Set review comments to enabled by default

[Tomoko]

Reviews are a place to give feedback on existing release titles on steam, and to provide the community with your views, opinions and thoughts on a game.

Games can often times be misleading in their advertised content, and reviews can be an important step in revealing that misdirection, by openly stating missing, misleading or downright incorrect statements from a company.

However, reviews also fall under this category and that's why reviews have comments - To call out the reviewers when they make similar mistakes.

To disable this feature is to openly state that you have no interest in the validity of what you're saying; That is, to believe that what you have said does not deserve a response, as it has no issues worth calling out. The act of disabling this feature is indicative of deceit, at least hinting at it, and is a sure sign to steer clear of the content found within a review.

However, that judgement cannot be made, as review comments being disabled is a default action, meaning that many people either forget to turn it on. This is frustrating, as I frequently find reviews that outright lie, and feeling the need to openly correct them in the way they believe they are openly correcting the game they're reviewing, I head to the comments. Unfortunately, they're disabled, and it prevents me from making any meaningful change to the incorrect information in their content.


If comments were enabled by default, a disabled comment section could be an indication enough that a reviewer is not interested in truth, but rather purely in their own opinion, regardless of whether or not it's correct.

Further, if someone makes a simple genuine mistake when posting a quick review with no consideration of the repercussions, their comments would be automatically enabled and someone would be able to point out their mistake.


I cannot see any valid reason as to why comments should be disabled by default - Frankly, any argument I can think of that would support why comments should be disabled by default would equally apply to games and store pages having reviews disabled by default. And yet, every single game has reviews enabled, regardless of the developer's wishes.

[Tito Shivan]

The default is fine as it is. All privacy options need to default to private.

If a reviewer wants comments in their review they'll enable them. The option isn't particularly hidden on the interface.

[fluxtorrent]

I agree with Tito. The simple fact is your post highlights exactly why it defaults to off. No one needs to care if you want to "correct" someone else on their review. Your opinion on their opinion is irrelevant and if they cant be bothered to turn on comments, then also unwanted.


Now if you were to argue for an account wide option to CHANGE it for yourself, thats fine. I wouldnt mind a toggle so all mine were on by default.

Having the ability to select the default behavior for yourself (with the original default to being off) would be welcome

[Pierce Dalton]

Well, I'm fine with that, all I would have to do is to uncheck a box

Not a big issue for me. I support your suggestion

[Nx Machina]

It is OFF by default because a review is a "personal opinion" and comments are "optional" for the reviewer. As for valid reason, no one has a right to critique a "personal review" unless the reviewer enables comments to allow that to happen.

[Thermal Lance]

I'm sorry but what a ♥♥♥♥ take.

That review is my opinion. I don't give a flying ♥♥♥♥ if you are part of "your opinion is wrong" group.

If you see a review that purposely mislead people or is completely unrelated to the game itself or whatever. Report it and let steam sort it out.

[Pierce Dalton]

Originally posted by Thermal Lance:

I'm sorry but what a ♥♥♥♥ take.

That review is my opinion. I don't give a flying ♥♥♥♥ if you are part of "your opinion is wrong" group.

If you see a review that purposely mislead people or is completely unrelated to the game itself or whatever. Report it and let steam sort it out.

Usually, Steam does nothing about reviews, though. Except when various users report it, of course.

[Thermal Lance]

Originally posted by Pierce Dalton:

Originally posted by Thermal Lance:

I'm sorry but what a ♥♥♥♥ take.

That review is my opinion. I don't give a flying ♥♥♥♥ if you are part of "your opinion is wrong" group.

If you see a review that purposely mislead people or is completely unrelated to the game itself or whatever. Report it and let steam sort it out.

Usually, Steam does nothing about reviews, though. Except when various users report it, of course.

Not my problem.

[Pierce Dalton]

Originally posted by Thermal Lance:

Originally posted by Pierce Dalton:

Usually, Steam does nothing about reviews, though. Except when various users report it, of course.

Not my problem.

Yeah, not my problem as well ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

It's funny to read some of them, to be honest.

[Thermal Lance]

Originally posted by Pierce Dalton:

Originally posted by Nx Machina:

Citation needed for "most Steam users".



Really?

Most Steam users barely have time to play their games, do you think they'll have time to review them? How many reviews have you wrote this year? Well, perhaps you've wrote a lot of them, but I'm quite sure that doesn't apply to the majority of Steam users. Therefore, such change clearly wouldn't bother the majority of Steam users. Besides, you know that not everyone would make a storm in a teacup just for having to uncheck a box, right? I mean, most Steam users are adults.

By your logic, having to ENABLE those comments wouldnt bother that "majority" either. I dont even understand how that can be seen as a "point".

[Pierce Dalton]

Originally posted by Thermal Lance:

Originally posted by Pierce Dalton:

Most Steam users barely have time to play their games, do you think they'll have time to review them? How many reviews have you wrote this year? Well, perhaps you've wrote a lot of them, but I'm quite sure that doesn't apply to the majority of Steam users. Therefore, such change clearly wouldn't bother the majority of Steam users. Besides, you know that not everyone would make a storm in a teacup just for having to uncheck a box, right? I mean, most Steam users are adults.

By your logic, having to ENABLE those comments wouldnt bother that "majority" either. I dont even understand how that can be seen as a "point".

And in fact it doesn't. I'm quite sure most people are completely indifferent about it. Like, whatever.

[Thermal Lance]

Originally posted by Pierce Dalton:

Originally posted by Thermal Lance:

By your logic, having to ENABLE those comments wouldnt bother that "majority" either. I dont even understand how that can be seen as a "point".

And in fact it doesn't. I'm quite sure most people are completely indifferent about it. Like, whatever.

I prefer off by default because of notifications really. I remember my Skyrim review getting over 20 notifications in a single day from angry fans and it was ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ annoying. I'm more than happy that it's off by default really. So I can just enable it if I feel like a discussion could be born out of it. Otherwise having a bunch of clowns show up with the "your opinion is wrong" routine is just a nuisance.

[Pierce Dalton]

Originally posted by Thermal Lance:

Originally posted by Pierce Dalton:

And in fact it doesn't. I'm quite sure most people are completely indifferent about it. Like, whatever.

I prefer off by default because of notifications really. I remember my Skyrim review getting over 20 notifications in a single day from angry fans and it was ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ annoying. I'm more than happy that it's off by default really. So I can just enable it if I feel like a discussion could be born out of it. Otherwise having a bunch of clowns show up with the "your opinion is wrong" routine is just a nuisance.

Well, you seem to be a forum regular, I believe you get a lot of notifications from it. Doesn't that annoy you as well? Certain threads get like 50 or more replies.

[Thermal Lance]

Originally posted by Pierce Dalton:

Originally posted by Thermal Lance:

I prefer off by default because of notifications really. I remember my Skyrim review getting over 20 notifications in a single day from angry fans and it was ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ annoying. I'm more than happy that it's off by default really. So I can just enable it if I feel like a discussion could be born out of it. Otherwise having a bunch of clowns show up with the "your opinion is wrong" routine is just a nuisance.

Well, you seem to be a forum regular, I believe you get a lot of notifications from it. Doesn't that annoy you as well? Certain threads get like 50 or more replies.

I dont get 50 notifications of people attacking me in various way from the Steam forums. Thank you.

[Pierce Dalton]

Originally posted by Thermal Lance:

Originally posted by Pierce Dalton:

Well, you seem to be a forum regular, I believe you get a lot of notifications from it. Doesn't that annoy you as well? Certain threads get like 50 or more replies.

I dont get 50 notifications of people attacking me in various way from the Steam forums. Thank you.

I see, so the problem is not a high number of notifications. Thanks for clarifying that.

[Supafly]

I'd rather it be leave as disabled as default. If I want to discuss my views on a product I'd create a thread about it.