Gamernook--the first major gamer community that I was hanging out at, was well... mostly the owners rather sleazy attempt to be able to get laid at Night Clubs. He kind of never really released any updates. Keeping the site forever in Beta! (which was really what SHOULD have been referred to as ALPHA! considering how many features were missing from its creation). The site was buggy as crap. The community was nonexistant. Guido (the community's nickname for the owner) just cited that he had some ridiculously huge amount of new users signing up accounts. When questioned about how many of these people actually, you know, stick around and post--and how many of them were not faker accounts and what not, his comment was "well, with any new users, you cannot account for all of them to stick around."
Yeah--but if you do not have more than 1% of them sticking around, it mostly is just you trying to tote how overly inflated your e-peen is. Overinflated, and forever limp.
Okay--so where to move to next. GamerDNA! Ah! Yes... I fvcken loved this site... while the staff were still working on it. It was getting regular updates. Bugs were being fixed. The staff was helpful and responsive. This site looked like it was on the up and up.
Until Crispy Gamer bought the site, and fired pretty much all of the staff--and pushed the original CEO to rage quit.
I stuck around for a while. I still would too--until... well.. the bugs became too much. I eventually because unable to go into my list of subscriptions and view updates that people have posted to various threads, pictures and game plays. I dunno--I would have continued to use th site... if well... it was really possible.
So... where to next?
Well, GiantBomb apparently is very popular. So, I go to sign up--and oh wait... Terms of Service. I SHOULD probably read that if I am to agree with it, right?
There were a few major issues with Giant Bomb's ToS
- Nothing obscene clause. The thing is, obscenity has no real valid legal meaning I can possibly agree to. Obscenity is defined by the community it is being tried in. Without any form of examples of what sort of things Obscenity is--well, I cannot agree to this, as it really could mean anything. Heck, if an entire community decided that the word "the" or the fictional creature "Wurmple" was obscene--typically I would have just invalidated this clause here.
- No slander, libel, etc. You know what? Fvck this. This SHOULD have been covered prior in the "no saying stuff knowing it is not true clause". Since this is a whole seperate clause in their ToS... it is pretty much saying, "do not say things that somebody may not like, regardless of if it is true or not."
- No engaging in activities that are illegal somewhere in the world. Well fvck... now I cannot even type or use a bloody computer to use the site. This was the most garbage clause out there. As well, any bloody activity you can come up with, is illegal somewhere. Short of breathing oxygen. It did not specifically state that if the activity was illegal where you live, or where the server was--no... it just kind of stated, that if it was illegal anywhere, it broke the terms of services. Screw you Giant Bomb--I like showing my fvcking ankles--and I am not about to join a website that refuses to allow me to.
- No distributing malicious software that's purpose is to damage data or software. Okay--I just will not do that. As technically Keyloggers, Botnets, Spyware, etc. do not have any damaging intention on computer data or software. If anything, when made properly you should not even know you have them on your computer. If made even better, they should offer some greater feature to IMPROVE your computer. The term that referred to this was very purposefully vague. I really was very uneasy at this point, as the large legal fail in these terms, that made me not want to bother here would only be confirmed with:
- No posting of material associated with terrorist groups and organisations as defined by homeland defense.
Fuck you guys. As well--I have been associated with some groups that have ended up on there (nettwerked and hackcanada). Though, to be fair, there are other groups that have ended up as a terrorist list that are just ridiculous to think about. PETA comes to mind. There are also groups that well, completely avoid that list such as the Hell's Angels. Sorry--if I had a choice of who to bring as my scary buddy into a fight, I would be bringing a Hell's Angel--let them beat the prissy PETA bitch senseless.
I mean--it does not help that I have hung around with Anonymous (they are rather hilarious) and various Wogs of Rant Radio. Both groups could VERY easily become terrorist group. Oh right--and I follow the Pirate Party of Canada. Essentially, a fair amount of helpful resources from Nettwerked, Hack Canada, Anonymous, 2600, The Wogs and The Pirate Party have just been very nicely banned via this Terms of Service agreement.
I really did not bother to read further. Not going to bother signing up for Giant Bomb unless I have decided that my purpose in signing up, is to specifically compromise the site (at which point, reading the ToS, would mostly be for the purposes of doing it in a manner that will get me legally reamed in the softest manner).
Moved onto Raptr... cannot do that... as well--it appears to rely on some client program. The website never really made me confident that I did not need the Raptr client to make use of it.
Xfire is just as bad.
Well... this is lovely. I got a taste of something nice with GamerNook--got the full on deal with GamerDNA... and now... I cannot have any of it.
I guess it was nice to be in a gamer community site while it lasted.
Good read ;-)
ReplyDelete