The removal of the rule against abuse and harassment

[Elucidator]

Any rule that is unnecessary and can be abused for bad practices should be removed to prevent the abuse of it. Such a rule can of course be reworked and then added in back later, but for the time being, I believe that a broken, abusable rule is simply wrong to have.

This is going to be a somewhat controversial topic. I hope that people are capable of respecting each other’s opinions on this matter. Please try not to be provoked.

The subject is about the “ability for a post to have content used to abuse or harass another steam user”, by directly or indirectly referring to a steam account that they use. It is a rule to avoid making such posts which can lead to a community account ban when it is interpreted as being broken by perceiver and consequentially reported by them. I shall name a couple of problems with this rule and perhaps mention an example use case of how it could be abused. Please do not abuse any loophole mentioned here. The rules are not there to be broken. They’re intended to keep peace on the community, but as I may point out, this rule specifically will not do this at all.

In this post I will try to explain the following:

1. According to steam, what is abuse?
2. According to steam, what is harassment?
3. According to steam, what is a steam user?
4. What are the problems with the way steam sees these things and the rule?
5. How are these things abused by abusers within the steam community?

In order to get to that last one, we’ll have to understand why someone would abuse loopholes in the rules and what their goals are with abusing them. We’ll also have to look at how these mechanisms work.

For those who are not interested in reading and need a TL;DR. The conclusion is Steam reacts with the rule and may deliver a ban upon any reported perceived insult. Anything can be perceived as an insult and as such, someone merely has to state they felt insulted in just the right way, create a nice cocktail of content within the report and it is likely the reported user receives a ban. As such, you can be banned for any reason, and since Steam is just doing its job, all of this banning power is now in the hands of the steam community users along with the consequences thereof. It also does not protect any user from any insult and those who are skilled will be able to get away with insulting regardless. The rule just harms the community and strengthens the harm done by abusers of said rule. Bans end up being weaponized. This is why the rule needs to go.

One more note up front: My message is written using direct language and communication. This means that when I use a certain term of phrase, I am referring to the direct meaning, goal or consequence of that term or phrase, and not the indirect meaning, goal or consequence. For example: the goal of advertising is publicity, not making money. Publicity is the direct goal, making money is an indirect goal and as such may not even be the goal. A good example of where it is not are safety messages and guidelines on products, or traffic rules. The word can be compared to thread bumping or update notifications. Your only job when reading the word is figure out in what context using what I posted and not to immediately assume something negative or any negative implication. Any implication is indirect. If I am implying anything, I will let you know directly. In this example’s case, I would for example say ‘advertising to make money’. I hope that clears things up on the front, if not I strongly suggest you look up what direct communication is.

Also, due to Steam errors, I will have to split it into multiple posts. (see below)
I thank you for your time and patience with reading my message in advance here. Let me know what you think of this suggestion later on.

[Tanoomba]

İlk olarak AmsterdamHeavy tarafından gönderildi:

5,500 words. On a gaming forum. About essentially nothing.

I'm not gonna lie. I'm legitimately impressed by the effort that went into that essay. Sure, it was basically "i wanna be able to insult people and not face consequences", but damn... The whole "indirect communication" versus "direct communication", including references to translations in multiple languages? That's dedication.

[Tanoomba]

İlk olarak Elucidator tarafından gönderildi:

The rule itself, inheritly allows banning over any perceived insult, including that you put sugar into thee or something else rediculous.

No, it doesn't. A report doesn't get acted upon automatically. A moderator has to make a judgement call, and nobody's going to get warned and/or banned for liking a screen shot, saying they don't like a game or disagreeing with achievements.

[Tito Shivan]

No, steam isn't going to remove neither abuse nor harassment from their rules.

[Elucidator]

İlk olarak Tanoomba tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak Elucidator tarafından gönderildi:

Can you provide evidence of this claim?

You want proof that making insulting people non-punishable behavior would lead to more people insulting others? I... don't know what to do with that. Truly.

Appeal to emotions will not work. It's not a convincing strategy. If you wish to try and convince me that, as you said before:

İlk olarak Tanoomba tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak Elucidator tarafından gönderildi:

All that removing the rule does is make it less probable that you get banned because someone felt insulted.

But it makes it exponentially MORE probable that you will be insulted, which is not a good feature for a forum to have.

In other words, you're claiming removing the rule will cause exponentially more, with even emphasis on more, likelihood that you get insulted, then I will need evidence of this claim.

If it turns out it is more, then is it a lot more? There are a number of possibilities.
Exponentially, how much more is this exactly?
Is there a scientific paper you could show that proves that there is an increase in people insulting one another? Or is this a wild guess?

You're correct if we talk about an authortarian server not having many insults, but this is Steam. There are already insults flying by, moderation catches them late, too late if you wish to prevent people from feeling insulted.
The ban consequence, as the papers suggest that I posted about earlier, likely just causes them to become better at being toxic. Treating them humane, however decreases this likelihood.

İlk olarak Tanoomba tarafından gönderildi:

There's nothing "overly harsh" about giving someone warnings and, if necessary, temporary bans as a result of toxic behavior.

What you're reacting to is scientific research here though. "generally" a warning doesn't indeed do that, however, if their post is called "harrassing or abusive content", that is very cruel.
If someone who reports the user says "Enjoy your ban" or something like that, that is very cruel.
There is more going on basically. You don't see the bigger picture.

İlk olarak Tanoomba tarafından gönderildi:

What I'm hearing is "If you want people to behave, you have to accept them misbehaving" which is incredibly counter-intuitive and illogical.

That is because you're likely used to indirect culture.
Accepting people isn't the same as accepting their behavior. It means not being angry at them and insult them or belittle them, just because they misbehave. Leave addressing those issues up to a single individual instead of grouping at them. (for example, moderation)

Look, I get you're not agreeing with me, but you don't have to point out every little thing you disagree with over and over.

Just give me evidence of the claim you made earlier.
Note that I do appreciate the commentary, but there is no need to state the same things over and over, with or without caps.

Edit:
Also another note: Twitter is highly moderated (has a lot more rules)
Discord is highly moderated as well. (It also has a lot more rules)
There, in my view, seems to be a correlation between how many reasons for banning people there can be versus toxicity done by those who use the platform. I think it maybe due to the decrease in freedom on what you're allowed to talk about, and what words you're allowed to use. As I showed in the posted article, twitter got voted most toxic this year, so I think, it will be difficult to prove that removing that rule alone, increases the amount of insults done severely at least.
Yes, more maybe passed, but insults are a form of communication. First one has to try to insult, then one has to perceive the insult. If either one of these two is broken, there is no insult.
And those prone to seeing themselves as victims will more often perceive insults, which is a problem. I wouldn't call it thin skinned, but-- it's not something you can normalize without severe consequences to society. Instead I'd recommend them mental healthcare.

Perception of insult is usually a sign of insecurity.
Fix the insecurity, and they become resistent.

[Anxiety]

İlk olarak Tanoomba tarafından gönderildi:

I'm not gonna lie. I'm legitimately impressed by the effort that went into that essay. Sure, it was basically "i wanna be able to insult people and not face consequences", but damn... The whole "indirect communication" versus "direct communication", including references to translations in multiple languages? That's dedication.

Nah, it's probably meds.

Anyways, the sheer volume of smugness and gaslighting in this thread, woah. No amount of smart words and links to scientific papers can cover that.

And yet look at all those rewards.

[FOXDUDE69]

İlk olarak Anxiety tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak Tanoomba tarafından gönderildi:

I'm not gonna lie. I'm legitimately impressed by the effort that went into that essay. Sure, it was basically "i wanna be able to insult people and not face consequences", but damn... The whole "indirect communication" versus "direct communication", including references to translations in multiple languages? That's dedication.

Nah, it's probably meds.

Anyways, the sheer volume of smugness and gaslighting in this thread, woah. No amount of smart words and links to scientific papers can cover that.

And yet look at all those rewards.

When users notorious for gaslighting accuse others of gaslighting...

There's a word for that...

Hippopotamus?

Hypothalamus?

Hypocrisy! That one!

[Tito Shivan]

İlk olarak Anxiety tarafından gönderildi:

And yet look at all those rewards.

At least this time it took a lot of typing.

İlk olarak Tanoomba tarafından gönderildi:

Nobody gets banned for "asking questions", either.

JAQing (Just asking questions) is a well know dialectic trick in the arsenal of toxic users.

Just asking questions (also known as JAQing off) is a way of attempting to make wild accusations acceptable (and hopefully not legally actionable) by framing them as questions rather than statements. It shifts the burden of proof to one's opponent; rather than laboriously having to prove that all politicians are reptoid scum, one can pull out one single odd piece of evidence and force the opponent to explain why the evidence is wrong.

The tactic is closely related to loaded questions or leading questions (which are usually employed when using it), Gish Gallops (when asking a huge number of rapid-fire questions without regard for the answers), and Argumentum ad nauseam (when asking the same question over and over in an attempt to overwhelm refutations).

[Crashed]

İlk olarak Thermal Lance tarafından gönderildi:

I'm definately not reading all of this on a phone but I'll take a shot in the dark by saying that some rules are somewhat vague on purpose.

Likely OP wants to discriminate on the basis of protected classes, i.e. as described by government entities like the Department of Labor.

[Elucidator]

If you want a real life example of why it is a bad to police upon insults:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyMGO2MO6GU
Someone tried to investigate the situation that is now in great brittain.

[Crashed]

İlk olarak Elucidator tarafından gönderildi:

If you want a real life example of why it is a bad to police upon insults:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyMGO2MO6GU
Someone tried to investigate the situation that is now in great brittain.

Likely a lot of context stripped.

[Elucidator]

İlk olarak Crashed tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak Elucidator tarafından gönderildi:

If you want a real life example of why it is a bad to police upon insults:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyMGO2MO6GU
Someone tried to investigate the situation that is now in great brittain.

Likely a lot of context stripped.

Considering there were 3300 arrests in great brittain based on posts on social media, there are a lot more videos on these problems.
Here is another one (video removed)

Edit: I removed the video link.

If you wish to look it up anyway, find a video called ""Arrested for a social media post" | Konstantin Kisin ". The reason why is because of its 'context'; the details Crashed asked for.

[Crashed]

İlk olarak Elucidator tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak Crashed tarafından gönderildi:

Likely a lot of context stripped.

Considering there were 3300 arrests in great brittain based on posts on social media, there are a lot more videos on these problems.
Here is another one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0r7GRx8Sl-s (Sorry, unmasking your link)

Again what are the details? Something being a meme doesn't make it magically allowable to use to harass others.

[Elucidator]

İlk olarak Crashed tarafından gönderildi:

Again what are the details? Something being a meme doesn't make it magically allowable to use to harass others.

(content replaced)

I realized too late that I cannot quote anything from the video, so you'll just have to watch it to find out.
Also the forum has been having issues. I tried to change it 20+ minutes ago, but .. e.e;

[Crashed]

İlk olarak Elucidator tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak Crashed tarafından gönderildi:

Again what are the details? Something being a meme doesn't make it magically allowable to use to harass others.

A quote from the video:

A young woman from [Location removed] called [name removed], people can look this up, Her friend was killed in a car crash, a [age removed] year old woman. And she posted the lyrics of his favorite song on Instagram. The lyrics. And it was a rap song, so the lyrics contained several instances of the n-word. Okay? She was arrested, procecuted, found guilty, given 500 hours of community service and a fine, tagged, and for a year she was on the 8PM to 8AM curfew. In brittain. In [year removed].

it's one of the examples mentioned. It case is about a perceived insult.

Edit: Just mentioning, but due to Online conduct rules, I can't post specific details that the video does mention, so I removed those.

In that case technically that would be inappropriate on Steam.

[Boblin the Goblin]

İlk olarak Crashed tarafından gönderildi:

İlk olarak Thermal Lance tarafından gönderildi:

I'm definately not reading all of this on a phone but I'll take a shot in the dark by saying that some rules are somewhat vague on purpose.

Likely OP wants to discriminate on the basis of protected classes, i.e. as described by government entities like the Department of Labor.

Why do you always assume everyone is some type of racist?