Ask a SteamRep admin

[polar]

 

I'll look into get it posted in the FAQ sometime Soonâ„¢, but until then you have it here officially from a SteamRep admin: $30 is the cutoff.

 

Finally! Thank you. I will update our rules - http://forums.backpack.tf/index.php?/topic/29027-guide-for-background-checks/

 

We had been using 8 keys as our cutoff even when bills dropped below 8 keys.

 

Maybe this will inspire me to handle some of our 200+ open user reports.....

[Milz187]

 

• Evidence we do collect is kept confidential. Evidence with personal information, such as an address visible in PayPal if that surfaces, is restricted to our own staff. In some isolated cases, warranted by an ongoing investigation, it may be shared via backend database with "super community admins", the designated partner admin(s) for a given community with ability to issue tags.

 

This point is a bit alarming. In the cases that someones personal information is going to be shared to other communities is that person notified and do they have a say in the matter of who can and can't view their personal information?

 

Has SteamRep had lawyers looks over their processes, mostly in the realm of privacy laws to ensure that what are doing is in fact legal?

 

Remember that SteamRep is not a court of Law and even if it's proven that a person is a scammer it does not give you the right to abuse their privacy.

[BankingBot]

Don't mind if i asked, can you handle reports concerning active traders first? 

 

An active trader with reports should be more of a concern and an active scammer with reports should be more of a worry.

[Toughsox]

This point is a bit alarming. In the cases that someones personal information is going to be shared to other communities is that person notified and do they have a say in the matter of who can and can't view their personal information?

 

Has SteamRep had lawyers looks over their processes, mostly in the realm of privacy laws to ensure that what are doing is in fact legal?

 

Remember that SteamRep is not a court of Law and even if it's proven that a person is a scammer it does not give you the right to abuse their privacy.

Using that analogy, then I suppose when Steam issues a TRADE BAN, they shouldn't be allowed to post that on your profile for all to see? 

I guess you would prefer a ban reason to state "BANNED...... but we won't tell you why" and then you can get your tinfoil hat and scream of more conspiracies.

 

Come on Mac, you traded with someone you weren't supposed to. You went on a tangent here claiming how you were an experienced 4 year trader, then a 5 year trader, then you want people to expect you didn't know a high profile marked person you somehow overlooked? Well what is it, your experienced and knew or, you aren't as experienced as you make yourself out to be. 

 

And that priceless line about how you overpaid so the trade was not for profit? Who cares if you didn't do it for profit. You traded with someone you clearly should not have.  And, maybe YOU didn't profit but, you helped a scammer profit.

 

Stop deflecting all the blame to everywhere but where it should be, directly on you. 

 

And as for the person that said I was quoted saying you shouldn't trade with people that are banned for trading with scammers, please quote me correctly. I have stated that it is NOT against the rules but should be, and that no legit trader would trade with people that habitually trade with scammers.  Just because that's not a rule does not mean I can;t feel that way. 

[Milz187]

No your pretty off on that point. Them issuing a TRADE BAN is them flagging that you are trade banned and this account is not to be traded with. They have Terms of agreement when using their services so I will like to think that they have doted their i's in this regards.

 

Unless stated in their terms of agreement they will not be allowed to share your IP address / PayPal details / Credit card details and the likes to other organizations.

 

With that said, SteamRep is not a opt in service. You can not agree to be a part of their system yet they can still breach your privacy. Big difference between the two. One is illegal and one isn't.

 

When I bring up valid points it keeps being deflected back to my case. But since you want to discuss it can you please send me 1 other case where someone was marked as a banned on a first issue without evidence of knowingly trading with a marked user and / or trading for profit. If my marking was reasonable then another case should not be hard to find.

 

Do you have any evidence that I had known he was a scammer? I wasn't in the circles that discussed who is and who isn't a scammer, as you are I can see how you could find it odd that someone would not know of a certain scammer but we don't share the same insight.

 

Him profiting is besides the point, SR requires to know if the accused looked to profit as an indication if they had done so for their own greed. As I said show me 1 other case where someone was marked as banned on a first issue where it was not proven to be done knowingly or for profit.

 

All you reps keep bring up my case but then don't answer my questions, if you want to bring it up in attempts to make it sound like that is the purpose of my posting then at least answer some questions.

 

Also so my question to SR doesn't get lost in what I feel is a diversion attempt.

 

Has SteamRep had lawyers looks over their processes, mostly in the realm of privacy laws to ensure that what are doing is in fact legal?

[Toughsox]

On another note, it was mentioned previously about people being banned/marked due to purchases on the Steam Market.  There was a glitch back in the day when you could click on the person's icon and it would take you to that sellers profile, so you could in fact know. It was not long before Valve patched this so that you can no longer get to that persons Steam profile.....not sure why as it was helpful.

 

However, the most notable case I recall, when the icons no longer worked, involved Cranwell96. 

 

In his case, he had already been banned once for trading with a marked scammers. Then, he noticed an item on the Steam Market and clearly posted the items history, showing only 1 marked user in it. He asked the community if he should buy it, knowing damn well where it came from. Thus, there was no doubt that he knew BEFORE he bought it that it came from a marked scammer, thus he was tagged for it.  Just wanted to clarify my remembrance of issues that have been mentioned here to hopefully clear things up for some people. 

[Toughsox]

I bring it back to you Mac because you are the one throwing around your experience as a trader, no one else is doing that. 

 

As for you knowing, no one but yourself knows if you knew ahead of time, but you certainly knew enough to delete 14 marked scammers from your friends list within 2 hours of getting banned on Outpost before you made your appeal. 

 

As for opting in to SR, I am pretty sure any affiliated site or server makes you click 'These are our rules" which are pretty much mirrored after SR's Thus, you click "I AGREE" to join, which means yes, you DID Opt in. 

 

All SR is is a clearing house for scam reports. It does not prohibit you from doing anything you don't want to do. BUT, if you go against the rules in the Communities that support and use their API, then you are bound by their judgments. 

[Milz187]

I bring it back to you Mac because you are the one throwing around your experience as a trader, no one else is doing that. 

 

1. As for you knowing, no one but yourself knows if you knew ahead of time, but you certainly knew enough to delete 14 marked scammers from your friends list within 2 hours of getting banned on Outpost before you made your appeal. 

 

2. As for opting in to SR, I am pretty sure any affiliated site or server makes you click 'These are our rules" which are pretty much mirrored after SR's Thus, you click "I AGREE" to join, which means yes, you DID Opt in. 

 

3. All SR is is a clearing house for scam reports. It does not prohibit you from doing anything you don't want to do. BUT, if you go against the rules in the Communities that support and use their API, then you are bound by their judgments. 

 

I use my experience to highlight the injustices caused by SR and the failed logic.

 

User purchases Burning TC for pure PayPal with no chargeback + User has (had) 14 pages of clean rep with many $500 + middleman trades, thousands of clean trade. User traded with a marked user while SteamRep was down, No evidence of knowingly trading, No evidence of trading for profit - This is the first issue, guideline says we must prove that he did it knowingly and for profit as we understand mistakes can be made, (from what i can see) no one ever marked without evidence of knowingly trading and not for profit.. ah fuck it we don't like him: User = banned

 

(Some people including Mattie have looked to shift the blame back on FoG but in the first appeal on FoG it was noted that they had sent it to SR for approval, why did SR approve this case)

 

Feel free to keep asking questions and I will answer them but please be respectful and answer my questions. Remember this is about SteamRep and not me but as long as questions are asked and it's attempted to put focus on me I will look to clear things up. Can you please send me 1 other case where someone was marked as a banned on a first issue without evidence of knowingly trading with a marked user and / or trading for profit. If my marking was reasonable then another case should not be hard to find.

 

1. This is from memory but i am fairly certain FORTSP has mentioned that I had 14 marked members on my list, I have never been overly active in cleaning my list and i get a lot of adds a day and don't check each of their reps unless we are going to trade. Some of them I did not agree with the marking so didn't feel like I should be forced to delete them, even though I did not conduct any trades. Since this got brought up a couple times I decided to just delete them. But then it got spun to - Oh you deleted all the marked people off your FL you must be hiding something. It was used as a means for Reps to latch on to something when there wasn't anything else as you are doing here. Why don't you mention how I offered SR, Outpost and FoG admins a live viewing of my trade history to help clear up that I haven't traded them or partake in sharking?

 

2. Incorrect you don't need to visit SteamRep for them to investigate your case.

 

So it's not lost "Has SteamRep had lawyers looks over their processes, mostly in the realm of privacy laws to ensure that what are doing is in fact legal?

"

[fluffyy]

I use my experience to highlight the injustices caused by SR and the failed logic.

 

User purchases Burning TC for pure PayPal with no chargeback + User has (had) 14 pages of clean rep with many $500 + middleman trades, thousands of clean trade. User traded with a marked user while SteamRep was down, No evidence of knowingly trading, No evidence of trading for profit - This is the first issue, guideline says we must prove that he did it knowingly and for profit as we understand mistakes can be made, (from what i can see) no one ever marked without evidence of knowingly trading and not for profit.. ah fuck it we don't like him: User = banned

 

Feel free to keep asking questions and I will answer them but please be respectful and answer my questions. Remember this is about SteamRep and not me but as long as questions are asked and it's attempted to put focus on me I will look to clear things up. Can you please send me 1 other case where someone was marked as a banned on a first issue without evidence of knowingly trading with a marked user and / or trading for profit. If my marking was reasonable then another case should not be hard to find.

 

1. This is from memory but i am fairly certain FORTSP has mentioned that I had 14 marked members on my list, I have never been overly active in cleaning my list and i get a lot of adds a day and don't check each of their reps unless we are going to trade. Some of them I did not agree with the marking so didn't feel like I should be forced to delete them, even though I did not conduct any trades. Since this got brought up a couple times I decided to just delete them. But then it got spun to - Oh you deleted all the marked people off your FL you must be hiding something. It was used as a means for Reps to latch on to something when there wasn't anything else as you are doing here. Why don't you mention how I offered SR, Outpost and FoG admins a live viewing of my trade history to help clear up that I haven't traded them or partake in sharking?

 

2. Incorrect you don't need to visit SteamRep for them to investigate your case.

 

So it's not lost "Has SteamRep had lawyers looks over their processes, mostly in the realm of privacy laws to ensure that what are doing is in fact legal?

"

Jesus christ you're dense, did you even read what he wrote? Along with basically anything else any other authority figure has said about your case? They're just repeating themselves at this point, and you can't seem to get anything through your head; it just goes through one ear and right out the other

[Toughsox]

Mac, I did not come here to speak for SR at all. I happen to be the lowest of the lowest rung of the totem pole there. I am only speaking out on you and your comments since you are the most vocal one at the moment and to be quite honest, you are talking out of both sides of your mouth. 

 

Again, here you stated above " ......... i get a lot of adds a day and don't check each of their reps unless we are going to trade. " 

Ok, but in the Earl trade, you failed to look or, you simply didn't care. Which is it Mac. You can not come here and state with authority of your trading experience, attempt to toss around legal jargon, and make follow up statements like I just noted, and then expect people to take your words seriously. A 4-5 year trader with a BP such as yours clearly does know what to look for. There simple was no excuse for that trade, ever. 

 

As for you quoting "#2  Incorrect you don't need to visit SteamRep for them to investigate your case."  Where did I state that you opting in to an SR affiliated site equated to them investigating your case? Again, it is someone typing something and you reading something in to it that simply is not there. If you stay off of SR affiliated sites, regardless of what they mark you for, it would not impact on you one bit. 

 

However, using your analogy, then SR should be forbidden to handle any reports that occurred on Valve servers or any others not directly listed on the SR site as affiliations. Well there you go Mac, you just solved ALL of the problems on SR.....they can now go back and delete 90% of their pending reports since they occurred on non-affiliated sites. Lack of manpower is no longer an issue since there is nothing to investigate. Congrats, SR has been vanquished due to your diligence and perseverance. And yes, that is sarcasm.  I do believe though, the only ones that can answer that last legal question would be someone at the highest level of SR, who have not made any replies to it. Thus, I think it's safe to assume, you aren't getting that answer, at least not in the here & now.    

 

On to a more serious note:

I know that Lava and the others from SR and SR sites are trying to be helpful, here on this AMA and on their respective sites. But the truth of the matter is, scamming will NOT stop. No one claims we can stop it, but, someone has to at least try. Is the system perfect, no....but neither is anything else in life. 

 

Everyone here has had some great questions and yes, some valid complaints. But demanding every piece of info that we gather is not going to happen for ....ready for this, COMMON SENSE reasons.   Scammers come up with new ways each and every day, and it is an uphill battle trying to keep pace with them.. The more they know as to how things are done, the harder it is not only for Mods/Admins etc, but for every day traders. Last I looked, that's the SOLE reason SR was created, to help alert people to who the scammers are.  If you have a problem with scammers being identified, then...... there really is nothing for any one to discuss. 

[Milz187]

Ok, but in the Earl trade, 1. you failed to look or, you simply didn't care. Which is it Mac. You can not come here and state with authority of your trading experience, attempt to toss around legal jargon, and make follow up statements like I just noted, and then expect people to take your words seriously. A 4-5 year trader with a BP such as yours clearly does know what to look for. There simple was no excuse for that trade, ever. 

 

As for you quoting "#2  Incorrect you don't need to visit SteamRep for them to investigate your case."  Where did I state that you opting in to an SR affiliated site equated to them investigating your case? Again, it is someone typing something and you reading something in to it that simply is not there. If you stay off of SR affiliated sites, regardless of what they mark you for, it would not impact on you one bit. 

 

However, using your analogy, then SR should be forbidden to handle any reports that occurred on Valve servers or any others not directly listed on the SR site as affiliations. Well there you go Mac, you just solved ALL of the problems on SR.....they can now go back and delete 90% of their pending reports since they occurred on non-affiliated sites. Lack of manpower is no longer an issue since there is nothing to investigate. Congrats, SR has been vanquished due to your diligence and perseverance. And yes, that is sarcasm.  I do believe though, the only ones that can answer that last legal question would be someone at the highest level of SR, who have not made any replies to it. Thus, I think it's safe to assume, you aren't getting that answer, at least not in the here & now.    

 

 

Your honestly latching pretty tight on a point many times answered While ignoring much more concerning issues but I'll continue to answer and be respectful as you continue to name call and divert.

 

1. As I've said many times SR failed to load, and I completed the traded not thinking much of it or expecting that he was marked. It really wasn't in the back of mind, I've only ever checked SteamRep before a trade, I understand I could have checked outpost and backpack.tf but I didn't and not checking is not a reason for a scammer tag. I did not knowingly trade with a scammer for profit. The bold part is what needs to be looked at and going beyond that is getting in cloudy waters and in the territory of assumption. Have you found a case similar to mine yet?

 

"As for you quoting "#2  Incorrect you don't need to visit SteamRep for them to investigate your case."  Where did I state that you opting in to an SR affiliated site equated to them investigating your case? Again, it is someone typing something and you reading something in to it that simply is not there. If you stay off of SR affiliated sites, regardless of what they mark you for, it would not impact on you one bit. "

 

You missed the point here, What I am saying is that you could have never visited the SR Forum in which have never agreed to any TOS they may have yet still have them breach your privacy.

 

However, using your analogy, then SR should be forbidden to handle any reports that occurred on Valve servers or any others not directly listed on the SR site as affiliations. Well there you go Mac, you just solved ALL of the problems on SR.....they can now go back and delete 90% of their pending reports since they occurred on non-affiliated sites. Lack of manpower is no longer an issue since there is nothing to investigate. Congrats, SR has been vanquished due to your diligence and perseverance. And yes, that is sarcasm.  I do believe though, the only ones that can answer that last legal question would be someone at the highest level of SR, who have not made any replies to it. Thus, I think it's safe to assume, you aren't getting that answer, at least not in the here & now.   

 

As you missed the point of my earlier statement this post makes no sense and you misread the analogy, this paragraph is a constructions of not my thoughts in the slightest but you reaching pretty hard in attempts to discredit me and have moved onto a pretty random statement.

 

But your in saying you can't speak for SR but you have for some issues? Either speak on all or don't speak on any. Don't pick and choose. 

 

But you can speak on behalf of outpost so while your can you answer the below?

 

As per the statements by yourself and Sirploko in the below thread will Mattie be banned from outpost?

 

http://forums.backpack.tf/index.php?/topic/32755-psa-trading-with-bptf-automatic-will-count-towards-your-trades-with-scammers-on-tf2outpost/page-9

 

So it's not lost "Has SteamRep had lawyers looks over their processes, mostly in the realm of privacy laws to ensure that what are doing is in fact legal?

[Milz187]

Jesus christ you're dense, did you even read what he wrote? Along with basically anything else any other authority figure has said about your case? They're just repeating themselves at this point, and you can't seem to get anything through your head; it just goes through one ear and right out the other

 

If they don't answer questions I'm just going to keep repeating them. I really don't care how it makes me look. Maybe you can answer it for them: Can you please send me 1 other case where someone was marked as a banned on a first issue without evidence of knowingly trading with a marked user and / or trading for profit. If my marking was reasonable then another case should not be hard to find. They aren't repeating themselves as everyone has a different answer, SR say FoG handled it | FoG says SR gave us the ok.

[Lava]

The private API you are talking about is what I linked in my post:

 

The url is that of any other public api published by SteamRep however it uses a tm key that's supposed to keep the report count secret so it can only be used on SteamRep's own site. (intentionally withholding information from the community?) You mention potential abuse, but in no way would anyone use it for that purpose. I can't speak for everyone, but all I did with it was change the color of a backpack.tf profile's steamrep badge to orange and make it say "Reports" instead of "Normal" in order to let the script's user know that maybe this person isn't trusted. Because you don't intend to reply to every report, we'll have to read them ourselves in the absence of a tag.

 

It's good to see that you'll finally be removing this restriction. But just why was it ever needed in the first place? The community knows well enough how easy it is to create fake reports which are painfully difficult to get rid of, scammers/people with malicious intent could easily use such a system against them.

 

Partner communities are what's wrong with SteamRep* and part of the reason why SR hasn't caught on with third party csgo trading. Worst thing is you couldn't even cleanse the tags from your system once you realised how much damage they inflict to your reputation, as so many scammers are tagged solely by partner communities. OPSkins could decide to only follow your tags and ignore the rest, but even then they'd still make trades with scammers marked for serious offenses (by partner communities) because you do not replicate tags. I've seen some SR reports getting closed 'because FoG already marked them' which is a wrong mindset. Your API allows us to pick which communities we trust, and so you should act independently tagging-wise.

 

What's a shame is that us users don't have the privilege of just trust SR (unlike CSGO trading websites,) since any trade with any user marked by any partner community is considered the same as a trade with a user marked by SR itself (which has much higher standards.)

 

* The only partner communities I would trust are HG (mostly), TF2OP, and Bazaar (mostly). FoG (and others) have a bad rep of marking traders with poor evidence or their own disconnected guidelines. What I would like to see is more community admins from partner communities joining SR and leaving behind the broken system that is partner communities.

 

There's actually another one that doesn't require an API key, which I understand we've asked I think a couple sites not to use for the time being. Reason is, it performs a direct database query against the forums, and if I understand correctly may cause performance issues or congest the forum database. Concern about abuse was brought up a bit, and I personally kept a lookout for fake reports, but it was never really an explicit reason for holding it back; it was just in a beta stage and we were concerned about server/database load. The new public one is pending some performance testing and after speaking with Mattie (and referencing this thread) it's close to the top of our to-do list and I'm told if all goes well it should go live in less than a week.

 

I'm really sorry you feel this way about most of our partners, but it seems to be a somewhat common trend. So you know, the server plugin and API can technically differentiate between different tags, but in the past few years this has not commonly been done.

 

I didn't say scammers are innocent traders, i'm saying what if there is a scammer operating solely at a gaming center and there are other innocent traders who play there but don't know the scammer. So you detect multiple connections from a static ip of a gaming center, only one of which is a scammer and one is innocent who has low hours and started trading, both of whom play only at the gaming center and not at home. How can you tell if that person with low hours is an alt or a legit account? How do you know the scammer isn't using 2 computers simultaneously at the gaming center? 

 

No, you're not going to tell me because you have no reliable process. Just admit it.

 

There are signs to differentiate between connections prone to shared users and connections in someone's household. What you described does make differentiation more difficult, but far from impossible. It requires a close and trained eye, and save for a handful of cases handled by newer SCAs or admins, is not just a quick "common IP, ban!" like you're making it out to be. We could play "what if" for weeks, but at some point by the time they're only ever sitting on the same computer at the same times, or other such patterns exist between 2 accounts, it becomes extremely difficult to differentiate them until the point of an appeal. Sometimes the same situation arises for siblings who live together, which 90% of scammers will blame for their alts.

 

You can believe whatever you want, we are not disclosing the details behind our methods.

 

I dunno if you were trying to sound like that or not, but why do you seem to respond hostility to some questions? It might be just me though  

 

I very much intend to be helpful and approachable to the community, but there are a few people who have made it their personal goal to grasp at whatever little quote they can, take it out of context, and distort it or just outright make things up in an ongoing effort to project SteamRep as some kind of nefarious racket of elitist traders. It has been spammed pretty consistently, from mostly the same people (several in this thread), since IIRC this spring, and kind of wears on us. As a volunteer who has done almost nothing but SteamRep work in my free time, for a community I barely even engage anymore much less trade, it's kind of rough to have people spit in my face for it, quote anything they can out of context for their vendetta, accuse me of corruption, and just generally project the work I put in as something sinister.

 

If you put off not only trading/gaming in general, but your own professional career development (should be working towards some professional certifications right now) while working a job from hell, to spend every minute of your personal life supporting a cause you felt helped some community, to have that kind of slander thrown at you for 6+ months, it would probably wear on you too. I try to be cordial and professional here for the most part, while still answering just about every question, but you're probably going to see a little of that abrasiveness towards a few particular people who appear to have an agenda.

 

This point is a bit alarming. In the cases that someones personal information is going to be shared to other communities is that person notified and do they have a say in the matter of who can and can't view their personal information?

 

Has SteamRep had lawyers looks over their processes, mostly in the realm of privacy laws to ensure that what are doing is in fact legal?

 

Remember that SteamRep is not a court of Law and even if it's proven that a person is a scammer it does not give you the right to abuse their privacy.

 

Are you truly worried about Sneeza seeing a PayPal address in maybe 1 out of 100 scammer tags he runs into, or are you just looking for another talking point? These are trusted community admins, who are not only tagged, but among the few (1 or sometimes a couple per community) given access to the backend database.

 

If so, then I hate to break it to you, but you live a very sheltered life. The types of evidence we collect do not contain billing information like addresss, social security numbers, or credit card info. At most, maybe a real name, if that. There are plenty of US-based companies and organizations out there, who collect, share, and sell a HELL of a lot more personal information than that, for much more sinister purposes. Advertisers collect and mine data about people from various sources, including "free" email, tracking cookies, geographical IP information, search queries, and other things I'm probably forgetting, so they can target you with "relevant" advertisements they think will be more effective. Do you use Facebook? They have taken their mining/sale of information so far that they've started outing suspected homosexuals to advertisers. Do you live in the US? There's this trio of companies called credit bureaus who collect all sorts of really sensitive information about you and sell it to financial companies and employers to help them decide whether or not you're trustworthy or dependable for a job or loan, with explicit permission from the US legal system, and there is nothing you can do to opt out of it. In addition to credit bureaus there are a myriad of private investigative firms who mine and index data about people's everyday lives, legal records, financial records, social networking statuses, tracking cookies, and more, then sell it to employers so they can "assess character" without you even knowing what they know about you. Because of the "economic harm" it would cause to this lucrative industry. And don't get me started on NSA surveillance, which believe it or not the US is not the only country to do. There is little if any legal protection or oversight for these practices.

 

I'm as much for privacy as the next privacy nerd, and frankly quite respectful of people's privacy here, but if you're really concerned about a tiny, select, vetted handful of trusted community admins maybe having access to a name and email address from a PayPal screenshot and chat log (I think you're only grasping for another talking point) then you're being unreasonable.

 

Don't mind if i asked, can you handle reports concerning active traders first? 

 

An active trader with reports should be more of a concern and an active scammer with reports should be more of a worry.

 

Active traders/scammers are generally given higher priority than e.g. older backlogged reports where the account appears abandoned.

 

On another note, it was mentioned previously about people being banned/marked due to purchases on the Steam Market.  There was a glitch back in the day when you could click on the person's icon and it would take you to that sellers profile, so you could in fact know. It was not long before Valve patched this so that you can no longer get to that persons Steam profile.....not sure why as it was helpful.

 

However, the most notable case I recall, when the icons no longer worked, involved Cranwell96. 

 

In his case, he had already been banned once for trading with a marked scammers. Then, he noticed an item on the Steam Market and clearly posted the items history, showing only 1 marked user in it. He asked the community if he should buy it, knowing damn well where it came from. Thus, there was no doubt that he knew BEFORE he bought it that it came from a marked scammer, thus he was tagged for it.  Just wanted to clarify my remembrance of issues that have been mentioned here to hopefully clear things up for some people. 

 

It was actually a built in part of the community market, so you could see who you were buying from. I think it came from a high profile trader's or admin's suggestion directly to a Valve contact (I forget who). User profile links were removed because anyone listing an item more than a dollar wound up spammed with phishing links.

[Milz187]

Are you truly worried about Sneeza seeing a PayPal address in maybe 1 out of 100 scammer tags he runs into, or are you just looking for another talking point? These are trusted community admins, who are not only tagged, but among the few (1 or sometimes a couple per community) given access to the backend database.

 

If so, then I hate to break it to you, but you live a very sheltered life. The types of evidence we collect do not contain billing information like addresss, social security numbers, or credit card info. At most, maybe a real name, if that. There are plenty of US-based companies and organizations out there, who collect, share, and sell a HELL of a lot more personal information than that, for much more sinister purposes. Advertisers collect and mine data about people from various sources, including "free" email, tracking cookies, geographical IP information, search queries, and other things I'm probably forgetting, so they can target you with "relevant" advertisements they think will be more effective. Do you use Facebook? They have taken their mining/sale of information so far that they've started outing suspected homosexuals to advertisers. Do you live in the US? There's this trio of companies called credit bureaus who collect all sorts of really sensitive information about you and sell it to financial companies and employers to help them decide whether or not you're trustworthy or dependable for a job or loan, with explicit permission from the US legal system, and there is nothing you can do to opt out of it. In addition to credit bureaus there are a myriad of private investigative firms who mine and index data about people's everyday lives, legal records, financial records, social networking statuses, tracking cookies, and more, then sell it to employers so they can "assess character" without you even knowing what they know about you. Because of the "economic harm" it would cause to this lucrative industry. And don't get me started on NSA surveillance, which believe it or not the US is not the only country to do. There is little if any legal protection or oversight for these practices.

 

I'm as much for privacy as the next privacy nerd, and frankly quite respectful of people's privacy here, but if you're really concerned about a tiny, select, vetted handful of trusted community admins maybe having access to a name and email address from a PayPal screenshot and chat log (I think you're only grasping for another talking point) then you're being unreasonable.

 

 

Active traders/scammers are generally given higher priority than e.g. older backlogged reports where the account appears abandoned.

 

 

It was actually a built in part of the community market, so you could see who you were buying from. I think it came from a high profile trader's or admin's suggestion directly to a Valve contact (I forget who). User profile links were removed because anyone listing an item more than a dollar wound up spammed with phishing links.

 

I don't know Sneeza in any way so you shouldn't expect me to hold him in a higher regards than any other person I know and trust and will I trust them with private information on others users? the answer is no.

 

The other companies you speak of act in regards to a term of agreement the end user has signed and also have a privacy policy.

 

Yes I have a facebook if they started acting against their agreement and privacy policy they will be in trouble, they can do what they do because they have these policies in place.

 

No I don't live in the US, I am in Australia and we do have a credit system. They get their information from Data furnishers and public records, from my understanding Data furnishers has gained the approval from the end user to share their information.

 

Sorry but you are incorrect in saying that you can't opt out, if you will like to opt out you can do so here: http://www.financelady.net/new/special%20reports/ID%20THEFT/Credit%20Bureau%20Opt.pdfor via this website https://www.optoutprescreen.com

 

I am not grasping for another talking point, this is something i've been highlighting for a long time.. I made mention of privacy concerns in those 10 points you linked in earlier and soon after my marking. You keep trying to discredit me but my concerns are real, the concerns exist and they should be taken seriously as it is a legal issue. All respect to TIO, but recently he accidentally posted a PayPal screenshot of a user on a FoG report under the wrong access tag, this information in turn became public viewing and notified him to correct it in which he did.

 

I don't know your process and I don't know what information they have access to, but sharing just the names of your users is illegal. You can over complicate things, make incorrect statements and share your point of view on this topic but at the end of the day it's still illegal, try telling a judge in the courts but the NSA does it and see where that gets you.

 

You should look at correcting this, doing so isn't that hard.

 

A. Get your privacy policy up and live

B. If your going to share information from a report ask the person who's information your sharing for their permission to share the information with the community you will sending it to.

[Milz187]

I really hate debating all this, and will like to see improvements.

 

Is it possible for SR to list say their top 5 issues they are experiencing in this or another thread and open them up for discussion on ideas on how to resolve them.

[fluffyy]

I really hate debating all this, and will like to see improvements.

 

Is it possible for SR to list say their top 5 issues they are experiencing in this or another thread and open them up for discussion on ideas on how to resolve them.

Maybe you should do it, since you seem to be an expert on SteamRep and how it's run.

[Milz187]

Maybe you should do it, since you seem to be an expert on SteamRep and how it's run.

 

Maybe if your going to post you should at least provide some input towards the discussion.

 

If they want community assistance that's up to them. I can list my top 5 corners, but that could mean more debate.

 

I was also thinking of setting up a poll here with a bunch of concern that the community can vote on to highlight their top concerns but I thought that can just create more debate over what should and shouldn't be there.

 

Them posting their top concerns and asking for feedback / suggestions can be a good way to start to bridge the gap between them and the community, whilst also getting different sets of eyes looking at it from a different perspective.

[Дебра]

Is it possible for SR to list say their top 5 issues they are experiencing in this or another thread and open them up for discussion on ideas on how to resolve them.

 

 

SR has one major problem that needs addressing, the fact it's understaffed. It doesn't matter how many times you scream at them they are understaffed they will still be understaffed and that isn't something they don't know about. How exactly would that help in any way?

[Milz187]

SR has one major problem that needs addressing, the fact it's understaffed. It doesn't matter how many times you scream at them they are understaffed they will still be understaffed and that isn't something they don't know about. How exactly would that help in any way?

 

That's a fair point and if they feel it's a top 5 concern they could highlight it as a concern / issue and give notes into why it's hard to staff more people.

 

A suggestion I'll give is to create a new lower lever role in which that role can look at non critical / easy to check points. 1 example could be them going through cases and confirming that they are in the correct format / are a valid report type and flagging the ones that aren't, very quickly mods could have a lot less cases to look at.

[Дебра]

That's a fair point and if they feel it's a top 5 concern they could highlight it as a concern / issue and give notes into why it's hard to staff more people.

 

They have. Plenty of times.

They have even stated why multiple times on this AMA.

[Milz187]

They have. Plenty of times.

They have even stated why multiple times on this AMA.

 

Yes I know but I mean in like a top 5 issue list open for suggestions. It doesn't have to be in this thread but I just suggest that so there's something somewhere where SR and the community can work together in trying to resolve some issues.

 

 

 

 

 

Anyways I've highlighted my concerns and unless I'm mentioned / quoted I'm going to stop posting here.

[BuzzKillDude (MvM)]

I understand that CS:GO's community is far more vast than TF2's, and also filled with untamed, so to speak, scammers. I am not experienced nor have done any research on this, but I believe it would be very hard for SteamRep to just barge in on a gaming community with millions of players who have little to no relationship or knowledge about SteamRep. Aside from that, let's say SteamRep bans owners of certain CS:GO gambling sites. What difference does it make if no one else knows, or dare I say, gives a shit about what SteamRep has to say. And trying to deal with all of that on top of trying to deal with so many reports already, if SteamRep makes itself more well known and respected around the CS:GO community, how the hell are they going to handle the huge pile of dog shit that are CS:GO scammers with it's already UNDERSTAFFED team? SteamRep needs to step up, or step out. Stepping up implies hiring experienced people at a faster rate, making sure that the ENTIRE steamrep administration is ACTIVE. And pulling their DICKS out of their ASSES.

[Syego]

DICKS out of their ASS

 k

[ЩĄ Horse]

I understand that CS:GO's community is far more vast than TF2's, and also filled with untamed, so to speak, scammers. I am not experienced nor have done any research on this, but I believe it would be very hard for SteamRep to just barge in on a gaming community with millions of players who have little to no relationship or knowledge about SteamRep. Aside from that, let's say SteamRep bans owners of certain CS:GO gambling sites. What difference does it make if no one else knows, or dare I say, gives a shit about what SteamRep has to say. And trying to deal with all of that on top of trying to deal with so many reports already, if SteamRep makes itself more well known and respected around the CS:GO community, how the hell are they going to handle the huge pile of dog shit that are CS:GO scammers with it's already UNDERSTAFFED team? SteamRep needs to step up, or step out. Stepping up implies hiring experienced people at a faster rate, making sure that the ENTIRE steamrep administration is ACTIVE. And pulling their DICKS out of their ASSES.

 

We addressed the understaffed questions a bunch of times already in this forum and others.  You only have a few even applying - feel free to apply. I applied and was brought on rather quickly as I already had the experience and the positive background.  SR doesn't hire anyone - you apply for the position as its volunteer only - you give up your time to help out. There aren't but maybe several applying and maybe 20% of those are going to make it in if that once they are properly checked over. You can't just bring any one in right off the street that would be opening up a can of worms that isn't needing to be opened.

 

I can't speak for the rest but I don't have my dick in my ass either, sorry to disappoint.

[Lava]

The private API you are talking about is what I linked in my post:

 

The url is that of any other public api published by SteamRep however it uses a tm key that's supposed to keep the report count secret so it can only be used on SteamRep's own site. (intentionally withholding information from the community?) You mention potential abuse, but in no way would anyone use it for that purpose. I can't speak for everyone, but all I did with it was change the color of a backpack.tf profile's steamrep badge to orange and make it say "Reports" instead of "Normal" in order to let the script's user know that maybe this person isn't trusted. Because you don't intend to reply to every report, we'll have to read them ourselves in the absence of a tag.

 

It's good to see that you'll finally be removing this restriction. But just why was it ever needed in the first place? The community knows well enough how easy it is to create fake reports which are painfully difficult to get rid of, scammers/people with malicious intent could easily use such a system against them.

I wanted to follow up on this issue, since I said it would be published in a few days. As of today a newer version of the API has been published. It's nearly identical to the previous version, but with a "stats" -> "bannedfriends" and "stats" -> "unconfirmedreports" entity added to the schema. You can access it with the following URL, and any of the same GET params (tagdetails, extended, or json, I think) from the previous versions:

API URL format: http://steamrep.com/api/beta4/reputation/{id64}?extended=1&json=0&tagdetails=0

Read the details here: http://forums.steamrep.com/threads/steamrep-web-api-beta4-legacy-public.114688/

 

I don't really know the backstory behind the private API you linked as it's not the same as what I knew about, but I suspect it's using a different infrastructure from the API we made public. The forums and backend database are actually hosted on different servers but for the purpose of displaying "unconfirmed reports" both websites still need to intercommunicate in a way they don't overload one another and still update in real time as reports are processed. What you're observing might be part of that server-to-server interface, manually refreshing the cached "pending reports" count, but pretty much only Mattie would know what's really going on there.

 

In other news, I expect the trade-with-scammer rule to be re-reviewed internally, along with some other issues brought up in this thread. Criticisms posted here are being taken into consideration. Unlike the API above, that sort of change won't/can't happen overnight. We need to agree on something between all the SteamRep staff, and then run it by our partner communities for their input, before we're all on the same page and able to update the policy. I can't promise what, if any, outcome will come from it (I have my own ideas personally), but we should be able to have something in the works by the end of the year.

 

Staffing is a work in progress. I am pretty certain we will never have enough staff - if we hired 100 people who worked 40+ hours per week we'd still never catch up with the reports - and training staff doesn't happen overnight, but in the past few months we have hired quite a few new moderators, most of whom are still in some degree of training. The problem with hiring inexperienced people is we end up with something like what you've all complained about regarding FoG; quality tags require time and experience. If we hire someone sketchy with ulterior motives, the result is even worse and you'd really have something to say about corruption. Questionable candidates aside, there are sadly very few qualified candidates who step up to the plate. The ones who know what's involved shy away (same happens with middlemen), even when approached and asked to apply, because it's too much work and as seen here and elseware all it really earns them is hate. For those of you with some reputation and experience in this area, complaining about lack of staff, I would respectfully request you put your money where your mouth is and apply. Some of the recent applicants that we did accept were specifically and proactively asked by one or more existing staff to write up their application, and frankly we're still not receiving enough qualified applicants.

 

I understand that CS:GO's community is far more vast than TF2's, and also filled with untamed, so to speak, scammers. I am not experienced nor have done any research on this, but I believe it would be very hard for SteamRep to just barge in on a gaming community with millions of players who have little to no relationship or knowledge about SteamRep. Aside from that, let's say SteamRep bans owners of certain CS:GO gambling sites. What difference does it make if no one else knows, or dare I say, gives a shit about what SteamRep has to say. And trying to deal with all of that on top of trying to deal with so many reports already, if SteamRep makes itself more well known and respected around the CS:GO community, how the hell are they going to handle the huge pile of dog shit that are CS:GO scammers with it's already UNDERSTAFFED team? SteamRep needs to step up, or step out. Stepping up implies hiring experienced people at a faster rate, making sure that the ENTIRE steamrep administration is ACTIVE. And pulling their DICKS out of their ASSES.

It's not so much that there's untamed scammers in CSGO, but the community as a whole is, larger, less mature and less informed about fraud in trading. The vast majority of our incoming reports are from CSGO traders. Most of them have no experience in TF2 or DOTA, so you can think of it sort of like when TF2 first introduced trading. The same methods of scamming which worked in the early years of TF2, and hardly anybody would fall for today, are fairly widespread in CSGO. Profile "+rep" comments, CSGORep, and CSGO Lounge reputation number (similar to hearts on Outpost) are treated as gospel among CSGO traders, often enough for them to dismiss the 5+ pending reports against a 2-month old account. And when we get to those reports, it basically amounts to us chasing around 10+ new alts for the same handful of scammers who have been around for years again and again because "they had higher rep on CSGO Lounge than me".

 

What we aim to do about this is educate the CSGO community - and no it's not an easy undertaking but we went through the same issues in the TF2 community - which will ultimately reduce the number of people scammed and reduce the incoming reports for easily preventable CSGO scams. As the community becomes more aware of obvious scammer alts, the incoming flood of reports will decline.

 

If you have a better idea, I'm all ears, but just saying things like "step up or step out" and "hire experienced people at a faster rate" doesn't really address the problem. People by and large don't want to do this kind of work.