Gaming communities can be rough, but I can’t think of another forum like Steam which is across so many games consistently incredibly toxic towards developers, even if their product is fine with only minor issues and no predatory monetization. They are my least favorite place of conversation.
What would you do to improve the culture around them?
Actually punishing those with poor behavior? Perhaps a ban from the forums should extend to their steam account?
I don’t see that happening. Maybe a karma system? Normally I dislike those systems but they do a decent job at regulating users. If someone gets downvotes or has low discussion karma, just hide their post. Shouldn’t be that hard to do either.
A man can dream :(
People need to be held accountable for their actions. Valve has the money and should invest in a proper moderation team.
Relying on karma has a whole slew of issues, especially in something that is already a proper Wretched Hive of toxic bullshit. Look at Reddit, for example.
You don’t have to do karma the way Reddit does it. Reddit actually suffers from it in two ways. The first is that the easiest way to get karma is empty posts or reposts. With steam, I think that’s harder to do. Best way to get karma would just be to make decent guides for games. Write good or funny reviews. Etc.
The other way it suffers from it is that it shows you the actual number. You don’t need to do that. You can just have levels ranging from “very bad” or “very good” karma. And people with “very good” karma have to maintain it and maybe get something from it.
I think it’s still better than hiring a ton of people to moderate every small community discussion. It’s also better than leaving it as it is or using reports. At the very least people with frequent downvotes or posts with downvotes should be promoted less or hidden or shadowbanned.
Take a look at explodingheads. If nothing else is changed in a toxic community except karma, that’s probably what you get
The problem with that is, devs and publishers moderate their own forums, and since anyone can release a game, that means that anyone can target anyone else’s steam profile.
I wasn’t suggesting we take the existing system as it is then just start banning people. Obviously the team would be under Valve and would moderate the forums in their entirety outside of devs and publishers.