Funny Bans 2017 (Starting with Alexander DeLarge) - 2020:
Banned for “Weaponizing SteamAPI” (lol)
Banned for “malware” (lol)
Banned for a conversation between two other parties that I was not even in.
Banned for trolling in a thread titled “[…] why?” for discussing why - moderator claims “why” is unimportant and I will be banned if I continue discussing why. When told to remove “why” from the title to prevent further confusion, instead of doing that, I was banned.
Banned for trolling in a thread discussing software licensing when I explained too many details about the GPL; because we all know trolls just love to explain and clarify things, it is what they are best known for.
Banned for “promoting piracy” (lol)
Banned for no reason at all on 2x occasions (%BAN_REASON%)
Banned for discussing “trans fat,” (claimed to be “trolling”) – ROTFLMAO, what’s wrong with moderators? That’s what it takes for a 1 year ban?
None of those were ever removed, Steam Support just says “we looked into the ban and it is valid.”
Steam Support is basically a do nothing job
What’s the salary, where do I apply and is there a break room for the naps I need when I sit on my butt doing nothing for hours on end?
Every time a moderator tells me to change my behavior before I lose my account, I die a little inside. I have not broken any rules, save for 2 or 3 bans. I do not have a whole lot of respect the rules at this point, but I am familiar with them, know that I have not broken them, and most of the time the thing I am banned for is not something I did, but that a user 1-2 posts back was doing (the troll gets away, I get their ban for trolling even though I’m 100% on-topic and often the only person in the thread on-topic).
I could sneeze and Steam moderators would find some surreal interpretation of the rules that classifies as violence or obscene content, and proceed to ban me. They have banned me for stupider things and unless I jump ship off of Steam, they will find even stupider things to ban me for.
And it even supports system tray notifications That’s fantastic, since I used to rely on Steam for those. Maybe a little obnoxious, but infinitely less obnoxious than the Steam moderators. It’s a fair trade.
Mhm, I don’t typically use browser notifications for websites at all, but it seems to be perfect for Discourse, and would facilitate more “real-time” conversation than Steam’s forums allowed for in some cases
Well it seems like this forum has some upgrades over Steam, particularly the poll charts. It’s a shame moderators did what they did but hopefully it’s just a minor setback. Perhaps someone should post on the Steam discussion board to say that everything related to SpecialK is being moved here?
I am waiting for my SMTP relay (mail) server to start working (~24-48 hrs). Without that working, pointing people to a forum they cannot create accounts on is silly
These forums are really awesome though, E-Mail problems aside. They’re lightyears ahead of Steam, and best of all, there are no Steam moderators here … so I expect it to be quite civil by virtue of the fact they’re not irritating their entire userbase with ludicrous bans constantly.
Either I or @GPUnity will create stickied posts directing users here as soon as we have the email situation resolved.
Until then I manually activate unconfirmed accounts every couple of hours, so new users should at most only need to wait a few hours before being able to sign in.
Although, annoyingly, obviously they won’t be able to get a notification about the activation since, well, the mail functionality isn’t working
It’s a bit surprising that Discourse doesn’t support disabling the activation requirement, but oh well.
Because of the lack for another more appropriate thread (lol), I just wanted to mention that I’ve increased the DM / PM required “minimum trust level” to 2, aka Member. This essentially limits DM / PM functionality to users whom have returned and visited the site multiple times across a longer period of time.
This was done to minimize the number of users whom otherwise might’ve DM / PM’d any of us directly as opposed to posting a regular reply or thread. I basically hope to strive a balance of allowing DM / PM’s for the “regulars” while preventing it from newcomers that could get help from others in the community as well.
Oh, nice. I hadn’t even read up on that stuff yet.
Shame Steam could not implement something practical like that. Just demote users to a down-level privilege until they reach 0 for a while, rather than whatever the @#$% site-wide permabans that break parts of Steam accomplish.
Any moderator surprised that “I have not learned anything” by previous attempts to “punish” me should probably come to the realization that they are just seeding hatred toward the entire platform and its moderators when they disable features unrelated to the forums for 3 months to a year. Nobody is going to learn anything from that, they are just going to look for a different store to do business with.
I commenced transitioning to GOG fully sometime in late 2019, for the reason that VALVE staff are just a bunch of basement-dwelling NPC shitheads with no real knowledge of how life actually works. I have been moderated plenty of times because apparently I have too much “Vigilante-ism” and I’m “disrespectful” — despite me coming to the defense of actual sound logic and pointing out the blatant stupidity of the NPC “sheep” crowd mentality. ■■■■ Steam for the MOST part. I wish I knew how to create a whole new platform because I have the drive and the energy to see it through, just not the knowledge (yet) to do so. /rant.
I don’t think we’re talking about quite the same thing here
It’s extremely easy to see what you’re discussing as triggering alarm bells left and right. In my case, up until about 6 months ago, my bans were all the result of some dipwad pushing me over the edge w/ defamation or generally completely rude behavior.
For some reason I always get the raw end of that deal, the person derailing the entire thread to personally attack me usually has nothing happen to them, but I get a ban and a lecture from some stupid moderator about how I need to change.
So, I did change. But that didn’t matter, because over the past 6 months I have been banned for promoting piracy and trolling. I do not do either of those things, and am well aware that if I let the invalid bans accumulate on my account, the same awful moderator who keeps insisting I need to change will be there to mock me when not having those previous bans removed results in a year-long ban. And he was, and I’m fuming mad.
If Steam Support weren’t so @#$%ing incompetent, I could have gotten the past 4 bans erased no sweat. Anyone who knows me cannot say I promote piracy with a straight face, and just as significantly, knows I do not troll people. I’d rather spend my time helping the community than antagonizing them.
But Steam Support are a bunch of illiterate baboons, just smart enough to work the copy + paste buttons.
We are both frustrated at VALVE for the same reasons, but I went on a rant in a specific direction
VALVE is just the wrong place to make change occur, present day. I have given up on them since last year, and I HATE the company quite a lot actually for not giving a shit about it’s customers. Gabe can die for all I care at this point, since he is either incompetent or doesn’t care either.
Well, they clearly care about trolls because I’ve been banned for being one (lol) the past 3/4 bans. The problem is, “troll” is just a label given to anyone saying something they don’t like. So you have to be careful who you interact with, they’ll report you for trolling and then because moderators don’t know how to read, you’ll be banned.
Yea, that’s why I rarely ever post on Steam forums… Ever. What’s worse? Companies like Capcom move stuff that’s useful (like discussing DENUVO) to their “trolololo” category, effectively burying any mentions of it in there… man I am ranting quite a bit today – forgive me if it’s coming across pretty aggressively.
That’s fantastic, since I used to rely on Steam for those. Maybe a little obnoxious, but infinitely less obnoxious than the Steam moderators. It’s a fair trade.
