What exactly do moderators do on Steam? I mean besides locking threads that are critical of Valve and/or any games sold on the Steam platform.

I've had Steam uninstalled for almost year and a half and finally got an itch to reinstall MTG and go a few rounds but was wondering if some of my old complaints had ever been addressed. Apparently not.

For starters, yeah I'm a fan boy. So shoot me! :P

Every once in a while when I have strategy questions about a game, and no one here can help, I take a look at the Steam forums. It typically goes like this:

ME- How do I get the explosives over to the dam?

User 1- Use the raft.

User 2- What if he doesn't have the raft?

User 1- He must, he couldn't have gotten that far without it.

User 2- Oh really, did you design the game?

User 1- Screw you, stop being a troll!

User 2- I'm not the know it all A-Hole who hangs out in here all whacking off telling people how to play games!

ME- Ummmm, the dam? Anyone? Help?

It's not fair to blame the whole community for this kind of behavior. It's such a large pool of people, there's bound to be idiots as well. But there are good people too.

Edit.
Removed the game part, it was irrelevant. Sorry.

You must not be reading the same Steam forums, there's threads critical of Valve all over. If you mean removing duplicates then sure.

The moderators are all volounteers as far as I know, meaning they don't get paid. And I don't think you can succesfully monitor a community that big. That stuff must be reported for them to take action.

They sure could implement more word filters though...

It works the same way as here, you get a group of people, report it and it will be deleted, the difference is that it will require more people to report it than here.

I agree. That's why I was primarily focusing on the moderators and Steam itself.

To the other posters some of these captures like the invites for example had been reported in the past like 18months ago (multiple times). Nothing was done about it. Feel free to report one of those groups and share if they were taken down. It's not an either/or proposition. I'm sure there are critical threads - at the same time I see plenty that are needlessly locked or get removed for simply being critical.

http://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/0/492379159714011454/

Ironically you're a first responder in this next one, being equally unsupportive and dismissive (says you're banned as well):

http://steamcommunity.com/discussions/forum/0/492378806373999358/#p1

"What's with all of the generic anime dating sim trash being spewed onto the market recently? "

Yes, this was really a topic worth having. Had he phrased it better it would probably still be there. Heck there's probably other topics asking pretty much the same still around somewhere.

And yeah, I got banned last week (for a week) for what admittedly amounted to a troll response.

I think It is like blame the whole gog community because of scammers, forum spam bots and people who gives negative reputations with multiple accounts. It doesn't make sense.

You need to actually look for these things to find them. It's not something that you'll run into on a regular basis. They don't go through random user groups, but rather rely on people reporting rule abuses. Write something on an "official" forum and it will be easily spotted by whatever admin/mod has power on that forum, but make a steam group and it won't be, as the only way to find it is to either search for it or find a direct link to it.

Moderating isn't deciding which threads are "worth" having. That's purely subjective and something the community decides by their engagement with a topic.

Moderators are there to keep respect among users which by the blatant, abundant and open racism and other forms of bigotry (already depicted) they fail greatly at doing. It appears they'd rather just throw a hammer down on trivial threads about a type of game someone doesn't like, purchase problems or other banal harmless topics.

I already addressed this in my first response. These groups have been reported. I even opened a ticket about it at the time. Nothing was done because nothing is done about this kind of stuff on Steam. As for frequency - it depends what if any multiplayer games you play through the service. Being sent a hate invite for losing or just about any possible reason is common.

You know, repeating things really doesn't make them true. You quoted a topic that was self admitted to be intended to be nothing but a rant @ steam, a topic which he expected nothing of, and a topic being disrespectful to a genre of games which was basically going to end up being flamebait.

You may disagree whether topics should or should not be moderated but there were better ways to have both conversations, and there likely are threads already having those conversations on the Steam forums. It's not like the discourse is being silenced, there's no doubt places it's being had. The attitude though, that does get moderated.

And if you see racism or bigotry, report it, it will likely be dealt with.

Why exactly does a rant (your pejorative) i.e. criticism need censoring? There are any number here on gog. The community decides which are worthy of keeping active and which are not. Steam moderators simply close what they don't like which is again subjective and a trivial use of moderating forums.

As for "being disrespectful" about a game genre - why does that need censoring? It's absurd. A game genre isn't a person. It doesn't require a moderator enforce "respect" by closing the thread. It disrespects the real person that started it.

Going back and forth over this particular thread example is also pointless and a red herring to the topic. There are numerous thread examples anyone can easily find even if you don't like this one individually.

It wasn't and it isn't.

That's the point of showcasing it.

~