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Use Steam’s discussion controls against conduct, not viewpoints. Remove slurs, threats, doxing, discrimination, personal accusations and coordinated spam; lock or merge threads that become abusive or off-topic; warn and temporarily hub-ban repeat offenders. Treat ordinary political criticism of the game as allowed unless your published house rules make real-world politics off-topic. Reviews are different: developers cannot delete them. Flag abusive or off-topic reviews, avoid public arguments, and contact Partner Support when a coordinated wave may qualify as an off-topic review bomb.
This procedure separates three problems that are often confused: person-directed harassment, coordinated brigading, and on-topic political disagreement. Each uses a different Steam tool and carries a different risk to your community and review score.
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What can a Steam game hub moderate?
Steam gives a game’s administrators meaningful control over discussions, but not over the store’s review database. Your team can pin, merge, lock, warn, delete and hub-ban discussion participants. Valve decides whether a review is removed, marked off-topic or left in place.
Valve’s current Rules and Guidelines for Discussions, Reviews and UGC require interactions to remain constructive and non-abusive. The examples include insults and harassment, threats or encouragement of harm, trolling or baiting, discrimination, bypassing filters and public accusations. The separate Steam Online Conduct policy also prohibits doxing, stalking, defamatory or libelous statements, abusive language, intimidation and artificially manipulating reviews or other Steam content.
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“Politics” is not a standalone prohibited category in the currently retrieved Valve rules. Respectful disagreement about a character, patch, studio statement or social issue can therefore remain. A thread that turns into insults, threats or an off-topic fight can be locked under the same rules, and a developer may publish a clearer house rule that excludes real-world political debate.
Valve’s own guidance says respectful arguments can benefit the community, while threads that leave a constructive path or cause frequent disrespect may be locked. Specific prohibited or non-constructive posts may be deleted to preserve the rest of a conversation.
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How do political harassment, brigading and criticism differ?
Classify the behaviour before taking action. The same political subject can be permissible in one post and sanctionable in another.
Person-directed harassment
Slurs, deadnaming, antisemitic or racist tropes, threats, wishes of harm, doxing, stalking, defamatory accusations about a developer’s private life and attacks on a protected group are conduct violations. Delete the offending post, warn or ban the account according to its history, and flag a matching review as Abusive. This is enforcement of Steam’s conduct rules, not censorship of a political opinion.
Brigading and curator campaigns
A brigade is coordinated activity that sends people to your hub or store page to repeat a message, flood duplicate threads or manipulate the score. A curator list or social-media post that instructs people to leave identical “don’t buy because the developer is political” reviews may fall under Steam’s prohibition on artificially manipulating reviews or other content. The evidence is the coordination and behaviour, not the ideology.
On-topic political criticism
A player can criticize a patch, a pride flag, a character, a studio statement, pricing or the experience of being part of the game’s community. Steam’s User Reviews guidance treats those subjects as potentially valid feedback. Leave the criticism up when it is about the product and does not abuse people; lock the discussion only when it becomes an insult contest or violates a published off-topic rule.
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Which Steam control should you use?
Choose the least destructive control that stops the conduct. The table keeps discussion actions separate from review actions.
| Situation | Discussion-hub action | Review action | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Respectful political disagreement about the game | Leave open; redirect to the relevant thread | Leave open | Viewpoint disagreement is not itself a violation |
| Off-topic argument with repeated disrespect | Post a reason, then lock; merge duplicates | Flag Off-Topic only when the review has no product, service or community connection | Stops disruption without hiding criticism |
| Slurs, threats, doxing or personal accusations | Delete the post; warn or hub-ban the account | Flag Abusive or Violates Community Guidelines | Targets prohibited conduct |
| Coordinated review wave | Lock clone threads, merge one megathread, document accounts | Flag representative violations and contact Partner Support | Valve, not the developer, decides score treatment |
A hub ban blocks new threads, posts and UGC uploads in that hub. It is not a platform-wide Steam Community ban. Use permanent bans only after repeated temporary bans or an exceptionally serious violation.
How do you prepare a hub before a raid?
Preparation reduces improvisation and gives players a visible standard to follow.
- Choose the moderation model. Reported discussion posts go to Valve staff by default. In Steamworks, under the app’s Community settings at
partner.steamgames.com/apps/community/<APPID>, you can opt out and take exclusive control of the Reported Posts forum. Small teams usually benefit from leaving Valve’s default review on while assigning at least one internal officer. - Assign trusted moderators. A user must follow the game and join its official hub before an administrator can promote them with the star beside their name. Permissions are edited at
steamcommunity.com/ogg/<appID>/permissionsEdit. Community moderators and officers should receive a written brief: lock harassment, preserve legitimate criticism, never argue in anger and escalate threats or doxing. Permission changes can take up to one hour. - Pin house rules. State what is prohibited, what remains allowed and where to report. Lock comments on the rules post if it would otherwise become another political debate. Repeat the relevant rule in each lock notice.
- Create an anonymous developer account. Steamworks advises using an anonymous
[developer]account for public moderation communication so an individual staffer does not become the target. - Record escalation details. Save links, timestamps, account names, screenshots and the origin of a curator or social-media call. Keep the Partner Support publishing-help path ready before a review wave starts.
Steam hubs include General Discussions, Trading and a hidden Reported Posts queue. After acting on a report, mark it Resolved so the queue remains usable.
What should you do when a political discussion raid starts?
Work in a fixed sequence. Do not reply to every post; a staff argument can make the thread the event.
- Pause and preserve evidence. Capture URLs, timestamps, screenshots and the first account that appears to have coordinated the posts. Do not publish private information while documenting it.
- Remove immediate hazards. Delete slurs, threats, doxing, phishing, filter-bypasses and clear personal accusations. Those are conduct violations, not ordinary negative opinions.
- Lock the bait thread. Post a short explanation such as “Locked: off-topic and non-constructive; continue game discussion in the pinned thread.” An unexplained lock can look like a viewpoint ban and encourage copycat threads.
- Merge duplicates. Use the moderator tools to merge repeated outrage threads into the oldest discussion. If volume is extreme, label one clearly as a megathread and direct all further comments there.
- Apply sanctions consistently. Send a private process note for a wrong-subforum mistake. Use a warning for a first violation; Steam provides translated standard reasons. Temporary hub bans are appropriate for obvious raid accounts or repeat misconduct. A permanent hub ban is a later step after repeated temporary bans.
- Resolve the queue. Mark each handled report Resolved and retain the evidence for an appeal or Partner Support request.
Do not mass-report the opposing side. Coordinated reporting can itself look abusive and does not replace evidence-based moderation.
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How should you moderate Steam reviews during a brigade?
Developers cannot delete reviews directly. From a review’s detail view, open the orange moderator controls and choose the reason that matches the text:
- Abusive: scams, harassment, threats, wishes of harm or abuse aimed at developers, users or groups.
- Off-Topic: a review unrelated to the product, its development, business practices or participation in its community. A review that only says “the developer posted a political opinion, so do not buy” may be off-topic when it contains no connection to the game or service; a review explaining how that policy affected the player’s experience can be relevant.
- Violates Community Guidelines: another breach of Steam’s review rules, such as commercial promotion, undisclosed free copies or artificial score manipulation.
Valve moderators or employees decide the result. A confirmed rule-breaking review is banned, removed from Steam and removed from the product’s score. An Off-Topic review has reduced visibility but still contributes to the percentage. Flagging Off-Topic therefore does not, by itself, repair a score.
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How does a review bomb affect the score?
Store pages show 30-day and lifetime scores. Only reviews from Steam-purchased copies and accounts that played the product count toward the score; users with playtime can still write reviews from keys, free weekends or Family Sharing even when those reviews do not count toward the percentage.
Steamworks defines a review bomb as a large volume of reviews intended to voice unhappiness, lower a score and provoke a response. If the wave is unrelated to the product or service, Partner Support may assess the period as off-topic and remove that anomalous window from the overall score. That is a Valve decision, not a developer switch.
Steam states that a game with a Mixed score or better—40% positive or higher—is not disadvantaged in algorithmic visibility by its review score. Below 40%, in Mostly Negative territory, the game is less likely to be featured. If a coordinated wave is pushing a 30-day score toward that threshold, treat the support request as urgent.
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When should you contact Partner Support?
Contact Partner Support when there is evidence of a coordinated review wave, especially one unrelated to the game or its service. Ask Valve to add extra moderators, review representative posts and assess whether the period is an off-topic review bomb. Include the triggering post or curator list, the time window, duplicate language, account patterns and examples of harassment.
If Valve marks a flag resolved and you disagree, request another look through the publishing-help route shown as HelpWithPublishing?issueid=929. Steam does not let the same user re-report uncleared content unless the author edits it, so do not tell players to repeatedly submit the same report.
Support may decide that a wave is legitimate criticism, even when the subject is a political controversy. If the underlying complaint concerns a broken update, fix the product and communicate the factual change. Do not claim that an Off-Topic flag guarantees score restoration.
Should your house rules ban politics?
You may publish a stricter, clearly announced hub rule, but describe it as your community policy rather than Steam law. One studio’s March 2026 Directive 8020 guidelines prohibit war, politics and religion while also applying zero tolerance to abuse, harassment, bullying and discrimination. That is a model, not a platform-wide Valve ban.
A narrower rule preserves useful lore discussion: “Real-world party politics is off-topic. Critique of the game’s story, characters and themes is welcome when civil. Harassment, slurs, threats, doxing, naming-and-shaming and witch hunts are prohibited.” Whatever wording you choose, pin it, lock the rules thread, apply it consistently and quote the exact rule in lock or ban notices.
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Valve’s partner guidance says bans should normally be temporary reminders, with permanent bans reserved for repeat temporary offenders. It also warns that deleting ordinary criticism makes the hub about moderation itself. Rotate staff coverage, keep an internal incident log and let a targeted employee step away. Steamworks describes the mental-health cost of a review bomb as a major but unmeasured risk.
What mistakes make a political pile-on worse?
- Deleting negative gameplay criticism: this hides viewpoint rather than conduct and invites a larger meta-argument.
- Arguing from a named employee account: sarcasm, mockery and “ratio” attempts keep the wave visible and can make a staff member the target.
- Calling every political post harassment: criticism of a patch, theme or policy can be valid when it is civil and product-related.
- Claiming Valve bans all politics: current rules focus on respect, constructive discussion, off-topic content and harassment; they do not name a blanket politics prohibition.
- Promising that flags change the score: only a Valve ban or Valve’s exclusion of an anomalous period removes score impact.
- Restoring deleted slurs for “transparency”: keep the evidence privately; do not re-expose abusive material.
- Using a personal account for every reply: an anonymous developer account protects staff and keeps messages procedural.
What should your post-incident review cover?
Leave lock reasons visible so players can see that enforcement targeted conduct or off-topic disruption, not an ideology. Review which accounts were new, which were long-time customers, whether a patch or trailer triggered the wave, how quickly moderators resolved reports and whether the house rule was understandable. Unban only through a written appeal that accepts the rules. Move long-form discussion to another staffed community space if the Steam hub cannot remain constructive; several studios pay their own forum moderators for that reason.
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Keep the public record factual: what rule applied, what action was taken and where civil discussion can continue. Avoid publishing private user information or speculating about motives you cannot establish.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can a Steam developer ban someone from the whole platform?
No. A game hub ban stops an account from posting threads, comments and UGC in that specific hub. Platform-wide restrictions are Valve’s decision under Steam’s broader conduct policies.
Do Off-Topic review flags remove a review from the score?
No. Valve reduces the review’s visibility but leaves its contribution in the percentage. Only a confirmed ban, or Valve’s separate exclusion of an anomalous review-bomb period, removes score impact.
Can I make a Steam community rules thread with no politics?
Yes, if you state it as a clearly published house rule and apply it consistently. Explain whether the restriction covers real-world politics only or also in-game political themes, and leave room for civil product criticism if that is your intent.
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Send the time window, links to the coordinating curator or social post, repeated wording, account-creation or play-pattern clues you can document, and representative abusive or unrelated reviews. Ask for an off-topic review-bomb assessment rather than demanding that every negative review be removed.
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