Steam/Developer/Forum moderation clarification & suggestions

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Faded 9 Aug @ 12:25pm

Steam/Developer/Forum moderation clarification & suggestions

I was recently made aware that discussions that take place in a specific game/developer's community hub has a sort of "in-house rules" that override steam community guidelines. Essentially, they don't have to obey the rules, but they can enforce them.

There are a few things I'd like to address here.

a) It should be made apparent within the policy/guidelines that developers and/or their chosen forum moderators have a very wide interpretation of rules they can enforce while skirting or entirely breaking the rules themselves.

b) Given that these bans count towards flagging an account, increasing its length & severity in punishment for any further bans... well, it just shouldn't. Period. If developer/forum moderators can ban someone for saying "I appreciate your respectful comment, it is a glowing reflection of this community" then such frivolous bans should not have such far reaching consequences.

c) A similar "flagging system" should be implemented for devs/forum moderators. i.e. If they issue a ban against a user, and that user clicks "steam support" whereby an actual steam support member has found no issue with their content and has essentially admitted to "having their hands tied behind their back, informing us that dev/forum mods have carte blanche authority" then a flag should be applied.

TL;DR: Devs/forum mods have unchecked privileges. They should not. Some form of penalization shoud apply to abuse of privilege.

If anyone wants, I can post screenshots that somewhat verify that dev/forum mods can enforce with impunity. As well as examples of the rather tame comments I made to actual inflammatory insults that were removed for "being disrespectful".

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Showing 1-15 of 73 comments

William Shakesman 9 Aug @ 12:30pm

Game devs can ban for any reason or no reason, and they are not subject to the Steam Community Rules within their own hub. While there are certainly legitimate cases for tracking these dev applied bans as certainly a number of them are people who have been abusive or a negative influence for some manner, it is obvious that they should not be tracked in the same manner as bans applied by Steam support for violating the actual Steam rules for the purposes of cumulative punishment, or at least weighed similarly. The only difference between a dev and a random user is $100 and it represents an abuse vector, or at least a vector for amplification of petty grievances rather than proper removal of forum bad actors. A few bad apples have required Valve to change many features for the majority and that has to apply to the devs too.

It's as self-evident nonsense as thinking Valve should implement a shadow-ban policy based on how many people block a user.

Last edited by William Shakesman; 9 Aug @ 12:32pm

xBCxRangers 9 Aug @ 12:59pm

Decent suggestions, especially when matters that do not break Steam rules can affect your account via those Hubs.

"Questioning Game Development' on some Hubs are bannable offenses, though not a Steam offense. Though that ban gets put on your Steam record.

I had fairly recent game hub ban, with no reason given. I can only assume the ban was given not for what said on their hub, but was said on another outlet.

To the extent even Steam Support sided with me on the issue with one of those "We wish Developers would not act like this' type of hubub response (along with a link to what they lecture these hubs about in regards to moderation practices), though nothing they can do, to prevent an otherwise untarnished account i've using here for the past year.

If Steam Moderators know their hands are tied due to unfair bans, they should at least keep our Steam Account records clean, and not let bad actors at certain game hubs ruin or alter our accounts.

And yes, a flag as to their poor behaviors to be monitored by Steam in the future.

The more flags, the more of a chance Steam can threaten that Developer in that Steam will have to step in. in regards to moderation duties.

These will never happen however due to the fact Mr Newells policies seem to put Developers first, and customers last.

76561198407601200 9 Aug @ 1:01pm

Originally posted by Faded:
I was recently made aware that discussions that take place in a specific game/developer's community hub has a sort of "in-house rules" that override steam community guidelines. Essentially, they don't have to obey the rules, but they can enforce them.

There are a few things I'd like to address here.

a) It should be made apparent within the policy/guidelines that developers and/or their chosen forum moderators have a very wide interpretation of rules they can enforce while skirting or entirely breaking the rules themselves.

b) Given that these bans count towards flagging an account, increasing its length & severity in punishment for any further bans... well, it just shouldn't. Period. If developer/forum moderators can ban someone for saying "I appreciate your respectful comment, it is a glowing reflection of this community" then such frivolous bans should not have such far reaching consequences.

c) A similar "flagging system" should be implemented for devs/forum moderators. i.e. If they issue a ban against a user, and that user clicks "steam support" whereby an actual steam support member has found no issue with their content and has essentially admitted to "having their hands tied behind their back, informing us that dev/forum mods have carte blanche authority" then a flag should be applied.

TL;DR: Devs/forum mods have unchecked privileges. They should not. Some form of penalization shoud apply to abuse of privilege.

If anyone wants, I can post screenshots that somewhat verify that dev/forum mods can enforce with impunity. As well as examples of the rather tame comments I made to actual inflammatory insults that were removed for "being disrespectful". :zagpls:

Simply stop breaking the rules. Best of luck, blocked, etc.

Faded 9 Aug @ 1:08pm

Originally posted by The Living Tribunal:
Simply stop breaking the rules. Best of luck, blocked, etc.

But if this were my community hub, and I was a developer/forum moderator, I could easily ban you for your comment. Furthermore, saying "best of luck, blocked" could be stretched to fit under "combative, argumentative" or "disrespectful".

Espejismo 9 Aug @ 1:10pm

Originally posted by Faded:
Originally posted by The Living Tribunal:
Simply stop breaking the rules. Best of luck, blocked, etc.

But if this were my community hub, and I was a developer/forum moderator, I could easily ban you for your comment. Furthermore, saying "best of luck, blocked" could be stretched to fit under "combative, argumentative" or "disrespectful".

i wouldn't call it combative or disrespectful but it is quite honestly spam, because that is literally what he replies with 50% of the time to suggestion threads on this forum. absolutely pointless and contributes nothing to anything

Tito Shivan 9 Aug @ 1:12pm

Originally posted by William Shakesman:
it is obvious that they should not be tracked in the same manner as bans applied by Steam support for violating the actual Steam rules for the purposes of cumulative punishment, or at least weighed similarly.

At the end of the day several independent sources are tagging the user as problematic

Faded 9 Aug @ 1:13pm

Originally posted by Espejismo:
Originally posted by Faded:

But if this were my community hub, and I was a developer/forum moderator, I could easily ban you for your comment. Furthermore, saying "best of luck, blocked" could be stretched to fit under "combative, argumentative" or "disrespectful".
i wouldn't call it combative or disrespectful but it is quite honestly spam, because that is literally what he replies with 50% of the time to suggestion threads on this forum. absolutely pointless and contributes nothing to anything

Yeah I took a quick look at their comments and apparently "best of luck, blocked" is their signature statement.

They're a prime example of the type of people I'm talking about.

edit: Their profile name is "The Living Tribunal" so... 'it' fits the bill.

Last edited by Faded; 9 Aug @ 1:17pm

William Shakesman 9 Aug @ 1:32pm

Originally posted by Tito Shivan:
Originally posted by William Shakesman:
it is obvious that they should not be tracked in the same manner as bans applied by Steam support for violating the actual Steam rules for the purposes of cumulative punishment, or at least weighed similarly.
At the end of the day several independent sources are tagging the user as problematic

And at the end of the day, that's as self-evidently nonsense as thinking Valve should implement a shadow-ban policy based on how many people block a user.

Not to mention that problematic has no real meaning or moral weight as you're using it here. It's perfectly normal to not be a good fit for one community but be perfectly fine in another.

KrakenGreywolf 9 Aug @ 1:59pm

100% Dead by Daylight subforum mods are notorious for this. So many people have been perma-banned from that forum that it’s basically become an echo-chamber for exactly one side of a PVP game.

Many who have received said perma-bans have never been even temp banned from any other forum in their life. Valve needs to start cracking down on mods who ban over constructive criticism of their product, twisting rules to ban users they don’t like (and VERY unevenly enforcing them-even repeated personal harassment of other users is just fine if you’re one of the forum mod’s “favorites,”), or just banning because they woke up on the wrong side of the bed that morning.

At some point, if enough people dispute frivolous bans to Steam-said mods should have their ability to mod taken away and the subforum should be permanently taken over by Steam moderation, IMHO.

Tito Shivan 9 Aug @ 2:03pm

Originally posted by William Shakesman:
It's perfectly normal to not be a good fit for one community but be perfectly fine in another.

Yet the user is not a good fit in either in this case.

#10

Scamdiver 9 Aug @ 2:37pm

i'll just leave it here:

A warning from a forum moderator — 1 hour ago
Warning For: Disrespectful Post
Your post "Grounded 2 General Discussions" is in violation of our Community Rules and Guidelines:
It's no secret this game has a lot of very suspicious reviews.
If we make reasonable assumption they are fake, and fake reviews are prohibited by Federal Trade Commission in the US.[www.ftc.gov][www.ftc.gov]

Does it mean the game should be delisted and the devs banned from using Steam Workshop?

Reason:
This post has been identified as being disrespectful. When posting in the Community, please ensure that content is respectful and constructive.

Our Community Rules and Guidelines article contains more specific information, along with some of our reasoning behind these decisions. This is not a ban - just a reminder to follow the rules when participating in Steam Discussions.

If you have other questions about this warning, please contact Steam Support.

Last edited by Scamdiver; 9 Aug @ 2:48pm

#11

Scamdiver 9 Aug @ 2:40pm

Post deletion appeal:

Message from you on Aug 9 @ 11:13pm | 1 hour and 25 minutes ago
My post has been banned with the following reason:
"This post has been identified as being disrespectful. When posting in the Community, please ensure that content is respectful and constructive."

It didn't contain any signs of disrespect. Why was it banned?

Message from Steam Support on Aug 9 @ 11:56pm | 43 minutes ago
This community hub warning was sent by the developer's moderation staff.

Developers follow the Global Rules & Guidelines, but they may also have specific rules regarding what content is acceptable in their game hub.

We won't be reversing their decision, so we recommend contacting their support team for further information and to appeal:
Grounded 2 support

Best Regards,
John

#12

Sciencemile 9 Aug @ 2:49pm

Calling other users reviews fake could be seen as disrespectful.

#13

Mad Scientist 9 Aug @ 2:53pm

Well, its been left out what was acted on, and overall a massive majority of the time devs take action its necessary.

For example anyone removed from dbd, ats, ets, coh2, coh3, drag, doom eternal, starfield etc etc usually know what was posted wouldn't go well.

Last edited by Mad Scientist; 9 Aug @ 2:53pm

#14

NPC_LUKE 9 Aug @ 3:19pm

Originally posted by Scamdiver:
Post deletion appeal:

Message from you on Aug 9 @ 11:13pm | 1 hour and 25 minutes ago
My post has been banned with the following reason:
"This post has been identified as being disrespectful. When posting in the Community, please ensure that content is respectful and constructive."

It didn't contain any signs of disrespect. Why was it banned?

Message from Steam Support on Aug 9 @ 11:56pm | 43 minutes ago
This community hub warning was sent by the developer's moderation staff.

Developers follow the Global Rules & Guidelines, but they may also have specific rules regarding what content is acceptable in their game hub.

We won't be reversing their decision, so we recommend contacting their support team for further information and to appeal:
Grounded 2 support

Best Regards,
John

The reason it was deleted is because you spend all day, every day in the Grounded 2 forums trying to start an argument with people. It's quite satisfying to see you complaining about it though. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)