Statute of limitations

Hello, forum. I've got a question that circles in my mind for some time already. Why's there no statute of limitations?
People, who are found guilty in real life, spend some time in jail and after that they are free and can return to real life. But why in the TF2 community "scammers" (i am talking about people who did it by their childish stupidity and the amount of scammed items wasn't big) can be tagged as that for several years? If a person was a malicious scammer, he would simply buy/create another account. But some people try to appeal after 3/5/10 years and their appeals are rejected and, i've read some appeals, there's a feeling that admins don't really want to take a deeper look. Just pure
bureaucracy. There's no black and white in real life, people sometime make mistakes, but why they can't be forgiven?
Some of the people appealed right after the scam attempt, but as i said before, some of them were little dumb kids back then, few of them read the appeal guide and actually understood it. And second appeal usually being rejected because person already made one, despite the fact that a lot of time has passed. I think it's unfair and there are things to think about again.
P.S. I am not justifying scamming, people feel bad about it and suffer a pain of loss.
P.P.S. To make things a little bit clearer and to prevent some finger pointing, i should say that i was scammed in 2017-2018 for some keys, 20 if i remember it right. Still got discord chat with that person, so i could provide some evidence, that i know how bad being scammed feels. Clearing that, so you could be sure, that i know how bad it feels.



Thanks for your attention! I am happy to hear your thoughts and suggestions, even if your point of view completely opposite to mine.

Hello,

I am not affiliated with Steamrep, but I do believe Lava's post will provide some useful answers for you:
https://forums.steamrep.com/threads...or-what-they-did-as-child.196627/#post-535245

Many thanks for that post. Well, maybe SteamRep staff considere "scammer" tag as a "warning", but there's a partnership with backpack.tf
And simply tagged people can't use backpack.tf properly and people who are trading with "scammers" are going to be punished after 30 keys traded mark. That's why i decided to create such a post, because 10 years is a huge number, TF2 is still alive and there's real limitations on platforms that are in partnership with SteamRep.

I've already made similar discussion on bp.tf forum (and people actually agreed with my point). And i had a suggestion how to remove the "scammer" tag, whilst keeping a sign that person was a scammer before.
Mostly people view SCAMMER tag as an active scammer profile, but there's should another one, that says the person was a scammer long time ago. Something like "FORGIVEN".

There has been an idea for a clemency program for scammers, tho no new updates have been posted as far as I know.

Personally (again my opinion holds no weight) but I do support banned tags to be permanent by design if a user was found guilty of any wrongdoing, but a person who is guilty/not guilty should be given a chance to appeal for themselves.
My reasonings for this and as to why:

1. There are extenuating circumstances as to why a guilty person was tagged: was the scam premeditated/type of offense/were there multiple scams at play? All of which can play a key factor with having a human admin with human discretions judging the context of the cases rather than just an automated X amount of time served for Y offense (which I believe can play a factor in an appeal, but should probably only remain a factor to depend on the case).

2. If (for example) a person scammed 15 years ago, only scammed one time, got caught, and got tagged, i would honestly be surprised if an active steam account who was tagged as a scammer with one offence from 15 years ago re-offended out of the blue present day. But since tag's are meant to serve as a warning to the community, I do not see any real difference between a "forgiven" and a "Scammer" tag and other than it would be best to have the benefit of having them naturally just stay banned-tagged (with the possibility to appeal)and having them off the trading servers/trading platforms entirely to be safe until there is some formal appeal acting as a contract to swear not to re-offend.

3. It can allow scammers to "play the waiting game." Steal a bunch of expensive items, and be left with the mindset "only x amount of time to go before i get downgraded"

4. Appeals can allow repayment/restitution of the victim and their wrongfully stolen item(s).

Thanks for pointing out, that there should be some limitations to the removal of scammer tag after time passed. I agree with you on that one, already mentioned it in bp.tf discussion, but forgot to write that here. Yes, the possible removal should be performed only in case of minor scams and after the appeal from a person. Nevertheless, person, who gone through that process, should have a different mark than "scammer". As i mentioned above, community view that tag as an active scammer profile.
Well, to make it simple:
People who scammed little amount of funds, did that only 1-2 (reported) times and enough amount of time has passed can appeal once more if they did that before. After successful appeal they should have other type of tag and regain access to the sites which are in the partnership with SteamRep.

I recently spoke with an admin, since I wanted to get my tag removed for the simple reason of wanting to use CSFloat to buy skins and them checking steamrep and blocking logins from marked users, and the clemency program is still in the works.

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Actually, what would you, as an admin, say about that issue that many people, unfortunately, encountered?