Could you provide some more details about what details this extension would show?

Well, simple example, look at the recent reviews: «Qumaron have previously revoked Steam keys from paying customers and then removed the corresponding game files» + link to: https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/groups/Sentinels_of_the_Store/announcements/detail/4157463936692986362

Qumaron has dozens of games and would have more dozens in the future — it's quite unrealistic to curate all current ones and then also curate future ones when they get released. In reality this info should not be attached to a specific game, but to Qumaron itself: i.e. it should be displayed at every store page (+maybe game hub too) where Qumaron is the developer/publisher, and additionally i think on the search page:
https://steamhost.cn/search/?developer=Qumaron
https://steamhost.cn/search/?publisher=Qumaron
and/or creator page if they have it:
https://steamhost.cn/developer/AngelStarStudios as example.

So in simple words as i said: it should be similar to curations for games but for creators instead. So it seems the browser extension is they only viable way of implementing it.

I don't mean it should supplant the current approach, only complement it — especially since some users tend to browse using Steam client often.

Yeah, i understand it's risky since they can sue for slander, etc, but... can't they already anyway? They don't care much because Sentinels of the Store currently don't have a lot of weight and publicity. A useful Steam browser extension might be a step in the right direction.
And I think SotS should aim be like game journalism 2.0 — and maybe even cover positive cases, so it's not all doom and gloom.

This is a weird problem with Steam curation that you're capped to 2000 games per curator group.

But time has shown that bad actors and those who seek to abuse Steam and the gaming public through scams, copyright infringement, review manipulation and asset flipping have easily shoved more than 2,000 trash games onto Steam.

Yes, and also it's not easy keeping an eye on all their new games — where users need this information the most!

From your description it's a bit of a chicken and egg issue. You're asking for more information (maybe curated by SoS members) about games to show warnings, infractions, etc. and dates.

So regardless of a browser extension to do this, it needs data. So the first order of business would be to setup a site/database to track these. Without that, you've got nothing to go on.

While that can be accomplished (fairly simple web app with Steam authentication) that site itself would be good enough to see these bad actors. A browser extension would be simple enough, once the data is there.

Is that what you're talking about? Not sure I'm understanding what you're asking for or what this thing looks like. I'm interested to build it, just need to understand what problem it's solving.

Originally posted by Occular Malice:

From your description it's a bit of a chicken and egg issue. You're asking for more information (maybe curated by SoS members) about games to show warnings, infractions, etc. and dates.

I'm asking about basically the same what SotS now is doing but with data attached to the creator (developer/publisher) directly instead of their specific games, is that clear?

It would be SotS curator but as a browser extension and for curating creators, so on the page of any new game of those bad actors the current info would be shown (well, assuming they don't hide their affiliation of course).

As for database — it might be integrated at first, then external if SotS can afford the hosting (also some may try hacking it). AFAIK at the moment SotS is just a Steam group/curator, with no website and servers. Special structured subforum with limited access could be used as a database, but that requires reverse-engineering endpoints for pulling topics or scraping data with something like Selenium (btw i know the JSON endpoint for getting topic comments and how to use it, but haven't dug into fetching forum topics).

Data is here: in SotS curations and announcements, but it needs to be structured of course.

> that site itself would be good enough to see these bad actors
That's inconvenient which is what's keeping SotS from getting more publicity and weight in my opinion.

Originally posted by Occular Malice:

Not sure I'm understanding what you're asking for or what this thing looks like. I'm interested to build it, just need to understand what problem it's solving.

Do you see how curations for games work currently? Now imagine if curators could instead curate creators directly instead of games, i don't know why it needs to be repeated as many times.

I must be that bad at explaining

Well that's the problem. The data isn't "here" other than for a human to visually read. It's not structured. Curated content isn't useful, although it might be possible to get at a list of curated items then get the apps out of them, but I haven't looked at the Steam API for that. If there's a way to get to the data from Steam that would be the way. You can't scrape data or use tools like Selenium (which uses a GUI to do automated clicks on a web browser). You need an API and data to read. I get the concept of curating creators you're asking about, but I'm not seeing how it translates to data we can farm much less present on a web page (either stand-alone or as an add-in). Will take a look at the Steam API to see if there's anything there we can use.

Also the information you're asking for is already there on a game page. For example look at any game in the curated list we have. There's a Curator Review box on that game page saying what list it's in (asset flips, lies, etc.) with details. So again what are you actually looking for that isn't there today?

Originally posted by Occular Malice:

The data isn't "here" other than for a human to visually read. It's not structured.

It simply needs to be associated with the developer name (and possible aliases), it's not that something astronomical. I mean manually it's a day of work likely.

Originally posted by Occular Malice:

Curated content isn't useful, although it might be possible to get at a list of curated items then get the apps out of them, but I haven't looked at the Steam API for that

There's no proper API for getting curated games, this can only be scrapped, but since it's one-time task — likely easier to do it manually. Next entries would be added to curator and extension together.

Originally posted by Occular Malice:

You can't scrape data or use tools like Selenium (which uses a GUI to do automated clicks on a web browser).

You can and i did it, Chrome has "--headless" mode which runs the browser without the GUI — it allows scraping websites where a lot of data is formed via Javascript which is difficult to do other way. If you need — i can share C# code fragments and explain how it's usually done. But of course it's the methods of last resort, since it's slow, somewhat cumbersome and changes on the website might break code logic.

Originally posted by Occular Malice:

You need an API and data to read. I get the concept of curating creators you're asking about, but I'm not seeing how it translates to data we can farm much less present on a web page (either stand-alone or as an add-in).

Data of course needs to be manually prepared, just like currently Mellow writes curations. Imagine a website for him where he can make curations on Steam creators which are added to the database which then gets used by the extension.
You mean you can't work together with Mellow despite being moderator here or what's the difficulty?

For many things on Steam there's no proper API or it's non-public and non-documented, and sometimes all that's left is data scraping. But that's only required if you wish to convert existing data to usable form without human involvement which i think is not feasible. For simplicity let's imagine that only new curations would be added for now, and older one would be manually added later if there's no better way (AI could probably process old texts, but i wouldn't trust AI-quality).

Originally posted by Occular Malice:

Also the information you're asking for is already there on a game page. For example look at any game in the curated list we have. There's a Curator Review box on that game page saying what list it's in (asset flips, lies, etc.) with details. So again what are you actually looking for that isn't there today?

How many times do i have to repeat what's already been said in this forum thread?!?!

• NOT ALL GAMES get curated! You can't curate all Qumaron games — there's too many, it's not feasible, too much manual work for little gain
  
• They'll have more games in the FUTURE. Does anyone monitor their new releases currently? Of course not! And that's where this data is most useful — when deciding should you trust that creator or not with buying some their new game.
  
• As mentioned above curators have a LIMIT of 2000 curated games, so even if you could automate curating all current games and future games by Qumaron — it's likely not a feasible approach

Though if you think this approach deserves some pondering — yes, maybe. After all the big advantage is that data would be visible even when using Steam client. But then SotS would likely need to create more curators when it hits 2000 games limit.
And Steam users have a limit too — you can only follow up to 100 curators (that includes creator pages — developers, publishers, franchises). I'm already at this limit and each time i find another worthy curator — i have to find some less useful curator to unfollow.
And that's why the approach with automating curation of all games from the bad actors does not seem a good one.

Originally posted by Obey the Fist!:

This is a weird problem with Steam curation that you're capped to 2000 games per curator group.

But time has shown that bad actors and those who seek to abuse Steam and the gaming public through scams, copyright infringement, review manipulation and asset flipping have easily shoved more than 2,000 trash games onto Steam.

↑ This. I'm almost sure if you try covering all games of current bad actors with curations — you'll hit the limit.

First off calm down. You asked about a tool and if someone can build it, that's great, but you can't build something without some kind of specification. How do you identify these creators that would get flagged? How do you rank them or specify what to show people? Where and how do you present the information? Where is the data going to come from and who's going to maintain it? You spout off like this is no effort (and quoted it would take a day of work). Feel free to go ahead then. Based on my own experience building websites, games, and software for literally decades, It's a lot more effort than you think. All the power to you if you want to go off and build this.

I'm happy to help out with developing this extension as open source. My thoughts:
1. Such an extension could be subject to frequent takedown attempts (possibly with long-lasting success). Gotta keep that in mind. Proper documentation and proof of infractions are crucial.
2. How common is the extension expected to be used? Without any promotion I'm afraid it is difficult to get people to know about it.
3. How many games do you already have data for and who is willing to enter all the data?
4. Publisher and developer names can be changed at any given time (sometimes for legit reasons), so I would advise to flag games based on their "app-ID" which can be used to grab the current name of the publisher here. Publisher/developer names are at no time a trustworthy identifier.
5. The collected information could simply be a summary of references, based on what's been written before I can imagine the following JSON structure:
5. If the developer/publisher is flagged, a warning sign will be displayed on the game's store page. The warning sign can be clicked to expand and show detailed information (& proof link) about the infractions.
6. The extension will also add warnings on the Steam profile pages for developers and publishers + in search results.
7. The JSON data can be manually updated to add new infractions or new developers/publishers.
8. Instead of any serverside infrastructure (and its risks+cost) I would suggest bundling the JSON file with the extension (outdated but always available).