You already proved why its not needed. Your standards don't allow you to recommend a game thats just okay. THere's no shame in havibng high standards. Just because you say you can't recommend it doesn't mean you're crapping on it. And even if you were to include a scathing commentary.. well game got what it deserved.

If you want to write paragraphs and paragraphs on games that you can;'t recommend, then start a blog :-)

Oh good neutral reviews again. Can't wait to read all the constructive and well-thought out responses.

No we don't need this.

If you want something more detailed, USE THE SEARCH FEATURE. Its been discussed to death, read those threads first and add something to them instead of making a whole new thread like this.

引用自 Start_Running：

You already proved why its not needed. Your standards don't allow you to recommend a game thats just okay. THere's no shame in havibng high standards. Just because you say you can't recommend it doesn't mean you're crapping on it. And even if you were to include a scathing commentary.. well game got what it deserved.

If you want to write paragraphs and paragraphs on games that you can;'t recommend, then start a blog :-)

Curators can give informational reviews, in addition to Recommended and Not Recommended.

引用自 Crashed：

引用自 Start_Running：

You already proved why its not needed. Your standards don't allow you to recommend a game thats just okay. THere's no shame in havibng high standards. Just because you say you can't recommend it doesn't mean you're crapping on it. And even if you were to include a scathing commentary.. well game got what it deserved.

If you want to write paragraphs and paragraphs on games that you can;'t recommend, then start a blog :-)

Curators can give informational reviews, in addition to Recommended and Not Recommended.

Curators are also not required to play, or even verifiavbly own the games they curate.
The Informational option exists for teh ones who at least want to be honest about the fact they're curating a game they've never played.

There's also that curated lists aren't always about recommending. Some curate games based on things like whether or not it uses Denuvo, Whether or not it can be played in offline, whether or not it requires STeam to play.

Recommendations, are held to higher standards.

As always, the haters just have to rag on this idea, even though it's clearly meaningful to a lot of well-meaning people who'd like to give valuable feedback on games.

I'd love to have neutral reviews on Steam. They tend to be the most useful reviews for me when I'm weighing whether to buy something.

Like someone else mentioned, Steam has, in the time since the review system was implemented, implemented another system that allows for informational reviews. This is a useful model for how the review system itself should work.

引用自 Start_Running：

If you want to write paragraphs and paragraphs on games that you can;'t recommend, then start a blog :-)

Some people actually like to read long reviews.

引用自 Start_Running：

Recommendations, are held to higher standards.

Forcing reviews into two bins is not a "higher standard". If anything it is a lower standard since it lowers the accuracy of the status indicated on such reviews.

I care about the words in a review, not which way the thumb is pointing. The best reviews are often largely neutral anyway, and tell you about the good and bad and what the game is actually like. People who boil a review down to 2 or 3 sentences usually aren't telling you anything helpful other than if they personally enjoyed the game for its price.

So the people who think that only "Yes/No" reviews are the best ones feel really strongly that that's the only way it should ever be(what a coincidence). For them a neutral is just a fancy No. And people who actually want detailed information in reviews are going to look for informative reviews anyway and the actual thumb up or down is far less important.

Adding neutral wouldn't really change anything, so there's probably no reason to do it. People looking for recommendations can get them now, and people looking for information can get it now too. It just makes it a little bit harder for a reviewer who is 50/50 on a game to decide which way to tip the scale before hitting post.

引用自 Quint the Alligator Snapper：

As always, the haters just have to rag on this idea, even though it's clearly meaningful to a lot of well-meaning people who'd like to give valuable feedback on games.

Rambling on about an idea that is clearly not the way the feature is intended to work is just rambling.

As mentioned: I can get behind de-coupling the review from the recommendation. But a "neutral" ain't helping nobody.

引用自 cinedine：

As mentioned: I can get behind de-coupling the review from the recommendation. But a "neutral" ain't helping nobody.

A "neutral" option would be another way to implement a de-coupling...assuming that by "de-coupling" you mean making it possible to leave a review without a recommendation.

But yes, that would do just fine too.

引用自 Quint the Alligator Snapper：

As always, the haters just have to rag on this idea, even though it's clearly meaningful to a lot of well-meaning people who'd like to give valuable feedback on games.

I'd love to have neutral reviews on Steam. They tend to be the most useful reviews for me when I'm weighing whether to buy something.

It's telling that you refer to 'People who raise Valid critique and counterpoints' as 'haters.'
It's also telling that for all you talk about them being 'most useful' you have never been able to offer any objective metric of such. Something that the so-called 'haters' have been able to do --repeatedly.

Like someone else mentioned, Steam has, in the time since the review system was implemented, implemented another system that allows for informational reviews. This is a useful model for how the review system itself should work.

And as said. before. They hold user reviews to a slightly higher standards as evidenced by the requisits for a user review beiong just a bit higher than that. This is reflected in the general public opinions. I've met many, many people who want to block or remove curators from their siight. I've not met anyone who's wanted to removed USer Reviews from their sight.

Also as mentioned already. Curators aren't necessarily there to drive sales just to creatt short lists and the short list doesn't have to be concerned wih the quality or opinion of the game. You Can curate a list of games that Had a particular person as the sound designer. You can cyurate a list of games that A partiocular voice actor has worked on, You can even curate games based on whether or not the :"Wilhelm Scream' appears in it. None of those things have anything to do with opinion or quality. There's also curation lists based around whether or not a game has Denuvo.

CUrators are simply asked a different question. If that appeals to you, then by all means you, the OP, and anyone else is free to start your own curation group and leave all the Informational blurps you want. Nothing is stopping you,. (except the lack of attention and visibility).

引用自 Start_Running：

If you want to write paragraphs and paragraphs on games that you can;'t recommend, then start a blog :-)

Some people actually like to read long reviews.

ANd what did 'review length' have to do with the topic at hand?
Please try to stay focused Quint. Too early to have you start drifting off.

引用自 Start_Running：

Recommendations, are held to higher standards.

Forcing reviews into two bins is not a "higher standard". If anything it is a lower standard since it lowers the accuracy of the status indicated on such reviews.

The list of this you are required to be able to do in order to leave a user recommendation is greater. Ergo. Higher standards. 'Maths' wins over 'Feels' once again.

If you can't decide whether a game is worthy of your recommendation, you have no business leaving a recommendation. If you can buy a game, play it, and not know if it was worth the money and time you spent on it, then you have clearly not given the matter much thought. If you can't answer a simple question without having an existential crisis, maybe you should just do a review blog. Or create a Curation Group.

引用自 Start_Running：

It's telling that you refer to 'People who raise Valid critique and counterpoints' as 'haters.'

Because telling someone to start a blog just because you consider what they have to write to be useless is a "valid critique and counterpoint".

引用自 Start_Running：

It's also telling that for all you talk about them being 'most useful' you have never been able to offer any objective metric of such. Something that the so-called 'haters' have been able to do --repeatedly.

Your idea of an objective metric is to argue that the current setup accomplishes what the current setup accomplishes, while there is obviously no evidence that something that doesn't yet exist has provided any benefits.

引用自 Start_Running：

Like someone else mentioned, Steam has, in the time since the review system was implemented, implemented another system that allows for informational reviews. This is a useful model for how the review system itself should work.

And as said. before. They hold user reviews to a slightly higher standards as evidenced by the requisits for a user review beiong just a bit higher than that. This is reflected in the general public opinions. I've met many, many people who want to block or remove curators from their siight. I've not met anyone who's wanted to removed USer Reviews from their sight.

That's not because of some arbitrary idea of "higher standards" that you've cooked up; that's because curators are presented in a manner that focuses on who is doing the curation, while reviews are presented on product pages themselves. Furthermore, there are ways to leave feedback on reviews, but not on curators.

引用自 Start_Running：

Curators aren't necessarily there to drive sales

Given that Valve made this feature -- and especially based on your reasoning in which Valve knows what's best for Steam -- the curator feature is very much related to sales.

引用自 Start_Running：

If that appeals to you, then by all means you, the OP, and anyone else is free to start your own curation group and leave all the Informational blurps you want. Nothing is stopping you,. (except the lack of attention and visibility).

Your jab here is ironic since you're trying to imply that I'm interested in "attention and visibility" for my opinions, but rather, I'm actually the one interested in seeing other people's neutral opinions.

I should remind you that the curator feature is limited to 200 characters, so other people can't leave proper neutral reviews in that text. Thus, Steam's current system isn't letting them provide the information they would like to provide -- and which I'd like to read -- in a proper form. (Misrepresenting the overall opinion is not proper form.)

引用自 Start_Running：

Some people actually like to read long reviews.

ANd what did 'review length' have to do with the topic at hand?
Please try to stay focused Quint. Too early to have you start drifting off.

Funny you should accuse me of "drifting off" when in comment #1 you told someone else to "start a blog" to post those "paragraphs and paragraphs on games you can't recommend".

引用自 Start_Running：

Forcing reviews into two bins is not a "higher standard". If anything it is a lower standard since it lowers the accuracy of the status indicated on such reviews.

The list of this you are required to be able to do in order to leave a user recommendation is greater. Ergo. Higher standards. 'Maths' wins over 'Feels' once again.

You have shown no "maths"; you have only shown a presumption that forcing an opinion into either of two bins is a "higher standard".

引用自 Start_Running：

If you can't decide whether a game is worthy of your recommendation, you have no business leaving a recommendation.

Then let them leave a review without a recommendation.

引用自 Start_Running：

If you can't answer a simple question without having an existential crisis, maybe you should just do a review blog.

Hey look, more of your completely irrelevant jabs showing that you don't actually care about the review text but would rather try to armchair-psychoanalyze a reviewer in intentionally uncharitable ways solely based on the headline they'd choose for a review.

引用自 Quint the Alligator Snapper：

引用自 Start_Running：

It's telling that you refer to 'People who raise Valid critique and counterpoints' as 'haters.'

Because telling someone to start a blog just because you consider what they have to write to be useless is a "valid critique and counterpoint".

Pointing people to the right venue is a bad thing. Gotcha.

引用自 Quint the Alligator Snapper：

引用自 Start_Running：

It's also telling that for all you talk about them being 'most useful' you have never been able to offer any objective metric of such. Something that the so-called 'haters' have been able to do --repeatedly.

Your idea of an objective metric is to argue that the current setup accomplishes what the current setup accomplishes, while there is obviously no evidence that something that doesn't yet exist has provided any benefits.

My idea of an objective metric is the amount of information that can be potentially conveyed.
A revuiew that evades the matter of recommendation will ALWAYS be less informative than one that does, because there will ALWAYS be one extra piece of data that the neutral by its very nature can NEVER have: N < N+1. 'Logic/Math' beats 'Feels'.

引用自 Quint the Alligator Snapper：

引用自 Start_Running：

And as said. before. They hold user reviews to a slightly higher standards as evidenced by the requisits for a user review beiong just a bit higher than that. This is reflected in the general public opinions. I've met many, many people who want to block or remove curators from their siight. I've not met anyone who's wanted to removed USer Reviews from their sight.

That's not because of some arbitrary idea of "higher standards" that you've cooked up; that's because curators are presented in a manner that focuses on who is doing the curation, while reviews are presented on product pages themselves. Furthermore, there are ways to leave feedback on reviews, but not on curators.

No it's more a matter of people simply find User Reviews more useful than Curators. Which can bbe attributed to the fact that User reviewers actually have to be able to answer the question as to whether or not they recommend and even then thecontext of that answer is going to be more 'consistent' than a Curator listt.

Also your statement about the ability to leave feedback is FALSE. I'll be charitable and assume you were just so focused on the astounding informational quality of all those curator reviews you read that you never noticed the 'Discuss this Review' right below said review. Moreover the question of leaving feedback on reviews is irrelevant to the topic at hand. Do try to stay on track Quint.

引用自 Quint the Alligator Snapper：

引用自 Start_Running：

Curators aren't necessarily there to drive sales

Given that Valve made this feature -- and especially based on your reasoning in which Valve knows what's best for Steam -- the curator feature is very much related to sales.

Its honestly more of a crowd-sourced organization tool.
And a way for valve to throw reviewers and youtubers who felth their relevance slipping away a bone.

引用自 Quint the Alligator Snapper：

引用自 Start_Running：

If that appeals to you, then by all means you, the OP, and anyone else is free to start your own curation group and leave all the Informational blurps you want. Nothing is stopping you,. (except the lack of attention and visibility).

Your jab here is ironic since you're trying to imply that I'm interested in "attention and visibility" for my opinions, but rather, I'm actually the one interested in seeing other people's neutral opinions.

Then that removes the only downside. Which begs the question. Why haven't you done it? Why do you bother with user reviews when users who want to read informational commentary without recommendations and those users who wantt to read such commentary both have an already available avenue for their needs. This makes the idea of a neutral Recommendation in user reviews all the more redundant.

引用自 Quint the Alligator Snapper：

I should remind you that the curator feature is limited to 200 characters, so other people can't leave proper neutral reviews in that text. Thus, Steam's current system isn't letting them provide the information they would like to provide -- and which I'd like to read -- in a proper form. (Misrepresenting the overall opinion is not proper form.)

That's not even a lmitation. Anyone who's actually looked at the Curator system and Group System would know this, which implies you don't spend much time witth either, for all the trumpeting you do about it.

Might I suggest you take the time to inform yourself as to the depth and breadth of options and features available to you before you go declaring that new ones need to be added.

引用自 Quint the Alligator Snapper：

引用自 Start_Running：

ANd what did 'review length' have to do with the topic at hand?
Please try to stay focused Quint. Too early to have you start drifting off.

Funny you should accuse me of "drifting off" when in comment #1 you told someone else to "start a blog" to post those "paragraphs and paragraphs on games you can't recommend".

That was on-topic as it was a suggestion that would allow them to accomplish what they desire. WHat your comment about review length had to do with anything is anyone's guess.

引用自 Quint the Alligator Snapper：

引用自 Start_Running：

The list of this you are required to be able to do in order to leave a user recommendation is greater. Ergo. Higher standards. 'Maths' wins over 'Feels' once again.

You have shown no "maths"; you have only shown a presumption that forcing an opinion into either of two bins is a "higher standard".

I can count. Thats all the maths required to prove my point.
N < N+1
You don't need to be STephen Hawking to figure that out.

引用自 Quint the Alligator Snapper：

引用自 Start_Running：

If you can't decide whether a game is worthy of your recommendation, you have no business leaving a recommendation.

Then let them leave a review without a recommendation.

Why waste space and resources on something that is less useful?
It'd be like dionning a condom with a hole poked in the tip. Well actually it'd be less useful than one.

引用自 Quint the Alligator Snapper：

引用自 Start_Running：

If you can't answer a simple question without having an existential crisis, maybe you should just do a review blog.

Hey look, more of your completely irrelevant jabs showing that you don't actually care about the review text but would rather try to armchair-psychoanalyze a reviewer in intentionally uncharitable ways solely based on the headline they'd choose for a review.

Wow. your third post and you're already trying to misrepresent the posts of others. Nah IO'm sure you just 'accidentally' left off the last sentence that more or less renders your point here false.

Lets look at that againshall we.

引用自 Start_Running：

If you can't answer a simple question without having an existential crisis, maybe you should just do a review blog. Or create a Curation Group.

Huh. Imagine that. The part you left off happens to render your statement well.. moot. What a coinkidink. Probably just a typo on your part I'm sure.

As anyone can see I made two(2) helpful(?) suggestions for the OP to achieve their desired results.

The first being a platform independent option that allows them the greatest freedom in what and how they say, and even the manner in which it is presented. The second uses a feature of the Steam platform that allows the same outcome (sans a little visibility but that's moot).

Bonus is both are directly related to the topic at hand. As opposed to your own assertions which borders on outright 'Ad Hominem'

So thats 2 actually useable suggestions for what they can do accomplish their desires while they wait for 'Valve Time', versus...oh my I don't think you've made any suggestion that would actually bring the OP some ddegree closer to their goal. Imagine that.

2 > 0.

Maths/Logic FTW.

Now I'm sure you're going to reply wuith a well thought out rebuttal based on objective reasoning and logic without making any pleas to emotion, or vague assertions right? Sorry if I'm being a little terse todayy but I've got UFO's to shoot down and Warpstone to harvest so I don't really have the time for our usual waltz, so I figured I'd just lay the cards out up front, this time. Save us all some time and typing.

Buty to call back to my first response to you... it is telling who you choose to label as 'haters'

引用自 Start_Running：

引用自 Quint the Alligator Snapper：

Because telling someone to start a blog just because you consider what they have to write to be useless is a "valid critique and counterpoint".

Pointing people to the right venue is a bad thing. Gotcha.

The right venue for a review of a Steam game is the review section on Steam for that game.

引用自 Start_Running：

A revuiew that evades the matter of recommendation will ALWAYS be less informative than one that does, because there will ALWAYS be one extra piece of data that the neutral by its very nature can NEVER have: N < N+1. 'Logic/Math' beats 'Feels'.

And you're talking about a recommendation, not a review. Fundamentally, you're not looking for reviews, you're looking for recommendations. But that's not how everyone works.

Besides, in your rush to crow about how superior your "Logic/Math" is, you made the illogical assumption that a review can't itself contain a recommendation in its text. But then again, you don't actually care about the review text anyway, considering the example review you love to give whenever this topic comes up.

引用自 Start_Running：

No it's more a matter of people simply find User Reviews more useful than Curators.

Because they can contain more text.

引用自 Start_Running：

Which can bbe attributed to the fact that User reviewers actually have to be able to answer the question as to whether or not they recommend

Maybe you need someone to tell you whether to buy a game or not, but don't assume everyone is like you.

引用自 Start_Running：

Also your statement about the ability to leave feedback is FALSE. I'll be charitable and assume you were just so focused on the astounding informational quality of all those curator reviews you read that you never noticed the 'Discuss this Review' right below said review. Moreover the question of leaving feedback on reviews is irrelevant to the topic at hand. Do try to stay on track Quint.

In your rush to attempt jumping on me, you failed to notice a whole bunch of things that undermine your own point:

* On curator feeds, there is no "Discuss this review".
* When there's more than one curator one has followed which has commented on a product, there is no "Discuss this review".
* In order to get a "Discuss this review" button to appear, you have to click on that specific recommendation in a curator feed to take you to the store page with a link specific to that curator...
* ...and it still doesn't display if there's an intervening page like an age gate.
* ...and it also doesn't display if the curator hasn't set it up to let you discuss anything.

Oh, and...
* reviews have usefulness/funny feedback shown right below them -- and most recently, reactions! -- while curator entries, even if they have feedback, don't show any of that feedback.

引用自 Start_Running：

引用自 Quint the Alligator Snapper：

Your jab here is ironic since you're trying to imply that I'm interested in "attention and visibility" for my opinions, but rather, I'm actually the one interested in seeing other people's neutral opinions.

Then that removes the only downside. Which begs the question. Why haven't you done it?

Done what? I can't change the review system to let on recommendationless/neutral reviews.

引用自 Start_Running：

Why do you bother with user reviews

Because the store page displays only one curator entry while it simultaneously displays a whole bunch of user reviews. The latter can be skimmed.

引用自 Start_Running：

when users who want to read informational commentary without recommendations and those users who wantt to read such commentary both have an already available avenue for their needs.

Do note that the avenue for "informational commentary without recommendations" is (1) not displayable en masse for a specific product, as far as I know (such a display is limited to those curators one follows), and (2) is limited on the writer's side to 200 characters, thereby limiting how much information it can contain. Whereas actual reviews can contain far more text.

引用自 Start_Running：

This makes the idea of a neutral Recommendation in user reviews all the more redundant.

You only think it's redundant because you don't even care for it. Again, you show that you only care about your own way of doing things.

引用自 Start_Running：

引用自 Quint the Alligator Snapper：

I should remind you that the curator feature is limited to 200 characters, so other people can't leave proper neutral reviews in that text. Thus, Steam's current system isn't letting them provide the information they would like to provide -- and which I'd like to read -- in a proper form. (Misrepresenting the overall opinion is not proper form.)

That's not even a lmitation. Anyone who's actually looked at the Curator system and Group System would know this, which implies you don't spend much time witth either, for all the trumpeting you do about it.

I've used both and I know how little text 200 characters is. You, meanwhile, seem to have forgotten that words have meaning, and that reviews can contain far more than 200 characters. Yet for whatever strange reason you still continue to grandstand on the idea that you know how things work.

引用自 Start_Running：

引用自 Quint the Alligator Snapper：

Funny you should accuse me of "drifting off" when in comment #1 you told someone else to "start a blog" to post those "paragraphs and paragraphs on games you can't recommend".

That was on-topic as it was a suggestion that would allow them to accomplish what they desire. WHat your comment about review length had to do with anything is anyone's guess.

That suggestion accomplishes none of OP's desire, which is to post neutral reviews on Steam. Also, let me remind you that words have meaning, and your "paragraphs and paragraphs" indicates a large volume of words.

引用自 Start_Running：

引用自 Quint the Alligator Snapper：

Then let them leave a review without a recommendation.

Why waste space and resources on something that is less useful?

Because clearly Steam should revolve around how you like things to be done and should not accommodate anyone else.

引用自 Start_Running：

引用自 Quint the Alligator Snapper：

Hey look, more of your completely irrelevant jabs showing that you don't actually care about the review text but would rather try to armchair-psychoanalyze a reviewer in intentionally uncharitable ways solely based on the headline they'd choose for a review.

Wow. your third post and you're already trying to misrepresent the posts of others. Nah IO'm sure you just 'accidentally' left off the last sentence that more or less renders your point here false.

Lets look at that againshall we.

引用自 Start_Running：

If you can't answer a simple question without having an existential crisis, maybe you should just do a review blog. Or create a Curation Group.

Huh. Imagine that. The part you left off happens to render your statement well.. moot. What a coinkidink. Probably just a typo on your part I'm sure.

Thank you for including the sentence prior to the sentence you're trying to make hay of, which continues to substantiate the charge that you are trying to armchair-psychoanalyze a reviewer. Why else would you suggest that they have an "existential crisis"?

If you only wanted people to pay attention to that last sentence, you could have written only that sentence, rather than shooting yourself in the foot with the previous one.

引用自 Start_Running：

As anyone can see I made two(2) helpful(?) suggestions for the OP to achieve their desired results.

The first being a platform independent option that allows them the greatest freedom in what and how they say, and even the manner in which it is presented. The second uses a feature of the Steam platform that allows the same outcome (sans a little visibility but that's moot).

The desired result is to leave a neutral review of a game on Steam.

Neither of your suggestions accomplishes that.

I'm just here to indicate my agreement with OP's excellent suggestion.

引用自 Quint the Alligator Snapper：

引用自 cinedine：

As mentioned: I can get behind de-coupling the review from the recommendation. But a "neutral" ain't helping nobody.

A "neutral" option would be another way to implement a de-coupling...assuming that by "de-coupling" you mean making it possible to leave a review without a recommendation.

No it would not be. Adding another option is adding another option.
To make mattters worse, in this context you are not adding a neutral option but a second negative one. Everything that isn't a recommendation is a not a recommendation.
"Hey, you just watched Movie the Film, how was it"
"I am not sure", "Meh", "I feel indifferent about it."

I mean, seriously, how often do we have ot get over this?

引用自 cinedine：

引用自 Quint the Alligator Snapper：

A "neutral" option would be another way to implement a de-coupling...assuming that by "de-coupling" you mean making it possible to leave a review without a recommendation.

No it would not be. Adding another option is adding another option.
To make mattters worse, in this context you are not adding a neutral option but a second negative one. Everything that isn't a recommendation is a not a recommendation.
"Hey, you just watched Movie the Film, how was it"
"I am not sure", "Meh", "I feel indifferent about it."

I mean, seriously, how often do we have ot get over this?

As many times as it takes. A review is a review, a recommendation is a recommendation. They are not the same, no matter how much some people want to shoehorn it.