Who killed CockRobin?

[VirtualMetal]

TNT's robots did.

They ate him last night followed with a warning about inappropriate language.

Anyone else think their system is going a little too far? I've heard of other people getting warnings for innocent words and phrases. Also the fact he was removed literally minutes after being born (1 minute away from me painting him Christmas, you know, like a robin) makes me wonder about the "we don't use bots" statement. How did they find him in two minutes and how did a human find it offensive?

Very glad it happened before he got painted though. It's not really a lot of np but I'd rather keep the pet I spent it on. =D

I suppose my real beef is that recently I've been reporting someone for serious offensive political propaganda in their guild, message boards and account details to no avail and little CockRobin is berated within minutes of his life. Just seems a little unfair.

[Daze]

As much as you think that TNT is unfair, I cannot begin to imagine why you thought you would be able to have that name.

We all know of the TNT censors (whether bots or humans), so why challenge them? It may be a harmless name to those of us who know the rhyme, but in all honesty, I don't have much sympathy for anyone who tries to be 'clever' with names like those.

Even though I am an adult and have no qualms about swearing and talking about adult things, an even throwing out innuedos, I find it refreshing not to have to wade through such stuff on this site (there are so many more other sites for that).

Maybe you have just grown out of Neo?


A little afterthought:
The rhyme isn't really about a bird.

[Ange]

I'm not sure why you're surprised, either. That name contains a word that is definitely otherwise banned from the site. I can understand your anger/confusion, though, when it comes to reporting political propaganda that shouldn't be on the site either.

[VirtualMetal]

Funny as it may seem to yourself I was not trying be clever at all, the idea was purely innocent as I'm currently working on an art piece of the poem with illustrations. Not really sure what you're insinuating about me either. I personally don't see why it wouldn't be harmless to those who've not read the poem, maybe I'm naive?

As for; The rhyme isn't really about a bird.
I'm not quite sure what you're getting at, I'm aware the theories as to why it was penned yet they don't change anything.
----

Also
NOTE: I am not surprised, merely irritated that my childhood loves are deemed wrong yet I am unable to remove harmful propaganda from the site. Is there anything bad about me feeling saddened by this?

[Mongrel]

Truthfully, I'd never heard of Cock Robin before this topic. Maybe the person who froze you hasn't either. And even if they did, they had to know that a lot of little kids wouldn't know the poem either. It's a lot easier to remove the pet first, rather than wait a couple days and get angry emails from ignorant parents who jump to conclusions when their kids ask what a Cock Robin is.

[VirtualMetal]

Well, generally a cock is a male bird. Everyone please forgive my ignorance in thinking this was generally known.

Just to clarify, I wasn't frozen. Clearly the staff (if there was one) took it for ignorance, which it probably was.

Moongewl, you do have a point about ignorant parents. I guess they haven't seen the neoboards. =)

[Jerch]

Well, generally a cock is a male bird. Everyone please forgive my ignorance in thinking this was generally known.

Just to clarify, I wasn't frozen. Clearly the staff (if there was one) took it for ignorance, which it probably was.

Moongewl, you do have a point about ignorant parents. I guess they haven't seen the neoboards. =)

Interestingly, 'cockbird' is allowed on neopets - it's a 187 days old Ogrin.

If they feel that 'cockbird's an acceptable word, I simply can't see why cockrobin isn't allowed on the site. Or perhaps, the other owner has been lucky so far?

[VirtualMetal]

Same goes for; Peacock, Cocker, Shuttlecock, Ballcock, Woodcock, Cockyroach. But cockbird is a very good example, as that's all cockrobin is, a cock bird, i.e. a male robin.

Like I said, I'm not surprised they removed him although at 1.30am last night I couldn't work it out. C'est la vie I guess.

[Jenna!]

It's simple. Words have multiple meanings. Words that used to be innocent have wide-spread slang definitions to them. Example? A donkey or a female dog. If you made a name with one of THOSE in it, no matter the context, I'm pretty sure it would be deleted too, and most likely you warned or frozen.

[VirtualMetal]

I'm quite sure you wouldn't be frozen for having a pet named Assembly.

[yvonne_l_d]

I can understand the monitors' point of view. They have to walk a fine line, and there's a lot of grey area that they have to wade through, which is possibly a tiring job.

But I do understand your frustration. I got a warning for saying either husband, wife, or maternity leave. I'm not certain which word is the culprit. But everything I said was family friendly. When I mentioned maternity leave, I did not say anything about pregnancy or anything physical. (In fact, the woman I was talking about had already had her child.)

[Byakuya San]

...and yet TNT publically announced that Snowflake, the former editor of the Neopian Times, was leaving Neopets to get married.

[Meer]

The existent to which they sensor things really mystifies me. I mean, I understand they want to make neopets as child friendly as possible, but when you can't even mention that you have a wife, husband, or are taking a maternity leave, that's just weird.

And I can't count the number of times I have gone to work on my petpage, then got scolded by the filter for some word or phrase that I had no clue could be wrong in any way. And I freely admit that outside of neopets, my mind spends a lot of time in the gutter. So if there is some possible innuendo about something, it will likely occur to me.

I can completely understand their reasoning for deleting CockRobin, but I agree with you it's very sad that so many innocent things can't be said just because it might be construed the wrong way. I've been frustrated by that often. And it's really weird that they were so quick to react to your pet name when they let much bigger offenses like the ones you reported continue.

[VirtualMetal]

The husband/wife/marriage thing worries me. I'll be sure to be careful when I tie the knot! I'd like to tell my guild as I'm sure most people would. Unfortunately those idiotic teens on the boards have even ruined it for people announcing the births of their children with all the "pregnancy" type posts.

I personally feel that it's something to do with their size, location and ownership. Maybe they're so afraid of being sued they really will go through everything with a fine toothed comb? But then what I find weird about that is the state of the Neoboards. In 7 years I've watched them change from friendly well monitored areas to free for all where almost anything goes. I understand that monitors do as much as they can, but a few more of them wouldn't go amiss. It would be beneficial since it's a 24 hour site to have night and weekend monitors too (I heard they have these but I suspect only a small number). Weekends always have the filthiest postings that stay up for hours. Then there's my problem with these political messages and guilds. I'm not picking on small things either like one comment or word, these are full blown guild fronts with off site links and forum posts of a dangerous nature that stay up regardless.

[WolfMaiden]

I'm quite sure you wouldn't be frozen for having a pet named Assembly.

I just checked, and theres both a pet and an owner with the name Assembly