So Steam (Valve) is purging topics from their discussions/forums

If you have a look at games like Fallout New Vegas which have been on Steam since the game was released, you'll notice that the oldest topic on their discussion forum for that game, is dated August 2016.

What the fuck happened to everyones posts and helpful information!?

This post is just to let people know that you should NOT post valuable information to a Steam Discussion/Forum. It. Will. Be. Purged. even if the topic is less than a year old.

Not really a big loss, most of it is just shit and any tech stuff is usually pinned or posted in often enough to miss the purge

Check the PoE one out, same deal but the never to die Linux thread is still there because it was bumped a few days ago and that was created in 2013

Before they implemented this purging system (seemingly without telling anyone they were implementing it) I would use the Subscription function to subscribe to topics that contained information I thought was useful for games I am either currently playing or may return to at a later date. Topics like bug fix guides, bug fix mods, general advice on how the games gameplay mechanics work etc.

All of those subscriptions (80+) have been wiped out slowly over a 3 year period with no notification, consent or warning. So I couldn't backup the information in advance of the pruning system being implemented.

I just realized that the original Steam forums are still online and fully functional (I figured it was set to Read Only when the new Discussions system got introduced):
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/

My posts dating all the way back to 08-28-2010 are still there which makes the purging of posts on Steam Discussions even less sensible than I originally realized.

Each game individual forum is moderated by people associated to that game in one way or another. Not by steam.

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Nicholas_Steel wrote:

I just realized that the original Steam forums are still online and fully functional (I figured it was set to Read Only when the new Discussions system got introduced):
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/

My posts dating all the way back to 08-28-2010 are still there which makes the purging of posts on Steam Discussions even less sensible than I originally realized.

If they are archived somewhere, who cares if you delete one of the copies?

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Disrupted wrote:

Each game individual forum is moderated by people associated to that game in one way or another. Not by steam.

This. Valve delegates all responsibility so individual devs can be fucksticks without Valve ever getting its hands dirty.

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dudiobugtron wrote:

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Nicholas_Steel wrote:

I just realized that the original Steam forums are still online and fully functional (I figured it was set to Read Only when the new Discussions system got introduced):
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/

My posts dating all the way back to 08-28-2010 are still there which makes the purging of posts on Steam Discussions even less sensible than I originally realized.

If they are archived somewhere, who cares if you delete one of the copies?

I stopped posting there early in 2014 and switched to posting on the new Steam Discussions system. Primarily because Valve stopped adding subforums for each newly released game to the old forum system.

A massive amount of my posts helping people getting their games running and providing hints on how to solve common and sometimes esoteric problems since 2014 are gone. A lot of topics that helped ME with problems or answered my questions are gone. Why should I not be pissed? I can no longer access this information when I decide to return to those games, I have to beg people to provide the information yet again and hope someone somewhere remembers it, is also visiting that forum and isn't pissed off having to repeat the same damn thing for the Nth time.

GameFAQS has a good system, they simply lock old topics. When I bought 3D Dot Game Heroes earlier this month (early PS3 game) I was able to find ancient answers to my questions on their forum (as well as the really good walkthrough guide). The information for the game still existed online, I didn't need to make a new topic and request people to repeat themselves.

Every other forum I visit also has a good system, they simply don't lock or delete anything unless its contents are offensive or illegal etc.

And again, there was no warning, notice or alert that they were going to start deleting stuff. As far as I knew throughout 2014, 2015 and 2016 my subscriptions were disappearing, I didn't realize the actual topics were also disappearing! I would have copied or backed up the info in advance of the deletion of the content if there was a warning, or at least gone through it all and saved the bits I found important.

I'm sure mod authors are pleased on Fallout New Vegas Discussions that alot of the information there is now gone.

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Disrupted wrote:

Each game individual forum is moderated by people associated to that game in one way or another. Not by steam.

Can confirm this. :) The GGG Support team moderates the Path of Exile Steam Discussion forums.

We must make sure that messages and posts within the Steam discussions forum adhere to the Valve Terms of Use/Discussion Rules and Guidelines in addition to our own.

The oldest topic on the Steam Discussion forums for Path of Exile is from August 2016, did GGG delete the older topics or was that Valve? Are you allowed to say who deleted them? To me it looks like Valve did a mass exodus of all topics older than August 2016 for all games and may have been doing this practice periodically since some time in 2014 (Sticky topics being an exception). Is GGG even aware of it? Perhaps their moderator accounts still show all the forum posts masking the issue from their eyes?