Hello Steam Team,

I would like to raise a serious concern regarding the current Steam Families cooldown policy.

After unintentionally joining and leaving a family group, my account has been placed on a cooldown until August 2026.
I fully understand the purpose of cooldowns to prevent abuse, but in this case, the restriction was caused by a single accidental action, not misuse or repeated switching.

What makes this particularly frustrating is that the cooldown is extended automatically if any shared game is played by a family member — even without realizing it.
This effectively locks users out of the feature for a full year (or more) due to one simple mistake, which feels excessively harsh and inflexible.

I’m requesting that Valve consider implementing one or more of the following:
- A manual review or appeal system for genuine mistakes.
- A more transparent cooldown timer showing when and why it was triggered.
- A shorter cooldown duration for single accidental cases.

I’ve contacted Steam Support and was informed that they cannot lift or shorten cooldowns under any circumstances.
That’s why I’m posting here — to ask the development team to review this policy and make it more fair for regular users who made an honest mistake.

Steam Families is a great feature for real households, and I appreciate the effort behind it.
I just hope the cooldown policy can be adjusted to avoid punishing genuine users for one-time errors.

Thank you for your time and consideration.