What can we do to help?

[Cuguy]

This site claims to be PS3-centric but it never claims to be PS3-supportive, and in fact, over the past 7 years, has made a big point that it will never be a PS3 fan site. The odd thing about this "philosophy" is that part of this view is that PS3 and Sony slagging, bashing, bad-mouthing, slandering, yellow journalism, etc. are all fair game for posts to be left in Discussions, are not flamebait and perfectly acceptable to be mostly unmoderated -- unless there is the slightest hint that the negativity in turn starts getting applied to Microsoft and the Xbox. A lot of the activity people whine about missing was when this was rampant.

A big problem that may not be surmountable is PSU is a British site and sometimes gets too provincial for Americans to "get it". It is like going to The Sun and wondering, who is that person and why am I supposed to care (not saying the Kardashians or Snookie is any better). The British started out being being PS3 fans in the beginning, then went over to the dark side for a few years, and only now starting to go back to the PS3 side.

The other big problem is that the environment makes it very difficult when PS3 Discussions is basically being monopolized by a small handful of the the "basement" boys, usually gushing over anything MS there, then venturing out into the PS3 section to dig up every poorly written or outright deceitful blog postings or website article they can cherry-pick from N4G or VG247. It does get very tedious and tiring, especially if one has seen it go on for almost 7 years now. It is the way it is and there is little to indicate anything will change anytime soon.

Thanks for proving most of the discussion here accurate

BTW - PSU is NOT a British site. Main offices are in Quebec. Most staff are American, Canadian, Australian, with forum staff in all geographic areas as well.

[mynd]

This site claims to be PS3-centric but it never claims to be PS3-supportive, and in fact, over the past 7 years, has made a big point that it will never be a PS3 fan site. The odd thing about this "philosophy" is that part of this view is that PS3 and Sony slagging, bashing, bad-mouthing, slandering, yellow journalism, etc. are all fair game for posts to be left in Discussions, are not flamebait and perfectly acceptable to be mostly unmoderated -- unless there is the slightest hint that the negativity in turn starts getting applied to Microsoft and the Xbox.

[edit]...

The other big problem is that the environment makes it very difficult when PS3 Discussions is basically being monopolized by a small handful of the the "basement" boys, usually gushing over anything MS there, then venturing out into the PS3 section to dig up every poorly written or outright deceitful blog postings or website article they can cherry-pick from N4G or VG247. It does get very tedious and tiring, especially if one has seen it go on for almost 7 years now. It is the way it is and there is little to indicate anything will change anytime soon.

Blig, there are very few articles on N4G that is not someone's twisted or slanted view (one way or the other) on things pertaining to the PS3, or the console market in general.

Very very very little of it is actuall fact based journalisim, most of that revolves around hard data from either the companies themselevs (which we see every 3 months) or the monthly (and very vague these days) NPD data.

Short of an article being posted by a game developer themselves, everything you see in news is someones interpretation of a comment or situation.
I would add almost all of it in some way is coloured by the writers beliefs.

There is no such thing as a "good news" or "bad news" article, they are merely opinion peices, and both have equal rights to be posted and discussed here. If you feel someone posts only bad news articles, then no one is stopping ou from balancing that up and posting good news articles.
Least we start banning "bad news" article posters, then that has to apply to the otherside of the coin as well.

One of the catch cries if someone take a contrary posiiton to a posted article (especially if it is a good news story) is "oh I forgot -we arent allowed to post good news stories", and people are then derrided as "not one of us" or as you put it "basement boys", or my favourite "the usual suspects".
I'm sorry but thats the single biggest cop out in the world, it's typecasting, it is trying to put an indiivduals view points and positing them into a big square box and labelling it "crap"..
Discussing a "news" article (and I use the term news loosley), shouldnt amount to deriding any one with an opposing viewpoint. Derride their viewpoint, sure, but their right to post it? Slipery slope there.

It dangerous and leads two 2 very large issues that affect the membership of this forums.

The first and most obvious one is that people are afraid to voice their opinon, they dont feel welcome ,and leave, or "lurk", to scared to contribute to a thread.

The second is it bring about an "us vs them" menatilty to the poster actually labelling these poeple as such. Once that startes happening, everything they see or do becomes one of very polarised situaitons. There is only "right" and "wrong", "good" and "bad", and it becomes "me vs them".
Because the real world, and these forums, dont actually work like that, what you end up with is people who feel the forums are somehow corrupted, and in the end they decide to leave, simply because they feel the forums are not meeting their opinons of other posters on the forums.

These forums have never ever been a rah rah cheerleading camp, its been very open and discussed consoles and gaming warts and all, and that is one of the reasons I have enjoyed my 6+ years on here, but I've grown a thick skin, I can take the conspiracies and being "labelled" with a grain of salt, others, especially new users to the forum may not do so well however.

[MATRIX 2]

Yep I have to say that is the biggest problem with veteran members leaving. I can't count how many times that I see a discussion about how someone is leaving because they are tired of everything. I'm not saying that there wasn't actually a situation that arisen but there are too many grudges on here. I've never understood it because most of it results from contradicting opinions getting way too out of hand. I don't understand how so many people can get furious about something said that doesn't fit their own opinion. Honestly isn't that what forums are for? An open format to discuss things.

I've had one knock down drag out argument since I've joined, right when I became active, and that was because the other member was just being belligerent. I come to find out that he was good and getting under everyone's skin but I forgot about and just moved on. We never confronted each other again about it. I just wish more of our veteran members could work out these situations instead of despising each other. We are all part of a community here, sure there will be arguments from time to time but no reason to let them live on for an extended period of time.

Perhaps it could be because of the perception that certain members get away with certain things.

[ps3freak18]

Perhaps it could be because of the perception that certain members get away with certain things.

Yes that is probably the root of all evil in the situations.

[Fon]

I've had one knock down drag out argument since I've joined, right when I became active, and that was because the other member was just being belligerent. I come to find out that he was good and getting under everyone's skin but I forgot about and just moved on. We never confronted each other again about it. I just wish more of our veteran members could work out these situations instead of despising each other. We are all part of a community here, sure there will be arguments from time to time but no reason to let them live on for an extended period of time.

Just like opinions differ, so do personalities. Some take things personal while others will shrug them off and move on, nothing we can do about that.

[mynd]

Perhaps it could be because of the perception that certain members get away with certain things.

Thats what I'm saying, if you start thinking like that, then its a slippery slope.
You'll suddenly see bias and unfairness everywhere, overlooking other things.

[Cuguy]

Perhaps it could be because of the perception that certain members get away with certain things.

And you know what? I am sure in SOME instances some members may have gotten away with some things. Overall, staff is not perfect, and sometimes they might just let something slip. Honestly though, it is only perception that causes this because the staff that we have right now does NOT play favorites, believe me.

[three3-times]

Trust me, if summit gets reported and we feel that is summit we need to act on, we act. please dont give me that shit that we play favourites. hell, ive had to hand out infractions to my friends on here before.

Like we always say, if you see summit that is untoward, REPORT IT, we rely heavily on you guys to do this.

[DarkVincent07]

Trust me, if summit gets reported and we feel that is summit we need to act on, we act. please dont give me that shit that we play favourites. hell, ive had to infraction my friends on here before.

Like we always say, if you see summit that is untoward, REPORT IT, we rely heavily on you guys to do this.

I cant stress this enough, us mods can't be online 24/7, if anyone sees anything report it, even of you don't think much of it but feel it's out of line. It can save a lot of drama/arguments if we get in early


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[MATRIX 2]

Thats what I'm saying, if you start thinking like that, then its a slippery slope.
You'll suddenly see bias and unfairness everywhere, overlooking other things.

Ehh, you can't exactly dismiss these things when it goes on for months or even years. These sorts of people are usually the once to incite things even in the smallest of ways.

And you know what? I am sure in SOME instances some members may have gotten away with some things. Overall, staff is not perfect, and sometimes they might just let something slip. Honestly though, it is only perception that causes this because the staff that we have right now does NOT play favorites, believe me.

Trust me, if summit gets reported and we feel that is summit we need to act on, we act. please dont give me that shit that we play favourites. hell, ive had to hand out infractions to my friends on here before.

Like we always say, if you see summit that is untoward, REPORT IT, we rely heavily on you guys to do this.

I cant stress this enough, us mods can't be online 24/7, if anyone sees anything report it, even of you don't think much of it but feel it's out of line. It can save a lot of drama/arguments if we get in early


Via Tapatalk

See the thing is, I'm not really referring to certain events/incidents (even though they do occur). I'm referring to more long term behavior/posting habits. These sorts of thing will be noticed by those who pay attention to the active/well known members posts, but you need to pay attention to them for certain periods of time to see what I'm talking about.

And its not like you can report them for this since it isn't a single post/thread that this occurs in, its their posts over certain periods of time.

Again, I'm not sure how aware the staff are of this, but this sort of behavior goes on for long periods of time without much reproach if any at all so you can only assume that the staff are unaware or are allowing it for whatever reason.

On another note:

IMO the issue is that real debates can't take place. Why? because the second you start "winning" the debate you will likely get reported. And depending on the # of reports in a span of time and the staff members that are online at the time and review them, you cane end up with an infraction. (which isn't really justified). Generally the people that tend to do this are the ones I just mentioned in my posts in this thread.

People need thicker skin, otherwise we will only have superficial discussions.

Granted, I'm not saying that people should get a free pass to behave however they want, but this forum is pretty strict. Probably the strictest I've ever seen (and I've been on/visited many forums about several different topics).

Every post I make here is carefully considered and reviewed before I hit the submit button. And sometimes even that isn't enough.

Perhaps its the subjective/unclear nature of the rules.

I'm not sure what the proper solution is since I think PSU is in a mostly unique situation that you don't find in most other forums (that are more fact based/less subject to opinion).

But I don't think tightening down the hatches overall is the correct solution. Perhaps the staff needs to be expanded so that they can pay closer attention to these sorts of things, rather than relying only on reports.

Or a new class of staff created that is able to see staff forums and provide recommendations on possible forum changes/courses of action but have no ability to infract members or make significant changes themselves. (this might also be able to be accomplished by increasing the amount of SMC members)

It seems that whenever new staff are added, they do a decent job in the beginning, but due to various reasons (perhaps forum work overload) they become less active over time, or even disappear. (not to mention they usually post less as well) Perhaps if the forum works was spread out across more staff members, this wouldn't be nearly as much of an issue.

Since normal members can't see staff forums, we have no idea what they are discussing and problems they are addressing. The best that we can do is PM a staff member and hope they respond with a reasonably detailed message.

[radgamer420]

Some valid points there. And all you really need is a few people or more to keep reporting the crap out of you because they dont like your opinion or from what side of a debate youre on and you can easily get an infraction. Thats why from now on I've decided not to take part in anymore lengthy debates or discussions. I just post my opinion on a topic and move on. That being said I do still enjoy my time here and enjoy reading other peoples posts more than I do posting anyway. And some of the discussions here are very interesting.