DrGadget: The other Home-Watch

Seems things are getting a little bit tense over at the Playstation Home forums. It was proven long ago that you can't naysay anything Sony related on the Playstation Forums. However, the moderator DrGadget has taken it a step further. The original poster states:

If you were to rate PSH and the devs what would be the rating. From 1-10. 1 Being unsatisfied and 10 being, I LOVE HOME AND EVERYTHING OMI GWAD!!! FREAK OUT!!!! and why.

Im curious, because from what im hearing from my home buddies and what not...home just went PFFFT and so did its devs.
Trust me im not ranting or anything, or bashing.

So yea i would give it like a 5.0 out of 10. Why? Well.....Home has does what its been created to do, play and socialize with other PSN Members.
Play - A mini game comes out (like Gamescom or FIFA ARENA) people rush to it (im fine with that) and get it with the matter of several days or minutes...or a minute. The games that are at PSH are entetaining for a while, so far the only games worth playing is Pool, Chess and Bowling. Sorry but the Carnival din't cut it for me - pay to play (well i got all prizes anyway), the games are fairly easy to figure out (as in it speeds up or there is a pattern). I dont know, the games in home just are eh...i stick to bowling and pool.
Socialize - Im not gonna get into that because no one can stop males being females, along with the harresment torwards other users.

The devs just dissapointed me, delays, promises that were not full filled of "soon". You guys do a great job try to do a great job, and i bet you do...but as of now it seems like everything is being slapped together just to keep us happy and well...so we keep spending our money. I do like the items, you guys do great with that. The spaces...well i rather have a space announced with pictures or major details 2 weeks before release so people maybe can help out or something. Spaces should take a little more time with the help of the community. With the delays im fine because when you guys say "delay" im thinking major bugs or issues with companies. The promises...well....if you promise something dont say "soon" say in "near future", or keep us updated on the promises.

So what you guys think?

Other than the bloody disaster of grammar & spelling, the poster makes a great point, and was very good in conveying it. However DrGadget goosestepped on it with a Sony-heil and conveyed the biggest over-reaction ever:

This thread looks like a cross between a poll, a popularity contest, and a petition. None of those are allowed here.

What you're doing is looking for other people to address the devs you personally dislike and give them low ratings. This in turn would justify your anger with them. And then presumably you would go back to confront them and say "Everyone at the PSN forums gave you a 2." [Good job jumping to conclusions and pointing fingers DrGayget.]

These forums are primarily designed for discussion, in terms of relaying information about Playstation-based gaming and other features.

Creating a poll to give you more ammunition to launch a hate attack against one or more of the Home devs is not a discussion.

Please refrain from making similar threads in the future. Thanks.

Wow, talk about having your panties in a wad. Much like the idiot zealots that populate Home, any criticism is immediately disregarded as "hate." Perhaps if assclowns like DrGadget and other PSN flunkies would listen to criticism once in a while, the whole PSN wouldn't be the massive joke it has become.

Ask for refund, your topic is locked

On the tech support graveyard today I noticed a locked topic. Being the curious person I am, I was drawn to it. It made it to three posts and was locked. No explanation from staff. It seems asking about a refund seems to be the quickest way to get your topic locked. From the topic:

keeps freezing and kicking me and my friends off only have for two days I want a refund You shouldnt be selling things that are defective seems illegal somehow I just wanted games for us to play and we cannot play them in this space should be ripped out of estates

Heavy flow month

Looking over the first few pages of the forums has made me think: "WTF is wrong with these mods?" They seem to lock pretty much every single topic posted no matter what the content. Since the 27th of last month mods have locked 76 topics.

Someone needs a dictionary

Cobra1, everyone's favorite moderator, doesn't seem to understand what piracy is. You might want to get yourself a dictionary & look up the word. You'd figure someone who'd waste enough time getting nearly a thousand trophies would be able to waste 2 minutes on dictionary.com.

Fun Police Strike Again

Written by: Kapow

We all know Home takes a long time to load. I'm sure somebody somewhere is working on it (if not SHAME!!!!!). As we buy more things it just seems to take longer to load.

So let's get creative and have some fun with it. Post things you can do while you wait for Home to load. If you wish to complain about load times, please post in one of many other threads. This is for fun, please keep it that way.

Things You Can Do While You Wait For Home To Load;

Go outside and have a smoke

Time a 7 minute egg (last time I checked it took about 7 minutes for it to load for me)

Write a letter to your mom

Read War and Peace

Start a smoking habit

Read all the newest posts here in the Home section

Catch up with everyone on Facebook

Tidy your town in Animal Crossing

Find Waldo

Cure cancer

Now add yours.......

Ok, seems like a normal thread, I see no harm or foul here. A fun little thread about the things you do while you wait for Home to load, ok, cool. But wait, what's this? It seems the fun police arrived to put a stop to this thread. the reason:

Let's keep it directly related to Home. No game style threads please.

A game thread. . .or was it someone told you to shut it down because, once again, someone pointed out some flaws in Home? No wonder Home isn't getting any better, they won't accept any criticism of any kind, they're living in a fucking fantasy land.
Welcome to Home people, go fuck someone in their face and ride a unicorn, er sumpthin. As long as you praise Home you should be fine.

side note: check out that thread, it has some pretty funny responses to the OP.

No more beating around the bush.

This is an awesome forum post. Even though the Lithium rent-a-cops are editing everyone's posts. They kinda remind me of security guards at a mall. Useless unless they're irritated.

Lets have a look.

Home is a stiff and lifeless world with so-so graphics and poor ambience. As one review put it, the environment is sterile and very limited as far as interactivity goes. Many spaces are incredibly dull and mostly devoid of ambient sounds. The interface is bland and boring to look at. The only gaming-related feature we have is universal game launching. Except for the latter, Home is completely isolated from the PlayStation Network. The absence of the Trophy Room/Hall of Fame is especially jarring, since it's been in the works for a very long time. This space would make Home a much more interesting place for gamers, but apparently Sony doesn't care about what we want. All they care about is shoving content down our throats to make a quick buck and to take our focus off of Home's numerous issues.

As one user put it (can't remember your username, sorry), Home isn't evolving, it's just getting flabbier. Sony is taking on much more than it can handle with the weekly content updates, and we're the ones who suffer because of it. Here's a thought, why don't you get all the kinks worked out before you dump a boatload of content on our laps? Seems like nobody at Sony has the guts to say "Hey, we screwed up big time, we should hold back for a while and try to figure out what went wrong before we release any new content".

No doubt some users will tell me that I don't "understand" Home, or some such nonsense, but that's just evading the issue. Home IS riddled with problems, and some seem like they're trying really hard not to pick up on that. Pretending to be satisfied will not do Home or its community any good. The problem here is Sony, not us.

The original post had mentioned two people by name. Luckily some unnamed hero snagged a screenshot before the original was butchered. Here's the current post:

No doubt some users will tell me that I don't "understand" Home, or some such nonsense, but that's just evading the issue. Home IS riddled with problems, and some seem like they're trying really hard not to pick up on that. Pretending to be satisfied will not do Home or its community any good. The problem here is Sony, not us.

And the actual post:

No doubt Conrad_Max and Joanna_Dark_ will tell me that I don't "understand" Home, or some such nonsense, but that's just evading the issue. Home IS riddled with problems, and some seem like they're trying really hard not to pick up on that. Pretending to be satisfied will not do Home or its community any good. The problem here is Sony, not us.

Truedat. Here's a fun game, how many staff edits can we fit in one topic:

1. Message Edited by Avara on 02-08-2010 02:04 PM
2. Message Edited by shungokusatsu on 02-08-2010 11:52 AM
3. Message Edited by shungokusatsu on 02-08-2010 11:53 AM

Note to Lithium: you can't code worth a damn. Learn to stick to one timezone for things, otherwise your forum software looks crappy and confusing. Actually, nevermind, it is crappy and confusing.

Note: I also tagged this post as "locked topic" because I'm willing to bet it will be not to long from now. UPDATE: It was.

Sexual Harassment? locked.

A few days ago a fairly average post came up:

Dear Forum Admins,

I've been noticing an increase of male avatars who seem to chase after female avatars who may or may not be really female but I have seen more 'men' chasing after women on this game. The reporting feature in the same by pressing select does not seem to work at all so I ask this. Could you setup any alternative means to report sexual harassment through PS home or through a reporting feature that could be implemented to the PS3 itself?

Luckily Locust_Star stopped by to drop a gem of wisdom:

Our moderation team receives all reports, regardless of the pesky Error message that some users receive when using the Submit a Report feature. Please continue to use this feature to report any violations of the Home EULA or PSN ToSUA.

Then locked the topic. We can't have folks thinking there's no way to take care of the HUNDREDS of sexual harassers that women deal with daily. I love the "pesky Error message that some users receive when using the Submit a Report feature." Oh, that pesky error where you can't submit sexual harassment! Crazy!

Why is US Armed Forces Propaganda on an International Network like Home?

This topic begs the question: Why is US Armed Forces Propaganda on an International Network like Home?

The author makes a bunch of great points I want to preserve before it's locked or deleted:

Because political agendas are not allowed on Home, and a Military force is inherently political. It is a tool used to exert political will, and promoting a countries military is essentially promoting the countries political will, that the military is a tool for.

As such, it is essentially against Sony's own rules to have it as content.

This would be fine if Home was just for the US, but it isn't. It is for North America.

Do you think they would allow promotional material for the German army on Home Europe, or the Chinese Army on Home Asia? I seriously doubt it.

There should be no promotional material for any countries army in Home.

Well put.

A countries government stands for more things than just it's international political agenda. It's own internal laws and values, Social programs so on. There for it is not quite so bad. Although Homes treatment of even this has been quite unfair to the other country that inhabits Home.

But a Military almost entirely exists as a tool for a countries international political agenda, and foreign policy. Therefore, promotion of said countries military is intrinsically linked to the promotion of said countries foreign policy and international political agenda.

This is not appropriate for a place that services an international community, as Home NA does.

Better put!

Again I offer this analogy.

How do you think South Korea would feel if Sony allowed The Chinese Army to have promotional Material on Home Asia? Or, how do you think Poland would feel if Sony allowed the German army to have promotional material on Home Europe?

Home NA officially serves other countries than just the US, and as such must demonstrate more appreciation of how other countries view the content they post. Posting promotional material for a Military force that is presently involved in a conflict that the other country officially does not support only serves to alienate the country that does not support the conflict. Which is why, there should be no such material on Home.

Yet even better!

Actually, officially we are not in Iraq. Any Canadian Soldiers in Iraq are holdovers from UN obligations and are not directly involved in the US conflict. Which is the conflict I am talking about.

In any case this just goes to prove the real problem here that many Canadians on Home feel, and that is the complete ignorance and F--- You attitude of the Home NA team, and many other US Homelings.

Let us do a hypothetical here.

Suppose, that the US was on the same Home as say Iran. And one day promotional material for the Iranian Army appeared on Home. U.S. users would be screaming bloody murder that this is completely inappropriate content, and how no such things should be on Home, and they would be right to do so.

(And anyone who says they wouldn't, remember, you're the country that tried to change the name from French Fries to Freedom Fries Just because France criticized you.)

Yet, when the shoe is on the other foot, and it is you that is doing the same inappropriate action, and someone brings it up, you say they are over reacting.

This especially happens when it is Canada pointing it out, because you think, how can Canada possibly have a problem with anything we do. Well we are not just Lap dogs to the U.S. We do have a mind of our own, and we don't always agree with everything that you do.

Now as your neighbors, and friends we overlook a lot of it, like shoving 4th of July Stuff down our throat, with out even acknowledging our existence. But shoving your military down one's throat is a sensitive topic for any country.

And the fact that you can't see that, or expecting us to overlook that, like we do everything else, is stepping over the line. It shows a lack of respect to those friends, and conveys a sense of taking them and their friendship for granted.

People from the U.S. always think we are hating on them. We are not. We are your best friends. You guys are like Fred, and we are like Barney. And for the most part Barney went along with Fred and his larger than life abrasive attitude at times because they were buds. But sometimes, Barney had to tell Fred when he stepped over the line.

As far as a U.S. centric Home that also officially serves Canada. This is stepping over the line, and I am just making that known.

And it bothers me that the Home NA team didn't even stop to consider how this might be interpereted in the other country that they service, again like we don't even exist.

And that sound you hear is the entire forum of military trolls being owned collectively at once.

Update: Censored conversation due to Avara.

Sorry, you're just not good enough.

This post here was created as form of community bonding measure. It made it 13 pages before being shut down. According to the person who closed it, CronoEX:

There have been many concerns recently over forum games (ie. game trivia, collaborative stories, etc.). We realize that these types of things are fun to many members and certainly don't want to eliminate them completely, but at the same time we need to take steps to make sure that they stay on the right course and don't degrade into pointless droning. (Homewatch note: at no point did this forum post get that way. The excuse is without any foundation) At this time, we'd like to restrict the privilege of creating such games to MVPs. We will work with them on ways to create games that add value to the community and stay meaningful, and yet are fun at the same time. This includes avoiding games that only elicit one-word responses, that don't create any discussion, etc. If you have a neat idea for a forum game, feel free to mention it to one of your friendly MVPs. As I said though, this privilege is reserved only to MVPs, so we're asking that non-MVP members please refrain from creating such games on the forums. We appreciate your cooperation! Thank you

Wow, that's a steaming pile of it if I ever heard it. I wonder which suckup asked for it? Nice to know even the forum admins stop by to ruin everyone's good time and support their elite gestapo.

Not Handicapped Accessible

Also linked from the previous email is a link to this topic: Handicapped avatars.

The topic wasn't put together very well, and some folks found it in poor taste, however it brought up some very good points. My personal favorite is this:

---

Conrad_Max wrote:
This is idea is in bad tastes as we do have people who use Home and are physically handicapped in real life. Do you think that they need to be reminded of this when they log onto Home or see avatars wheeling themselves around in a virtual wheelchair?

---

Who's to say they don't? Some may prefer an avatar that reflects who they really are and I see no bad taste here what so ever.

Even with Conrad_Max's incredibly insensitive and inappropriate comment, the poster made a great point. Moderation staff's reply? Locked topic, no explanation.

Sorry Preggos, moderation staff hates ya!

Brought to my attention via email was this topic: Why are there no "pregnant" avatars for the ladies of Home? The topic begs the question:

So I found out today a friend of mine is pregent (sic) (and no, I am not the father, so don't even go there) and I was wondering why pregnant avatars do not exist on Home for the ladies?

But if they do bring pregnant avatars to Home, should they be forced to wear "maternity" style clothing only? This would prevent creeps from wearing the 2 piece bikini swimsuit while pregnant out in public.

Share your thought.

The topic made it a total six pages before being locked. Reason for the lock? According to Cobra1:

When creating your thread, please ensure the discussion material is appropriate for the PlayStation.com Forums.

Thanks

Official Rules of Conduct

I guess that pregnancy isn't an appropriate topic. I recall they did the same thing to "I love Lucy." Difference is that was 1952.

Why is this Forum So Micromanaged?

Sent in via Email:

I love the blog! keep up the good work. I wanted you to see this if you haven't http://boardsus.playstation.com/playstation/board/message?board.id=ps3home&thread.id=868317 It's funny because someone posts: I can see that. And I'm all for HeatherShow's plan to write Jack Buser too. Why is this forum so micromanaged?? Sony is acting like a corporation in a state of hysteria. and then right after it's locked lmao

[name removed]

Yes, I saw that topic prior to this. I had no idea it got locked. It seemed like such a good topic too.

No answer, locked thread

In this somewhat amusing topic a home user asks:

Someone was asking me if i was "being too hard on..." and it censored it. Those two words get used together once in a while, censoring "hard on" for the sake of one unclassy term seems a bit over the top.

The topic has been locked, no explanation from the moderation staff.