As of 05.18.09, we've officially launched the Home Community Volunteer program. We will be announcing our first group of volunteers shortly, and will edit this thread to include a list of all of their usernames.The answers to all of your other burning questions are below. Please read this entire FAQ before posing any questions regarding this program.

What is a Home Community Volunteer?

A Home Community Volunteer is a regular and dedicated PlayStation Home user that has generously donated their time and effort to support Home Community Management by playing proactive roles during events, as well as providing guidance to other community members both in-world and on the official PlayStation Home forums. Home Community Volunteers are NOT employees of Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc., its parent company or any of its subsidiaries or affiliates (“SCEA”). They are NOT paid for their efforts. They don’t develop content for the platform, formulate policy, or moderate Home. They are bound to the same EULA (End User License Agreement) and PSN TOSUA (Terms of Service User Agreement) as any other user of Home. They do not have access to admin clients and therefore do NOT have any “special powers” (such as the option to make their avatars invisible, travel from instance-to-instance, or ban users). They are simply really friendly people that care so much about this platform that they spend a portion of their free time contributing to the greater social good of Home by helping both new and veteran users.

Do Community Volunteers moderate Home?

No. In fact, they are forbidden from attempting to moderate or police Home in any way beyond reporting abuses they encounter in-world by using the Submit a Report feature, or otherwise alerting a Moderator. We encourage every user to do this when they witness behavior that is a violation of the EULA or PSN TOSUA.

How many Community Volunteers are there?

Right now there are less than 20. In the future, we may have a higher number of concurrent volunteers, but for the time being we are trying to keep the number at around 20. For this reason, we will NOT be accepting additional volunteers until its time for the next batch of volunteers to be brought into the fold – which will be ~ 4 months from now (mid-September).

How can I identify a Community Volunteer?

You can identify a Community Volunteer by the special Home t-shirt they wear that says “Guide” in big letters across the back. Community Volunteers will be wearing these shirts when actively participating in volunteer initiatives in-world, such as hosting events or game launching tournaments.

How can I become a Community Volunteer?

It’s easy. Simply PM a member of the Community Management team. We will put you on a list of users that have offered their services as volunteers. Note that this program is first come/first served, so it may take a while before we process your application.

As we get closer to the next date when we bring more volunteers in, we will take the requests that we’ve received and perform a background check with our moderation team. Any users that we feel have demonstrated through poor past behavior an inability to perform the duties of a Community Volunteer will be disqualified. Participation is at the moderation and Community Management team's sole discretion and any user that is found guilty of violating the EULA or PSN TOSUA while classified as a Community Volunteer will immediately be kicked out of the program.

If you pass the background check, you are in. There is no minimum or maximum amount of time that you must commit to spending as a volunteer. Of course, we prefer our volunteers to be very active in the community, so please don’t ask to participate if you only sign in to Home once a month. Since Community Volunteers aren’t employees of Sony, Community Managers will not dictate how you spend your time in-world. However, we do require you to be an upstanding citizen while in Home or on our forums. This means that you absolutely must refrain from being a jerk at all times – even if someone is being nasty towards you. Taking the high ground can be very difficult in times of stress, so if you feel as if you can’t be nice to all people at all times (or at least ignore those that don’t match your efforts to be kind and awesome to all community members), we ask that you don’t waste our time or yours by signing up for the Community Volunteer program.

How can I check on the status of my standing in the Community Volunteer program?

Unfortunately, we don’t have the time or resources to keep everyone up to date regarding the status of their applications, so please don’t ask. If you are chosen, we will inform you. If you are not chosen, we will probably NOT inform you. Sorry, but there just aren’t enough hours in the day...

I’ve witnessed a Community Volunteer behave in a way that is a clear violation of the EULA and PSN TOSUA. How do I report this?

We ask that you please use the Submit a Report feature, just as you would when reporting any abuse that occurs in Home.

Do Community Volunteers know more about what is happening in-world than other users?

Yes and No. Community Managers will oftentimes communicate details about events (and the general status of Home) to Community Volunteers before messaging the community-at-large. This is done simply because we can use all the help we can get when it comes to informing users about, say, a bug that is currently affecting the Theater or a game launching event that is scheduled for the near future. However, Community Volunteers will not be informed about new content before the rest of the community is. All content updates will continue to be publicized first on the PlayStation Blog and during official events such as E3 and CES.

Do Community Volunteers get their own private forum?

Yes they do. We offer apologies in advance to anyone that feels as if this is unfair, but this is the most effective way for us to manage this program.

List of Community Volunteers (05.09 - 09.09):

Voozi

will_orz

Ra-Ausar

Mrs_Laporta

Jiggyteddy

BitRunner

Jersquall

Conrad_Max

Asuka424

Amir29

Pasufarin

flacotanner

ChronosViper

NARDE15

SarshelYam