How to STOP/MINIMIZE the incoming troll thread flood. Community Call To Action:

[DeadSlash]

The ramp up is starting and the flood gates will open on the 24th. This happens on ALL NEW GAMES. There will be floods of ridiculous troll threads. This will last about a week and start to ramp down.

As a community, we really can easily cut down on the severity of the issue:


1. Don't give clown awards. This isn't a "punishment" or disincentive, it is literally what they are posting to farm those points.

2. Don't reply. There is no combination of words you can say more hurtful than silence to someone that is desperate for our attention.

3. Instead of replying, simply report the troll thread for whatever it is, spam/inflammatory etc.

That's it, if we do these things, it will minimize the troll influx. If you ignore a thread, they will make more, or bump their own and you can report it for spam. After a week or so, the attention shifts to some other new release.

The troll threads will mainly consist of the following:

1. "Woke something blah blah blah."

2. "Runs terrible for everyone" These are super tempting to respond to when especially if the majority of the community isn't having problems.

3. "Denuvo something blah blah blah"

4. "Terrible graphics"

5. "The sales bombed"

6. <UPDATE> "Comment for a free copy!" scam posts

Keep in mind, points and a response is what they want. the entire purpose of saying something that is totally counter to reality is to get those responses They win when you give a reply or a clown award.

Let's see if we can be the first forum on Steam to not reward the trolls.

Looking forward to the 24th!

[Shao]

Can confirm the pattern. This is exactly what happened with Dead Space.

[DAWN OF THE DEAD]

Press “x” to doubt

[DRIFTER]

if steam removed awards a lot would go away overnight. unfortunately trolls, memes, one liners are rewarded, while thoughtful posts, detailed reviews, respectful debate are ignored.

[DAWN OF THE DEAD]

Originally posted by Shao:

Can confirm the pattern. This is exactly what happened with Dead Space.

OP is right with pattern but without active moderation it will go down as all ways

[ChrisE]

Thank you! I swear, I was about to make a similar thread. This place is worse than Twitter.

[Most Hated]

Why you tripping let folks due them it's there right while we still have them online damn you folks closet fascist. You don't like it move on nobody making you click on a ♥♥♥♥ thread.

[Ronin Gamer]

It bothers me greatly that it has to be pointed out to people to NOT give them awards...

[zuppaclub]

capcom could set discussion to game owner only if they want to like sony's games discussion

inb4 mah free speech card incoming

[austin]

Exactly 100% honestly I think there should be a dislike Button rather than those stupid Clown Awards. and if a post gets too many dislikes it's automatically deleted. And if a person post too many threads that get deleted due to too many dislikes They get blocked from certain forums completely. Plus people who actually own the game should be the only ones who can post on these forums in the first place.

[Ronin Gamer]

Originally posted by zuppaclub:

capcom could set discussion to game owner only if they want to like sony's games discussion

inb4 mah free speech card incoming

Am I wrong in assuming Steam has more control over their own forums on their store platform than Capcom does? Or did I miss something somewhere?

[austin]

OK this is a radical one. How about a middle finger reward. Like a solid gold flipped bird. And receiving it actually takes points away from you. Obviously this isn't going to happen for obvious reasons but actual punishment rather than reward is the only way people learn.

[Harris]

What's the deal with the censorship guide?

How about we start entertaining opinions of others and not auto-dismiss what does not align with ours as "troll threads", "bait" and all?

No? Thought so.

[austin]

Originally posted by Harris:

What's the deal with the censorship guide?

How about we start entertaining opinions of others and not auto-dismiss what does not align with ours as "troll threads", "bait" and all?

No? Thought so.

not that I think you're not a troll trying to get a reaction. but these discussion forums have been plagued by loud mouth idiots purposefully saying things just to make people angry too fuel what is effectively a fetish. At least that's how I interpreted. It's not dismissing people who have different opinions it's fighting back against people trying to make the Internet a worse place.

[Harris]

Originally posted by austin:

not that I think you're not a troll trying to get a reaction.

Go check my profile, after all people commonly do that to find something to nitpick and dismiss me based on. There's 500 awards there, with clowns 60 out of that. That's even though it's common for my takes to be very different from the local universally accepted truth.

What does that tell you? Well I dunno. What it SHOULD tell you, however, is:

1) that I post sensible stuff a lot of people agree with more often than not;
2) that I simply got too many points to possibly care about your reaction or lack of thereof.

Originally posted by DeadSlash:

Don't give clown awards. This isn't a "punishment" or disincentive, it is literally what they are posting to farm those points.

I've been on Steam for some 10 years now, and the majority of that time there was no awards here. By your logic, nobody should have posted anything since there wasn't any motivation for that. But that's not how it works. People come to forums to voice their opinion. It's a very humanly thing to do, you know.

Do clowns encourage voicing opinions that are against the mainstream? Yes, and it's a great thing, too - it prevents this forums from turning into "RE4make 10/10 GOTY" circlejerk.

Can this system be abused, exploiting the fact the clowns that became an expression of "I disagree" actually bring points to the OP? Of course. But it's oftentimes hard to tell and not immediately obvious whether somebody's arguing in good faith.

It definitely should be on per case basis, else if you dismiss everything other than your opinion as troll posts, then no discussion can happen and the whole thing loses its point.

Originally posted by austin:

it's fighting back against people trying to make the Internet a worse place.

How is somebody saying something you don't agree with makes Internet a worse place? Hell, how someone farming clowns makes Internet a worse place? Doesn't sound reasonable to me.

[DAWN OF THE DEAD]

Originally posted by Harris:

…

Have different opinion and posting it its fine however this how most steam diff
opinion post look like: “any body who buys re4r are brainless consumers idiots they removed ability to check Ashleys upskirt! Cut content 0/10”