If you are going to play Equine Ranch, be warned. There are more games being played than an animal genetics-based simulation. To be fair, Equine Ranch is a well-organized, complex and addicting game. However, my experiences with it in the mere two months of playing, were disastrous.

Though the owner claims to have autism, she also boasts of a lengthy resume, which it seems unlikely an autistic person would experience. To join the game, you are required to acknowledge the owner's condition - to excuse her online commentary from being considered rude.

If it were merely as simple as that, I'd still be enjoying the game. If you do take your chances and sign up to play Equine Ranch, please be advised not to commit the inexcusable offense of reporting a coding flaw to the owner. That was my first mistake. The second was three weeks later, when she finally noticed, I attempted to discuss it with her.

That's three weeks! Nearly a month after the problem was presumed fixed, did Mrs. Ward seek to punish a user (yes, myself) for as she claimed, "exploiting" the game. I do find it interesting that in the e-mail I sent to her, my intent to "not exploit a loophole in the game" was voiced. Simply because that was the exact word I used, in an e-mail communication she claimed not to have received. Had the "bug reporting" devices in place been functional, I'd have certainly used those. Repeated attempts to do just that came to nothing.

Having resorted to e-mail to communicate the problem and my concern, I had also posted the issue to one of the game's discussion forums. It was well evident to anyone who looked that a glitch had occurred. This glitch, specifically, caused my "horse" character to have "died" from the game, yet, remained apparently "alive" to the terms of the game. Able to be trained, cared for and utilized.

How was I to know that my game horsie was not silently left to me as thanks for my honesty in bringing the problem to Mrs. Ward's attention? How was I to know she'd have not endeavored to very publicly mock and humiliate me, had I sold it and thereby, profited from it?

In her thinking, this was self explanatory. I fail to see how, having received no communication from her until my game privileges were revoked.

After making a very public case about my "misdeeds," Mrs. Ward tried very hard to engage me in a chat room confrontation. All manner of nastiness was used against me, including accusations of doctoring e-mails, deliberate cheating and moral faults. This goes well beyond insulting. In legal terms, it is called slander and is a crime. Her smug and insulting comments to me were very graciously avoided as I merely wanted to call her attention to my 3 week-old efforts to point out the problem.

To punish a subscriber for a genuine error is reasonable. To do so in the open forum is tacky.

To have gone so far beyond the pale to make a responsible, ethical and considerate person into a criminal for the enjoyment of hundreds of others is wrong. That is the sort of person you will be dealing with if you choose to play this game.

I did not pay to be treated like a criminal.