Valve to begin moderating game forums on Steam next week

Starting on Tuesday, September 25th Valve will be actively moderating all game forums on Steam unless a developer opts to not have Valve do so.

So from then onwards if someone reports a post on a Steam forum, let's say for Streets of Rogue, it will then go into a queue for Valve's own moderation team to look over. They will then remove it if it violates their community guidelines.

It does make sense, since Valve already moderates other user posted content across Steam like screenshots, artwork, guides, user profiles, community groups and so on. They said they previously didn't want to step on the toes of developers, who ran their community their way. However, they said they've been hearing from developers that they need help. Valve's Tom Giardino mentioned on Twitter "Many of the changes are direct implementations of suggestions from devs at indie meetups, GDC, AAA studio visits, passionate twitter rants, etc. So, thanks for speaking up in all of those places and keep it coming.".

To go along with this, Valve has been actively expanding their moderation team to cope with the increased workload. Thankfully, they won't be relying on some special algorithms to determine what posts can stay and what goes in the bin.

I can certainly understand why developers want a hand with moderating their Steam communities for each game, as a lot of the time they really do up becoming a complete pit of arguments, trolls and all sorts of rubbish.

What do you think to Valve increasing their presence in the forums for each game? I think it's a welcome move. See the announcement here.