Steam auto-deleting unrelated comments after issuing a community ban is super annoying

[♥♥♥♥ Goblin]

I received a community ban 2 weeks ago (Friday December 3rd) for commenting on a post with a link to Intel's giveaway for a game (to get a steam key for an alpha of a game). I appealed and the ban was lifted (rightfully so since the link was also available/published from the developer on their steam news page).

However I noticed that I lost many other comments (some dating back several days) without any links in them when this ban occurred. Many of these comments were in early access game forums and contained long discussions/feedback for the developers.

I contacted steam support about restoring these comments and they told me that the comments were removed for being against the community rules/guidelines and could not be restored. This is clearly false and is a blanket statement because one of the comments was helping a new player by answering some questions in their thread and contained no links.

So I wonder if when steam issues a community ban, the system automatically deletes all comments going back several days as some sort of safety measure? If so, what purpose does this serve?

Are the comments actually deleted or just hidden? Why can't they be restored if a ban is successfully appealed? Why are comments in other game forums that contain no links being included in the deletion?

Suggestion: if a community ban is appealed, then restore all comments with any links removed. Simple.

Edit: Even simpler: update the customer service support response to include the instructions provided in the answer below to allow people to access the content of their deleted posts.

[loppantorkel]

I think you over estimate your rights here and in the gaming forums. If you had your comments removed, some people probably took some issue with those comment and removed them, doesn't mean it is related to your ban. I doubt they were automatically removed.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Support does not restore posts that were deleted due to a community ban. They would literally have to go and restore each one, one at a time and that would just take too much time.

The length of the ban dictates the how far back your posts will be deleted.

[loppantorkel]

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

Support does not restore posts that were deleted due to a community ban. They would literally have to go and restore each one, one at a time and that would just take too much time.

The length of the ban dictates the how far back your posts will be deleted.

:qr:

Oh really..? posts are deleted depending on your ban? I did not know that. I know posts can be deleted without any ban or notice.

[Anonymous Helper]

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

The length of the ban dictates the how far back your posts will be deleted.

No it doesn't. When a moderator bans an account there is an option to nuke all posts user has made in the game hub. Very useful option when the users have made many problematic posts all over the forums for example rather than having to locate and delete each post individually.

Originally posted by ♥♥♥♥ Goblin:

Steam auto-deleting unrelated comments after issuing a community ban is super annoying

No it doesn't. As I explained above, removing all posts by user is an option moderator can use when banning an account. It's entirely under moderators discretion to decide to use the option or not.

Originally posted by ♥♥♥♥ Goblin:

Are the comments actually deleted or just hidden? Why can't they be restored if a ban is successfully appealed? Why are comments in other game forums that contain no links being included in the deletion?

Technically speaking nothing is ever deleted (at least in the forums). Deleted posts/threads are still visible for moderators/officers/developers/Steam support and can be restored at any of them at any time. As far as I'm aware there is no restore all option so in order to restore all users deleted posts would mean finding each post and restoring them individually.

Originally posted by ♥♥♥♥ Goblin:

Why are comments in other game forums that contain no links being included in the deletion?

Support has power to nuke entire post history if they think it's needed though in general it's only used against multi forum spammers or other serious offenders. Spam bots can make dozens of posts per minute so trying to delete all manually after banning the spam bot would involve too much work. This is especially true now that steam moderators only act on reports and don't actively monitor the forums like the volunteer moderators did so banning an account can take more than a day from first report issued if there are tons of reports in the queue.

[Tanoomba]

I'm tempted to believe these deleted posts were deleted for reasons unrelated to the ban.
Try this:
Click on "Activity" under your name in the Steam menu.
Click on "My comment history" on the bottom of the list of options in the right column.

This should list all the posts you've made from most recent to least recent. Those that appear dark grey are the ones that have been deleted. Is there a solid block of deleted posts that starts with the post you were banned for, or are the deleted posts sporadic?

[fluxtorrent]

Originally posted by Anonymous Helper:

snip for berevity

The automated bot that bans based upon certain activities flagged does delete a certain length of post history based on how escalated the user is in it's system.

It's very much a thing and has been detailed by some of the former steam community mods. The exact details of the scaling aren't publicly known. So while us hub mods dont have said option Valve does have an automated system in place that DOES do this

[The Commendatore]

They can do that? Almost tempted to submit a ticket and ask if they can wipe it.

For science, naturally.

[Tito Shivan]

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

Support does not restore posts that were deleted due to a community ban. They would literally have to go and restore each one, one at a time and that would just take too much time.

You literally have to go to every deleted post in every thread to click the button to undelete them. It's indeed very annoying to get a week of posts back that way.

Originally posted by ♥♥♥♥ Goblin:

So I wonder if when steam issues a community ban, the system automatically deletes all comments going back several days as some sort of safety measure? If so, what purpose does this serve?

There's a 'bot' banning spam-like behaviours. It automatically issues a community ban and wipe recent content whenever it detects user behaviour matching the ones from spammers.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Originally posted by Tito Shivan:

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

Support does not restore posts that were deleted due to a community ban. They would literally have to go and restore each one, one at a time and that would just take too much time.

You literally have to go to every deleted post in every thread to click the button to undelete them. It's indeed very annoying to get a week of posts back that way.

And I can't thank the globals enough who did try to help restore most of the ones that were. They took the time out of their day to do this.

[davidb11]

Originally posted by Anonymous Helper:

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

The length of the ban dictates the how far back your posts will be deleted.

No it doesn't. When a moderator bans an account there is an option to nuke all posts user has made in the game hub. Very useful option when the users have made many problematic posts all over the forums for example rather than having to locate and delete each post individually.

Originally posted by ♥♥♥♥ Goblin:

Steam auto-deleting unrelated comments after issuing a community ban is super annoying

No it doesn't. As I explained above, removing all posts by user is an option moderator can use when banning an account. It's entirely under moderators discretion to decide to use the option or not.

Originally posted by ♥♥♥♥ Goblin:

Are the comments actually deleted or just hidden? Why can't they be restored if a ban is successfully appealed? Why are comments in other game forums that contain no links being included in the deletion?

Technically speaking nothing is ever deleted (at least in the forums). Deleted posts/threads are still visible for moderators/officers/developers/Steam support and can be restored at any of them at any time. As far as I'm aware there is no restore all option so in order to restore all users deleted posts would mean finding each post and restoring them individually.

Originally posted by ♥♥♥♥ Goblin:

Why are comments in other game forums that contain no links being included in the deletion?

Support has power to nuke entire post history if they think it's needed though in general it's only used against multi forum spammers or other serious offenders. Spam bots can make dozens of posts per minute so trying to delete all manually after banning the spam bot would involve too much work. This is especially true now that steam moderators only act on reports and don't actively monitor the forums like the volunteer moderators did so banning an account can take more than a day from first report issued if there are tons of reports in the queue.

Please don't spread misinformation.
It is well known for years and years when someone gets a community ban, their posts dating back a significant amount of time get automatically deleted.
NO MODERATOR is going to go and press the delete button on multiple posts in random subforums for no reason.
LOL.

Please don't expect moderators to have the speed of Barry Allen. :P
Let alone the patience of a God

Automatic system is automatic. Period.

I'm not trying to be mean, but the automatic deletion happened to my posts, and they were even quoted in other poster's posts.

Which caused a bit of a confusion.

Also, moderators don't ban accounts. THey ban posters from posting on the forum.

Only Valve has the power to ban accounts, and they don't do it lightly.

Also, community bans are automated as well based on current quick bannings from forums.
And other things.

[♥♥♥♥ Goblin]

Originally posted by Tanoomba:

I'm tempted to believe these deleted posts were deleted for reasons unrelated to the ban.
Try this:
Click on "Activity" under your name in the Steam menu.
Click on "My comment history" on the bottom of the list of options in the right column.

This should list all the posts you've made from most recent to least recent. Those that appear dark grey are the ones that have been deleted. Is there a solid block of deleted posts that starts with the post you were banned for, or are the deleted posts sporadic?

Awesome!! Thank you! At least now I can repost the ones that were useful.

[davidb11]

I forgot you could bring the deleted posts back.

[Tanoomba]

Originally posted by ♥♥♥♥ Goblin:

Awesome!! Thank you! At least now I can repost the ones that were useful.

Just make sure they weren't actually deleted for other reasons, otherwise you'll face even harsher consequences for posting them again. Was it a solid block of deleted posts after all?

[♥♥♥♥ Goblin]

Originally posted by Tanoomba:

Was it a solid block of deleted posts after all?

Yea, it was a bunch of feedback/suggestions for EA games (ie. several paragraphs long), so I felt bad when they got deleted because I forgot what I wrote, lol.

For future people who suffer the same issue, I think it would be nice if they updated their responses to include your suggestion of giving the user access to their deleted posts so they can restore any that they think are valuable to the community.