r/Steam • u/Thin_Variation_1571 • 16h ago

PSA Off-Topic

I've been on Steam for a while now and have used the game forums to communicate with people regarding several games over the years. It's been nice to have it for a place of quick communication. Not too long ago I visited another forum on the list of forums called "Off Topic", and... what a cesspool that one is. It seems that it has basically degraded to a bunch of troll posts talking about religion and politics, which it seems that that wasn't always the case. On top of that, there are several users who have made multiple accounts in order to bypass the forum's bans, and whenever someone's account gets banned for something they simply use a secondary account to pick up where they left off. While the game forums seem to be moderated somewhat well, the off-topic forum seems to be extremely mismanaged. Seems crazy to me to have that on a platform that's supposed to be dedicated to gaming.

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u/Elarisbee 15h ago edited 15h ago

General Off-Topic?

Never enter the general Off-Topic or Suggestion sections of the Steam Discussion hub. Both are in reality dump boards - they exist to concentrate the crazy in one place, so they don’t spread elsewhere. It’s why the moderation there is so lax. Valve doesn’t want them to move elsewhere.

The Suggestion section is where Support will send someone when they want to get rid of them nicely. Also, it hosts an epic forum war that’s been raging for about…5 years…? It has lore.

Edit: Oh, the VAC forum exists to hold the trash threads as well. It’s a sad, yet generally hilarious place at the same time. Or it use to be before the mods started closing threads.

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u/Thin_Variation_1571 15h ago

Yeah, the general one. It seemed ok with some of the topics that people would post (sort of fun and games), but many have seemingly just been politically biased posts to troll people from opposing sides into rage bait arguments.

Not sure which is worse, the ones violating the rules or that moderators don’t properly enforce them.