Steam modding guides have been getting deleted due to user reports, even though these guides do not break anything in the community rules and guidelines. When we ask support for clarification, we are told to consult the rules and guidelines -- which we're not breaking -- and also told not to include any links to off-site downloadable files.

Steam, this is deeply damaging to the gaming community. If this is your new policy, then a vast wealth of important modding guides are at risk of disappearing forever. We in the community put in countless hours of our time in order to provide a service to the community, with no reason to believe this is against the rules, only for it to be suddenly deleted without warning or good reason.

We understand the difficult situation you're in, in that you want to prevent phishing scams and malicious downloads. But disallowing all external links to files is not the answer. People have depended on countless modding guides over the years for important information on how to improve the experience of playing the games they want to play. This is an issue of preservation and community support.

Please reconsider this policy. Allow modding guides to continue to exist. We have done nothing wrong, and we are deeply concerned about losing a treasure trove of information archived in Steam guides. You already have so many safeguards in place to protect people. It is usually abundantly clear in these guides that the links therein will lead to downloads.

What you're doing is not the answer. It is damaging the gaming community at large.


Edit (2024-04-13)


After going back and forth with support across many individuals, and having our guides unbanned, we're more confused than ever. And frankly, we're still very concerned.

Upon having my guide unbanned, a user received a message very similar to one I've seen before.
"We are currently updating our internal processes regarding this based on some of the guides like this one that are getting caught unnecessarily in these bans."
https://imgur.com/a/ASzfNX3

This is the same message another guide received, however they were also asked to provide a disclaimer next to any link in the guide. That user complied, and then their guide was banned a second time not that long after. However, this time support did not ask me to do anything. Because they didn't even message me directly. That came later after I had pestered them 3 days over the course of many days.

This was the conversation I had with them: https://imgur.com/a/xheA76b

So as you can see, they finally demanded the same thing of me. They want me to add a disclaimer next to every single link. Naturally, I find this a little weird, and I pushed back because I already mark every download link in my guide as "DOWNLOAD", and Steam already warns you every time you click a link off-site. So effectively Steam already does exactly what their disclaimer wants to do.

To which they replied, "Unfortunately, the automated warning does not always work with all types of links. Because this is the case as well as other concerns from our moderation and security end, we would ask that these are added for any links that are directed as downloads in the guide or are direct downloads."


You can imagine why I might not trust this. Another guide was already banned a second time and unbanned a second time. Should I really trust that their automatic content scanner would ignore my guide simply because I put some disclaimers? Especially when the advice I was given was to write
"something like 'Warning: the following link contains a download that is outside of Steam.' "

Something like? That doesn't strike me as clear instructions to avoid future bans. And it doesn't strike me as a clear shift in policy either. What exactly is going on here, Valve? We want answers.

And what about all the guides that don't have active managers, are still important to their communities, and don't have anybody that will see your email within 30 days before the guide is deleted so they can write "something like"? How can we trust that you aren't going to slowly purge these guides over time on account of trolls reporting them for "fun"? We want answers, Valve. Don't punish the community because your content detection systems and security don't work as they should.