Flag/Report User Button or Auto Ban

[SilverKingdomCruelty]

I've seen a influx of scammers over the past days on the IG trade section. I have reported one who was obviously scamming people but there where a few more who had a mixed feedback with a majority of negative feedbacks, I would like a button to quickly report those users so they can be checked by the IG team.

If a user receives 2 or more negative feedbacks he should be automatically banned by the system so he gets slowed down from scamming more people. I don't think many people with malicious intentions have the audacity to contact the support if they get their account suspended.

 

[LightOracleImage]

This is definitely a good idea. Hopefully they add something like this soon Or give mods the power to deal with things on our level.

 

[NamelessWraith]

I've seen a influx of scammers over the past days on the IG trade section. I have reported one who was obviously scamming people but there where a few more who had a mixed feedback with a majority of negative feedbacks, I would like a button to quickly report those users so they can be checked by the IG team.

If a user receives 2 or more negative feedbacks he should be automatically banned by the system so he gets slowed down from scamming more people. I don't think many people with malicious intentions have the audacity to contact the support if they get their account suspended.

You'd be surprised...

Anyway, this sort of system already exists with giveaways, and it's causing problems. People can give negative feedback for no valid reason without consequence, so banning someone for that is just begging for trolling. I've had people send me negative feedback out of "revenge" on a perfectly valid key because their key did not work, and I gave them a negative feedback. There's no recourse for getting a negative feedback removed unless the person who gave it agrees, and the spiteful little trolls aren't going to do that. As far as they're concerned, if they're going to get banned, they might as well get everyone else banned with them.

Also, I'm not sure what you mean by an "influx", there were tons of scammers already in the trades section for months, now...

Right now, if you notice things like that, just send an email to support. They've responded to obvious scammer behavior in the past, like setting up "feedback rings" of sockpuppets. (If you see someone suspiciously get mixed feedback, check the people giving positive feedback, they are often sockpuppets of the same guy all giving each other massive positive feedback to counterbalance the negative feedback they get in actual trades.)

 

[SilverKingdomCruelty]

Maybe it is just me and there is no actual influx of scammers. Either way, it is quite tedious to log into your email account and write an email to report certain users, when your initial intention was just to browse some trades to see if you can find something interesting. A lot of people might not even know that they can report scammers to the support, thats the only way I can explain that there are users who are scamming people over a few days or weeks. A simple, well placed button would help with that.

About the auto ban, yes it is causing some issues and I was banned from the giveaway section already too, but a simple message to the support solved that in less than a day. If your intentions are good, and you have positive feedback from several users that have a positive trade history too, there should be nothing to worry about. The question is if a short ban that can be solved by contacting the support is worse than a bunch of scammers who slowly destroy the trade and giveaway sections.

 

[NamelessWraith]

I don't know about you, but I'd personally prefer not to be banned for something I didn't do.

Your argument is based upon the assumption that legitimate users who are banned unfairly and suffer through serious problems just trying to use the site will be more willing to contact suppot to get themselves un-banned than the people who go to great lengths already just to cheat the system, and I think that's a severely flawed assumption. If users start being banned for no good reason, they will simply quit IndieGala entirely, or at least, the trades or giveaways sections, while the people who go to great lengths to abuse the system however they can have already shown more motivation to try to get themselves every advantage possible. I can't see this doing anything but driving legitimate users away.

In any event, I'm certainly not opposed to a "report user" button, but auto-bans should use a more sophisticated system than simply blindly banning anyone with 2 negative feedbacks. Looking for new accounts that give plenty of positive feedback to the same mixed-feedback account, for example, is more likely to weed out scammers than simply blanket-banning anyone with 2 negative feedbacks even when they've been on the trading service since its introduction and have a +100 overall record.

 

[SilverKingdomCruelty]

I don't know about you, but I'd personally prefer not to get scammed when trading a game.

I'm glad you edited some constructive criticism to your post so I can actually agree with something. I am not a fan of the current auto ban system on the giveaways either, and I would not want users who have a long positive trade or giveaway history to get banned if they receive 2 negative feedbacks. But I think if IG wants a auto ban system, it would make more sense to have it in the trade section because the damage that can be done there is more severe than in the giveaway section.

 

[NamelessWraith]

The notion that "IG wants a auto ban system," is itself not a notion I can get behind. Why assume that the highly problematic system being used now is the only system that can exist?

Again, you might be invested enough in IG's system to get yourself unbanned, but there are more people who are likely to just quit IndieGala's trade system altogether if they suffer undue problems. There will always be people ready to sacrifice sockpuppet accounts to scam games, and are either well-enough invested to get themselves unbanned, or for whom getting banned is meaningless. (What's a ban to a disposable sockpuppet account, when you can just create a dozen more? Simply banning their account does nothing to actually stop these people, anyway.)

Basicaly, the auto-ban solution would probably make the problem worse, not better, since what's really important is the ratio of legitimate traders to scammers. If you do something that drives off more or even only slightly less legitimate users than scammers, you're actually making your odds of running into scammers higher, and also drying up the pool of potential legitimate trading partners whose games for which you can trade. Things like setting up Captcha on trades would also have the exact same effect: a higher rate of scammers to legitimate traders, driving down the desire for anyone to use the system.[/i]

 

[OrangeTorchRule]

You can see that kind of abusing behaviour also on the giveaways.
That was nothing new for me since i saw the new system was based on levels-
I saw many of those abusing giveaways. Some of those even mentioned on the info box something like "Do not join on this giveaway...This giveaway have made only for leveling up!!!".
As Jason Said "This is definitely a good idea. Hopefully they add something like this soon Or give mods the power to deal with things on our level." and i agree with those words.