Big tome, well said. I always did my work ;-)
Still not see why more reports will accelerate things, or they stack by user reported?
Comment has been collapsed.
IF- for example - I report you now ,it will take quite a lot of time, because only a few designated mods are handling the user reports. On the other hand if you win my GA and I request a reroll because you haven't activate 3 games ( EXAMPLE BEFORE SOMEONE LOSES HIS COOL) then by tomorrow you'll sitting there with 15 days of suspension, because anyone from the support can give rerolls and suspend players for the reason stated at the reroll :)
Comment has been collapsed.
Gotcha, then it's much more important than I thought...
Comment has been collapsed.
simple numbers :> only 3 Staff members see user reports (Lina, bobo and Lorkhan), 10 see SUpport tickets. So if we create tickets instead of reports - same number issues ca be resolved by 3.3x number of staff members :>
Comment has been collapsed.
...I thought the bottleneck was on the amount of people who could click the ban button. But now I see how easy is to improve the speed.
Comment has been collapsed.
Interesting, the day the reasons to be banned get a clearer description and hopping I will have more time I will propose myself to help as reinforcement to support. I bet I will be rejected, but at least there will be some extra bench to pick from. And my proposition may lead others to do the step and get in the position instead, so at least would have end helping ;)
Comment has been collapsed.
Probably would be a very good thing that then After a "side-ban" the tickets of the banned user could be reviewed, probably a lot of the users that I reported have been reported by other users or even got rerolled+banned. How that's handled? They still open there nearly forever as it seems so, even when the cause may have been already handled?
Thanks for the info.
I think it could be encouraged the check on the process of giving the game / marking as sent. Else on the giveaway creation.
Comment has been collapsed.
Support staff can see whether or not you've been penalized and for what and when. (Among other things.)
Comment has been collapsed.
That's not the point, I can figure some users who get visibility are reported by many users. The idea behind my message was trying to accelerate addressing reports for a user that has been banned. As probably one user banned after a reroll+ban has several reports waiting. Should be a way so them get bumped or whatever so them can be faster checked as they have been already punished.
Comment has been collapsed.
It would be nice if all of the tickets regarding a person were kept in a bunch, somehow, but that doesn't happen, at the moment. In the meantime, pulling up a ticket for someone, checking to seeing they have already been penalized and letting the reporting user know that, is not that difficult nor time consuming.
Of course, when 130+ people report the same user, it does slow things down a bit. P
Comment has been collapsed.
Bump for finishing the scan of all my winners (even though this tickets might be stockpiled forever), special shoutout to TempeteJoachim that lead me to THIS BEAUTY. To my -not so happy- surprise 15 out of the 40ish winners haven't activated some gifts :(
I will check henceforth all my new winners Commander Khalaq!
Comment has been collapsed.
lol, that (wrongly) makes me look bad.
Edit: I know the reasons why it can get stuff wrong in case anyone thought I was complaining, I just think it's funny how terrible I look on there! It can still be useful if checking people out as it pinpoints the games you should manually check or look at in more detail.
Comment has been collapsed.
I manually checked all of them before reporting, even if I had a doubt on some games I stated it too (such as similar name of the games or previous entries in the franchise). The script isn't perfect but it saves tons of time!
Comment has been collapsed.
I also found out recently that if a giveaway is marked not received by the winner, it will still show up as not activated by this tool, so think of checking that too.
I posted in the thread of the creator to ask them to put a warning about this if it is not possible to filter the games mark as not received from the ckeck.
Comment has been collapsed.
You're right, I've found one user that did mark it as not received, the rest are still guilty :[
Comment has been collapsed.
Yeah I checked a lot of people and almost half of them haven't activated some gifts, not mine tho.
Comment has been collapsed.
When using that tool you should still manually check their profile for the ones they didn't activate. Even the page says that bundles and special editions may show up as false positives.
I used it on myself and it said I haven't activated Mass Effect 2 Digital Deluxe, Borderlands GOTY and Oblivion GOTY. It seems it's searching for those specific titles but since they're not shown like it in your library it tells you that they're not activated.
Comment has been collapsed.
I did, but you must not only check the special editions, there are some other games too (Serious Sam games are stated in the description of the script on that thread too), so I checked every single one of them.
And then I also checked that they were marked as received since the script doesn't make a difference for the gifts "marked as not received".
Comment has been collapsed.
I told the creator about that yesterday, and actually it was happening only with multiple copies giveaway, when at least one the winners marked it received. It's fixed now (except for a specific situation : "In a case where more than 3 people mark it as received and more than 3 marked it as not received and the user we want to check has a username that is alphabetically lower than 3 of them, we'll not be able to know it."
Comment has been collapsed.
Thanks! I've been contacted by knsys and seen his website thread now, quite informative.
Comment has been collapsed.
First of all, I want to say thank you supports/mods/admin for all your hard work! :) It's very much appreciated! Without rules & the staff members SteamGifts would be chaos. So kudos! ^^
Second of all, yep already doing that! I always request a reroll (& suspension) if my winner didn't activate his/her previous wins. So far the record is a winner not activating a whole of 9-10 games.. And I always make sure they activate the game after giving it to them.
Sometimes I even dig deeper if I see something suspicious.. ;p
Do you have plans of recruiting more supports any time soon btw?
Comment has been collapsed.
I generally do check nonbundle games because I care more about who I give them to. I'm not as vigilant about bundle games. I do more forum/discussion giveaways than public though, so that automatically filters out a bit.
I also admit I often don't report regifters I see doing public GAs, but in all those cases someone has commented already about the user regifting so I assume they've put in a ticket. I did find one regifter without any comments so I left a note and I currently have a report in queue for that user.
Thank you for your efforts and this wake-up call.
Comment has been collapsed.
Ah, thanks for posting this Khalaq. To be honest, I haven't been checking at all. I will start though! Thank you again for all your hard work and dedication to this site! That goes for all Support/Mods/Admins/MASTERCG!
Comment has been collapsed.
There should be a different page titled as Rules. A main menu button between Sales and Discussions.
Now all we got is a "Guidelines", hidden in the "FAQ" section.
How would you want new users to know there are rules, what they must follow, when it is hidden this well?
Also the 1st time they are logging in to the site that page should appear for them, with a link in it at the end "I understand" what everyone should click once to be able to use the site.
Khalaq, you wrote that long post, it says to check the winners, but you don't say anything at all about what we should do if they are not activating, etc. (You should at least mention to try speaking with the winner about the rules, and if they not then we should open a ticket.)
Comment has been collapsed.
I wanted to stay on point and keeping the piece as short as possible. P
Fortunately for me, other people in this thread have responded in detail regarding "what to do."
Comment has been collapsed.
the thing is, how do i know the user didnt get punished already for not activating ?
Just now, i asked for a re roll because the person in question did not activate some of his games, support approved it, but apparently the winner had already been suspended for that.
If the site considers that this user has already paid his due for these mistakes, i would have gladly given him the game, its just that there is no way for me to know whether they have been reported already or not.
Comment has been collapsed.
Reroll will still be approved even if winner was suspended already if the non-activation was within the last month.
Comment has been collapsed.
Big K,
I am gonna check all my winners to see if they activated, if I find a bunch who didn't, do I really need to create an individual support ticket for each, or can I just create one ticket and provide links to each giveaway and winner?
Comment has been collapsed.
Good question.
I believe that the "Report User" function forces you to select the user you are reporting (only one person). However, there's nothing to prevent you from mentioning multiple people within your ticket's discussion section. Heck, I suppose you could even drop links inside your Re-roll Request. Of course, that begs the question of whether or not it's a good idea. I don't know the answer to that.
Comment has been collapsed.
Before i didn't really care if they activated the bundle games, but i checked the ones that won game i especially bought for giveaway (reported one, he offered the gift to his friend -_-' ).
I haven't really given thoughts about this issue before. Gonna check my giveaway winners. Hopefully i won't have to contact you guys ;-)
Comment has been collapsed.
3 months ago I suspended for not activating game and yes it was my fault. But now one of the giveaway creators I won recently told me why didn't you activate those games in the past. He was coming from this thread. And I want to ask this: If someone check my history now and see those are not activated and report me, do I have a chance to get suspend again
Comment has been collapsed.
No, you won't get suspended again for it, and you can't get rerolled because of it either.
Comment has been collapsed.
Also there is CoH 2 - The Western Front Armies: Oberkommando West problem. I won it, I got humble bundle link, and in the link it also says it is CoH 2 - The Western Front Armies: Oberkommando West. But when I activated it, it gave me full CoH 2 not the Western Front Armies. And it is also common problem as I heard. What should we do about it
Comment has been collapsed.
You won it ? Here ? I don't see it in your wins.
Anyway, if your question was "could I get suspended because of this ?", the answer is no because the staff is aware of these problematic games and they check everything carefully before applying a suspension.
Comment has been collapsed.
You didn't see it because I didn't clicked received yet. But I did it now
Comment has been collapsed.
If you did not receive the game you were supposed to receive, don't mark it as received.
Instead, this is what you do:
- Leave the giveaway unmarked, or mark it not received (either one will do).
- Talk to the creator about it. He may be able to get a fix from HB.
- If you ever do end up getting the game you were supposed to get, then you may mark it received.
- If the creator is unable to deliver the promised game, he or she can ask for the giveaway to be deleted.
- A deletion will require the permission of the winner (you), so make a note in the giveaway comments.
- The giveaway creator should let Support know about the issue and how he/she wants to handle it.
- Support will work with you both to resolve the issue.
Of course, if you receive a bundle which includes the game you were promised, just mark what you were promised as received. Anything else in addition is a "bonus" for you.
Comment has been collapsed.
Hang on, I already sent this to support and was also told by another person about this situation with the Oberkommando West game.
Comment has been collapsed.
http://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/GeDfy/failure-to-activate-and-regifting/search?page=3#waSkaqe
As UraniumFalconPunch said, I have the game. But when people check with steamgifts add-on, it shows that I dont
Comment has been collapsed.
Hello Khalaq, I would just add my part to this CoH Oberkommando problem, as I helped them with the problem, but because of how flawed Sega's system is, this needs to be know all-around at support-level.
I had this game from the second Sega HB (with Sonic All-Atars) and I can confirm that Oberkommando West and the another "Standalone" DLC activates INSIDE of the base game, appearing as the base game in a user's library if you check it from another user. Though it can be checked if you ask for a screenshots of CoH 2's DLCs as it lists US Forces, Standard Game and Oberkommando separately.
Comment has been collapsed.
I think that's a bit of a weird situation with that game/key.
Western Front Armies: Oberkommando West gets treated somewhat like a DLC for CoH2 by Steam. If you didn't have the base game it will show as regular old CoH2 in your library but the only thing installed on it will be the Western Front Armies which you can still play as a standalone product.
As you can see from the dates added in the image below, I added the Western Front Armies before I ever owned the base game and it is under Company of Heroes 2 in my library.
Highlight CoH2 in your library and see if Western Front Armies: Oberkommando West is in the list of DLC in the middle at the bottom like it is in my screenie.
Train Simulator works in a similar way. They sometimes do novelty train tracks and routes for Christmas, Halloween etc. If you buy one of these having never owned Train Simulator it will show as Train Simulator in your games library just like it would if you actually bought Train Simulator, but the only thing you'll have access to is that particular special track when you load the game up.
Comment has been collapsed.
Yes you are right but now system will show I didn't activated it. Supports should show this problem
Comment has been collapsed.
Hopefully Khalaq knows now and maybe others do already. If anyone did get suspended for that then they could just send a screenshot like the one I posted which will show they own it. It still wouldn't be nice to get suspended for that, but it should resolve the issue if someone did.
Comment has been collapsed.
It'd be pretty bloody stupid if I got suspended for giving away a key I thought was correct when it is HB and Sega who are to blame. ;)
Comment has been collapsed.
I don't understand how putting this burden on the users saves any work for support, so I'd appreciate if someone could clarify it for me. Far as I can see:
- If I ask for a reroll due to past infractions of the winner, support has to verify that there were past infractions and then reroll.
- If I report an infraction for a past giveaways of mine, support has to verify it and then ban the user.
I can't see how the second is more work for support, and it's certainly less work for me.
Comment has been collapsed.
http://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/GeDfy/failure-to-activate-and-regifting/search?page=3#Jjm46Re
Rerolls are handled by 10 people, reports by 3 people.
Comment has been collapsed.
Thanks for the link. According to that all 10 people can ban a user for not activating a gift. So using a ticket instead of reporting would solve the problem.
Comment has been collapsed.
When you check your winners yourself, you accomplish the following:
- You avoid giving your gift to someone who may re-gift it, saving you aggravation.
- You help Support out by being another pair of eyes watching for potential problems.
- You can rest easier knowing that, with everyone else watching your back, you are "safe to gift" on this site.
It's not about reducing the workload of Support. It's about addressing the fact that Support can't see everything all of the time. Yes, we will try to address urgent issues before non-urgent issues, but if we don't know about a specific problem, it will not be addressed by us.
Comment has been collapsed.
I have no problem with the idea to check the winners, just after the fact.
In general, punishing someone on suspicion is wrong. If a person has not activated, he should be banned by support. It's entirely possible that a person has been banned before and has learned his lesson. Would you prevent that person from ever winning again? So the "reroll" option is wrong. If I see that a person has not activated previous gifts, I should report him (via a ticket, to spread the work better), so that he'd get banned for that if he hasn't yet been.
It would make more sense to check after the fact, make sure that the gift has been activated. That punishes the wrongdoers, and achieves what you want.
Comment has been collapsed.
They have a record of the past suspensions of users. If the winner has already been suspended for his past non activations, the reroll will be refused, except if there's a non activated game won less than a month ago.
Comment has been collapsed.
Which just makes the check for redemption after the gifting the most reasonable course. That assures people get punished on time, are always handled, no double reports, and it's also the easiest course which requires the least total work.
Comment has been collapsed.
Re-rolls are granted in response to recent history (i.e. Support just caught this guy), not distant-past history.
Comment has been collapsed.
Gonna go through my winners now, thanks. Also, when did you become a Support member? I've missed out on quite a bit, anyway, congrats! c:
Comment has been collapsed.
There were like five of us that were taken on as Support not that long after the move to SGv2. I don't see it as a reward or promotion. I see it as a chance to serve the community and help make it better. )
Comment has been collapsed.
"Your Support staff tries their best to deal with infractions as quickly and efficiently as possible."
Lulz, when i saw some reported and bad GA still online after 4-5 hours, I don't tell that "Quickly and efficiently as possible", sorry.
Comment has been collapsed.
Sometimes, it is quicker and more efficient to let a giveaway run its course. That, and Supports can only delete a giveaway when it is requested by the creator, so after doing the research to ensure the creator is not planning to give the game away, we have to pass it on to the Mods when they are available.
Comment has been collapsed.
Maybe you should apply to be on the support team, there again, maybe not.
Comment has been collapsed.
There is so many wrong things in your reply, I can't even.
Comment has been collapsed.
What about winners with private profiles? Had one just a few days ago. And I'd really like to check on him, because he has so much more wins then games given away and was also one of those who didn't say thanks after receiving the gift.
Comment has been collapsed.
Try sending a friends invite first. If he does not accept that, request a reroll and add a screenshot showing the pending friends invite. We'll check his profile.
Comment has been collapsed.
The game was already given to him, the whole thing happened before this thread. I'd really like to check him out though. And of course know what to do next time something like this occurs.
Comment has been collapsed.
It might not be the case, but having a profile as friends only ok by the rules, you just friend invite them and check'em
Comment has been collapsed.
So in general, if one of our winners has a private profile, we can send a friend invite, and if not accepted, screenshot it and request a re-roll? That sounds good. I hate not being able to verify winners.
Comment has been collapsed.
Yes, we'll check for non-activations and let you know if there are any problems with the winner's profile.
Comment has been collapsed.
I make a bump to this... But in the other side of the coin...I always check the user that i send the gift..But i got some people reported for fake gives like 6 months ago and that guys keep winning games and no one does nothing...
Comment has been collapsed.
That's the problem with "Other" tickets (which take a long time to be addressed) and "User Report" tickets (which take an even longer time to be addressed). There are so many of them.... P
Still, we do appreciate you guys going through the trouble of creating the tickets. It does help us, and we do take them seriously. If you have reason to file "Other" or "Report User," then please do it. Just understand that you may have to wait a while for it to get through the queue.
Comment has been collapsed.
I got a ban of 5 days because I won a 2€ game and the key was already used. I contacted the guy and he seemed nice, though he didn't have another key. I marked the giveaway as received out of being in a good mood, not knowing I have to activate each game or mark it as not received.
I wrote this to support, but didn't get an answer. So peepz, times of me being nice are over now and I will have to mark every gift that doesn't work or isn't sent on time as "not received".
I didn't know about this rule before the ban, so a warning from the mods ahead of the ban would have been nice...
Comment has been collapsed.
There is ample warning in the FAQ and Guidelines. P
Seriously, though, breaking the rules to "be nice" is not a good idea. You could have just left the feedback unmarked if you wanted to be nice.
Comment has been collapsed.
not knowing the rules is not an excuse to break them. It's your responsibility to check rules and be sure you follow them, not support responsibility to wonder "should we punish him or not? maybe he didn't know he's breaking the rules."
Comment has been collapsed.
So I am a bit confused atm. Previously I only checked only if the user activated my gift but since I saw this topic I check the other won giveaways of the winner too. So naturally in the first giveaway I made after seeing this topic I found out the user didn't activate a game 2 months ago, and actually regifted it.
I wanted to request a new winner but under reason it says "regifted or did not activate previous wins THIS MONTH"
So that kinda implies that if its longer than a month ago its not a good reason to choose another winner.
So that and this topic confuses me a bit, I should check the users won games, but it doesn't matter if its longer than a month ago?
I ended up reporting and blacklisting him but still sending the key because I am really not sure what to do.
Could someone from support tell me if this was the right thing to do or not? I really dont know.
Comment has been collapsed.
File a ticket for Re-Roll. Support will let you know whether or not he has already been punished for non-activation. You can send the key after you find out.
Comment has been collapsed.
Like I said to SleepyCat earlier in this thread, the 1 month thing is really confusing and I think many people end up not requesting reroll because of this.
I think it would be better not to mention the 1 month when you pick the reason, and add something to the FAQ explaining how rerolls for non activation are conducted.
Maybe you guys could say something to cg about this ?
Comment has been collapsed.
Yeh thats what I did.But I will ask for a reroll next time.
Comment has been collapsed.
Or even better, perhaps you can formulate your thought, make it nice and clear, and then present your idea in the Bugs/Suggestions section of the forum. )
Comment has been collapsed.
Thank you for your awnser. I will do that next time. :)
Comment has been collapsed.
I'm fairly certain that the fact I check each winner before handing over my gift, and demand that the gift be redeemed directly after it is received, has something to do with that track record. I am neither omniscient nor omnipotent, but I can tell you that if you win one of my giveaways, you'd better have your ducks all in a row because you're going to be checked thoroughly.
It gets tiring to check winners who have won dozens of games (or dozens of dozens..) when you do these, though.. when you just want to give a game to someone. Some of these people still have games they haven't activated based on games I've given away.
Comment has been collapsed.
Personally, I find it less effort to check a few games (not all of them) than it is to deal with having my game regifted.
Comment has been collapsed.
Maybe you could add sgtools & SilentGuy's script in your post so that people who do not know about these can see how easy it is to check the winners
Comment has been collapsed.
Three days late to this party, but Khalaq gets me Khahard.
Comment has been collapsed.
Can't the punishment for regifters be more severe than 1-2 weeks but say like a month instead? It seems the number of regifters are growing quite rapidly fast i think i added like 8-10 new regifters this week to my blacklist and this was only a handful at first ><.
And another question is it hard for those permabanned on sg to come back on this site on their account?
Comment has been collapsed.
The punishment depends upon the situation, with five days' suspension being the usual minimum penalty and a perma-ban being the most extreme. I know that it seems like the number of re-gifters is growing, but it's actually the number of users that is growing. New people don't always read the rules, but getting dinged for a violation gets their attention.
As for those who are perma-banned from the site, I can't think of a single case where the person was allowed to come back. That doesn't mean it can't happen, just that I am unaware of it ever happening.
Comment has been collapsed.
sigh I found 2 winners. One of which haven't activated 12 games. another 4 games..I have created tickets.
but my question is,
is it possible to reroll for 2 copies out of 6 copies giveaway?
Comment has been collapsed.
Yes, it should be possible to rre-roll individual winners from a group. It's more difficult to delete individual giveaways from a group as only cg has permission to do that.
Be careful not to point fingers or name names. This is a private matter.
Comment has been collapsed.
Nevermind about reroll. I have submitted user report but when submitting ticket I noticed option says -
did not activate previous wins this Month
so I just e-mailed gifts & blacklisted them. all those won giveaways are at least 6 months old..
Comment has been collapsed.
Just thought of something while submitting an user report.
Shoud we list the non activated games in the descrition ? Does that help the mods or it doesn't make any difference ?
Comment has been collapsed.
It takes us about 5 seconds to know what all you haven't activated. No need to list stuff.
Comment has been collapsed.
TL; DR: Please check the winners of your giveaways before gifting, and we highly recommend you make sure they activate your gift.
ADDED: A couple of people have offered scripts for checking winners: the SGTools Activation Checker; and SilentGuy's Sidebar Script.
Yes, this is yet another topic about re-gifting. I am creating it because we just discussed this topic thoroughly a couple of days ago, and it seems a lot of people "didn't get the memo." It is somewhat frustrating when the same explanations have to be repeated over and over, again, but not everyone reads the forum, and even those that do cannot be expected to read every posting. I dearly hope that you guys all read this one.
Your Support staff tries their best to deal with infractions as quickly and efficiently as possible. Despite common opinion, we are neither "asleep," nor are we "idiots," nor "power-tripping," "lazy," and long list of other unfavorable adjectives. We knew that signing up for this position meant we would suffer unwarranted abuse, but we did it, anyway, because we wanted to help make SG a better place. We cannot, however, do it all on our own.
The "weakness" with the way this site is currently run is that it relies upon the users of SteamGifts to do their due diligence. Unfortunately, people give away their gifts and keys without first checking the winners of their giveaways for failed activations, and then also fail to ensure those gift are activated. Later, they complain that their gift has been misused, absolving themselves of all responsibility and dumping it on Support. Everyone has the power to make things better, but nobody wants to take action themselves. It is like a roomful of people sitting in the dark, every one of them saying, "Somebody really should turn on that light," but none of them are making any move to do so. And everything wrong is the fault of Support.
That is oppression.
This site is mostly run by its users, and that is a good thing. It gives SG flexibility and allows for the pursuit of both generosity and fairness However, if we as individuals do not take it upon ourselves to keep things in order and point out abuse when it arises, then it is unfair for us to complain about "how bad it is." We are the ones who choose to either let the mess pile up or clean it.
Speaking for myself, I thank God that I have never had too much trouble with my gift giving. I'm fairly certain that the fact I check each winner before handing over my gift, and demand that the gift be redeemed directly after it is received, has something to do with that track record. I am neither omniscient nor omnipotent, but I can tell you that if you win one of my giveaways, you'd better have your ducks all in a row because you're going to be checked thoroughly.
SteamGifts has thus far been successful because you, the users, have made it that way. More rules and restrictions will not solve our problems, individual responsibility will. Goodness is stronger than evil, but evil will spread and take hold if goodness does nothing but stand by and watch. If we want this to continue being a great community, then I suggest we stop waiting for other people to do the work for us. If we all choose to be active agents for the good of the site, then we need never fear that the challenges will be greater than our combined might. If everyone is reaching for the light switch, then that light will definitely go on.
I hope that what I have written here makes sense to you all. Thank you for your patience.
Comment has been collapsed.