Workshop downvote abuse

[Siege]

I know this has been mentioned before but I'm going to mention it again because it's an ongoing issue and I think it needs to be addressed. The downvote system is blatantly being abused. Yeah I know, shocker.

For the past few months I've been getting hammered with downvotes every time I post something to my workshop. My latest creation just racked up eight downvotes in quick succession. I didn't use to have this problem and other content creators I've spoken to have the same problem when posting things to their workshop. I suspect it's one or two people using alt accounts to downvote other people's work in order to keep it off the front page and promote their own stuff. Or maybe they're just trolling.


Allow me to make a couple suggestions:

1) Expand the number of entries on the front page.
2) Decrease the power of downvotes.
3) Disable voting for new accounts(3 months? 6?).
4) Require the person to reach a certain level and/or spend real money before voting options are enabled.
5) ?

Have you tried any of that? Will you? I and my fellow workshop denizens would appreciate it! Or maybe you have tried all that and it didn't make a dent which wouldn't surprise me either.

All I know is my enthusiasm for participating on the Steam Workshop is....diminished. Now I'm a stubborn cuss so I'm not going to abandon making stuff for the workshop any time soon but less obstinate people might conclude they have better things to do and walk away.

[jrandall]

The down vote system itself really either needs to be removed entirely or force the down voter to comment on the post as to why. In a perfect world it could work but from what I have seen, it is only a troll tool and never about the quality or issues with a creation. This is an problem with most any game that has a steam workshop setup like EGS. So in the end, I believe the only way this will ever go away is solely on steam and the down rating system as a whole. I am so tired of seeing authors get pissed, hurt, and quit releasing free creations for the community over the same foul play that seems to always linger around. What also happens is authors start to suspect other authors and that creates even a more hostile atmosphere. Since authors have everything against them including steam support (most of time), they have basically no options or defense. You can't prove you are not the one doing it or prove who is doing it (Normally). It's just bad any way you look at it and really needs to change. Just my opinion.

[B✪✪tsy]

The whole workshop listing algorithm and thus the popularity system with the thumbs needs work, but I think that Valve is fine with it as how it works now.

For example, your current new workshop listing is only visible in the first week after publishing it. After that it drops down to the bottom of the pile on page 946 or something and nobody will ever see your workshop listing ever again, because all the main and top workshop pages are dedicated to new uploads, current massive popular uploads and long time popular uploads, anything else is bottom of the pile junk that nobody ever will see despite the quality.

[fellix Mondialu]

yes ! it"s not corect

[CrazyZ]

It´s the overall increase of distrust that intoxicates the workshop. It´s not only people who want to destroy new builds of certain authors to push their own creations onto the front page instead. All builds of my entire workshop got hammered within the last day. From recent builds to stuff that is 1 1/2 yrs old.Things that can´t be a competition to new builds anymore.

I had 7 five star rated creations on my workshop. They all got downrated back to 4 stars lately. This is not coming from individuals that only want to prevent me from going to the front page. This is just being made by pure hatred and aversion. I never every said something bad against other people on the workshop and always tried to remain polite even when someone wanted to troll me with some salty comments on certain builds of mine.

But that´s a mirror of nowadays society, I guess. People like to be toxic and destructive, when they can do this anonymous. Lack of mutual respect and empathy isn´t a new thing in soeciety. But it´s getting worse and worse.

[CrazyZ]

@B00tsy: If you get hammered by negs right from the start you don´t even have 2 days until your build is off the radar.

[Γαῖα]

This like other issues is yet another valuable lesson to steam to stop resting on their laurels till something breaks and institute more concise rules and engagement procedures.

This said though the attitude these days of some people to sit back and rely on a plus minus algorithm to push there product rather than apply themselves to more traditional methods of self advertising/marketing, its hard not to see how they have brought this on themselves to a degree.

This i am owed culture really needs knocking into the long grass.

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

If Steam gonna do something I guess they're going to put some kind of restriction / road block for voting overall, issue is no one will know what that going to be until it happens, if it happens, and I'm not sure if everyone going to agree with it either for whatever they may end up doing.

Almost any kind of thing that has a voting system is always going to be a problem, it varies per person as well, don't believe me, look back at reddit, youtube, etc... i seen a lot of abuse happens across many services.

[Γαῖα]

Dr.Shadowds 🐉님이 먼저 게시:

If Steam gonna do something I guess they're going to put some kind of restriction / road block for voting overall, issue is no one will know what that going to be until it happens, if it happens, and I'm not sure if everyone going to agree with it either for whatever they may end up doing.

Almost any kind of thing that has a voting system is always going to be a problem, it varies per person as well, don't believe me, look back at reddit, youtube, etc... i seen a lot of abuse happens across many services.

Quite agree.

Personally i would like to see the doing away with the voting system and a return to people trading purely off reputation and good old fashioned self advertising/marketing.
I doubt however steam ,facebook etc would do so as its more for their gain than its actually for the person who stands to gain a vote.

[XCaliber]

Did someone say Downvoting?

This has been happening for me since Alpha 8. Trying to figure out who it is has been a frustration of mine ever since. At the end of the day its a Steam issue that needs to be fixed on their end. I'm sure they'll get to it sometime in between fixing steam chat and releasing Half Life 3 . The dumbest thing they could have done was to enable the ability to vote on the workshop from the steam chat conversation. This gives a steam group chat the ability to downvote or upvote something in a manner of seconds. Its likely whats happening to all of us. I have my ideas as to who the downvote brigades are, as do many others, but theirs unfortunately nothing much that can be done. I myself as well as JRandall and many others have put in repeated support tickets on the issue. They just don't give a ♥♥♥♥. Problem is this drastically hurts Eleons Community as the workshop is what fuels a large part of the interest for the game. If Siege gets frustrated enough, he wont build cool stuff for others to enjoy. Giving the User this much power over the Community was a huge oversight.

[piddlefoot]

I dont know why Steam keep the downvote button either, it seems like a back door past their own rules, and creates a place for trolls to slip in and damage honest peoples work.

Its been happening for ever on Steam for many games, Steam have really no excuse as to why they have not just removed the downvote button all together, other sites have and its worked a charm.
Steam should be promoting a progressive system, not this system that creates and generates hate towards other fellow gamers for being creative and giving the world something.

Unfortunately its not likely it will ever be stopped while that downvote button exists, even if Steam find out who it is and ban them, they just make a new account and within 30 minutes there downvoting again.

The only real solution is the complete removal of the downvote button.

Many of us have sent Steam messages asking for such a thing, I suggest all of you do the same, its the only way Steam get the message, numbers.

It was nice to come in here though and not see all of you folk tearing eachother new rear ends, well done on keeping it civil !
This is not the players fault, the buck clearly stops with Steam.

[kuma7]

As of 2022 this issue hasn't been addressed yet. Me and at least 2 other modders I know are getting targeted by some person/people that use either BOTs or alt accounts. It's always the same pattern: you upload a mod, 15 minutes have passed, you get 5-8 dislikes in a row in a matter of seconds.

If this kind of actions can't be detected, at least fix the current bayesian system, or alternatively don't let people rate addons before they've actually downloaded and used them (this approach is already used on other important modding sites and works great).

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

kuma7님이 먼저 게시:

As of 2022 this issue hasn't been addressed yet. Me and at least 2 other modders I know are getting targeted by some person/people that use either BOTs or alt accounts. It's always the same pattern: you upload a mod, 15 minutes have passed, you get 5-8 dislikes in a row in a matter of seconds.

If this kind of actions can't be detected, at least fix the current bayesian system, or alternatively don't let people rate addons before they've actually downloaded and used them (this approach is already used on other important modding sites and works great).

Seeing you only post garry mods, I assume it's a person with alts, if know one of the accounts that been repeatly downvoting you, and many others across everything, there chance support might hit them all if it under same person, just my guess on this.

But as far as I see, they make a tiny faction compare to your thumb up, as all your mods are 4 ~ 5 stars, and 2 of them not enough rating as of yet to get starts.

[kuma7]

Yeah, those downvotes have a small impact on the number of stars I get. The problem is that Steam only promotes new addons during 7 days on the workshop. 90% of the views that an addon gets come from those 7 days. Addons are sorted depending on the percentage of positive ratings they've got, so if you don't perform well during those 7 days, your mod is basically dead. If you get 6 downvotes right after you've uploaded an addon, you're pretty much screwed up, unless you magically get 100 positive ratings. This's why I'm worried.

I think all of this started like one year ago. If you have further information, I'm very willing to help out.

[Dr.Shadowds 🐉]

kuma7님이 먼저 게시:

Yeah, those downvotes have a small impact on the number of stars I get. The problem is that Steam only promotes new addons during 7 days on the workshop. 90% of the views that an addon gets come from those 7 days. Addons are sorted depending on the percentage of positive ratings they've got, so if you don't perform well during those 7 days, your mod is basically dead. If you get 6 downvotes right after you've uploaded an addon, you're pretty much screwed up, unless you magically get 100 positive ratings. This's why I'm worried.

I think all of this started like one year ago. If you have further information, I'm very willing to help out.

My only suggestion for work around in this problem is asking for friends help to bump you up.

[Precache]

I think it never even occurs to most players to up or down votes something; it certainly didn't to me until I started posting things to the workshop. I just thought a favorite was the same as a like (if not better).

I think they ought to count favorites the same as an upvote and simply remove one for each downvote (when doing their calculations), down to a minimum of zero.