Game Community Moderation

[Drazler]

Recent games have gone through some changes to suit ideals or political views that shouldnt be in games, however this doesnt stay only in the game but is also sometimes heavily moderated to suit what the moderator/developer wants to see.

Example that is perfect for this is the 'Homeworld 3' community, which at release went directly under the 50% review score and closing in on that 40%. Discussion topics and comments are HEAVILY moderated to the point that free speech(Edit: Free speech that is relevant to the game and its developer), no matter if it is to answer a question or inform the community, if it is something the moderator doesnt like they report, remove and as of the 18th, ban the living ♥♥♥♥ out of the customers.

Since we all heed to the Rules & Guidelines (including moderators/developers) you would think opinions that arent fulfilling any violations in those rules wouldnt be removed and wont be banned right? Apparently judging from the amount of bans, no.
Why so many bans? Because questions about SBI and bashing the awful state of the game and story.

As stated by Steam Support "we give developers control over their own community hub, including discussions and user-created content."

Meaning that, even if the developers go 'facist', 'soft social political skin' or even full on racist steam wont intervene. This taken with the Steam Support's statement.

Steam needs to police not only Users but also Developers controlling opinions and topics, silencing those who answer the questions they rather not want and outright banning even the slightest disgruntled customer from their Community Forum.


My suggestion:
- Developers/Moderators shouldnt have their 'Own Rules' and Moderate them.
- Unjustified bans should be reviewed.
- Repeated miss-use of power stripped and re-assigned.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Originally posted by Drazler:

Game Community Moderation

Recent games have gone through some changes to suit ideals or political views that shouldnt be in games, however this doesnt stay only in the game but is also sometimes heavily moderated to suit what the moderator/developer wants to see.

Example that is perfect for this is the 'Homeworld 3' community, which at release went directly under the 50% review score and closing in on that 40%. Discussion topics and comments are HEAVILY moderated to the point that free speech, no matter if it is to answer a question or inform the community, if it is something the moderator doesnt like they report, remove and as of the 18th, ban the living ♥♥♥♥ out of the customers.

Since we all heed to the Rules & Guidelines (including moderators/developers) you would think opinions that arent fulfilling any violations in those rules wouldnt be removed and wont be banned right? Apparently judging from the amount of bans, no.
Why so many bans? Because questions about SBI and bashing the awful state of the game and story.

As stated by Steam Support "we give developers control over their own community hub, including discussions and user-created content."

Meaning that, even if the developers go 'facist', 'soft social political skin' or even full on racist steam wont intervene. This taken with the Steam Support's statement.

Steam needs to police not only Users but also Developers controlling opinions and topics, silencing those who answer the questions they rather not want and outright banning even the slightest disgruntled customer from their Community Forum.


My suggestion:
- Developers/Moderators shouldnt have their 'Own Rules' and Moderate them.
- Unjustified bans should be reviewed.
- Repeated miss-use of power stripped and re-assigned.

"HEAVILY moderated to the point that free speech"

There's the issue.

[Satoru]

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=4045-USHJ-3810

Step 1) Stop breaking the rules

Step 2) Refer to step 1

Step 3) You don't have 'free speech' to break the rules

[Crazy Tiger]

There is no free speech on privately owned forums. Nobody is owed a soap box and it's perfectly fine to tell people to take their soap box elsewhere.

You don't have to like it. I don't visit certain game hubs as well for the same reason. But to me it's fine that game devs/publishers moderate their own space (as it's considered that by Valve).

[William Shakesman]

Game devs are the king of their forums and Valves rules do not apply to them. They may freely ban for any reason or no reason. They need that old school king power for the forums to be useful to them.

[Drazler]

Originally posted by William Shakesman:

Game devs are the king of their forums and Valves rules do not apply to them. They may freely ban for any reason or no reason. They need that old school king power for the forums to be useful to them.

They are using Valve to sell their games and manage a community on Valve, if they didnt had that and used their own site for that then its justified. But leaving everything unhinged just causes certain community's to be a Rot more then a space to discuss the game.

[William Shakesman]

Originally posted by Drazler:

Originally posted by William Shakesman:

Game devs are the king of their forums and Valves rules do not apply to them. They may freely ban for any reason or no reason. They need that old school king power for the forums to be useful to them.

They are using Valve to sell their games and manage a community on Valve, if they didnt had that and used their own site for that then its justified. But leaving everything unhinged just causes certain community's to be a Rot more then a space to discuss the game.

Yes. That is part of the price of the choice made. It is a choice where SOMEONE has to lose. Either the devs get a forum they do bot rule or the users get ruled by tyrants. It seems obvious to me the correct answer is to incentivise the devs. Otherwise they would simply make their own forums.

[Drazler]

Originally posted by Crazy Tiger:

There is no free speech on privately owned forums. Nobody is owed a soap box and it's perfectly fine to tell people to take their soap box elsewhere.

You don't have to like it. I don't visit certain game hubs as well for the same reason. But to me it's fine that game devs/publishers moderate their own space (as it's considered that by Valve).

Using the Steam platform to not only sell but hold your Community seems like its still under the wing of Valve. I agree that, and i should have clarified, that free speech shouldnt mean talking about subjects outside the Developer/Game/Publisher topics.

But Valve allowing that certain Developers can do whatever they want smudges their window aswel. Moderation is a must, but dont be a Gestapo for anything that doesnt fit your ideals, just seems bad in tastes to silence valid opinions about the game.

[Drazler]

Originally posted by William Shakesman:

Yes. That is part of the price of the choice made. It is a choice where SOMEONE has to lose. Either the devs get a forum they do bot rule or the users get ruled by tyrants. It seems obvious to me the correct answer is to incentivise the devs. Otherwise they would simply make their own forums.

Valid point and i can see the logic for it, but its sad we are at a point that one-side-must-lose.
Still, i hope to atleast give some countermeasures for those moderators that intend to devide and put a blindfold infront of the problem that plagues a game and duping customers.

[Drazler]

Originally posted by Satoru:

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=4045-USHJ-3810

Step 1) Stop breaking the rules

Totally agree and should always be upheld.
But adjusting the Forum to exclude topics of problems, questions or answers that the developer doesnt like, is obviously abuse of power and think (im no laywer) deception.

[Drazler]

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

"HEAVILY moderated to the point that free speech"

There's the issue.

:winterbunny2023:

Correction, meaning free speech to the sense it IS about the game/developer/publisher and not anything going against the Rules & Guidelines.

[cSg|mc-Hotsauce]

Originally posted by Drazler:

Originally posted by cSg|mc-Hotsauce:

"HEAVILY moderated to the point that free speech"

There's the issue.

Correction, meaning free speech to the sense it IS about the game/developer/publisher and not anything going against the Rules & Guidelines.

There are no free speech protections here.

[William Shakesman]

Originally posted by Drazler:

Originally posted by William Shakesman:

Yes. That is part of the price of the choice made. It is a choice where SOMEONE has to lose. Either the devs get a forum they do bot rule or the users get ruled by tyrants. It seems obvious to me the correct answer is to incentivise the devs. Otherwise they would simply make their own forums.

Valid point and i can see the logic for it, but its sad we are at a point that one-side-must-lose.
Still, i hope to atleast give some countermeasures for those moderators that intend to devide and put a blindfold infront of the problem that plagues a game and duping customers.

At the end of the day counter measures like that end with Valve forcing game devs to allow in people they don't like. There have been a lot devs banning people for various reasons and "reasons" and there has never been a good answer. Any changes would open a can of worms that I cannot see making anyone happy.

[Drazler]

Originally posted by William Shakesman:

At the end of the day counter measures like that end with Valve forcing game devs to allow in people they don't like. There have been a lot devs banning people for various reasons and "reasons" and there has never been a good answer. Any changes would open a can of worms that I cannot see making anyone happy.

Like with everyone else, Devs need to 'man/woman the Gabe up', open those worms and grab those who are still wiggling. You dont make up an unmentioned rule that says 'Only pick the green worms' and smack the other worms out of the can, a worm is a worm with handling it the same way as all worms, hook it.

But i can imagine that some individuals rather not handle that and just use the water bird method.
Homer Simpson vibes?

[William Shakesman]

Originally posted by Drazler:

Originally posted by Satoru:

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=4045-USHJ-3810

Step 1) Stop breaking the rules

Totally agree and should always be upheld.
But adjusting the Forum to exclude topics of problems, questions or answers that the developer doesnt like, is obviously abuse of power and think (im no laywer) deception.

Everyone knows that if you are going to pick a fight with the government, you need to never go above 60 MPH on the highway, have your home zoning and taxes absolutely meticulously in order. If you want to whistleblow on Boeing you need to take even MORE precautions. So I don't know why you expect people who have absolute unquestioned ban power for any reason or no reason to not boot you for trying to start an anti game campaign on game forums. Being the rebel isn't fun. Its not supposed to be. But Valve is on the record repeatedly that they do not and will never have your back on this issue.

Knowing this and adjusting your expectations there are other ways of course to go about what you want.

In fact, "follow the rules" is a rather humorous bit of advice as game devs do not need rules to ban you.

[Shreddy]

As other have said it’s up to the devs to do whatever they want and it doesn’t look like that will change anytime soon.

You really need to just be careful and aware of what type of forum you are posting in, Homeworld 3 has ties to racist and bigoted left-wing political movements so that tells me straight away that it’s not a forum that is going to have any kind of fairness and the moderators will be extremely biased.

It’s also worth ensuring that your posts are polite and respectful so that if any unjust game forum bans end up in a community ban it can be quickly overturned by steam support.