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.

alt accounts

Discussion in 'SteamRep General Discussion' started by Nebras, Apr 1, 2017.

  1. Nebras

    Nebras New User

    Messages:
    249
    Steam:
    STEAM_0:0:92811415
    Hey,
    so I was thinking about a problem I see happening a lot with alt accounts, which is scammer alts,
    I'm sure you all have experience linking accounts together and probably more than me, but the problem is, you can never be 100% sure it's the same person.
    I'm not asking to show all evidence you have about an alt account or how you find them as I understand the risks of doing so (and I'm especially not going to show privacy concerns in the same sentence)

    but because you can't be sure about it, this creates really unfair cases that are effectively impossible to solve.
    so my idea is, instead of applying a BANNED BY SR tag directly, why not have a separate "suspected scammer alt" tag instead?
    this way, other communities who use the SR api can choose to either ban those accounts directly as usual, hold them for admin review or just let them in, while maintaining the same level of warnings to normal users

    cases where I think this may help is: shared internet connection, shared home PC and situations like that
    there is no way to be sure it's the same person, it's unfair to call someone a scammer when say his brother is a scammer and he's innocent, but it's also unfair to remove warnings to the community that the account may be used by a scammer, even if they're two different people, if they're sharing the same PC then one probably can easily access the other's account.

    what do you think about this idea? any better suggestions? is it a good idea or should I post it as a hurt feelings report?
  2. You Are The One

    You Are The One SteamRep Admin

    Messages:
    143
    Steam:
    STEAM_0:1:41038663
    https://forums.steamrep.com/threads/general-discussion-faq.132723/ #11
    Beyond that, we have ways to corroborate and specific questions/information we ask of users that, I will not be discussing (like not at all, so dont reply asking). Its very easy to fake a "bro" like incredibly stupid easy. The issue, as you must know, lies with blaming a "bro" just so they can get an alt unmarked. if we are unable to distinguish users apart based on our info and their cooperation/info they choose to provide or not, we do leave the account banned, on the flip-side, we have granted countless appeals where they were legitimately separate users. Another similar issue is when users say they share PCs/Accounts its near impossible for us at that point to distinguish who scammed on said account and almost certainly result in a negative outcome for the user.

    As for a separate tag, in general, the 100 other times internally we discussed various tags for various issues or whatnot, never have we decided to distinguish them. This opens a can of worms that some users would be OK being tagged for specific issues as it would inevitably help them use it to justify to others (whatever the tag may be)
  3. Nebras

    Nebras New User

    Messages:
    249
    Steam:
    STEAM_0:0:92811415
    I think you misunderstood what I meant, I did not ask you to specify what methods you use or what evidence you have (I infact agreed not to share them)
    as for the "bro" situation, I know that this is the most obvious claim to fake, but between all those scammers I'm sure a legit case exists.

    And finally for the separate tag, I'm interested in knowing arguments against it.
    And I would assume justifying a banned by sr tag on an alt account shouldn't be any harder than justifying a separate alt account tag, if someone will believe an "it was my bro" in the second case, it would probably work in the first too.

    A "suspected alt" tag would serve as a warning that a scammer is assured to have access to the account, whether it's assured it's the same person or not doesn't matter.
  4. You Are The One

    You Are The One SteamRep Admin

    Messages:
    143
    Steam:
    STEAM_0:1:41038663
    I did not misunderstand, I added some background for others who are reading this.
    I already mentioned in part 2 why we dont have separate tags for any other types of issues.
  5. Nebras

    Nebras New User

    Messages:
    249
    Steam:
    STEAM_0:0:92811415
    Fair enough, but what if separate tags were only available in the api while still being just banned by sr on normal checks?
  6. You Are The One

    You Are The One SteamRep Admin

    Messages:
    143
    Steam:
    STEAM_0:1:41038663
    First for the same reason as already stated above, also the current API is not suited for this (or any such special taggings) this is why defunct tags, for example, are treated as cautions and not their own unique thing. Whenever its rewritten, we will have more flexibility with what we can do with it.
  7. Nebras

    Nebras New User

    Messages:
    249
    Steam:
    STEAM_0:0:92811415
    Understood.
    as for the API problem, I believe this is solvable by leaving the current API treat them as a ban tag, and only apply changes to future releases, that's if such a change is found needed.
    Biggest problem with this is having to go over every single ban tag and sorting each accordingly.
  8. You Are The One

    You Are The One SteamRep Admin

    Messages:
    143
    Steam:
    STEAM_0:1:41038663
    Luckily, I wont be doing that.
    Nebras likes this.
  9. Mattie!

    Mattie! SteamRep Admin

    Messages:
    5,241
    SteamRep Admin:
    STEAM_0:0:5712733
    In the next version of the API, We might have an option to have the API refect these as attributes that communities can check optionally for a ban. Lots of cases won't be cut and dry, but there will be some we could expose to API clients. No promises but it's something to consider.
    Nebras likes this.