A year or so removed from all the dramas

I bet you guys are happy to see me back, or not. Not here for a long winded argument, thought i'll leave a note here minus the previous emotions and try to show you guys why myself and other people in the community would have been upset / disgusted by all that happened with this group. I understand that the main motive of this group is to help the community but you need to understand that if you get yourselves involved in peoples lives and you do them wrong they are going to speak out.

Now just place yourself in mine and many others shoes.

I was one of the most legit traders in this community, I had built a lot of solid rep but one day I had completed a trade in the trade window and all within the rights of the terms and conditions of the game. I had logged over 3500 hours in TF2 so i think it should be clear at that point TF2 was a part of my life as it is many of yours.

But since I did not follow the ruleset placed by an outside group I was then severely hassled by (SteamRep) and in turn the community. I was forced to plead my case if I had wanted to continue to use many of the communities within TF2. So here I was, I had done nothing wrong but had helped out many people in the community and I had false assumptions pointed at me and I was marked as a scammer as it was assumed that I had done a deal with a scammer to profit (even though at the time it was clear i overpaid for the item) I tried to appeal it to you guys and i was pushed back and pointed to another group FOG that i had never heard of to plead my case. So i was here wasting my time, stressing out over a failed process.

Assumptions were made which then lead to me losing friends, my nephew who was 8 at the time was added as an alt / scammer and was abused for no reason at all besides some outside group that had forced themselves into mine and other peoples lives, my nephew getting involved is what triggered me mostly (It wasn't forced before the trading with scammer rule but was a reference point)

You would give new users the benefit of the doubt but long time serving users like myself would be told you should have know better. Myself and many other people were forced into sharing the same thoughts of the a select few that had appointed themselves into a policing position and only through years of public pressure would then come to realize that a process was causing more harm than good. I stopped playing after all this mess, I was honest throughout and you guys ruined my experience with this game. Moving on turned out for the better but you guys need to understand that if people are pissed of it's not that they are crazy like you guys pointed in an attempt to deflect my points away but they are speaking out against flawed processes from communities that placed themselves into a position where they can have such an impact on an innocent person.

What's done is done, you guys convinced yourselves that i was the bad guy but failed to look in the mirror. I did not ask to be placed in the drama you guys placed me in it.

Peace out.

do you really have to say the same thing, again, every single time, the trading with scammers rule was removed, as it was obvious that it had more harm than good.
you were told countless number of times that you were not banned by SteamRep, you were tagged by Fortress of Gamers, SR simply showed the tag, nothing SR could help you with in the first place.
you know why many are convinced you are the bad guy? because you didn't try to solve the situation, you kept trashing SteamRep and partner communities, spamming everywhere and everyone, creating unnecessary drama to make people hate SteamRep, you even stalked every post Mattie commented on on a subreddit that is in no way related to trading or SR, see where I'm getting at?

the trading with scammers rule served its purpose well enough, when it made more harm than good, it was removed, we don't need to keep talking about it forever.

I tried to explain, how it was causing more harm than good while it was active but my thoughts were pushed aside. I had a chat over Steam with Mattie and i felt it was clear it was a rubbish process but mattie argued in favor of it and did so for a very long time, ignoring legit points.

I spent maybe a day or two spamming Matties reddit posts, why? because he was avoiding the convo here, he was i would imagine a big reason for the rule set and my nephew was being abused. I wanted answers and the only way i could get in contact with mattie was through reddit. But see that all you guys have on me and continued to use me replying to matties comments or reddit looking for answers as a sign that i am a bad person. Like i said, imagine why i would be so pissed of to reply to his comments. You keep deflecting the points away from steamrep and push them to me. Simply I did not f✿✿✿ over thousands of users, steamrep did.

Are you the certified Steam Rep ass licker? Can't say i give a f✿✿✿ if i get banned at this point.

Someone perm ban me, thought I'll come back after a year and say why i felt like i did but reading through the threads you all just make excuses. Was there a single sorry for f✿✿✿✿✿✿ over all the people you f✿✿✿ed over? If so let me see it, all i've seen is excuses.

I don't understand how you guys continue to break real life laws and continue to operate. Simply you have forced your service on hundreds of thousands of people and have invaded their privacy with the communities involved in steamrep sharing ip logs and defamed many but you continue to hide behind other communities.

here we go again...

I posted a couple days ago, https://forums.steamrep.com/threads/a-year-or-so-removed-from-all-the-dramas.158373/#post-421281

I tried to keep it civil with the aim of giving you guys an insight into my perspective on the entire drama and was hoping that you guys will look back and understand my frustrations and the reason why I was active in calling out this flawed process and other issues I won't bring up in attempts to keep this civil. (Feel free to ask me what you feel my concerns are if you think i'm throwing out a baseless claim, there's many issues, i have raised a few below only as it highlights the core reasoning of my frustrations)

It was the same old, I would post what I felt was an honest assessment but I would then get an aggressive response from a random user which would then get liked by mods and admins here. So yeah obviously I was not going to get a fair go and I feel like my statements in the OP should have translated to me getting a fair go. As it was factual and very evident I was affected by this process.

I told a user what i honestly thought of him since when ever i posted he would always seem be one of the first posters, stiring the pot and liking every comment posted by a rep.I also expressed my unfiltered thoughts on another thread
since trying to have a civil convo here didn't look possible.

With everything that's happened in the past here (admin deleting all my rep on SourceOP because of an argument here, My ban on FoG being based on an assumption that I knew the person was listed when process was clear that it
had to be evident and it being a terrible process to start with) and when I bring up valid point to defer from the topic I get told I am a stalker for spamming Mattie questions on reddit. I spammed him for a day or two since he wasn't
answering questions here or via PM and if you go back through my case it will be clear why I would have wanted answers. You saying me spamming mattie for a day or two doesn't excuse what happened before and after that. You told me I need to speak to FoG, but understand that I had never used FoGs services before, I had no issue with them banning me, but I had an issue with what SteamRep had publicly listed, this is still a flaw, people should be able to appeal to SteamRep if they have an issue with what SteamRep is listing publicly. To use a real world example, this is like me walking to a corner shop and seeing my face up on thief wall, then when I ask them to remove it because it should not be there they tell me to go to another store I've never visited or heard of and ask them to remove it.

You guys had a flawed process and had no foresight to see the flaws in the process, I tried very hard to show you guys how this process was harming innocent people for a long time and provided many examples of innocent people being
banned but you were stubborn in defending it and would only change your turn over public pressure, granted a lot created by myself but me calling out the rubbish doesn't make me a bad person, and should not be used against me in an attempt to discredit my character and deviate from issues I am raising about SteamRep. Looking back I'm proud that i stuck my neck out and was active in calling it out as it may have saved other people going through what I did.

Things escalated from there. You would use blanket statements that you should have known better, or you have been around long enough to know, to justify my ban out of process, feel free to point me to any evidence that I knew that the person I traded with was a scammer. You should not be using assumptions in rulings as they can have a bias attached. logic will say that if you have a crack in the process the longer someone is in a community the bigger the odds are that they would fall through. The core reason for this group was to help innocent people but you put us in the firing line, as such we had every right to be pissed with you. It should be clear that I was hard done by and it should be understood the reason why i was stubborn in my approach.

During the time I was incorrectly labelled as a scammer I did not complete a single trade, I missed out on items I really wanted, but I knew that people would be watching my backpack looking to ban anyone that traded with me over a
certain amount so for the long time I was banned I did not complete a single a trade because I didn't want anyone to get banned off my back. In all of my appeals I offered a full viewing of my trade history, I was very transparent when
I should not have had to be, i even reported myself, i did so knowing that you guys (a random group i did not sign up to be a part of) would have an issue with it and had the power to ruin a innocent persons trading experience.
I mention all this to highlight how I am not the bad guys some of you like to think i am and if you're going to raise points about my character when discussing me or my case, you should mention these but instead you mentions that i reported myself as if it was an admission to guilt.

Lava, I appreciate your comment, I did not expect any signs of a fair response and it's the reason why I am looking to stay civil here, I don't see why you doubt my intentions though simply because I was active in posting my concerns in
the past and would not let it go. It should be clear that I was severely affected by this groups actions and had an issues with a range of things with SteamRep that was affecting the community. I had every right to look to clear my name,
and a failed appeal should not mean that I should stop looking to clear my name.I appreciated the work done to help identify scammers but at the point you were affecting innocent people it was causing a lot of harm as it was a forced
service and people looking trade comfortably in the TF2 community would have to follow your processes, flawed or not. Your service should never be forced as it was during that time, if someone want to use your service that's great
but if they don't they should not be punished as they were in the past. If you feel like I've said some misinformation now or in the past feel free to highlight it and clear it up and we can discuss. I just feel that there had been a misrepresentation about me in the past to devalue my legit thoughts and evidence concerns.

I feel like you guys have continually denied my case being handles incorrectly as such I will like you to answer the below as when it's been brought up in the past you bring up unrelated things to avoid answering my core question.

1. Was it not in the ruleset that it had to be evident that a user knowingly traded with a marked user on a first issue case like mine to be marked as a scammer?
   
   
2. Was there any evidence provided that I knew in my case? If so please show it as in the report it was clearly an assumption based ruling.
   
   
3. If there was no evidence provided and it was an assumption that I knew should I have been marked on assumption?

Yes or No only please. I will really like this cleared up.

I'm not in the position to discuss any of the points you just brought up again, except for the case of FoG, they got a report about you, they decided to accept the report and tag you, SR simply showed the tag, other websites and services that use the SR API have the ability to freely disregard FoG tags or any partner community in that regard and only block Banned by SR accounts, but they don't do that because FoG is just as legit.
but that doesn't really matter because I bet you already know and well understand all this, the cases you bring may be legit, some of your complaints really show you're not a dumb person, but in fact really smart, unfortunately your arguments and discussions does not show the same, which leads me to believe you don't really care about anything you're saying, and that you already understand how things work, what happened and why, but you just want to create more drama around SR, and that's probably why no one wants to discuss anything with you.

As you mentions FoG, here's the issue i have there. It was clear that for them to be marking someone on a first issues that it would have to be evident that I knew that I was dealing with a marked user. This was my ban reasoning:

1) Extremly high-value trade (easily above $3000+)
2) Claims that "SR didn't load", but:
- Earl has been marked for well over 1 1/2 years, making it easy to find his by Advertise"> profile in Google Cache/Archive.org
- He has also been banned on all major trading sites (TF2OP/BP)
3) Adding to that, if his claims are true, he most likely already knew about Earl and his history.

1) should not matter and at the time it had never sold for close $3000, after yes and I had overpaid for the item, so it should be clear i wasn't trying to profit.

2) This is all assumption based, there was no evidence provided that I knew and it was indicated that I should have checked Google Cache/Archive.org and point

3) i have no idea what that means but I feel like it was placed there as some sort of justification.

Simply there is no evidence which was required but that fact will keep on being dismissed while other points will then be raised.

Today there were more assumptions handed out: https://gyazo.com/4c331c5cc47eb39f9be2bd7ccdc23ca4

Just put yourself in my shoes for a minute please, consider you were marked in my case, consider your family member would in turn then be abused due to the actions of SteamRep. Everything i say in the OP is factual and i have not used assumptions and have welcomes any corrections.

You've said things like "which leads me to believe you don't really care about anything you're saying" please keep assumptions out of this. If i didn't care about this i wouldn't be posting 1 year later and i wouldn't have been so vocal at the time.

Could it also be that I raise valid points and answering my questions will show SteamRep in a negative light, so rather than answer my questions like in the OP, a simple yes or no question which when answered will prove I was incorrectly banned (which they have defended countless times) but instead they would avoid the question.

if that's what you really like, ok I'll do just that.
so I've been marked as a scammer by a 3rd party website that I know exists for good reasons and have helped the community alot.
while it's still wrong that you traded with a scammer, you traded high value items without checking him first, even if SR was down, I would've never done such a trade without confirming the user's reputation and also I need to check the item's history, which should ultimately note that he's a scammer, even forgetting this, it's still wrong to do a trade without checking SR (that's just my opinion)
so all that happened and I got tagged, and because I know they are the good people I will try to clear my name as slick as possible following all their rules and guides (you created 5 invalid appeals)

after all that, they came to the conclusion that the whole rule wasn't helping as much as it was and has no purpose anymore, the rule was removed alongside all the tags associated with it, so now I'm all ok, now what I'd really like to do is explain what I think they did wrong and give them suggestions on how to improve.

what I definitely wouldn't do is say meaningless things everywhere about them trying to shame their name which won't help me as I already cleared my name, won't matter to them because hundreds of people do this all the time especially marked scammers and they have literally zero effect on them, they only one that will benefit is a scammer who just got some free stuff from a person that I convinced that SR is corrupt.
and after all that, I'm sure I wouldn't be doing this.
you're probably sick of all the replies I made you deal with today so I'll stop here, but remember that you've done this to staff here for years, Mattie in particular.

peace.

you've asked the same questions, got the same answers and then asked the same questions again, as if you never read a word.

You're looking at this very wrong and posting you're thoughts on my feelings without knowing the full picture. I'll give you my breakdown, this all is evident with 0 assumptions made.

- I had been in TF2 trading for over 4 years, bought a Burning Team Captain for Pure PayPal and middlemanned many trades over $500
- I completed a trade, unknowingly with a user that was banned on SteamRep (they are making the assumption i knew without evidence)
- I was then marked on SteamRep as a scammer, my nephew was also marked who was 8 years old
- I would then lose friends and he would then get abused and this happened because a website I had never agreed to visit was offline and they expected me to wait for them to complete a trade, they should never been forcing users to their website, they are forcing a service on people which should never happen
- I was told I should appeal to FoG, i did not know who FoG was at the time, and I did not care if they banned me. SteamRep was defaming me and my 8 year old Nephew as the information was listed on SteamRep and not FoG i wanted SteamRep to remove what they had listed in their website. My issue was with SteamRep and not FoG.
- In the discussions with SteamRep it got heated and YOTO would then delete my 4 years worth of rep on SourceOp
- As I wasn't happy with how this was handled and did not want my nephew to continue to be abused I spent a day or two replying to Mattie and asking questions.
- I did not want to be defamed as a scammer and FoG wasn't removing my tags and had marked me out of process / making assumptions to justify the ban
- So I spoke out against all the issues i was seeing

Please don't get involved anymore, SteamRep please answer my yes or no questions in the OP. Thanks

Can you please point me to where the yes or no questions were answered in the OP? If not please stay out of this and don't speak on behalf of SteamRep.

Lava can you please comment in regards to this comment, it's really frustrating to read and I'll like you to clear it up.

https://gyazo.com/4c331c5cc47eb39f9be2bd7ccdc23ca4

You said i promptly made a report against myself someone hinting out it was a bad thing, I was told by a friend after the trade as i was excited to tell him, he then told me that person was marked on SteamRep so i thought I'll look to clear things up, thinking there would be an understanding, Helen from TF2outpost and former staff here had removed a ban on tf2outpost as she felt i did everything I can to answer any questions / remove all doubt but you used me being honest and transparent against me.

Can you please answer how you know that they were excuses and that SteamRep wasn't accessible for me? I live in Australia and there's more variables to consider than just your outage log. You have thrown out a wild assumptions and stated it as fact i feel, there is no way for you to know if I was able to view SteamRep and there's no way for me to prove to you that is was down. You should not look for reasons (especially when they are not valid reason) and use them to justify something as fact when they can't be proved or disproven.

I mentioned in my appeal that I overpaid as it was the truth and evidence that I was not trading with a scammer for self profit which is the main reason people trade scammers, but somehow you turned that around and added in (still supporting a scammer), what should matter is intent and you can't prove that i intentionally traded with a scammer, the fact they may or may not have profited should not be a factor when it can't be proven that i did so intentionally.

It's a big assumption you made with no evidence and you used innocent actions / statements from me to justify them. Please don't do that anymore, if you are going to discuss here please keep it assumption free, i think that's a fair request.

At the time of the trading with scammers rule, the goal was ultimately to prevent scammers from profiting from their actions. So you overpaying, does not negate that reasoning.

SteamRep does not, and did not at the time, force users to use their website. It was and still is, optional to use SR. That said, there are potential consequences for not using it. Many individuals who don't use SR have a higher risk of being scammed, and in your particular case, a community partner choose to mark you over your trade. The fact that sites and servers can ban (refers to a ban on their community, not a SR tag) or remove users is 100% their right. None of these sites or servers are required to allow everyone in, they all have the freedom and right to ban (refers to a ban on their community, not a SR tag) whomever they see fit. You can choose not to use SteamRep, just as any user and many sites/servers choose to use it. But just because many users and sites/servers use it, doesn't mean that SteamRep is forcing their service upon everyone.

I think that is an inherent flaw in your argument. You were told how to solve your problem, and you choose not go to where it could be resolved fastest and most easily. I understand SteamRep lists your tag, but upon being told of the source, you should resolve it there. Your metaphor regarding the corner shop, I don't think is adequate in this situation. Honestly, I don't even know if it needs a metaphor. It really just was a case of you coming to SR, seeing a ban from another community, and then lobbying SR for weeks, months, instead of just taking it up with that community.

You have posted a lie: Please refer to https://forums.steamrep.com/threads/policy-change-trades-with-scammer-policy-end-of-life.119528/

"Won't scammers be able to profit now? This wasn't the core purpose policy, even though reducing profits for scammers was a nice side effect. For a good while, it did make life harder for scammers to turn their new items into real cash. That being said-- our focus going forward is to reduce fraud through awareness and education rather than through indirect/inefficient economic pressure."

Also can you please post the old rule i can't seem to find it but I'm fairly certain profit was specifically mentioned.

They obviously can't force users, i guess i didn't make it clear in that statement in order to trade within the TF2 community they need to follow SteamReps guidelines or risk getting marked, as the previous process was users were told that if you trade with a steam banned user over a certain amount then you will listed as a scammer. If I wanted to trade hassle free within the TF2 community I would have had to follow SteamReps guidelines on who i can and can't trade with, correct process or not. This is the point I was trying to make.

You missed the point here, and the fact you can't see the logic in my analogy is on you as it should be clear. Simply what I am saying is SteamRep and FoG are two different businesses, information that was defaming me was listed on SteamRep, i understand that FoG is the source of the marking but the info is listed on SteamRep and SteamRep is liable for what information they are listing publically, this should be clear.

Are you able to answer the Yes or No questions in the OP or will you pass?

I've been here before, I'll ask simple questions which if answered will prove that my case was mismanaged but rather than answer them like Eoj just did they will avoid them and nitpick other things. I'll just like my Yes or No questions in the OP answered. Feel free to answer them then ban me or vice versa, but don't avoid it. Thanks