Originally posted by 6Taylor4:

Reading through your community advice on posting, I find your definitions lacking. You categorize without specificity; an example: "no insults". How does one determine what an INSULT is? You give no definition, no source, no examples. You're making guidelines out of nothing.

it's in their discretion

"discretion" another fine word, meaning nothing.

Originally posted by 6Taylor4:

Reading through your community advice on posting, I find your definitions lacking. You categorize without specificity; an example: "no insults". How does one determine what an INSULT is? You give no definition, no source, no examples. You're making guidelines out of nothing.
You really have to define your terms and give examples of not-over-the-line and over-the line. Without specificity, you're just making arbitrary decisions.
Your entire statement
https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/6862-8119-C23E-EA7B

That is only a problem for people whose goal is to permanently insult others without getting banned...

Originally posted by 6Taylor4:

"discretion" another fine word, meaning nothing.

it means exactly what it means, it's in the moderator's discretion, they decide what is an insult or not

Originally posted by 6Taylor4:

Reading through your community advice on posting, I find your definitions lacking. You categorize without specificity; an example: "no insults". How does one determine what an INSULT is? You give no definition, no source, no examples. You're making guidelines out of nothing.

You really have to define your terms and give examples of not-over-the-line and over-the line. Without specificity, you're just making arbitrary decisions.
Your entire statement
https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/6862-8119-C23E-EA7B

needs a re-write.
Thanks.

If you don't know what a personal attack is, or what bad behavior is, that's a you problem. Not a policy problem. Millions of people manage to figure it out. What's stopping you exactly? Laziness? A lack of self-awareness? Assumptions that anything you don't immediately understand must be wrong?

I mean good luck going through life like that.

Originally posted by 6Taylor4:

"discretion" another fine word, meaning nothing.

Well that's not true. Say, what's your opinion of "ignorance"?

Originally posted by nullable:

Originally posted by 6Taylor4:

Reading through your community advice on posting, I find your definitions lacking. You categorize without specificity; an example: "no insults". How does one determine what an INSULT is? You give no definition, no source, no examples. You're making guidelines out of nothing.

You really have to define your terms and give examples of not-over-the-line and over-the line. Without specificity, you're just making arbitrary decisions.
Your entire statement
https://help.steampowered.com/en/faqs/view/6862-8119-C23E-EA7B

needs a re-write.
Thanks.

If you don't know what a personal attack is, or what bad behavior is, that's a you problem. Not a policy problem. Millions of people manage to figure it out. What's stopping you exactly? Laziness? A lack of self-awareness? Assumptions that anything you don't immediately understand must be wrong?

I mean good luck going through life like that.

Originally posted by 6Taylor4:

"discretion" another fine word, meaning nothing.

Well that's not true. Say, what's your opinion of "ignorance"?

So under STEAM's policies, you just insulted me. Read through it, pilgrim.

Yeah the "no harassment, combative or argumentative" policies across all platforms are a bit of a joke. It's like trying to fine people for jaywalking while half the community is speeding through reds.

Just look up any profane terms, curse words or phrases and you'll see... over 10 million entries. Many of which have been reported with no action taken. Of course, for privacy reasons, Steam support will never tell you why user #4772482 is allowed to make suicidal jokes or use extremely vitriolic language while user #342911 is banned for calling someone a child.

It's just roulette.

They are meant to be vague.

Content moderation rules are often vague due to the vast scale and complexity of online content, the difficulty in anticipating every nuanced scenario, and the challenge of balancing conflicting goals like safety and free expression. Platforms struggle to create rules that are simultaneously comprehensive enough to cover harm and specific enough to avoid ambiguity.

On top of this, the internet is a fluid space where the same words can mean different things depending on the context, culture, or intent. It's nearly impossible to write rules that cover every possible variation of hate speech, harassment, or misinformation without being overly restrictive.

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

They are meant to be vague.

Content moderation rules are often vague due to the vast scale and complexity of online content, the difficulty in anticipating every nuanced scenario, and the challenge of balancing conflicting goals like safety and free expression. Platforms struggle to create rules that are simultaneously comprehensive enough to cover harm and specific enough to avoid ambiguity.

On top of this, the internet is a fluid space where the same words can mean different things depending on the context, culture, or intent. It's nearly impossible to write rules that cover every possible variation of hate speech, harassment, or misinformation without being overly restrictive.

:nkCool:

TRANSLATION: It's totally meaningless and arbitrary.

Originally posted by 6Taylor4:

Originally posted by nullable:

If you don't know what a personal attack is, or what bad behavior is, that's a you problem. Not a policy problem. Millions of people manage to figure it out. What's stopping you exactly? Laziness? A lack of self-awareness? Assumptions that anything you don't immediately understand must be wrong?

I mean good luck going through life like that.



Well that's not true. Say, what's your opinion of "ignorance"?

So under STEAM's policies, you just insulted me. Read through it, pilgrim.

You might feel insulted. But, did I really? I asked you some hard introspective questions you don't like, but somehow I don't expect the mods will view that as an insult. This may be part of your problem.

Besides if you think the policies are so hard to understand, how can you turn around and pretend to interpret them with any accuracy? Pilgrim.

circular logic. Well, I'm marking your reply as the solution.
Let's just end this where I thought it would end; where it started.
All first stone casters line up here...

It's certainly not a perfect system, and in my experience moderation usually gets decided by who can write the simplest report using the right keywords.

For example, imagine somebody trolling a forum for months or even years, intentionally provoking people and trying to disrupt discussions, but carefully crafting their comments to not obviously break the rules.

You might leave a reply saying "you're just a troll, stop trying to hijack the thread!" And then report them, spelling out in detail exactly what they are doing and how they are doing it. Meanwhile they could report you, saying only "insulting and off topic." And you would be the one most likely to catch a ban in that example.

Originally posted by RasaNova:

It's certainly not a perfect system, and in my experience moderation usually gets decided by who can write the simplest report using the right keywords.

For example, imagine somebody trolling a forum for months or even years, intentionally provoking people and trying to disrupt discussions, but carefully crafting their comments to not obviously break the rules.

You might leave a reply saying "you're just a troll, stop trying to hijack the thread!" And then report them, spelling out in detail exactly what they are doing. Meanwhile they could report you, saying only "insulting and off topic." And tou would be the one most likely to catch a ban in that example.

At last, a clear voice. Thank you!

Originally posted by RasaNova:

It's certainly not a perfect system, and in my experience moderation usually gets decided by who can write the simplest report using the right keywords.

For example, imagine somebody trolling a forum for months or even years, intentionally provoking people and trying to disrupt discussions, but carefully crafting their comments to not obviously break the rules.

Trolling is against the rules so what you're saying is not possible by definition. Do you want to take another crack at it?