No worries! I figured as much but just in case wanted to clarify. I have in the past had people contact me about if it went on their permanent record. In terms of auto locking I am not opposed to it. I try to catch the boards before as Suggestions can be cyclical but it is also a nuisance since we don't have have a bulk lock feature. It's a one by one basis. Moving them has gotten a lot better though. It used to be an endless alphabetical scroll of ALL subforums which includes private ones. We can't even see them, but they show up on the list. Can you imagine how many avatars, items, suggestions, chat we see?

The biggest issue is honestly people finding old boards from Google searches. So yeah I get your frustration. And yes I can see how it can be intimidating, I try not to be as does the rest of the team. Just like you we are people who play the site as well. :)

Further thoughts -

1. Subeta's forums are a quiet little backwater that the modern internet passed by years ago. There's nothing wrong with this because it's nice to get away from the modern internet for a while.

2. There will never be much in the way of meaningful communication because the rules don't allow it. The forums could still be a relaxing and fun place to be, though, if it wasn't for -

3. Many people are scared of saying much in case they break a rule which isn't clearly defined or accidentally necro a topic. Threads like What did you get from the Galley? are safe but venturing into the Social Scene forums is a bit like walking into a minefield.

I knew it. Sneaky sneak

I've been trying to think of a way to answer this, and to be completely frank, I don't think there's any perfect way that would put everyone at ease. It's part of the nature of the job, to be in a position of quasi-authority (although you'll probably be viewed as having full authority) that people will want to avoid doing the wrong thing and will feel chagrin at being corrected, especially publicly.

However, I'd keep in mind that a lot of the people who make the mistake of posting in the wrong spot do so because they are in an unfamiliar place. It might help to put people at ease with a slightly warmer and more welcoming message. There's nothing wrong or cold about your message, but it is very matter-of-fact and direct, and people will read into that what they will. Neutral tends to become negative if you think you've done something wrong, and you kind of have to combat that tendency.

So maybe something like, "Hey! We're glad to have you join in the conversation, but this topic is a bit old and we like to keep things fresh around here. I'm just gonna lock this up so it can be archived. Why don't you join the chat over on [this thread] (OR why don't you start a new topic in [correct forum])? I'm sure people would love to hear from you."

You can put it into your own style, but the main points are to explain to them what needs to be done without making them feel like they were wrong or unwelcomed.

I don't think it's quite that bad and restrictive. Both taco and etc. are highly normalized in English speech; there is no other word to replace them with. Like I wouldn't go around saying, "Man, I just love fake Mexican food. That's why I often visit Meat-and-veggies-in-a-shell Bell" (although that sounds kinda catchy, heh). But there is a lot of gray area, and I don't know how far is too far. I don't even know how to react to it from other users. Another user posted "Thank you so much for your help" in Russian in response to something I did, and I didn't know how to respond, because I didn't want to get her in trouble by drawing attention to it or make her feel bad about something that in any other context would be a very sweet gesture.

I agree, actually, which is why I said:

The formatting goblin must have eaten that part when you responded ;) I don't really want to speculate any further on the interpretation of the rule though; would rather just wait for official word. There's enough going on in the thread as it is XD

I think this used to be a thing a long time ago. It would be nice to bring it back.

(oh god I could go on about this forever... maybe I should make it its own feedback thread...)

Long time ago I got a warning because an image I had in my forum signature included one Chinese character. Again, in an image, and it wasn't anything being said, it wasn't even a sentence or full formed idea. I would like to point out that when this happened these items already existed on the site , but the character depicted in that forum signature wasn't included in the set.

In a rule clarification question I asked in a recent ticket, we are also not allowed to use emojis that feature kanji characters. That's fine, I'll follow that rule, but.... it's 2019 yall....... why does the site support emojis and yes there are some with script from nonEnglish languages depicted but I can't use some of them.... Perhaps I should avoid using emojis period because they aren't English language. Weird that we have code support for images that communicate meaning, but usage of it technically means you're communicating in a language that is not English, a site rule. ?

Human cognitive functions in language are not locked to a specific language. Historically, users of languages in contact with each other borrowed ideas and terms from each other and sometimes they become accepted in the other language (bandana lasso naive rendezvous). We process images to have meaning as well as words. Even in using a specific language, we read in between the lines to understand what the author is saying. Yes there should be a line drawn, like "don't make an entire post in Spanish we can't read it" but that's a very different context to a full corpus of English text with one nonEnglish word, or an artist's signature that includes nonEnglish script.

Other things I can't post in the forums due to this rule: nonEnglish calligraphy (french latin russian etc), Arabic calligraphy, Chinese/Japanese calligraphy. Conlangs... don't post Sindarian Elvish poetry but also made up words (google/googling wasn't really a word in 1980 and definitely means something different in 2019). If there are reaction gifs that happen to land some onomatopoeia (eg Japanese written out sound effects, commonly seen in comics) that is subbed or artistically rendered (like a comic POW!), I can't share them on Subeta. It's fine, I will find my friends in other places and migrate off of Subeta.

Unfortunately it doesn't matter how we interpret the English Only rule. What ultimately matters is if the site determines that we broke the rule, period. And until the clarification for the exact official interpretation of the rule is made publicly available and accessible, everyone just has to make tickets and try to fill in the rest of the holes for themselves, because there's obviously rhetorical leeways for what the rule exactly says right now. Language is most definitely a fluid construct. I definitely used loanwords from other languages in my prose, but they have been accepted into the generally accepted English lexicon. I'm also trying to make a claim for why the current official interpretation is not very good; ultimately you'll lose user engagement, but I guess the site deems solid steel moderation more important. I'll just continue complaining about why I don't likey lol

I understand the idea of why the English Only rule might be necessary, but as it is, it's quite limiting in our increasingly globalized world and interconnected Internet culture. If it was possible to make a subforum that allows nonEnglish language, that might be a good compromise... but that also might just be limiting.

That being said at least this rule does not/no longer applies to PMs, user profiles (comments are still part of the rule though), and pet profiles. But PMs are one-on-one messages, you can't share that to a community.

I agree completely. I think a lot of the official rules for Subeta actually need to be reviewed and many rewritten for clarity. Some of them are not written in a straight-forward manner. The rules that are not listed or not described in full absolutely need to be added.

(the issues and advice subforums were a lifeline for me back in the day. subeta is relatively anonymous and the community is small and closeknit, at least for that subforum. it was definitely a safe space. don't know if it still is. but now reddit is a generally better place for the same purpose)

That's good to know. I've never been quite sure, because it doesn't mention them in the rule that I quoted earlier, but I guess I kind of felt like they were included? Maybe at one point they were, as your no longer implies.

Somewhat relieved. I have the Spanish word for United States American on my profile as a self-identifier. I like how they've managed to squish all of that into one word, which we can't in English for multiple reasons. But I've half wondered if one day I would get yelled at for it.

This was something I always hated about Neopets - their unclear, often inaccessible rules and their freeze-/warn-happy mods. Subeta is usually lightyears ahead of Neopets on most things, but here they have fallen short. And maybe that's another reason people like myself feel scared of doing the wrong thing. We come from other sites where doing the wrong thing very easily got you in trouble.

rulesssss

I don't dislike rules or following them, but if they are written in a way where it can be construed that something is acceptable behavior, but upon clarification that behavior was not ok under the "correct" official interpretation, those aren't good rules. There should be as little gray as possible; as much clarity as possible. And it's no use complaining to the messenger, in the case of the lovely UAs helping me with clarification, so I'm just going to add my two cents to the feedback forums, haha.

I can't exactly remember, but I think the rule did not specify which places it applied to before. It is still filed under "pertains to entire site", which I believe is a relic of that time. I know for sure nowadays that on pet profiles it's completely allowed though. I believe there were plenty of spotlight winners in the past that had nonEnglish images or story. But it is definitely still weird to not be able to fully, richly discuss that, because while pet names are allowed to be not English, it makes discussing it weird.

EDIT: if non-English language was allowed in forum groups/forum group threads, I think that might be a better compromise than an official subforum?

Totes agree with all that!

Edit: ZOMG I just discovered what this Pulse thing is! I had no idea what it was - it never showed up for me before today. It would be so useful if we could actually customize what subforums we want within forums, as you said!

< thanks! glad I'm in a fit of clarity and not insanity lol

what really tickles me is that the Jabberwocky poem is probably not ok to post in the forums directly (but anything goes if you put it in a pet profile)

I'd be on board if you started a thread about this - in suggestions, maybe? I'd find time to reorganize and present my thoughts on the matter again in a topic of its own, if it'd be helpful.

I'm glad to hear it. I was wandering around the forums and discovered that a new user had found a topic they were interested in and made a post. A mod locked it for necroing. Even though the previous post was 2017 the topic was unlocked at the time so must have given the new user the impression that it was still open.

I see that nobody has added anything to my experimental video topic (now in the internet subforum) but I'm not surprised. I wondered what other videos I could link to if somebody replied and I had problems -

1. A man going to be executed for murdering a woman. Maybe not. The song - Tom Dooley. According to wikipedia - "Members of the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time." It was also a big hit in the UK and US in 1958.

2. A very famous Scottish ballad about two ravens finding a knight's body and discussing what they're going to do with it. Is this Subeta's idea of PG13? The lyrics are in the Scottish dialect. Does this count as not being in English? I'd better not quote anything from Robert Burn's poem To A Mouse either just to be on the safe side.

3. Hamlet's Soliloquy in Klingon. I know Klingon is a fictional language from Star Trek but it still isn't English. Maybe I should send in a ticket about it. Can't be bothered. I'll share it on Facebook instead.

I took a look at it. Three topics with the last posts being 12/10/11, 7/19/12, 7/29/13. Why hasn't a mod locked these topics? Why is this subforum still on the site?

The web design forum and the creative corner pricing forum have no minimods. Old topics also don't get locked unless they get necroed.

fwiw, Reddit is also supposedly PG13, but there are manymanymany things there that are for ages 18 and up. Same on Twitter, Instagram, etc. Considering the PG13 rating was intended for movies (and to a lesser degree video games), I agree with you that Subeta needs to provide a list of what's allowed on the site and what isn't.

I mean, a child NPC was murdered in one of our plots. Survival involves gory things as well as cute ones. We have zombie shopkeepers. Gunter murdered his brother. And I'm not even going to touch on the plethora of user-owned pets that have characters tied to murder, murderers, abuse, or even hints of incest. Sometimes those are even spotlight winners. Tickets were filled, green flags were given.

fwiw, I'd rather keep politics and religious discussions away from the site because Subeta is a doll dressup and virtual pet site, not a place for getting all real and heavy with IRL things. You could always fill a ticket and ask if you could make a forum group for level-headed discussions of such things in the private group forums. But on the other hand, private group forums have also contributed to the demise of the public forums.

You asked me how the 21+ forums I've brought up would be filtered - we already have our birthdays entered into Subeta's system when we've registered. That's why you have a little cake icon next to your username for your birthday! So that's a potential way to auto-screen 21+ topics. Children can and often will lie about their age to get access to a site. But on Subeta, we can't manually edit our birthdays after they've been entered once. We have to make a ticket for that. And if someone's making a ticket to change their birthday from... idk... 2004 to 1992, that's an obvious red flag.

But for entertainment and socializing, most kids nowadays are more interested in games on the go and social media than they are in a tiny little petsite full of nostalgia. No matter what we do, we won't have a bustling hive of activity on the forums, but I think some things should still be cleared up to put the existing forumgoers more at ease.

Many complaints I've seen from people posting on the forums were for warnings given for forumset & signature sizes. That worry could be removed by having the forumset image size auto-resize to the max allowed height, kind of like what it does in posts if you post a giant screenshot. Or completely cut off in the case of signatures. If that's possible... One less thing to be frantically paranoid about. Is it 2px too tall, or is it juuust right? Did that line of text from my favorite lyrics in my signature put it over the limit, or is it okay?

Ohyep. The rules need a giant workover and iirc it's something that's been a WIP for a long time now so I'm hoping it might be close to completion. :'| The whole rule about having to be 13 or older to even play subeta is a great example. I have made ticket inquiries about users under the age of 13 playing Subeta with parental permissions. You have to be 13+ to play Subeta, you are not exempt from that rule even if you have parental permission.

The whole parental permission thing is from when the site was just starting, it was a small home-run project by Keith so they let kids join with parental permission. That whole line about parental permission? It only applies to accounts that registered waywayway back during that time. And realistically, how many of those people are even still around? All of them are well over the age of 13 now.

I know, right? I like to lurk around in Bragging & Complaining in case I can help people out if something that went wrong is easy to fix. I really don't want to get notifications of the restocking, gift bragging, random events or quests & achievements subforums for the B&C.

I get that, and I'd also be more selective with my likes. But considering you can literally like a pet every 24 hours with the current system, maybe that change would make liking things a little more worthwhile and a little less... I don't know. Meaningless? Pointless? Useless? All three, because semantics?

I mean, if I remember right, the pet community's been concerned that there are less and less people talking and participating in stuff in the pet forum. A toggle for seeing who liked your stuff might make it a little less intimidating, but it's still a double-edged sword.

Plus, considering how little the community socializes to begin with, I don't think it would really result in a flood of "OMG THANK YOU FOR LIKING MY POST/PET/AVATAR" comments. :P

Things I don't like about the subeta forms:

1. Yup, necro. "Make a new board" yeah but there were well thought out points on the other board, so I'ma just link it anyways and someone will probably look and forget which board (old or new) they're posting to and potentially get warned. So just make no board ever.

2. I have to dig through 5+ pages of boards to make sure it doesn't already exist/hasn't been posted on otherwise mine will be locked and I'll be told to post there. Again, solution is just don't make any boards ever.

3. Discord. Yup.

4. Never talk to someone directly ever, especially with thoughts or opinions because if you didn't words correctly you'll probably be taken the wrong way and get a warning for hurting someone's feelings when really maybe you should have proof-read your 250 word post for the fifteenth time just to be safe.

5. Let's be real I cuss a lot and type in all caps A LOT and that'll get me warned.

6. Also being real I speak mostly in linking random things I find on tumblr/inspiriting character stuff/memes and rambling pointlessly about nothing -waves hands all around here- which is why discord is great because there are so many forums/subforms/this board already e x i s t s did you even lo o k/etc that I just can't be bothered these days.

Edit2add:

7. How could I forget the most important reason I even forget forums exist half the time: when the lag starts, will the board even load? Probably not. Better try again, and again, and then just give up.

So what I learned from this post is 'interacting with people outside of the advertising forum is like walking on a minefield. Who knows if the bombs are deactivated?'

I say 'Advertising' because you can't really mess up 'want this item?' 'sure', 'more money', 'no'.

tbh the same can be said for interacting with anyone online ever. :X Speaking from personal experience: the advertising forum is no exception if you're anxious about talking to people. If anything, it's worse because if you need the sP/CSC, you feel pressured to sell the items, and people tend to swarm if you're selling lots of stuff. GL keeping tabs of all the pings while forcing yourself to be social and not feeling like a dick if you've missed replying to someone. I've had people get snippy with me for going on a first-come-first-serve basis, and I've felt like dogshit for telling someone that I'm not interested in going 80% off on something that's unobtainable. I've also been pestered to "please can you sell The Thing to me for a super low price please?" even after I clearly said I'm not interested in going that low. :'|

but the whole point of you suggesting public "likes" in the first place was in an effort to get conversation going - so its kind of contradictory to now suggest that people won't intrude because of it.

Also, there's already dozens of ways to secretly stalk people (and be nosy) on this site, no need to add yet another.

I had a laugh at that.

In seriousness, though, yeah interacting with humans and considering them landmines is largely all of the internet and a large part of the human experience. However.

I can say things like "Hey that's interesting but your idea really needs some work" and probably get a warning because I didn't say "this idea is terrible, no support" which is ruder but since not directed at the human being who had the idea it's total fine. Slay the idea all you want, as long as you under no circumstances address the human being who's idea was just demolished. Heck, even throw an absolute shamefest towards something that was said on a board (but never the one who said it, no no) and you'll be fine and if someone makes the mistake of calling you out well they'll be the one with the warning (true story).

I understand the driving force of the guidelines, I really do. There are a lot of topics that are extremely touchy and poking them with a stick can be cruel and hateful, but at this point I am absolutely terrified of posting in the forums and pinging another human being unless it involves "hey I'm interested in your pet that's UFA" or unless I know the person directly. If I slip up once and speak to a person directly in a less than cotton candy and rainbows tone with not the slightest trace of passive-aggressiveness or shade, then yay warning(s). I wouldn't be surprised if this nets me one, despite me proof-reading it to make sure I'm addressing no one at all.

(disclaimer: this is directly entirely at subeta and no human past or present, just me and my utter frustration of the subeta forums and me probably not posting again for the next six months) (which is sad, I used to be very active in the forums, but I've got too much sunk cost to risk interaction.)