Should giveaways creators be required to provide proof they attempted to contact their winners before being granted a new winner?
I want to say yes since you need a process to prevent abuse, but these CS:GO gamblers who win my games and then never log onto Steam again really try my patience.
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but these CS:GO gamblers who win my games and then never play them really try my patience.
addendum 👌
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Heh, I could say that about most of this site. There's a bit of a '+1' culture floating around (not that I'm guilt-free).
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here many have the practice of when they win a giveaway still active in SG and Steam they take all week to activate the game thinking that in this way they can win more games, this type of practice is annoying and does not have any type of sanction.
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See I don't see the abuse thing.
Could it be used buy a group to ensure someone wins? Yes. But then again you can also screenshot you emailing/commenting on steam/etc and them not answering too, so really all this does is save everyones time. You wanna deal with abuses just record patterns and ban them. Seems a lot simpler than making both GA Creators and Mods do a bunch of extra work on every 7 day reroll.
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All winners are contacted by SG immediately after they win a game - they get email. They also can see a notification here. I think it is enough.
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That is not entirely true as I do not get an email, I have that disabled. Regardless, that email and notification does not contain the game you won nor does it guarantee that there is a key waiting for you on the site. Khalaq already posted that if the key or link was made available on the site then no further proof is necessary. But what if that was never done? Khalaq also posted that its not uncommon for a winner to mark Not Received at the same time a reroll request has been sent.
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Sorry, but it is your problem if you disabled it. The feature is here for a reason.
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The feature is there to prove without a shadow of a doubt that the creator attempted to give the game to the winner? Sorry, but how does it prove that? If it was mandatory it is just proof that the winner knew he won. which is completely different.
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They get an email and an indicator stating that they won when they come to the site. If the creator waited the 7 days and the game wasn't claimed then a re-roll should be allowed with no further evidence.
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That is not entirely true as I do not get an email, I have that disabled. Regardless, that email and notification does not contain the game you won nor does it guarantee that there is a key waiting for you on the site. Khalaq already posted that if the key or link was made available on the site then no further proof is necessary. But what if that was never done? Khalaq also posted that its not uncommon for a winner to mark Not Received at the same time a reroll request has been sent.
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Yep, they need to prove that they at least tried to contact the winner. We are given the winner's email and steam profile so it's only reasonable that if a few days have gone by and the GA hasn't been marked as received one would try getting in touch to see what's wrong.
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If someone is online all the time and does not bother to claim his or her gift why should the creator have to to go through extra trouble to get them to claim their gift?
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If that is the case than the problem got solved. Up till recently you had to provide proof even with the key available on SG. Well I will know for sure anytime soon as I have one of those cases atm and asked for a reroll.
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I know about this problem as I am sometimes online with Steam closed on my pc for some strange reason. But this never happened on SG. Online means online. Maybe others have the same experience on SG if thatps the case you are right.
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I'll just use my personal experience as example.
I once had a winner that was online but 3 or 4 days had passed and he/she hadn't activated the key so I contacted them, they told me that they were dissapointed because the key turned out to be dupped but because this happened to them before they assumed it was a fake giveaway. So yeah the winner was kinda dense and the whole thing was solved a few days later when I got another key (I think I just had to ask for a new key to the bundle site, it was their f*ck up). The point is that the problem might not necesarily come from the winners side.
Also, sending an email and adding the winner on steam isn't particularly hard and both serve as proof that you tried to contact the guy, is not like attaching a couple screenshots to the reroll ticket is that much of hasle.
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Lot of people are forgetting that the email is optional.
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Perhaps it shouldn't be. At least that'd eliminate the need for the creator to send emails themselves and it should be seen as enough notice (via email) that there's a won game. If they still don't redeem the creator would still reach out on Steam.
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And how are people to receive a Steam gift via the SG website? Is there some new method I don't know about? Its already been said that keys/links made available on the site don't require further proof. But this doesn't cover other forms of gifting
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I'm not saying remove the emails visible to us, just that perhaps it shouldn't be optional to receive an email when you've won a game. If everyone got an email notification of a won game at least they'd have been properly notified and that itself should be "proof" that they've been notified.
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But that is just it, the email does not prove an attempt from the creator at providing the game to the winner, it just proves the winner knew he won a game. The creator could just wait 7 days, never provide the game and request a reroll. Khalaq even posted that its not uncommon for a reroll request to be submitted when the winner marked the game as not received.
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Obviously you'd still have to provide proof of email sent for gifts. I'm saying the notification should be enough IF the key is sent via SG. IE, mods can see the key sitting there waiting, but the winner doesn't redeem it/view it.
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Its already been said that keys/links made available on the site don't require further proof. (copied from my first reply)
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seems it's now mandatory based on *imaginary rules*.
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I think it would help support if they link the winner's reroll comment permalink in the reroll ticket.
It struck to me since i made any reroll requests in the last week and i thought i should do my part to help support.
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Ever since the site implemented an automatical email that alerts the winners, I would say, no. SteamGifts does the contacting part automatically. I contact them only because I know you guys would request it, but otherwise ever since that change I would prefer to not bother with it. If they don't care about their wins, it should not be the creator's job to keep dogging them to accept it.
And if they opted out from the email: well, their problem.
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How is a winner supposed to get a Steam gift if they were never contacted via Steam? What if the creator never entered a key/link, or if they did but never bothered to click send? Should they still get a reroll?
I agree, and its already been stated previously, that if a key/link was provided through the site that no further proof is required (as its been recorded by the site) but that does not cover all scenarios.
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Nothing ever does. I have had one winner out of many where I really did not want to send the game to them, even though they were eligible. I managed to create proof of contact that got me the reroll, even though I knew they never got my "contact" email. Got my reroll on the 8th day. (And even if support tries to find it among my many reroll requests, they will fail.)
What I am saying with this is that proof of contact is only a mildly more annoying step for those who really want to get some other winner. But I found the scenario where the winner really did not care to get it waaaaaaaaaaaaaay more common. I am pushing 450 reroll requests, and about half of them were like that (other half standard rule-breaking).
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I agree, its a mild annoyance so it shouldn't be too troublesome to ask. Besides, if you use the site to send the key then you don't have to do anything extra anyway and avoids the annoyance of trying to add someone on Steam or sending emails, though this isn't always an option. I suppose the flip side would be if they don't ask for proof and if there is a complaint by a winner that was rerolled suspend/ban the creator without requiring proof.
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It would seem that this site needs to facilitate a way for gifters to contact their winners that can't be doctored.
Edit: That is, in case we start expecting proof for re-rolls
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Only way to do that would mean a messaging system that saves its logs on the site server.
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Indeed. At least some server side solution that mods and support has access to. But even then the rules would have to be changed to allow for time since the message was sent etc.
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Literally in the figurative sense then? I'd say it's more probable that it takes at least a minute, probably even more time ;)
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I don't doubt that you could manage under a minute but you have to try to imagine the time it would take for the average gifter to figure out how to take a screenshot, upload it somewhere, and post it as a reply to this request for proof. Also, this doesn't include the time to actually contact the winner or time dilation caused by the fact that you are required to perform redundant work :P
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This looks like a very decent shootout. Kudos
Not sure about the purpose or benefit of having it distributed on Steam though. I would have prefered a portable release but from what I've seen so far it looks very promising.
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I used Google as well and the Steam version was on top of my results for fairly obvious reasons :)
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Never, but i prefer limited my GAs a some level to avoid these problems.
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Just implement a check displaying the date when the creator made the key available, then count down from seven, voilà .
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This is not a panacea - what if creator needs to contact winner before sending the key and they don't respond in any way? Not responding to creators comment in GA, in winner's old GAs, on Steam? But probably this would be so rare matter that it should be solved through mods. Any automation here is prone to flaw.
from old examples - gift is locked and winner seems to belong to region where gift is unredeemable; then all the situations when winner has closed library and in question there is pack/complete edition/just some DLC and you need to check if they don't already own it before sending
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This would just "automate" the process of proving that the winner had the stipulated time for redeeming a key that was distributed through the site, which I assume is the bulk of all the re-rolls. I don't think Skibby is implying that it would solve all possible re-roll scenarios.
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Just like that friendly sloth said ;>, wasn't meant as a cure-all, though it would maybe simplify some of the cases and give everyone a much clearer base to argue for or against a reroll. More complicated cases would still need to be checked by the mods and handled on a case by case basis. But you're right, every system solely and fully relying on automated processes of that sort is destined to fail, see Steam support xD.
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Aw, true. "Just" always sounds like a cure-all though. Could be one of additional things surely, but if mod sees time of sending, then it would be clear that winner haven't yet have opportunity. If mod does not see, looks like scumming scheme on creator's part.
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It's good like it is now, send a Steam invite and/or post something on their Steam profile, wait seven days and then take a screenshot and include it in your re-roll ticket.
Why change this?
Evidenter est! :O
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After 7 days or before? These are different things
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My thoughts on this subject:
Winners are now notified via email so that's the proof of contact regarding the win. Afterwards, the creator shouldn't beg the winner to take the key from them. It's the winner's responsibility to check their wins and activate them accordingly.
Winners should have 7 days to redeem the key from the moment the creator added the key to the site, if they added it after the giveaway ended, or 7 days from the end of the giveaway if the creator added the key when they created the giveaway.
Steam now allows key activation via their site, so the winner doesn't have to have access to the steam client anymore, so no excuses regarding this aspect anymore.
If the winner fails to activate the game during the above 7 days period and they didn't reveal the key, the creator should be allowed to reroll without further proof of contact.
The proof of contact should only be necessary when the creator is using gift links instead of keys. But in that case a reroll might be useless considering the link might have already been activated.
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I think it should depend on the situation if proof is needed like the person ask for an unusual number of re-rolls.I also know people do have IRL things to tend to and can forget about things and why I feel at least one attempt should be made by the GA to get the game to the rightful winner and keep proof just in case someone claims otherwise.
I know sometimes emails actually get lost as a recent Wal-Mart E-gift card order e-mail was sent, but I never got it I had to contact support to re-send it.You never know the person may have got hurt or had a family emergency or just forgot about it.I know I did when I first joined I would forget about the site for days until I got used to checking it on a regular basis.I also don't really check my email that often due to not really needing to check it
.A simple screenshot of a friend's request, post on a profile, or other means take a screen print and upload it to an image site, should not take more than a minute about the same time it would take to throw a fit.I suppose it's far easier to waste that minute whining like a little kid about how you don't want to do it then to just do it.
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So, how could the creator prove that? A single screenshots doesn't help much.
Step 1: Send friend request
Step 2: Take screenshot
Step 3: Undo friend request
And in the case that the winner deleted the request of friendship (steam), then it's the winners fault; and, then again, it's not like you can prove that with a screenshot.
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the question is that some do not receive the game and wait until the last moment to receive, because in this way they believe that they have more chances to win more games.
I currently have 4 winners who are doing this, I show you an example:
here the giveaway waiting for the review:
he already saw the key:
in this moment that I take the screenshot he is online in SG and look at the amount of game won:
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It's best to remove names when posting screenshots, as you may be suspended for calling out. Esp in moderator thread :P
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Wait...what is all this talk about winning? You can actually win games here? Who is doing all this winning?
And what about this rerolling...was there a rolling first? And if so where are the wheels. Does that mean all games are racing games?
Someone should get to the bottom of this.
Seriously though: I think it's reasonable to expect proof when it's a gift that was won and thus the site itself doesn't have any proof. Or if there's any doubt based on the information on the site. Mods can't be expected to magically analyze situations without proof.
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Should giveaway creators be required to provide any sort of proof in order to request a new winner?
Yes, if the current rules require creators to contact winners, they should indeed provide proof that they attempted to do it. But the more interesting question would be:
Should giveaway creators be required to contact winners if they already sent the key via the site?
In this case my answer would be no. If the winner doesn't check the notifications on the site (space cat etc) or their email, it's on them.
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A pretty self explanatory question. I've had a couple users throw a fit over having to provide proof that they attempted to contact their winners, before being granted a new one. I wanted to see if that was a prevailing thought among the community or just an isolated one. What are your thoughts on this?
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