Toad Posted February 24, 2021 Share Posted February 24, 2021 tldr: Boosting bot buy orders (you create a listing much higher than a bot and they overcut you) isn't against the rules as long as you honor your listing price. Not sure if I should post this in the sticky thread or make a post here. I wanted to inform the backpack.tf community about this and also thank the mods for handling of the situation. It's rare, in my opinion, to see mods of any community to do the right thing. Personally, in the TF2 community alone, I've been targeted by mods across various communities (you can see it on my Steamrep even!). It's nice to see backpack.tf mods make a sound decision and changing the buy order manipulation rule - it was fairly redundant as we already have similar rules like having to accept your buy/sell orders anyway. Myself and many others who I talked to were worried because we have seen the backpack.tf community as a whole seemingly embrace bots even when it hinders human users - I've made several rant threads on the forums about this. And while unfortunately, in my opinion, bots are still given too much free reign and favored on this site, it's refreshing to see some progress. Good fucking job, mods/admins. I criticize you guys a lot but this time, I feel like reason prevailed. The News: Recently, new bot makers have come online and have been overcutting buy and sell orders without any regard. This meant that if you placed a buy order for a dread knots hat for 100 keys, you'd be instantly countered by several of these buys who would put their order at 100 keys + more. This led to several users taking advantage of these "buggy" bots and thus also led to many reports https://backpack.tf/issues?category_id=5ada0857cf6c756932099985 Reasoning from bot owners was that users were manipulating their buy orders and that there is a rule against buy order manipulation. However, the rule also stated that if someone was inflating their buy orders to "manipulate"/boost the bot buy orders, they have to also accept the buy orders at their price. This means if you set a buy order for 100 keys for that dread knot and someone sends you an offer, you have to accept. As you notice in the link above, the rule was just changed the other day and most of the reports were rejected because the accused accepted offers for their buy orders and/or the mods decided that this rule favored bot owners too much and trashed it. Another reason was that there was already a similar rule in place anyway: you have to accept buy orders at your listed price which more or less negated the rule. Thoughts? (If you see any mistakes in my recap, let me know) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hyro Posted February 24, 2021 Share Posted February 24, 2021 30 minutes ago, Toad said: bots are still given too much free reign and favored on this site I am confused, from what you written here you seem to be on a never ending crusade to get rid of bots going as far as "manipulating" bots buy orders and publicly announcing it on bots owners profiles lol. I honestly don't understand why tho. Bots are hella useful to sell your unusuals instantly if you need pure. Obviously your report was rejected so I am not looking to re-open it by an accident, I am just curious why do you think that way Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toad Posted February 24, 2021 Author Share Posted February 24, 2021 6 minutes ago, hyro said: I am confused, from what you written here you seem to be on a never ending crusade to get rid of bots going as far as "manipulating" bots buy orders and publicly announcing it on bots owners profiles lol. I honestly don't understand why tho. Bots are hella useful to sell your unusuals instantly if you need pure. Obviously your report was rejected so I am not looking to re-open it by an accident, I am just curious why do you think that way I have a suggestion thread on here somewhere: I believe bot orders should be limited in someway. Currently, I believe they have too much power over the economy and trading. I've been trading for 8+ years now and have seen the transition from human trading to bot trading and I believe the negatives outweigh the positives. I'd elaborate more but I'm at work and there's a thread here I made about it somewhere... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Snailiad Posted February 24, 2021 Share Posted February 24, 2021 so essentially this means that if someone (crappily) programmed a bot which endlessly overcuts, and someone takes advantage of the bot basically buying their hat for full pure after it overcut excessively, they can't pull a "fuck go back" and everyone including the mods will laugh at them? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brom127 Posted February 24, 2021 Share Posted February 24, 2021 Its a good thing they changed that since accusing someone of buy order manipulation is really vague. Besides, if a bot is susceptible to manipulation than thats mostly an issue with the bots pricing and should be fixed by the bot owner, not the mods. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beaser Posted February 24, 2021 Share Posted February 24, 2021 Did you know that bots are programmed to overcut each other? Shocking isn't it! Now don't get me wrong I did complain about overcutting and how bots should have a buy order limiter, where they set the max price for an item and wont deal with overcutters overhyping the item, but they have to take to effect that they will get less trades, to which in every bot owner's mindset would rather have more buys because more profit. Reason why bots were created in the first place is because peer to peer trading is slow, boring, and dealing with other people is a pain. People realized that creating bots is a way to maximize the amount of profit while leaving the least amount of effort. Just leave the bot to deal with humans. If you want to experience peer to peer trading, id recommend getting the fuck out of TF2 trading and moving into CSGO, where you would have to deal with 12 year old kids from China or Yugoslavia telling you that they are not receiving enough overpay for their $5 skin Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tN M Posted February 24, 2021 Share Posted February 24, 2021 I was banned a few days ago for "Buy order manipulation", just as soon as I would put up a B/O a bot would overcut so i started to list my B/O's at 5-10 keys more and put a note in that I would always beat the bots only to get reported for it and banned. I have never backed out of a B/O and couldn't get through to the mods that I was prepared to pay the price, that's why I listed it in the first place. A few days later I was told that bp don't ban for this anymore only to have the mod unban me and another perma ban me again for my Daughter logging in during on her account during the ban. "Ban Evasion" 3 accounts at my house (Me and my 2 x kids) but anyway I couldn't agree more that this rule was total garbage, and how many people have been banned for this shit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toad Posted February 25, 2021 Author Share Posted February 25, 2021 5 hours ago, tN M said: I was banned a few days ago for "Buy order manipulation", just as soon as I would put up a B/O a bot would overcut so i started to list my B/O's at 5-10 keys more and put a note in that I would always beat the bots only to get reported for it and banned. I have never backed out of a B/O and couldn't get through to the mods that I was prepared to pay the price, that's why I listed it in the first place. A few days later I was told that bp don't ban for this anymore only to have the mod unban me and another perma ban me again for my Daughter logging in during on her account during the ban. "Ban Evasion" 3 accounts at my house (Me and my 2 x kids) but anyway I couldn't agree more that this rule was total garbage, and how many people have been banned for this shit. Did you appeal with proof and everything? If what you said is true, surely there's something that can be done. Seems weird that you would even get a ban invasion ban since the rule is scraped now. I also looked at your report (skimmed it mostly), and it didn't meet the criteria for you breaking the rules - you didn't decline any incoming trade offers. Maybe I'm wrong here and missed something. https://backpack.tf/issue/5ffef59ff55fdf76d8405f53 Can you keep me updated? Really curious about this one. Edit: After looking at it more, yeah, it looks like something is amiss here, I don't see evidence of you declining or having clear intent to not honor your orders @OverduePixels What gives? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tN M Posted February 25, 2021 Share Posted February 25, 2021 I did appeal twice and was told that the other account is my ALT I advised them that my main account (this one), My daughter has one also associated with this phone number. I went as far as even giving them my sons account (different ph number) and they banned that also as being an ALT. (He is appealing his ban now) As far as using "ban evasion" for something i shouldn't have been banned for, My daughter logged in to bp.tf 3 times during my ban and i was showing her the trading side. Made no buy orders etc. Anyway i apologize for hijacking your thread just mad at the whole situation and for being labelled a "Price manipulator" and "Ban evading" for what? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toad Posted February 25, 2021 Author Share Posted February 25, 2021 2 minutes ago, tN M said: I did appeal twice and was told that the other account is my ALT I advised them that my main account (this one), My daughter has one also associated with this phone number. I went as far as even giving them my sons account (different ph number) and they banned that also as being an ALT. (He is appealing his ban now) As far as using "ban evasion" for something i shouldn't have been banned for, My daughter logged in to bp.tf 3 times during my ban and i was showing her the trading side. Made no buy orders etc. Anyway i apologize for hijacking your thread just mad at the whole situation and for being labelled a "Price manipulator" and "Ban evading" for what? It's fine, it's more or less on topic and I personally have a vendetta against wrongful bans because I have experienced them - look at my Steamrep for example. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tN M Posted February 25, 2021 Share Posted February 25, 2021 3 hours ago, Toad said: It's fine, it's more or less on topic and I personally have a vendetta against wrongful bans because I have experienced them - look at my Steamrep for example. I see and now know how quickly it can all go downhill. My son just got his appeal rejected saying "all accounts associated with my account have been banned" even though the 2 are totally separate and he never really trades, let alone trades with me. Trying to get anything across to the mod is like talking to a brick. so i guess i will stay permanently banned for something BP don't ban for and using an alt account(which it is not) to bypass a ban i shouldn't have had in the first place. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strange Posted February 25, 2021 Share Posted February 25, 2021 8 hours ago, Toad said: It's fine, it's more or less on topic and I personally have a vendetta against wrongful bans because I have experienced them - look at my Steamrep for example. tbh I've never understood why you have a Caution tag anyways Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toad Posted February 25, 2021 Author Share Posted February 25, 2021 41 minutes ago, Strange said: tbh I've never understood why you have a Caution tag anyways tldr; Sold $100 worth of items to someone via paypal. They took back the money and kept my items. I made a report on Steamrep but I was tagged for it because I "didn't include the extra ref I "promised"" even though there's evidence otherwise. Mod in charge straight up told me "never in a million years will I ever remove your tag." Some people just hate me in this community. Nonetheless, what I'm getting at is that mods can make mistakes and we should address the mistakes when we see them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brown Posted February 25, 2021 Share Posted February 25, 2021 21 minutes ago, Toad said: tldr; Sold $100 worth of items to someone via paypal. They took back the money and kept my items. I made a report on Steamrep but I was tagged for it because I "didn't include the extra ref I "promised"" even though there's evidence otherwise. Mod in charge straight up told me "never in a million years will I ever remove your tag." Some people just hate me in this community. Nonetheless, what I'm getting at is that mods can make mistakes and we should address the mistakes when we see them. So many things wrong with how it was handled initially, the appeals and everything, from what I'm reading. Misconstruing of the situation to the point where, if I'm not wrong in saying, you gave all benefit of the doubt and negotiated a do-over with the scammer, having to pay him $20 after it was said and done? And he got away with a caution mark? I must be missing details of the trade, things like what exactly was said in your SOP post, who went first in the trade- but he placed liability on his brother before placing it on you, and his report was handled just the same. A scammer decides nevermind on a scam and gets a slap on the wrist and $20, and you get marked with no honest chance at appealing. What a situation Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ajdislikesyournamingpolicy Posted February 25, 2021 Share Posted February 25, 2021 10 hours ago, tN M said: just mad at the whole situation and for being labelled a "Price manipulator" and "Ban evading" for what? Just because the rules change does not mean one bit that you aren't a price manipulator To stay on topic still, I have mixed feelings about this rule change since I had 4 pending reports on users that collaborated together to "boost" buy order prices and faced 0 punishment for that at all. At the end of the day it comes down to whether they accept their own boosted buy order, and since this rule is in place, people will just accept their boosted buy order, continue to boost, then redump asap to regain their "invested pure" from their own boosted buy orders. Edit: This is similar to why the new term of "unbalanced trades" was introduced since people knew enough about the rules of sharking to word their interactions with unboxers very carefully so to not come across as manipulative. This is why there are several people banned for unbalanced trades in recent times rather than sharking when they are very similar with a minute difference of "lying about your item values" as an example. If this continues, then what, you have a ban on users for "pumping and dumping"? I own a bot and have safety measures put in place and use a lot of time checking my manual buy orders and making sure that the markets I bot aren't being forced up by a third party. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toad Posted February 25, 2021 Author Share Posted February 25, 2021 45 minutes ago, ajdislikesyournamingpolicy said: Just because the rules change does not mean one bit that you aren't a price manipulator To stay on topic still, I have mixed feelings about this rule change since I had 4 pending reports on users that collaborated together to "boost" buy order prices and faced 0 punishment for that at all. At the end of the day it comes down to whether they accept their own boosted buy order, and since this rule is in place, people will just accept their boosted buy order, continue to boost, then redump asap to regain their "invested pure" from their own boosted buy orders. The situation didn't change, the rule is more or less the same as before but they shortened it as their other rules already covered it, making it redundant. The reports against the user we are talking about did not meet the criteria of the rule before nor do they meet the criteria now. As for your reports, same situation, it did not meet the criteria. There was no evidence they declined or had intent to not honor their buy orders. Didn't you mention in your reports that they actually honored their buy orders? Even if I'm mistaken on that point, it still didn't meet the criteria. Seems to me like the price of the hat spiked, nothing more. At this point, I don't mean to sound like an ass, but are you even reading the rules you are reporting people for? Quote At the end of the day it comes down to whether they accept their own boosted buy order, and since this rule is in place, people will just accept their boosted buy order, continue to boost, then redump asap to regain their "invested pure" from their own boosted buy orders. As it always has. Quote If this continues, then what, you have a ban on users for "pumping and dumping"? I don't see anything wrong with this as the root cause of the inflated price (or "pumping") is a direct result of shitty programmed bots. Normal users shouldn't be punished for that. If I decide to buy dread knots for 100 keys and honor that price, I shouldn't be punished because your bot decided to auto-overcut me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zeus_Junior Posted February 25, 2021 Share Posted February 25, 2021 14 hours ago, Toad said: Seems weird that you would even get a ban invasion ban since the rule is scraped now. Evasion is a fuck you to our rules, doesn't matter if the rule broken is later changed. 14 hours ago, tN M said: As far as using "ban evasion" for something i shouldn't have been banned for, My daughter logged in to bp.tf 3 times during my ban and i was showing her the trading side. Made no buy orders etc. 10 hours ago, tN M said: I see and now know how quickly it can all go downhill. My son just got his appeal rejected saying "all accounts associated with my account have been banned" even though the 2 are totally separate and he never really trades, let alone trades with me. You have to understand it is impossible for us to verify if theres a different person from that household or if its the same person. We also can't know if you use or don't use your daughters account Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Strange Posted February 25, 2021 Share Posted February 25, 2021 5 hours ago, Toad said: tldr; Sold $100 worth of items to someone via paypal. They took back the money and kept my items. I made a report on Steamrep but I was tagged for it because I "didn't include the extra ref I "promised"" even though there's evidence otherwise. Mod in charge straight up told me "never in a million years will I ever remove your tag." Some people just hate me in this community. Nonetheless, what I'm getting at is that mods can make mistakes and we should address the mistakes when we see them. I don't hate you bro Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toad Posted February 25, 2021 Author Share Posted February 25, 2021 8 hours ago, Zeus_Junior said: Evasion is a fuck you to our rules, doesn't matter if the rule broken is later changed. I agree, to a point. In this instance, I don't believe the user in question broke any rules. To ban someone who was maybe ban evading a wrongful ban where not only was the rule scraped because it was unfair for certain users, you also likely banned most other people in his household... All of that feels wrong. Quote You have to understand it is impossible for us to verify if theres a different person from that household or if its the same person. We also can't know if you use or don't use your daughters account Erring on the side of caution may be causing you to ban more innocent people than guilty. It seems more reasonable to judge on a case by case basis wherein criteria is based on their account progress, achievements, games, etc., instead of throwing out blanket bans. While this may be more work, I don't believe there's of shortage of decent people applying to mod status. Sure, some scummy people may get through by just buying an account, but I think it may be worth it. Thinking about this further: what if you get a roommate, have a kid or family move in and they happen to be banned from this site or another TF2 site? What if you're at a hotel and sharing Wi-Fi? Airbnb? Traveling? You're gone. That's just... fucking scary. This isn't a one-off thing either - who doesn't have Steam and TF2 downloaded? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zeus904 Posted February 25, 2021 Share Posted February 25, 2021 1 hour ago, Toad said: Thinking about this further: what if you get a roommate, have a kid or family move in and they happen to be banned from this site or another TF2 site? What if you're at a hotel and sharing Wi-Fi? Airbnb? Traveling? You're gone. That's just... fucking scary. This isn't a one-off thing either - who doesn't have Steam and TF2 downloaded? This is the perfect example tbh. Imagine you're on vacation and you go to check anything on bp using hotel wifi on your phone. You could simply get unlucky and get slapped with a wrongful ban trashing not only your ability to further trade but your reputation too. Seems like a pretty flawed way of doing things Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tN M Posted February 25, 2021 Share Posted February 25, 2021 3 hours ago, Zeus_Junior said: You have to understand it is impossible for us to verify if theres a different person from that household or if its the same person. We also can't know if you use or don't use your daughters account I understand that you can't tell but to be permanently banned because you can't tell seems wrong to me. My sons account was instantly banned as my ALT, even though he has his own phone authentication, unlike my daughter which shares mine due to her age at the time of registering in steam. He has tried to talk to the mod but has been ignored and the comment was "any and all accounts "associated" with the main one are banned and will remain so" You just have to check the playtime on my sons and my accounts to see we have played TF2 together daily for the past 5 years or more. I have never tried to hide anything and told the mod this from the very first appeal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toad Posted March 4, 2021 Author Share Posted March 4, 2021 bump, would like an answer on this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Excentric Posted March 4, 2021 Share Posted March 4, 2021 Uhhh, then why aren't bots having buy order wars with eachother against the rules? Isn't this the exact same thing? You'll get a julia bot go 2 keys up, qs store 0.1 up, and keep going until it gets unprofitable, which doesn't matter much for bots becuase they only need like 1 key profit. They also sometimes just decline the trade, and that's perfectly fine. Imagine if I cancelled an offer I got for my buy order lmao. Toad is a big time buyer, and I don't think that bots should be able to do this consistently and repeatedly, destroying normal user buy orders, unless they go absurdly high for a 1 of 1 high tier or something or other. I think the rule itself is fine, but the circle jerking of bots kind of sucks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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