Community Reminder November 2020

[BlackOak2]

It's time for another one!

And today, we have a special announcement. Our admins have made it official, though we were already practicing this most important (well probably most important) internet safety rule, it seems some of our members are either not aware of it, or have been blatantly ignoring it.

Internet Safety is a Very Important practice to keep in mind. For children, a necessity, for adults, still should be highly considered.
Only WE, AS INDIVIDUALS, ALONE can be our last and only shield of protection across this vast and hidden world. There is scary things that exist in our world and those scary things hide quite easily behind a screen. And, as for the adults out there, our underaged crowd takes cues from us. If WE practice it, we teach through example and they'll also learn to practice it.

So, without further ado:
Do NOT share your home address.
Do NOT share your home city or town.
Do NOT share photos that offer names of anything recognizable.
Do NOT share photos with any underage face not blurred (really any face).
Do NOT share phone numbers.

...There's a few others, they're not coming to mind currently, but common sense defines that you never offer anything that can easily trace back to you...

And the one that our admins have made a new point about:
Do NOT share emails!

According to admin, it shouldn't be offered anywhere on the site, but there have been applied new restrictions specifically targeting our forums. Here is the snippet:

Rule #0: Don't Post Your Email Address
I shouldn't have to tell you this, but do not post your email address on the open forums. People who aren't logged into HWO can see the forum and bots troll the internet for email addresses. Just don't do it.
If you use your school email address and you post it I will disable your ability to post on the forums outright. I don't care how old you are, it's not a safe thing to do.
If you see an email address posted let the poster know and let me know so I can remove it.

We have been warned.

Link to the rules forum: viewtopic.php?f=12&t=18330

[Aurelia]

[quote="BlackOak2"]It's time for another one! :mrgreen:

And today, we have a special announcement. Our admins have made it official, though we were already practicing this [i]most important[/i] (well probably most important) internet safety rule, it seems some of our members are either not aware of it, or have been blatantly ignoring it.

Internet Safety is a [i]Very Important[/i] practice to keep in mind. For children, a necessity, for adults, still should be highly considered.
Only [i][b]WE, AS INDIVIDUALS, ALONE[/b][/i] can be our last and only shield of protection across this vast and hidden world. There is scary things that exist in our world and those scary things hide quite easily behind a screen. And, as for the adults out there, our underaged crowd takes cues from us. If [i]WE[/i] practice it, we teach through example and they'll also learn to practice it.

So, without further ado:
Do NOT share your home address.
Do NOT share your home city or town.
Do NOT share photos that offer names of anything recognizable.
Do NOT share photos with any underage face not blurred (really any face).
Do NOT share phone numbers.

...There's a few others, they're not coming to mind currently, but common sense defines that you never offer anything that can easily trace back to you...

And the one that our admins have made a new point about:
Do NOT share emails!

According to admin, it shouldn't be offered [b][i]anywhere [/i][/b]on the site, but there have been applied new restrictions specifically targeting our forums. Here is the snippet:

[quote]Rule #0: Don't Post Your Email Address
I shouldn't have to tell you this, but do not post your email address on the open forums. People who aren't logged into HWO can see the forum and bots troll the internet for email addresses. Just don't do it.
If you use your school email address and you post it I will disable your ability to post on the forums outright. I don't care how old you are, it's not a safe thing to do.
If you see an email address posted let the poster know and let me know so I can remove it.[/quote]

We have been warned. :mrgreen:

Link to the rules forum: viewtopic.php?f=12&t=18330[/quote] oh no. What do I do? My email isn’t linked to me, but what do I do?

[BlackOak2]

oh no. What do I do? My email isn’t linked to me, but what do I do?

This is for emails posted on the game, not emails used to register and log in.

If you have emails posted in the forums, remove them. If you have emails posted in sales ads or stud ads, remove them.

And it's suggested to also remove them from farm pages, so just locate the emails and remove them from the written areas.

[Aurelia]

[quote="BlackOak2"][quote="Aurelia"] oh no. What do I do? My email isn’t linked to me, but what do I do?[/quote]

This is for emails posted on the game, not emails used to register and log in.

If you have emails posted in the forums, remove them. If you have emails posted in sales ads or stud ads, remove them.

And it's suggested to also remove them from farm pages, so just locate the emails and remove them from the written areas.
:)[/quote] ok. Well. My email I design a while back. It has the wrong address and stuff and location is off altogether, and it has no personal info (bday is wrong too). It’s for players on multiple games to contact me by. Is that ok?

[BlackOak2]

This is for emails posted on the game, not emails used to register and log in.

If you have emails posted in the forums, remove them. If you have emails posted in sales ads or stud ads, remove them.

And it's suggested to also remove them from farm pages, so just locate the emails and remove them from the written areas.

ok. Well. My email I design a while back. It has the wrong address and stuff and location is off altogether, and it has no personal info (bday is wrong too). It’s for players on multiple games to contact me by. Is that ok?

On your farm page? Admin suggest not having any, but offered that it's much more difficult to police the farm pages.

I will also be sticking to that answer. You should consider removing it, but it's much more difficult to police farm pages.

That's all I can offer.

[ExRaceHorseChamp]

It's time for another one!

And today, we have a special announcement. Our admins have made it official, though we were already practicing this most important (well probably most important) internet safety rule, it seems some of our members are either not aware of it, or have been blatantly ignoring it.

Internet Safety is a Very Important practice to keep in mind. For children, a necessity, for adults, still should be highly considered.
Only WE, AS INDIVIDUALS, ALONE can be our last and only shield of protection across this vast and hidden world. There is scary things that exist in our world and those scary things hide quite easily behind a screen. And, as for the adults out there, our underaged crowd takes cues from us. If WE practice it, we teach through example and they'll also learn to practice it.

So, without further ado:
Do NOT share your home address.
Do NOT share your home city or town.
Do NOT share photos that offer names of anything recognizable.
Do NOT share photos with any underage face not blurred (really any face).
Do NOT share phone numbers.

...There's a few others, they're not coming to mind currently, but common sense defines that you never offer anything that can easily trace back to you...

And the one that our admins have made a new point about:
Do NOT share emails!

According to admin, it shouldn't be offered anywhere on the site, but there have been applied new restrictions specifically targeting our forums. Here is the snippet:

Rule #0: Don't Post Your Email Address
I shouldn't have to tell you this, but do not post your email address on the open forums. People who aren't logged into HWO can see the forum and bots troll the internet for email addresses. Just don't do it.
If you use your school email address and you post it I will disable your ability to post on the forums outright. I don't care how old you are, it's not a safe thing to do.
If you see an email address posted let the poster know and let me know so I can remove it.

We have been warned.

Link to the rules forum: viewtopic.php?f=12&t=18330

I honestly thought it was a basic rule everyone knew when playing any type of game with others for what NOT to do:

Do NOT share your home address.
Do NOT share your home city or town.
Do NOT share photos that offer names of anything recognizable.
Do NOT share photos with any underage face not blurred (really any face).
Do NOT share phone numbers.

[BlackOak2]

I honestly thought it was a basic rule everyone knew when playing any type of game with others for what NOT to do:

Do NOT share your home address.
Do NOT share your home city or town.
Do NOT share photos that offer names of anything recognizable.
Do NOT share photos with any underage face not blurred (really any face).
Do NOT share phone numbers.

There appears to be an uptick of recent occurrences, so admin has seen it necessary to verbalize it in our rules.

But there is an inclusion to that, that wasn't a ruling before.

Very specifically, this part:

If you use your school email address and you post it I will disable your ability to post on the forums outright. I don't care how old you are, it's not a safe thing to do.

Which wasn't originally a part of our rules.

There has also been occurrences that I know of separately that our own players have contacted other of our own players using emails offered on farm pages and that have not been necessarily game related. However, those that I've heard of, have already been handled.

So even within HWO there are possibilities for things to happen. We have a full system of PM and forum and chat, all, of which, can be safely monitored, backlogged and checked by admin so such things can be put to rest if need be. It protects all of us. Plus... I've never tried it, but in the Forum Setting section, one of the options is a game-notification sent to our personal email when certain things happen, like pinging in the forums. It's game-sent and not player sent. I don't know if it works though, I have all of that turned off, because... When I'm logged off, I'm off the game! (and also generally off the net, Hah! )

[Aurelia]

[quote="BlackOak2"][quote="Aurelia"][quote="BlackOak2"]

This is for emails posted on the game, not emails used to register and log in.

If you have emails posted in the forums, remove them. If you have emails posted in sales ads or stud ads, remove them.

And it's suggested to also remove them from farm pages, so just locate the emails and remove them from the written areas.
:)[/quote] ok. Well. My email I design a while back. It has the wrong address and stuff and location is off altogether, and it has no personal info (bday is wrong too). It’s for players on multiple games to contact me by. Is that ok?[/quote]

On your farm page? Admin suggest not having any, but offered that it's much more difficult to police the farm pages.

I will also be sticking to that answer. You should consider removing it, but it's much more difficult to police farm pages.

That's all I can offer.[/quote]
No it’s not on my page, I gave it to a player because they’re my boss. I work for them. Honestly I’m not that worried. They had posted a video chat and I didn’t enter, but saw she’s my age or younger and told her to take it down.

[BlackOak2]

No it’s not on my page, I gave it to a player because they’re my boss. I work for them. Honestly I’m not that worried. They had posted a video chat and I didn’t enter, but saw she’s my age or younger and told her to take it down.

So... this sounds a bit odd. And I'll take it the way it sounds. Next time, if Any Person, even an 'admin' asks for your email on this game, Don't Give It. Think of it this way, you've heard of those emails of the saudi arabia prince that needs to unlock their monies from the bank because they've been frozen and they need a fee to do so... and so on. It's a similar situation. Feel free to off your email if it's YOUR decision, but if anybody requests for you to do so, that should always send up flags. It's a game, there is simply no reason for anybody to contact you outside of the game, so in any case, such things like giving out emails is simply nonsense. However, in the end, none of us can stop you if you choose to do so. Just try to be thoughtful about it.

Also, if admin wants to know your email, they already have it on file and it's easy for them to find it. So anybody that might poise as an admin asking for such information: email, password any other personal information, should be reported immediately. If it's an actual admin, they'll let us know through other means, regular ones. But if it's not, then the problem or whatever back-door that might have been opened will be fixed.

It's all suggestions though. You're free to play the game pretty much however you want. So if you decide to offer an email for some business on the game, just do so in selective ways where it's not readily available to just anybody.

And I would have been incredibly suspicious about that video chat thing. You did the correct thing not entering. I've known players for years on some games, considered them trustworthy, safe and even enough to be defined as a 'real life friend' though I've only ever spoken to them through games and email (in one odd-out case), yet I still wouldn't join a video chat willingly and without heavy suspicion.

If that particular person offers any further suspicious activity, I would suggest to put it to bed in quick manner. Regardless of if it's entirely innocent, such internet activities should never be encouraged, for the young, or the adults. Be that role model for that 'boss' of yours and keep things strictly game.
And remember that the community can guide you or just move right to admin to put a stop to it.

[Cutiequeen4]

No it’s not on my page, I gave it to a player because they’re my boss. I work for them. Honestly I’m not that worried. They had posted a video chat and I didn’t enter, but saw she’s my age or younger and told her to take it down.

So... this sounds a bit odd. And I'll take it the way it sounds. Next time, if Any Person, even an 'admin' asks for your email on this game, Don't Give It. Think of it this way, you've heard of those emails of the saudi arabia prince that needs to unlock their monies from the bank because they've been frozen and they need a fee to do so... and so on. It's a similar situation. Feel free to off your email if it's YOUR decision, but if anybody requests for you to do so, that should always send up flags. It's a game, there is simply no reason for anybody to contact you outside of the game, so in any case, such things like giving out emails is simply nonsense. However, in the end, none of us can stop you if you choose to do so. Just try to be thoughtful about it.

Also, if admin wants to know your email, they already have it on file and it's easy for them to find it. So anybody that might poise as an admin asking for such information: email, password any other personal information, should be reported immediately. If it's an actual admin, they'll let us know through other means, regular ones. But if it's not, then the problem or whatever back-door that might have been opened will be fixed.

It's all suggestions though. You're free to play the game pretty much however you want. So if you decide to offer an email for some business on the game, just do so in selective ways where it's not readily available to just anybody.

And I would have been incredibly suspicious about that video chat thing. You did the correct thing not entering. I've known players for years on some games, considered them trustworthy, safe and even enough to be defined as a 'real life friend' though I've only ever spoken to them through games and email (in one odd-out case), yet I still wouldn't join a video chat willingly and without heavy suspicion.

If that particular person offers any further suspicious activity, I would suggest to put it to bed in quick manner. Regardless of if it's entirely innocent, such internet activities should never be encouraged, for the young, or the adults. Be that role model for that 'boss' of yours and keep things strictly game.
And remember that the community can guide you or just move right to admin to put a stop to it.

I made an email just for this game, it is all wrong. Even the address isn't real. I made up an address. All it says is Cutiequeen4thehorse. It is totally untraceable! HAHAHA I believe that I am safe. But, I am taking into consideration the rules. Thank you blackoak2, this means a lot. You're smart.