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.

Have you guys thought about scrapping all your scam reports?

Discussion in 'Discussion Archive' started by blind polar bear, Dec 14, 2015.

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  1. blind polar bear

    blind polar bear Former Backpack.tf admin

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    You guys have been doing this already, but personally I think you would be better suited to being educators and leaders in the fight against scams and working with trading communities in a consulting type role.

    Over the last few years, it has just become increasingly apparent that you guys just don't have the resources to handle scam reports. And it's just going to get worse. So why bother taking reports at all? The only thing 2-3 year old reports and ban appeals does is draw the ire of the community to people they accuse of being biased, corrupt, negligent, lazy, or whatever other less savory, negative term they have to say about you. Why not delegate all reports to the trading communities directly? I've seen too many appeals in my time as a bp.tf admin regarding people marked on SR (not a partner community) falsely for being an alt or someone who repaid the victim in full after a misunderstanding but their appeal still sits many months later.

    You have experienced but limited staff, so why not make the most of what you DO have? Now whenever you post an AMA or some sort of information session, the first thing that comes up is why you are wasting your time with these things when you have outstanding reports. Maybe people will be more likely to listen to what you have to say if you didn't have all these outstanding reports and appeals?

    I think you should scrap all your outstanding reports and future reports. Have all your staff focus on outstanding appeals. And once that's done, work as educators and consultants with other communities. FoG, outpost, etc deal with complex trade agreement scams all the time. If there were delegated SR admins to help them out with the tougher reports, I'm sure they would greatly appreciate it. That way you are making the most of the resources you have and you won't have the entire community on your back about what is an impossible task.
    You are the bully and Rosalina like this.
  2. a Gentleman

    a Gentleman SteamRep Moderator Partner Community Donator - Tier V

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    You'll be seeing new policies and changes implemented throughout the next year that will involve Partner Communities.
    Can't say more about it, but maybe one of the admins can opt to reply and disclose more.

    Edit: As you and I were typing these up, @Penguin The Fluffy moved through and evaluated several pending community applications. Hopefully what we roll out in a few months will satisfy parts of your question.
  3. blind polar bear

    blind polar bear Former Backpack.tf admin

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    Thanks for that. I'm sorry if you feel like you're constantly treading on ice. At least that's how it seems XD. If you guys have plans to make the community a better place, I don't see why an admin would get mad at you for being open about it. But given how you were treated recently, I can't really blame you.
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  4. a Gentleman

    a Gentleman SteamRep Moderator Partner Community Donator - Tier V

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    Hopefully not treading on any kind of ice - just trying to balance replying to your question with what I can and can't disclose! :)

    Hope I helped.
  5. Horse

    Horse Administrator SteamRep Admin

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    Trashing all the reports that you feel we can't get to won't happen. We are putting a nice dent in them everyday but just saying we should push them off to partners won't happen either. No partner that I know of has the resources to do that, I speak for one of them being WA...I just can't do it no way no how! You gotta remember too that most of those older reports are so old that most of the accused users don't even use Steam anymore let alone remain active in trading or scamming. So we normally try to target those happening NOW or recent that are still active ahead of others. Education is certainly a thing, lots of changes coming as what Gentleman stated so stay tuned and watch for information in those regards.
    Mattie! and a Gentleman like this.
  6. blind polar bear

    blind polar bear Former Backpack.tf admin

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    I mean just scrapping them entirely. Don't give all the ones piled up to anyone. Start fresh.
  7. Horse

    Horse Administrator SteamRep Admin

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    That wouldn't be optional... that would be like shutting down a court house and just saying - "ok everyone on your merry way". I don't believe you've thought this question thru very well. The older ones have "Pending Reports" on them.. that is a starter way to Educate people to check the other person out and use their own judgement. Slow the hell down when trading is my biggest and best advice. People trade way too fast to get a good deal or whatever...Last time I got a TV (typical cost of most unusuals now) it took me hours to finalize the deal.
    Roudydogg1 likes this.
  8. blind polar bear

    blind polar bear Former Backpack.tf admin

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    I've thought about this for month :p. Let me ask you this. Are you clearing reports faster than you're getting them now? You alluded to earlier that you are making a dent in the backlog. Does that mean that total report counts are dropping? If they are actually dropping at a significant rate and your staff is able to keep cutting that down, then forget everything I've said above.

    But with CS:GO added to your plate, I imagined the rate of scam reports far exceeds the rate of clearing them + clearing the appeals.

    And regarding your analogy of a court house. It's all fine and great if you are banning people and giving them an appropriate appeals process. But if you ban some wrongly and their appeal sits for 2 years, your court house would have been shut down years ago. I'm just trying to give a practical solution to your problems. To me it's simply impractical to keep piling on more reports and appeals that just sit there. If it's a defunct court, it should be gone.
  9. Horse

    Horse Administrator SteamRep Admin

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    I can't really say numbers I don't see the numbers, I just see what we've been going thru. We are doing pretty good I think for what we have coming in for who we have working on them. Gotta keep a little faith in those that give their free time up for this sorta stuff, its not easy. :)
  10. blind polar bear

    blind polar bear Former Backpack.tf admin

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    I know, haha. I handle most user reports on bp.tf. It's a ton of work. I'm just trying to give you guys a break. I think your time and expertise would be much better spent on the really tough reports that other communities come across than to spread yourself out thin on every single report that comes your way. It's way too easy to burn out, and in many ways it's a thankless job.
    Roudydogg1 likes this.
  11. Horse

    Horse Administrator SteamRep Admin

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    I'll tell ya that I would wager that 40% of the reports we have now in that so called Backlog are bogus and not even covered for what we investigate. I've seen reports with just a screen shot of sponge bob and all ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ's for a description before.. so yeah I wouldn't concern yourself with that backlog.
  12. blind polar bear

    blind polar bear Former Backpack.tf admin

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    Seeeee, that's exactly my point. Someone suggested that we add a Pending Reports tag on user's bp.tf profile the way rep.tf has it now. And I was like, there are way too many bogus ones for that to be fair AND it takes way too long for you guys to get through them to have that mark on the user's profile.

    Wouldn't you like to not have to deal with any of those? Just have those sent to a different community to clear out so you can focus on ones that really need close attention? Also, let's be honest, how much of a weight of your chest would it be to just start from a blank slate :p. Okay, I'll stop now. I'm just being facetious now.

    My point still stands though. You guys have limited time but valuable experience and expertise to impart upon the community. What's the BEST way to do it? If you honestly think it's through continuing to grind away at old reports then... so be it.
  13. Tio José das Vacas

    Tio José das Vacas SteamRep Admin Partner Community Donator - Tier V

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    I agree , but not at this moment. We all want to stop taking reports and let the partners handlem them, but I don't think we can do it in from zero to hero- We can slowing start pushing more and more reports to partners. If he stopped taking reports today I don't believe Partner were able to handle them all, not even Valve can and they are a company. We need to change our policies and get more partners, and believe me we are doing it as I write.
    As for the appeal, mister YATO , Lava and Silent are doing a great work, specially YATO- I'm sure we can keep them updated in no time.

    Like I said before I do agree with you, I just don't agree we can do it right now, we can do it with time.

    As per Education part, we have guides, accepted reports, etc... People only look at them after getting scammed and even when I explain the situation they read the first and last word ( It's annoying sometimes)-- I belive in education as much as you and everyone else but I think it's everyones jobs to educate-- Members, mods, admins, partners and friends.
  14. You Are The One

    You Are The One SteamRep Admin

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    The damage done by misinformation being spread by those either unfamiliar with SR policy or even worse, intentionally lying/taken out of context is worth correcting over the dozen or so reports that could be done during that same time frame. Remember, education is what we are going for so it is very important that we reply to those.

    As for the rest of what you said, not commenting at this time due to pending policy changes.
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  15. blind polar bear

    blind polar bear Former Backpack.tf admin

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    I mean, that's exactly my point. The education should be the focus. Just scrap the reports altogether. Two posts above, "You guys have limited time but valuable experience and expertise to impart upon the community. What's the BEST way to do it? If you honestly think it's through continuing to grind away at old reports then... so be it."
  16. a Gentleman

    a Gentleman SteamRep Moderator Partner Community Donator - Tier V

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    A critical function of SteamRep is keeping track of users who commit fraud. SteamRep maintains best practices for evidence judgement, alt research, and everything else report related. At the same time, we also keep a plethora of private evidence. To completely relinquish SteamRep's ability to review and process reports and appeals is both radical and damaging. Partner Communities, though very capable and responsive, simply don't have access to the collective resources that SR Staff do, though we hope future improvements and changes will rectify that.

    At the rate that we are processing reports on this forum, we will actually catch up on the backlog eventually anyways. A significant portion of pending reports isn't even covered by SR's current investigative policy, or have no solid evidence.

    tl;dr Backlogs are not a huge issue. Involving Partner Communities in a greater capacity is a huge issue. Pending updates, SteamRep will be addressing that concern in the near future.

    I speak both as a SR Staff Member and Partner Community Admin when I say that SteamRep is taking preliminary steps to involve Partner Communities more, and i hope that this current trend continues.
  17. You Are The One

    You Are The One SteamRep Admin

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    I specifically said I was only referring to replying to threads/posts in different comms/sites and was NOT talking about anything else you mentioned.
    a Gentleman likes this.
  18. Lava

    Lava Public Relations SteamRep Admin

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    Unlikely. Community education is a higher priority than user policing, but the reports will probably not be blanket-closed. We make no guarantee we will get to every report, but we make the reports themselves available for the community to review. If you see someone with a bunch of legit-looking pending reports, they may not have been tagged by an admin, but you still got an early warning before trusting them. That's also why we provide the pending report count through the API, so websites like yours and others can display it.

    As for the fake reports and troll reports, we are actively looking for those to curb abuse. They're not super widespread, but they are enough of an issue we try to stay on top of and they're not unheard of. Fake reports can result in a ban from the forums or if fake evidence is submitted a BANNED tag for the reporter. If you run across a clearly fake report, you can use the report post button. We reject most "review this report" reports, but before rejecting we do a quick screen for fake evidence or garbage reports to remove them from an innocent trader's profile. If reported, make sure you clearly state what you're reporting for, and actually reply in the report with counter-evidence (if applicable).
    Reports are not the highest priority, and we've pretty much accepted we will never have them all done. We are working on community outreach to try and curb fraud lately; most reports are easily prevented, involving someone going first with an obvious scammer or the usual friend/middleman impersonation scam.

    On a side note, I noticed you didn't have friend community access in the forums. After definitively verifying you as acting head admin on backpack.tf as I suspected and as a mod had insisted, I adjusted your forum account accordingly.
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  19. You are the bully

    You are the bully New User

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    All I can say is wow.... Why are you SR admins so set on how it used to be. Things change do you not realize this. Here a very reputable and well known person polar comes here and suggests a great idea for change. All you guys do is tell him no thats not the way to go and hide behind "future changes that are a secret for lord knows why". WHAT YOU GUYS HAVE BEEN DOING FOR THE PAST 4 YEARS HASNT BEEN WORKING...WHY THE f✿✿✿ DO YOU NOT LOOKINTO MORE IDEAS. You guys say you listen to the community and this guy is representing the community. Also its funny how polar has sympathy for Gentleman (as do I) since he got s✿✿✿ on by a✿✿✿✿✿✿ yato for helping someone out who would have been stuck with a mark for another 3 years if it werent for his few minutes of work.
  20. Horse

    Horse Administrator SteamRep Admin

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    Why do you feel the need to hide yourself so much?
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