Ask A SteamRep Staff Member

normally 2-3 days, you can check the FAQ in this section of the forum for more info or how to contact Diego..

Why does Datastorm love CatOrca´s so much ?

Becsuse he's strange.

My kill counter is on top right of the main steamrep site.

No, it's under your avatar. When you hit 3000, your mother kicks you out of your basement and tells you to get a job

She's been dead for near 15 years.

well that kills a conversation quite quickly :/

Nice job, Chaos...

ZING!

Hi all,

My query is regarding the processing of scam reports. I understand that the job of moderators are to screen all incoming reports and prepare them for the admins to review them. However, I would like to know how these reports are assessed i.e are they categorised from severe to light? Or its how the admins feel "that day" and which report they see first ? The reason I ask this question is I login everyday to check if my report, reported last Saturday i.e 16th March 2013 ( all proof provided) is being processed or not. Every time I see its not reviewed yet, I try to look for reports those are already been reviewed by admins and try to work out a time frame that would take them to review my report. And there is no pattern that I could devise. Either the first 2-3 lucky ones , despite of the understanding when they filed their report or others are in a queue, are being reviewed or high profile reports. Can admins or the moderators shed some light on this please?

Extemely urgent reports may be processed before others.

And how are extremely urgent classified? friend being scammed or a phone call report perhaps? Any scam reviewed by a moderator is urgent, as it poses the risk of another poor fella being scammed by the same guy. A Scam is a scam, it cannot be classified on its category.

If the mods or admins notice a lot of reports on someone they'll be tagged first.
The person you reported only has been reported once so they aren't really "exceptional"

If nothing like that is noticed admins start reviewing and tagging from either the front page or the back page of the subforums (usually back)

Due to the large number of pending reports it's recommended that people search for ProfileIDs in the SR Forum Search before trading someone to check if they have any pending reports.

http://forums.steamrep.com/threads/76561198053852190.24468/

Only 1 report so far, just one picture posting link, same as any other ' reported once so they aren't really "exceptional"' accepted as a scam. Did I miss something here? ( Please ask me to search for more of these cases)

And the admins start reviewing from the front ---- It means people who got scammed when the admin was on holidays has no say or the admins dont care?


Due to the large number of pending reports it's recommended that people search for ProfileIDs in the SR Forum Search before trading someone to check if they have any pending reports. --- If there was no pending report against that user and he decides to scam and fortunately for him the admins are on holiday or decide to review from the front, gets away with it and ready to do it again, to a new guy. IS this what are you saying to me?

And to my understanding a warning is given to whom who tries to commit a crime but is not caught red-handed or does it without knowing, but a known scam should do unpunished?

Also if you read some of Helen's answers to the reports i which she has awarded cautious tags to people are only in which she does not find ample proof and she writes it clearly. So your statement of multiple reports of scams and a cautious tag stand FALSE too.

Phishing and Hijacking Scams take presidence over other reports

They almost always start from the back (except Phishing and Hijacking because it's an exception), they usually scan the front page and if someone has multiple reports on them on the front page or something similar to that they'll process it otherwise they'll start from the back and work their way forwards

The staff works as hard as it can to prevent this but there are simply too many reports to be processed all within 10 hours. Before you do a cash trade or game key trade you should always just check the SR Forums for reports as it's really the only option here due to SR's small staff size.

Once again, we're trying as hard as we can to mark scammers, although I wouldn't really consider it punishing them.

I understand that you might be annoyed that your report has stagnated but you posted in on Saturday and there are still reports waiting to be processed from October. SR is understaffed and can only trundle through reports so fast. Please be a little more patient with us.

Those reports are reports that are either the oldest reports or reports that other staff members have brought to her attention.

I totally understand that you guys are pretty busy and do a lot of hard work just to scrutinize these reports. And I wasn't annoyed on the fact that my report was stagnated, all I lost was a key; no big deal, what annoyed me was the lack of information that suggested what gets priority over what; estimated time frames; admins neglecting reports from the past; and cases like posted below:

I would like to bring your attention to these also please and would kindly like to know that I followed the same approach you think my report would have progressed faster? Its not a phishing or any other type of scam that is different to mine. I would like to know why it got presidence ? Infact it is exactly the same as mine. This was reported yesterday. The cases those are stagnated since October you think might be different to this one? I am annoyed because I could not find relevance as why they were processed first.

http://forums.steamrep.com/threads/76561198072647255-evvenement.25401/

Please see links below ( cases processed) which unlike the stagnated cases from Oct due to unknown reasons, are processed effectively. Also these cases the scammers have had only 1 report against them filed.

http://forums.steamrep.com/threads/76561198062556361-raiden.25333/ --------- Just a guy who is just being paranoid over not giving his money first. NO Phishing or any major case, posted Wednesday, only 1 report.

http://forums.steamrep.com/threads/76561198017350688-Растаман.13308/ ---------- Same typical scammer

http://forums.steamrep.com/threads/76561198043807630-kaz0.24225/ ----------- Same typical Scammer.


Those reports are reports that are either the oldest reports or reports that other staff members have brought to her attention. -------- If any report is marked as' ready to be reviewed by a mod' that itself means it is to be attended. How many staff members are needed to confirm that?

To anyone who wants to know why their report wasn't handles quicker, how about this- tonight you and I can spend 4 hours doing scam reports together. Anyone else who wants to is welcome to join in. I'll have already spent about 6-8 hours doing them already but no matter. While all your friends are playing games and inviting you to play games, you can tell them no that you have to work on scam reports. Oh you'll also not get paid for this or compensated in any way whatsoever.

You and I will go to forum to forum, spending anywhere from 10 minutes to well over 2 hours on a single report. People falsify reports so we have to get additional evidence, run every single image to see how edited it is, and determine if the reporter is actually telling what happened first- and that's not even getting to the actual report! Once we're on the report, I'll teach you all about how to use international keyboards on Google translate so you can manually type out screenshots of chatlogs. You will be typing in everything from "roman" lettering to Arabic to Cyrillic. Can't use text versions because people fake those as well. Then we need to cross reference for alts, inventory histories on 3rd party sites, etc. If we've collected enough evidence- because we have to go by evidence- then we can make notes about the case and tag the person.

A SteamRep tag can end a person's trading career by negatively impacting their reputation. It CANNOT be taken lightly. At all. People falsely report for all manner of reasons and even the best intended person can misconstrue an honest mistake into what they believe is a scam- this is why we have to go by evidence. This is why it takes so long to do reports. This is why I have to work for free all day, every single day, often falling asleep at my computer. This is why I can no longer play competitive TF2 or spend time with my friends online. But PLEASE be my guest- you and I can have a lovely Friday night doing scam reports all night while our friends are having fun playing games.

Oh! And not only do you not get any sort of compensation, you also get yelled at for things that aren't even your fault! I get yelled at about EVERYTHING from trade bans (sadly, Valve has not hired me- they only hire the best and I'm just a career-less housewife) to reports done by other admins to tags done by other communities that I didn't even have anything to do with. People will say disgusting and rude things on your profile, people will call you names, people will say all manner of terrible things about you all over. Oh! And if people don't already know who you are in real life, they will and you will watch as all your friends get harassed as well.

Isn't it fun? Aren't you excited? Doesn't this sound absolutely fantastic and a wonderful way to spend your Friday evening?

I talked to a fellow the other day who thought that a single screenshot could somehow warrant a scammer tag- and this person wants that ability himself! They have absolutely NO CLUE the amount of hard work and effort that is involved in doing reports. None. No idea how long it takes. No idea how much work is involved.

As for how reports are handled, I get emails and chats and everything else from all manner of people telling me to do their reports first. I try to handle hijackings first because those people have lost their account and we want to tag hijacked accounts to try to prevent further damage. Then I actually do go through and try to see untagged people with more than one report and get them next. I work with what I have, I do as much as I can. I am one of the ONLY admins doing reports. I am ONE PERSON. I work as hard as I can. I try to help people as much as I can. My only "breaks" consist of doing housework or running errands.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get back to reports. Because you are right, there are a lot. I will be eating breakfast at my computer while doing them, like I do with every single other meal.

Annoyingly enough, thats all true. I planned to retire a year ago, and don't do regular reports/appeals anymore. I do talk in the general and admins forums to pass on to the new admins. Sometimes I pick out a bunch that need priority and when I have time to do so.