I’ve Got a Lovely Bunch of Guild Invites, There They are Flooding Up my Neomail Inbox-Long Ones, Short Ones...

Neomail. Is it being misused, abused or befittingly used? It’s for certain though that Steff is cereal without milk- not happy.

“Long time ago, I would log onto to my account to see,

What my trusty Neomail had waiting for me.

It would say I had new Neomail, and I'd swell up with pride.

Just to find there was nothing but random Neofriend requests inside.”

Stepping and looking at my inbox is something I do not dare to attempt to do anymore without a map, a compass and a Tyrannian language translator. As I just can not predict what may lay in the ‘scary box’ at any given time.

“I can't get out of my account today

Or get you out of my mind

I just can't seem to find a way

To leave the spam behind..”

Yes, you probably thinking you can block guild invites, Neofriend requests and Neomail. But I don’t wanna! I really don’t have the heart to, as these types of Neopians have a heart deep inside their spam ridden bodies.

These types of people could change for the better, sure as long as promise to change their evil ways in the long run - my inbox is always open to flooding. They just have to let out their anger somehow. If it involves me doing the dance of the seven Viras around my inbox, maybe its for a good cause.

“I’ve got a lovely bunch of guild invites,

There they are clogging up my Neomail inbox! Dumb, dumb, du-dumb.

Long ones, short ones and some as big as a Neochat thread.”

Or, my alternate version of my song rant for my home boys and girls in da Times!

“As a user we spend a lot of our Neopets lives,

Living in a spammer’s paradise.

They think they have the power

Creating chain letters hour after hour

Its going on all the time, but the mods ain't always looking,

Flaming can get sometimes get tempers cooking.”

Weighing up the sides, I will group together the facts to decipher whether or not Neomail is functional or just plain ineffective?

Fanmail and Hatemail

Fanmail is all well and good,

Politely, well written like all mail should.

Its the mail that I like best,

To the land of delete goes the rest!

Fanmail is a lovely thing when you wake up to the morning too. Pieces of fanmail shine in the morning light. A lovely piece of Neomail full of advice, thanks, flattery or something else nice to read. Of course, there’s everyday general Neomail on top of that. I will class that under the neutral category.

You better hide, as soon as you can!

This isn’t nice mail from a NT fan!

It reads ‘No offense! I hate your guts!

You’re one nut short of a bag of peanuts!’

Ignore it!

On the opposite end of the spectrum we have a thing called hatemail. Often cleverly comes in the form of a Neomail disguised with a nice title so you feel inclined to read it.

Sometimes people like to write in chatspeak and some people class Neomails written like this as spam but I’m not going to pass any judgement whether I think it is or not. That is quite debatable.

If you are ever sent a piece of harassment or someone insults you really badly, report it and remember ‘If the Neomail is shockin’, the TNT team will come a knockin’.

(But use your judgement wisely- to choose whether the Neomail is report worthy or not.

Neofriend Requests (As in Neomails asking to be Neofriends, not the events up the top of the events page)

What? You are Neofriend requesting?

Oh, I’m sorry the wait for acceptance must be so testing.

Give me time to think, I’ve known you for 5 seconds.

But I’ll answer and serve to your wailing beckons.

I’m here 24/7 if you need a loan. I’ll be your Neo ATM.

No prob. I’m here anytime to mooch off, my new friend.

With visions of sugar Peachpas in their heads, some people think they can be before anyone. Plushieowner? No problem, she’s a soft touch. She’ll will give into my wishes for items.

Or most of the other time, I find I get random Neofriend requests just because Neopians have stumbled across my name somewhere randomly.

The person who has neofriended me, has not taken the time to find out anything about me or read my userlookup. I am not sure if I get speak for a lot of people, but I like to know someone a bit before I become their fully pledged Neofriend.

Bombarding people with Neofriend requests (if they aren’t blocked) or asking continuously (if their Neomail is open) is not the way to go about the first impression.

But if you are the type of person who enjoys randomly finding new strangers to be friends with, Neofriend requests might be your cup of tea.

I’d say Neofriend requests slightly slip onto the positive side. (You do have the option to block befriend requests if the request situation ever gets out of hand. Like if the Neopian Times set up a dating column that hooks up pets. Ew.)

Guild Invites

I am looking for a guild, for some good ole’ fashion fun!

But it is so hard to the right one.

Maybe an invite can encourage me to pick,

A guild to stay with and like Meerca Glue to stick.

Leave me alone,

I’ve said no thousands times before!

Sick to the bone,

Of piles of guild invites galore!

In reality, blocking guild invites does not work as people just send them through the normal mail system if the person has them unblocked.

An invite is quite an convenient way of plugging guild superiority- but pestering and promoting are two different things. Sure, sending one invite is okay but more than that is a bit extreme. On top of that, a few times people have bullied or pressured me to join guilds which I have already politely said ‘no thanks’.

People can search for their own guild, they don’t need to be steamrollered into a Lovers of Lennies or Plushie Collectors guild if they are not interested in what the guild focus is.

(Some people think they can lure me like Hot Koi on Sushi bed action with a newbie pack. I don’t think so.)

I would class guild invites as a positive thing. But people sending guild invites just to tend to abuse the invite system little and this overshadows the positive side for guild invites.

Beauty Contest Votes

“Oh, I am struggling artist! Do take pity!

Just take 10 secs of your time, vote for my pretty!

Only want the trophy and first in species prize,

Greed and fame I have in my eyes.”

Red alert! It looks like someone has randomly Neomails everyone in Neopia about their little precious, sweetie pie who has entered the Beauty Contest. A pet all dressed up into anthropomorphic array of clothes, with a story on their petpage that makes you want to bury your head in a box of tissues.

I have been in the Beauty Contest, yes it is hard to get votes. I can sympathise with Neopets Beauty Contest participants.

But in theory, the best picture should win. Not who has spent the most time Neomailing their friends, anybody who has been in the Art Gallery in past two months and their ex-Neofriends who they disowned after a tragic guild layout incident.

Good

Fanmail

Neofriend Requests

Neutral

Chatspeak Neomails

Normal Neomail

Bad

Guild Invites

Spam

Hatemail

Beauty Contest Votes

In all categories it was close but it turns out that Neomail is slightly more to the side of evil than good.

But unfortunately, this one Neopian’s opinion will not make a difference.

As Neomail is suppose to be an important of apart of Neopian life and makes the world go round..the twist, that is.

Author’s Note: If your opinions were shaken or stirred, go ahead Neomail me. But I wish you good luck to anyone who can get pass my armoured Grarrl Gladiator who likes to block my inbox, every so often.