Images, stories & events related to infernal machines, alchemical contraptions, and clockwork beasts.

None of those things refers to steam power or steam engines.

You just used the sentence you quote as evidence that this thread requires steam power for something to be steam punk, and yet nothing in the sentence you quoted from the side bar says anything about steam engines.

And a sub-Reddit is defined by it's contributors. Hundreds of things front page this sub all the time that are nothing more than people in Victorian age clothing. They get upvoted, and they are not deleted by the mods, so obviously this subreddit is for them as well.

Genres are not immutable and unchangeable. They are determined by the participants.

Also, from your precious article.

Steampunk fashion has no set guidelines, but tends to synthesise modern styles influenced by the Victorian era.

In the very first photo from your link the people are not dressed any more "Steampunky" than this woman.

SO if you took the other people out of the photo, and then put her in it, it would be Steampunk? Really? Thats... incredibly limiting. By that logic someone at a convention can only be dressed "Steampunk" if they wear something steam-powered, since the convention itself certainly doesn't have steam engines all up in that bitch.

You've raised the point of entry to absurd levels. You remind me of 19th century art associations that tried to dictate what art was or was not. You don't get to do that. Nobody get's to do that. There are no Steampunk police, or a Steampunk governing body. It's just people dressing up and playing make believe, and whatever a significant number of people agree upon is reality in that case.