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.

Did many innocent people become SteamRep banned due to Mattie trying to protect his own interests?

Discussion in 'SteamRep General Discussion' started by BigMac187, May 2, 2016.

  1. BigMac187

    BigMac187 New User

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    I've just returned from a SteamRep ban for being vocal regarding a range of issues, with my biggest concern being the trading with marked scammer rule. Though this rule was finally corrected it still impacted many users and many users are still affected by previous rule.

    I'm not longer affected but still have a couple server bans I'll need to appeal but I don't visit those servers so whatever. I have friends who are still trying to clear up bans. Now since the rule has been removed I think it should be obvious that it was a stupid rule to begin with and has affected many people.

    Looking at the rule and impacts of it as much as I have It really looks like it came about from Mattie trying to protect his own interested of not having duped burning Team Captains flood the market and in essence devalue his collection.

    This is my view point, correct me if I am wrong but the evolution of that rule stemmed from Mattie protecting his burning TC

    To go back:

    - Previously you could only be marked as a banned / scammer if you directly scammed someone.

    - The Burning Team Captain then got duped and was on the market, from here a new rule was then implemented that if you trade for that item you will be banned... this wasn't the case for any other duped item besides the Burning Team Captain, I'll love to know how this rule got voted and came into effect as no other duped item had such a label attached to it

    - This raised the eyebrows of many traders.. would that rule have been implemented if Mattie didn't own 1, like at that point any other item could be duped and you could safely trade for it but not the Burning Team Captain. To put it simple this was sus as f✿✿✿.

    - Many people questioned this, why was it just the duped burning team captain that couldn't be traded for but other high value duped items could be traded... there was an obvious bias here... from there the rule was then tweaked to ban people that traded over a certain value which then lead to the s✿✿✿ storm that followed.

    To me it really looks like this mess was created due to Mattie protecting his interests, myself and many people were affected by this.. If I am missing something please do tell. If someone could shed some light on the initial "cursed burning team captain bans" that'll be great.
  2. BigMac187

    BigMac187 New User

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    What's your take on it? Do you think that the rule made for the "Cursed Burning Team Captain" and mattie owning one was just a coincidence? Lets be honest here it's sus as f✿✿✿ and from an outsiders perspective looks like market manipulation created by a fraud prevention team.

    Nothing i've said has been made up, but hey i'm sure someone will find a reason to ban me.
  3. Enstage

    Enstage SteamRep Admin Partner Community Donator - Tier V

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    So just because an admin owns one means they can't make any rules about it?

    Its all been made up, thats exactly what it is. There no actual proof here at all, of anything, purely just you saying "it looks suspicious so it must be true! Time to make a thread cause I hate SteamRep!", if you really cared about the answer to your question, then why is the title of this thread written in such an accusatory manner?

    I'm honestly surprised you've made it this far, I could think of about 400 reasons to ban you based on this thread alone.
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  4. BigMac187

    BigMac187 New User

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    Wait what? 400 reasons to ban me based on this thread? Can you at least name 10. But I can see how SR and SR partners will rather ban me then answer the question, because really what valid answer could there be.

    Like I am confused to see how it could have made sense to have only 1 hat and effect combo to be labeled under a "do not purchase / trade of you will be banned" type of rule. Can you not see how this could come off as sus to other users. Why did that hat & effect combo uniquely have a rule specifically made for it is what I am asking? I simply can't think of a valid answer besides the owner of SteamRep owning 1, if there's another reason I'll love to hear it but I really don't see this being answered but instead SR & SR Partners will just look to discredit / ban me.
  5. Enstage

    Enstage SteamRep Admin Partner Community Donator - Tier V

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    I'm not staff here, so I'm not attempting to answer your question, just providing my opinion on it, which you have every right not to listen to. Hence, this is my last post on this thread until an SR staff member responds (if they respond).

    You know exactly what I meant.
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  6. BigMac187

    BigMac187 New User

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    I am saying it looks suspicious, which you can't argue that it doesn't, I am not saying it's true... thought that nature of it all and the notes in the OP makes me feel like it is true. Remember this rule came out of left field, there was nothing close to that rule and really Mattie did own one so obviously any incoming rule on banning users would have a direct impact on him... would he even be allowed to vote or implement a rule that he would have such a level of bias in.

    I am asking for clarification on why it was placed to begin with and what were the procedures around it being implemented, if it's not of a suspect nature then really there shouldn't be a reason not to answer it.
  7. Inu

    Inu TF2Bazaar Owner Retired Staff Partner Community Donator - Tier V

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    As an SR partner I will gladly talk to you on Steam and you may publish anything we speak about. I am willing to listen to your points and discuss them. I have no idea why you think anyone in their right mind will ban you for speaking out your opinion as long as your tone remains reasonable.
  8. Horse

    Horse Administrator SteamRep Admin

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    I don't see a Question mark used in that entire first post... so I don't see a question to be answered.
    Perhaps if just replied next with the exact question not a 2 page paragraph describing it how it should be answered then someone may answer it.
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  9. BigMac187

    BigMac187 New User

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    Sure.

    Was there a time before the official rule "you can be banned for trading with a scammer" existed where you could be banned for trading for the Duped (Cursed) Burning Team Captain?

    If yes, how did this rule come about? Was Mattie involved in this rule?

    Also when did the rule (now no longer a rule) "you can be banned for trading with a scammer" come into play?
  10. Inu

    Inu TF2Bazaar Owner Retired Staff Partner Community Donator - Tier V

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    My take on trading with scammers:
    First up I want to discuss the main point of scamming. When you scam someone you intend to take their items and convert them into virtual currency or real money. Very rarely will a scammer scam an item just to own said item. What I am saying is that a scammer only profits once he gets rid of the "hot wares" for his preferred exchange(money, keys, games, whatever) and up until then, all he did was acquire an item that he most likely has no use for.

    This brings me to the point I want to make. By buying goods from scammers you make their deed worth doing. You, the buyer, are their validation and their profit. The trade is all that they are after as the item itself is meaningless to them. By trading with a scammer you are not only helping him to wipe his tracks, you are also completing the cycle by allowing him to easily convert the scammed goods into what he wanted initially.

    Now of course coincidence and hard to spot alts need to be considered, and only frequent buyers should be punished, but they should be punished nonetheless. If there is no one buying, there is no point in scamming. Simple as that.

    I will continue to ban for trading with scammers on bazaar.tf as per my own reflection. I do agree that this rule is simply impossible to carry out on SteamRep though, given the large impact of a Scammer tag and how much lee-way this rule has.
  11. [SC]GreenKing

    [SC]GreenKing New User

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    But why has one item specifically given a 'don't trade for this' status? Is it currently in possession of a scammer?
  12. You Are The One

    You Are The One SteamRep Admin

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    I think you are slightly confused, the policy the OP is talking about no longer is relevant, their is no such item with a "dont trade for this" status.

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  13. Roudydogg1

    Roudydogg1 SteamRep Admin Friend Community

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    No such thing anymore AFIK
  14. BigMac187

    BigMac187 New User

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    Ok, to make things clearer.

    This user http://steamcommunity.com/id/Azn_Rawr was banned for trading a marked scammer for a Duped (Cursed) Burning Team Captain, please correct me if i'm wrong but at the time there was no rule in place that you could be marked as banned for a single trade with a scammer but in this instance this user was and thus the name (Cursed) Burning Team Captain was born. There were other (duped) burning Team Captains floating around and it was known that anyone that traded for that item was then banned.

    What I am asking is how did this rule come about? Why was the (Cursed) Burning Team Captain singled out as an item you can't trade for? It seems like this rule regarding the Burning Team Captain eventually trickled down to being applied to other items.
  15. a Gentleman

    a Gentleman SteamRep Moderator Partner Community Donator - Tier V

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    Welcome back to the SteamRep Forums. I'd like to take this moment to apologize to you for mistaking you for another user the last time you posted.
    I'd like to note that new policies and changes to current policies only take place after discussion involving all the staff members and the community at large.

    Like @You Are The One mentioned, the Trading With Scammers policy is no longer in effect. Those of you who aren't caught up, please read more about that and other changes here.
    While it was in effect, like you acknowledged, users were marked for trading with scammers.

    There was a significant leeway in how the rule was handed out in order to accommodate exceptions like neophytes.
    For example, if a new trader who hasn't learned about SteamRep decided to conduct a trade with a scammer, they would not be marked under the policy.

    However, if a trader knowingly trades a scammer, i.e. a single high value trade, several trades, or a regular trade agreement, then the trader would be marked.
    Like @Inu said, trading with a scammer knowingly is essentially enabling them. By some degree, you will be responsible for the scammer's actions.

    I don't believe we are here to argue the merits of the old policy - that was discussed here and in the past over many threads.
    Your question-turned-accusation should be the focus of this discussion: Did Mattie manipulate SteamRep policy in order to protect his own Burning Team Captain from depreciating in price?

    I would love to answer your question, however, I am not the best person to do so.
    The SteamRep Admins who were present during the implementation, development, and updates for the Trading With Scammers policy will have a much more detailed answer from a much more involved perspective.

    Let's try to keep things civil this time!
  16. SilentReaper(SR)

    SilentReaper(SR) Retired Staff

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    I will clarify some here, and then address bigmac. Not even going to bother trying to split all the crappy grasping straws where he tries to discredit Mattie.

    How the "trade with scammer" rule came into being:
    Back, way back, in early 2011 there was a user on SourceOp (forgot his nickname there) that was buying Max Heads (back then worth about 130-150 US dollar) from a russian scammer and selling them on SourceOp.
    We had no rule on this in place. I took it upon myself to talk with everybody from various communities that where helping out with this, namely WhizzUK from ASBO (Defunct Comm), John from UHC (Defunct Community), Blackened from TF2-Trader (Defunct Comm), PeteyM3 from SourceOP (no longer admin or MM, he's Banned), Sneeza of TF2Outpost, Luigi30 from TF2TradePost, DmtDude from UTC, hell I even talked with a Reddit /r/tf2trade Mod, forgot the name.
    - I explained the entire situation to them (user buying regularly items from (a) scammer(s).
    - Explained what the options where, and what they agreed with there (No action, Caution, Ban, special tag) and if this should propogate (people trading with them while they where already banned going to be banned or not).
    - Explained what safeguards I wanted (3 strike system, 1st warning, 2nd Caution, 3rd Ban)

    ALL of them except one agreed they would ban the person and after that any person that traded them. The one exception was that community owner didn't want to ban those that traded with the fence.

    I went with this to Diego (owner of SteamRep at that time), and he told me basically without even listening to this: ban them.

    Long after that, Mattie came to SteamRep.

    Later the rules where adjusted to allow for noob traders to be warned and high value trades on experienced traders to be banned without a caution to better balance this. For there was abuse by experienced players buying items that where worth thousands for less then half the worth, and them flunking that off to the "warning first" and be able to do that twice without much problems.
    This was however for a while vaguely defined (above how much and define "experienced traders" is vague) and we where in the process to change that with a lot of feedback from Partner Community admins etc since December 2014, December 2015 it was decided to stop entirely with this rule. I didn't agree, but it wasn't so much about not wanting to carry the rule but the practicality of the execution that became the problem.

    -----------------------
    Accusation at Mattie of foul play or w/e:

    I personally fully reviewed the report on Mattie regarding him trading with a scammer. There was NO way he could know prior to the trade whom the item came from, the website he purchased from intentionally is keeping that away from the buyers, so those can't protect themselves against buying from a scammer, or quite possibly to protect themselves that the item(s) are going to be deleted by Valve due them been scammed. He tried to, extensively, he wrote down all what he did and that was way more then due dilligence to ensure himself against such, but he couldn't find who was the previous owner or seller. This is all on the report.

    You accusing Mattie of foul play is making no sense at all. Don't you think all those community admins weren't aware of that report? How nonsensical they found it? And that they wanted to just plain delete it? Or all of SteamRep Staff? (PS: those are all rhetorical questions, please don't try to answer them). We just have to treat any report against a admin (SR or Community admin) with special care:
    - The SR staff member / Community Admin isn't allowed to edit/delete/moderate any post (only their own posts they may edit).
    - A SR Senior admin has to handle the report that isn't too acquainted with the accused.

    The admin that handles such a report, will get a lot of feedback from a lot of different admins with their remarks. The processing is slow due to have to give a full closing to it and a full reasoning. Which all happened. That case is CLOSED. Stop with the bullshit accusations that have absolutely no merit. Don't you think that if there was any merit all those admins from SR staff and all the communities being aware wouldn't have made a big outcry? Those are respected members of the community, they wouldn't let that go, and neither would I. If such would transpire, and SR would "cover up" like you accuse Mattie of, SR would end pretty soon. It didn't and the bullshit got handled.

    -------------------------
    @BigMac187

    This was the last false accusation you make here. Next time I'm going to ban you permanently from this forum. You are a waste of time, misinforming, intentionally misconstruing various issues that where already handled correctly to fit your own agenda. I will have no more of this, hence this final warning: ONE other false accusation, and you will be PERMANENTLY banned. Probably not even by me, another admin will have read this and when they see that pop up, they can archive and directly ban you for it.

    We're done with you. There is no point in trying to correct you, the above reply and others above where only clarifications to OTHER people who may happen upon this thread, its not even really intended for you. The phrase of "A fool can ask more questions than seven wise men can answer" applies so much here.

    The seven wise man have better things to do tho....

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  17. You Are The One

    You Are The One SteamRep Admin

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    @SilentReaper(SR) The original user who kicked off the policy was named "kira". Also would like to add, this was well before Mattie had any affiliation/involvement in what would later become SR.

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  18. BigMac187

    BigMac187 New User

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    You really didn't answer my question, and brought up things that really don't relate to the topic. Like the report against Mattie for his CSGO trade, I didn't mention this trade but you gave a large reply regarding that.

    Can we please just focus on what the topic is about and not other things.

    To clear it up:

    You mention the SOP case of the person selling Maxs head, there was also the case of Rob who seemed to have an unlimited supply of earbuds and was selling them through SOP, he was also banned. Both these people were banned as acting as a fence / dealing with scammers multiple times, what I am highlighting is that users only started to be banned for single trades (not being a fence / scamming) once the (Cursed) TC came to light.

    What I am saying is that before The (Cursed) Burning Team Captain trade a user had never been marked as (banned / scammer) unless they were fencing / had done the initial scam. The banning of users who trading for the (Cursed) TC set a new precident that users could be banned even if they were not directly involved in the scam and were not fencing the goods. It was clear at the time that that user really wanted a Burning TC and had been looking for 1 and the only available 1 to him, it was clear it wasn't him acting as a fence and he wasn't part of the scam so him being banned as I said was suspect. This then lead to a wave of users being banned for a 1st time issue (myself being one) this is what I am saying, I understand that people have been banned for acting as a fence / scamming previously but previous to the (cursed) Burning TC no one had been banned for completing a single trade.

    If you or anyone can show me a case of someone being banned for a single trade where they didn't scam or fence an item (not involving the cursed TC) then I am proven wrong.

    Lets stay on this please, has a user before the (cursed) TC incident been banned for a single trade where there was no evidence of them scamming it / fencing the item?
  19. Inu

    Inu TF2Bazaar Owner Retired Staff Partner Community Donator - Tier V

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    If the seven wise men had better things to do, then one of them would not go out of their way to threaten a ban on a user for expressing his thoughts. You as an admin should know better than to punish someone for speaking out their(unpopular) opinion as no one forces anyone to read Mac's post and nor does he spam it anywhere, hence he is not breaking a rule. This would be an entirely different scenario if he was thread hijacking again.

    This post is extremely unprofessional and I find it shocking that you thought publicly declaring to ban a user was ever a good idea.

    I am not defending the things he says in any way, shape or form but SteamRep is a site that boasts about education and not punishment; Censorship is NOT education. If you have to deal with a user by restricting his access to one or more services(which in this case may be justified based entirely on the authority of the staff since this is your site and you can essentially do what you want), you don't just go out and publicly threaten him on your own site. A warning via PM would have been enough and maybe you would even have found a way to make it sound not hostile, because this was honestly the most passive-aggressive warning I have ever seen.
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  20. BigMac187

    BigMac187 New User

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    Thanks Inu, I feel like I have to tippy toe around but whatever if I get banned it says more around SteamRep than it does about it me. Yes I have been posting direct statement that won't be popular with the admins here, but really any admin / reader who thinks I'm trolling or whatever try look at it from my perspective for a minute and you'll see why I would have been vocal and wanted s✿✿✿ corrected. There was an obvious issue with the trading with scammer policy and I was very vocal about it and was belittled for being vocal. In the end it was corrected due to innocent people like myself being caught in the firing line. Now consider how the previous rule affect me and many other honest traders and you should understand why many people (as you call it reddit brigade) have been upset and why there was so much heat pointed to SteamRep in relation to this rule.

    I was a very active trader, previously bought a Burning TC for pure PayPal, at the time it was record sale, had one of the biggest SOP rep threads (buying and middlemanning) and stopped asking people to post there a long time ago because I had built up enough rep that I didn't need more rep, i gave away heaps of free items, recently had a trade offer where some kid sent me a trade offer with 2 unusual and didn't select a item from my BP, I didn't accept as obviously this person made a mistake.. what I saying is I am a legit as f✿✿✿ dude, I am one of the most legit traders since near the beginning of trading, never had an issue until I had traded for a Burning Pullover while SteamRep was down, fact is I had overpaid by a lot. Once I realized what had happened I posted a thread on SteamRep reporting myself, telling admins that this isn't my go and was a honest mistake, welcomed any questions and even welcomed them to view a live viewing of my entire trade history which spanned for around 5 years.

    In turn I had a bunch of admins from various communities place assumptions that I had traded with a banned user purposely, I tried to explain how I overpaid for the said item, so it should be obvious I wasn't trading for profit and that I had many (possibly thousands) legit trades and welcomed them to view my trade history. I offered every community that had banned me a live viewing of my history but instead they chose to go off assumptions. I was then banned on SOP (I was banned before i posted that thread here which resulted in YOTO deleting my rep), then banned on Outpost, then banned on SteamRep via FOG (they banned me based on assumptions and not evidence) (rules clearly said for a first offense it needs to be evident that I knew... no evidence was given) I raised this to SteamRep, there was a long thread regarding this. My nephews account (8ish year old kid who had his full name as his steam account) was then listed as an alt, I was labelled as a scammer on many websites and servers, had friends I had known on Steam for a long time tell me they could no longer be friends with me because it will look bad and if they had a report against them having me as a friend will not look good on their part. I would join a pub to play a game and will be called a scammer via chat, had people s✿✿✿ post on my wall. I did not trade a single person for the many months I was banned on SR as I didn't want anyone else to be affect and banned by the shitty rule.

    Can you see why I would be pissed, why I would view it as a f✿✿✿✿✿✿ joke but from all this I am the bad guy here for speaking out and highlighting concerns... SR will sit there on their high horse like they did nothing wrong, simply SteamRep implemented this rule which affected many innocent people and should not make excuses about why it was implemented, you really should be apologetic for ruining the experience of many innocent people but instead you look to belittle those who have been affected and vocal.

    I copped so much s✿✿✿ unfairly, and the reason for it all was that shitty SR rule, l was defamed, had my nephew defamed and my TF2 experience was ruined (have way over 3000 hours logged). Naturally I had questions, how could a system that is designed to protect innocent people evolve to a point where innocent people are directly being affected due to the system?

    Regarding this reason for me creating this thread, I've spent a lot of time looking into how that rule that affected my and many others as I know for a long you could only have been banned if you either scammed or acted as a fence, something changed which then opened it up for users to then be banned for a single trade (not scamming or being a fence) from memory and looking at many cases to me it's pointing to that (cursed) Burning Team Captain, hence me asking questions about it.

    How did we go from you can only be banned for scamming / acting as fence to you could now be banned for a single trade (not scamming or fencing)? If it didn't all start with that Burning TC, where did it start?