Valve has a way of making quiet changes to their system. The newest surprise update is a change to how Steam Workshop handles their new content. The change requires that all maps, weapons, and other user-created items will have to go through a moderation process and get approved before being available to other players. This change is an effort to reduce spam items that cycle the community, but it does have some members concerned at what might happen to their future mods.
This change was first noticed by Reddit user TanookiSuit 3 who shared some screenshots on the Counter-Strike: Global Offensive subreddit by PCGN. The message says that users will have to wait for a verification email from Valve before their content is visible to others in the Steam Workshop.
An updated Steam Support post says that players will need all new content to be approved by moderators. The moderators will also be going through old content and double-checking for spam; this will mean that items not checked will be available for download until they are done searching. If you already have the content downloaded it will still be playable even while the download link is unavailable.
The process should take less than a day, but many are saying that Valve is not considering how much custom content is posted daily. Players are expecting the process to take several days if not longer based on previous experiences with Valve’s moderation team.
There has been no official statement about this new policy as of yet, but many are saying the change was due to increased fake and spam content on the Workshop. The community that sees the most spam is the CS: GO players as their section of the Steam Workshop gets several additions daily.
The popular CSGO YouTuber 3kliksphilip has discussed this issue in several videos and even explains how many of the authentic creators are affected. Actual content gets filtered off the front page, and instead, ads for free weapon skins take their place. This content is even getting upvoted constantly, and many of the community believes bots are responsible for this.
With no official statement, this is all just community theories but it is plausible that the policy change was due to this factor. There is no clear information on who is moderating the content or how the process works, so many are cautious.
This change is already in effect and simply updating Steam will make it apply. There is not much you can do other than go with it so for those content creators out there, be careful that your promotional image does not get accidentally confused with spam.
