Please help me ban these idiots

May 30, 2016

Too bad you can't see that if we stopped holding hands, the whole body would get torn apart.

@Gren -- I understand your point of view. I fail, however, to see how it's relevant to the matter we're discussing. We're not discussing the direct efficiency of these rules. Scams, sharks and the likes are bound to happen, it's a part of our nature as human beings. Does that mean these very rules, which you seem to claim are inefficient, do not affect trading on the long run? Scams and sharks happen regardless of the rules, however that point of view is dichotomous at best. Here's why; rules do the following in our community:

- They deter potential scammers and sharks from actually preying on the weak. Do you think scam rates would stay the exact same, if there were no rules to prevent them? Nobody's there to punish Jimmy for scamming an unusual worth 20 keys. Such a mindset would quickly be spread through all the community.

- They condemn principles like deception, dishonesty and deceitfulness. If they were absent, such concepts would be implicitly condoned-- it makes us look very unappealing as a community, chases away newer traders, and goes against our basic human principles. We're all persons behind the monitor, don't forget that, and we need these rules to keep us in check.

It's not about what you like, what I like, what Sneeza likes or what Wayne likes. It's about what's best for our community and economy, not as snakes and vipers who will go out of their ways to lie, cheat and deceive other people for a five bucks profit, but as human beings competing in this micro-economy.

Last but not least, I'd like to vehemently question your concept of needing a lesson. Were your limbs ripped off your body whenever you fell as a child? What we should be isn't about who's the smartest, the best predator or the most vicious. I'm nobody to claim what we should be, but if we're seeking to become predators who condone and encourage preying on the weak under the pretense "they deserve it" or "they need a lesson", then I seriously question our future and survival as a community.

In response to your points:

- Yes, I do believe that the rate of scamming would stay pretty much the same without rules explicitly forbidding it. This is the same argument used when we hear that if drugs were legal, all of a sudden everyone would be on heroin. We know that isn't true when we look at countries that have actually decriminalized drugs. Use rates stay pretty much the same.

- We don't need rules to tell us that deception and dishonesty is bad. It's your parents job to teach you that. If they failed at it, you will not get it later on in life because "it's against the rules". Most likely, you will end up a criminal, precisely because you acted against the rules (so much for rules being an effective prohibitor). And how does the absence of a rule possibly condone bad behaviour? So just because there aren't signs in restaurant telling people not to throw your food around, it's condoning that behaviour? There are only very few rules that deal with lying (e.g. when you're under oath). Does that mean that lying is ok in most situations? We all know it's not, and we don't need a rule with a punitive measure attached to tell us that.

You make it sound like we're feral beasts in the absence of rules. We aren't. We'd be just fine as long as good values and culture is passed down from generation to generation.

And no, my limbs weren't ripped off when I fell as a child. However, I have quite a few scars on my body that taught me to be more careful. I fell, I got hurt. That was the lesson. It's the same case here, you fail to do your research, you get burned. And that is exactly the problem in this community (and with Valve as well, although they have done their part lately): you manage to get yourself scammed and we all jump to your rescue. Remember again, as opposed to being robbed at gunpoint, you have the ability to protect yourself from scams. It's like the analogy someone else brought up with car stealing: if you lock your doors and your car gets stolen, the cops will look for it and insurance will pay for a new car. If you left your door unlocked however, you're going to have a much harder time.

SteamRep isn't really designed to be punitive though, and it's neither designed to, nor effective at, keeping scams from happening altogether. It's designed to warn the rest of the community when someone has scammed, so they can make an educated decision. It provides a sort of warning for those who will take a time to research a profile so they can see someone isn't trustworthy.

As for rules, whether you like it or not, they're part of living in a civilized society. I do agree rules should not be overreaching (to be clear, SteamRep isn't law enforcement and has never claimed to be), but many of us would like a cleaner community with at least some minimal standard where every single person we meet isn't trying to entrap us in their money laundering conspiracy. Most community admins do not like their sites or server clusters being associated with that kind of thing, and to some extent allowing it even poses a risk of Valve intervening, so they often take measures to keep their communities clean. Maybe a sort of every-man-for-himself darwinistic anarchy is your thing, and I won't intrude on your political beliefs, but if you don't like it nobody but Valve is forcing to follow any particular rules. Just don't complain when other communities who don't like what you're doing, and strive to keep a clean community, end up banning you from user reports or reputation.

Banning you from the community and making you an outcast is very much a punitive measure. And no, I don't have a real choice here. Or at least it's a very shitty choice. Then there's the fact that I never agreed to any rules. I agreed to the Valve ULA. Yet, SR rules cover the whole TF2 community - a community which they neither created or support (through game updates, etc.).

I am not advocating complete anarchy. I agree that there needs to be some system of rules. However, the problem always arises when a few people are in charge of the rules (in our case, SR). How long did it take to update the bill's value rule? Literally years. How many people got banned for trading with a guy who traded with a guy who traded with a guy who traded with a scammer? Way too many and now - again, after years - the rule has finally been changed.

May 30, 2016

That's the thing-- sharking can also be issued out of deception, since you're lying, directly or indirectly, to the victim about their item's worth. I'm not saying there are literally no difference between them, but both often stem from the same thing. Conceptually, they're very close.

We hold them accountable, yes. Does it deter them from doing it? Absolutely not. This kind of people cares very little for what other people have to think, as long as they're not punished by the authorities they're fine with quickselling the hat they just sharked and call it a day. The best thing we can do is refuse to buy the hats/items, and good luck inciting thousands of people to do that without at least dozens of them jumping on the opportunity to make a quick buck.

That's the thing-- it can't be answered with said proof, because there's no reason for the proof to exist in that context. Speaking of which, such context should be used when judging a shark-- there's a difference between the fact some dude might've paid paypal for some hat and the guy who sold it got shit with said pp money and decides to scream shark, and some kid who has no idea what online money is and got some keys from some acquaintance.

The fact we're refusing to judge sharks based on context, and instead require proof that is impossible to acquire, shows how apathetic we are of this whole situation. And if you ask me, it's messed up. We succeed as a trading community, but we fail as human beings and eventually doom ourselves to repeat this vicious cycle of deception and predators. Some people make profit, but we all lose.

Changed your tone pretty quick.

That's pretty much it. Sharking is too hard to prove and too common of an occurrence to even make it a serious offense. Yet we're perm-banning big name traders for it with hardly any good reason to back it. We're taking those big name traders off the grid and their items are totally lost and out of trading circulation. It's hurting the economy and it's hurting the community. Shady or not, if there's no good proof to it all we're doing is trying to spite people for trading.

And if you ask me, it's messed up. We succeed as a trading community, but we fail as human beings and eventually doom ourselves to repeat this vicious cycle of deception and predators. Some people make profit, but we all lose.

Welcome to the profit side of business. Believe it or not, there are people (even in this community here) who treat this as a business with income. I dont give a shit for TF2. I think it's a worn down game with no incentive to play these days. But I still trade because as long as I have access to the items (TF2, CSGO, Steam in general) and their values I may as well make an effort to get a few bucks. Even if it is just for cheap games, it's money that's not coming directly out of my bank account and it's money that my accountant doesnt see if it stays in Steam.

Funny story that had me thinking about this at the gym. The treadmills have little TVs that I like to watch Shark Tank (Google it if youve never heard of it before) on during my runs and there was a small bakery looking for $75,000 some odd dollars to try and make and bulk sell their product. Only one Shark made an offer on the business and he didnt even want to own a portion of the business, he just wanted money off each sale. He offered the $75k they wanted if he got $1 off each sale they made, and then $0.45 off each sale after he made the $75k back. Keep in mind, they were making their product at $2.25ish and were selling to wholesalers at $3 each... The two business owners walked out of the room to discuss the offer and another Shark asked why he just made that offer, and if he was trying to ruin the business. He said it was incentive for them to take his money and make their product cheaper to produce to increase the profit margins even more and ensure that they would then also be making a profit. Evil? Maybe. Smart? Yes. Give people incentive and they respond. It goes for any situation. The business owners walked back in and took the deal.

May 31, 2016

The fact we're refusing to judge sharks based on context, and instead require proof that is impossible to acquire, shows how apathetic we are of this whole situation. And if you ask me, it's messed up. We succeed as a trading community, but we fail as human beings and eventually doom ourselves to repeat this vicious cycle of deception and predators. Some people make profit, but we all lose.

Honestly Cortana.....are you really advocating that we judge people without sufficient proof? What does judging based on context even mean?

May 31, 2016

Banning you from the community and making you an outcast is very much a punitive measure. And no, I don't have a real choice here. Or at least it's a very shitty choice. Then there's the fact that I never agreed to any rules. I agreed to the Valve ULA. Yet, SR rules cover the whole TF2 community - a community which they neither created or support (through game updates, etc.).

I am not advocating complete anarchy. I agree that there needs to be some system of rules. However, the problem always arises when a few people are in charge of the rules (in our case, SR). How long did it take to update the bill's value rule? Literally years. How many people got banned for trading with a guy

who traded with a guy who traded with a guy who traded with a scammer? Way too many and now - again, after years - the rule has finally been changed.

If you want anarchy, freedom to scam whoever you like, wild west, or whatever, then fine; we aren't stopping you. There are people who continue to scam as they please despite their tags, and we never banned them from any Steam games or from trading itself. The only ones who will ban you from trading are Valve. Just remember, when you're a guest in a community, you can either follow their rules, in addition to those of the Steam Subscriber Agreement, or get out of that community. Valve created the software, and the account infrastructure, with chat, forums, OAuth login, and a trading infrastructure; but they did not create the community itself, the community and its respective server owners who decided to run Valve's server software and build their own websites did that. You are not entitled to access any website or server cluster made by the other members of the community, and those servers' owners are free to ban you from their own systems for whatever reason they choose. If that community chooses to run our plugin or API, as many do to keep their community clean, then don't complain to us when you get banned from their community because of your shady reputation. Believe it or not, there was actually a time when Outpost did not ban for SteamRep tags, and say what you like about autobump abuse, highballs/lowballs, quicksells, and other issues plaguing their community today, but it was a lot worse with scammers running wild back then - hence their decision to first manually ban in response to user reports, then automatically ban from our API when that got to be too much. CSGO Lounge and DOTA2 Lounge went through a similar experience before they started running our API as well, and slowly over time m CSGO websites are beginning to automatically ban from our API in response to public outcry for rampant scamming.

We are providing information about whether you are a known scammer, and the Steam trading community, at least among the TF2 crowd, by and large does not welcome scammers. Yes, a negative mark on SteamRep is highly impactful, and no, if you're a scammer it doesn't usually serve your best interests very well. When word gets out that you scam in a community that doesn't like scammers, it can certainly be an unpleasant experience. However, it's not about you; it's not intended to try and teach you a lesson, or to avenge your victims, which is what punishment would be about. The tag is there for everyone else who might trade with you, who deserves to know you're a scammer so they can make an informed decision before trusting you. Sure, maybe that feels like a punishment, because you don't like traders discriminating against or distrusting you for your past, but we are simply providing that information to the community. You're not even banned from our own forums for scamming, and as far as I know you aren't banned from these forums either. If every single website and server cluster stopped using our API and plugin, then we'd still continue providing that information to the community, and there would still be people who refuse to trust or trade with you. If you scammed, you would have nobody to blame for your reputation except yourself; we're just the messenger here.

I am not defending the trade with scammer rule, so please don't put me on the spot for that. Not a single SteamRep admin liked the rule, including Mattie himself, and the vote to remove it was unanimous among SR admins. It was established long ago, in a different time under different circumstances. It existed before I was an admin, before Mattie was an admin, and before we even had forums to issue scam reports through - way back in a time when scam reports were submitted on SourceOP and Valve trade banned (or before they had trade bans, VAC'ed instead) anyone receiving stolen items. It's unfortunate, but in order to establish changes like this as a large community, and not just as "SteamRep says this, so this is how it works now", rules like that take a long time to change in the community, and sometimes times change leading to old outdated rules, which might get abused. The same thing happens in the government, just like how the FBI is abusing the All Writs Act of of 1789 to force companies to hard code backdoors for catching terrorists and pedophiles hippies who might have an ounce of marijuana. There is a lengthy process where changes have to be drafted, debated, presented to partner communities, and voted on. Getting a bunch of volunteers and community owners, with lives of their own, from around the world, to come and give input on something like that, so everyone gets their say in such changes, takes time.

As for how many people got banned because of the bills hat thing, not many. Imagine a scam report on SteamRep, out of the tens of thousands we have, having the lowest possible priority in the queue. If you want a number, that's hard to get without manually searching over 15k tags for SR, and several times that many partner tags, individually looking at each profile; but I can tell you I went through each pending appeal we had to filter out trade-with-scammer cases and expedite them. There were less than 10 appeals granted. The rule was there in writing, but admins were hesitant to enforce it if the accused wasn't a community admin or some high profile figurehead somewhere (both held to higher standard) in which case their hands were tied. It only became common once certain partner communities committed to handling 100% of their scam reports, and traders realized they could send reports to said partner community(ies) who didn't have the same discretion discretion to avoid their vendetta-driven report in lieu of actual scammers. But SteamRep admins weren't involved in those cases.

May 31, 2016

@Derpeh-- Allow me to suggest a radical way to change your life, which seems to be in accordance with your belief. Stop socializing with most people and start using them as objects. Never go out, never do a single thing unless you gain something from someone else. Always prey on others in life, and you will succeed.

Why? Because you'll be better if you transcend humanity.

Just because it brings more success doesn't mean it's morally acceptable or justifiable.

How is taking responsibility for your actions and items have anything to do with anything you have just said?

It is your backpack, your items and your responsibility. It isnt the responsibility of the community to do all the leg work, if a seller manages to sell you an overpriced item that's called being a good salesman. In this case if you're going to down 300usd+ and havent done any prior research to your purchase and realise later that you grossly overpaid why is that the seller's fault? The seller listed a price, you agreed to the price and you had a happy trade until someone came along and told you that you overpaid.

If I got sharked sure ill be pissed but it's ultimately on me because I didnt properly assess where my money was going, I wouldnt be saying that the seller should be banned because of my negligence.

May 31, 2016

It really looks like we're having multiple conversations, or at least we're not consistent about what we're talking about. The first post, which I think he was addressing, spoke about scamming (emphasis mine):

Then we will become a much better trading community overall. Just look at CS:GO, scamming/sharking there is rampant and much more than tf2 in the beginning but now I dare say they have a much better trading community because in general they rarely fall for scams. Compare that to tf2 where even now after so many years we have people falling for the same tricks over and over again because our community tries to hold everyone's hands. eg: no need to check rep becuase his steam rep is gud! no need to check rep cuz he has no marks! New broker on a new account? It all gud cuz he no banned anywhere!...etc

Not to mention it develops a sense of responsibility which is what tf2 completely lacks. If you get scammed in CS:GO you're laughed at because it's your backpack and your responsibility. The tf2 mind set is to blame the scammer for tricking him rather than self reflect that they were the ultimate cause :l

Sometimes holding people's hand too much isnt a good thing. Until you screw up you dont learn.

Again this is my opinion. I'm not supporting scammers just an advocate for taking responsibility.

And now your latest post is about sharking and uneven trades:

How is taking responsibility for your actions and items have anything to do with anything you have just said?

It is your backpack, your items and your responsibility. It isnt the responsibility of the community to do all the leg work, if a seller manages to sell you an overpriced item that's called being a good salesman. In this case if you're going to down 300usd+ and havent done any prior research to your purchase and realise later that you grossly overpaid why is that the seller's fault? The seller listed a price, you agreed to the price and you had a happy trade until someone came along and told you that you overpaid.

If I got sharked sure ill be pissed but it's ultimately on me because I didnt properly assess where my money was going, I wouldnt be saying that the seller should be banned because of my negligence.

Which is it? There are 3 types of scenarios here, and opinions vary widely depending on which one you're talking about. Agreeing with your opinion about consequences for sharking doesn't equate to agreeing with you on SteamRep's tagging of scammers.

Scamming - outright theft (paypal, chargeback, codes, impersonation, etc), blatant item misrepresentation (labeling item as "unusual" with a name tag to present it as something it's not), or other willful breach of a written trade agreement (glimmer drop or tag team scam).
Sharking - Knowingly misrepresenting the price or value of an item with the intention of manipulating or exploiting a less experienced trader's naivety for your own gain, especially through use of tools to find and target newer players by criteria such as hours in game, and causing unreasonable injury to the victim. (Definition taken from now defunct Pink Taco's Mann Co Trading, before they quit accepting shark reports.)
Unfair trades - Trading an item for "outside backpack.tf" price range, deviating from community market prices, or otherwise outside the typical price range for items of this type. No provable deception involved, victim may have consented and acknowledge trade was uneven, or victim may have been reasonably expected to know about price based on their level of experience. The amount or proportion of price discrepancy (1 scrap away from bp.tf price, or a 2000% gain) is irrelevant.

Only one of the above (1) will earn a tag on SteamRep. Another (2) will earn you a ban on some community websites despite SteamRep policies; their community, their rules. Much of the community holds a lot of disdain for (2), but for a variety of reasons discussed in this thread it's not enforced by SteamRep. The last one (3) is a bunch of petty childish drama that you seem to be propping up as a strawman in your last post, as if it were the same as (1). As far as I can tell, nobody said you should be marked as a scammer for (3) or even (2), and it's not yet clear which of these situations applies to OP (hence why I posted in this thread for clarification of policy). In your thesis about personal responsibility, which of these are you trying to address? Is it still about not making victims aware of scammers and types of scams to prevent them from getting scammed like your first post, or is it about unbalanced trades like the last one?

May 31, 2016

Just remember, when you're a MEMBER in a community, you can either AGREE TO their rules, in addition to those of the Steam Subscriber Agreement, or get out of that community.

You are ~~not~~ entitled to access any website or server cluster made by the other members of the community, and those servers' owners are free to ban you from their own systems for whatever reason they choose as long is it is in the set of rules they have created, otherwise they are probably just biased.

ftfy

May 31, 2016

It really looks like we're having multiple conversations, or at least we're not consistent about what we're talking about. The first post, which I think he was addressing, spoke about scamming (emphasis mine):

And now your latest post is about sharking and uneven trades:

My reply was an extension of cortana's comment where he equated sharking to be the same as scamming which is why I have also used the words interchangeably.

In my opinion the only "actual scams" are phishing/back charging scams though the former isn't as rampant as before and the latter is easily reversed due to paypal's change of policy. All other "scams" are a direct result of not doing your due diligence for your items. It's your backpack, your items hence your responsibility to "protect" it some traders rely on the community to do all the legwork thinking that it's the community's job to "provide security" and when they are scammed/sharked they blame someone else and never learn.

May 31, 2016

@Gren -- Again, your point of view is very dichotomous, and chooses to entirely refuse the possibility and likeliness of more people starting to scam. Claiming scam rates would stay identical is a generalization that disregards MANY factors you need to take into consideration. Such factors are reliant on the scammers, how easy it'd be to scam, the current state of the TF2 economy, etc etc. I've never claimed scam rates would go up the roof and instantly destroy our community-- that'd be identically over-simplifying the matter at hand. I do believe, however, that not everyone is a law-abiding trader that lives with morals in mind, like you and I.

Your analogy is irrelevant because it entirely ignores the social climate and stigma that originate from breaking the social contract. Scamming some kid online's very easy, because there are virtually no direct repercussions. Nobody's going to arrest me for sharking $30 worth of items, nor are mommy and daddy going to judge me.

Additionally, I again fail to see where I've implied we need rules to behave. Some of us truly do, and claiming otherwise is implying there are no bad people out there. Such a claim is as delirious as believing our community would be fine without rules-- it's choosing to ignore a part of our nature as human beings because it's more convenient and simpler. Comparing this case to an everyday life scenario is, furthermore, irrelevant, as it entirely ignores the massive difference there is between the Internet and real life.

Adding to that, human beings are of the most intricate and unpredictable beings in existence to our knowledge. There is little way to predict their behavior correctly, and one can only speculate or issues judgements that aren't dichotomous. As such, claiming scam rates would go up the roof would be delirious, but claiming they'd go up isn't entirely, because our behavior is predictable to an extent. If made easier to grab fish, man would without a second thought. Not all of us would, but claiming none would is turning a blind eye to selfishness. La Rochefouceauld would like to have a word with you concerning that.

You get burned, yes-- that doesn't mean we should stand apathetic to such things if we can very easily prevent them.

You bring a solid point in perspective in your last paragraph. However, if the government didn't sanction crimes at all, you can be sure we'd quickly devolve into higher rates of crime and theft. It's much easier to attempt to scam someone than to legitimately work your way up-- don't believe me? Take a look at how many phishing bots, how many scammer alts there are.

No, I don't advocate judging sharks without proof. I'm the first one to desire protecting the weaker party, which can be in a lot of cases the accused himself. However, think about it for a second-- what if a c9 tipped lid got sharked from some kid with 20 hours on the game for five refined metal worth of items? Big surprise, this happened a while back. I reported it vehemently, but was met with claims some external trades might have taken place-- as if the child knew anything of his item's worth to choose to take $150 for it and five ref in items as sweets. Again, I'm fervently against judging sharks with no evidence, but such evidence is often present in the context, as in what the sharkening consisted of.

May 31, 2016

How is taking responsibility for your actions and items have anything to do with anything you have just said?

It is your backpack, your items and your responsibility. It isnt the responsibility of the community to do all the leg work, if a seller manages to sell you an overpriced item that's called being a good salesman. In this case if you're going to down 300usd+ and havent done any prior research to your purchase and realise later that you grossly overpaid why is that the seller's fault? The seller listed a price, you agreed to the price and you had a happy trade until someone came along and told you that you overpaid.

If I got sharked sure ill be pissed but it's ultimately on me because I didnt properly assess where my money was going, I wouldnt be saying that the seller should be banned because of my negligence.

What if one can't possibly do that, because they're utterly ignorant of said responsibility in the first place? Do you hold a child accountable for stubbing his toe and tell him to pay the medical bill?

Such a reasoning is, excuse me if offensive, hilarious. Apparently, fooling other people into making you believe their items are worth hundreds more of what they are is being a good salesman? You're mistaking a wolf for a puppy among toads. I've seen a lot of good traders in my trading career, some of which managed to impress me. If deceiving other people is a high standard for you, I don't know why we're currently discussing this-- you seem to entirely disregard the moral aspect of scamming and sharking. I subsequently urge you to act like a psychopath in your everyday life, and entirely ignore the moral and human aspects of what it has to present to you-- should you believe an inhumane course of action is always the most favorable, it'd be very hypocritical of you to maintain a social life where you put yourself in a vulnerable position towards others.

Sometimes, some things matter much, much more than how it affects you, me or Gabe Newell on a personal/financial level. It's about us as a whole community. That's what really matters, because how do you think the next generation of traders will act? Exactly the way those who were before them did.

May 31, 2016

Changed your tone pretty quick.

That's pretty much it. Sharking is too hard to prove and too common of an occurrence to even make it a serious offense. Yet we're perm-banning big name traders for it with hardly any good reason to back it. We're taking those big name traders off the grid and their items are totally lost and out of trading circulation. It's hurting the economy and it's hurting the community. Shady or not, if there's no good proof to it all we're doing is trying to spite people for trading.

Welcome to the profit side of business. Believe it or not, there are people (even in this community here) who treat this as a business with income. I dont give a shit for TF2. I think it's a worn down game with no incentive to play these days. But I still trade because as long as I have access to the items (TF2, CSGO, Steam in general) and their values I may as well make an effort to get a few bucks. Even if it is just for cheap games, it's money that's not coming directly out of my bank account and it's money that my accountant doesnt see if it stays in Steam.

Funny story that had me thinking about this at the gym. The treadmills have little TVs that I like to watch Shark Tank (Google it if youve never heard of it before) on during my runs and there was a small bakery looking for $75,000 some odd dollars to try and make and bulk sell their product. Only one Shark made an offer on the business and he didnt even want to own a portion of the business, he just wanted money off each sale. He offered the $75k they wanted if he got $1 off each sale they made, and then $0.45 off each sale after he made the $75k back. Keep in mind, they were making their product at $2.25ish and were selling to wholesalers at $3 each... The two business owners walked out of the room to discuss the offer and another Shark asked why he just made that offer, and if he was trying to ruin the business. He said it was incentive for them to take his money and make their product cheaper to produce to increase the profit margins even more and ensure that they would then also be making a profit. Evil? Maybe. Smart? Yes. Give people incentive and they respond. It goes for any situation. The business owners walked back in and took the deal.

I find your condescending remarks to be pretty amusing. I'll entertain what you have to say nonetheless.

Too common? Do you have any data or statistics to back your claim? If not, I'll have to ask of you to refrain from using that in our discussion, as in which case it's based off pure speculation and personal belief.

What also amuses me is that while you seem to focus on the "profit" side of business, you seem to hypocritically reject the moral and human side of it. I'm not too sure cherrypicking what favors you and rejecting the rest is very logical, but moving on.

Your analogy, much like Gren, not only avoids the point, but chooses to twist it. Allow me to explain-- you claim what the Shark did was perhaps evil. That's very discussable, especially since on the long run nobody's making a massive loss. You're also talking about grown adults who have experience and some wisdom in them. Don't you think comparing that to some children who just unboxed some god-tiers is a bit off-topic?

I'm a big fan of your point of view actually reinforcing mine when addressing Gren-- he chose to believe that scam rates wouldn't go up if rules concerning them were abolished, while you seem to believe otherwise "give people incentive and they respond", in which case I don't see why I keep posting as I can just let you do the work.

Going back to the topic, there's a massive difference between not only a real-life scenario and a tf2 trade, but also how it affects the economy and societal climate as a whole.

May 31, 2016

How about let's not go off topic about sharking.

Fact that the guy who made the thread is friends with the sharks

May 31, 2016

If you want anarchy, freedom to scam whoever you like, wild west, or whatever, then fine; we aren't stopping you. There are people who continue to scam as they please despite their tags, and we never banned them from any Steam games or from trading itself. The only ones who will ban you from trading are Valve. Just remember, when you're a guest in a community, you can either follow their rules, in addition to those of the Steam Subscriber Agreement, or get out of that community. Valve created the software, and the account infrastructure, with chat, forums, OAuth login, and a trading infrastructure; but they did not create the community itself, the community and its respective server owners who decided to run Valve's server software and build their own websites did that. You are not entitled to access any website or server cluster made by the other members of the community, and those servers' owners are free to ban you from their own systems for whatever reason they choose. If that community chooses to run our plugin or API, as many do to keep their community clean, then don't complain to us when you get banned from their community because of your shady reputation. Believe it or not, there was actually a time when Outpost did not ban for SteamRep tags, and say what you like about autobump abuse, highballs/lowballs, quicksells, and other issues plaguing their community today, but it was a lot worse with scammers running wild back then - hence their decision to first manually ban in response to user reports, then automatically ban from our API when that got to be too much. CSGO Lounge and DOTA2 Lounge went through a similar experience before they started running our API as well, and slowly over time m CSGO websites are beginning to automatically ban from our API in response to public outcry for rampant scamming.

We are providing information about whether you are a known scammer, and the Steam trading community, at least among the TF2 crowd, by and large does not welcome scammers. Yes, a negative mark on SteamRep is highly impactful, and no, if you're a scammer it doesn't usually serve your best interests very well. When word gets out that you scam in a community that doesn't like scammers, it can certainly be an unpleasant experience. However, it's not about you; it's not intended to try and teach you a lesson, or to avenge your victims, which is what punishment would be about. The tag is there for everyone else who might trade with you, who deserves to know you're a scammer so they can make an informed decision before trusting you. Sure, maybe that feels like a punishment, because you don't like traders discriminating against or distrusting you for your past, but we are simply providing that information to the community. You're not even banned from our own forums for scamming, and as far as I know you aren't banned from these forums either. If every single website and server cluster stopped using our API and plugin, then we'd still continue providing that information to the community, and there would still be people who refuse to trust or trade with you. If you scammed, you would have nobody to blame for your reputation except yourself; we're just the messenger here.

I am not defending the trade with scammer rule, so please don't put me on the spot for that. Not a single SteamRep admin liked the rule, including Mattie himself, and the vote to remove it was unanimous among SR admins. It was established long ago, in a different time under different circumstances. It existed before I was an admin, before Mattie was an admin, and before we even had forums to issue scam reports through - way back in a time when scam reports were submitted on SourceOP and Valve trade banned (or before they had trade bans, VAC'ed instead) anyone receiving stolen items. It's unfortunate, but in order to establish changes like this as a large community, and not just as "SteamRep says this, so this is how it works now", rules like that take a long time to change in the community, and sometimes times change leading to old outdated rules, which might get abused. The same thing happens in the government, just like how the FBI is abusing the All Writs Act of of 1789 to force companies to hard code backdoors for catching ~~terrorists and pedophiles~~ hippies who might have an ounce of marijuana. There is a lengthy process where changes have to be drafted, debated, presented to partner communities, and voted on. Getting a bunch of volunteers and community owners, with lives of their own, from around the world, to come and give input on something like that, so everyone gets their say in such changes, takes time.

As for how many people got banned because of the bills hat thing, not many. Imagine a scam report on SteamRep, out of the tens of thousands we have, having the lowest possible priority in the queue. If you want a number, that's hard to get without manually searching over 15k tags for SR, and several times that many partner tags, individually looking at each profile; but I can tell you I went through each pending appeal we had to filter out trade-with-scammer cases and expedite them. There were less than 10 appeals granted. The rule was there in writing, but admins were hesitant to enforce it if the accused wasn't a community admin or some high profile figurehead somewhere (both held to higher standard) in which case their hands were tied. It only became common once certain partner communities committed to handling 100% of their scam reports, and traders realized they could send reports to said partner community(ies) who didn't have the same discretion discretion to avoid their vendetta-driven report in lieu of actual scammers. But SteamRep admins weren't involved in those cases.

Again, I'm not advocating complete anarchy and a system of only the strong survive. You're putting those words into my mouth. My argument is that if we abolished the rules, very little - if anything - would actually change. Look at the trading with scammers rule. Do you see a bunch of traders who were previously completely honest now rampantly fencing items? I don't. The only change is that now, people are not getting banned anymore for doing a trade or two with someone who's marked.

I agree with you 100% btw, when I'm using OP or BP, I am absolutely subject to their rules and by signing onto those websites and posting trades, I agree to abide by their rules. I have no issues with this at all. However, I never signed up to SR. I never agreed to your rules. You don't provide me a service, at least it's not one that I want. The only reason I've ever used SR is to check whether someone was banned, not for my protection, but just to cover my ass so I wouldn't get banned. That is literally the only reason I have used SR and I did it out of necessity, not free will.

What do you think SR has actually done to keep the community clean? Let's go back in time a little bit and remember the days where you would be added by literally 40 phishing bots each day. Then there were the constant 'trusted friends' scammers. Steam wallet scammers. Paypal scammers. I would estimate that on any given day, I was targeted by 50 scammers. So how exactly was SR keeping the community clean? 50 SCAMMERS EACH DAY!!! And how did that stop? By measures taken by Valve, not SR. Face it, you are powerless and if you guys just vanished tomorrow, nothing at all would change. Nothing.

Let's not forget that you guys are a self appointed, non-transparent group of individuals who impose a system of rules upon the community. How in the hell is that just? So we - the community - get no say in who's deciding SR rules and we get no say in the rules. Wow, awesome system. I love totalitarianism. You say I'm a guest here....no, I'm a participating member of this community who regularly infuses it with cash and economic activity. What exactly are you guys doing to contribute? How many active traders are there on the SR staff? How many paypal transaction do you guys do each month? What's the last big hat you bought from an unboxer?

Lastly, you can't just abdicate any responsibility for the trading with scammers rule. This single rule has probably done more damage to this community than any other. Honestly, in your heart of hearts, can you possibly reconcile the fact that you guys were basically controlling who I can and can't trade with? What gave you that right? It's not a rhetorical question, And please don't revert to the 'you had a choice' argument. My choice was to not trade with banned users, lest I be marked myself, and there goes my paypal trading career. What kind of piss poor choice is that? You guys kept this rule around for years. And finally, you got off your arses and changed it. You say you were all against it. So why did it take so long to get rid of the rule? How hard is it to hold a vote? You don't just get to damage the community for years with a completely ridiculous rule and then wash your hands of any responsibility. So many big traders were banned because of that rule. That weakened the economy, and there are losses which will never be recovered.

May 31, 2016

@Gren -- Again, your point of view is very dichotomous, and chooses to entirely refuse the possibility and likeliness of more people starting to scam. Claiming scam rates would stay identical is a generalization that disregards MANY factors you need to take into consideration. Such factors are reliant on the scammers, how easy it'd be to scam, the current state of the TF2 economy, etc etc. I've never claimed scam rates would go up the roof and instantly destroy our community-- that'd be identically over-simplifying the matter at hand. I do believe, however, that not everyone is a law-abiding trader that lives with morals in mind, like you and I.

Your analogy is irrelevant because it entirely ignores the social climate and stigma that originate from breaking the social contract. Scamming some kid online's very easy, because there are virtually no direct repercussions. Nobody's going to arrest me for sharking $30 worth of items, nor are mommy and daddy going to judge me.

Additionally, I again fail to see where I've implied we need rules to behave. Some of us truly do, and claiming otherwise is implying there are no bad people out there. Such a claim is as delirious as believing our community would be fine without rules-- it's choosing to ignore a part of our nature as human beings because it's more convenient and simpler. Comparing this case to an everyday life scenario is, furthermore, irrelevant, as it entirely ignores the massive difference there is between the Internet and real life.

Adding to that, human beings are of the most intricate and unpredictable beings in existence to our knowledge. There is little way to predict their behavior correctly, and one can only speculate or issues judgements that aren't dichotomous. As such, claiming scam rates would go up the roof would be delirious, but claiming they'd go up isn't entirely, because our behavior is predictable to an extent. If made easier to grab fish, man would without a second thought. Not all of us would, but claiming none would is turning a blind eye to selfishness. La Rochefouceauld would like to have a word with you concerning that.

You get burned, yes-- that doesn't mean we should stand apathetic to such things if we can very easily prevent them.

You bring a solid point in perspective in your last paragraph. However, if the government didn't sanction crimes at all, you can be sure we'd quickly devolve into higher rates of crime and theft. It's much easier to attempt to scam someone than to legitimately work your way up-- don't believe me? Take a look at how many phishing bots, how many scammer alts there are.

No, I don't advocate judging sharks without proof. I'm the first one to desire protecting the weaker party, which can be in a lot of cases the accused himself. However, think about it for a second-- what if a c9 tipped lid got sharked from some kid with 20 hours on the game for five refined metal worth of items? Big surprise, this happened a while back. I reported it vehemently, but was met with claims some external trades might have taken place-- as if the child knew anything of his item's worth to choose to take $150 for it and five ref in items as sweets. Again, I'm fervently against judging sharks with no evidence, but such evidence is often present in the context, as in what the sharkening consisted of.

Again Cortana, you are only working on assumptions. You have no evidence. I have provided you evidence as to what happens in the absence of rules (e.g. narcotic decriminalization). Someone told you that we need a tight system of rules to function, or else anarchy and chaos. The only evidence that exists that speaks to that is from 2000 years ago. That is prior to the invention of the scientific method, the enlightenment, the renaissance, not to mention millenia of forward movement in western philosophy. We aren't the same beings from 2,000 years ago. We are infinitely smarter and wiser.

As for your circumstantial assumptions, I'd point towards the same time frame I referenced in my reply to Sniper. There was a time when any active trader came under the attack of scammers literally dozens of times each day. Block, remove, Block, remove, Block, remove, etc. It wasn't a big deal then and it wouldn't be a big deal now. Although of course, that couldn't happen now since Valve put restrictions on new accounts. So here's your proof: the rules didn't do shit all to keep this community clean. It was Valve's actions that reduced scamming, not SR rules.

Please go ahead and provide a counter argument. But this time make sure it's an argument based on facts and empirical evidence, not on what you believe will happen based on assumptions which are not rooted in past evidence.

May 31, 2016

Again Cortana, you are only working on assumptions. You have no evidence. I have provided you evidence as to what happens in the absence of rules (e.g. narcotic decriminalization). Someone told you that we need a tight system of rules to function, or else anarchy and chaos. The only evidence that exists that speaks to that is from 2000 years ago. That is prior to the invention of the scientific method, the enlightenment, the renaissance, not to mention millenia of forward movement in western philosophy. We aren't the same beings from 2,000 years ago. We are infinitely smarter and wiser.

As for your circumstantial assumptions, I'd point towards the same time frame I referenced in my reply to Sniper. There was a time when any active trader came under the attack of scammers literally dozens of times each day. Block, remove, Block, remove, Block, remove, etc. It wasn't a big deal then and it wouldn't be a big deal now. Although of course, that couldn't happen now since Valve put restrictions on new accounts. So here's your proof: the rules didn't do shit all to keep this community clean. It was Valve's actions that reduced scamming, not SR rules.

Please go ahead and provide a counter argument. But this time make sure it's an argument based on facts and empirical evidence, not on what you believe will happen based on assumptions which are not rooted in past evidence.

Lol? It seems to me you're running away from our discussion by accusing me of speculation. There's a difference between speculating and acknowledging the many factors one needs to take into consideration-- your refusal of the latter doesn't imply the former from my part. It's also very ironic how you choose to take into consideration factor that seem to favor your reasoning, but choose to call the ones that don't speculation and assumption.

I have absolutely nothing to tell you if you do that, it's a waste of my time and we're doing nothing but running in circles. We're much smarter than our ancestors-- they saw a leaf, we see a field. Can we see the infinity that lies beyond it? Is our vision not still very dim? Such existential questions you've raised have absolutely nothing to do with the matter we've discussed.

Please don't reply to me if you're going to keep ignoring what I'm trying to tell you and only answer the bits that favor your point of view-- it's infuriating, disrespectful, and I have no desire to take any part in it.

May 31, 2016

Lol? It seems to me you're running away from our discussion by accusing me of speculation. There's a difference between speculating and acknowledging the many factors one needs to take into consideration-- your refusal of the latter doesn't imply the former from my part. It's also very ironic how you choose to take into consideration factor that seem to favor your reasoning, but choose to call the ones that don't speculation and assumption.

I have absolutely nothing to tell you if you do that, it's a waste of my time and we're doing nothing but running in circles. We're much smarter than our ancestors-- they saw a leaf, we see a field. Can we see the infinity that lies beyond it? Is our vision not still very dim? Such existential questions you've raised have absolutely nothing to do with the matter we've discussed.

Please don't reply to me if you're going to keep ignoring what I'm trying to tell you and only answer the bits that favor your point of view-- it's infuriating, disrespectful, and I have no desire to take any part in it.

I find your condescending remarks to be pretty amusing. I'll entertain what you have to say nonetheless.

Too common? Do you have any data or statistics to back your claim? If not, I'll have to ask of you to refrain from using that in our discussion, as in which case it's based off pure speculation and personal belief.

So in one post, you accuse someone of not providing data or stats to back up their claims, but you do the exact same thing when you're arguing with me. I'm not running away from this argument at all - that should be quite clear. What I want from you is to provide me with concrete evidence that would suggest that if we simply got rid of rules against sharking (as it pertains to the thread we are in), everything would get worse, i.e. there would be more sharking. I have already provided evidence to the contrary. I will sum up my main arguments again, so we don't get lost here and you can stop accusing me of things I didn't write:

1. There are rules against scamming. Yet, scamming was absolutely rampant a few years ago. The only thing that changed that is Valve, not community rules (mainly by restricting new accounts as you will remember).

2. Trading with scammer rule: this rule was put in place mainly to prevent fencing (and extended and abused, resulting in many unjust bans). Now that the rule is gone, do you see rampant fencing going on? I do not. We got rid of the rule, and nothing changed, at least not for the worse.

3. We aren't feral beasts in the absence of an imposed rule system by a higher authority. There is plenty of evidence (again, narcotic decriminalization, liquor illegalisation and then legalization, prostitution, etc.). The rules don't make you a good person. Again, honest people will remain honest and dishonest people will remain dishonest.

These are arguments based in fact. I have yet to read anything from you that is based in fact as opposed to personal belief. Your whole argument seems based on the belief that without rules, this community would completely devolve into some giant shitshow with people scamming, getting scammed, etc. and the whole thing would fall apart in less than a year. What evidence do you have for that? Where else has this happened? All I want from you is some concrete evidence to back up your points. That is all, there is no reason to get infuriated.

May 31, 2016

So in one post, you accuse someone of not providing data or stats to back up their claims, but you do the exact same thing when you're arguing with me. I'm not running away from this argument at all - that should be quite clear. What I want from you is to provide me with concrete evidence that would suggest that if we simply got rid of rules against sharking (as it pertains to the thread we are in), everything would get worse, i.e. there would be more sharking. I have already provided evidence to the contrary. I will sum up my main arguments again, so we don't get lost here and you can stop accusing me of things I didn't write:

1. There are rules against scamming. Yet, scamming was absolutely rampant a few years ago. The only thing that changed that is Valve, not community rules (mainly by restricting new accounts as you will remember).

2. Trading with scammer rule: this rule was put in place mainly to prevent fencing (and extended and abused, resulting in many unjust bans). Now that the rule is gone, do you see rampant fencing going on? I do not. We got rid of the rule, and nothing changed, at least not for the worse.

3. We aren't feral beasts in the absence of an imposed rule system by a higher authority. There is plenty of evidence (again, narcotic decriminalization, liquor illegalisation and then legalization, prostitution, etc.). The rules don't make you a good person. Again, honest people will remain honest and dishonest people will remain dishonest.

These are arguments based in fact. I have yet to read anything from you that is based in fact as opposed to personal belief. Your whole argument seems based on the belief that without rules, this community would completely devolve into some giant shitshow with people scamming, getting scammed, etc. and the whole thing would fall apart in less than a year. What evidence do you have for that? Where else has this happened? All I want from you is some concrete evidence to back up your points. That is all, there is no reason to get infuriated.

I was about to reply in the exact same fashion lol.

I find your condescending remarks to be pretty amusing. I'll entertain what you have to say nonetheless.
Too common? Do you have any data or statistics to back your claim? If not, I'll have to ask of you to refrain from using that in our discussion, as in which case it's based off pure speculation and personal belief.

What also amuses me is that while you seem to focus on the "profit" side of business, you seem to hypocritically reject the moral and human side of it. I'm not too sure cherrypicking what favors you and rejecting the rest is very logical, but moving on.

Your analogy, much like Gren, not only avoids the point, but chooses to twist it. Allow me to explain-- you claim what the Shark did was perhaps evil. That's very discussable, especially since on the long run nobody's making a massive loss. You're also talking about grown adults who have experience and some wisdom in them. Don't you think comparing that to some children who just unboxed some god-tiers is a bit off-topic?

I'm a big fan of your point of view actually reinforcing mine when addressing Gren-- he chose to believe that scam rates wouldn't go up if rules concerning them were abolished, while you seem to believe otherwise "give people incentive and they respond", in which case I don't see why I keep posting as I can just let you do the work.

Going back to the topic, there's a massive difference between not only a real-life scenario and a tf2 trade, but also how it affects the economy and societal climate as a whole.

If you want me to find facts and stats, present yours. Cortana, your entire argument has been based on assumptions, "if"s, and "probably"s. If we have rules, scammers will "probably" be less willing to scam. "If" we remove the sharking rule, "maybe" there will be more sharks. You're assuming everyone here is hounding for profit and everyone else is totally oblivious. If you want stats, it's a 2-way street. Youre being extremely hypocritical with that post.

We're not twisting the argument by not agreeing with you. We're presenting our points and backing them up with examples. Youre just rambling on about the same ol' same ol' and hoping we'll be like "Aw, ya know what. Yeah, youre right."

When I say "give people incentive and they will respond", that also works as a 2-way street in this situation. If we put into play your fear of more sharks coming out if we remove the rule, let's say for example this does happen. Dont you think at some point the trading community would start responding by doing research before trading?

June 1, 2016

Again, I'm not advocating complete anarchy and a system of only the strong survive. You're putting those words into my mouth. My argument is that if we abolished the rules, very little - if anything - would actually change. Look at the trading with scammers rule. Do you see a bunch of traders who were previously completely honest now rampantly fencing items? I don't. The only change is that now, people are not getting banned anymore for doing a trade or two with someone who's marked.

I agree with you 100% btw, when I'm using OP or BP, I am absolutely subject to their rules and by signing onto those websites and posting trades, I agree to abide by their rules. I have no issues with this at all. However, I never signed up to SR. I never agreed to your rules. You don't provide me a service, at least it's not one that I want. The only reason I've ever used SR is to check whether someone was banned, not for my protection, but just to cover my ass so I wouldn't get banned. That is literally the only reason I have used SR and I did it out of necessity, not free will.

What do you think SR has actually done to keep the community clean? Let's go back in time a little bit and remember the days where you would be added by literally 40 phishing bots each day. Then there were the constant 'trusted friends' scammers. Steam wallet scammers. Paypal scammers. I would estimate that on any given day, I was targeted by 50 scammers. So how exactly was SR keeping the community clean? 50 SCAMMERS EACH DAY!!! And how did that stop? By measures taken by Valve, not SR. Face it, you are powerless and if you guys just vanished tomorrow, nothing at all would change. Nothing.

Let's not forget that you guys are a self appointed, non-transparent group of individuals who impose a system of rules upon the community. How in the hell is that just? So we - the community - get no say in who's deciding SR rules and we get no say in the rules. Wow, awesome system. I love totalitarianism. You say I'm a guest here....no, I'm a participating member of this community who regularly infuses it with cash and economic activity. What exactly are you guys doing to contribute? How many active traders are there on the SR staff? How many paypal transaction do you guys do each month? What's the last big hat you bought from an unboxer?

Lastly, you can't just abdicate any responsibility for the trading with scammers rule. This single rule has probably done more damage to this community than any other. Honestly, in your heart of hearts, can you possibly reconcile the fact that you guys were basically controlling who I can and can't trade with? What gave you that right? It's not a rhetorical question, And please don't revert to the 'you had a choice' argument. My choice was to not trade with banned users, lest I be marked myself, and there goes my paypal trading career. What kind of piss poor choice is that? You guys kept this rule around for years. And finally, you got off your arses and changed it. You say you were all against it. So why did it take so long to get rid of the rule? How hard is it to hold a vote? You don't just get to damage the community for years with a completely ridiculous rule and then wash your hands of any responsibility. So many big traders were banned because of that rule. That weakened the economy, and there are losses which will never be recovered.

By using Outpost, you agree to their terms. You are a guest on Outpost, which is a privately owned website not run by Valve. I never said you are a guest in Steam. You're free to continue using Valve servers if you don't like how Outpost is run, and Steam forums, and there's nothing anyone from SteamRep could do to stop you. You're also free to join servers or websites that allow you to join, just as their owners are free to ban you as they see fit, including for having a scammer tag. Valve doesn't own those community servers. It's up to individual communities if they wish to inherit our policies and use our API. Same with any other community, and believe me when I say not all communities ban for or acknowledge SteamRep tags. If you don't like our policies, participate in a community that doesn't use our API. Plenty of those to be found in CSGO, and if none of them suit you, you could even start your own.

You asked "what have we done for the community?" Communities who use our API, by most accounts, are cleaner than communities who don't. It doesn't keep out even close to 100% of scammers, so maybe you disagree on the community being cleaner (or maybe you don't like it being cleaner because of "hand-holding" or whatever), but that is your opinion; there are others appreciate it, including the staff who don't have to repeat the work another community admin already put into investigating a scam report. A scammer tag doesn't keep someone from scamming and never has; most scammers keep on scamming once marked, and we don't actually ban them from Steam, so there's no way we could "clean up" and remove them from the entire community. But for those who wish to try and keep their own site a little cleaner and safer for their userbase, our API provides a slightly safer environment where known scammers are kept out, and depending on the community and how it's run, their alts as well if not detected by SteamRep.

I'm not sure what you expect us to do about phishing and impersonators, since you're bringing it up. Nothing we could have done about phishing; nobody clicking phishing links is going to look up a SteamRep profile to see if a link is phishing, or if whoever sent a link is a scammer. Same with impersonation scams - we usually do mark for that, but we get more reports for that than we've ever gotten for phishing, and I'd estimate impersonation victims demanding we somehow return their items and "ban" a 3-month-old throwaway account before anything else makes close to half of our backlog. Problem is Victims of impersonation scams, if it's an admin or bot imposter, will only see the SteamRep profile the scammer links them, trusted friend impersonators will assume it's "safe" because they know their friend, and with the throwaway being exactly that it takes more time to handle the scam report for that than it takes the scammer to make said account. We can't help people who won't read our guides or check our database, so I don't understand how you're holding us to that expectation.

Let's not forget that you guys are a self appointed, non-transparent group of individuals who impose a system of rules upon the community. How in the hell is that just? So we - the community - get no say in who's deciding SR rules and we get no say in the rules. Wow, awesome system. I love totalitarianism. You say I'm a guest here....no, I'm a participating member of this community who regularly infuses it with cash and economic activity. What exactly are you guys doing to contribute? How many active traders are there on the SR staff? How many paypal transaction do you guys do each month? What's the last big hat you bought from an unboxer?

We are "appointed" by those who choose to trust us, enough so that they automatically ban traders with a mark in our database without even reviewing the case. That's a huge amount of trust invested in us by multiple community admins, and such trust and credibility weren't built up overnight. If we actually showed a pattern of marking innocent traders on a whim or over personal disputes, you can bet there would be public outcry - and not just the unsubstained story telling you find on Reddit - and admins who use our API would take notice. It may not seem like we're accountable, but quite the contrary; that kind of trust would erode away pretty quickly in the event of abuse. And as it stands, what goes on behind closed doors such as how alt accounts are researched is largely open to community admins who aren't staff at SteamRep.

As for active traders serving on staff, that's really not a fair question. I don't have any active figures, but I will tell you up front most are not active. What many people don't understand is it's very difficult to be an active admin and active trader at the same time, and even harder to be good at both. The ones who do trade, are the ones we take flak for because they're inactive in their admin duties. Handling reports and appeals is time you're not spending trading. Serving as an admin also means you have to be extra careful about who you trade with (held to a higher standard), and not put yourself in a position of conflicting interests. Does this person have any reports? They're either innocent, or a scammer, but either way you can't trade with them (closing their report before trading would be a conflict of interests). As an admin, you'd also be expected to run a background check to make sure you're not trading with a (possible) scammer alt, for each and every trade. Imagine spending 20-30 minutes before each scrap bank on a trade server. Also guess what? The community admins and owners who set up these websites largely don't trade either, it's not just SteamRep admins. It's a sacrifice most of us make to try and help other traders, instead of exclusively looking after our own profits. Since you asked me a loaded question though, let me ask you: Would you propose that I, as one of only 2 active appeals admins, take time away from appeals I would otherwise be reviewing so I can "contribute" to the TF2 economy by actively trading again?

I never agreed with the trade with scammers rule, and I'll have you know I myself tagged all of 0 people under the trade with scammers rule. Once it got changed, I read through every single one of our open appeals to expedite any lingering appeals for tags issued under this rule. Of all the appeals we had for that type of offense, there were less than 10 trade-with-scammer appeals for me to grant, so I really think you're exaggerating about the "more damage than any other [rule]" part. As the main person who cleaned up the aftermath for both, accepting reports for phishing links did a lot more damage. The rule about trading with scammers existed long before I became an admin, and along with Mattie I myself strongly advocated for removing it - not a lot I could do as a moderator and then relatively new admin - yet you're trying to hold me personally responsible for it? I am in no position to defend it. The rule deviates from the topic of this thread, so out of respect for the staff at backpack.tf and the OP who posted this thread, I will not address it further. If you want to press it some more, here's what an admin much older than me, who was involved in establishing the rule, had to say. If you really want someone to defend it, ask Diego, who was head of SteamRep at the time, or read Mattie's writeup about the change since that gives some context behind why it existed in the first place and why we decided to do away with it. You could also post in BigMac's thread on the issue. I have proposed a lot of improvements to SteamRep as an admin, mostly rejected because someone somewhere in the community didn't like it, and some of those were citing things members from the community mentioned in my AMA from earlier, but I really think you underestimate the time it takes to change policies on that kind of scale. You can't just make every community admin come in on a week's notice to say yes or no, and force them to agree with you. It takes time. But like I said, in the interest of staying on topic, I will not address this any further. I thought I'd chime in on an unclear case to help give the bp.tf staff and rest of the community some context on what may or may not be taggable with trade misrepresentations, which as of yet we don't have enough context to figure it out.

If we put into play your fear of more sharks coming out if we remove the rule, let's say for example this does happen. Dont you think at some point the trading community would start responding by doing research before trading?

Sharking involves specifically searching out and preying on people who are new and don't understand the economy. So by nature, no, not unless we stop getting new people.

June 1, 2016

- snip -

Please realize that when I say "you" I mean SR, not you personally. I think we're just going around in circles now and our own discussion has moved so far away from the topic of sharking and rules policing sharking that it's only marginally relevant for this thread anymore.

Sniper, I get what the point of SR is. I understand the original intent behind it. To be clear, I didn't expect SR to do anything about phishing. My point was that SR clearly cannot combat scamming in a significant way (as you seem to have admitted when you said that SR cannot do anything against phishers which were clearly the most prolific form of scammers at one point). I also don't propose that any of you start actively trading again. That statement was in response to you calling me a "guest" which I personally find a little insulting. You're not talking to some kid who trades craft hats. You are talking to someone who plays a part in facilitating cash transactions (with an impeccable record of doing so I might add). I'm not nearly as active as I used to be, but I still trade and I think most people would tell you that when it comes to trading, I'm one of the good guys. So please, don't call me a guest here. I add real value to this community, I'm a participating member.

I will return to my original hypothesis: the 'rules' (as set up by SR) do nothing - or very little - to keep this community clean. Any significant advancement (e.g. dealing with phishing bots) has been made by Valve, not the community. I won't reiterate any of my arguments, you can read them just a few posts up in a response to Cortana. I will maintain that the arguments I presented are rooted in fact as opposed to untested assumptions. I have yet to hear good counter arguments that prove that the system SR put in place has had a noticeable impact in protecting anyone in this community.

While I don't want to repeat arguments here that I've already made elsewhere, I do want to close by once again clarifying that I am not condoning scamming, sharking or deceitful behaviour of any kind. However, I don't like being told what to do. I consider myself an honest person with good judgement. I don't need to be policed. I get that that's not really relevant anymore as it pertained mostly to the trading with scammers rule, however, what's to stop you from enacting another draconian rule? Sure, you probably won't, having learned from past mistakes, but if past behaviour is any indication.....

I look at SR the exact same way I look at bloated government bodies that try to regulate and impose authority, when they themselves don't know any better than a well informed citizen. It's a bureaucracy imposed on the community that did more harm than good. Yes, I understand that you guys didn't force yourself on the community. But I would posit that SR made a false promise which helped your adoption immensely: SR committed to providing an API with updated and accurate information on dishonest community members that other community sites could use so they wouldn't have to carry the whole burden of administering bans and appeals. But really let's be honest here, it soon became clear that SR utterly failed at this which is evidenced by the massive backlog of reports and appeals that was so pervasive for years. So of course, what SR promised sounded good in principle, but in practice, it didn't work. Having spoken to numerous community admins, I fully understand how much of a hassle it is to investigate fraudulent behaviour. It takes hours, not minutes. So of course all the sites jumped on the opportunity to have this process essentially outsourced. Fact remains though, SR did a very poor job on delivering on that promise.

June 1, 2016

No, I don't advocate judging sharks without proof. I'm the first one to desire protecting the weaker party, which can be in a lot of cases the accused himself. However, think about it for a second-- what if a c9 tipped lid got sharked from some kid with 20 hours on the game for five refined metal worth of items? Big surprise, this happened a while back. I reported it vehemently, but was met with claims some external trades might have taken place-- as if the child knew anything of his item's worth to choose to take $150 for it and five ref in items as sweets. Again, I'm fervently against judging sharks with no evidence, but such evidence is often present in the context, as in what the sharkening consisted of.

So at the end of the day, it seems you are advocating for banning based on the value of the trade. Value is determined by more than just dollars and cents. A brand new player unboxes a ghosts muffs. He gets added by professional trader asking him what he wants for the muffs. He says, I really want a strange machina. He gets a strange machina for it and is really happy. They both leave the trade happy and go along their merry way. Imo, value on the trade is even. Not in dollars and cents, but both members of the party left happy. There was no deception involved when it comes to what each item was worth. They both got what they wanted. Another trader adds the unboxer and tells him he just lost 200 dollars. To me the asshat who adds him and makes him feel bad is the most guilty party here. Back when all this trading started, before bp.tf existed, before spreadsheet existed, people just traded for what they wanted. We're way too focused on monetary value on things, and that's not the most important thing in the world.

I need proof that one user is intentionally lying / deceiving another user. I understand that the victims almost never have that information in such trades, but banning someone based solely on the monetary discrepancy in a trade to me is a no-no. And I don't think that that sort of attitude is good for the community. It drives me crazy when someone comes to the forums asking if they should pay 30 keys pure for a dead prez hat, and people tell them not to buy it just because they won't be able to profit off it or because it will be hard to resell. The guy just wants to buy a hat. Let him be happy. Money isn't everything.

June 1, 2016

What if one can't possibly do that, because they're utterly ignorant of said responsibility in the first place? Do you hold a child accountable for stubbing his toe and tell him to pay the medical bill?

Such a reasoning is, excuse me if offensive, hilarious. Apparently, fooling other people into making you believe their items are worth hundreds more of what they are is being a good salesman? You're mistaking a wolf for a puppy among toads. I've seen a lot of good traders in my trading career, some of which managed to impress me. If deceiving other people is a high standard for you, I don't know why we're currently discussing this-- you seem to entirely disregard the moral aspect of scamming and sharking. I subsequently urge you to act like a psychopath in your everyday life, and entirely ignore the moral and human aspects of what it has to present to you-- should you believe an inhumane course of action is always the most favorable, it'd be very hypocritical of you to maintain a social life where you put yourself in a vulnerable position towards others.

Sometimes, some things matter much, much more than how it affects you, me or Gabe Newell on a personal/financial level. It's about us as a whole community. That's what really matters, because how do you think the next generation of traders will act? Exactly the way those who were before them did.

Being ignorant doesnt mean you hold no responsibility. If you're old enough to own items you have the responsibility to watch over your items, if you get into a unfair trade because of your negligence that's on you. Taking your example if a child who isnt looking and gets injured is is partially responsible for the outcome since his actions is a direct consequence from not looking and they learn from that mistake. You dont "ban" the brick or what ever that was just there.

Again, if you're going to down 300usd+ and havent done any prior research to your purchase and realise later that you grossly overpaid why is that the seller's fault? The seller listed a price, you agreed to the price and you had a happy trade until someone came along and told you that you overpaid. If I got sharked sure ill be pissed but it's ultimately on me because I didnt properly assess where my money was going, I wouldnt be saying that the seller should be banned because of my negligence.

Since you arn't bringing any points nor explaining and just keep calling me immoral maybe you should take a look at my signature :L

June 1, 2016

So at the end of the day, it seems you are advocating for banning based on the value of the trade. Value is determined by more than just dollars and cents. A brand new player unboxes a ghosts muffs. He gets added by professional trader asking him what he wants for the muffs. He says, I really want a strange machina. He gets a strange machina for it and is really happy. They both leave the trade happy and go along their merry way. Imo, value on the trade is even. Not in dollars and cents, but both members of the party left happy. There was no deception involved when it comes to what each item was worth. They both got what they wanted. Another trader adds the unboxer and tells him he just lost 200 dollars. To me the asshat who adds him and makes him feel bad is the most guilty party here. Back when all this trading started, before bp.tf existed, before spreadsheet existed, people just traded for what they wanted. We're way too focused on monetary value on things, and that's not the most important thing in the world.

I couldn't agree more. I think we need to remember that this is a GAME. A game, where you can trade items for other items. All virtual items have zero monetary value.

June 1, 2016

All virtual items have zero monetary value.

When it comes to unusuals and backpacks, there are literally hundreds of people who will buy these items instantly with real cash for 50% off. They really do have monetary value given THIS economy. If they didn't then why would we be so wound up over children gambling with these "zero monetary value" items.

June 1, 2016

I couldn't agree more. I think we need to remember that this is a GAME. A game, where you can trade items for other items. All virtual items have zero monetary value.

They don't have zero value, but rather virtual items have no intrinsic value. A Burning TC isn't actually worth $20,000 in the same sense that a new car is worth $20,000. That is the price someone was willing to pay for any number of reasons, but virtual items aren't like manufactured items where you can clearly derive a fair price, based on production costs, marketing, wages, shipping, patents, etc.

June 1, 2016

When it comes to unusuals and backpacks, there are literally hundreds of people who will buy these items instantly with real cash for 50% off. They really do have monetary value given THIS economy. If they didn't then why would we be so wound up over children gambling with these "zero monetary value" items.

What I'm trying to say, is that items in a game have ZERO intrinsic value... A knife (in real life) has intrinsic value, because it can cut things (food, people, etc). A hat on a game has zero intrinsic value.

They don't have zero value, but rather virtual items have no intrinsic value. A Burning TC isn't actually worth $20,000 in the same sense that a new car is worth $20,000. That is the price someone was willing to pay for any number of reasons, but virtual items aren't like manufactured items where you can clearly derive a fair price, based on production costs, marketing, wages, shipping, patents, etc.

^^^^

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