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from the Valve-Implementing-New-Steam-Comment-Moderation-Bot dept.
The folks over at at TechRaptor bring us word (recently updated) that Valve Implementing New Steam Comment Moderation Bot:
Steam's forums are an enjoyable place to be when you are discussing the latest happening in the gaming world. It is common to run into internet trolls and the likes, but there is nothing like keeping up with the spam comments giving people unsafe links to click through. Some of those links directed to Counter Strike: Global Offensive skin trading and gambling sites, and other non-safe places where they ask you for sensitive and personal information.
Recently, Steam users went to Reddit to report a new message that appeared to them for a few seconds whenever they comment in forum threads. Not only that, it apparently shows for users as well who are posting reviews of their recently played games.
Reportedly, the following message normally only shows for a few seconds before your comment gets approved, which means the comment moderation bot is only looking for links or any harmful content.
"This comment is awaiting analysis by our automated content check system. It will be temporarily hidden until we verify that it does not contain harmful content (e.g. links to websites that attempt to steal information)."
Valve later got back to TechRaptor with the following message:
Yes, we are scanning the forums and hiding posts that contain links to malicious sites attempting to steal user’s Steam information. We are always looking for ways to improve with new updates, fixes, and features.
Apolitical? Check. Narrowly-scoped? Check. No ideological argument or stretching of the definition of "harm" necessary? Check. Botting like a boss, guys.
[Belated Note: SoylentNews does not use automated moderation. We stick you poor folks with the work instead. --TMB]
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Wednesday June 17 2020, @10:33PM (7 children)
"stay quiet and react"
Is that a variation on "If it ain't broke don't fix it?"
-- hendrik
(Score: 4, Informative) by Lagg on Thursday June 18 2020, @04:35AM (6 children)
Best way to put their philosophy is examples. I'm so sorry for essay length but I swear to god MB asks for it with his boring-ass submission commentary. Might as well add "How 'bout dem dur librals gais" on the footer for all the good it does to turn me on intellectually. I keep telling the fucker to learn the nuance of a given situation and he's over here treating Valve's Washingtonian asses like they're anything of the sort you'd consider the nerds in SV. Flaccid as an old hose rn with this guy I'm telling you.
Anyway, they fix things that ain't broke or broke themselves in the first place all the time as part of the wider crowdsource-churn economy. First and foremost - and this annoys me because I thought I was working on something cool at first - there's been this thing with them steadfastly refusing to acknowledge their role in bringing about this issue of third party skin websites. I don't expect them to be like "yeaaah we totally wanted kids using our digital crap as converted currency". But there was very clear intent from them to push usage of the trading system to wider third parties. There is API stuff clearly implemented in ways intended as public endpoints, and a fuckton more usable than APIs of years past. It's one thing to want to flag the phishing links and malicious sites but they're being really dishonest otherwise.
The fact that they have their own internal market shows that enough people participate in the wider organism to get people to convert what's in their wallet into a nice controllable format on Steam that they think the existence of those malicious sites are worth it because the few good honest ones lend legitimacy to the digital item by giving it an off-platform way to convert it back into wallet money. I have to imagine this is the single reason the Steam Economy game - and that is what this is, a big fucking game of nth-layer-removed transfer of capital, building on top of the unholy cruft of real life's own variant - holds any kind of sanity or value.
So, now the proverbial chicken came home to roost and we get what you see here. It's been a known issue for so long that it's been like... 2 years since I was let go from my job due to it becoming unprofitable for them to have a fulltime guy when the 7 day trade hold restrictions happened. This is just the latest in a series of minor patches from them for issues they brought directly on themselves. Sometimes I wish I could grab whoever's idea it was to do this open economy shit by the collar and go "BITCH, YOU HIRED AN ECONOMIST WHEN ALL THIS STARTED!" [gamespot.com]. Like, it personally hurts me because I'm kind of proud of my code on this.
Right. So that's the off-my-head-memory of some of the factors that got us to where we are with the forums and CSGO. That's one example of them seemingly fighting their own crowdsourcing implementation. Here's another: My personal reckoning of the recommendation use-flow of the storefront now is partly because their fix for Greenlight - crowdsourced game submission approval - Steam Direct [steamgames.com] allows anyone to put a game on the storefront if they have a $100 submission fee. Allowing the conditions necessary for the Unity template projects that pose as games to show up there as they do now. The fix for that is the recommendation queue trained lists that float higher reviewed stuff to the top and add appropriated weighted bias for friends and subscribed/highly rated curators. You know, crowdsourced QC and beta testing. Plus the general focus you'll see on these streamlined recommends now. I hold no strong feelings as to whether or not the whole situation is better.
Recently they had to fix an issue that caused controversy [steamcommunity.com] because they have an automated polygon count checker for contest submissions to the workshop. They use contractors when they feel like adding content to the game to spur a new wave of workshop contributors. And feel like paying. Naturally for stuff they're paying for they want contract quality. So the contractors had account perms to submit the assets without that check. Their contractors did the thing they gave them the account perms to do and already express favoritism by contracting them in the first place. It's just the problems bubbled up to the point that reacting would be better.
Also, the client is feature creeping like a mothahfuckah and lately I've been getting tabbed out of my games when friends disconnects. It's getting a heaping problem of the webkit-as-UI problem where the thing is doing so much runtime-loaded frontend it shits itself. Not sure how much of it actually uses webkit versus their custom UI extension lang thing but oh my god can they stawp. They won't though because that sweet integration and allure to keep everyone in their ecosystem by subtly doing the discord thing is too strong. We'll see if this particular fling-at-the-wall is profitable versus the piling technical debt and which can win the race.
But yeah, there's this slow motion phenomenon happening with Steam I think stemming from going all-in on crowdsourcing a community that I have to guess is 40-60% people under 19 parroting memes that make modern ACs look like intellectuals. Look at reviews for SCP: Secret Laboratory to get an idea what I mean. It's all kind of a downstream patching of a dam they keep throwing shit on the wall of. I guess is what I'm trying to say. Sometimes their technique works and you get things that are such novel implementations that it sticks in the wider video game industry for better or worse. Sometimes you get Steam Controller.
It gives them a little too much credit to say they're the don't-fix-if-ain't-broke philosophy. They're the "move fast and break things" mentality with more earnestness and Valve Time instead of the "move fast" part. They're testing me lately but I still think I like them most of all the large publishers. I liked them more when they were pure developers. But then I wouldn't have got that job. And I liked that job despite everything.
P.S. Where in god's name is anyone getting "bot" from? Pretty sure I'm not the only one here that knows what a bot is. Inherent issues with there not even being any IPC of that kind happening for all we know, it's literally like... Wordpress style assisted moderation queue. MB's been listening to too many podcasts talking about gay-russian-antifa bots on twitter again. I keep telling you these people are going to turn your brain into a twinkie MB but you won't listen to me. Listen to some good music instead boyo.
http://lagg.me [lagg.me] 🗿
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2020, @06:21AM (3 children)
Lagg said "boyo". Afrikaans?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2020, @02:41PM (2 children)
It's a common slang, maybe borrowed from Afrikaans, but it's been in use for quite a while.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday June 18 2020, @04:40PM (1 child)
AC said:
Other AC said:
To GP AC:
Yeah! What up with that boyo! Have you been living under a rock or something?
In fact, IIRC the first time I heard that term was in an episode of Murder, She Wrote [wikipedia.org] that aired sometime between 1985 and 1992.
Move ahead to the 1980s, friend.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Freeman on Thursday June 18 2020, @08:34PM
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/boyo [wiktionary.org]
First place I remember hearing it is from "The Bard's Tale":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bard's_Tale_(2004_video_game) [wikipedia.org]
It's a funny, stupid funny game.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2) by Kalas on Thursday June 18 2020, @08:09PM (1 child)
Oh God why did I do that? I love the hell out of the SCP Foundation but almost every review I skimmed is about as far as possible from the quality of comments I'm accustomed to on the actual wiki.
It's a real shame because the concept sounds great but I can't stand to play with loudmouthed dumbass kids. Maybe if they put any price other than free on it they could've filtered out most of the annoying children.
I wish I could hate you to death, scaM.
(Score: 2) by Freeman on Thursday June 18 2020, @08:38PM
Steam's reviews were actually useful once upon a time. Now, it's almost better to just look at the videos and give it your best guess, for yourself. As opposed to trying to find decent reviews on the game.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"