By entering you agree that I can delete this giveaway if the key doesn't work.

Or are there simply so many people giving away keys they're unsure about and want to cover their ass so they don't get a Not Received?

It works both ways.

Pft back in my day if I made a give away and the key didn't work or was the wrong key I when and got the right key for the person, none of this agreeing to delete a giveaway nonsense. <mutters to himself about how kids today all have it so easy>

Bottom line, while people MAY write that, it does not cover them whatsoever.
if someone decided to be a dick and disagree to delete, they have to either suffer the not received, or provide some sort of "benefit" to the guy so he deleted(off the book of course), be it a random game, cards, or even the original game itself.

The statement itself doesn't really make sense since it's not enforceable by site rules. People just appear awkward instead when trying to make conditions that aren't real. And honestly, getting fair marks of Not Received on the off chance that a winner doesn't agree to a deletion, which they almost always do anyway, is not really a huge deal when it's clearly genuine mistakes. So no, I don't believe it's a widespread problem at all.
It makes more sense when the creators are honest and simply state that they aren't sure if the key will work because they're unsure about it, so the entrant is warned about the potential hassle beforehand.

In the end the statement doesn't change anything because "vindictive" people, as you put it, still have the right to mark as Not Received either way, and people who'd willingly agree to deletion won't change their stance because they are commanded to. If anything, it feels rude and misleading to try to apply arbitrary conditions that aren't real in an effort to intimidate the less knowing entrant. I see this type of behaviour very often around this site and in specific groups where the end result is that people who don't know their rights are basically tricked to forfeit them.

TL;DR: Writing the statement as a general warning is a nice gesture. Writing it as a rule is rude (and might even make people less inclined to follow it), doesn't prevent people from ignoring it anyway, and encourages the general spreading of misinformation harming everyone who don't know the exact rules to begin with.

I don't really care, I see that statement every now and then too and I'm always 100% ok to delete the key if for some reasons it's dupe, non-valid, revoked or whatever else.. it's just a matter of giving away games and being kind to each other so I have always been extremely supportive with the giveaway creator when the key I won turned out to be already used or invalid..
But I can't speak for every other user here so I don't really know their perspective.. in my opinion I'm here to spend some free time, have fun and make someone else happy so I'd never care about these issues.. if the key doesn't work, who cares.. I'll win another time ^^

Actually, the thing I don't get is why people would even create giveaways for keys they're not sure about.

the winner has no obligation to accept it. It is up to him and he is not an "butt hole" if he refuses to delete the giveaway. It is the responsibility of the giveaway creator to provide a working key for the game he gives away. Don't make a giveaway for a key you are not sure about. Or pray for the mercy of the winner.

I've bought a lot of bundles over the years, and I'm slowly giving away everything I don't want. The bad keys run something less than 1% of the total, if I had to estimate. That means 99% or more are good, and why shouldn't people have them if they want them?

(I also check each game I give away in the Steam forums and the Revoked-Keys thread here to see if there have been issues with any given game; if so, I don't make the GA.)

This new habit is really annoying. Sometime I feel like entering all those giveaways just for a chance to NOT AGREE to delete it in the case key were used. This giveaway deletion thingie needs to be addressed; either by forbidding giveaway deletion completely, or by automating it.

I'm sure there's a lot of people who don't read the rules and actually think they have to agree to what's in the giveaway description.

The only time I think a warning of possible redemption/region is 100% justified is when there is a blatant absence or conflict regarding region restriction information available regarding a game. Otherwise, seems like key mismanagement or doubt in reliability of where the key came from.

Let me give my own and only personal example of a justified warning: I want to giveaway Frozen Synapse Prime that I acquired from GMG which says there are "no regional restrictions", yet another site often updated by some members of SG says there can be "region lock issues" without any info on what regions a key could be locked to. So I don't put any region restrictions on the GA (implying that I have some trust in GMG), but warn people that there is a chance there might be region issues.

Are those giveaways mostly from the lootboy group?
I don't see this message that often outside of the group (but might be just my impression since I have hidden most trash games that often come from questionable sources :P)
In case of the lootboy group, it's just an internal group rule, that members have to agree to delete the giveaway if they want to stay inside the group. Of course this doesn't affect the sg rules in any way. Users could still refuse to delete the ga, but then they would be removed from the group. So far there were no problems with this and I never had to remove anybody :3
It's also not necessary to post that rule in the ga's, but I guess people just put it there as a reminder for the group members...similiar to the Playing Appreciated group wich also has their "Play this in 30 days"-message in every giveaway :3

Bit of common sense here should prevail. If someone has given a key that they cant replace and they have gone to reasonable lengths to get a replacement, you should not be a douche and insist on the key. Humble bundle not replacing keys due to so called trading/regional restrictions with appropriate proof would be more than enough for me to agree to deletion.

Ever since otaku/gogo went bust and keys were being revoked left right and centre, situations like this have made people more nervous about giveaways and include the disclaimer to try and help mitigate those situations when keys no longer work. I still have stacks of keys from them which I don't make giveaways for as I don't trust the keys anymore.

I personally don't giveaway keys unless I am 90-95% certain the keys work so I try to have standards that my keys will most likely work before making the giveaway. If you worry about a giveaway and cannot afford to replace it, then don't make the giveaway. Simples!

Let's be real, if you make enough giveaways you're bound to eventually reuse a few keys you've already used / given away, or run into a bad key from a bundle site. Even though they're not required to, the reasonable thing for the winner is to agree to delete the giveaway and I have never have a problem doing so. Insisting on a new key because you "won it fair and square" just seems so entitled.

550 games sent, only had a problem once. Well, it sometimes May happen.

I think I've only used that once or twice but I prefer to get people the key they asked for, even if it's late (18 days late in my most recent one) the only time I ever deleted one was because they took 3 weeks and the key had expired within 10 days of the giveaway ending and since I could've rerolled him we just decided to delete it. Still, I can see why people would do it but I just don't do it since I think if I put something like this up and don't take it down beforehand I should give out the payment, even if it's a month late

should be against the rules to say that, just like begging or asking for donations.

I mean, I do think it's odd when those disclaimers come in heaps, but I mean, what with all the revocations etc lately, who even knows anymore if the keys really will work despite having had them for a while. It makes me wanna sift through keys to get rid of them sooner rather than later too, not that I intended to hold on to them for years or something to begin with.

And I mean unless one user explicitly repeatedly deletes every GA (which I believe is something that wouldn't go unnoticed by support) I usually just shrug that notice off and hope for the best. No idea how many of those that I entered were deleted in the end though.

On that note I only had won a bad key once, and even the replacement key was a dupe, but I don't blame the GA host, since the key source could have been at fault just as well. At the same time I am paranoid about receiving the red X on one of my GAs haha. So yeah it goes both ways I think.

I have asked for one deletion, in a case where I literally could not replace the key. It was an old indieroyale key, so the original source couldn't replace it. The game isn't currently sold anywhere besides Steam, so I couldn't just go buy another key somewhere else. And to top it all off, the user is in a region where the price is higher than mine, so I couldn't gift a steam version either. After we discovered that it was impossible for me to gift the game in any way, the user agreed to delete the giveaway and I gave them a different game as an apology.

That said, I don't see a need to have the disclaimer there. It can't be enforced by support anyway, so it just makes you look kind of silly.

It's a lot about how the creator asks the winner to permit giveaway deletion, I think.

Some people will write "By entering, you are obliged to agree to delete the GA." in the description of every other giveaway they create, and expect the winner to comply. I'm sorry, mate, that's not how it works.
On the other hand, if you get a duplicate/invalid key and the creator apologizes and asks if you'd be fine with him deleting the GA... many of us will have no problem with that.

People see not agreeing to giveaway deletion as the winner being an a-hole. Instead, it should be seen as kindness if the winner does agree ;)

It's starting to appear to me that there's a ton of reasons why this occurs as well as strong opinions on the topic, having read the entire thread.

In my case I joined the site, setup ESGST, saw lots of disclaimers & assumed it was the norm. I never even considered anyone would take it as being rude. That never occurred to me. I figured the opposite TBH...

I'm autistic & have anxiety issues perhaps that's why... But I thought it was polite to post a disclaimer!

Just in case there was an issue that was out of the control of the person making the giveaway. Such as a key revocation. I figured a disclaimer mentioning that possibility; stating to please mark as received in a timely manner (along with a WL encouragement for doing so; in my case); as well as the obligatory (again for me personally) Please & Thank You was the proper & polite way to do giveaways.

Thanks to those that have posted there perspectives. It's interesting to see the various perspectives. If any of my disclaimers have ever offended anyone, my humble apologies! It was not intended to do so!

I'll have to follow this topic. As I don't want to offend someone in an attempt to be polite & logical. Very interesting perspectives that I never even would have thought to consider being a possibility. Thanks again to those that have posted in the thread & provided said perspectives.

Umm... I think you mean "vindictive?"

(Yes, I realize you can't edit the poll once it's made. Inconvenient, but also pragmatic.)