Beverly C.

So... I see a lot of counter reviews about how it's easy to follow the rules. And to be fair - it is! There are a lot of rules, but it's not that hard to follow them. What IS hard is finding MODs who are willing to enforce the rules equally/consistently across the player population.

There is definite favoritism by the MOD team. Once the wool is pulled off your eyes, it's even worse than what it sounds like.

For example, one of the rules is to not use chat speak or acronyms (this is because of the international community, to help with communication - and that's totally fine. It's a pretty easy rule to follow). Here's what I noticed when it came to reporting threads that broke this rule: if the player being reported was an unknown person in the community, their post would be hidden and I would receive a note saying thanks from whichever MOD took care of it. However, if the player being reported was a well-known friend of people on the MOD team, the post wasn't hidden and I would get a nasty response from the MODs explaining why it was actually okay for that post--even though it was the exact same thing that got the unknown user's post hidden!

It is against the rules to message someone who has blocked you from messaging them. Like, clearly it is an offense that is instantly ban-able. When someone (not a MOD but one of their darling friends) who constantly harassed me, PMed me from a sub account to *threaten* me, I reported them. And nothing happened. In fact, I was warned to leave the person alone. This person continued to harass me in the forums. Every time I reported their behavior (I never retaliated and any interaction I had with them was respectful, which the MODs themselves admitted), I was threatened by the MODs. At one point, I was told that if I reported this other person's harassment of me one more time, the MODs would ban ME. The victim of harassment. I was told essentially that my existence made me responsible for the other person's harassment of me.

Running macros for contesting is (or at least was) against the rules. At one point, a MOD had an active thread advocating contesting with macros (this was many years ago). I had to point out in as non-confrontational a way as possible that it's against the rules, and the MOD's response was "oh oops" essentially. So, using macros is a ban-able offense. Did this MOD who self-admitted breaking this rule get a ban like most other players would have? Nope, and to my knowledge they are still a MOD.

The administration of this site is a whole flaming hot mess of poop on a doorstep. Most players are adults (not a problem). The actual kids on the site are often bullied by other players (adults!) or even the MODs themselves, and nothing is ever done about it. They allowed entire threads in the forums talking about how terrible all kids who played were - which should be a problem if they actually care about being kid-friendly as much as they profess to!

The rules aren't the problem. The inconsistent enforcement of rules, harassment (allowed by the MODs and conducted by the MODs both), and bullying are. The gameplay is just not worth the headache especially with the switch from pony-focus to item-focus.