What is considered a 'free game'?

You can make giveaways for all games that you did not win on Steamgifts or you did not get FOR FREE in gleam or other mass giveays on such sites. There is a support guy who manually disables free games as fast as he can (so that they cannot be given away), but he is not a robot so it takes a while for him to do it. Any personal single copies you got (friend, developer etc.) can still be given away if it's in the list.

It doesn't matter whether the exact copy you have was free or not for you, all copies are still considered ungiftable in Steamgifts. Also, anyone can say anything so they probably get the hate even if they happen to be giving away a paid copy at the exact same time there's a free giveaway going.

People are allowed to blacklist for any reason. Who knows? There's not a simple answer. Each to their own.

I once accidentally made a giveaway for a free game. I'm so used to just making giveaways for all keys I get and was tired at the time I think. I have no idea if I was blacklisted or not, didn't pay attention or care about it.

if your goal is not to be blacklisted by everyone, then you will have a horrible time here, people blacklist all over the place like it's a plague.
the only cure is to not care about blacklist. Because people here only have 1 power, and thats blacklist, and if you don't care, then they have no power over you.

If somebody gave you a copy of GTA V and you made a giveaway for it that would be fine. It isn't a free game - somebody paid for it even if you got it for free.

If a game has been given away for free in large quantities then it gets removed from the giveaway list and people can't make giveaways for it anymore, so you will usually know there is a problem because you can't make a giveaway. Because otherwise people would grab loads of free keys and use them to exploit CV.

If a key has just been massively given away for free and somebody decides to grab a key and make a giveaway for it in the few hours before it is removed from the giveaway list then other people may well feel that person is trying to exploit the rules of the site.

You usually know when you got it for free (Elves Advetnures clearly was), before creating a giveaway just check the gamename or [free] tag on the forum and 99% you will know.

Peopke can't just wait 2 months because the game gets added to the list.

Well, free games that are ungiftable are games that have been massively given away at one point (through gleam, indiegala etc). The reason why gifting them is not allowed (and that they are removed from the giftable list asap) is because you get them for free, and so do many other people, but you get CV when you give them away here, which is not fair for people who spend money for this.
As for the blacklisting, anyone's free to do whatever, it's not against the rules. And gifting free games is more than frowned upon.

Long story short, a "free" game, is one that has been available in great quantities in the past, like through gleam.io or Indie Gala giveaways. Since there's no way to know if someone got such a game through one of those mass giveaways, or through a bundle, or by buying it... no one is allowed to make giveaways for them.

As for the blacklists... people don't like rule-breakers, simple as that. And someone surely reported you for that giveaway. When the ticket will be reviewed, you'll be handed a 3-days long suspension... unless you ask for deletion, and that ticket gets reviewed first.
But, since the giveaway has ended already, you'll need approval from your winner.

If I somehow get any key for free why is it considered bad to regift it?

Cv abuse. And spam. I think lots of people get more annoyed about the fact that you didn't read the rules, compared to those who get annoyed you made a giveaay for a free game.

If I get a key gifted by a friend, a developer, or another website, is this in ALL cases considered a 'free game' and can therefore not be placed in a giveaway?

No. It is not against the rules (and can't be, since there is no way to proove it). Some people will frowns on that though, if you use it a lot and give nothing from yourself.

How can someone find out what game is free?

The free games are removed from the list of giftable games. Since a human does it, there is always some time between the moment it begins to be distributed for free and the moment it's removed from the list. All giveaways made in that period of time will be deleted by the mods. It can happen that somebody who honestly bought the game makes a giveaway for it, not knowing it's being given away for free, right during that time, but it doesn't happen often.

On a side note, why do people here nowadays put other people on their blacklist without even thinking about it?

Blacklsiting was never regulated. So people always did it for whatever reasons they thought valid, regardless of what everybody else thought about it.

• It's bad because it's abusing the system in order to get CV/raise ones level without actually paying for the game as well as potentially hurting the Publisher/Developer (?) who made the giveaway

• Free games are considered free due to the high quantity in which they were given away

• There are some groups or reddit-threads or whatever tracking free giveaways, they cover at least most free game sources. And holding on to a free key for a longer period in order to make a giveaway here is not really possible. Once a huge free giveaway has been registered, the ability to create a GA for that game is disabled for the future.

• You're right, there's no way to actually be certain if a game that is given away for free has been bought to create a GA nontheless. To check if a game has been free previously you can either check for some thread or group or something tracking that or you can check if you are able to create a giveaway for that game here before picking it up (at least for games that have been free a bit further in the past)

• How you use your blacklist is a personal matter really. There are people who just put you on the blacklist for winning one of their GAs (to give other people higher chances in the future or something?) or those that just dislike what other people write or those that mark repeated offenders as you mentioned...

A free game is a game mass people have been given. One of the reasons you can't give them is server load. Imagine hundreds of free keys just swarming on SG... It would break the site. Otherwaise, CG would have put it so free games were 0CV.

Getting given games to giveaway is fine. Devs will want to promote their games, its good marketing.

Regifting is a different story and should never be the case since its bad morals and recycling CV...

i think the getting a key somehow part is what matters if u get a freebie from gleamio's or indiegala or whatever this Helpful Site regarding free game finds u get it from ,people will know and some will choose to blacklist people for it.

if u get a key from a friend wich could be a potential freebie Best thing is to check first but usually the freebie games arent available for option to giveaway in the list [unless its really recently i geuss wich will be removed later probs [but u will end up on some potential lists ;p]

Its also not a good idea to cheat the system by faking as a deluxe version or such wich if u dont want to get a 100% clean record u would end up having to buy the proper game. The majority of times people want to give away a freebie game is because its from a giveaway from other site [there are times wich a bundle contains these wich not much u can do about it unless its a steam gift i think than u can ask support but better check with support for that ;p

In terms of Blacklists people will black list or Whitelist other people for various reasons wich can be silly to some but in the end its the person who can decide who to blacklist or whitelist. So unless u did somethign really bad u shouldnt worry about it too much. Read the Faq and abide by the rules and heck who knows u might even end up in a whitelist to some ! :)