Sharking Tag?

Really?

Ask a woman if being raped is any different from having a broomstick thrust up her rectum and tell me what she says.

"Sharking" is merely a specific type of scam, since it must perforce involve a predatory user who uses deceit and manipulation to obtain profit at the expense of another.

Do not confuse some twit who sells a Salvage crate for 1 ref with a new kid who is groomed and told by some knowledgeable player that his hat is worth a copy of Witcher.

As I said, it is a very simple matter for SR to address and deal with the major players, who are currently free to do as they please, and all the while, many of us lament the fact that our Flagship Protector stands by and watches, wholly impotent and hiding behind a web of complex excuses.

I am hoping Helen can speak to her people and make some progress towards a simple policy change that could clearly signal to at least the major serial sharks that they can and will be dealt globally, rather than leaving it to individual sites and Admins.

I totally don't agree to that. A "shark" tag can be made any time we of SR want it. But does it result in the necessary effect?

Hypothetically, say that there IS a shark tag, and we have marked ppl over it with this "opt-in'.
- What to do with ppl trading with sharks?
- How about ppl facilitating with the sharking tools?
- how in any way is this helping the community? The players who get sharked? how do we reach them if they aren't even looking for us?
- Trading is reputation based, sharking not, this makes a very big difference on the influence of any tag.
- how about equal treatment, opt-in means only on "bigger" cases etc, which makes it elite decision "this shark is unwanted by us". All that while 500 other worse sharks are around, but those victims have not such a good way to express their "sharking" story.
- If places like UTC already has problems with keeping shark bans on their community, it becomes a even bigger one here.

Helping people identify their trading partner as having "unwanted" properties, such as scammers does help both traders. The only one informed in sharking is the shark, not the victim.... That doesn't change anything to their victims.

Opt-in: nice thinking experiment to "do" something, but its simply not feasable, unless its policy based. We can't play favors.

Indeed it should be policy based, which is why Helen seemed to like the simplicity of a simple policy change.

The reality is that all the plethora of reasons people throw up in the face of the impossible (seemingly) "sharking" issue, all fade to nothing the second SR decides it will investigate major sharks as it deems fit, and is free to ignore anything it doesn't.

If you get bogged down in detail and reasons why not... then you allow the big fish to do as they please, and SR will continue to suffer in the community, rightly or wrongly for being a toothless tiger, not to mention the more wilder reasons people postulate.

A friend of mine who is a doctor in Africa told me once you cannot save every kid, but being able to save one or two is good for the soul.

meh, we're doing enough work as it is. ever kept up with the "sharking" reports on AF2 or UTC etc? Should ask Chaos about them... he wants them gone from UTC.

next to the difficult task of munching like dozens of reports on scamming, a more difficult task of sharking would be added to the work. This would have to be implemented into the SR work system with the subfora and what not. That will end up us reading all those shark reports.... nice for a "opt-in"....

That is probably because Chaos has some very odd notions when it comes to sharking, quite recently he was defending the numbskulls who "helped" a burning KE get sold for a relative pittance, and then of course Prodigy the consumate shark chimed in that he agreed (which explains why he is now no longer admin). I have little time for those with rubbery ethics in this game.

As for work, it is a no-brainer, there would be no onus to do anything in all but the most extreme cases, and those would be entirely up to the discretion of SR.

Do you want to come up with more excuses why a blanket tactic green flag exists for all sharks currently?

Easy to be part of a solution to at least the major serial offenders, rather than part of the problem.

While I understand that sharking is bad, and you shouldn't be doing it, but:
When you Scam someone, you Steal items from him. Doesen't matter which type of scam, he doesn't receive what you've promised.
When you Shark someone, He gets the item he wanted. Maybe he was looking for a Force a nature for ages, and now he's happy with it. But if he discovers the truth, obviously he gets pissed of. Also, even if there is a shark tag that won't help anyone, since the sharked "Victims" probably doesn't even know about Steamrep (The new players).
And also, there is a reason why Valve doesn't give trade bans for sharking (While they do for scamming).

If you are trying to justify something like a Burning TC for a Strange Fist... you are on a hiding to nothing. Anyone who has parents worth a damn should put that little chestnut to bed in no uncertain terms.

As for Valve... Valve do not prosecute beyond aspects of the game germane to their interests, while SR deals with other facets which affect us. To try to draw some analogy with Valve is perverse.

In any case, Helen knows full well what is possible and how to do it.

I hope that before too long SR will finally be able to send a clear message to the most flagrant offenders, and even if on a very limited scale that message signals a clear warning to the community.

How would a 'shark tag' help to decrease the amount of sharks? New players don't even know about Steamrep...

By making it harder for them to sell sharked items.

He's just provoking, to let us solve all his problems with sharks. Notice he never goes really into any of the issues that have been thrown around here. Only the ones he can easy deflect. Time to throw the ball back:

Well, think of a actually working system on this, solving the problems I've laid out in several posts and we will look into it. But the "opt-in" system is inviting too much favoritism and "haters" getting their ways. Just saying "do it" isn't negating the problems I've laid out recently in answer to you, and elsewhere in the topic.

And the mayor reports of "sharking" are just a shamble really. Most are too bad for words and needs lots more information then provided. This is ok ofc, but those "new" aren't putting much effort in it to finish reports.

@spirit: I guess we could serve such tag to our plugin, where server owners can decide to ban for it. Doubt that would help much tho.

Yeah that plugin seems to be useful. Who is provoking by the way?

You are "thinking" far too much.

Rather than pontificate and get lost in a warren of confused reasons why not, just speak to Helen and be part of coming up with a simple and workable outcome. It isn't hard

yet I see you not come up with any real markers for keeping this.

maybe too hard for you as well?

Till then, I consider this "chit-chat" closed. Driving the main point without looking at the issues isn't going to negate the real underlying problems of tagging for such. I refuse to be part of a "random" tagging system, thats not what SR is about. So either you start up your thinking and start real solutions, or i've had enough of only pushing the main point without addressing the problems. And those DO need to be addressed. I've been around long enough that it otherwise only results in a full revoke of all those "shark" tags again if its not based on fair dealing. Have fun figuring it out, for I'm not your puppet that runs around on "fake guilt" you tried to rub on me or w/e. I'm done responding to this, have better things to do then hearing demands that aren't even thought out yet.

I didn't ask you to respond. Speak to Helen. It is up to you guys.

I did, and I didn't get any relayed that was "new" idea's or thoughts to make this any easier. I did a proposition to the issue, but its still having problems around it that I need looking into.

One thing you need to learn is if you have a goal, its far more productive to start looking for problems around that goal, and solve each of those, either by actually solving them, or by thinking out of the box and finding a solution that negates multiple. These discussion threads make a good "bear shooting" area where problems can be named and ultimately addressed. Without that, just "do shark tags" is going to fail big time. That could maybe be done back when SR was without a forum and less formalized as it is now, but now its not doable. For too many ppl must know such policy and know how to act upon it. And the problems around it must be addressed, so the randomness is going to be negated.

The one I thought of isn't fully filled in yet, and may be worth something. But its not in a stage to discuss yet in public.

Holy moly, I thought you were going to drop the Hitler bomb.

A shark tag will never happen. I made this thread when I was a fresh faced admin and the trading community was my oyster, now it is clear to me that sharking is far to objective to define.

They said a man would never walk on the moon also as I recall

As to definition, that becomes utterly redundant the minute SR decides to make one tiny change to policy and take it upon themselves to investigate flagrant sharks as they deem appropriate.

It presents no extra workload at all, since by and large SR could ignore 99% if it saw fit to do so, but would at least be in a position to go after those who scam with impunity and have done so for a long time, knowing no one will bother them.

Currently there is no cop on the beat at all, and the lack thereof reflects poorly on SR, and gives room for all the musing as to the reasons why we often here. Circular arguments won't serve you well in a crisis and fence sitting is rarely a wise choice.

It is not my place to propose any rules/guidelines of similar, however the thousands of kids who in my charge on the many sites I run would surely love someone who cares to at least be able to keep in check the major sharks who send out armies of minions to jump on victims and funnel pilfered good to the four winds.

It is up to SR to sort something workable out, perhaps by the time SR has a face to face with Valve later in the year, they might have developed a range of fresh ideas to strengthen ties with Valve and a myriad of new strategies to improve things for the community in general.

SR is the ONLY organization which the community can we count upon to keep us safe from the unscrupulous, the lack of policy towards even the most flagrant sharks is appalling and should be addressed in a way that at least goes some way to making things better in general. I hope SR is able to get some thinking caps on to address the issue.

I agree with you. when i first got into the unusual market, i was looking to spend 3 buds. i had someone add me and offer an unusual. once they saw i had no clue how to price them they said they have long exprience and would gladly help me out. first they gave me prices on my unusual buying thread on sourceop. it seems that their pricing seemed to be fairly common to what most were asking minus about a bud or a bills (this was back in october or so of last year). I started trusting them for their word. They said they have been doing it for 3 years and know prices off by heart. The moment I got up to 5 buds he immediately said "oh, you have 5 buds, then i have a hat you will like. its worth 6-8 in unusuals. go sell it and buy a few unusuals so you can actually trade more then 1 at a time. There was no official forum for price checking back then so i took him for his word. The moment i went on to an unusual forum to sell it i was informed it was worth 3 buds. 3.5 at MAX. . I confronted him and his response was "i asked on the trade server when i priced it for you and they said 5 buds" but i was on the same trade server he frequents and everyone was saying the same. it's worth 3 buds. i got a couple of 2.5 bud offers and then nothing since then. He then proceeded to unfriend me. so he took me for 2 buds by price checking for me for a few weeks. again. this was a grooming shark. i dont have evidence and i have kept that unusual until today. it's an orb fire tavish crown. It's my "lesson" on unusual sharking. Since then i vowed to not shark anyone and to always help noobs from getting sharked by openly notifying them when i see a sharking happening. These types of sharks deserve a tag because they work to earn your trust and then take you for everything you got. At that time the 5 buds was about 4/5 of my bankroll so i had to almost rebuild from scratch.

Example of how I agree with you that malicious sharking is a scam. its not like they just see an opportunity for a good deal. It's like the law has murder degrees. First degree is much more punishable then 2nd or 3rd degree.

I must start by apologizing for the double post but i missed the 2 window opportunity to edit my post.

I think that having a sharking tag is a great thing. Considering most "partner" communities here do auto ban on tagged users they can implement a ban on tagged sharks. This will result in a post-crime consequence where a shark faces a ban on multiple trading communities after committing the sharking offence. You guys here have a very effective tool that DOES hinder extreme consequences to scammers and tags. if you can get the major communities on board then what ends up happening is that a tag actually results in a person getting "trade" banned in the majority of the community. Take away the one thing they care about most once they commit a felony. If someone is not in it to profit as a trader then they are most likely not going to shark or scam to begin with. You don't see regular gamers scamming. they don't care for the digital pixels. it's the traders that do. By taking their trading privileges away you hit them the only place you can hurt a scammer / shark - in their freedom to continue trading.

Its entirely too easy to go around it. Such banning wont work, it will only mark some alts which we may never find the main's for.

For me, any I do propose as actions for SR must have a full meaning in Tagging, banning, acceptance and all them problems addressed.

I've dismissed the idea I had after a good night sleep. Its also not feasable for a number of reasons. It solved some, but created more other ones.