This is a work in progress. If you have any recommendations or suggestions, please add them as a comment.

Note: Please try to only use the forum itself, as the "front page" updates with activity from the forum, albeit slowly. Bookmark this page, as the front page isn't exactly efficient.


Official Steam Resources:

Steam Subscriber Agreement

Steam Gifting Policy - thanks to Amplify

Steam Trading Policy - thanks to Amplify

Retail CD Keys Accepted on Steam


SteamTrades Resources:

Site Formatting FAQ

The Official SteamTrades Group

Reporting Thread - Report wrongdoing

Moderation Announcement Thread

Handling Coal and Coupons Discussion

Policy: Bumping Threads Discussion

Hint: Using the Search Bar


Base Rules:

  • Do not attempt to trade Steam or online game accounts (EVE, RIFT, etc). Zero tolerance.
  • Please submit any support requests in the Support Forum.
  • Do not use Adfly or other paying, or non-paying, referral programs.
  • Don't trade games you won from giveaways.
  • Only post one thread regarding your offer, no duplicate threads.
  • Only one account per IP address. If you have someone else at your location using SteamTrades or SteamGifts, please give the admin a heads up by submitting a ticket on the Support Forum.
  • Please note you cannot trade games from your Steam library. They are permanently attached to your account and not tradeable.
  • Do not misrepresent the title being traded.
  • Please do not offer trades or link to your trades on SteamTrades in the description of your giveaways.
  • Do not attempt to trade what we consider exploited CD-keys.
  • Do not offer to trade CD-keys that require VPN activation or methods to bypass regional restrictions.
  • Do not use the official SteamGifts chat room for trading. Please use the SteamTrades chat!

Keys Considered Exploited:

  • Serious Sam: Double D
  • Dead Island
  • Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
  • Bulletstorm
  • Homefront Shotgun DLC
  • AI War
  • Supreme Commander / Forged Alliance
  • Portal 2
  • DiRT 3
  • Dark Messiah of Might & Magic Multiplayer
  • Eets (in certain amounts)

Bumping:

  • You may only bump your thread once every hour. Bumping more than once every hour may result in the locking or removal of your thread.
  • Please do not bump your thread within 30 minutes of the last thread activity. This would also be a waste of your bump.

Site Etiquette:

  • Include [W] and [H] in your thread title for want and have for easier browsing.
  • Absolutely no begging.
  • Be considerate of all users at all times.
  • Please update your subject line with (EXPIRED) when your offer is no longer valid. This will help maintain the forum for now and allow for easier browsing by users.
  • Include your information, such as your SteamID, inside the description of your thread/offer. Please do not try to write this information in a comment in your thread as a free bump.
  • Don't advertise your offers in other threads.
1 decade ago*

Please don't bump within 12 hours after your last bump.

1 decade ago
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Thank you, I forgot about bumping.

1 decade ago
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12 hours?

maybe 6 hours or 3-5/day

1 decade ago
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We'll see how twelve hours goes for now. Bumping has been out of control and needs to settle down first.

1 decade ago
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btw, if we reply some offer = bumps ?

1 decade ago
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Of course if anyone comments on your thread, it will "bumped".

1 decade ago
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That sounds incredibly counter-productive, considering that threads tend to only stay on the first page for 5 minutes (if you're lucky) it would make it difficult to get any real trade offers from people in more than one time zone.

edit:
What about if the user deletes any previous bumps and only has one "active" bump at any given time?

1 decade ago
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Agreed with Amplify, this will only lead to users not creating new topics and spamming all others with offers.

1 decade ago
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If I could get some sort of an official response on this, that'd be great.

1 decade ago
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We're currently working out any kinks we see, but for now, this is just to get the site down to a normal level. The 12 hour bumping policy is only a temporary policy until the bumping is under control. Too many people are bumping their threads every 1-5 minutes, or less.

1 decade ago
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Fair enough.

1 decade ago
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Thank you for your understanding.

1 decade ago
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Coolio.

1 decade ago
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Is there an official S. Trades steam group?

1 decade ago
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Yes, link.

1 decade ago
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Thanks, but it seems that I was already in it! :P

1 decade ago
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Can we get a sticky where we can post scammers / bad deals or some sort of feedback system?

1 decade ago
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Scammers should be reported through Steam, not through SteamTrades

1 decade ago
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Removing them from here wouldn't be bad either.

1 decade ago
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That's a good idea, I'll make a sticky. This will help cut down on the amount of tickets submitted to SteamGifts support. Thanks.

1 decade ago
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Start an official middleman group?

1 decade ago
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I'd apply in it :3

1 decade ago
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good job

1 decade ago
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soz this rules have just been applied i didnt know about them so please dont remove my thread just this once

1 decade ago
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Rule Suggestion: Please Delete your thread when your trade/s are complete.

1 decade ago
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This is a good one!

1 decade ago
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I've thought about this, but I think I'd rather be able to lock the threads instead when the member updates the offer is no longer valid. Maybe update your subject line with an (EXPIRED) tag.

1 decade ago
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Sorry, i don't know about bumping rule

1 decade ago
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What is Steamtrades policy on people offering (or wanting) money via paypal or whatnot for gifts?

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=6262-QXCN-0755

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=9958-MJDG-3003

Quotes:

May I sell gift subscriptions?

Steam Gift Purchases can not be sold. Attempting to sell a gift subscription is a violation of the Steam Subscriber Agreement and may result in your account being permanently disabled. You can trade gifts using our new Steam Trading system and can read more about that here.

What should I not trade for?

Do not trade for anything that cannot be added into the trade window within Steam. The most common examples of these scenarios are the following:

* Trading items/gifts for money. You cannot add wallet credit or any form of money into the trade window. A common example of this is trading for items/gifts in return for money via PayPal.
1 decade ago
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Do not use Adfly or other paying, or non-paying, referral programs.

Why are non-paying links/programms forbidden? O__o

1 decade ago
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I will not allow users requiring the only way to complete a trade is to use their referral links. This will result in an immediate suspension.

1 decade ago
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I just had a thread, i was giving away coal for registering on my refferal link, why is this forbidden? In my view its fair...isnt it?

1 decade ago
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  • Do not use Adfly or other paying, or non-paying, referral programs.
1 decade ago
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Just to be fair, Xeramon tryed trading me items Before I did his referral that i had full knowledge about. However I insisted that I complete the registration first. Which I did and we are both happy :)

1 decade ago
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Do not offer to trade or trade for items with money/Paypal.
Why?if i had a positive reputation, why im cant offer with paypal?

1 decade ago
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It is against the rules of Steam and SteamTrades.

1 decade ago
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ooh
you already delete my topic
gg, moderator
l2tolerance

1 decade ago
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WORD, my thread was just deleted because i gave coal away for clicking on my ref. link...
...they didnt even had to pay, just click.

1 decade ago
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I am sorry, but as of now, we will not allow referral links as compensation for trading.

1 decade ago
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Please accept that it's actually against the Steam Subscriber Agreement. This isn't just our policy, and we have to protect our community.

1 decade ago
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How come it doesn't say this in the rules above? I thought it was ok? Or did I just not see it.

1 decade ago
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and wath about new topic limit? if bump is allowed 1 time in 12h then ppls will just make new topic cuz old one will slide down very fast...

1 decade ago
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Then I'll be forced to remove both their threads.

1 decade ago
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So if I want to close trade I need to add EXPIRED to title, right?

1 decade ago
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Yes, the community and myself would greatly appreciate tagging your threads for now. I will not delete your expired threads. In the near future, I hope I'm able to lock these threads instead.

1 decade ago
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Thanks. I'll keep that in mind.

1 decade ago
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While it might not be a rule, i think trading etiquette is important. had a deal last night where guy was trying to trade me X for Y, almost bought Y when he told me he done the trade with someone else.Never did he inform me about completing the deal with the other trader. 2 seconds away from buying Y without having a trade.

1 decade ago
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It's difficult to moderate the actual trading without being a man in the middle. I'm wondering how else to say this without it turning into my word vs your word type situation.

1 decade ago
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Can the stickies be perma-attached at the top of the page? They aren't exactly easy to find at the moment.

1 decade ago
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I see that's been handled :)

1 decade ago
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Only on the home page do they get buried. On the actual forum do they appear as stickied.

1 decade ago
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Thanks for informing.

1 decade ago
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Idea: make it possible that we can acces other users steam accounts from right from steamtrade, like is on steamgifts.

1 decade ago
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cg is actually working on that and hope to have it implemented soon.

1 decade ago
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That's good.

1 decade ago
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I'm sorry, but half of these rules are very obscure.

1 decade ago
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It's a work in progress. Which rules do you dislike specifically? I appreciate your feedback.

1 decade ago
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I think we should prevent modification/rules to these forums until the end of the Steam Winter Sale.

1 decade ago
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I apologize for the earthshaking, but these are rules that should have been in place since the beginning of SteamTrades. This place went without moderation for far too long.

1 decade ago
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Two quick questions:

  1. Bumping = replying to people? I had a thread locked on Steam forums because I was simply replying to people.
  2. Cache issues, I had DOTA 2 for trade a LONG while ago yet people still ask me about my thread that contains I guess an older cached version of my list. Any resolution? I edited it out about 2-3 days ago but people even today just added me for a DOTA gift.
1 decade ago
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Also another point i want to make. No posting or advertising your stuff on other people's threads. It's rude and impolite.To steal a customer is morally wrong.

1 decade ago
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Thanks, I'll add that to the etiquette section.

1 decade ago
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This site is flooded with exploited dead island keys (many users dealing them with multiple accounts as well). Easily over hundred keys have passed through today while i surfed the site, with fast and simple deals.

I've even tryed to warn people that when the key is reported already taken by the person whom buys it retail the key with the account becomes frozen & that is quite common as dead island is an alluring game and sells easily (Deep Silver announced that Dead Island has sold over 3 million copies and growing ~ 12/21/2011) Some of the threads I try to warn users in vanish shortly after but they just reappear later with similar descriptions and procedure.

But meh people will figure it out eventually i suppose. Likely not though of course & this glorious site will just continue to be a haven for misuse and cheating people out of legit items. :/

1 decade ago
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+1 I think keys for games that we consider exploited should not be allowed at all and all users trading them should be warned first and then banned, even if the person purchased them legitimately. There are many who claim to have purchased these keys legitimately, but if you check the official reporting thread (e.g. Nimalzinho's report) you will see dome use this grey area of having a legitimate key to scam people.

TL;DR: keys considered exploited should not be allowed, any user trading for them should be warned (although personally I think the rules section is the first thread anyone should read when joining up here) and then upon continuation of said key trading activity, banned.

1 decade ago
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The shame is... the damage is already done, The scammers have made a run on this site from even before the holidays and have massed a great amount of Steam holiday presents and purchased steam gifts while putting the users of keys accounts at risk.

The Exploit key industry is actually worse then piracy itself, while piracy deals with unregistered cloned copies, The keys deal with legit stolen products all with unique keys. The very point of this industry is to get the keys off ASAP for money or legit product & that has been a monumental success for them here at steamtrades.

Its not going to stop till they bring this site down & sadly everyone is just contributing to it, by accepting the keys and not banning the users they put the demand in for more and the cycle continues.

1 decade ago
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So what's the policy on people spamming and trolling? I know it's not as bad as scamming, but shouldn't they be banned all the same? If people come in spamming my topics and posting troll offers what am i supposed to do? I'll have to close the topic and if you don't ban them they'll feel encouraged so these topics will degenerate in insults. It's mostly a question of etiquette, but some people are retarded so...

I really think there should be a rule against spamming and trolling in other people's topics. Otherwise we can all fuck each other like on 4chan ;)
A guy is posting a troll offer... if he's not banned i can only send him to go fuck himself, having lost the topic anyway :/

edit: i'm talking about MrGrinch (http://www.steamtrades.com/user/MrGrinch). So, is there a penalty/warning for trolling or not? It's very easy to disrespect other people and if he won't be punished i'll just respond the same and fuck up his topics with troll offers. If he won't be warned for trolling then i don't see why i'd be, so we'll have a lot of messed topics just because some users lack etiquette and the site allows them to.

1 decade ago
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These spammers just fire and forget they even advertise that they won't be checking back and you got to get in contact with them. Very bad form and obviously it punishes us who play fair and follow the rules.

1 decade ago
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bumping every hour is useless since many are fake bumping; bump, delete, bump, delete and so on every few minutes and it all looks legit
like this guy and many others http://www.steamtrades.com/trade/3U8oy/h-risen-w-bioshock-1-or-dead-space-pack

1 decade ago
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Admins can see deleted posts.

1 decade ago
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i dont know where to write so will write here.
i propose to do full-text search in forum. its realy needed.

1 decade ago
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i second that ... the subject line can't hold much . Also very cool will be able to select games from a steam store search based box , and add them on the fly ... I see the future ....whoa :0

1 decade ago
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Can you ask for one game offering "game to decide"?
As example: I'd like to get The Darkness 2 from someone from Russia, and I could offer game worth in Europe around 12 euro - since that's the price of The Darkness 2 in Russia.

1 decade ago
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I was wondering about the same thing, though not so much because of the price but because of censorship in germany.

1 decade ago
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Are Amazon Gift Cards acceptable for trading?

1 decade ago
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we need to expand on the rules... case in point

1 decade ago
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So it doesn't die.

1 decade ago
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Updated with "Keys we consider exploited" in regards to trading.

1 decade ago
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"Do not offer to trade or trade for items with money/Paypal." This is the first rule and it's violated all the time. If it's not going to be upheld it should probably be removed.

1 decade ago
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Thanks for the suggestion. This was added as a rule because it's apparently against the Steam ToS, but it happens on the official trading forums, too.

1 decade ago
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I think you need more moderators to monitor these,and not only english

1 decade ago
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Keys Considered Exploited:

Serious Sam: Double D

Dead Island
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3

Bulletstorm

Homefront Shotgun DLC
AI War

Supreme Commander / Forged Alliance

Portal 2

DiRT 3
Dark Messiah of Might & Magic Multiplayer

Eets (in certain amounts)

dont buy this game from russia (MW3 key work only on CIS countries! Russia,Ukraine,Belarus,and other) (if you buy key from russian guy and active key game added to libarty and removed for few days )

Eets it's free game! download this game for your iphone, complete game, and you unlock steam key for eets!

Dark Messiah of Might & Magic Multiplayer,Supreme Commander / Forged Alliance,Dirt 3 and other it is stollen keys from internet and from polan site (cdaction) with proxy

1 decade ago
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"Only post one thread regarding your offer, no duplicate threads."

Many users (myself included) maintain different threads for different offers.
While as far as I understand the rules this is not considered 'duplicate threads' (please correct me if I'm wrong on this), the fact that people are maintaining 3, 4 or more different thread each does lead to the forum being rather swamped.

Might it perhaps be a good idea to limit the maximum number of threads per user ?

1 decade ago
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Limiting the maximum number of threads per user is an interesting restriction, but I'm not sure how effective it would be. We do limit how many giveaways people can create on SteamGifts, so many limiting threads based on your feedback could be a compromise? The higher the feedback, more threads.

1 decade ago
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Hm, but wouldn't that mean 'big', well established traders would dominate the forum, while it would get increasingly hard for newcomers to get any visibility ?

1 decade ago
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This is exactly why we've been holding back any sort of restrictions in this community. We want things to be fair and not hold back new comers to the community. We appreciate your feedback, though.

1 decade ago
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But a fixed limit of, say, no more than 2-3 concurrently open threads per user would give everyone equal opportunity while keeping the spam down, wouldn't it ?

1 decade ago
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Can we sell minecraft accounts?

1 decade ago
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Are there any rules for reviews? For instance, one user (http://www.steamtrades.com/user/cLassEg) responds to negative reviews he receives by giving retaliatory negative reviews with no justification. In one instance ( see here: http://www.steamtrades.com/user/TheHotstepper) this guy got three of his friends to write negative reviews on an innocent person's wall. Seems unfair for the guy who had the courage to report someone and now has 4 negative reviews for doing so. Shouldn't there be some kind of oversight for these kinds of things? Otherwise, there seems to be a disincentive to write negative reviews even if you are completely innocent.

1 decade ago
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"Keys Considered Exploited:" <--- giftable/tradeable copies of those games seems to be fine, I suppose?

You may only bump your thread once every hour. Bumping more than once every hour may result in the locking or removal of your thread.
and
Please do not bump your thread within 30 minutes of the last thread activity. This would also be a waste of your bump.
Sounds like contradiction for me. Any explanation?

1 decade ago
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Not really a contradiction. You may bump your thread for the sole purpose of bumping (no one has replied on your thread and an hour has passed, so you use the bump feature or post on your profile to bump your thread) once every hour.

However, say you waited for 45 minutes and someone came and posted an offer on your profile (thread activity); the second statement thus states that after this person has posted on your profile (and whether you reply or not) this counts as a bump since the system always moves threads that get a message to the top.

Thus bumping your topic after getting this would only waste it as your thread will already have moved to the top (if you reply to this offer, you will have moved the thread to the top anyway, so bumping after replying would be a waste of a bump too). Hope it was informative :)

1 decade ago
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It is a contradiction with a newly implemented Bump button or at least it looks like to me. Or not even a contradiction, it's rather an obsolete rule.
Thanks for additional clearing anyway.

1 decade ago
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Rule ""Only post one thread regarding your offer, no duplicate threads" need to be revised so that it means no multiple posts from the same person can be active at the same time because the word "duplicate" is being taken advantage of. Take a look at the front page. Filled with posts from the same 3-4 people... Claim is the posts are different (they vary the items by one or two items) and hence is not against the rules since "Only post one thread regarding your offer, no duplicate threads" and if an item in offer is different, then it is not "duplicate"...

As I recall, the rule was placed specifically made so that trading could be made fairly by all and not have the threads of a few people clutter up the front page. This not only makes it hard for people to advertise their threads fairly, but also increases burden on the site (imagine everyone making 4-5 threads...) and defeats the purpose of the whole bumping restrictions and such on both accounts stated previously.

1 decade ago
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I agree.

1 decade ago
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+1

1 decade ago
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Y U SO SMART.<3

1 decade ago
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we need to put faerie solitaire and Dota 2 SEA region keys on the exploited keys list now... Dota 2 SEA keys are not exploited but do require the use of services not allowed on the Steam TOS to activate for people not in the SEA region...

1 decade ago
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I got a Quick IMPORTANT question.
Some people says that they want Paypal money, how can you be sure that you don't get scammed?

1 decade ago
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Use a middleman.

1 decade ago
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Guys how is exactly the portal 2 key exploited.I got a free PC key with my ps3 copy of portal 2

1 decade ago
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is it ok to add paypal cash to my offer for another game ? Oo

1 decade ago
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According to steam TOS, you are not supposed to buy or sell from any other user - games can only be bought via steam. Need I say more?

1 decade ago
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Actually it's perfectly fine to buy/sell games for paypal. If you get fucked in trading though, they won't help you out.

1 decade ago
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Interesting... I remember a term about resale of games or something in there but I could be mistaken... Will chack the TOS again later since it has been updated again...

I am really curious as to how you got that -ve Yatterman ^^

1 decade ago
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I know this rule is already in play

Only post one thread regarding your offer, no duplicate threads.

But sometimes you have 2 threads, one with tradable games only, and one with keys only. So what you think of having a rule where you can have a max of 2 unrelated threads? or something like that.

Lately ive seen like 4-5 threads with the same items/wants by the same person and its really irritating when it clogs up the forums.

1 decade ago
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I'd be all for some sort of a sensible limit - while I'm typing this, one user has 9!! threads on the front page alone :/

1 decade ago
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I'd say 3 different offer/want threads is more than enough per user.

1 decade ago
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suggestion for a new rule: people should put a printscreen of the evidence when putting bad rep on a profile. When you give someone bad rep because he deserves it you get one automatically fake bad rep back.

1 decade ago
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Do you think we should make trading Indie Royals not possible? With the new system http://www.indieroyale.com/collection It could make stealing keys extremely possible. We have to at least warn people.

1 decade ago
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Re: the rule against advertising offers in other users' threads, would it be okay for someone to make a "house rule" for one of their own trading threads where third parties are allowed to make their own counter-offer if the one who posted the initial thread declines? For example, if someone makes me an offer to trade in my thread, and I decline because I already have/aren't interested in the offered game, then anyone else who sees the post and would like to take that offer or give a counter-offer can do so.

1 decade ago
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Is there any possibility of donations for auto-bumping privledges? Tf2outpost has a similar feature, and I would love to donate to this site, seeing how useful it has become to me.

Thanks!

1 decade ago
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Thank you for writing this!

1 decade ago
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I'm curious as to what happened to the bumping policy? We're back to multiple bumps per hour and ignoring the bump button.

"Oh, the bump button is greyed out, that must mean it's broken so I'll just keep doing it my way instead of reading the rules!"

In all honestly, it wouldn't be nearly as bad if people had the intelligence to at least delete their previous bumps before posting a new one, but that's just too much to hope for.

1 decade ago
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It's still enforced but extremely loose right now until we have more moderators on site. Pretty much all that we deal with on steamtrades right now is negative reputation deletion + banning scammers.

1 decade ago
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Hey all! Is individual Humble Indie Bundle V game keys considered to be exploited?

1 decade ago
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Anybody?

1 decade ago
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Closed 5 years ago.