Steam Awards for reviews and guides was a mistake

[76561199052510605]

I'm sure on paper this idea sounded like a good way to reward people who create meaningful content.
In reality you get this:

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2224434655

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2228087760

There are MANY more copies of these cookie cutter memes going around, there's no point in listing them all.
So someone writes a guide, spend a couple hours making it useful to people and gets a couple awards. On the other hand, someone writes (or more likely copies) one of the above and get hundreds. For what?

This is what ruined reddit, this is what everyone (EVEN the usual contrarian regulars of this forum) argue against when someone suggests an upvote system for forum posts. I'm surprised Valve though this was a good idea in the first place.

You're probably gonna say "just report them" yadda yadda... That does literally nothing. No matter how rule breaking the guide is , it always stays up. I've tested in MANY times over the years. But NOW these low effort posters actually get meaningful rewards.

Suggestion: remove awards for meme and funny content. Actually create a vetting system, some kind of merit control. I know there's already moderation control for some of the most popular games' guides and reviews. One simple step can fix this: "restrict awards for this guide/review due to it being comedy content" button for moderators.

--

Seems this gained some traction, so it's time to tackle some assumptions and misunderstanding:

1. "You're angry that someone gets awards and you don't".
No need to invent a weaker argument and then dance around it. Notice the examples. No one ever mentioned well-written reviews in here either, because when you see actual reviews someone put effort in and earned 100+ awards you don't feel that's undeserved. Also can't help but be amazed at this claim: "people come here to complain because they can't make content that is useful". The "how to cheat in Fall Guys" meme which tells you to uninstall and never come back is very useful and groundbreaking, gotta give you that one. Apparently the problem is not the spammers who devalue community content but the grumpy old guys and girls who spend more than 3 minutes on their guides and reviews. Maybe we all should make a copy of "how to cheat" guide and post it to every game hub in our libraries. Food for thought (and a deliberate hyperbole).

2. "Spam existed before"
Like others said, the problem is not that spam existed before. The problem is that Valve is not doing anything to discourage spam. They added a "funny" button to reviews. That didn't fix anything but at least it didn't encourage more spam. There's absolutely no need to reward spammers. Before all this they'd only get upvotes and popularity. Now they get all of the above plus steam currency. Which leads me to...

3. "Awards didn't make things worse"
Oh but they did. Give people better rewards and they will be more motivated to earn these awards by spending the least amount of effort. One genius mastermind writes a "how to jump" guide and earns steam currency. The next day ten more do the same thing because someone will give in to temptation of getting those shiny points. Memes, jokes and plagiarism at the top of steam community. What a time to be alive.

4. "High quality content is encouraged"
100-award one-liners everywhere you look don't motivate you to create high quality content. Exactly the opposite. Maybe if memes didn't siphon large percentage of awards available ... But that's exactly what the OP is about.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

I report guides that are nonsense just to be nonsense.

[Aria]

I would second this in some capacity. I enjoy browsing community hubs for stuff like screenshots, artwork, reviews etc. and it's vexing to see genuine attempts at original content get less awards than "Haha funny meme" one liner reviews or "guides" that are just a glorified way to display gifs on your profile.

I'm not sure of what a good way to do it would be, other than content with high reports getting manually reviewed and if it's found to be irrelevant/a complete joke/ etc. then it can't get awards anymore or something.

[B l u e b e r r y P o p t a r t]

I don't really mind the awards themselves but giving XP was a huge mistake, just report those type of guides and move on.

[ElvisDeadly]

On the one hand I agree with you, I'm not sure the awards were a good idea (in the same sense that I don't think upvoting would be a good feature for the forums). I agree it encourages spam / meme content as it attracts attention and gets far more awards than a well written guide or review.

But, the system exists now and people can choose how to spend their points. If the majority want to do that awarding meme/funny content then why should they be stopped just because some other users wish that 'quality content' got rewarded instead?

Honestly, the best thing you can do? Just spend your points to give awards to content you think deserves it

[Tito Shivan]

IMHO I concur. Specially the part where rewarding UGC grants Steam points to the creator.
Just like the 'Make a post in the Steam Discussions' badge task it creates a reward for the task and people are always going to choose the path of less resistance to get the reward.

That said, Those kind of guides have been there way before Steam points. And them getting awards is no surprise as people like to upvote 'meme' content (Cue to certain meme curators with thousands of followers) So it's not really a problem the Steam points have created.

[76561198407601200]

Tito Shivan の投稿を引用：

IMHO I concur. Specially the part where rewarding UGC grants Steam points to the creator.
Just like the 'Make a post in the Steam Discussions' badge task it creates a reward for the task and people are always going to choose the path of less resistance to get the reward.

That said, Those kind of guides have been there way before Steam points. And them getting awards is no surprise as people like to upvote 'meme' content (Cue to certain meme curators with thousands of followers) So it's not really a problem the Steam points have created.

Yes, and i remember topics specifically about that being brought up about meme guides. I honestly didn't care all too much since i rely elsewhere for reviews.

[Crazy Tiger]

Red Pulse の投稿を引用：

Steam Awards for reviews and guides was a mistake

Agreed. Not just for reviews or guides, but altogether.

But like Tito I disagree that the problem is created by these awards/rewards. It provides a visual indication of it, yes, but such guides and reviews already existed long before the point shop and the awards/rewards were there.

[nilloc93]

but awards make the client more like reddit/facebook/myspace and valve wants to be the next big social media platform while also being the best voice client and the best games shop (but failing at all 3)

This is normal on any platform where people can get ANYTHING for their comments even on FB where you get a like that doesn't do anything, memes/****posts did exist long before up/down votes but they are encouraged and put front and center and garner more attention with them.

[Start_Running]

I dunno. I mean. Havibng gotten a few reards for my guides and reviews I think its an excellent idea. Well in theory.

It'll be up to the communit to decide what they're going to throw their points aty. Points that they could equally use to buy stuff (like seasonal discounts) for themselves.

[AustrAlien2010]

Just ignore what other people do, and what they think, and just do your own thing. There is only one person you have to impress. Yourself. Who cares what they think. If you can make something for yourself, that you can use, than someone else can probably use it as well. Their thoughts are not important. Only your own thoughts matter.

Always make something for yourself, and if you can use it, and if you´re happy with it, then share it. Make it because you need it, not because someone else needs it.

Same idea with reviews. Don´t write them for someone else. But instead try writing them for yourself. Because at the end of the day, they will end up in your own library.

And if someone ever doubts you, and asks you: "Why did you do it? Why do I need this?" You can simply respond with: "I need this. I made this for myself."


You know what? Maybe that guide is a work in progress, and it's not finished yet. Have faith.

[Start_Running]

AustrAlien2010 の投稿を引用：

Just ignore what other people do, and what they think, and just do your own thing. There is only one person you have to impress. Yourself. Who cares what they think. If you can make something for yourself, that you can use, than someone else can probably use it as well. Their thoughts are not important. Only your own thoughts matter.

Always make something for yourself, and if you can use it, and if you´re happy with it, than share it. Make it because you need it, not because someone else needs it.

Same idea with reviews. Don´t write them for someone else. But instead try writing them for yourself. Because at the end of the day, they will end up in your own library.

Well said. But alas human psychology tends not to work that way.
The old saying:
To make a man happy: Give him $10
To make a man angry: Give the man next to him $10.
To make a man absolutely furious: Give him $10 THEN give the man next to him $20.

[AustrAlien2010]

Anyway, if you edit an item that is awarded, you keep the awards. So it´s a really weird system anyway, because if people award the original (not edited) item, and later on it gets messed up by an edit, the awards stay on it.

How is that not weird, if the entire item could be changed? I´m not saying that it should be the other way around, but it´s still funny.

Anyway, you can just ask for awards, and people will give you awards, so it´s an odd system anyway.

[Gus the Crocodile]

AustrAlien2010 の投稿を引用：

Anyway, if you edit an item that is awarded, you keep the awards. So it´s a really weird system anyway, because if people award the original (not edited) item, and later on it gets messed up by an edit, the awards stay on it.

How is that not weird, if the entire item could be changed? I´m not saying that it should be the other way around, but it´s still funny.

I mean, if I give someone something as a way of saying “thanks, good job on that thing you made”, that doesn’t take away their rights over their creation. Them getting to keep the reward and also keep making changes to their work is normal, that’s just the nature of giving someone something. Seems to me it’d be much weirder to treat rewards as contracts mandating that the work in question not be edited from that point forward.

[Start_Running]

AustrAlien2010 の投稿を引用：

Anyway, if you edit an item that is awarded, you keep the awards. So it´s a really weird system anyway, because if people award the original (not edited) item, and later on it gets messed up by an edit, the awards stay on it.

How is that not weird, if the entire item could be changed? I´m not saying that it should be the other way around, but it´s still funny.

Same as hen a film is retroactively re-edited. Burt guiven how infrequently people actually edit their reviews.

[Jazz]

Worthless guides like that have existed far before the points shop's implementation.

But I do agree that the points system has massively exacerbated the issue...