1. There is no such thing as a "pending" ban or Steam admin. Anyone threatening your account is a scammer trying to scare you. Read more.

Why is there no official method to report SteamRep Partners / Friends?

Discussion in 'SteamRep General Discussion' started by BigMac187, Apr 10, 2015.

  1. BigMac187

    BigMac187 New User

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  2. Lava

    Lava Public Relations SteamRep Admin

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    Never said that. Just pointed out you shouldn't re-use your password there as a side note. You shouldn't re-use it anywhere, but especially not between Steam and trade-related websites. What I did say is most sites will have hashed/salted passwords so even admins and server owners can't see what people entered.

    All of the complaints I've seen about Butane relate to his overly strict enforcement of SourceOP rules, rampant banning of users (on their own site), and abrasive personality. Being a nice guy with a charming personality has nothing to do with trust. I spoke about those of us who worked with Butane. Also, if the person you say Butane called a scammer is who I *think* you're talking about, Butane has a good reason for calling him that.

    Putting aside the myth that "only idiots get hijacked", and the resulting negative connotation with admitting you were hijacked instead of publicly chalking it up to an unknown exploit, people get hijacked in a number of ways. One common trend we've seen (and I've personally removed a lot of links to) is an "image" posted on gaming sites that is actually a specialized Steam virus in disguise. It silently sends a trade offer from the victim's own computer, sometimes even with a delay just to obfuscate why it happened.

    First off, as far as I know nobody here ever said anything will 100% prevent hijackings. If they did, they're wrong. That's not how computer security works. That said, Mattie's hijacker had lied to Steam Support and convinced them to lock the real Mattie out of his account, and to give the account to a scammer. It was a well-researched, well-planned move, involving a less-than-stellar customer support service, that has happened to a handful of other high profile community admins over the years and not just Mattie.

    You were banned from TF2OP and SourceOP, presumably for admitting to accidentally trading with a scammer (which IMO was commendable on your part) but I'm not staff at either community. I've seen people banned from both places for worse reasons, but as has been said here multiple times, we don't dictate how our partners ban people. Their website, their rules. Unless they have staff who are scamming, or they are abusing SteamRep tags, we do not consider it abuse.
  3. You Are The One

    You Are The One SteamRep Admin

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    Rob was TP mod/admin before he was TS. Beef was a TS member before I took over the group.
    Only can assume you are referencing tighter TS requirements, they were consistently being updated throughout its existence, probably changed/adjusted after every vote.
    bump, bump, bump, bump... (4,500 posts later)...bump.
    I am not apart of OP nor do I speak for them, best you take that issue up with them. Saying that, they are fully in their right to ban any user for any reason they see fit.
    Last edited: Apr 11, 2015
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  4. BigMac187

    BigMac187 New User

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    I was talking about Scorpion not Rob, but yeah SourceOP was your site so I will assume you would be responsible with who your deeming as a trusted seller and not.

    Also I see you have now banned my IP from your site, due to me speaking out... thanks but i found this on google http://forums.sourceop.com/threads/107055-Flame-Fest there's mention of me calling out your "Trusted Seller" for trying to push the price of buds, from memory your mate Scorpion had a play in there, if you find the thread there should be mention of it.

    And you say you weren't mates with Scorpion but you were happy to sticky his "Operation Scorpion Sting" which was a sting trying to get all the big traders banned for Sharking at the time, which many communities did put forward bans until they looked into how he deceived users and seen the sting for what it was... In that sting I offered a Houwar or scorching bonnet for an orb tyrants, but he continued to say all he wanted was weps for his tyrants, after I had told him values and that he should test the market but he then said all he wanted was weps and didn't care for paypal, I offered the scorching bonnet + the weps but he told me to remove the bonnet, only so he can screenshot the trade window and then put me on his sting list.... a list that you supported.

    Can you see why I feel there should be somewhere to report partners, without even doing much research and with what I know in my head your website has always been sus as f✿✿✿.... but you've always had a boys club to protect you, where the majority of the community sees you as sus, the people who have the control have something to gain so they defend you and get blinded by the community concerns.

    You now banning my IP address just adds to my point, feel free to tell your friends to also ban me.

    So just from my perspective, I can show that:

    1. You have promoted people as trusted sellers, when they are not
    2. You delete reputation without giving reason, I asked for you to provide a reason here and you haven't
    3. You don't give reasons and you don't have an appeals process for these banned people
    4. Your hot headed and won't admit to your mistakes
    5. You don't have an appeals process
    6. You have promoted operations that have set out to rid the community of high profile members
    7. You have locked important threads which could show that sites could be looking at users passwords

    (This is only my list, i'm sure there's other points)

    In the end the community sees you as an outright sus as f✿✿✿ dude and you have a history of being sus as f✿✿✿... but the WatchDog that says who should and shouldn't be trusted as a community has no process to take in community feedback, they are not transparent and they say if you have an issue message Mattie.

    Your website could be harmful for a trader, and users should be able voice these issues in a transparent manner.

    What you and the other partners that have responded here have echo'd here is that if we aren't scamming then it's non of SteamReps business. I am saying it should be as they lend their trusted seal of approval to you, and if your website is shown to be abusing its power... points 1. 2. 3. 5. 6. 7. then the watchdog should be made away of it and should look over if they want continue supporting you, if the community keeps voicing it's concerns but SteamRep keeps pushing the community away then it shows that the "Partners" have become to involved with the Core group... which in turn shows the conflict of interest.
    Roudydogg1 likes this.
  5. You Are The One

    You Are The One SteamRep Admin

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    You should lurk reddit more, its all there.
    Since its clear to me on this point you dont know what you are talking about, and with who did what, and when with who: http://forums.steamrep.com/threads/...rep-partners-friends.97426/page-2#post-268645
    Your gripes made it painfully clear you were actively lurking SOP, take a hint of what a ban means, not welcome.
    Boo-Hoo!
    1) Not my website 2) No member who follows the rules has to worry about being banned. Most unban requests on SOP are granted.
    Go ask the other communities if they want to start modding each others behaviors as already mentioned. See how well they will take to that suggestion yourself.
    I dont think you understand what "abuse of power" is. SOP is a privately run site and does as it pleases. Members mush follow posted rules. We have internal rules. Even I am bound by specific rules for which I must answer for, but that person is not you. If, for say, tomorrow the owner wants the site to be a MLP fan site, then so be it.
    SR is moving away from managing direct reports/appeals and focusing on prevention. The "change to investigation policy" thread is an example of cretin tagings that are comm based/specific that SR does not handle anymore, but comms can and do. In addition, "SCA" access is being greatly expanded and improved. This is in contradiction to your above assumption, this gives "the power" back to the individual communities.
    Last edited: Apr 11, 2015
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  6. BigMac187

    BigMac187 New User

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    That's my issue, you do as you please... there should be conditions set by SteamRep which should be followed to have this badge of trust. There is no denying that you delete rep threads without giving reason and this should not be something that SteamRep should endorse.

    SteamRep should have a means for community members to highlight issues with their partners, fact is they don't have a transparent means, from my discussions today for me or others to highlight issues I need to speak to a member over chat or I need to post in the general board where the community I am highlighting issues about are responding and as part of an official group (you longer official but others are) and have them weigh up in discussions, they should be excluded from discussion and for the sake of transparency and no conflict of interest should not be a part of the watch dog group.
  7. Horse

    Horse Administrator SteamRep Admin

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    There are certain things Partners follow to be a part of SteamRep's core but there are many many others that a community does that is in no way shape or form that SR can dictate such as who we allow to use our services. I own WickedAfterlife so I have the right to remove, block anyone I see fit for any reason. I can remove threads on our forums they make without telling that person or whatever. It is then up to that person if they wish to remain or can remain and must find another place to hang out.

    If you wish to make or highlight issues with a partner community then do it, we all have channels within to do that but if you are completely blocked then ohh well you are sh1t out of luck cause coming to SR about it won't help you. I really don't know why this is so hard to understand... I've explained it in a few ways as have the others to the point I think people are getting frustrated and just don't care to reply to you anymore.

    So for that I'm also done with this thread and say good luck to you!
    You Are The One likes this.
  8. BigMac187

    BigMac187 New User

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    You don't seem to understand what I am saying. My main concern is that there is no official channel to report partner issues.. as I highlighted earlier, you can start banning people for being gay... if this was to happen then I should be entitled to report this to the community that is acting as a watch dog, and that the watchdog should want to know about this in a transparent manner.

    I feel that partners should be questioned into why they are removing rep threads.. if a partner was known to remove rep threads before being a partner I think this will be a question SteamRep would have asked and looked to resolve before granting partner access. I don't see why it's ok that once they have the partner status they are then free to do what they want.

    Partners replying here who are reply here who are either official steamrep admins or not is simply a conflict of issue and should not be replying. I am questioning SteamRep policies about why there isn't an official channel to highlight partner issues... deleting rep threads is 1 example but my concern is more to do in a general sense that the community should have a medium for users to report and highlight issues against partners.
  9. Thomas Matthias

    Thomas Matthias Retired Staff

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    One question: Can't you understand that the way admins manage their communities' non-fraud issues is not something that SteamRep supervises?
    WarNev3rChanges likes this.
  10. SilentReaper(SR)

    SilentReaper(SR) Retired Staff

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    This is going nowhere, everything is dragged in just to keep on arguing so far.

    Lava made an excellent post on page 2. Reiterated:

    SteamRep's role is fraud prevention. Communities choose to join us in the effort against it, and help us out. This means that we settle rules on:
    - Reports, the evidence required, what constitutes scamming etc.
    - Appeals, them being researched by a different admin.
    - Which communities we friend with is simply: anybody who wants and is anti-fraud, and actively fights them, by banning them or w/e setup/means they have. Largely differentiates.
    - Which communities we partner with is a little bit more strict, following our guidelines for reports and such on scammers.
    - Admins of prospective friend/partner communities should not have scammer/caution tags.
    - Admins of partner/friend communities should not be abusing in actual trading themselves. (not scamming, sharking, fencing, dealing with scammers, etc etc).

    Nowhere will SR ever set rules anything outside that. Any community can run theirs however they see fit, with whatever rules they want. The friend/partner part pertains only the reputation of their users and a very small part of their rules regarding caution/bans on steamrep. Whatever the Owners/admins/middleman/mods or w/e rang they have on their site that has access to any moderation tool says, are the rules, to whatever scope they want. There have been admins on some communities that have banned ALL owners/admins/mods of other communities, or for simply not liking the nickname or avatar, or w/e was posted. Hell, some SR Partner/friend communities even have banned SR admins. For example Daemon was banned from TF2-Trader back when they still where partner. No idea if that ban still is there, but I know more SR Admins where banned around. It doesn't happen much fortunately, but it does happen.

    If you disagree on how a community is run, the only way is "up", meaning: if banned/dispute with a mod, go to a admin, if banned/dispute with a admin, go to a head admin, if with a head admin, go to the owner(s). Just don't expect to be heard much. For a good owner or higher ranked admin of a site will rather choose for their admins side. Sure, maybe some talks will be held behind the scenes after, and maybe some changes will be made, but I would not expect much change for your particular cases. Admins are normally well informed on what they should ban for anyways on their site.

    Personally, I've always seen this as the only way to cooperate between communities for a single goal: promote fraud prevention on steam traders. Also, if a community/site or w/e is very badly behaved/moderated, they will eventually get abandoned by its users. They do this by removing bad behaving users, which makes their site a better place. If they ban overzealous, they will end up banning their "key" users that attract a lot of other users to use their site, the community will die out then.

    Now, final baseline issue asked: Reporting a owner/admin/mod/whoever of whatever site, INCLUDING SR Admins etc.
    Same as any, make a normal report. Any admin that gets a report is a priority report for SR to handle anyways, and will be automatically flagged for such.
    99% of those are impersonation reports.

    Rules on reports on a admin are:
    - Reported admin may reply, disproving the report for example by showing for example inventory history screenshots, or w/e argument (s)he can make.
    - The reported admin is not allowed to moderate / edit the thread in any way.
    - A different admin that is not direct friends with reported admin will have to handle the report to prevent conflict of interest.
    - If a admin from one (partner) community has a report on a admin from a different (partner) community they will have to handle that here via SR.

    These reports do happen, and if there was any merit, SR admins will always discuss them internally who's going to handle them, and most will keep an eye on it.

    Example:
    Noobinator, a now retired SR admin but back then a SR Admin, was hijacked about a year ago. The hijacker abused his account to start scamming around, abusing the reputation status as admin. His was banned within 25 minutes on SR. We do take these issues very seriously.
    Roudydogg1 likes this.
  11. BigMac187

    BigMac187 New User

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    I can, but I think that if your an organization with a trusty seal of approval and are acting as a watchdog then you should watch and have protocols that look into issues with your partners.

    Like I've mentioned before, if one of the partners started banning for people for being gay don't you think that SteamRep should look into these practices... by the replies from the partners here it sounds like a no. What I am saying is that clear channels should be open.
    Roudydogg1 likes this.
  12. BigMac187

    BigMac187 New User

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    You are all diverting from the point.

    SilentReaper If you can answer a couple questions it will be appreciated.

    If SteamRep was looking at giving someone partner status but then found out that this community has been deleting reputation threads, will you question this practice?
    If SourceOP starting banning gay users are you under the same thinking as the partners that there is nothing you can do and that community is free to ban who they want?
  13. BigMac187

    BigMac187 New User

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    Thought I'll mention that I am getting messages from users on my Steam Account saying how they agree with me but it's clear that your systems in place and the we will ban who ever we want mentality has the community fearful of speaking out in fears they will receive bans.t
  14. SilentReaper(SR)

    SilentReaper(SR) Retired Staff

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    We aren't the keeper for those communities, SourceOP or whichever you choose out there. I know that some communities have hidden reputation threads, on various reasons, mostly for being a scammer or questions on the reputation responses left on them. I've never heard of any community deleting them for other then trading issues.

    If SourceOP started banning gay/lesbian or w/e, thats up to them. I really don't think they do such, quite in contrary even, but if they want to, its fine by me. Their site, their rules. If SR goes demanding certain rules to be changed, or added, or removed by them to be partner/friends, the partner/friends system we use is not OPEN anymore.

    You can have a reputation thread on any site you like. Sure, I'm aware that SourceOP is "the" place for a reputation thread. And I'm also aware that their admins are having the reputation of being "horrible". But so far, this ultimately led TO this: their admins are the most active on SourceOP, doing a lot more on the reputation threads on verifying, banning for fakerep, etc then most other sites. This makes therefore that having a rep thread there is better, for reputation there is of higher value. The more reason to follow their rules on using their site, for apparently, they actually enforce them.
    Roudydogg1 likes this.
  15. BigMac187

    BigMac187 New User

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    That was unexpected, so in summery it's fine by you if TF2Outpost started banning people for being gay, black or whatever. That really isn't how a watchdog should be operating, if a watchdog started seeing their partners singling out a group of people they should step in and say either get your s✿✿✿ together and stop being homophobic / racist or we are not going to want to associate with you.

    Regarding my other unanswered question, if a potential partner had a history of deleting rep threads would you have still considered them?
  16. SilentReaper(SR)

    SilentReaper(SR) Retired Staff

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    SR is NOT a community "watchdog". SR is NOT about "policing" all the different communities. SR is NOT about "whatever offends you" rights. It is a online fraud prevention system to warn online traders for FRAUD.

    If a community was all about racism, gender identification/preference issues, jihad or w/e you can come up with, they soon would not be a community anymore, for their steamgroups will get locked by Steam Support / Valve in no time anyways. Stop seeing us as the "one-stop-shop" for ALL your issues on communities.

    Yes, if they where, this would probably be a issue for being considered for friends/partner. But by the time they get to us for this, their steam groups etc would have long banned by steam support for such anyways.

    Stop making up issues that aren't there.

    As for deleting reputation threads, if we would be aware of such, and that's in small part why friend/partner application threads take so long so people can speak up on the threads, we would question them about it. Every community is looked at anyways, and being evaluated, researched a bit what they do etc. Things would come up, and have come up, and we ask them about it, either via the thread, or via steam chats etc.
  17. BigMac187

    BigMac187 New User

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    I am presenting scenarios, scenarios that highlight that once you have given your trusted seal of approval you don't review their actions. You have said that if this was an issue before you partnered up then it is an issue of considerations, if it was to happen afterwards it should still be an issue. Saying in bold letters that they steam groups ect will be banned by Steam is just offloading the responsibility, it's your responsibly to ensure they are acting in the good of the community as they were before you gave them your stamp of approval. Also steam could ban their steam groups but they can't shut down their websites where your seal of approval sits and you are showing support.

    Yes this is a hypothetical and an example but your responses show just how mismanaged your system is.
  18. Captain Unicorn Smiles

    Captain Unicorn Smiles r/dota2trade moderator Partner Community

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    Yeah, these Strawman arguments are kind of silly. If we posted discriminatory rules on reddit, we'd be locked up in no time.
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  19. BigMac187

    BigMac187 New User

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    But if you weren't SteamRep will still support you.
  20. Thomas Matthias

    Thomas Matthias Retired Staff

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    thorax said:
    http://www.reddit.com/r/tf2/comments/326b9c/steamrep_has_no_official_method_on_reporting/cq8hklg
    2015-04-11_17-48-22.png
    --
    @BigMac187
    You really love Reddit, don't you?
    http://www.reddit.com/r/tf2/comments/328lpe/steamrep_the_tf2_community_watchdog_will_be_ok_if/
    Roudydogg1 likes this.