[Suggestion] Way to claim abandoned Steam Groups

[Sand]

Looking at certain Steam Groups there are some with only a few members or even as low as one member. Sometimes that one member has not been active for years. It would be nice to have a way of claiming these groups, that have been inactive for more than a certain amount of days/years. I understand the idea that their owners might come back to Steam one day and wish to still have ownership of that group, with that name, abbreviation and URL. On the other hand, there are all these accounts that have been inactive for years, being highly likely that they completly gave up on using Steam, or maybe, occasionally, their owner has passed away. In some cases it is impossible to get in touch with the owners and ask for the group, because they simply do not use Steam anymore. So, once again, I would really like to see a way of being able to claim these groups with inactive members.

[Cathulhu]

And what makes you think you have the right to take something that is not yours from someone else without their consent?

That's like taking a car that has been around for weeks. "I'm sorry, officer. The owner abandoned the car, and i took it as mine. He wasn't using it anyway".

[Sazzouu]

Originally posted by Cathulhu:

And what makes you think you have the right to take something that is not yours from someone else without their consent?

To be fair...
Apparently you as the "owner" cannot propperly abandon a group anyways. As long as there are members in there (even if all admins and moderators already left) the group will persist.

I once created a group for giveaways. That was somewhere around 2016. In 2017 I posted an announcement that I will stomp in the group, changed the avatar and the description to something to indicate that the project is over and well left it. The group still exist today. And apparently didn't alter much in member-counts.

There is no option like "Delete this group" for owners / admins. The only way to delete a group is basically removing all members manually and then leave aftewards. Now think of a group with hundreds of thousands of members but you just want to quit for I dunno reallife issues you know. When there is just one abandoned account in there as a member you have literally no chance to get rid of that group.

So I can totally see OPs request here.

[Start_Running]

Makes sense A group is about a community and really once a large enough community has grown it shouldn't be up to one or two people to decide to shut it down.

OP. Just make your own group. Simple.
Make your own rather than try to steal what someone else owns.

[Sazzouu]

Originally posted by Start_Running:

Makes sense A group is about a community and really once a large enough community has grown it shouldn't be up to one or two people to decide to shut it down.

Makes zero sense if the sole purpose of the group was turned-down. Let's say you have your favourite bar that you come around with your friends every weekend. Now the bar closes due to whatever reason (bankruptcy maybe). Do you folks just sit infront of an empty building then? And what if some investor wants to start something new in there (second hand shop maybe) do you folks block the entrance because "WHO ARE YOU TO DECIDE?!"

Picking up the analogy once again. What about the owner just left to move over to something else and therefore abandons this location (a.k.a. Changing a groups name and abbrevation which is also impossible) do you folks just host a sit-in to force that guy to stay?

Also a good analogy: limit in space
If we just keep buildings staying empty for eternity just because there are some random folks not wanting to leave or maybe even died in that building we will soon run out of locations entirely.
Same for Steam Groups: on creating a group it is mandatory to set an abbrevation. There however is a limit in charactercounts for the abbrevations - 12 characters at the moment. Therefore we have a limit in Steam Groups that could be created.

[Sand]

Originally posted by Start_Running:

Makes sense A group is about a community and really once a large enough community has grown it shouldn't be up to one or two people to decide to shut it down.

OP. Just make your own group. Simple.
Make your own rather than try to steal what someone else owns.

The whole idea is that Steam does not allow two groups to have the same abbreviation, or name, and if a group has been inactive for years the name is just taken from the history of steam forever. I'm also not only talking about the times when the group is big with a community behind it, there are groups with literally one member who has been last online 8 years ago. Also my request is not to have simple 'claim' button, but rather ask for it from Steam Support, and if it meets certain critarias like it has been inactive for a certain amount of months/years you can claim it, or it can be deleted so the name/abbreviation/URL are free to use again.

Originally posted by Sazzouu:

Same for Steam Groups: on creating a group it is mandatory to set an abbrevation. There however is a limit in charactercounts for the abbrevations - 12 characters at the moment. Therefore we have a limit in Steam Groups that could be created.

This. If there is no way to get rid of certain groups, and people are just stubborn and will not leave them, in the future the only abbreviations possible will be a random mix or letters and numbers. As of now nothing stops anyone from being able to create 50 groups with names and just claim them forever from the history of Steam, and never use those groups.

[Sazzouu]

Originally posted by Sandy:

As of now nothing stops anyone from being able to create 50 groups with names and just claim them forever from the history of Steam, and never use those groups.

Apparently this is an actual business model that I have seen quite a few times by now:

1. Create a group with a generic name
   
2. Wait a few months / years
   
3. Sell the group to someone interested in the name / abbrevation

Do this a few hundret times and you will very soon get offers. And better yet, if they are just interested in the abbrevation you can just change it after you sold it and still keep the groupname. Perfect profit with zero effort or risk on your end.

The same thing already happened long before groups were introduced with custom profile URLs. So actually it would also be in Valves interest to support something like this.

[Start_Running]

Originally posted by Sandy:

Originally posted by Start_Running:

Makes sense A group is about a community and really once a large enough community has grown it shouldn't be up to one or two people to decide to shut it down.

OP. Just make your own group. Simple.
Make your own rather than try to steal what someone else owns.

The whole idea is that Steam does not allow two groups to have the same abbreviation, or name....

Again. Come up with your own. instead of trying to steal someone else's.

Originally posted by Sandy:

I'm also talking about the times when the group isnt necessarily big, there are groups with literally one member who has been last online 8 years ago. Also I do not mean to have a simple 'claim' button, but rather ask for it from Steam Support.

Again. Just make your own. I guarantee you that support, much as now would not hand you someone else's stuff. Just make your own group. Come up with your own name, and build your own membership.

[Stalker2010]

Originally posted by Cathulhu:

And what makes you think you have the right to take something that is not yours from someone else without their consent?

That's like taking a car that has been around for weeks. "I'm sorry, officer. The owner abandoned the car, and i took it as mine. He wasn't using it anyway".

Indeed.

[Sand]

Originally posted by Start_Running:

Again. Just make your own. I guarantee you that support, much as now would not hand you someone else's stuff. Just make your own group. Come up with your own name, and build your own membership.

As I previously said, the abbreviations are limited, this is not about originality, but rather the fact that there are limited groups that can be made, because of this limitation, and eventually the only things available will be a jumbo of all letters and numbers, some people make groups just to have them and take them away, or

Originally posted by Sazzouu:

an actual business model that I have seen quite a few times by now

It's not 'stealing', going over the car analogy, if a car is left unused for a years, it will start to rust, eventually just be picked up towed away and crushed, as no-one uses it, things put out of use are usually deleted or destroyed, as to not occupy space. The exact same system can be seen on other platforms like Reddit, you can request certain subreddits if they are inactive.

[Sazzouu]

Originally posted by Sandy:

things put out of use are usually deleted or destroyed, as to not occupy space.

I would be carefull with that statement... Data Miners might want to have a chat with you otherwise.

[Start_Running]

Originally posted by Sandy:

Originally posted by Start_Running:

Again. Just make your own. I guarantee you that support, much as now would not hand you someone else's stuff. Just make your own group. Come up with your own name, and build your own membership.

As I previously said, the abbreviations are limited, this is not about originality,

It is...abbreviations can be invented just as names.

[Mad Scientist]

Originally posted by Cathulhu:

And what makes you think you have the right to take something that is not yours from someone else without their consent?

This.

OP - The major issue with this is scammers would easily utilize such a system to appear legitimate by taking over older groups, using it to spam, scam, etc. Either way, what does not belong to you nor was created by you, does not entitle one to claim it as your own.

Originally posted by Sandy:

The exact same system can be seen on other platforms like Reddit, you can request certain subreddits if they are inactive.

This isn't "other platforms" nor is this reddit. It's also best to not use examples of terrible places with an immense political and social bias, compared to that of a video game store that wants to be about video games.

Just because something is done elsewhere, does not mean that it should be done everywhere. If you like such aspects, go to those sites and claim old groups. Valve clearly knows better than to let anyone take anything that doesn't belong to them just because they want to.

[nullable]

Originally posted by Sandy:

Originally posted by Start_Running:

Again. Just make your own. I guarantee you that support, much as now would not hand you someone else's stuff. Just make your own group. Come up with your own name, and build your own membership.

As I previously said, the abbreviations are limited, this is not about originality, but rather the fact that there are limited groups that can be made, because of this limitation, and eventually the only things available will be a jumbo of all letters and numbers, some people make groups just to have them and take them away, or

So? It doesn't actually give you an argument to take someone else's group because you don't feel it's active enough.

Sure, if Valve wants to operate that way, they can. And if they don't that's a good option too. And if they want to wait for it to become a problem before they clean house that's a third option.

Originally posted by Sandy:

Originally posted by Sazzouu:

an actual business model that I have seen quite a few times by now

It's not 'stealing', going over the car analogy, if a car is left unused for a years, it will start to rust, eventually just be picked up towed away and crushed, as no-one uses it, things put out of use are usually deleted or destroyed, as to not occupy space. The exact same system can be seen on other platforms like Reddit, you can request certain subreddits if they are inactive.

Steam and Reddit are allowed to operate differently. An example of a system you prefer isn't an argument that all systems must follow suit. Reddit picked a solution. They didn't pick the objectively right solution, just the one they preferred. Other businesses and platforms can prefer something else.

[Sazzouu]

Originally posted by Start_Running:

It is...abbreviations can be invented just as names.

Yet still they are limited and thats the issue here...

Just a quick example:
I am living in a city called Mainz. Now I want to create a group for gamers living in my hometown. The name could be something rather obvious such as "Mainz Gamers" or something similar.

Now what's to pick for the abbrevation?
Well the first natural pick you would want to make is "MG" you know the first letter of the building words. Guess what that one is picked already. I mean there are a lot of phrasings that could make up "MG" as abbrevation (e.g. Multigaming, Mastermind Gaming, Mystery Gaming etc).

The next pick could be something like MzG because Same idea as above but "Mz" as the driver plate shorthand for our city. Guess what: already in use. Same as "MZG", "mzg" and other combinations alike.

How about something like "MzGamer" or "MzGamers" instead? Well these are taken as well... sorry.

Out of ideas? Nah. Lets pick "MainzGaming" shall we? Well that one is not taken... hoooraaay. But well "MainzGaming" is not really an abbrevation to "Mainz Gaming", isn't it?

Now the issue. I will bet my left eyeball that the abbrevations MG and MzG are associated to groups that are dead for almost a decade because they are easy and will fit to a huge portion of Groupnames and therefore were picked long time ago when groups were something new and innovative here on Steam. But now they are gone forever and I have to either go with not abbrevating at all or "MzL33TBoy2" as my abbrevation because everything else that could fit by the slightest margin is already taken by deadbeats.

EDIT:
Quick example for "MZG" as abbrevation...
https://steamcommunity.com/groups/MZG

1. Created December 2009
   
2. 10 Members in total
   
3. No discussions what so ever
   
4. Last comment January 2010

Apparently they've had the same idea as I want to present because that is a group for gamers around Metzingen - another city in Germany.


Anyways have another example for "MG" here
https://steamcommunity.com/groups/mg

1. Created August 2007
   
2. 8 members in total
   
3. No discussions again
   
4. Not even comments
   
5. The group does not even have a description

Well at least they have one user that is online todate.

And the worst example thus far:
https://steamcommunity.com/groups/mzgaming

1. Created March 2009
   
2. 3 members in total
   
3. No discussions or comments
   
4. Description links a TeamSpeak server that does not even exist anymore

Sole purpose of this group: copycating a famous german eSports Team

[Sand]

Originally posted by Mr. Gentlebot:

OP - The major issue with this is scammers would easily utilize such a system to appear legitimate by taking over older groups, using it to spam, scam, etc.

I personally do not exactly see how people could use such a feature to scam, as by the criteria I suggested, the group would have to be inactive for a set amount of months/years, and have no-one active in said group. And as for impersonating, I suggested that the deletion of said group could also be an option, instead of giving ownership of the group as a whole. Groups with a lot of people will most likely never become inactive, so big groups could never be taken over by a scammer.

Originally posted by Snakub Plissken:

So? It doesn't actually give you an argument to take someone else's group because you don't feel it's active enough.

It wouldn't be about what I, personally feel, or anyone for that matter, if wouldn't be subjective, as literally if a group has not been posted in, or had any member online, for 2 years for example it's most clearly objectively inactive.



The sole reason I started this tread, was because of this group right here:
https://steamcommunity.com/groups/NOCTUA

It has been founded in 2008, has only one member who most likely doesn't use Steam at all any more and there literally seems to be 0 ways to get in contact with the guy, to ask for ownership of the group, so that name, abbreviation and URL have been taken out of the Steam History forever, and no-one can recover them, with the system put in place at the moment. I bet there is a lot more groups like this out there, and it is just a pity to have no way of using those names, abbreviations or URLs.