Oh man, this is turning into LOLz Festival 2010

OK so (I'm laughing even as I type this) I was editing a new account last night, The-Home-Watcher (Spoooiiillerrr) and I was searching through the mounds of shit people call "Threads" over at the Lithium forums trying to find Something to even make a comment on at the Least. I came across this thread. Another good ol' fashioned brown-nosing thread made by NARDE15. Basically it was just him saying how much Home rocks his world, he added a few plugs towards the end for his podcast things, and then ended it by saying 'hola'. Which was weird to me, I mean, why would he saying 'hello' in Spanish at the End of his post?
Anyways, another guy comes in behind him, quite literally, and starts brown-nosing NARDE15 for his excellent brown-nosing, calling him "an awesome veteran closed beta tester." So now you have dual brown-nosing going on and things are starting to get hot and heavy. ADAMPwns comes in with some music and another dude asks "You're a Vet? Since When?". In which some other guy makes a snarky remark and tells the above person to "study up ;)".

Now that we're all up to speed, I present you with the following:

[*Note* this shot was taken before I posted it, obviously] So I kept an eye on the thread for a little while until i went to sleep. Just got home about an hour or so ago, go to check the thread and blamskee, perma-ban actiooonnn hahaha. I go into the forums anyways because, I'm Kapow and I do what I want, and check on that thread only to find that my criticizing RE had been deleted completely. Not really surprised at this point.
But I wonder, did they perma-ban my new account simply because of the name, or because I criticized their piece of shit "application", or....well, let's face it, that's Exactly why. I mean, I hadn't told anyone about that account up until now so there's no way they new it was me trying to "evade" my ban. I guess they don't give out warnings now either. They just profile people instead.


Anyways, hope this provided some entertainment for you guys like it did for me.

We got your back nigga!

I got a great email today:

Hey,

I just tried to sign into my PSN account to find I have been suspended. I called Sony to find out what I had been suspended for, and they told me that I was quote "performing a 'hate-speech' on July 2nd". I found this hard to believe. When I picture a 'hate-speech', I think of someone standing on a soap-box spewing hateful ideas or views towards a particular race, sexual orientation, religion, etc. I asked Sony's representative to elaborate what happened on the incident in question. They said I used a 'v' in the word fuck to bypass their filters, for that I am guilty although that is hardly suspension-worthy. But the funnier part of this so-called "hate-speech" was the part where they said I was calling people "niggers". Now, I have never called anyone a 'nigger', I am an African-American and I use the word 'nigga'. I am sure that with today's popular culture, you are probably very familiar with the similarity and the difference in the 2 words. When an African-American refers to another African-American as 'nigga', it is the equivalent of using the words 'dude', 'brother', 'friend',("That's my nigga"), or if you use it in a different way it can be the same as 'person' ("That nigga's crazy"). We both know what the word 'nigger' means, so we won't get into that.

Looking back at this whole hate-speech thing makes me remember the countless times I dressed my avatar up as an Arab man. When I signed into Home as an Arab male, I was appalled. I was bashed by everyone, male and female, young and old, noob trolls and well dressed veterans. They bashed me for being a Muslim, insulted my faith, my culture, they stalked me, some even sent me messages through my XMB even after I signed off of Home! I reported them multiple times via the in-home select button deal, I sent messages via the XMB to the Community managers, I was so fvcking offended. I got not one apology from anyone, not a message back, nothing, just more abuse when I went onto Home as that particular avatar.

So now they banned me from signing into their network because I wasn't talking like I would talk to my Grandmother. I made no "hate-speech", maybe I used a little inappropriate language at times, but it was far from a hate-speech. As a Muslim, they assaulted the core of my existence, my faith, countless times and I feel they should be held accountable for letting that behavior go unchecked while I get hammered on for using a couple inappropriate words they want to jumble around and call a hate-speech.

If you want to go on a little experiment again (I remember somewhere you were going to assume the role of a teenage girl), you should dress up as an Arab man, go on home and feel the pain and persecution of what an American Muslim must go through. The hateful and downright offensive things home mods will slip under the rug will astound you. I'm never signing back into Home again, when my suspension is lifted I'm deleting the application and creating a new account.

I remember reading somewhere on this blog "Sony is this generation's Sega", I think that hits the nail on the head and after their bullshit "10 year ps3 life-cycle" is complete we will be playing Sony games on Nintendo and XBox. They better pray Apple don't feel like jumping into the game world, we'll be using those Sony 3d game discs as coasters. "Make-Believe", yea, make believe your ships not sinking Sony!!!

Sorry to hear that nigga! I once got suspended for hate speech because I said "Let me bend over and take it in my ass like a fruit." I was horsing around with people I know outside the boundaries of others view. However a mod saw it I assume and bam. Hate speech. Not knowing what the fuck I did when I received this suspension, I called the tech support line and forced the guy to tell me exactly what I said. It was funny to hear him recite that exact line back to me, since my suspension happened like 3 days later. I forgot I even said it. I don't think "fruit" is really hate speech, same as nigga. It's all in perspective. Hate speech is reserved for... well, people who hate.

J-T-W-NY Talks about her "mystery ban"

As many have seen, J-T-W-NY is an outspoken critic of Home, as well as a Home user. Recently she was banned for account scamming.... which she never did. According to the folks she dealt with when trying to fix her account, there was no reason for the banning. Her words:

Abolished from Home

My nightmare began on Friday, May 28th. I had been in Home that morning. But I logged in again in the early afternoon and found that I could not log in. I received the "You cannot use PSN with this account" with the (8002A231) code. I phoned SONY to find out what the suspension was for and it's duration. I honestly thought it would be a week to a month for "text abuse" because I recently was in a discussion with someone about whether the word "negro" is meant to be a slur or not.

Imagine my surprise when, after being shuffled through several people, I finally received the answer. I was told that my account is "abolished," given a permanent suspension for "account scamming." The rep told me, when I asked what "abolished" meant, that there is no hope for my suspension being lifted.

I asked for details, and he told me it stemmed from an incident in Home on May 21st, the previous Friday, where I was trying to find out people's passwords and get into their accounts so I could use their personal information on a website that generates PSN codes.

My heart sank and my mind went reeling at this false accusation. I thought that either an honest mistake was made or someone was out to get me.

Several times I asked which website and which user's account I supposedly hacked. He didn't know. H said there was no more information except the charge and date. I asked him what I said on May 21st. Perhaps I said something that was misconstrued, I reasoned.

I was placed on hold while the customer service rep looked up that information. After fifteen minutes on hold he comes back on and tells me it will be a while, and offered to call me back. I told him that I'm fine waiting on hold. So I go back for another twenty minutes.

He finally comes back on and is looking through something on his screen. I'm not sure if he was searching actual chat logs (which wasn't likely) or looking through comments and words that were flagged by the mods. He finally arrives at May 21st and, after a pause, says "this is strange. I can't find anything. This is the strangest thing I've ever seen."

He mentions lifting the suspension and releasing the account, but he needed to speak to the "Home people" before doing so to find out what is going on. He apologizes for the upcoming Memorial day weekend and for the long wait I'm going to have but promises to call me back next week.

I wait. I phone SONY on Tuesday and am told the rep is looking into it. The rep I spoke to calls me on Wednesday to tell me he's not forgotten me and is waiting for a response from Home. Thursday passes and finally on Friday June 4th he calls, and tells me that my account has been unsuspended and I can use it now.

I did ask if there were an explanation for this, but he told me he doesn't know. The impression I got from my conversation is that he asked, but the Home people didn't tell him the reason for this. I found it interesting that our conversation ended with rep giving me his personal number with the admonition to call him if anything else happens in the future.

Without concrete information it's difficult to draw conclusions from this incident. It could have been an honest mistake, but the extremity of the charge and the severity of the punishment suggest otherwise. I sometimes think it is a response to my defending of artform-fazeone on my blog on May 22nd, but it's all speculation. However, I am happy that I reached a caring customer servic rep who took the time to look into the matter and correct it for me.

A mystery. Seems anyone willing to speak out against Home has a bad day. More of these as they happen.

CommaderKoopa calls out the lithium MODs

Ok first of all, I just realized that his name is CommaderKoopa rather than CommanderKoopa. Weird. Anyways, I'll just let you folks click on the picture and read for yourselves.

In somewhat unrelated "news", maybe Koopa could
do me a favor while he has the MOD's attention and ask why I get this every time I go to the lithium forums.


















*note* my (Kapow) ban ended almost 2 weeks ago, the ban page doesn't say I've been banned indefinitely and I received no e-mail saying I've been perma-banned.

Have you been banned from the Lithium forums for talking about and/or mentioning Home-Watch?

Written by: Kapow

If you have, please comment below or e-mail us with what you posted and please try and provied some proof.

Try to follow this guideline:

• What you originally posted

• If they edited your text, what did they edit it to and what was their reason.

• PMs from MODs with warnings and such.

• The Ban Screen (the screen you get when you try to look at the forums after having been banned).

I think that's good enough. And remember, only people that have been banned for talking about, mentioning, or referencing Home-Watch in any way, should comment or e-mail.

This includes, but is not limited to:

• Watch
• The Watch
• Home Watch
• Home-Watch
• PSN Home Watch
• PSN Home-Watch

http://bit.ly/cUwVcn

Breaking News

Written by: Kapow

It's been brought to my attention that you can now be banned for simply mentioning Home-Watch. Not even the URL. Just.Home-Watch.

Originally, TwilightVenom posted on the Lithium forums:

"That's odd. Is that really what happened when BuggieTechnica left? I don't think I was there when it happened.

EDIT: Come to think of it, I don't even know anything about what happened to BuggieTechnica. I asked about it on PSN Home Watch, but nobody answered. Anyone care to fill me in?"

And here's the edited post:

"EDIT: Come to think of it, I don't even know anything about what happened to BuggieTechnica. Anyone care to fill me in?"

So I told him to edit it back and keep editing it until they PMed him with an explanation as to why they are editing his post. But No. No PM so he continued to edit his post back to the original until they finally banned him. The reason?

Violating the rules and policies of the community, with actions such as spamming and posting inappropriate content. Your ban will last for 30 days effective 03-15-2010. Please do not attempt to evade your ban in any manner, as doing so will only serve to increase the length of your ban.

When your ban has expired, please refer to the Official Rules of Conduct and the New User Guide to review the rules and policies of the community. Additionally, please adhere to these rules and policies in the future, as future infractions will result in an extended or indefinite ban period.

Spamming and posting inappropriate content. So not only has our URL been censored, but now you can't even say Home-Watch. Why? We don't know really. Well..I should say we don't have a poor excuse from the Lithium staff as to why this is going on. But we all know it's because they are terrified of us. They are scared of this little blog. We have put the fear into the Home and Lithium staff. And all of this proves it. But this is not the end. We are not going to stop. Yes, this is Kapow, I am writing this article. I'm not fucking afraid of you. Ban me from the Lithium forums, I'll be back in 3 months. As long as Home exists, as will this blog. And as of today I will be signing every article I write here so everyone knows what I have to say. Of course, there's already a bunch of cowards reading my Twitter page without actually following me. But that's fine, keep reading baby birds, I'll feed you. And if you have a problem with me, scrape the sand out of your vagina and talk to me one on one.

We're watching you, and we will.not.stop.

http://bit.ly/9dwcmt

Hai uve bin banned kthnxbai. --Update

Some of you will be pleased to know that I have been banned from the Lithium forums, again. And some of you will be crying yourselves to sleep (Anonoman).

Don't get me wrong, I've been spending Way to much time over there anyways, getting Jack Buser to post, criticizing retards, and being number one in Kudos' for a day straight. So this will be a much needed break. For those of you keeping track, the first time I was banned it was for having a link to the youtube video of Ralph "harassing" the Lochwoods. This time it's for saying f*ck (yes, f*uck, not fuck). If anyone can think of any other reason, like me making 2/3 of the HCMs butt hurt, let me know.

Don't worry folks, I'll be back over there in 28 days to continue bringing Home-Watch flavored justice.

Good luck average joes, keep sending in e-mails when Lithium and Home staff do you wrong, we've got your backs.

[UPDATE] Sorry guys, make that 56 days. I tried a little shenanigans last night.

Keep fighting the good fight. And @Anonymous #1: We do have more info and news on Cydonia and Locust, but we can't just lay all of our cards down on the table right now.

http://bit.ly/9QLZX8

STFU Black Spammer!

Via email:

hi love the blog wanted to say i have a problem! i am a black guy about 16. there is a lot of racism on home. i talked to this girl for a bit and a guy friend of hers came up and called me a nigger. he used seperated bubbles to do it but i was like wtf. she asked him to stop but then he called her a nigger lover. she was like wtf and took him off her list and he got real mad and started ranting that i was a jiggaboo porch monkey nigger darkie anything he could think of. we both blocked him and then he started messaging us on the xmb so we left to another part of home. later i was on the forums and i got like 30 messages from him all racist stuff. i asked her to check hers and she had more then me. so we reported him. this was like two months ago and he still bugs both of us. we report him on home for stalking cause we have him muted. im sure hes saying bad stuff but you cant report what you cant see. we report him on the forums. we posted a topic on the home forums about it asking why no one is listening to us. it got deleted and got a pm saying you cant use ppls names. so i reposted it without his name asking why no action has been done. i got a four day ban for spamming. those were the only posts i posted since may how is that spam?? why cant we get this racist stalker to leave us alone and why wont staff do ANYTHING??? please post this to show ppl home is lazy and would rather cover a problem then fixing it!!

We apologize that you had to go through that. Racism on home is rarely addressed. It's a sad and unfortunate thing. Be sure that if this type of stuff happens, we will be here to allow you to have a voice.

Someone getting LOUD

From our email:

Oh, where to start..

First, I'm Known as [name removed]! Yup that's me!! Now don't get the name wrong, he's usually a pretty nice guy, I mean I have several great friends that I hang with online, (like [name removed] and his wife) usually at Scorpio's bar. But, I also tend to speak my mind and sometimes, if not often usually tend to speak it kinda bluntly, especially when someone double crosses me, like Sony and Lithium have. But I thought I would explain a few things and hopefully clear some things up.

First, we all know home is FREE, and it does say beta.. but they (meaning Sony) can not use beta as an excuse, when you buy something, buy law they have to provide it. For some reason, Sony has a hard time dealing with that issue, so yes, I voiced my opinion on a lot of missing or falsely advertised items. I did this so other buyers could be aware of the issue, and avoid it. At this current time, I'm unemployed so any amount of money I spend is valuable, and Sony is not going to take my money and then not give me what I bought or just parts of it. In fact, I wouldn't let any company do that, regardless of the fact of employment. I mean would you walk into your local Fail*Mart and buy something and then get it home and it not work, would you keep it? No.. I think you would return it... or would you order online and then wait 10 years for them to ship it.. No.. I think you would be calling them. Well, seems how Sony has no phone support for home, what other means can you go about to get support other then the forums? So, yes, I posted there, and I posted a lot! And, yes.. I did help a few users out as well, by giving tours of my places. I enjoyed it! But Lithium took that away by giving me a 4 day ban for spamming the forums. Oh, and here is the quote on why I was banned for that. "You were banned for spamming 'Well in before the delete / lock LOL.'" Yes, I replied to a thread that should of been deleted or locked with just the words: "In before the lock" and boom banned. Now, to me spamming is sending the same message over and over again in the forums, or something that goes to and advertising link. But anyways, I sent an email and a person by the name of Alan Savage, answered, rudely. In fact any contact I had with them were rude and vague. 2 days later another member of my household used their account to access the forums, and they were banned as well for 14 days, along with my account to 14 days. This really ticked me off. How can they ban members, not knowing their family situation. Tell me where it says "only 1 account per household." So I wrote Allen about this and yes, I was a little blunt, I also threaten to seek a lawyer, since their forums are the only way we can get support for HOME. You can not by LAW stop someone from getting support for their products. The response from him was a permanent ban. Personally I'm done with them now, especially after the PS3 got a YLOD, and will cost 177.00 to fix.

Now for several weeks, I now have a contact at Sony, that any time that I have problems I can call a direct number, and no I won't give it out, because he's been nice to help me and I don't want him flooded with a million requests. I was also able to get a good friends missing items back as well. And in my conversations with my contact, I have informed him of their forums and of lithium's banning procedures and the rudeness they offer as their customer service. I said, Jake (real name changed) I hate to tell you, this so called company that runs your forums also represent you, if they leave a sour taste in peoples mouth, it also makes Sony look bad, and he actually agreed. Jake, is going to be looking into who was responsible for picking lithium as their forums and send me the details that I can fully voice my opinion on Lithium. I also, ask him about all the home problems, like who are we suppose to contact when we have problems with home items, because we get the run around when we call the 800 number. His response was "It's funny you mentioned that, because we just had a meeting about that, and the answer is, you should now contact the 800 number and they should send you to the correct department, this issue has been brought up about sending people to the forums for help and should be fixed now." So to make some things clear, you are to call the 800-345-7669 and ask for the network department, or you call directly, but you will be charged for long distance at (866) 286-5123. Then tell them your problem, and people don't let them push you around. Stand up for yourself, and be firm if you have to. Above all of that though, when you call them, voice your opinion on home forums, the mods/managers and Lithium. It's is only through US that they will be aware of these problems. If we remain silent nothing will be fixed or nothing will be done about all the crap going on. See, I look at it this way.. you can let people piss on you.. or you can return the favor, and personally no one pisses on me, and I will fight if I have to, and as a consumer of Sony, I shouldn't have to. I mean what ever happened to customer service with this company? Jake is still looking into a few things, I'll update when I find out more information.

Like you said in your previous blog, we are home users, we are a home community, where would it be with out us? I love home and the people there, it's great fun, and I am back on home using a Slim for the time being, and it's great to be back and just in time for the new update for Thursday, although I will not be posting the faulty items I find on the forums, I'll post them here LOL. Since Lithium likes to try and stop people from getting support for Sony products.

Also, I ask another favor to anyone who has suffered with any of the problems with YLOD of falsely advertised items, to contact: http://www.lawyerseek.com/Practice/Consumer-Protection-C21/Playstation-3-Yellow-Light-of-Death-P212/ Maybe if we get enough people to do that, they continue to investigate this and bring a class action lawsuit on Sony and possibly Lithium.

Peace Out All and see you when I get HOME!!

[name removed]

Banned for Voicing Complaints

A user was recently banned for pointing out errors and demanding that they are addressed. This is another PRIME EXAMPLE of how bad the HCM is. They refuse to address or acknowledge when people get ripped off, or lose items they pay for. They COMPLETELY IGNORE the tech support forum where this user posted all their complaints. However, they paid enough attention to ban the user for voicing their desire to be compensated for the money they spent. The threads were not in any way violations of the rules set in place.

THE HOME STAFF BANNED THIS PERSON FOR COMPLAINING ABOUT BEING RIPPED OFF.

Via email:

Hey Home Watch!!

Well, I guess Sony doesn't like my threads, or they see that they are threatening. Today while I was on the PS3 Home General threads, I was doing some posting to a few threads, that I though were interesting. Nothing was rude or uncalled for, was just friendly threads. I did though report 2 posts as flaming. I then thought I'd check the support side to see what was going on, since I haven't done it that much today. I just want to make sure no Manager had responded to any of my threads about the False Advertising.

I noticed that someone had responded to my bear thread, and went to post a response to that, when I got this message...

We're sorry, but you have been banned from using this site.

• 
  
• You have been banned for the following reason:
  
  Violating the rules and policies of the community, with actions such as spamming. Your ban will last for 4 days effective 1-25-2010. Please do not attempt to evade your ban in any manner, as doing so will only serve to increase the length of your ban.
  
  When your ban has expired, please refer to the Official Rules of Conduct and the New User Guide to review the rules and policies of the community. Additionally, please adhere to these rules and policies in the future, as future infractions will result in an extended or indefinite ban period.
• 
  
  You have 5759 minutes remaining on the ban.
• 
  

As you can read, nothing says anything to the fact of why I was banned for 4 days, or who it was that banned me....

So I immediately called Sony, to raise hell, which I did, but the one I needed to talk to was not in. I will be calling them tomorrow, and talking to the person I need to talk to in hopes they will resolve this issue, because this is now the straw that broke the camels back. As it stands right now, I will be contacting a lawyer to file False Advertisement and also product misrepresentation, the only problem to that is, I need more people willing to step up to the plate. This can be an easy class action lawsuit if people just step up and say.. I've had enough. I will give them until tomorrow to fix the issue above and to tell me how they are going to take care of the countless problems I have had with Home Virtual items.

This is just a heads up, letting you know that I won't be submitting any new posts for a while. lol. Also, hopefully a few friends that I have there do come here to view Home Watch, so they will at least know what happened.

But like I said.. enough is enough. If they have a problem with people responding to threads and supplying support issues, then they need to take the forums DOWN!

So.. until then.. Peace..

PS.. know any good lawyers, cuz I'm dead serious!

I encourage anyone who has been ripped off to contact us here at Home-Watch, and we will do the best we can to help make this a nightmare for the Home staff.

Non-Caring mods, Importing Items, & Hypocrites

Going over the last few days of stupid stuff, here's some interesting stuff sent in:

So, you think that importing items are against the rules? Well, it is. Doesn't prevent home users from abusing rerouting techniques to get things from Japan. But is that limited to hackers and exploiters?

What you see above is CydoniaX, HCM staff. Who is that she's dancing with? A person with a suit that isn't available to North American users. So, while they are banning folks who abuse exploits and hack in items, they're still taking breaks to have fun with users who do the same thing. The difference? Personal relationships with users.

Here is CydoniaX once again, this time importing items herself. Wearing items not available in North America.

ChronosViper, a HCV, speaks of importing items. But importing them to not wear them of course.

GlassWalls saying that someone being harassed isn't his responsibility because he is no longer a moderator

Banned, well maybe this one is just

Although it does suck to be banned from anywhere for any reason, I'll assume this guy had it coming because he just kept spam-complaining. However, it did raise a good point, what can you be banned for? What are the bannable offenses on home? for that we turn to the PlayStation®Home Open Beta Agreement:

We reserve the right to suspend or cancel the Open Beta or your access to the Open Beta at any time at our sole discretion.

Roughly translated, anything. They can ban you for: Having red hair, being gay, being straight, liking the show "Friends," speaking Spanish, Speaking English, Having a name beginning with the letter S, being a fan of Coldplay, (This one I can understand) enjoying fish, wearing a hat made of fish, owning a Xbox 360, owning a Nintendo WII, owning a Playstation 3, dancing with trained animals, having extra fingers, using post-it notes, etc.

After you spend money on Home, with it's current agreement, you pretty much have given them the green light to boot you off Home for any reason at any time, without any refund. Suckers.

Home-Watch causes ban, sorry!

This was sent in via email:

Hey there! After you posted my email earlier, I got banned! Lol. Here's the message I saw shortly after you posted my story:

We're sorry, but you have been banned from using this site.

• You have been banned for the following reason:
  
  Violating the rules and policies of the community, with actions such as trolling. Your ban will last for 14 days effective 1-7-2010. Please do not attempt to evade your ban in any manner, as doing so will only serve to increase the length of your ban.
  
  When your ban has expired, please refer to the Official Rules of Conduct and the New User Guide to review the rules and policies of the community. Additionally, please adhere to these rules and policies in the future, as future infractions will result in an extended or indefinite ban period.
  
• 
  
  You have 20152 minutes remaining on the ban.

guess I stepped on some toes too! And right after my ban (After logging out so I could view the forum) the same post had been modified by the same clown. It's so obvious it hurts.

-The[removed]

Sorry! That's terrible that they'd do that to you! I can't imagine a more childish over-reaction to such a small comment. I hope after your ban is up you'll return to the forums and keep posting, don't let them bully you.