Q: Is steam rep being unfair?

I don't think you never had your money stolen because someone decided to impersonate a famous seller.
It happened to me: the impersonator scammed near $50 from me and $120 from another user, but there were other victims before he was tagged.

For me, impersonating is an offense and the impersonator have to be tagged.

Ignorance never has been an excuse imo. Don't be surprised then that action is taken vs ignorant behavior.

tbh, this thread has derailed into a big Q_Q fest, the question was, are they judging people harshly, my answer: yes and no

indeed admins are doing the right thing, but I feel that the caution tag should be used more often, AND there should be an application section for caution tag apps.

As an Admin who deals with SR people on a regular basis, I can assure you that SR investigates and carefully considers if a caution or a full tag is warranted (as per rules/guidelines + a bit of common sense), tags are not handed out like confetti or assigned without due consideration of pertinent details of each individual case.

SR isn't perfect, no one would claim this, but in all of my dealings with those SR members I interact with on a regular basis, I must say it gives me confidence to state that SR aspires to be impartial, fair and thorough.

People should not confuse a "scammer tag" with the word "scammer", such an exact semantic fit is not possible, since the tag encompass "impersonation" as well as other common misdeeds the community guards against. It is a great pity many people lack any semblance of common sense, the OP admits he impersonated one of major server Admins (Pink Taco) on HIS server, and seems to believe it is something to be taken lightly. It should be obvious that some kid pretending to be some friend to play a prank of some other friend for example is not in the same light as masquerading as a major identity, and this is the self same thing in the real world.

I sometimes think parents are failing kids these days, is even the bare essentials of ethical conduct seems to fall on deaf ears.

As butane says, the mistakes lie in the small reports with ppl that make mistakes (intentional or not) in reports etc. Bigger known traders know how to evade problems, and are always looked at with more scrutiny, for those are less likely to actually scam (they often have rep threads etc).

As for this thread derailing in a "QQ" thread... well thats what you get for trying to oppose a rule of SR thats actually carried among the traders. Experienced traders don't get fooled by them, but they do lose time on them... so they dislike them all together. Donning the name of a big trader, and then joining his very server, thats a big no-no, for impersonating him there means an attempt to abuse trust there.

This thread has had its time, and I'm locking it.

It is very hard to understand, because steam have made it so easy to copy someones name even if it existed leading to people getting steam reps. Even if they had no intention to scam

Admin Edit: This post and below where from another thread. Moved to this thread.

I didn't close that thread for you to start to whine on this thread again. It was enough.

As an admin from the community that awarded the scammer tag, it is imperative to see that impersonation, especially of the OWNER of the community is a very serious offense. It is a matter of trust and by impersonating the admin himself, you are violating trust by taking on another persona of someone highly valued and trusted in the community. The fact of the matter is you changed your name to exactly match that of Pink at the time. I would have let the"Pink Taco" slide because the phrase isn't that uncommon on the Internet. When you changed it to the exact name, however, it automatically defaults to impersonation, which is a very serious offense for the trading community. I don't want to hear any more of this on this forum or thread.

I am going to post here because I have more to add here (this is directed towards DieselBlue☆).

It is one thing to impersonate an admin on the server. If you did it for a gag purpose and you RECORDED the entire video showing the use of the name impersonation then you can argue the fact that you had no intention of scamming anyone and would probably been slapped on the wrist on taco's server and that's about it. HOWEVER, since you have taken the time to knowingly and willingly impersonate the OWNER of the server and have no "proof" of why you did such then unfortunately for the safety of the community, you WILL receive a red flag for impersonating. Also, note that when receiving a red flag it would say WHY you got the red flag, so when someone checks your name and sees a red flag, they generally read the offence type. Everything seems to have been done by the books. Some people MAY decide to hear your plea if they question you on future trading (on whichever servers will still be willing to frequent them) but many will simply rather not trade with you because you are a person whose moral actions (the only thing we can judge you is on your actions) tell us that you have no problem impersonating someone who has been given a "green pass" of trust. I personally am not so judgemental and would hear your plea and possibly consider trading with someone who had only a single impersonation tag, but it would HIGHLY depend on their conduct and character (yours of which seems that you have no problem galavanting around steamrep and whining instead of following the set guidelines on how to handle a charge.

Now, here is some food for thought before you decide to get retaliatory:
There is a system in place, and it is constantly evolving based on the community needs and wants. Your punishment is a result of what the community has requested steamrep to do based on many many many open forum discussions with the admins and owners of this site. It is here because we have voiced our concern as a whole. By "accusing" steamrep you are simply accusing the community's wants and needs as a whole. So as you can see, this debate against "steamrep" is quite meaningless. You are arguing against the people you so badly want to continue trading with, who have in return told you "not trustworthy enough and warrants a red tag". WE chose this system through time and evolution. WE gave steamrep the power to judge over you and mark you accordingly. WE stand behind this system and are happy with its actions. If we were not, your original thread would have gone VERY differently a LONG time ago, but it has not, hence we have spoken our decision.

Sigh... no more responses on Diesel blue's case, or I'll consider it thread hijacking and I'll deal some warnings & lock of thread.

This was intended to be the end on that train:

ppl are welcome to continue back on the angle of the OP of THIS thread, and I'll allow 1 response from Diesel in regards to the above, but that will be the end. Once thats done I'll move those above responses and diesel's to that thread.

Well said Data.

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Well, that was the best response I ever got.
However I was never told this and because I didn't know how to gather in game proof or even know I was allowed to prove my self for impersonating with no intention And now I am very annoyed because I could of made it right... But how am I going to gather past information? Is there still a way I can prove my innocence? Thank you for the pleasant response.

Also @Datastorm
I was not protesting anything against steam rep I was wondering why the admins believe scamming with no intention is a trade crime. I don't have anything against steam rep and its ways and neither am I trying to change them or otherwise I would of posted them somewhere else.

Ehm.... I think you intended to say "why the admins believe impersonation with no intention to scam is a trade crime". The only real reason a unknown is impersonating a well known trader is to scam. This has been told to you by a number of ppl on that thread already. Aggravating to this, you joined that person's Server, with his exact name. On a server, the avatar is not looked at by most ppl on the server, and looking up the profile is even further from being checked. People recognize known admins and traders by their names on the server. On top of this, that server is a TRADE server... What you expect? welcome with open arms? and before you want to answer, those are rhetorical questions. As I already said: People are free in their ignorance, but don't expect ignorance to be a valid excuse. Actions one does can have permanent results.

Moving it to the topic.