Well it’s finally happened My IP Ban on Valve Software’s Steam Forums has finally been removed, and this has taken how long for a ban that should never have been.

I first realized my Internet Service Provider’s IP had been banned on the Steam Forums on the 27 of August 2005 but it may have well been banned long before that and it’s only today that I have check to see if I had been un-banned or not because I still hadn’t received any reply from the webmaster of the Steam Forums or anybody else at Valve Software including Gabe Newell who I also emailed in the hope to get this solved quick and easy!

Let’s do the maths to get a better understanding on how long four (4) months is:

From and including: Saturday, August 27, 2005
To, but not including: Tuesday, December 27, 2005

4 months be converted to one of these units:

122 days
10,540,800 seconds
175,680 minutes
2,928 hours
17 weeks (rounded down)

A very long time if you ask me for a ban which I must say again was never suppose to happen especially has I emailed Valve on several occasions, I guess I have to be grateful that I’m now unbanned but it still worries me why I still haven’t received an email from Gabe Newell or anybody else in the Valve Department, I guess I was wrong in thinking that Valve wasn’t like other companies and that they actually care about their fans, hmmm I think I might write to them one last time but this time it will be via post and not email just in case they never did get my emails or maybe even better yet I might just phone them to express my concerns!

Anyway I’ll have a think about it and update you at a later date if anything happens, for now here’s a copy of all my emails sent to Valve Software!

From: Darren Straight
To: gaben@valvesoftware.com
Date: Nov 19, 2005 11:04 AM
Subject: Complaint for Gabe Newell at Valve Software

Dear Gabe Newell,

Once again I am emailing you for I have still had no reply from either yourself or anybody else at Valve, though I pretty much believe I’m at a position were it should be you emailing me not anybody else.

I’m also pretty much sure that I don’t need to explain my problem to yourselves again as I’ve already sent this to you before and also to ( webmaster@steampowerd.com)

But because I still want this problem solved, what I have done is attached all the prior emails I have sent to you and the webmaster of the steam forums.

I’m not sure how you are going to fix my Ip ban problem and/or if you are going to compensate me for my wasted time that.

But I would like to assure you that if you don’t take action soon that I’m sure the Search Engine bots on the net wont take long too get the word out even more than it already is.

Yours truly,
Darren Straight

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Darren Straight
Date: Oct 27, 2005 10:42 PM
Subject: IP Ban problem since the 27 of August 2005.
To: gaben@valvesoftware.com

Dear Gabe Newell,

My name is Darren Straight and I’m emailing you about a great concern I have on how Steampowerd.com is managed, sure maybe I should not be emailing you and that I should be emailing the correct department for that site but the trouble is I have!

And I’m feed up of waiting for a reply that I sent ages ago, to be more precise I’ve been waiting for a reply since the 27 of August 2005 and in my books to wait two months and still receive no reply means something just isn’t right, don’t you agree.

Let me give you a quick explanation of my problem as I’ve also attached my original emails with this one, basically my ISP IP has been banned from the steam forums for 2 months now, the message I get is the following:

vBulletin Message  

Sorry. The administrator has banned your IP address. To contact the administrator click here ( webmaster@steampowerd.com)

So I’ve sent webmaster@steampowerd.com an email twice but still no reply.

My current IP details are as follows:

Internet IP Address 82.31.27.80 ( Dynamic DNS)
client-82-31-27-80-brnt.adsl.tesco.net
62.253.64.12 (ISP IP, the IP that you have banned)

Also here is my steam account name, not that it has any relevance to the forums but it may help:
darrenstraight

Also let it be know that I WAS a very loyal fan of your company “Valve Software” but now I’m not so sure if I want to be a fan of Valve, not after all this, in-fact I have actually not been playing Half-Life 2 or any other Valve game for all this time that also applies to Modding and Mapping, just think about it, 2 months without mapping at all!

Deep down I know that I want to start mapping again because I’m afraid that if I don’t my mapping skills will go down hill, they probably have already as I haven’t been keeping up to date on anything Valve or Mapping related.

So it’s up to you, if this can be dealt quickly and swiftly I will come back, but if you can’t promise me this or that you can’t even reply to my email then I’m afraid you have just lost a great fan, a fan that has supported you for such a long time which is all to be lost to a simply ban!

Yours sincerely,
Darren Straight

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Darren Straight
Date: Sep 16, 2005 12:48 PM
Subject: IP Ban problem since the 27 of August 2005.
To: webmaster@steampowered.com

Dear Administrator,

For the past week or so I have not been able to access http://www.steampowered.com

The message I get is a normal this page cannot be displayed error.

This means that I can’t access any of Valve’s updates via the Steam page or the Steam Program as that also gets its content from: http://www.steampowered.com/index.php?area=news

For a while I was thinking maybe it’s the site and they are having problems, oh but how wrong was I because after asking a lot of people to check the site I found out that I was the only person who couldn’t access it.

I thought at first that maybe it was my pc but this was highly unlikely considering I know my PC of by heart and I am studying an Honors Degree in Information Technology here in the UK.

But then I realized that on the 27 of August 2005 I had sent you the administrator an email to the following address ” webmaster@steampowered.com” this email was asking you why I was banned from the Steam Forums, I have only just remember about this email because I forgot all about it because it was a while ago now and I hadn’t even received a reply, which I think is not acceptable considering it was a while ago now and I gave you all the information necessary, even an automated email confirming you have received it would have done, but no nothing at all.

From my point of view it looks like you have banned my IP and my ISP IP from the entire Steam Network Site!

I can’t believe that is true as I haven’t done anything to provoke this anyway, but it’s the only logical explanation I can think of for now considering I have tested everything else to try and access the site within my pc.

Let me give you a copy of my IP details; let me remind you this is a Dynamic DNS IP:

Internet IP Address: 82.18.199.153 ( Dynamic DNS)
client-82-18-199-153.brnt.adsl.tesco.net
62.253.64.12 (ISP IP)

I am extremely disappointed that this has happened to me considering I am a great fan of the Valve and I am always out on the look out for the newest news and information which I share with as many as possible especially for on my Blog and HL2 Sites.

Now all I ask is that I get a reply from somebody at Valve that can tell me why I haven’t received a reply from my previous email and why I cant access any of the Steam site now when before it was just the Forums that I was banned from for no particular reason and if this problem will be fixed as soon as possible.

But I’m sad to say this as I know you probably are very busy but If in the next few days or so I do not receive a confirmation of you having received and read this email my faith in Valve will be a great less than what it is now.

I and all of your fans love what you have been doing at Valve so please don’t let me and your fans down especially not before the release of Half-Life 2: Lost Coast and the Day of Defeat: Source!

Yours Sincerely,
Darren Straight

ps. A copy of the previous e-mail sent on the 27 of August 2005 is attached bellow:

———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Darren Straight
Date: Aug 27, 2005 12:34 AM
Subject: Banned IP Address
To: webmaster@steampowered.com

Dear Administrator,

I have just tried to access: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/

But in doing so I receive the following message:

vBulletin Message  

Sorry. The administrator has banned your IP address. To contact the administrator click here

My Ip details are as follows:

82.31.31.222
client-82-31-31-222.brnt.adsl.tesco.net

But please be aware that my internet connection is a Dynamic DNS one and that it’s changes each time, I believe that you may have actually blocked this IP: 62.253.64.12 which is instead the Proxy IP Address of my ISP which is what forums normally detect, this I know because I adminstrate various sites my self, so there may be another user which uses the same ISP as me “tescos”

I don’t have a steam forum username but my account for the steam servers is as follows:
darrenstraight

Hope you can help, if you need any more details please feel free to contact me as I would like this little issue solved so I can once again check the forums and register this time!

Yours sincerely,
Darren Straight