Allow messages from non friends?

[markov]

Would appreciate the ability to turn this on. Sometimes i want to add someone and say who i am (or ask someone how i know them if they're adding me) before pressing accept.

Leave it on by default, prompt them if they want to disable it.

Or allow someone to send a message with their friend invite, etc

[Satoru]

Friend invite messages would be terrible. You'd be getting friend spam until the end of time if that was possible.

[markov]

you must have missed the second paragraph "Leave it on by default, prompt them if they want to disable it."

works the same for facebook. if you start seeing spam, you turn it off

[ KARR™]

How about leave it OFF by default and turn it off if you want to get a million messages of spam?

[tr1ck /S/]

maybe but it should come with an option to turn it off through settings

[Charlie]

I would love this feature, I have posted this idea in the forum before. I always said it should be a opt-in / opt-out system. If you want to recieve messages from people you don't know opt-in and if you don't want messages or don't want spam (although I doubt it would be that bad) just don't opt-in. Simple. You can't really argue. Steam needs this feature. The Steam community is already distant enough, this would only improve the community on Steam.

[markov]

You don't know there will be spam. i've got this feature left on on facebook and i don't get spam. You're not impacting people by default opt in if you provide them with the ability to turn it off on new messages coming in.

If you have it off by default then most people won't know about it and probably won't have it on. Have it on by default and people will know about it and can turn it off on the FIRST and only spam message they get.. problem solved.

[«Gғм» Kid Of The Century]

The problem is ANY small message included basically will be a "steamconmunity" link...

[Muhanoid]

I'd be happy to know "Who the heck is this guy, that sent me friend invite?" before he actually becomes listed in my friend list.
I don't mind spam, btw, and find it mostly funny. I even sometimes check my spam folder for lulz.

But I think that for Majority of users, that have not YET figured out the settings menu, the setting should be "OFF".
Having a "Steam Client Tutorial" would be nice idea since the menu has more than 5 pages now.

For example, I don't get what "Music" tab does. Most likely, I missed update notes.

TL;DR: Yes, but have it OFF by default.
Consider tutorial for settings if too many features added.

[ KARR™]

Originally posted by markov:

You don't know there will be spam. i've got this feature left on on facebook and i don't get spam. You're not impacting people by default opt in if you provide them with the ability to turn it off on new messages coming in.

If you have it off by default then most people won't know about it and probably won't have it on. Have it on by default and people will know about it and can turn it off on the FIRST and only spam message they get.. problem solved.

No. Although facebook account hijacking does happen, there isn't much incentive to do it to your average 'script kiddy'. There's very little monetary benefit and it doesn't have anything that they would really want to have or use. Fraping is fairly common, but that's friends messing with people who are still logged in, or left their phone idle.

Steam is full of people who have hundreds of pounds worth of games on their account - and money in their wallet. This is exactly what people want to take from others, it's worth money, it's a gateway to new games. They can take items and trade them for hundreds of pounds in cash!

Account hijacking is out of control on Steam, because people seem intent on clicking random links and giving away their account information! If you suddenly give people an easy method to message ANY user on Steam, their account stealing chat bots will just message EVERYONE and suddenly hundreds of thousands of accounts will be stolen overnight from users who believe that 'someone is trying to trade with them', or that their 'password has been lost from the database and they need to provide it to continue playing on Steam'.

If someone wanted to turn that option on, yeah ok, let them, i have no problem with the options being there for someone who wants it. Although they should be aware of the problems it would bring and if they did get in trouble from it, they should accept that no help will be coming for them!

A simple popup on Steam when someone logs in saying "The option is now available..." would let everyone know that it has been added, but it would need to be OFF for 99.9% of the community to stop hijacking increasing significantly.

A message sent with a friend invite WOULD be handy, but again, it would be full of links, etc. It would need to be a text box that doesn't allow hyperlinks and can filter out random versions of 'community' spelling and any www. or http:// text at all.

[Quint the Alligator Snapper]

It seems that this option is basically already available, in the form of one's profile comments section, where one can allow comments from any Steam user, friends only, or only oneself.

[Vinco]

yes good

[Dr.No (Albert)]

I strongly recomment to enable this. I made it a princible, never accepting a friendship-request from someone I haven't spoken to before. In my 15 years online-experience, this was a good method to avoid imposters.
A general option to send messages to practically everyone is not nessesary. I don't like to have tons of spam, like some mentioned. But there should be an chat option, on pending friendship-requests only.
I think, that should be possible and not too hard to implement into Steam.

[Tickleshit]

boy, i wish i could check the profile of and report the randoms that message vague threats to me... as it is right now, all i get is a 3 second notification popup with the message... and only occasionally does the app on my phone alert me about it...
a chat log would also be nice to see...

the entire steam messaging system needs to be revisited.

[76561198001062896]

Thanks but no thanks

If optional: sure, otherwise hell no

[Tickleshit]

i'm not being spammed with endless friend invites and comments on my profile as it is right now. how would this hypothetical minor change cause these problems? in fact, i can only see a potential benefit to account security.