Community Restriction for UpVote on a game review about uncensor patch

[Xetelian]

So I have a 30 day community restriction since I upvoted a review. 117+ people upvoted and it was upvoted several months ago and the kicker is it had several steam point awards.



Please advise, this is the first time I've been punished on anything like Steam and I feel really aggrieved and support told me I should make this suggestion post.

[Chocolate Pie Kitten]

You upvoted a review that you not knew what it was saying and you just follwoed the bandwagon ?

The suggestion is to read a review before to upvote it

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Автор сообщения: Xetelian

Community Ban for UpVote on a game review

So I have a 30 day community ban since I upvoted a review. 117+ people upvoted that review I have no idea what it said because it was upvoted several months ago and the kicker is it had several steam point awards.

I don't know if the reviewers account got compromised and the review changed or what was problematic with the original review but I don't think a 30 day community ban is worth a single upvote on a many hour long review with over 100 other upvotes.

Please advise, this is the first time I've been banned on anything and I feel really aggrieved and support told me I should make this suggestion.

The upvote ban is from when users were spreading malicious links in reviews and gullible/troll users were upvoting them in droves. People have since made troll reviews or outright spam to awards.

This was added 6-7 years ago as a punishment and it is not being changed for the foreseeable future.

And it is not a community ban. It is just a 30 ban on upvoting reviews. A community ban would prevent you from posting anything.

[rawWwRrr]

Автор сообщения: Xetelian

So I have a 30 day community ban since I upvoted a review. 117+ people upvoted that review

All 117+ would have gotten the 30-day ban. You aren't being singled out, if that helps at all.

Автор сообщения: Xetelian

I have no idea what it said because it was upvoted several months ago and the kicker is it had several steam point awards.

I don't know if the reviewers account got compromised and the review changed or what was problematic with the original review but I don't think a 30 day community ban is worth a single upvote on a many hour long review with over 100 other upvotes.

The unfortunate side effect to what they are trying to mitigate is that some genuine upvotes are going to get caught up as collateral damage. They don't have the time and resources to interview all 117+ people and try to determine if any of them attempted to manipulate the reviews score to make it more visible for whatever ended up being wrong with it. And those that did would just say they didn't anyway causing any investigation just to take longer. And there are A LOT of reviews and reviewers to sort through. It's not worth the time. So, yeah, it sucks, but it is only a temporary ban on upvoting reviews.

When you do get the ability back, save your upvotes to friends' reviews if you still feel inclined. It's what I do to support my friends.

[Pierce Dalton]

Автор сообщения: Chocolate Pie Kitten

You upvoted a review that you not knew what it was saying and you just follwoed the bandwagon ?

The suggestion is to read a review before to upvote it

Or maybe the op has read the review, which can be edited at a later time to say something completely different.

[Tanoomba]

Автор сообщения: Xetelian

So I have a 30 day community ban since I upvoted a review.

You're here posting, so you didn't get a community ban.

[GridNom XP]

Devs or Moderators of that community must have got a thin skin to ban a user just by rating up a review. I find it amusingly funny and terrible at the same time.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Автор сообщения: GLord 𝓧𝓟

Devs or Moderators of that community must have got a thin skin to ban a user just by rating up a review. I find it amusingly funny and terrible at the same time.

Only support can ban the review.

The game devs nor their game hub moderators can ban reviews.

[Nx Machina]

When you upvote a review you are answering the question - Was this review helpful?

That review may have had made reference on how to bypass the drm for example and Support can see WHEN you upvoted the review, as in you voted on it before any edit, if an edit actually happened.

Secondly you received a 30 day ban which is not a community ban.

A community ban is: Loss of all community features.

[Xetelian]

Автор сообщения: Tanoomba

Автор сообщения: Xetelian

So I have a 30 day community ban since I upvoted a review.

You're here posting, so you didn't get a community ban.

The community ban means I can't post reviews, I can't vote on reviews I can't post or interact with anything community related, I didn't know I could even make this thread, so I was surprised I could.

I am only banned until Jun 24th

Then I can put reviews.


Also I did not remember what the review said because the original review was posted back in april and the ban was a few days ago and the review is censored now.

If they posted a review which was problematic I wouldn't have upvoted it in the first place. I assume it got edited, I also don't know if the owner of the review had their account compromised then it was edited or if they did it themselves. I have no way of knowing this as far as I can figure.

Now I just make this cringe thread that no one is going to care enough about to do anything but mock me and point out how I should know better when things are completely out of my control and I've been on Steam since it started back when I got the Orange Box as a physical disk/key


Thank you for those who did respond without being rude.

[wuddih]

https://www.reddit.com/r/Steam/comments/10v2ztg/upvote_a_review_that_ends_up_getting_banned_right/
did you receive something else than this?

if so, what?
if not, why make it seem more than it is?

[Tanoomba]

Автор сообщения: Xetelian

The community ban means I can't post reviews, I can't vote on reviews I can't post or interact with anything community related, I didn't know I could even make this thread, so I was surprised I could.

I am only banned until Jun 24th

Then I can put reviews.

This isn't a punishment, it's a security feature. When questionable reviews get a lot of thumbs-up it sets off red flags and suggests the possibility that user accounts were hijacked to upvote the review. Your ability to interact with or write reviews is temporarily disabled so you can secure your account and make sure nobody else is using it.

Автор сообщения: Xetelian

If they posted a review which was problematic I wouldn't have upvoted it in the first place. I assume it got edited, I also don't know if the owner of the review had their account compromised then it was edited or if they did it themselves.

Steam knows when you upvoted and if/when the review text gets edited. They won't take action on upvotes made before a review is edited into something malicious or suspicious.

[Xetelian]

That is the message I got. I contacted support right away. They told me they (the support team) doesn't unban or lessen the duration of bans. Support and I have been talking for 3 messages and I was brushed off and told to come here and make a post.

I am not sure what you're alluding too, but I wouldn't knowingly upvote a scam or illegal content or anything knowingly.

Since the review was posted at the beginning of this year and I got banned now I assume something changed like an edit to the review or TOS or something.

117+ people voted UP on the review and it got a bunch of Take My Points and other awards so I can't imagine what it said all those months ago that would get me banned now for a whole 30 days.

[Tanoomba]

Автор сообщения: Xetelian

Since the review was posted at the beginning of this year and I got banned now I assume something changed like an edit to the review or TOS or something.

Not necessarily. You could have upvoted a rule-breaking post without realizing it was rule-breaking (for instance, if it included information about how to avoid DRM checks). It's also possible that the review stayed under the radar for a while and only recently got reported, explaining why action was only taken now and not earlier.

[Xetelian]

I doubt Steam timestamps when people upvote things on the backend.

If the person changed the text the upvote stays unless they change the rating.

Also the TOS of steam could have changed and now certain things are not allowed. The fact that I can't see what was in the review even after asking support for clarification makes me think it was changed after the upvote.

Either way I made this post because steam support suggested it and hoping a Steam employee pays at least a little attention to this forum and maybe not ban people for 30 days for upvoting a post.

I get that people use bots to gather upvotes to make their possibly malicious 'review' aggregate to the top but I don't think people are making accounts, buying games to earn steam points then dropping several dollars worth of awards on their 'review'.

That just doesn't make any sense to me and sounds more like a conspiracy theory than a harsh reality.

I am not here to argue with people, but I will discuss things, I am (as I said) just hoping that this gets in the eyes of an employee at steam and makes some consideration.


From what i understand when steam does sweepstakes they only consider accounts that have no blemishes, This is a 30 day ban that likely will haunt my 15+ years of a clean account to my grave.

That is ultimately the most frustrating part. I did not knowingly violate rules and the review could have been malicious or a bunch of people could have reported it out of spite, who knows, a lot of this is automated to begin with, but my account has a blemish now because of this feature you mentioned.

I've been awake for 29 hours, I'm going to try to sleep, if you don't see a response from me for a while I either slept or I laid down until my eyes stopped burning and then stayed off the computer.

I am not winging because I can't write a review or upvote or post a screenshot or like a mod for 30 days. I am worried about a permanent scar on my account that will be taken into consideration if there is a second incident in the future...a factor that gets taken into consideration when dealing another punishment to my account. I don't break rules that would adversely affect my 2000+ game library. I've invested too much to fool around and get myself locked out of this platform.

[_galaxy]

Автор сообщения: WolfEisberg

They just tell you to come here to shoo you away, it's their way of saying "we don't care" and to get rid of you from the support queue.

Yes, it's incredibly dumb that Valve bans people just for upvoting a game review. I know people who got banned because they upvoted a good review, and later the review changed it so that it broke the rules, and Valve doesn't care to see what a review originally stated and originally voted on, its just a blanket banning.

Don't steam remove upvotes if someone updates the review?