Pink Poogle Toy Forum

I had thought the freezings were over the Improveneo thing, which I've got to say sure looks like using an outside program to get an advantage over other players to me. I think TNT has always made it pretty clear we're not supposed to do that sort of thing. I'm sorry that some good people were frozen over this, but I'm surprised that everyone seems so surprised by it.

I'm pretty shocked that so many people used the improveneo thing in the first place. People are usually incredibly cautious when it comes to their neo accounts, but tons of people ran that thing -- an obvious third-party program, and one its promoters deliberately tried to keep secret from TNT -- without a second thought. I highly doubt everyone who ran that thing knew what all the code meant, or personally knew and trusted its creator. And if TNT had to ban greasemonkey temporarily to (possibly) save all those people from really bad stuff happening to their accounts... well, good for them, I say.

I just read this thread and many seems to be think what neopets did was fair. Improveneo helps put improvement to the neopets site. Does neopets provide stock graphs or item price charts to their neoitems? Easy answer is no. Also Improveneo also alerts if there is a possible CG. Neopets has been contacted and are ususally a few months slow or just outright ignore neomails/e-mails about them.

Greasemonkey / Improveneo is a 3rd party program. So is Flash, Java, shockwave, etc. I'm assuming 2nd party programs are the browsers itself. Another thing I keep reading is "greasemonkey" is bad or ebil. Can someone show me something I missed or was this just assumed?

The Logic of not allowing GreaseMonkey is like saying:
Using Firefox or IE also makes us vulnerable to CGs, so should neopets ban us from playing if we use them?

They SHOULD make a Neopets Browser. What happen to suspensions?

Little off topic: How long has the logo been a frozen chicken at the upper left?

Nobody's denying that improveneo was a nice way for people to get stock and price data. But what if someone decided to slip some malicious code in there? Who created this thing, and where is he now? How do you know the program doesn't do bad stuff in addition to the good?

People should think twice before running any kind of third-party program, especially one that has anything to do with the shop wiz, stocks, or other np-related activities. Obviously flash, javascript, and shockwave are fine to use because neo itself requires them for some games and content. Neo does not require or endorse improveneo, and its backers were actually trying to keep it a secret from TNT! That doesn't sound like a safe thing to be running to me.

(I don't think anyone's saying greasemonkey itself is "bad." But it was used to make improveneo work, and TNT seems to have blocked greasemonkey temporarily to stop improveneo. We'll see what happens in the future.)

Third party software is -in this case- any software not written by you (client) or Neopets (server). TNT did not write Adobe Flash, Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Greasemonkey or Trixie (latter is a Greasemonkey for IE). They have no legal responsibility or even power over that software. So these applications are 3rd party.

There are sometimes (huge) bugs or exploits in third party software. There are sometimes backdoors in third party software. In other words, sometimes you can't trust third party software. Heck, sometimes you can't trust the software you wrote yourself. Lol. Who decides what software you trust to run? You. (However, some people who are not into 'computers' or 'software security' are not good at judging on such issues.)

The PHP code (and as result, the HTML code) on Neopets.com is not third party except when users modified it (e.g. for their userlookup, shop wizard, petpages, etcetera). This is frustrating because I'd love to trust http://www.neopets.com or neopets.com, but I cannot say for sure that all the content is written by the owners of Neopets.com. Such is a valid reason not to trust Neopets.com. As a result a valid reason to, for example, (by default) disable JavaScript for *.neopets.com.

(A little bit of explanation for others, then I'll get to your quote)

Greasemonkey works by allowing changing the page with javascript scripts to suit your needs. These scripts can be coded by anybody and uploaded for other people to select to download to their greasemonkey extension for their use.

Its especially popular in games like http://www.kingdomofloathing.com as you can edit pretty much everything about the site to suit your needs, you can add links to the page to let you get from one page to another quicker, you can have the site practically cook things for you, you can keep track of things easily by recording things for you etc etc etc

The creators of kingdomofloathing don't mind, and its a useful thing if you don't want to use the most roundabout ways of getting from one place to another.

In short, Greasemonkey can be very helpful, very harmless and can make things more fun and easy

However, Neopets.com doesn't like people "cheating" their site by using a program to get things to happen that others don't get. Its an unfair advantage and its a direct violation of the rules of the site (which everybody must abide to whether they like it or not because they clicked that delightful wee box way back when they signed up saying they'd follow rules or be punished)

That's reason number one for them not wanting Greasemonkey on their site.

However, the more dangerous, more threatening and the main reason that Neo doesn't want Greasemonkey on their site (and the answer to your "Greasemonkey=bad? question) is the fact 99% of people that use it aren't programmers.

You have a bunch of effective idiots (I mean that in the nicest way possible, but when it comes to programming Javascript, most people are idiots. I'm an idiot at it for Pete's sake) running a program that they willingly put on their computer. They have no guarentee the program is doing what it was promised to do and nothing else. Even if they scan through the code, without understanding every single line of it flawlessly, they're potentially installing something on their computer that takes your password, sends it to Player X along with your email password, Bank PIN and anything else they X desires.

Players who are so cautious about not trusting links sent to them in case of cookie grabbers, keyloggers, trojans, virus', microscopic bacteria etc may jump on the chance to make their playing easier, and download a greasemonkey script under the assumption that "Oh! Its a program on Firefox, it must be safe"

Its that attitude that scares Neopets, and rather than allow anything like that to happen on their site to a large degree (especially in password snatching incidents etc), they removed the sleeve with the hole in it while they sewed up a patch. Its not the best solution, but it prevents more fabric coming undone while they work on a long term solution for it.
I don't think most people were complaining about not being able to use ImproveNeo, I think people were more upset that Neo forced them to stop using something that they use legally on other sites, even if it didn't affect Neopets.com.

Anywho, its water under the bridge now, so let's hold hands, skip merrily down drury lane and find that Muffin Man and his delicious wares.

I have been following this topic for several hours now. And there were stuffs that has been said that I feel I must comment on, thus, I have registered and posting this reply.

Neopets is an online gaming site. It's free but also has Premium service to those who are willing to pay for additional features. Neopets has merchandise and other products that can be bought and collected outside of the game itself. What I'm trying to say that Neopets is a business. It's a company. It's a business entity.

Thus, with that, we can all agree that they have a right to do with whatever they want to do with their business. But their being all powerful and authoritative together with confusing and conflicting TOS is killing their business in terms of customer relations. They have been freezing paying customers account without any warnings. And that, for me, is really poor business ethics/practice.

If this scenario can be replicated within physical structures, this freezing would cause media controversy. It's like walking in your favorite restaurant then, finding out you can't get in because the owner deems that you have been stealing/not following the rules. You asked for further explanations and they won't answer. And you think what did you do wrong? It's your favorite restaurant where you've dined almost everyday and you know the rules perfectly well. And suddenly, you're just barred from getting in. Won't you file a complaint? Ask for explanations?

Hopefully you guys can see the parallels. Please don't say 'But that's Real Life and Neopets just a Virtual site, pixels in your computer'. Yes, Neopets its a virtual site but keep in mind that people are spending their time on it, some even their money. Neopets should give us the courtesy of informing us, free users and paying customers alike, whenever they're planning to do any drastic on the site such as banning a browser add-on such as Greasemonkey. Inform us that blatantly in the News like "Hey, for us, using this is against the rules. We are giving you ___ days to uninstall and stop using said script. Failure to comply will result to freezing" and not just freeze people, like W3, with a generic reason "found to be using a 'cheat' program". It's like staying overnight in a hotel then suddenly the guards are all over the place and you are being kicked out. You ask why, they would say because you've been found of carrying a deadly weapon. What weapon? Where? Proof? See, Neopets didn't provide a clear enough explanation. It didn't provide proof or anything that would clearly justify W3 being frozen.

"But you should know the rules! It's in the TOS. It's says here and here and there and there." Guys, how many of us have been so confused with all of TNT's rules and TOS? How many of us don't know the answer to the grey areas of the rules? How many of us wonder why this rule is conflicting with this rule? How many of us really know whether we are threading the line of being against the rules? Really, TNT's rules and regulations are so conflicting that us users don't know where we really are in terms of "following the rules". We don't know all the laws of our own country until someone sues us for doing something we thought was completely innocent. But we are allowed to defend ourselves right? We are innocent until proven guilty but not in Neopets world. We are guilty until proven otherwise. And the justice system isn't any good.

Yes, we don't have to play Neopets. We can just walk away if we don't like how they're managing things. But you see, the reason Neopets is here because we are here and vice versa. Our whole existence as a Neopets community resides in our existence as a whole. If one falls away, the other goes with it. Thus, TNT and the users should work in balance. We have always been listening to them. Isn't it time that they should be listening to us by actually acknowledging out questions and not answering with more vague answers that's conflicting with the current TOS?

I don't care if they get mad at people for using ImproveNeo. Oh, one comment - w3neo never worked on Improveneo. He only let people talk about it on his site. It was never his project, he never worked on it, and the official site is not his nor does he have access to it.

And if the ENT would pay attention to stuff (maybe they could hire a few more staff members to better their customer service!), they might notice that it's all over the place - it has its own website, it is talked about here, neodaq, neoitems, google, etc. If the ENT would visit the common people like they used to, maybe they would have noticed it before now. My problem with this is that ImproveNeo has been being used for MONTHS - and littlemac DID try to contact Neopets (Or someone did, I don't remember if it was him or not.) and got NO REPLY. (As for where littlemac is, he posted on Neodaq just last night.) Something has been going on for MONTHS and they all of a sudden just decided "oh, we better shut down greasemonkey for everyone and make a lot of people very angry at us for stopping them from playing Neopets at home or while they're doing anything else. And while we're at it, send flighttime to threaten to freeze everyone talking about how Neopets is exploiting a bug" (seriously, if something was going to happen, it would have happened by now, not last night.)

And, Neopets users can't exploit bugs - that's wrong. But it's okay if Neopets, Inc exploits bugs - that's fine. (Although maybe it's not since they commented out the code.)

People should start keeping a list of what they can and can't do by their computer. Keep java on. Keep greasemonkey off. Don't download anything from anywhere while playing Neopets. (mp3's and all, you can and people have gotten frozen for that.) Get Dial-up, so Neopets doesn't think you're using an auto-buyer when you're rs'ing. Don't use bookmarks - those are shortcuts and that's an advantage. Make sure you turn off your auto-refresher while on Neopets. You can get frozen for refreshing your guild message board!

If Neopets made their own browser, I'd be the first one to get it. Although, the random Trojans or viruses that occasionally pop up in the ads would make me nervous. So - better get premium, because you can bet the browser wouldn't let you block ads. There's probably be 3-4 toolbars. Tarla, google, yahoo, maybe one or two others.

I suppose I'm just getting tired of having Neopets dictate how I need to have my computer running while I'm on the site. Pardon me for using my computer how I like. (and NO I was not running improveneo. I have used it, and liked the cookie grabber warning, and the hiding the shop garb so I didn't have to see 40 pictures and songs when I visited a shop, but I have not had it run for a long time.)

Anyway, I didn't get to comment last night before I went to bed, so I just wanted to answer Morningstar's question and reply to a few things. But like I said and it's been said, for now, gm is allowed again, so I'm done with this topic until Neopets decides to tell me I can't run aim while on Neopets because I might be discussing selling my account.) Oh, I'm a premium member too, so I pay $7 a month for them to tell me how to run my computer.

Edit: Please don't take this post as me yelling or throwing my fists around. It's a simple adult discussion, and I was simply typing. I'm disappointed in Neopets, but not angry at any poster in this thread.

Do you really think that Improveneo would contain something like that? And if it did, you think that people would still be singing it's praises on the openly advertised "Improveneo Sub forum" on the Daq forum?

Unless your thinking of some other Programs that may use GreaseMonkey (Which I'm unaware of).

If not, surely the same argument can cover the viewpoint that all HTML/JavaScript/User own images/content or whatever allows people to use CG'ers should also be disabled too? - Which they really haven’t blocked fully due to fact we see CG'ers popping up once a month or so.

In all, it isn't really "Under the Bridge", with the founding member of the Daq forums still being frozen for simply having this supposedly "hidden" area of his forum with the GreaseMonkey Script. (Which has been there, openly visible for at least 6 months, how long would it have taken neo to put a message on the news notifying us whether or not it was not allowed? 1 or 2 minutes?) Rather than blundering in freezing people, (whatever happened to warnings/suspensions?)

It's just a pity that the lack of communication we have between TNT on matters such as this has led to this.

(And don't get me started on the fact that TNT is exploiting a Firefox bug to invade our privacy)

Just my 2p

Jon

Or the extremely obvious website: http://www.improveneo.com/ with forums attached.

I must admit I don't understand any of the technical side of anything that has been discussed - I wish I did.

But what I can make out is that people are still trying to play Neopets with an unfair advantage against those of us that are technically challenged.

But then I don't need to know anything technical as TNT state (sometimes not so clearly - but enough to know right from wrong) that programmes of any kind that give one player and unfair advantage over another is not allowed.

TNT are not telling you to get rid of your programmes but simply telling you not to use them on their site.

I do have the auto refresh band on Firefox, but I know TNT do not allow it to be used - so I don't. Why complain about it?

The world has more than 1 browser and I am sure if the one (or the add-ons) you are using cannot be taken off, then choose a different browser for Neo.

TNT have always been behind the 8-ball on many glitches and cg's and other nasty stuff, but eventually they sort it out. It seems this is another one of those occasions.

The fact that there is a programme called "Improveneo" is a worry - it is clearly designed to improve (hence the name) how someone plays on Neopets - clearly this is an unfair advantage.

Once again, it staggers me how many people will defend doing the wrong thing just because it has been 'around' for awhile and TNT hasn't acknowledged it. For every 1 person that is using this programme (or similar) within reasonable limits (if it can even be justified on Neo), how many are abusing it and are cheating at the game?

It just seems to me, that TNT are damned if they do and damned if they don't.

Problem with that is that you can't simply do that - disabling Greasemonkey for Neopets wouldn't work for 98% of users - they would still get the error.

I didn't have ImproveNeo installed, and I was still unable to use the Shop Wiz.

Again, totally understand not allowing us to use ImproveNeo (though I don't see why now, after almost a year or so, when they've been contacted about it and well aware of it - but that's not the issue at hand). But it's when you have to completely uninstall an extension just to use the site - even if you've never used Greasemonkey in conjunction with Neopets, ever.

Of course, the unfair advantage has now been turned around to the Premium users.

I SSW and SWed 2 different items (at random, just ones I knew had a decent price), and these were my results..

Devilpuss Plushie.

SSW:

sublimemindaz 1 29,000 NP
freyasdottir 1 29,000 NP
xohpdragonluvrdmxo 1 29,500 NP
tonilpkelner 1 29,850 NP
very_happy_woman 1 29,995 NP
original_account 1 29,999 NP
vamprysscarrieannesb 1 29,999 NP
yorkie224 1 30,000 NP
rosecrimson 1 30,500 NP
calipya 1 31,000 NP

Normal Wiz:

silverlugia860 Devilpuss Plushie 1 50,000 NP
sunray324 Devilpuss Plushie 1 50,000 NP
firefly9898 Devilpuss Plushie 1 66,666 NP
silverbikerchick Devilpuss Plushie 1 69,999 NP
shangley Devilpuss Plushie 1 75,225 NP
flipfrog50124 Devilpuss Plushie 1 79,888 NP
fathers99 Devilpuss Plushie 1 85,000 NP
striker802 Devilpuss Plushie 1 89,460 NP
f40guy Devilpuss Plushie 1 90,000 NP
fatmanbeyondthesequ Devilpuss Plushie 1 99,000 NP
fluffypuff00 Devilpuss Plushie 1 99,000 NP
sumerfantasy Devilpuss Plushie 1 99,999 NP
blazen2u2 Devilpuss Plushie 1 99,000 NP
lorenwong Devilpuss Plushie 1 99,999 NP
luckyx26 Devilpuss Plushie 1 99,999 NP
kendallwest Devilpuss Plushie 1 99,999 NP
kianhongng Devilpuss Plushie 1 99,999 NP

The majority of my searches didn't return any results at all.

Now, if you look at the results from the normal wiz, the 's' group showed up. However, sublimemindaz's one didn't show up in the group of S's.

--

Eizzil:

SSW:

cjemackey 1 32,999 NP
rifled_only 1 33,000 NP
schelmixi 2 36,999 NP
sdtriton 1 37,500 NP
rubyhummbird 1 37,800 NP
monmon155 1 37,899 NP
les_canadiens 1 37,999 NP
thomashawk761 1 38,998 NP
helena25834 2 38,999 NP
cyberheld 2 39,000 NP

Normal SW:
perseverance_ Eizzil 2 55,221 NP
comeondealalready Eizzil 1 78,999 NP
carmyyyyy Eizzil 1 83,000 NP
chuckhaugh Eizzil 1 89,500 NP
winbri Eizzil 3 96,500 NP
jjs_babygirl Eizzil 1 97,000 NP
catcaprice Eizzil 1 97,000 NP
corvair_owner Eizzil 1 97,000 NP
camzzzz331 Eizzil 1 99,900 NP
candie_apple Eizzil 1 99,999 NP
crispaul Eizzil 1 99,999 NP
johnson2574 Eizzil 1 99,999 NP
mr_mogwai Eizzil 1 99,999 NP
zz7227 Eizzil 1 99,999 NP

Again, a user starting with 'c' can be found on the SSW selling one for 32,999 - yet the lowest, when searching in that group, is 78,999.

I don't know what the reason for that was, but something really odd is going on.

How about just using a different browser?


As to the SSW - there is a glitch, even though it favours Premium, it is still only a glitch - I made a board about it.

I'd honestly prefer not to use a different browser - I use FF for everything on a daily basis, and IE for my side, so I don't confuse the two and do a daily on my side, for example.

Of course, it is an option, but one I would rather not resort to.

And yes, I realise it's a glitch (despite some rumours going around that it's a way for TNT to attract members to premium), I'm just worried about what it'll do to the economy in the time it's fixed by the end of the weekend. Lab maps, for instance, have already began to rise ._.

Oh well. Guess we'll just have to wait it out until Monday, and hope that everything's sorted. An announcement in the news would be nice, though I don't expect they'll put one up, as they don't normally tend to.

*frustrated* Many people are defending Improve, like I am, because TNT hasn't clearly stated that it was or wasn't okay. What the script basically does it shows the lowest price of stocks during the day, shows a graph of its history, shows the pricing of an item. Basically, it doesn't really do anything that gives us, users of the script, any advantage. It just shows those information in my browser and doesn't really do anything to make us anymore richer than those who doesn't use it. What it does is "improve" neo in a way that we don't have go through open windows/tabs of neopets just to check the price of items.

However, it has been acknowledged that the script may be bordering grey areas of Neopets TOS. Thus, the maker of the script,littlemac, contacted Neopets ages ago and there was no response. So how should we have taken that? Was it a yes, it was okay or no it wasn't? One thing is for sure, that ImproveNeo wasn't "hidden" or made "secret" from TNT. It has a forum, it has a website. You can check it out for yourself, where you can see screen shots of how it works. So to tell that these people purposely hid it from TNT is really quite insulting. These people have dedicated quite a lot of their time playing Neopets as honestly as what is indicated in the rules.

So, TNT could've just REPLIED and said that ImproveNeo wasn't allowed and must not be used. And it would've been done and no more neopets users could've downloaded it. But no, they choose to keep quiet then BOOM, freeze, freeze, freeze, freeze. With their freezing frenzy, they haven't even checked if they're freezing the right people. w3, for one, didn't create the script, he just happen to open up a section of his forum for that.

Like I've said in my previous post, TNT's rules and regulations have been so confusing and conflicting. We don't really know where we are. One example is the ad-blocking and sponsor links. There wouldn't be threads about those here discussing what does TNT mean about this and that if TNT was so clear cut about their rules. That is what is SO frustrating about the whole situation.

One example of the whole confusion: see the bolded underlined parts of the quotes? Are those people with High-speed internet have unfair advantage because those with dial-up are technically challenged? What about those who have Mac or running a different software and have to use a different browser, are they technically challenged or do they have unfair advantaged because they have these and these features in their browsers? Can Neopets really dictate to us what features we can and can't use with our browsers and computers? How about the Tarla alert? Aren't those with the toolbar have an advantaged? or those with the links?

Clearly clearly clearly TNT's rules/TOS isn't CLEAR cut enough. It just isn't. Thus, it would be really really NICE of them to INFORM US of anything that has been quite acceptable to use for quite sometime that it really isn't acceptable. A simple email, an announcement. Any mode of communication would have been a great service to all us so that we would know and probably avoid any unjust freezing of respected old-time players.