Announcement Legacy Ban tags for defunct communities -discontinued

MOD EDIT 8/6/24: Due to SR going EOL https://forums.steamrep.com/pages/eol/ this program has been discontinued. All users who submitted a request before the deadline had their legacy bans processed.



As of this month, we have adjusted the appeal process for defunct communities. These changes take effect immediately. This post is to explain the new process, which will apply to you if you have a BANNED BY tag from any of the following communities:

• AF2 (Ace Fortress 2)
• ASBO
• BBG (Big Bang Gammers)
  
• DGN (Darkly Gaming Network)
• D2T (DotA2Traders.com)
• MCT (Mann Co Trading, commonly known as Pink Taco's unusual trade server)
• RAWR
• ROK (Republic of Korea)
• TF2T (TF2-Trader.com)
• UTC (Unusual Trade Club)
• UHC (Unusual Hat Club)
• TF2OP (TF2 Outpost)
• FOG (Fortress of Gammers)
• SOP (SourceOP)

If you instead had a CAUTION from any of these communities, your case has already been reviewed. The vast majority of CAUTION tags from all the above communities have been discarded outright, while a small handful with overwhelming evidence still intact were converted to SR CAUTION, so no defunct caution tags exist. If you have already submitted an appeal through our forums before 27 August 2016, as we routinely instructed those who were anxious to get their tag removed, you still need to follow these instructions, but your case will be prioritized over anyone else who hasn't. No new appeals for defunct tags will be handled through the forums. As an added note, you should still keep an eye on your existing appeal thread if you made one; in the early stages of this process we will communicate any issues we encounter with the new functionality through appeals for those who have already waited in line.

To address your defunct community ban, you should log into steamrep.com using the grey and black Sign in through Steam button next to the search bar.

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Once you're logged in, the login button will be replaced with your Steam profile picture; click on it to bring up your profile. Each BANNED BY tag, whether defunct or not, will have a "Submit an Appeal" link below it. You will need to do this whether you have an open appeal in our forums or not.

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Before proceeding, make sure your profile and inventory privacy settings are set to public. If set to "private" or "friends only", the link won't work for you, and you will receive an error. You should also resolve any trade bans with Steam Support before you submit an appeal, as it won't be accepted until the trade ban is removed. Trade probation and tags from other communities will not prevent you from appealing. Assuming these prerequisites are met, and your tag is for a defunct community (others will simply link to you where you should appeal), you will be presented with a dialog box explaining the process:

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Once you have read and agreed to these terms, the "Submit an Appeal" link will be replaced with your appeal status. By default, it will say "Pending".

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The admin reviewing your case will have an opportunity and discretion to remove your tag if no information about your offense is available, or reject your appeal if they feel there's substantial evidence despite the community no longer existing, but most cases will be converted to a Legacy Ban. If the appeal is not reviewed for 3 months, it has not been manually pulled aside for further investigation, and the tag is at least 2 years old, then this conversion will happen automatically. Example profile (subject to change):

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This type of tag is meant to indicate that you were banned as a scammer by a SteamRep partner community who no longer exists, so evidence supporting your reputation may be gone. It is up to each individual community whether or how they wish to treat such tags, but they will be treated as a completely different type of reputation status in future versions of the API. Older versions, which currently ban for any BANNED BY tag by default, will see this as a CAUTION, and no longer automatically ban. Legacy bans will effectively provide immediate relief to anyone with old scammer tags from communities that no longer exist. They cannot be appealed, and are only issued automatically through this legacy appeal process.

Disclaimer: New appeal system is in beta. Some handling procedures and display of legacy bans subject to change. This note will be removed when system is no longer beta.

Near the bottom of the legacy ban overview - http://forums.steamrep.com/pages/legacy - this is explained. For right now, and from this point forward for any older versions of the API/plugin, they are treated as a caution. That means, effective immediately, all legacy bans are effectively caution tags until a new version is released. Moving forward, they will treated as a separate category altogether, in which individual community owners will have the discretion to handle as they see fit.

There are no support tickets. You aren't marked by a defunct community, so this thread isn't really relevant to you. Your SteamRep appeal was actually handled pretty quickly, so I don't understand the issue, but if you still have questions please make a new thread in the General Discussion forum instead of hijacking an unrelated guide thread.

Hidden Content:

**Hidden Content: Content of this hidden block can only be seen by members of (usergroups: Administrative, Moderating).**

Did you follow directions on your appeal?

Hidden Content:

**Hidden Content: Content of this hidden block can only be seen by members of (usergroups: Administrative, Moderating).**

For defunct community tags, that is the new official format for appealing. Any new appeals made for defunct community tags through our forums will be marked invalid. If you already had an open appeal in our forums submitted before 27 August (as we previously told people to do while this was being worked on), then in acknowledgement of you waiting longer, your appeal will be handled before anyone else who did not.

As an added note, just so you're aware, the defunct appeal goes directly through our database and skips the forums, so there is no way for it to notify you (email alerts, etc). Appeal status is displayed below each respective tag only for that corresponding user while logged in, so you'll have to log in and check your profile on your own if you want updates.

Hidden Content:

**Hidden Content: Content of this hidden block can only be seen by members of (usergroups: Administrative).**

Can't give a solid timeframe. Few months at worst, if it gets past 3 months without review it gets converted to defunct. If you made a formal appeal prior to 27 August, it'll probably be handled sooner.

Its not a punishment, its a warning to the community, and people who deal with you can choose what to make of your tag themselves. You scammed someone and you even admit it, if I were to be dealing with you, I'd certainly want to know that when I check your SteamRep.

Also, not sure what you're saying in the last bit, I think you're saying something about a SteamRep admin taking $1000 to grant an appeal?! If you have proof of this happening, file a report with the proper evidence, it will be treated as any other report. But I can tell you now, no SR admin would take $1000 to grant an appeal.

You scammed, you got marked. Scammer tags are permanent by nature, because the purpose is to warn others who might trust you, not to avenge your victim or teach you some kind of lesson. It's not about you, it's about everyone else you pose a threat to.

Legacy bans are for older cases where evidence is lost to time, and while we know what they did we can't prove it anymore. It's distinct from tags for which we have evidence.

Nothing can be guaranteed up front, but you can have them provide that evidence.