspended, they can also make another account, right?

Belive it or not, TNT doesn't have that many staff members. Take away all the mods, and you're left with less than 100 people! And considering the amount of money they make, I don't think it'll hurt them to hire a few dozen more staff members.





A Strike system would also work, but people would take advantage of it. I mean, lets say it's the last day before the strikes are wiped out. You'll have scammers and cheaters running amock doing whatever they please.





Exactly, my point! But neo shouldn't be abolut the number of accounts they bost they have. I swear that if this keeps going on, I'm gonna complain like crazy to their sponsors

Nothing stops someone from making a new account - unless they're IP banned. My understanding? people can get new IPs ... but I don't personally know how and I don't kow how many people would go through whatever to get one.

Yes, honest players are frozen for the same reason as the bad eggs - there's no getting around that. I guess the only answer there is if you are unfairly frozen to write and keep writing until you get an answer.

The email thing? I've heard of people not being able to make a new account on the same email if an account's been frozen. Basically they just never get their activation or the new account's frozen within a day or so.

"Inappropriate" usernames are frozen. I know 2 people with 2+ year old accounts frozen for that very reason - one got their account back, the other didn't. No profanity, no "hot", nothing like that. Some of the user and pet names I've seen have truly appalled me. Those shouldn't be on the site, and I think some people make these names up just to see how far they can push things.

Shapu! That would be excellent! Of course, you know there are some people who would actually revel in how many strikes they had. I mean there are people who take pride in how many warnings they've gotten or how many accounts have been frozen for things like harrassement. But overall, I truly like that idea.

TNT rarely IP bans, since so many people log in from schools and public computers.




Unfortunately, replies might take weeks if not months. And sometiems they simply refuse to unice your account. If it were suspend however, the person would learn from their mistake and if they repeat it, they should get permanantly iced.

But the way TNT is going now, it seems as if they're trying to wipe out everyone who plays on their site. My suggestion. Fire the current monitors and hire some decent ones.

I personally love how everyone seems to judge what the monitors do.
They don't know everyone.
They're just told to follow their rules and judge by what they've seen and by what they're supposed to do.
Sure they may make mistakes, but I doubt it's the easiest job in the world considering how many users there are.

Heheh, I guess you're right. But I can't shake the feeling that some of the monitors are just plain stupid.

Neoboard Monitors shouldn't be given the power to ice. I think that they should be able to 'suspend the account until further investigation', but not ice. Or mabe they should implement this strike system, so that monitors can only give strikes.

Excellent point! Yes, there have been cases of "bad" monitors on the site, but they seem to be dealt with. Alot of modding is looking at the terms or rules of whatever site or forum ... whatever it is, then using those and making judgement calls. It can be very difficult, I've found that out myself on a small scale.

Add to that that some of the freezings that occur, though we've had someone post to the contrary, must be something automated. Same with some of the warnings. I just can't imagine that there's that many monitors on every single board all the time to read through every post and send a warning. We know there's filters ... maybe some of what the monitors are catching flack for are some sort of automated system.

I know for a fact that there are automatic freezing bots on Neo. But ermmm, maybe they're a bit overloaded, do you think? Maybe the bots should only be given the power to send warnings.