Absurd lack of Steam Workshop's moderation

[inlesco 233]

Straight to the point: yes, this is just another thread discussing an integral part of Steam, the infamous Workshop. However, I'm covering the main issue in detail.

 

There's a lot of mission / campaign makers that gladly post their creations over Steam WS, don't see a problem and are happy to receive additional feedback, ratings, etc. However, the type of users I'm talking right now are not the problem. The others are.

 

I'll bullet-list my primary points.

• Some people love to abuse the rules and make a mess for more clicks / better ratings / more significant EGO boost / whatever other selfish reason.
• Take ' Campaign ' cat. sorted by ' top rated of all time ' - http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/browse/?appid=107410&requiredtags%5B0%5D=Campaign&actualsort=toprated&browsesort=toprated&p=1
• You can see it's spammed all over the place by some (sorry for the expression) crappy missions that are in FRENCH (so much for localization...) and french only. Also, they're labeled as a 'Camp.', but they're all published separately.
• What the actual f***? These amateur missions take up too much space, stealing space from other creators who actually care about keeping things clean.
• A 'Camp.', as defined from OFP times (back in 2001, I guess), is a pack of missions, not a bunch of unrelated content. Why don't we get back to the old definition of a Campaign, eh?
• Open this mission: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=287278550&searchtext=
• Compare its number of 'Total votes' (near the stars in the top right corner) to the number of 'Total visitors' or 'Current subscribers'. You see the disproportion? You begin to think that someone purposedly convinced people to vote at any cost, otherwise they won't get the promised cookie.
• If you browse the 'Camp.' cat. or SP / MP mission categories further, your eyes will begin to tear.

Yes, I've played a bit of a detective. Perhaps some of this sounds hyperbole, but I couldn't help writing it all out.

 

The situation is THAT absurd. Steam WS needs volunteer moderators or more strict rules enforced on mission publishing real bad. Thoughts?

[lexx 1364]

I have no idea how good / bad the campaign is, as my french is pretty bad and I don't feel motivated to check this stuff out. But other than that I agree. For me it's almost impossible to find anything interesting in the steam workshop.

[Jackal326 1181]

And people wonder why ArmA3 being 'Steam Workshop Supported' was decried from every rooftop from here to ends of the Earth when it was announced - because this happens with just about every game/section/category on there. Not to mention the whole "people uploading content they have no right to do so" which is a constant plight. I'm sure many people are sick and tied of filing DMCA Notices and by now could do so in their sleep.

[semiconductor 309]

Steam WS needs volunteer moderators or more strict rules enforced on mission publishing real bad. Thoughts?

Arma should be pulled out from Workshop because I don't think anybody would volunteer to clean these Augean stables. Steam is a great service for sure but due to the size of its playerbase, its accessibility to dumb kids and lack of proper moderation it probably has the worst community that humankind saw in the last 3000 years of its history and I'm not even sure whether it's an exaggeration or not.

[dayglow 2]

Are the missions crappy because they are French, or did you actually try them?

From what I remember those missions are some of the first on the Workshop and campaigns may not have worked back then. I don't see anything abnormal with their ratings. Again they have been up forever so they have been treated over a long time and have a 1 in 3 ratio of rating vs download. Also how did you come to the conclusion that the maker doesn't care about the game or his missions?

Agreed that the market could combine them into a campaign now.

[IndeedPete 1038]

Yes, the steam workshop is the abyss of Arma modding. It's really, well, you get a lot of reach using the workshop but it's shite. And it's shite because steam's holding a monopoly there by integrating the game and the mods into one platform. The rating system is completely retarded, it has bugs, it is far less flexible than a god damn forums thread with regards to presentation, the crowd is much less friendly, and some commenters are downright rude or ignorant. Of course, there are good and neutral examples as well.

 

As for the campaigns in particular, yes I strongly believe there's tampering going on with the rankings. I've noticed that during MANW before where "campaigns" consisting of one completely broken mission with no content at all received hundreds of positive ratings. And when you look at place number one in that section it had 1.600 clicks, 3.000 subscribers, and !1.000! ratings. Not even Resist, slowly making its way up from the bottom of the first page, is even close to the rating of - at least to me - completely unknown campaign. My entry's been there for over a year, had ten times more visitors and four times more subscribers, but only a fifth of the ratings of the number one. Similar for other content that is really popular here on the forums but drowns in the sea of shitty and overrated entries in the workshop. It's really not a pleasure to be there, not as an author, but also not as user. I believe some competition  would be good for steam.

[lumnuon 295]

I disagree with the "Workshop sucks" notion. YES the workshop has got some big issues. These are mainly are stolen content being uploaded and the fucked up rating system (that is really easy to manipulate). In addition to that the EULA has got certain sections that are demanding, to say the least.

 

Having said that, I think the workshop is a great tool to bring communities together and to keep the repo updated. To me it seems like many people on here think that only the dumbest in the community use it, which is false. Even if you know how to install, use and/or create them you can appreciate to workshop for it´s simplicity. You don´t need to look up all the mods to see whether they got an update or not and as I said earlier, the workshop makes life easier for communities/server hosters.

 

1. If BI would appoint additional community authors to control the workshop for content that was uploaded without the permission of the author the problem would (most likely) not be as imminent as it is. I report pretty much everything that is obviously stolen, but it seems like the workshop moderators lack the manpower to keep up with it (which is understandable, but could be improved)  

 

2. Most guys that upload content on the workshop without permission do so several times. Why can´t they get banned from the workshop after a certain number of infringements?

 

3. It´s quite obvious that the rating system gets abused. That includes manipulated ratings, false tags and knowingly cluttering the WS to "hide" content of "competitors".

[chortles 263]

Even if you know how to install, use and/or create them you can appreciate to workshop for it´s simplicity. You don´t need to look up all the mods to see whether they got an update or not and as I said earlier, the workshop makes life easier for communities/server hosters.

That's probably a factor in Bohemia's direction with mission/mod setup in Arma 3; a bunch of the corresponding features (particularly finding, installing, loading, presets, publishing, etc.) are specifically tied to Steam Workshop via the Launcher and the OPREP about the new Launcher-embedded Server Browser indicates that upcoming ones are also Steam Workshop-exclusive (i.e. the whole "automated mod downloading" thing).

 

Maybe it sounds less weird to everyone else, but for some reason I'm drawing a comparison in my head to Android apps via an app store (particularly Google Play) versus sideloading APKs.

[inlesco 233]

Are the missions crappy because they are French, or did you actually try them?

From what I remember those missions are some of the first on the Workshop and campaigns may not have worked back then. I don't see anything abnormal with their ratings. Again they have been up forever so they have been treated over a long time and have a 1 in 3 ratio of rating vs download. Also how did you come to the conclusion that the maker doesn't care about the game or his missions?

Agreed that the market could combine them into a campaign now.

I've played and analyzed a couple of them. Nothing special - basic briefing, no VA, no complex scripting or something. Simple missions made in 1-2h easily.

 

Most importantly, they're only in French. Are there no requirements for language? It should be English, with an option of additional localization. Just how Resist campaign by Kydoimos did it.

 

It shouldn't be too hard to put better constraints for categories like Campaign and others since they rely on a specific config that SP/MP missions don't have.

[lexx 1364]

You can't force people to translate their mods. That's just dumb. If at all then the workshop needs a language filter.

Btw. Because of simplicity and stuff, the workshop is a really great tool. The main problem is just that the presentation is really bad. Oh, and the rating system is just broken. I see lots of content with a high rating simply because it existed since day 1. For new uploads it is very hard to find recognition, unless it gets viral somewhere else on the internet. Don't expect to upload anything and then getting showered in comments and feedback (which is much more valuable then voiceless ratings).

Tl;dr: Workshop itself is good, getting the word out about your stuff solely on the workshop is literally impossible.

[IndeedPete 1038]

It shouldn't be too hard to put better constraints for categories like Campaign and others since they rely on a specific config that SP/MP missions don't have.

 

The problem is that you can freely select the tags when uploading something. To get a lot of reach, an author can just add every available tag, the workshop doesn't check what's inside the .PBO. And the lack of moderation does the rest.

[Jackal326 1181]

What would be good (though nigh-on impossible) is if the submissions were moderated after upload, but before being publicly visible - much in the same way the Squads and Fanpages section of these very forums are. Content is submitted, but is not visible until having been checked and verified by the (massive) team of moderators. Would help cut down on the so-called "shit submissions" and could help towards the whole "uploading stolen content" issue (though probably wouldn't eliminate it entirely). However, as I said initially, this would be almost impossible to feasibly implement sadly. 

[lexx 1364]

The question is: Who would be this "massive team" of moderators and why would they do the job?

[lumnuon 295]

The question is: Who would be this "massive team" of moderators and why would they do the job?

 

That´s the problem. And even IF BI manages to create such a team (with the help of the community?) I don´t think that there is a single person that wants to deal with the same dude that infringes copyright 3 times in a row. As I said earlier, the people that do infringe mod´s copyrights are very often doing so several times with many different mods. Why can´t they get banned from uploading anything on the workshop after one or two warnings? It would reduce the workload for moderators.

[Jackal326 1181]

The question is: Who would be this "massive team" of moderators and why would they do the job?

Exactly, that is the main difficulty I was eluding to -  it being "near impossible [to achieve]" due to the lack of man-power to perform such a task. Volunteers only have so much free time, and if you take on [enough] volunteers to cover the staggering amount of time required the reliability may become an issue if simply anybody gets into the position of sanctioning uploads.

[caboose816 38]

The only reason I use the Steam Workshop is because it's simple and let's me know when mods are updated. I have over 50 mods, so it's a pain checking to see when they're updated. If Armaholic had a feature (and if they do, please tell me) that, say, sent you a email or even a message saying "Good Morning Caboose 816! We thought you'd like to know that a mod you followed, Mod UVW, has been updated to Version XYZ! Take a look! Have a good day!", I would never touch Steam Workshop again. ModDB does this and it's awesome, saves a lot of time.

[inlesco 233]

The only reason I use the Steam Workshop is because it's simple and let's me know when mods are updated. I have over 50 mods, so it's a pain checking to see when they're updated. If Armaholic had a feature (and if they do, please tell me) that, say, sent you a email or even a message saying "Good Morning Caboose 816! We thought you'd like to know that a mod you followed, Mod UVW, has been updated to Version XYZ! Take a look! Have a good day!", I would never touch Steam Workshop again. ModDB does this and it's awesome, saves a lot of time.

Give PWS (play with six) a try. It checks for updates and downloads the mods automatically.

[simon1279 52]

Steam is not a good platform to share things, both mods and opinions just take a look at steam forums and the mid level of the posters, i mean aggressive users, rude users exc., steam is not a moderated platfrom at all, after all it is just an online videogames shop

[caboose816 38]

Give PWS (play with six) a try. It checks for updates and downloads the mods automatically.

I've thought about this, but I've read so many negative things about PWS, like installing bloatware and performance impacts that I've been hesitant.

[kevaskous 10]

I've thought about this, but I've read so many negative things about PWS, like installing bloatware and performance impacts that I've been hesit

It's honestly garbage, I hate it but forced to deal with it. I have the 2 major browsers installed and one fork and their site either doesn't work or half works on them. The program is not much better and it's a huge PITA to get people setup with my modset anymore. Compared to a old sync program from Arma 2 it's honestly horrific. Steam would be many magnitudes more user friendly especially for sharing collections and is not limited to the ungodly slow in the modern internet speed of 1.25MB/sec. Steam would give me these mods at my full 10MB/sec+ speeds which isn't really fast for internet anymore.

 

I appreciate the work especially when six first started, it honestly was a better program back then than now. Now I wish i could rid of it, but having 46+GB of mods prevents that from being a option until I get a server that will allow for it, and even then, updating the server itself would be a PITA. -SIGH- But if you want to managed a lot of mods, it is the only, and thus best option outside using Arma3Sync and updating the server itself manually or whatever.

[ineptaphid 6413]

Straight to the point: yes, this is just another thread discussing an integral part of Steam, the infamous Workshop. However, I'm covering the main issue in detail.

 

There's a lot of mission / campaign makers that gladly post their creations over Steam WS, don't see a problem and are happy to receive additional feedback, ratings, etc. However, the type of users I'm talking right now are not the problem. The others are.

 

I'll bullet-list my primary points.

• Some people love to abuse the rules and make a mess for more clicks / better ratings / more significant EGO boost / whatever other selfish reason.
• Take ' Campaign ' cat. sorted by ' top rated of all time ' - http://steamcommunity.com/workshop/browse/?appid=107410&requiredtags%5B0%5D=Campaign&actualsort=toprated&browsesort=toprated&p=1
• You can see it's spammed all over the place by some (sorry for the expression) crappy missions that are in FRENCH (so much for localization...) and french only. Also, they're labeled as a 'Camp.', but they're all published separately.
• What the actual f***? These amateur missions take up too much space, stealing space from other creators who actually care about keeping things clean.
• A 'Camp.', as defined from OFP times (back in 2001, I guess), is a pack of missions, not a bunch of unrelated content. Why don't we get back to the old definition of a Campaign, eh?
• Open this mission: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=287278550&searchtext=
• Compare its number of 'Total votes' (near the stars in the top right corner) to the number of 'Total visitors' or 'Current subscribers'. You see the disproportion? You begin to think that someone purposedly convinced people to vote at any cost, otherwise they won't get the promised cookie.
• If you browse the 'Camp.' cat. or SP / MP mission categories further, your eyes will begin to tear.

Yes, I've played a bit of a detective. Perhaps some of this sounds hyperbole, but I couldn't help writing it all out.

 

The situation is THAT absurd. Steam WS needs volunteer moderators or more strict rules enforced on mission publishing real bad. Thoughts?

Regarding those French missions-the maker of them,Helios has just released a campaign-in English- and it is one of the best and most exciting campaigns I have played for Arma3. It's a 30 mission campaign with the first 10 released so far. i have always found his stuff to be very well made personally.

[Ranwer135 308]

I agree with the Topic's opinion,

 

My latest mod I publish on SW ended up with over 21 comments saying 'where do I find the zombies' or 'where are the modules?', when I have clearly said in the description how to use the mod. My best guess is that many Steam fans just look at the title and then download it. But now that EXILE and other mods are taking the spotlight for 'gamers', it kicks up the dust for mods that could potentially be great mods to play. Not only that, many have complained about the popular mods not having any animations for drinking and eating, whereas my mod DSS already has that addition. The main problem I see in Steam Workshop, is the fact that many do not even bother looking for potentially great mods, but instead choose the most rated mod of them all.

 

If Steam Workshop could play fair by moving the recently updated content on the home page, then maybe those mods (including mine) have a chance to rise up. Almost reminds me of this .gif of how Steam Workshop treats rising mods:

 

[dunedain 48]

I personally think the WS is a great tool. It isn't elitist so anyone can try and upload their missions. It doesn't ask you money for bandwidth. No admins in a power trip there.

 

Although the Workshop could use more moderation, that is true... Too many people misusing tags.

 

However it's still a very userfriendly and convenient way of getting and maintaining modifications. I gave PWS several tries and always found it obscenely painful to use.

 

I can understand WS isn't appealing for modders who have a hard time taking raw criticism without throwing insults and condescension in the other direction. However the abysmal lack of moderation on Arma3 steam related features isn't Valve's responsability but BiS'. I won't even bother with the muh Valve monopoly inane circlejerk, some of you guys don't even understand what a monopoly is and entails. If modders really have it that bad with Steam they can upload their mods and missions anywhere next to big ads and a donation button, nobody ever stopped them. As far as I know, BiS isn't planning on removing the old way of installing mods and missions.

 

Regarding the whole new mods can't get noticed argument. I find it not quite accurate as the Arma 4 workshop welcome page has the most popular mods of the previous week featured large and big. Then you have tabs for most suscribed, most popular and most recent right below it. In the advanced research field, five of the "sort by" options are most popular going from one day to a year. I never have trouble finding news things on the WS personally. But then again I actually use it...

 

The whole Steam WS EULA debate according to some is about Valve giving itself the right to use, distribute, transmit, communicate, publicly display or publicly perform the Workshop Contribution, you can remove your content at any time and Valve doesn't retain any rights on it unless you charged people for it through Steam. They only give themselves the right to modify/adapt a contribution integrated to a game if they have a paid partership with the content creator. It's only common sense, and obviously mostly only applies to their own games for obvious reasons, CSGO with its weapon skins and community map passes, TF2 with whatever is going on in this thing...

 

Imo it's just a matter of some individuals, unhappy about the initial move on Steamworks, being in a constant ego trip and the fact the way the Workshop is set with Arma3 they wouldn't get a dime, although RHS got 200k already, while all the plebs get their hands on their jewels. That's all there is to it. If Valve and BiS ever agreed to open the door for paid user created content on Arma 3, you can be sure all the reluctance would fly away.

 

 

 

 

Back on subject. Helios maps are simply good... To vote up or suscribe to a contribution on the workshop you need to own the game, so unless he has that many friends with Arma 3 there is no tampering of grades or popularity on the workshop..

[Rydygier 1316]

To all the above pros and cons I would add also this. It's unreliable. Still. 

[kaject 22]

Steam Workshop's Arma 3 categories haven't been fixed yet. There's zero moderation there as of 2023. It's been over 10 years since the game's release.

 

That's just pathetic.