Bug report: When viewing a trade banned user's steamrep page, they are called a scammer

Vouching system won't work, too easy to abuse, and too many would back out. I don't remember "Jabroni" 's case.

As for SR's decisions, a lot gets discussed internally, but each admin has their own area where they can do fully autonomic decisions, and if a admin is not agreeing, it can be discussed amongst us.

Altho the Valve Trade Ban isn't exactly defined as "scammer" by Valve, for they may ban for that for various reasons, the majority is trade related in such that it would be, if SR had the details of Valve's reasons.

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I agree whole heartedly. I'd rather see a hundred guilty men walk free than an innocent man put in chains, but that's just the libertarian in me. I agree that a system needs to be in place to stop scammers; that's a given. If I'm not mistaken, steamrep was founded to advise people on a trader's trustworthiness, and not become a totalitarian internet police. I believe it was originally "you shouldn't trade with this user" and not "if you trade with this user you'll be blacklisted too".

The fact that am apparently not allowed to sell a pair of buds to somebody with a tag that I trust is absurd. What's he going to do with them, scam himself? Who are we to decide it is forbidden to ever trade with him again? False tags are given all the time; take mine for instance. I was minorly negligent when I bought a vintage Max from a user, after a two week hiatus from trading, and while running late to calculus class. When asked about it by Mattie, I immediately stated that I was not happy with my scrutiny, and given a more stable situation to conduct the trade in, I would not have participated in it. The user was not shady enough to warrant a caution tag, I was up front and forthcoming with all evidence, and admitted immediately that I made a mistake. It was clearly a momentary and unique lapse of judgement, but I was still tagged.

What's worse is that Penguin, the owner of TF2Shop, was then messaged on SR with a request by an admin to remove me as a seller. This admin told him I was brokering for hijackers. Luckily, Penguin and I have a lot of mutual trust, and he quickly agreed that the message was ridiculous. There is no reason whatsoever to believe that I'm brokering for hijackers, so there is no reason whatsoever to spread malicious lies like that. No users should be able to blacklist others from trading. No users should message people that traders work for with lies in attempts to hurt their trading career.

I realize my opinion is unpopular, but I believe that Steamrep has taken too many steps towards becoming Big Brother, and has gone too far. Maybe it's just the Libertarian in me, but I yearn for a trading economy where a user doesn't have to live in fear of admins who can destroy their ability to trade with a few keystrokes, despite their innocence.

The idea around a vouching system would work in the opposite way as it has for this SamHudson guy, whom has allegedly had influential people from SR vouch against him to other TF2 trading sites. Comments from people you, and others trust, carry weight, whether they be good or bad. The power behind this is huge, and I sometimes think that it is under-utilised to the positive. Hey, I am not flinging stones here, I am an admin on 2 very high profile Australasian Trade servers, and I have messed up and banned the wrong person before, and had to apologise to people for doing it, so I know it is not easy sometimes, and I'm not wanting to come across like im an SR basher.

A vouching system is no different to a trusted sellers list. How does one become trusted?. You have a rep thread, in which, complete randoms will vouch for you, because you have displayed trustworthy behaviour, gentle temperament, or generosity. These all add up to a general consensus that the owner of the rep thread is a "good fella". I am very cautious in whom I vouch for in trading, as my personal reputation is worth a great deal to me, with my trading rep being secondary to that. People who vouch, would have to have some "mileage" on them, like 3 pages + of spotless rep on a reputable trading site, and get at least one other well known trading name to support them as well.

I'm not trying to re-invent the wheel, I would just like to see some better decisions made, especially for "salt of the earth" types like Jabroni, who is telling me he's packing up, and walking away, as his name is now soiled for one silly, and genuine oversight. People like Venganza, or Mudguts, or mittens etc, have enough global profile to be known as trusted people, and I bet if one of them vouched for a trader, it would be accepted instantly, but we cannot all be trading celebrities, and sometimes, a champion needs to stand up, and say, "you got this one wrong, the bloke you've tagged made a genuine stuff up", and have this information be used in serious consideration as part of the review process.

Sam, while I appreciate your supportive comments, Venganza is not a pompous ass, he is a man I hold in high esteem for his matter of fact nature, and his willingness to say what he thinks is correct, even if it's unpopular with his peers. I don't see eye to eye with him on everything, but I would vouch for him without hesitation. Anyway, all my waffling aside, I hope some good becomes of the discussion, because the concept of SR is sound, I just think some consideration of supportive information from non-SR staff (i.e vouching or similar) would go a long way toward healing up some rifts that are starting to form.

I have no problem with him. I had never heard of him before this thread. He slighted me as a person, and I responded in kind.

Understood. Sometimes people forget to label the action, and label the person instead. Case in point, my son thought it was a good idea to try doing a "stoppie" on his mountain bike, and ended up with a concussion. Whilst he is far from being stupid, he performed a stupid action, and admitted it. The action / decision was bad, the person was not.

Sometimes I feel like a dad to half the trading population..... (and Bird of Pray is Grandad)

I think that the biggest problem you have here is that you perceive steamrep to be "big brother" yet no community is forced to use the steamrep modules / plugins. No trading community is expected to become part of this site or get a banner on the site or anything relating to this site. No community will be looked upon less if they choose not to associate with steamrep or its tagging rules at any time. The voluntarily do so. They voluntarily decide to accept and work in conjunction with the rules set forth here in this forum. They volunteer to install auto-ban plugins because they trust the ruling of the admins here. The only thing I can see here that might need to be discussed (which either I overlooked or forgot about since this thread was opened) was the option to appeal an auto-trade-ban scammer tag via the appeal section. I am sure that if you simply ask to prove that what you did was done in error and have sufficient proof to show that you are not a scammer then they can work something out to have you removed from that list. It's automated for a reason and the same reason allows you to appeal ANY and ALL tags you receive on this site. That is as fair a process as anyone can ask for. So at the end of the day if there are too many "incidents" or enough reports (they dont care or use heresay to judge anyone EVER) filed against you that can't directly have you tagged but they decide to decline the appeal then your general trading practice needs to be reviewed by yourself.

I'm aware that it's not officially required, but we're all aware that Steamrep has become extremely big, and is forced upon us by its wide acceptance. Every serious trading site or trade server bans users with a scammer tag. While this is not a bad thing, I think a site with that much power should not be so quick to toss tags out.

I'm not tagged as a scammer, by the way. I just have a first-offense caution that is sitting in the extremely long appeals que.

unfortunately then all you can do is wait for your appeal to be heard out. its not a perfect system but its the best system we have and we value it greatly.

On a side note, the reason steamrep got so "widely accepted" is due to their fair / thorough / precise judgment and rules they incorporate and run. Ever thought about that part?

I have, and as I said, I believe they are now too liberal with their tagging. Now that they hold such immense power, they should take care not to unjustly tag someone, as it may have severe effects on their traidng career.

Don't get me wrong, I strongly support steamrep and how much they help the community. I just hate the thought of innocent users getting tagged under the guise of safety or justice.

If you've talked with the admins (especially hellenangel), you would know they do infact know the servere consequences of the tag and try their hardest to know that all the proof is sound before giving a tag, but of course, mistakes can happen as we are human, and that is for the appeals section.

Its actually 2 mouseclicks, but w/e. The work we need to do around it is way more.

1. Valve marks cannot be appealed here. We of SR simply don't have the information that Valve has on the reason why one is banned. (as this topic is regarding valve trade Ban / Probation, to avoid confusion)
2. We're still human in processing reports, errors happen. They don't happen often tho.
3. Jabroni, link me his account.

I'm not appealing my mark. I know you have no affiliation with that mark, and no power to change it, that is not why I'm here. I'm here because when a user views my Steamrep profile, they are twice told (once with the popup, and once with "Scammer profile overview") that I am a scammer, when I have never and will never engage in any steamrep scammer taggable offenses. That's what I'd like changed. It's clearly erroneous, as the site wouldn't spread falsities about people's reputation on purpose, and should be a quick and painless fix.

The Pop-up should be changed into "BE CAREFUL CARDED ITEMS RESELLER"? That's still scam, Valve is scammed this way, even if you arent the carder you contribute to spread all those thousands and thousands carded keys for example...

There is a scam indeed, but I have no affiliation with it. I'd wager at least 50% of buds on the market have been scammed or hijacked or duped in their life time. Should you get the same tag? Because I'm just as guilty of aiding the carders as anyone trading for buds is guilty of aiding that scammer in the items past.

I appreciate you taking the time to review this.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/therealjabroni
http://forums.sourceop.com/threads/19940-Jabroni-Rep-thread?highlight=jabroni

You bought thousands carded keys and sold those ones. They decided then to ban you.

Hmm... Honestly, they are kind of like Big Brother if you think about it. Especially when an admin/mod is involved. I know that my trade history is constantly is being watched, maybe not by steamrep, but by someone who wouldn't hesitate to turn me in-- should I make a mistake. In addition, people don't really have a choice to "opt out" of steamrep. If they conceal themselves, they'll probably be tagged for suspicions activity, then watched closely.

Not really relevant to the topic at hand, but yea. SteamRep is watching you.

How is Valve like Big Brother?

Big Brother : Where the ruling party wields total power for its own sake over its inhabitants.

Steam : Tradeban/locks people with reasonable suspicion of collaborating with or profiting from scammers, for the good of the community at large.

I don't see Valve holding people hostage and putting wire cages filled with hungry rats onto their faces to elicit a confession.

This is true and that is how it should be, talked with Helen about this some time ago as a friend turned bad and she said something that i find really good - Dosn´t matter how good a friend you are, i wont second guess about tagging your ass - and that is how it should be, i have some admins and higher traders on my friendlist that i talk to everyday but i am aware if i f✿✿✿up they will rip my head off.

Just means i have to be a bit extra carefull and dubble and even triple check trades nothing wrong with that, if you want to become a larger trader that is part of the price you pay ^^