I'll let you in on a little secret: a lot of people who volunteer for such things are power hungry and love feeling superior.
Does it give you the right to treat them like lesser persons ? Does it mean 100% of them are power hungry monsters ?
I got a temp ban of 3 days for auto censoring, no warning, and a rather arrogant PM *apparently you can't handle any form of authority* from the moderator who activated the ban. He called it "censorship evading" although it was clearly a case of auto censoring - and when I explained the situation, he was even a bigger asshole about it. You can defend them all you want, but a jerk is a jerk to me *so you would punch a cop if he was a jerk with you ? way to go pal* and Steam forums are filled with power mad moderators. All the rest is besides the point.
And if you had read what I wrote, you would have understand it WAS "censorship evading" and why it it necessary. I'm not defending them at all, I am explaining you how it works, so you understand why you got punished, so you don't do the same mistake again and don't spread false information. But yeah, I guess you hate the "fact checkers" and will continue to ignore my words, that's a pretty popular fad these days.
a) you sure are a Steam fanboy aren't you? No service should sell broken games, full stop. And in that case, the game was very much broken (it was Alien vs Predator, the original game which was unplayable on release)
Please remain polite, you keep being hostile and this is becoming irritating.
If the game is not playable, for the vast majority of people, you should blame the publisher first (I purchased Brink and Red Orchestra 2, I know what it's like to wait a full month to even launch the damn game). It seems you had a problem with a game, then assume you and the 10 others users on the Steam sub-forum represent "everyone". Steam can not test all the games they're distributing, it's the publishers' job to do that.
If you want it done by Steam too, you'll have to pay for this - would you pay for that service ? Since Steam don't have access to source codes, they wouldn't be able to fix it. And what if the game is working for 50% of users ? And what if the game already has a fix patch in the tubes, to be released shortly ? Publisher's job.
When Windows crashes, do you go to the supermarket where you bought your computer to complain about it ? If you buy a game there, do you rage at the cashiers for their incompetence in testing the games they're "selling" ?
b) I appealed to another moderator and explained the situation but just like you, he made a lot of excuses about moderators not being paid and since the moderator deleted the entire topic soon after I got the temp ban I didn't have anything to copy paste.
How convenient. He deleted the PMs too ? You didn't saved the insulting forum posts he made ? You felt attacked, yet you saved nothing. Surprising, isn't it ?
And it was just a temp ban, but the moderator literally attacked you ? Excuse me, but it sounds like you got mad at him over a small issue and felt threatened, when the moderator was just reminding you the forum rules and to stay calm. Seriously, you see explanations as excuses, it's clear you're not looking to understand the situation, but instead you're trying to determine who's guilty. Ego issues.
Let me say that this was the first time Steam made use of DOSBox for its games and most people were expecting the id collection to use different means. The games were gutted from many files including the setup files as I mentioned and DOSBox had been "hacked" to incorporate Steam code + they had removed documentation files that is actually illegal to.
The topic was mostly about how cheaply it had been done - the games were badly setup and due to the lacking setup files, people couldn't do anything about it. They used an outdated DOSBox version as well and the lack of the documentation files topped it off. Let's say no-one was amused and several people had contacted support to get a refund (and were silenced by the mods when they told others who were not happy to do the same).
Here we are. Now you're admitting the thread was mostly bashing over the (very) poor job done by id/Steam devs who did the Dosbox integration, how "illegal" (jaywalking is illegal, does it mean you should shout and shake people whenever they're crossing the street "illegaly" ?) it was and why everyone should get a refund. We went from reporting a single mistake, to a full-frontal assault on the job done by Steam - how surprising.
There is an extremely high probability that the thread hadn't only calm and polite posts (I've been in a lot of angry threads : the euro currency, L4D2 boycott, etc and more recently the SSA arbitration clause - I know how it goes) and when the mods started putting a stop to the riot you all acted surprised. Same thing every time.
Always the same "I DID NOTHING WRONG, YOU DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO SUPPRESS ME, THIS IS TOTALITARIANISM" chaps who never wanted to find solutions to the discussed problem, just vent their hate and anger. The same kind of people shouting at cops "WHY ARE YOU ARRESTING ME ?! I DID NOTHING WRONG" whenever there's a protest in the street or when asked to show their ID card they refuse and call the cops fascists. Needless to say these people are a real problem for actual protesters: they're teasing the cops all the time and trying to turn it into a full brawl to show everyone how they're rebel.
I then came in and stated that Steam had illegally removed other files except for the setup files and that they would have to add them back in (Qbix had already contacted Steam itself about this) *then why the imperative need to report it AGAIN ?*. Besides this, I had also noted my disappointed at how badly this collection had been made (do note it cost $45 which isn't nothing for a bunch of old games running on DOSBox - I could have done that myself).
I see what happened now. I bought that id pack too. Guess what: Doom, Quake and all the other games (that "bund of old games") are not free. Woaw, what a freaking surprise : you need a legal license to play these games ! And the id pack is exactly that: getting a legal way to get these files. Unbelievable, right ?
You could have done that yourself ? Oh, you can get a deal with id Software allowing you to sell all these licenses at anytime to anyone ? Go ahead then, the GOG.com guys tried and failed. Maybe you're better at securing commercial deals than them. Go ahead, we're all waiting for Doom and Quake on gog.com. Oh, if you could get System Shock 2 too, that would be sweet.
Seriously, anyone can get the games running on Dosbox in an afternoon, but very few can get a legal contract allowing them to distribute the games, that's why the pack cost money.
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I got banned then for provoking people and my posts got deleted. Frankly, they were just covering their asses - all posts pertaining to the illegal removal of files was suspiciously removed. Go on and defend THAT!
"banned then for provoking people" we're getting closer, you're making progress :)
Regarding the "it's illegal !", you're making me laugh: you threw legally-binding accusations at Steam, most probably without providing the full documentation on that (the Dosbox contract + the US law articles Steam is supposed to have broke), and expected Steam to let you throw accusations like that without reacting.
If Steam were as evil as you seem to believe, they would have sue you for "defamation", asking you to legally prove what you're accusing of. EA is capable of such things - in fact I think they already threaten to sue a blogger who accused EA of doing something illegal on his blog (nb: the guy got scared and removed his accusations).
The moderators preferred to remove the threads until the legal issues you raised are checked and if necessary solved with the each party (here, Dosbox), before, while angrily ranting with other people, you crossed the line and forced Steam to bring it on the next level (court).
You can't go on any company forum and accuse them of doing something illegal every single day of the year, this is not "I can bark 'that's illegal !' until they prove it's not", otherwise I could say you're a criminal until proven innocent, harassing you until you're destroyed. You don't seem to understand what "illegal" means and how you can use that word in public.
On the face of it, Steam is indeed good - if only it wasn't so evil behind the screens. It can have as many features as it wants but when they lock down people's entire accounts because Paypal acts up ... I'm sorry but then you're doing something very wrong.
Now the Paypal cries, omg... My turn to to
let you in on a little secret: every single business online had serious problems with Paypal (mostly because they're not following the rules banks have to strictly respect) and currently lock down any transactions whenever there's a suspicious activity. Many small business owners trying to sell some of their stuff online lost several thousands dollars on Paypal scammers and now either refuse Paypal, ask you to scan your ID card or use (expensive but secured) external payment solutions.
Accusing Steam of being evil because of these problems with Paypal is complete bad faith, why not accusing them of overcharging you when your bank adds a fee for every online purchases ? Steam is responsible for everything, Steam should fix everything...
EDIT: wheee the Superior GOG.com forum won't let me post a longer message and force post merging, I'll post my last paragraph once someone post again :/
