I'm a rule following girl. I think rules are in place for a reason, and as long as they're not obviously unreasonable, I'm going to follow the rules. Everyone makes mistakes of course and slips up, but that's unintentional. Yet, somehow, someway, enforcers in all forms always seem to target out those tiny, unintentional slip ups compared to people who are obviously intentionally breaking rules.
My first example is my first ever ticket. I received it when I just barely rolled a stop sign near my apartment. I lived at the base of a hill occupied by a college, so yeah, I know there were plenty of college students that were ridiculously poor drivers, but instead of pulling over the people that blatantly sped, drove drunk, or completely blew stop signs, all of which I witnessed tons of times, they pull me over for barely rolling a stop sign.
Also, I had never been pulled over in my life before. I've been in a car that's been pulled over, but I was not driving. So, after getting pulled over for such a small, inconsequential reason, I got a ticket instead of a warning. Awesome, especially since it was when my boyfriend and I were struggling to pay rent with us both having jobs.
Second example is my recent experience with the moderators on Gaia Online. I often roleplay on the website, and often will open new threads to look for new RP partners in the appropriate forum. To be honest, I've been using the same general self-imposed rules for my roleplay partner search criteria for years now. A few weeks ago, after my thread have fallen weeks and weeks into the post history of the forum, a particularly bored moderator managed to fish through the threads to find mine and send an 'informal warning' about sexually inappropriate material for my references to off-site naughty bits.
To be honest, I love the naughty bits in roleplays. Sexual relations between any created pair of characters helps develop them in the eye of reader, and well, I'll be honest that it's fun to write.
Still, I got this silly informal warning that the incredibly bored moderator managed to get pissy about, so I went and changed it. Today, I then get another, actual warning of the same nature because I apparently didn't change the material correctly, even though they didn't bother to tell me exactly what they wanted in the first warning. Now, I got my entire thread deleted, and since I had it in my thread subscriptions, I have the annoying, ugly, bold red reminder of the dick moderators preying on me out of boredom with 'Topics Blocked: 1' at the bottom of my list of subscribed threads.
I have never gotten in trouble on the site before, only having received one informal warning that was a legitimate case of moderator power abuse that was promptly reported to the company. I had ordered a piece of art where my character was nude but holding the black bars over their naughty bits, which was perfect for the sassy nature of the character I was ordering for. Considering Gaia itself had a damn item that turned avatars into the offered art, it seemed alright. I got the PM warning once the shop got closed down, and I literally threw a fit and reported the moderator. Should have just turned my character into an avatar with the described item, then they really would have had no rights to say shit.
Lastly, there's reddit. I am very new to the site, and honestly didn't understand some of the posting regulations. When a few of my posts advertising my blog started to not show up, I PM'd a moderator and asked about it. I used perfect English, was super nice, and thanked the moderator when they explained everything to me, notifying me that I needed to add variety to what I posted, to make sure they weren't all from one source.
As I tried doing that, however, I realized I couldn't post anything, and googled it. Found out people's accounts are often put on a sort of lock down if they're reported as potential spammers. I searched my name in the reddit search bar, and found out the nice moderator I thought was being a friendly helper simply had just reported me as a spammer even though I had obviously contacted him as new, confused member looking for help.
When I critisized him for not thinking before acting, he spoke of a duty to Reddit rules, and all I thought was 'They have a rule about being an ass to new members and trying to make them feel unwelcome? That's odd.'
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