The 50 members limit in steam group before "hiding the members"

[potterman28wxcv]

Hey there !

I created a steam group to make it easier to invite people in games ; that was great, because it was possible to chat with anyone who was in the same group.

Still, now the group has more than 50 members, and it is impossible to invite or to chat with them anymore, without having to add them as friends. Why this limit ? Why isn't there an option to desactivate this behaviour ? This feature is actually really useless and frustrating. Unless it has been made for technical issues ?

So I'd really like to ask to cancel this limit, because this is really annoying. It really cuts by half the possibilities you have by creating a group.

[battlor12]

I totally agree with you Potterman.

[Black Blade]

Blame the phishing bots...
The reason it happen is that the phishing bots use that to send invites on the big groups to spam them with phishing links in hope to get someone
So Valve block it for over 50 users so any group that start getting big is not going to be able to message each other just like that, and then get a bot to come in and spam messages like that

That is my guess any way

[potterman28wxcv]

considering the security there is (having to enter a verification code everytime you connect from a new location), you really think there are many phishing bots in steam ? :P I never saw any of them.

[Black Blade]

Originally posted by potterman28wxcv:

considering the security there is (having to enter a verification code everytime you connect from a new location), you really think there are many phishing bots in steam ? :P I never saw any of them.

Well then that means a few things:
1. You may not have been in a big group in the past before these the limit was implanted
2. You do not trade much on 3rd party sites...

And if you never got these bots i recommend you learn of them so if you get one you know not to login on the links they give

[potterman28wxcv]

Of course I know what phishing bots look like. I've just never saw any of them on steam.. Well, the alternative solution i found is requesting everyone in the group as friend, and this way I can PM them whenever something very important has to be spread

Oh, and also, when you want to message someone, steam actually asks you if you want to receive the messages. So it's not as if you could just pop in a group, and spam everyone, since they have to accept you.

[Black Blade]

Originally posted by potterman28wxcv:

Of course I know what phishing bots look like. I've just never saw any of them on steam.. Well, the alternative solution i found is requesting everyone in the group as friend, and this way I can PM them whenever something very important has to be spread

yap, or you can use the announcements/ the events to do it maybe?

[potterman28wxcv]

Actually, announcements only show up in "activity", and only those who are connected right can see the popup. Events, it's basically the same. While when i send PMs, I'm sure that these are read.

This has proved useful more than a time. Once I tried to make an announcement, it did reach the one who read their activity often. Then I PMed, and then there were like 2x more people aware of what I had to say.

Still, I'm not spamming everyone with PMs, I use them really when it's something huge to tell them.

[Black Blade]

Originally posted by potterman28wxcv:

Actually, announcements only show up in "activity", and only those who are connected right can see the popup. Events, it's basically the same. While when i send PMs, I'm sure that these are read.

This has proved useful more than a time. Once I tried to make an announcement, it did reach the one who read their activity often. Then I PMed, and then there were like 2x more people aware of what I had to say.

Still, I'm not spamming everyone with PMs, I use them really when it's something huge to tell them.

ya i get that.. any way most as much as i know make a event for like ever hour.. so every one login that day get it, as event also pop out as a small window when you get it

[potterman28wxcv]

Well, we're a group that play Rollcage, and in the group, there must be 1/3 of people who don't use steam often, and connect every few days. I'm forced to use PMs to reach everybody.

Also, when there's the weekly game every saturday, mass inviting everyone in the group chat is a lot better than the small popup. It does basically the same : a popup that you can close. Except that if you click on "ok", you go in the group chat and start directly with setting up a game. And experiences have proved that more people join when we mass invite, than just with the event. Still, the event is cool for those who connect a bit late, so they can still have the information that something is going on.

If making an announcement did popup the green message thing on the upper right of the screen, that would be ok. Since it's not the case, PMs are the way to go for important news.

[Black Blade]

ya i do agree.. on any case i think its going a little off topic in these level

[potterman28wxcv]

Not entirely. That just means that the PMs and being able to invite are really useful to a group. And even though the limit has been made to avoid phishing, well there's already the "have to accept" for that, isn't there ? Actually, instead of hiding automatically the list of members, they should leave the option to the creator of the group.

[Black Blade]

Originally posted by potterman28wxcv:

Not entirely. That just means that the PMs and being able to invite are really useful to a group. And even though the limit has been made to avoid phishing, well there's already the "have to accept" for that, isn't there ? Actually, instead of hiding automatically the list of members, they should leave the option to the creator of the group.

well some what agree.. but what if the creator of the group is not going to block it on a really big group?

[potterman28wxcv]

I'd say it's the responsibility of the creator and the moderators that the members of the group don't get harassed by phishing.. But if we suppose that these are really idiots, there could be a "report" button on messages, that could lead to automatically hiding the member lists if too many reports are received.

[Fox]

Originally posted by potterman28wxcv:

I'd say it's the responsibility of the creator and the moderators that the members of the group don't get harassed by phishing.. But if we suppose that these are really idiots, there could be a "report" button on messages, that could lead to automatically hiding the member lists if too many reports are received.

You may not wish to give an automatic action upon report count alone. Look at what happened when this was implemented for trades : many people complain because they were labeled as "possible scammer" by the sheer number of reports, losing trades as a result.

Originally posted by potterman28wxcv:

Hey there !

I created a steam group to make it easier to invite people in games ; that was great, because it was possible to chat with anyone who was in the same group.

Still, now the group has more than 50 members, and it is impossible to invite or to chat with them anymore, without having to add them as friends. Why this limit ? Why isn't there an option to desactivate this behaviour ? This feature is actually really useless and frustrating. Unless it has been made for technical issues ?

So I'd really like to ask to cancel this limit, because this is really annoying. It really cuts by half the possibilities you have by creating a group.

Security features, as Black Blade pointed out, may prevent such a feature to see the light of day, even though I can see the interest of it. In the meantime, you might want to tell people to check announcements more often in your group, to mitigate such an issue.