Our Steam Community is Falling

[SteveLosive]

Disclaimer: This does NOT have anything to do with Schedule I or its developer, and I'm posting this here due to the events I'm about to discuss that happened in this very specific Community Hub Discussions.

Unfortunately, during recent times, many people here on the Steam community are becoming more and more fragile and easily offended by lighthearted jokes that aren't even profane.

This doesn't just apply to users, but almost anything reported to Steam support is removed and user gets banned. It definitely wasn't like this in the Steam community.

I used to post around funny lighthearted jokes mostly around Community Hubs of games that I love and enjoy like Schedule I, and I did that as a way to cope with my depression and struggles in life, as it brought a smile on my face when I laughed at jokes and saw people laugh at my jokes.

Recently, I had posted a joke here and I assume someone reported it, then I got a community ban from Steam Community Support across my account because I had been recently banned in too many Community Hubs. The reason given with the ban was "This post contains content that is inflammatory and likely to create arguments, rule violations, and other non-constructive replies."

From what I have witnessed, all the comments were wholesome and just laughing along. Also, as I mentioned earlier, it was a lighthearted joke that wasn't a troll or anything of such.

At the end of the day, as much as I care about the Steam community, I still also care about my Steam account and the effort I have put into it, and I really don't want to lose it. So, from this day forth, I will only use the Steam community for technical discussions, guides, etc.

Thank you Steam for being the home of my joy and creativity as well as many others like me for years.

I hope one day, the world becomes less harsh to randoms who are just trying to smile and genuinely wouldn't hurt an ant.

All the peace, love, and good wishes.

[Kisama]

From what I've been told by Steam, the game developers themselves are in charge of moderating their own steam forums. (I can't confirm this but it would explain why there is zero consistency in how you can talk from forum to forum).

You then get auto community banned (with an increasing time) based on how many times you've been (most likely arbitrarily) banned before.

I used to contact steam support and get the community wide part of the ban overturned so that the time wouldn't increase (but they rarely unban you from the forum itself) but Steam has become such a joke that I don't even appeal anymore. They are generally good at overturning these if you aren't being inflammatory though.

I just barely engage in forums now, and if I get banned I laugh, spend less/nothing on Steam than I would have until I'm unbanned, and move on.

I'm not engaged with this community at all outside of answering bug questions, generally, but I've come across multiple posts across the threads where they describe this game's discord mods as terrible, ban happy people. I can't speak to that but I wouldn't be surprised if the same people running the discord run the forums.

[CrazyIvan512]

gets banned once for "lighthearted" banter.. does it again.. gets banned, does it again.. gets banned.. now comes into the forum He is getting banned from to complain that he keeps getting banned for "lighthearted" banter.. to say he is only going to use the forum that is meant to discuss game issues or to chat with others about the games they enjoy which is what these forums are for, this is not Discord, it isnt a chat site , coming in to post jokes and generally chat with others isnt what these pages are for at the end of the day..

do I agree with bans for simply joking around.. no
do I think the world is becoming too sensitive.. yes

but again.. at the end of the day, it is up to the platform admins what they wish to allow and not allow on their sites , the first or second ban should have been Your wake up call that Your "lighthearted" joking..or whatever was not going to be allowed

[SteveLosive]

Originally posted by Kisama:

From what I've been told by Steam, the game developers themselves are in charge of moderating their own steam forums.

You then get auto banned (with an increasing time) based on how many times you've been (most likely arbitrarily) banned before.

I used to contact steam support and get the community wide part of the ban overturned (but they rarely unban you from the forum itself) but Steam has become such a joke that I don't even appeal anymore.

I just barely engage in forums now, and if I get banned I laugh, spend less/nothing on Steam than I would have until I'm unbanned, and move on.

That's not entirely true, depending on who issued the ban. In my case it was Steam Community Support directly, not Tyler. Usually when a game community hub admin/mod bans me unfairly, I just stop supporting that game and move on, but usually Steam Support bans when something has been reported and the support agent who looked into it finds it to be violating the Steam Community rules.

As for the account wide community ban, it's true that it's automated, it's issued based on recent frequent bans in multiple community hubs, and I have mentioned that in my post as well.

I agree with you, it really is a joke. They don't even bother with appeals, just a copy-pasted message.

[Jimmy Hunter]

Originally posted by Kisama:

I used to contact steam support and get the community wide part of the ban overturned (but they rarely unban you from the forum itself) but Steam has become such a joke that I don't even appeal anymore.

Frankly it's laughable how useless the Moderation is on Steam. I see so many forums be completely unusable because the Devs can't be asked to hire someone to fill the role of an admin to handle Steam. I don't really know how Developers have been okay with Valve deciding they're not responsible for their own platform, but here we are.

Although my favorites are those moderators that only appear once every couple of months and then you get warned/banned out of the blue for something they take completely out of context.

[SteveLosive]

Originally posted by CrazyIvan512:

gets banned once for "lighthearted" banter.. does it again.. gets banned, does it again.. gets banned.. now comes into the forum He is getting banned from to complain that he keeps getting banned for "lighthearted" banter.. to say he is only going to use the forum that is meant to discuss game issues or to chat with others about the games they enjoy which is what these forums are for, this is not Discord, it isnt a chat site , coming in to post jokes and generally chat with others isnt what these pages are for at the end of the day..

Man, it's a gaming platform. So yes, I'm complaining that things around here used to at least be more fun. Now above all the stress I have in my life, I also feel chained online.

[Kisama]

Originally posted by SteveLosive:

Originally posted by Kisama:

From what I've been told by Steam, the game developers themselves are in charge of moderating their own steam forums.

You then get auto banned (with an increasing time) based on how many times you've been (most likely arbitrarily) banned before.

I used to contact steam support and get the community wide part of the ban overturned (but they rarely unban you from the forum itself) but Steam has become such a joke that I don't even appeal anymore.

I just barely engage in forums now, and if I get banned I laugh, spend less/nothing on Steam than I would have until I'm unbanned, and move on.

That's not entirely true, depending on who issued the ban. In my case it was Steam Community Support directly, not Tyler. Usually when a game community hub admin/mod bans me unfairly, I just stop supporting that game and move on, but usually Steam Support bans when something has been reported and the support agent who looked into it finds it to be violating the Steam Community rules.

As for the account wide community ban, it's true that it's automated, it's issued based on recent frequent bans in multiple community hubs, and I have mentioned that in my post as well.

I agree with you, it really is a joke. They don't even bother with appeals, just a copy-pasted message.

I don't know mine gets longer every time and I don't even engage enough to be banned "frequently". Either way Steam won't "change", and the community won't improve. The only real answer to this is to avoid steam forums like the plague and hit them in the wallet when they decide to punish a paying customer.

Don't get me wrong, steam won't care at all about you buying less games, but $100 less is $100 less.

Feels like going to IGN and saying "our community is dying!" when it's been a corpse for a decade at least

[SteveLosive]

Originally posted by Kisama:

I don't know mine gets longer every time and I don't even engage enough to be banned "frequently". Either way Steam won't "change", and the community won't improve. The only real answer to this is to avoid steam forums like the plague and hit them in the wallet when they decide to punish a paying customer.

Don't get me wrong, steam won't care at all about you buying less games, but $100 less is $100 less.

That's true brother.