Ya, Ive never really understood the attitude about bots here either. I get it, that kind of user is rarely a contribution to the community, but again, if you are really giving something away solely in the spirit of giving it away, does it matter to whom it goes? If it does, why bother with public giveaways at all? Round up your friends, start a group, circle jerk your games around to each other for cv and level up like so many others have. Or you know, just use the sg interface the way you best see fit, and let others do the same, y'know in the spirit of minding your own business, lol.
Standard disclaimer, I dont use bots, I just dont care if others do, sooner or later they'll get caught and banned.
Comment has been collapsed.
It matter sin the sense that the games should end up at those who would want to play them. But when somebody literally enters everything, the chances of that are incredibly low.
And imagine this: you enter for a raffle for something you really want, then comes along somebody who doesn't even need it but enters and wins it anyway, only to drop it in a corner and forget about its existence. How would you feel?
Comment has been collapsed.
Um, how would I feel? No better or worse if I lost to someone else who truly did want it. Do you realize how many people here, are collectors? And will likely not play half their wins? I personally try to only enter giveaways that me or my children will enjoy. But at almost 700 games in my library now, there is a good chance I will never play some of them. Did I intend for that to happen when I entered, of course not, do I feel particularly bad about the fact? No. When I first came here, I was at a pretty low point financially, and honestly came here just to leech, but I started to enjoy the community and wanted to be a part of it. I get that its different for everyone, but when I do a giveaway, honestly, I dont care who wins it. I dont check to see if they broke the rules previously, I dont check afterwards to make sure they activated it, and didnt just regift it. I even in the past few months cleared my entire blacklist and wont be adding people to it ever again. I am giving to strangers, in a raffle based system, I have no place to try and dictate who wins. Just my opinion of course, like I said, I get everyone that gives, does so for their own reasons, and I dont fault those that feel differently than I.
Comment has been collapsed.
I do however generally do level restricted or invite only. But thats because I like to see those that have contributed either by giving, or by taking part in the community, to help keep the site going, more than the guys who are here just to take. But its not out of a mean spirited, they dont deserve it type mentality. I still make the occasional public ga.
Comment has been collapsed.
42 Comments - Last post 39 seconds ago by Roguedust
5 Comments - Last post 27 minutes ago by solodolo1337
13 Comments - Last post 45 minutes ago by Fluffster
54 Comments - Last post 3 hours ago by macgamer
93 Comments - Last post 3 hours ago by adambiser
21 Comments - Last post 4 hours ago by Beer4myself
35 Comments - Last post 5 hours ago by TinTG
351 Comments - Last post 5 minutes ago by Tauis2Pi
825 Comments - Last post 9 minutes ago by MaximanBojangles
29 Comments - Last post 34 minutes ago by amusedmonkey
18 Comments - Last post 40 minutes ago by Fluffster
16 Comments - Last post 43 minutes ago by Fluffster
94 Comments - Last post 56 minutes ago by drstem
116 Comments - Last post 1 hour ago by Faloperito
... like joining a giveaway, for example.
There's at least one popular SG bot program out there, which uses the dumbest approach to botting ever - it automates user actions through a Windows built-in internet explorer component. Such component will identify itself with an IE useragent string making it kind of easy to detect a bot user combining it with other symptoms: high win/gift ratio, constantly being online, having big delays between winning and activating a gift, despite being online.
Most sane people use better browsers anyways, so a lot of legit users won't be really affected by such a restriction.
And after I wrote this, I realize that openly restricting access to giveaways would just encourage bot creators to use other browser engines, so maybe make more subtle changes, like reducing server response times to such users, or something.
Comment has been collapsed.