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.

anyone else think steamrep's rules need an overhaul?

Discussion in 'SteamRep General Discussion' started by Naleksuh, Jul 8, 2019.

  1. Naleksuh

    Naleksuh New User

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  2. Horse

    Horse Administrator SteamRep Admin

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    Which rules? By all means what do you suggest in detail on each one and how they would effect things differently?
    Also pros/cons would be helpful.
  3. Naleksuh

    Naleksuh New User

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    * One appeal for life is dumb for a number of reasons which i can go into in more detail, i understand this is to not overload the admins but maybe something like once appeal every 6 months?

    * The amount of proof required is absurdly high, enough that people who are clearly scammers aren't being banned. One example is
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    This persons profile
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    , just by viewing it is obviously a scammer with a 419 donation scam wherein you trade him all items from your inventory, then he uses pixie dust on valve's item servers to give you items. Maybe he can use that pixie dust on my bank account next :) Can't find the forum link, but someone reported him, and you denied it because "[you] [saw] zero evidence of a scam here". clearly you were wrong about that because he is now trade banned.

    * The report page should include some of the commonly missed rules and overall be simpler to use. Like for example you have a rule that states only the victim may report, yet also require that you state the victim in the report.

    * Refusing to ban account hijackers: while the problem of people using hijacked accounts to scam people is a thing it shouldn't mean that hijacks get off unscathed, especially when most modern scammers prefer hijacking accounts. Some possible solutions being banning any "admin" accounts, having a "hijacked" status for accounts, or keeping track of which items were removed and banning that account (might be better done by a partner community).

    * Requirement of responding in two weeks: Pretty stupid to wait months, sometimes even years without replying yet expect them to continously check the thread every two weeks.

    Probably even more stuff i forgot, might add more later

    Pros:

    * False reports are almost impossible

    Cons:

    * 95% of scammers aren't banned
    Last edited by a moderator: Jul 8, 2019
  4. Naleksuh

    Naleksuh New User

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    Better pros and cons list ( can't edit posts for some reason )
    Pros:

    * False bans are almost impossible

    Cons:

    * 95% of (true) reports don't go through
  5. Horse

    Horse Administrator SteamRep Admin

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    Ok first off please do not list or accuse others of being a scammer or scamming in this thread..this isn't what its here for.
    As for the user that I've hidden the info on them. As for Valve Trade Banning them - they can trade ban someone for however or whatever they wish, its their platform and their rules...that ban could be in place for 24hours, few days, week who knows..nobody knows.

    The reports have such a high requirement of evidence to ensure 100% that if we do tag someone its done so without doubt.. we can't just fling tags around. It isn't fair to those that are reported unfairly and we have that happen very VERY often. You would be rather upset if someone reported you with such a low amount of proper evidence or evidence at all and we just tagged you for it.
    This guide:
    https://forums.steamrep.com/threads/report-submission-fundamentals.169802/
    Covers a lot of things that are needed to submit a proper report - being the victim to create the report is somewhat covered in the Identity section - its very hard to verify identity to the accused if the Victim isn't the one doing the reporting. We must be sure that the report is created for a scam attempt or scam not so much as someone creating one just cause or for someone else as that wouldn't help us verify identity properly.
    With the onslaught of impersonations being done lately we must and will verify identity or else the report won't be reviewed.

    The Hijacking part - the Investigative Policy explains that...I can't explain it much better than that. I can assure you that we won't be changing this policy anytime soon.
    https://forums.steamrep.com/threads/steamrep-investigative-policy.140101/

    ..in fact we just added the part about no longer reviewing ANY Fake Gambling sites or scam sites as of the first of May this year
    The requiring part - I'm thinking you mean for Staff to reply? I can only assume you mean the Appeals vs Reports as I can assure anyone reading this that All reports have gotten a reply rather quickly sometimes within hours as of early 2017. We Currently have 9 reports to review that have been submitted since that early 2017 time frame.
    There are many prior to that which we are slowly going thru but a backlog created prior to many changes takes time to shift thru.
    I can't speak on the Appeals however we do currently have a new Admin on Appeals staff working thru them rather quickly lately and has done an excellent job helping there...so be patient.

    It's been a longgggg time but we have had a few false tags issued in the past, I've done a few by mistake...it happens we all make mistakes. Our goal as is my own goal is to ensure that doesn't happen again so we buckle down and stick by the book or our policies that we've created to support that 100% no doubt report.
    If we don't see the proper evidence or enough evidence we will not forward the report. The burden of providing said evidence lies with the OP or Victim whom created the report. If we don't have what we need we won't proceed, plain and simple. Would much rather reject a report for lack of evidence than tag someone by mistake. You can still report the user to Valve at any time if you feel that is needed and they can address it if they see fit.

    Your comment about 95% of (True) reports not going thru... that is entirely up to your own opinion and not fact.
    If the report isn't properly created it isn't reviewed, if it lacks proper evidence it isn't reviewed, if it is just mumbled up nonsense with absolutely nothing to back up the claim - it isn't reviewed.
    We give the notices of what we require clearly on our guides.
    https://forums.steamrep.com/threads/report-submission-fundamentals.169802/
    https://forums.steamrep.com/threads/screenshot-guide-requirements.157969/
    https://forums.steamrep.com/threads/steamrep-investigative-policy.140101/


    I will see about adding a specific note on the report form itself to ensure that the one creating the report must be the victim themselves.
    Thanks for the suggestion.
    [M&C] TheBluekr and Lava like this.
  6. Naleksuh

    Naleksuh New User

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    i understand that but what more proof would you need than what he put right on his profile? some screenshots which can easily be edited?

    you're acting like my ideas would raise false reports to 40% or something. if a 0.1% increase in a false tag is that bad, you might as well just delete steamrep then.

    yeah, i read it, but that doesnt explain why they should be excused. any problems with the three ideas i listed?

    you're welcome. i suggest making this also go for other stuff like emphasizing the attachment of evidence instead of external uploads
  7. Horse

    Horse Administrator SteamRep Admin

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    What is on someones profile doesn't prove intent.. for all we know that could be used to troll someone or the user copy/pasted something never intending to be used..its happened therefore we need to see the INTENT to defraud..as in them pushing this type of activity on to them. If you just submit a report with a few random screens of the users profile that doesn't prove intent and therefore report won't be reviewed.
    I know your upset over that user and a report that didn't process but that isn't really up to discussion here so lets stay on topic beyond this point shall we.
    Best at that point if you feel the user is doing something against Steam TOS to use the in profile reporting feature and report them to Valve.

    Idea is to avoid false tags at all costs.. nobody is perfect but we do our best and the function of the site here is to educate so not only do we educate the general trading public with tools to do research but we also educate ourselves in the process.

    We won't likely be changing or altering the Hijacking policy any time soon... its extremely typical for any account to be hijacked doing the hijacking.. we have no idea one way or another therefore that additional hardship on someone trying to recover the account isn't something we wish to do so we no longer review them straight out and push you to Valve - here lately they have been really watching for them since its become used highly.

    Not sure we can put too much on the report form as you suggest - once you submit it, the form does take you to this page
    https://forums.steamrep.com/pages/safetrading/

    It spells out in RED text to review the report, keep up with it and you can revise it with a reply if need be.
    It gives you this link
    https://forums.steamrep.com/threads/screenshot-guide-requirements.157969/
    Which explains the hosting requirements.
  8. Naleksuh

    Naleksuh New User

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    i mean when you create a website with a system of taking screenshots of stuff to ban people you basically opt into false tags.

    but okay i guess
  9. Lava

    Lava Public Relations SteamRep Admin

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    To clarify, this policy is more in the interest of fairness to those waiting in line than it is to preserve our staff's time. Unlike reports, we commit to handling every single appeal, and handling multiple appeals from someone who didn't like the first outcome would be unfair to those who haven't even had their first.

    Some other reasons though pertain to the stringent procedures we follow. For one, the admin handling an appeal must not only be completely impartial, but also must never have been involved in any aspect of the case to begin with. If they have, they must recuse themselves. Due to the complexity of appeals, only a subset of our existing admins are allowed to work in them, so there are few enough admins to begin with. An additional appeal (which is permitted in rare, extenuating circumstances) would need to again be handled by someone who has never been involved in the case, including any previous appeals admin. As you can see, handling more and more repeated appeals over time becomes impractical.

    Logistically, if we ignore procedural concerns, part of the purpose of an appeal is a test of honesty and character. Certain questions are asked during the course of an appeal, which the admin may already know the answers to. That won't be disclosed up front to the appellant, and whether they answer honestly (or provide a good reason why their answer conflicts with what we have on file) is factored heavily into their appeal, and if they're caught lying, the appeal is denied. Naturally, allowing multiple appeals would allow scammers to figure out how to write an appeal we'd be "required" to grant by default no matter what they did through trial and error.

    There may or may not be edge cases where re-appeals could be routinely allowed, but again, we plan on clearing our our backlog before exploring the logistics of such a workflow.
    They're not "excused". It's outside our investigative policy because, frankly, it's outside our ability to do anything meaningful about. We still consider it scamming, and there is even a small demographic of confirmed account hijackers we keep tagged after they failed to properly appeal, but we don't accept new hijacking reports.

    Stolen accounts are usually returned to the victim eventually, and flagging them as scammers hurts the victim, who would then have to appeal (have you seen our appeal backlog?). Additionally, there is very little benefit to the community; nobody is going to look someone up in SteamRep before clicking a malicious link (believe me, we used to tag for phishing once upon a time) - especially not from a friend they already know and trust. So in effect, by accepting reports for account hijacking, we'd be further hurting victims and accomplishing nothing to curb fraud.
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    Sniper Pro likes this.
  10. Naleksuh

    Naleksuh New User

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    okay that actually makes sense. thanks for answer