Does any work actually ever get done here?

If you look at how many reports there are (lets say 5000 for simplicity) and assume each report takes 15 minutes to process it would take 7 and a bit weeks to process all the reports if 1 admin works 24/7 until all the reports were done. Now atm lets say SR has 5 active admins willing to do reports each admin would need to do a week and a half of work to get all the reports completed. Now on top of that you have a lot of reports daily so at the current rate it would probably be over a year of hard work from all the admins combined to get through all the reports working non-stop which seems pretty impossible. What you could do because of this is lock the reports to stop any new reports being submitted to SR and instead show them towards affiliate communities who can then process their reports. This way the SR admins can then start dealing with the scam reports without having to worry about the new reports building up as they try to sort through the old ones. That way the backlog would be completely cleared after lets say 3-4 months (because no one can work 24/7) and then any new reports would already be handled by the affiliate communities who don't have as large an influx of scam reports. This would then clear most of the backlog and let the admins focus on the appeals which need to be handled.

I think this is a very good idea, but it does have issues.

Some obvious pluses

+An Automated system that gives a tag based on any ready to review reports (NOT PENDING)
+Would prevent a lot of people from getting scammed
+Would reduce incredible for the admins
+Would stop people like me from complaining about reports not being taken

Some obvious negatives

-An innocent user could miss out on a trade because of it
- It would probably take an entirely new steamrep program to do this
-It would probably slow down SteamREP, massively, because it would have to analyze every single user that has their steamrep profile viewed.
-Large amount of glitches are possible that would make it not work

I say ready to review, because it is up to the mods to make sure that any stupid or obviously out of line reports (I've seen people reported for trolling, sharking, etc) do not get ready to review. If this automated system took into account "pending" reports, then a user could be theoretically "under investigation" tagged for trolling..

If such a thing were possible (it is, but it's quite hard) it sounds lovely.

First off, stop thinking of any form of automation between the forum and the site. Any form of tagging will never be automated from the forum, for very obvious reasons.
That brings up problem #2: who's going to manually tag all those? the mods? they do not have that access, and that won't happen untill they get accepted as a admin.
Problem #3: IF there where auto tagging from the forum: who is going to do all those appeals? and on what basis. That only creates more work.
Problem #4: why would we want to add MORE work on us to implement all this while we have more then enough to do?

Start thinking PRODUCTIVE, instead of adding more steps into the treadmill.

I feel as though we should encourage ideas, not try to squander them. And honestly, it could cut down on the amount of scams also, which creates less reports.

It may not be a perfect idea, but discussion can't hurt.

I never suggested auto or botted.
It would be up to the mod to decide if the scam is obvious to use this tag.
If the situation looks confusing he can put it under review, but give the user no tag.

I said your system would have to be automated. A computer would have to check any reports on a given user and if it finds one an "under investigation" tag would be given. It would be the only way for it to work, with the large amount of ready to review reports. No one individual is going through all of them

SilentReaper(SR) said: ↑
Problem #3: IF there where auto tagging from the forum: who is going to do all those appeals? and on what basis. That only creates more work.
That's why it would be an "under investigation" tag... Different from Orange/Caution or Red/Scammer/Ban

It could be something such as a blue tag which is unappealable. The only way to have the tag removed is when the scammer report is either (1) declined and the tag automatically goes away (2) the report is accepted in which case it is upgraded to Scammer/Caution as the admin reviewer feels necessary.

Regarding the work, this a LONG term solution. You guys get it done now it will be beneficial to steamrep not just now, but in the future as well. This allows you to focus on just this project, due to the result the project will yield.

Can SteamRep open their dataset to encourage competition?

This would be very hard to make. The only conceivable way to do this is manual work. If it was automated not only would an admin have to make a plugin which searched through reports and marked people (which has already been pointed out the admins don't have time to make) the plugin wouldn't work in general with the way the reports are laid out because it wouldn't be able to differ who the person being reported as a scammer is. What would most likely happen with an automated system is that not only would the person being reported get an "under investigation" tag but so would the victim.

Honestly, it would only happen if people did it, which would be the mods, but we don't have that level of trust here and I doubt that will change.

Steam is a worldwide community, SteamREP covers both, USA, Russia, Brazil, every single country in the world, your argument about two police forces in one city holds no water here.

But do the mods, really have time to go through every single "ready to review" report and add such a tag? I don't really think so, that's why it seems an automated system would be the only way to work. If there weren't already so many (6000+) reports still awaiting review, the mods would be a fine way to deal with it.

I think giving the mods powers to tag users with "under investigation" when they make topics "ready to review" would be a great addition to SteamREP. Some admins may disagree, but guess what. Look at the state of SteamREP right now. These disagreements are what caused the problem to begin with. This may be an ends justify the means case, here.

Is this a structure problem, or is this something on a larger scale than that? SteamRep seems to be losing an inadvertent war of attrition. SteamRep's base structure seems functional at first glance, but scales very poorly. Automation could be a way to shore up some of the scaling problem, but introduces an entirely new set of problems as was mentioned above.

It is highly probably that SteamRep in it's current form will not last through 2014. If adoption continues to grow, so will the current structure problems. The rate at which people are added to the administration appears to be extremely low. There are a number of valid arguments as to why this is the case. I would mention recent occurrences to highlight that... except that person DID pass through all of the current hurdles.

Automation is an option, but I do not think SteamRep is willing to, or capable of handling, the issues that arise from implementing it. Psychology plays no small part in these markets and adoption of services. How do you think people will handle it when they're marked as “Under Investigation”. How many false reports are made? How many people would be hanging around for some absurd amount of time with an “Under Investigation” or “Caution” tag? While SteamRep would hopefully be using it as a productive tool, it could just as easily function just as a weapon for those who wished to use it as such.

@ FortreSP

“This may be an ends justify the means case, here.”

The slope your on might not have as much traction as you would hope. You have to keep in mind the general demographic of the people you're speaking for. Sometimes the rift between what you'd like to be true, and what is true... is unfortunately quite large.

To add to the tone of this message I've included a picture of Kermit the frog, dissecting a frog.

No. All SteamRep does is book-keeping, they just keep track of transgressions. All the actual enforcements are made by sites and users. It is my honest opinion that the current iteration of SteamRep is no longer capable of serving the Steam community even close to effectively.

It needs to be re-made. I would be happy to work in a team to remake it, but the biggest obstacle is abandoning all the private notes that the SteamRep staff have spent uncountable hours canvassing.


It is possible that there could exist a hybrid site that used SteamRep for 'legacy' bans, but it leaves the opportunity for SR to stand on their toes at any point, hard.

I somewhat agree with you. Currently if they want to deal with the reports they need to do something. Whether thats let some SCAs loose on the backlog of reports, lock reports completely to let someone deal with it or just in general try to persuade people it's better to report to affiliate communities. (at the moment the only mention of reporting to associate communities comes from a tiny section in the FAQ)

@Mattie

Perhaps there would be a benefit to further delegation of duties. For example, if SteamRep took the stance that it was an affiliate communities responsibility to deal with their own initial tagging. Have each scam report directed to a sub-forum for only that community, and hold the community responsible for dealing with some set % of the incoming reports/appeals each day. If a community does not live up to it's obligation it runs the risk of losing it's affiliation with SteamRep. This also distances SteamRep from fault in the cases of improper tagging, and levies a cost to the affiliated community for having morally questionable staff.

There is also the possibility of Trial by Ordeal, which I am rather fond of.

@Mattie

Might I suggest that there still be a "Main Hub" for report origination here on SteamRep? In the event that all affiliated communities take on the burden of their own reports/appeals, it would be smattered about in a way that could be confusing and frustrating for the average user. Easier to have an account on one forum than multiples. Especially in the case of communities that are primarily based around trade servers. Perhaps some kind of re-direction, or their own community sub-forum here on SR? I bring this up because it would increase transparency as a larger swath of the community would be privvy to the actions of the affiliated community admins if the reports/appeals were handled at a central location. I am only asking for the sake of discussion, as any progress is good in my opinion. Such an organizational setup would lends itself to more quickly identifying the morally bankrupt sub-humans who populate the affiliated communities.