Backpack.tf AMA (Now) - Ask the moderators anything

[polar]

Dear members of the backpack.tf community, 

 

We are hosting an AMA here and in discord in the AMA channel - https://discord.gg/SFRTPHG

 

Feel free to ask any questions to any mod individually or to the mods in general here. 

 

We would like to use this opportunity to recognize the new mods joining the team - Fish, K1ng, and Marty - as well as some retiring mods - Cleverpun, Mr. Bucket, Aaroncsn, and me.

 

Feel free to post any questions to anyone. The mods will be around to answer as available throughout the day. 

 

Cheers!

 

Polar

[ItsGoingToBeOkay]

Thanks alot for doing the work you do and welcome new mods! 

 

What I would like to know is the process of doing Paypal for buying keys and stuff.

 

I'm starting to trade and I would like my first trade through Paypal to be successful and safe for me and the seller.

[Happysedits]

As one guy pointed out, maybe next time AMA should be hosted here on on reddit, after the AMA ends, most people won't probably want to scroll through all of that, AMAs on reddit are the best imo, example https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Gaben/comments/5olhj4/hi_im_gabe_newell_ama/

[TheWiz]

@polar   Have any favorite memories of your time being staff on bp.tf?

[Carnage]

Thanks alot for doing the work you do and welcome new mods! 

 

What I would like to know is the process of doing Paypal for buying keys and stuff.

 

I'm starting to trade and I would like my first trade through Paypal to be successful and safe for me and the seller.

First, no Paypal trade is 100% safe. Even highly reputable traders have scammed before, reputation merely shows a user's record.

 

This is an old but still pretty decent guide on paypal/cash trading, though I would like to make a few notes.

http://forums.backpack.tf/index.php?/topic/395-guide-to-paypal-trading/

 

I disagree with the stance on using middlemen. In my opinion the fewer people involved the better. Bringing in a third party can get confusing and there is a chance that the middleman is fake. On a lesser note, it's inconvenient and sometimes there is a fee.

 

Take extra care to note the parts about fake middlemen and impersonators, a surprising number of people still get scammed from them, even the ones that are already marked as scammers. Use https://rep.tf/to check for bans the user has and to make sure they really are who they say they are. As stated in guide, make sure to get their Steam ID yourself. I highly recommend that you don't use any middleman that isn't a community or Steamrep admin.

 

I can't stress enough how important it is to take screenshots of the chat that you have with the other user. Screenshot it all and save it without editing anything. Yes, it needs to be a screenshot.That will be the primary piece of evidence if you ever have to make a scam report and it's what most reports lack. You can get every other piece of evidence at anytime, but once the chat is gone, it's gone.

 

Lastly, it's perfectly fine to walk away from trades that you aren't comfortable with. People seem to think that they are losing something if they don't go through with a cash trade that they clearly don't feel safe doing. You aren't.

 

If you/anyone have any questions or need help with cash trading please feel free to PM here on the forums and I'll get to it asap 

[polar]

We're still going strong in discord. Here is my responses to some of the questions raised there. Feel free to keep asking either here or in discord. 

 

 

What I would like to know is the process of doing Paypal for buying keys and stuff.

 

I want to re-iterate what Carnage said about being available to help. I'm not a huge fan of a middleman in trades. However, you can still ask help from outpost or bp.tf admins / mods. We are all here to help. If you want us to help background check someone for you or make sure you aren't getting scammed, PLEASE ask for help. I'm leaving behind a truly awesome group of people here. They are genuinely here to help the community. 

 

I want to add one thing. With it becoming easier to fight chargebacks, one thing I required of strangers was to send an email using their paypal account to my email saying that they would not chargeback. I asked them to do this BEFORE sending any trade offer or trade. Then when they send cash, I verify it's the same email. It's a way for you to go back to paypal support after and prove that the person was hijacked or anything. They were in control of their account when they made the trade. Obviously screenshot chats and inventory history as well if a chargeback happens. 

 

Also want to emphasize how awesome marketplace.tf is for paypal trades. You can always list your item there and have them verify your paypal buyer for you. 10% fee but it takes away the uncertainty since they cover the liability. 

 

@polar   Have any favorite memories of your time being staff on bp.tf?

 

Two things. 

 

(1) Genuinely watching young people grow and mature. I pride myself on carrying myself in a way that young men can learn from. I've been fortunate enough to be here long enough to see several people go from high school to college or middle school to high school to college. And it's really wonderful to see some people with 10+ warning points from 2 years ago turn into really bright and mature adults. 

 

(2) Helping out people who got scammed and even occasionally getting them their items back or even helping out people just starting to trade. Everyone hates a beggar. But when I see someone genuinely trying hard to trade but just not have the capital to get things going, I have always helped them out. One example was where a person sent 1 key worth of crappy items for a taunt. I looked in their backpack and they offered everything they owned for it. I gave them the taunt and an earbuds to get more taunts. I always check people's backpacks when they send item offers. When I see they really made an effort, I'm always generous to people starting out. 

 

Other questions from discord. Other mods have given their answers in there. These are just my responses:

 

Do you guys even still play TF2?

- I don't really have time to play many games. I usually play one game at a time, once a week or once every two weeks. If I do happen to have some extra time on vacation or something, I usually will play TF2 with an old high school friend. 

 

Any changes about unusuals that often vary in price that their in-date period should be lowered?

- Just because a hat is technically "in-date" does not mean it is not outdated. Some hats get outdated in 2 weeks. Even "stable" hats can change based on the market at any given time. Our 4 month rule is not to say that anything inside 4 months is "in-date" but rather to say that everything outside of 4 months is "outdated."

 

Is polar actually quitting and why?

- Yeah, leaving end of the month. Back to last year of med school and residency. Probably won't even have steam installed. 

 

Are you planning to lower the age gate of mod applicants?

- I'll be honest, it's an easy way to turn down applicants who are underage who believe that they are mature enough but we think really aren't. We would make an exception in exceptional cases - people who have been around for 3-4 years AND we perceive as actually mature enough. I think it's in general a good idea to keep the age limit in place and discuss on a case-by-case basis. Most cases will be a "no."

 

People asking for feedback on themselves as mods --

- PM me in the forums for this

 

Do you guys plan on doing another suggesting event?

- A huge success and we'll definitely do one. I may even come back to help out for these. 

 

Favourite type of music?

- My music collection can best be described as an amalgamation. If I had to pick one artist, Avicii - his music can also be described as an amalgamation. 

 

Best person to blind up vote?

- Not that I would condone such a thing, but there have been ~5 people with 100+ unusual suggestions accepted with 100% accuracy... I think 2 became mods. 

 

How many hours each day do you aim for to work on being a price mod?

- I think a good target for price mods is 300 suggestions a month. Should be no more than 5 minutes a suggestion ideally, but definitely not more than 10. You can do the math from there.

 

Favorite hat in-game?

- Samur-eye

 

Will keep adding here

[ksolis01]

Would you collaborate with other websites prominent to the tf2 community to better crack down on fencing and scamming? For instance, make bans on here differentiated. If a ban is for a scammer, fencing etc, there should be a unique tag that is easily readable by bots for other websites to know they should automatically ban this user. Otherwise, a banned user with a different type tag is to not be automatically banned since they did something like be rude. I got a lot more suggestions, but am interested in how open bp tf would be to change.

[Woifi The Viking]

Would you collaborate with other websites prominent to the tf2 community to better crack down on fencing and scamming? For instance, make bans on here differentiated. If a ban is for a scammer, fencing etc, there should be a unique tag that is easily readable by bots for other websites to know they should automatically ban this user. Otherwise, a banned user with a different type tag is to not be automatically banned since they did something like be rude. I got a lot more suggestions, but am interested in how open bp tf would be to change.

Something like that is planned in the future. For now we talked to Ben from Scrap.tf who said we should send more reports his way so he can ban scammers from scrap.tf sooner.

[A Delicious Cashew]

Would you collaborate with other websites prominent to the tf2 community to better crack down on fencing and scamming? For instance, make bans on here differentiated. If a ban is for a scammer, fencing etc, there should be a unique tag that is easily readable by bots for other websites to know they should automatically ban this user. Otherwise, a banned user with a different type tag is to not be automatically banned since they did something like be rude. I got a lot more suggestions, but am interested in how open bp tf would be to change.

Keep in mind that thousands of accounts are already banned on our site. Probably less than 1% are for reasons not related to scamming/fencing. If we were to change our banning system, we'd probably set it up to tell those accounts appeal and get some sort of "non-scammer" ban. Not entirely sure how plausible this would be from a coding standpoint either. A system that could get an obvious scammer banned from multiple sites at the same time would be good in theory, but implementing it would be tough. This is basically what Steamrep was supposed to be. Their backlog and slow appeal process has made it impossible for it to actually happen.

 

We already work with outpost staff, and as Woifi mentioned, are beginning to work more with scrap.tf on banning scammers. 

[TheWiz]

@polar     Have a specific field you are going for as a doctor? (Like family physician, a certain specialist, etc.)

 

 

Is this you polar? 

 

 http://i.imgur.com/DN93oIg.jpg 

 

 

@any staff who feels like answering (not sure if these have been asked already)

 

Favorite food, beverage, and color?

[polar]

@polar     Have a specific field you are going for as a doctor? (Like family physician, a certain specialist, etc.)

 

Internal Medicine residency. If I had to guess, Pulmonary Critical Care fellowship given that that's the area of my PhD thesis I'm finishing up.

[MrDeepDarkmind]

How old is Brad pitt? always wanted to know

[Foamy the Fearsome]

Favorite food, beverage, and color?

Not too sure bout favorite food; I guess something simple, like steak

beverage: Non-alcoholic - Coca Cola. Alcoholic: good old fashion beer.

color: blue

[=TNW= Maximus™]

Is someone going to take an "administrator" position after polar leaves? 

[Teeny Tiny Cat]

Is someone going to take an "administrator" position after polar leaves? 

 

Woifi has moved to an admin role and we'll share those duties as polar and I did.

[Chilled Soda]

@Mods 

 

Do you consider your time as mods to be professional employment, i.e. would you put it on a CV/Resume?

[Teeny Tiny Cat]

Do you consider your time as mods to be professional employment, i.e. would you put it on a CV/Resume?

 

No.

[Happysedits]

Do you enjoy what you do?

[Teeny Tiny Cat]

Do you enjoy what you do?

 

Most of the time. I enjoy helping the community and making the site function better. I don't enjoy arguing with people or banning people. I wish people would behave themselves and learn from warnings more.

[Chilled Soda]

has modding on a site like this helped you with real life situations?

[cleverpun]

has modding on a site like this helped you with real life situations?

I'd say it's more of the opposite: a lot of skills I use in real life helped me in my mod duties. Things like patience, thoroughness, cooperating with others, writing and editing, fact checking.

 

Of course, being a mod helped me practice a lot of skills on a regular basis. I will say I dealt with more belligerent people as a mod than I have in real life, and some of that experience was applicable to real life.

[Happysedits]

If I can ask, how much does it cost to run the main website and forums?