I need a little bit assistance regarding the "community ban" as a steam feature.

[FehiŸ]

Hello there.

So I found out the information like this:
"Community Bans are issued to an account when the account is used in ways that violate Steam's Community Guidelines excessively. Most Community Bans will expire, but extended or even permanent bans may be issued if the prohibited activity continues or if the moderation team finds the activity egregious";
"The community ban is automatically applied by the system due to the account having too many historical hub bans";
"The community ban was applied automatically as a result of multiple hub bans being issued by different moderators";
"The account has several content banned, which caused the system to apply an auto lock to the account" etc.
Alright. Sure. Got it. Even though that's just beyond hilarious and all. Especially it being a "automatic system". But okay, that's not my point right now.

Moving on.

I have two specific question about that function which steam support can't / won't answer me. As always.
The first one is how much of the "hub bans" you must have for that to turn into "community ban"? Like 3? 5? 10?
And the second one is the time intervals between them. Does it even matter? To be more precise I mean it's seems like that you can get the "community ban" if the "hub bans" will stack even through years. For example you will get the necessary amount of it within like five years or so and then boom, you got it. Is that right?

Thanks

[Ogami]

There is no clear information about what you want to know and thats by design.
If there were clear rules "get x amount of hub bans to trigger Y community ban" people would just game the system and make sure to stay just out of the more serious ban range.
Same for the second one, its not clear if bans that are multiple years back still account for future ban lenghts.

[FehiŸ]

Originally posted by Ogami:

There is no clear information about what you want to know and thats by design.
If there were clear rules "get x amount of hub bans to trigger Y community ban" people would just game the system and make sure to stay just out of the more serious ban range.
Same for the second one, its not clear if bans that are multiple years back still account for future ban lenghts.

Hmmmmm. Is that so? Well, that's just bad. Using such thing without a proper information about it. This is indeed funny.
But anyway, thanks for the answer.

[Start_Running]

Originally posted by FehiŸ:

Originally posted by Ogami:

There is no clear information about what you want to know and thats by design.
If there were clear rules "get x amount of hub bans to trigger Y community ban" people would just game the system and make sure to stay just out of the more serious ban range.
Same for the second one, its not clear if bans that are multiple years back still account for future ban lenghts.

Hmmmmm. Is that so? Well, that's just bad. Using such thing without a proper information about it. This is indeed funny.
But anyway, thanks for the answer.

Oh there's information. It's just on their end.
Just note kknow that they keep a record and your past behaviour will inform current punishments. If you're misbehaving in game hums, the community mods can see those bans and thusly will know to not give the benefit of the doubt and just go for the ban hammer

[FehiŸ]

Originally posted by Start_Running:

Originally posted by FehiŸ:

Hmmmmm. Is that so? Well, that's just bad. Using such thing without a proper information about it. This is indeed funny.
But anyway, thanks for the answer.

Oh there's information. It's just on their end.
Just note kknow that they keep a record and your past behaviour will inform current punishments. If you're misbehaving in game hums, the community mods can see those bans and thusly will know to not give the benefit of the doubt and just go for the ban hammer

Well I assume such thing. It's kinda obvious since they are the ones who use it after all. It's just the lack of information about it, is not right imo.

[rawWwRrr]

Originally posted by FehiŸ:

Originally posted by Start_Running:

Oh there's information. It's just on their end.
Just note kknow that they keep a record and your past behaviour will inform current punishments. If you're misbehaving in game hums, the community mods can see those bans and thusly will know to not give the benefit of the doubt and just go for the ban hammer

Well I assume such thing. It's kinda obvious since they are the ones who use it after all. It's just the lack of information about it, is not right imo.

If the exact details were leaked, then it would be abused.

[It's about sending a message]

Originally posted by Ogami:

There is no clear information about what you want to know and thats by design.
If there were clear rules "get x amount of hub bans to trigger Y community ban" people would just game the system and make sure to stay just out of the more serious ban range.
Same for the second one, its not clear if bans that are multiple years back still account for future ban lenghts.

How so? There's nothing to be "abused" there.
Anyway the answer is two. If you get two hub bans it'll apply an automatic community ban to your account, which'll go something like this IIRC:

1 day
3 days
1 week
2 weeks
1 month
3 months
6 months
1 year / permanent (?)

My 1 year ban stated it's permanent on one page, while another page said it's 1 year. Contacting support it was cleared up it's a year. Would the next automated ban be 2 years or actually be permanent? Who knows, not going to find out.
Keep in mind, this is from a few years ago and yes, it's generally known that 2 active bans = automatic comm ban.
You need to get banned off of 2 hubs to receive that automatic comm ban. If one ban's 48 hours and after 24 hours you get another ban on another hub, the automatic comm ban will apply. AFAIK if that first ban decays and you get a new, second hub ban after.. a week, then there would be no comm ban applied.
These automatic community bans exist to deter spammers and bots first and foremost.

[It's about sending a message]

Originally posted by rawWwRrr:

Originally posted by FehiŸ:

Well I assume such thing. It's kinda obvious since they are the ones who use it after all. It's just the lack of information about it, is not right imo.

If the exact details were leaked, then it would be abused.

There's nothing to be abused there and it's public knowledge that it's 2 active bans, which trigger the automatic community ban. Unless Valve changed the threshold it's still 2 active bans. Not difficult to figure out.
The only thing which might be a factor too are old bans. I.e. this "2 active bans = comm ban" may not kick in at all unless the user has had at least X bans on X hubs before. Meaning a new user may be able to get banned on 2 or more hubs at once, without getting comm banned. That I do not know. But once you've received at least a few bans, it's most definitely 2 active = comm.

[rawWwRrr]

Originally posted by It's about sending a message:

Originally posted by rawWwRrr:

If the exact details were leaked, then it would be abused.

There's nothing to be abused there and it's public knowledge that it's 2 active bans, which trigger the automatic community ban. Unless Valve changed the threshold it's still 2 active bans. Not difficult to figure out.
The only thing which might be a factor too are old bans. I.e. this "2 active bans = comm ban" may not kick in at all unless the user has had at least X bans on X hubs before. Meaning a new user may be able to get banned on 2 or more hubs at once, without getting comm banned. That I do not know. But once you've received at least a few bans, it's most definitely 2 active = comm.

See. You can't even provide a definitive answer. "Definitely two. But hold on, maybe not if they're old. And maybe not a new user. But still definitely the answer is two."

We don't know the exact details. Neither do you. That's intentional.

[FehiŸ]

Originally posted by rawWwRrr:

Originally posted by FehiŸ:

Well I assume such thing. It's kinda obvious since they are the ones who use it after all. It's just the lack of information about it, is not right imo.

If the exact details were leaked, then it would be abused.

Not really. I mean you will get banned eventually anyway.

[FehiŸ]

Originally posted by It's about sending a message:

Originally posted by Ogami:

There is no clear information about what you want to know and thats by design.
If there were clear rules "get x amount of hub bans to trigger Y community ban" people would just game the system and make sure to stay just out of the more serious ban range.
Same for the second one, its not clear if bans that are multiple years back still account for future ban lenghts.

How so? There's nothing to be "abused" there.
Anyway the answer is two. If you get two hub bans it'll apply an automatic community ban to your account, which'll go something like this IIRC:

1 day
3 days
1 week
2 weeks
1 month
3 months
6 months
1 year / permanent (?)

My 1 year ban stated it's permanent on one page, while another page said it's 1 year. Contacting support it was cleared up it's a year. Would the next automated ban be 2 years or actually be permanent? Who knows, not going to find out.
Keep in mind, this is from a few years ago and yes, it's generally known that 2 active bans = automatic comm ban.
You need to get banned off of 2 hubs to receive that automatic comm ban. If one ban's 48 hours and after 24 hours you get another ban on another hub, the automatic comm ban will apply. AFAIK if that first ban decays and you get a new, second hub ban after.. a week, then there would be no comm ban applied.
These automatic community bans exist to deter spammers and bots first and foremost.

Now that's something! That's how it should be in a first place. Interesting. Thanks for the reply.

[It's about sending a message]

Originally posted by rawWwRrr:

Originally posted by It's about sending a message:

There's nothing to be abused there and it's public knowledge that it's 2 active bans, which trigger the automatic community ban. Unless Valve changed the threshold it's still 2 active bans. Not difficult to figure out.
The only thing which might be a factor too are old bans. I.e. this "2 active bans = comm ban" may not kick in at all unless the user has had at least X bans on X hubs before. Meaning a new user may be able to get banned on 2 or more hubs at once, without getting comm banned. That I do not know. But once you've received at least a few bans, it's most definitely 2 active = comm.

See. You can't even provide a definitive answer. "Definitely two. But hold on, maybe not if they're old. And maybe not a new user. But still definitely the answer is two."

We don't know the exact details. Neither do you. That's intentional.

No, I said I cannot provide an answer whether or not you're required to be a "troublemaker". Could I test it on a fresh account, just to see if two bans right from the get-go are enough? Yes, but I won't.
As a matter of fact this could be tested by anyone, even you, if you wanted to. Make a new account, pay $5 and then see if 2 bans at once are enough to trigger the comm ban. This is not to incentive you "breaking rules", but the point is it would be very easy to test.
But I know for a fact that 2 active bans = auto comm ban, this has been the case a few years ago and likely hasn't changed at all, and once again, even if it changed, so now it's 3 and not 2, it would be easy to figure out for anyone who wanted to know about it.
As far as I am concerned it's 2 active bans = auto comm ban. Maybe there's a new variable now, like "if the old ban's already expired, but it's less than 1 week and you get another ban, it's still a comm ban", I don't know and it doesn't matter. All OP needs to know is to avoid being devious on multiple forums and netting himself multiple bans. Avoid multiple (temporary) bans and avoid getting banned in general. Then you don't have to worry about anything. And if someone like OP does get banned, not by Steam support, but by a comm moderator of a certain game hub, complaining can help. I've been wrongfully banned before and had the ban revoked.
It would be nice for Steam to be a little bit more clear on these things, like how bans escalate (ignoring that a manual ban can skip to "permanent" right away, but this is about auto bans), but Valve doesn't even bother telling people about simple things like changing your name putting a trade cooldown on your profile for a couple of hours. I mean.. why? Changing your name causing a temporary trade CD is common knowledge in the forums, yet a person with said CD will only see a generic message instead. Even the trade ban FAQ doesn't mention it I believe, or it's tucked away somewhere.

Stupid.

[It's about sending a message]

Originally posted by FehiŸ:

Originally posted by rawWwRrr:

If the exact details were leaked, then it would be abused.

Not really. I mean you will get banned eventually anyway.

Yeah, obviously. It seems that people just wanna ride that wave of "Valve knows best by staying cryptic", but obviously that's never worked for stuff like VAC and still doesn't work for the forums and spam bots either. But whatever the Valve fans want to believe, I suppose.

[FehiŸ]

Originally posted by It's about sending a message:

Originally posted by rawWwRrr:

See. You can't even provide a definitive answer. "Definitely two. But hold on, maybe not if they're old. And maybe not a new user. But still definitely the answer is two."

We don't know the exact details. Neither do you. That's intentional.

No, I said I cannot provide an answer whether or not you're required to be a "troublemaker". Could I test it on a fresh account, just to see if two bans right from the get-go are enough? Yes, but I won't.
As a matter of fact this could be tested by anyone, even you, if you wanted to. Make a new account, pay $5 and then see if 2 bans at once are enough to trigger the comm ban. This is not to incentive you "breaking rules", but the point is it would be very easy to test.
But I know for a fact that 2 active bans = auto comm ban, this has been the case a few years ago and likely hasn't changed at all, and once again, even if it changed, so now it's 3 and not 2, it would be easy to figure out for anyone who wanted to know about it.
As far as I am concerned it's 2 active bans = auto comm ban. Maybe there's a new variable now, like "if the old ban's already expired, but it's less than 1 week and you get another ban, it's still a comm ban", I don't know and it doesn't matter. All OP needs to know is to avoid being devious on multiple forums and netting himself multiple bans. Avoid multiple (temporary) bans and avoid getting banned in general. Then you don't have to worry about anything. And if someone like OP does get banned, not by Steam support, but by a comm moderator of a certain game hub, complaining can help. I've been wrongfully banned before and had the ban revoked.
It would be nice for Steam to be a little bit more clear on these things, like how bans escalate (ignoring that a manual ban can skip to "permanent" right away, but this is about auto bans), but Valve doesn't even bother telling people about simple things like changing your name putting a trade cooldown on your profile for a couple of hours. I mean.. why? Changing your name causing a temporary trade CD is common knowledge in the forums, yet a person with said CD will only see a generic message instead. Even the trade ban FAQ doesn't mention it I believe, or it's tucked away somewhere.

Stupid.

Yet again, thanks for the info.

Originally posted by It's about sending a message:

Originally posted by FehiŸ:

Not really. I mean you will get banned eventually anyway.

Yeah, obviously. It seems that people just wanna ride that wave of "Valve knows best by staying cryptic", but obviously that's never worked for stuff like VAC and still doesn't work for the forums and spam bots either. But whatever the Valve fans want to believe, I suppose.

Indeed. It kinda amazed me almost everytime to see the scene, when someone defender is trying his best to protect someone even if they are totally in wrong. But I mean that's what the fans are needed for in a first place after all.