Well, in all honesty, make the site for this, if you don't want this to be there.
The creator wanted to get a profit for making and keeping the site running and maybe just some personal profit.
The thing is that SGTools is a useful site. It's a good way of making rules and because of that I'd say that we shouldn't ban it until we actually have a better alternative.
I don't use the site and I don't really intend on using it for making my own giveaways.
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short version?
sgtools ref links. and hence the rules of SG and sgtools
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Besides the fact I don't like SGTools, I must recognize that is a great tool.
I do recognize because it really does flawlessly what SteamGifts are not capable to do at this time.
I really don't mind about the ads or whatever comes from there because knsys are doing this for free or spending his own money.
Respect that limit and live with it is respect someone elses work, time and money spent.
That's my sincere opinion about "someone elses work" general matter, not about SGTools specifically.
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you didn't notice the hidden referrals in the g2a, amazon, kinguin links?
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so it';s fine if i post a referral in each of my giveaways?
in each of my threads? replies?
it doesn't affect sg at all, you can ignore the links.
and i will say it again, the referrals are hidden.
not sketchy at all, right?
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is no obliged by any means to follow SG's rules.
you didn't read steffke's posts in this thread? ;)
support closes threads and suspends users for posting gleam giveaways with referrals inside.
gleam giveaways, that aren't even made by the user that posted here.
gleam giveaways, that have referral links on their site, not on sg. it's exactly the same as sgtools.
ok... not exactly, since you can SEE the referral link you are clicking on gleam.
sent you a message
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this has always been my confusion, though i know why the rule exists, its a very unclear rule.
i initially thought that a referral link was "blahblah.com/sales.html?ref=xyz123" that ending ?ref=xyz123 needs to be removed for it not to be a referral link... but i have since been informed here in this site, it apparently means any link that takes you anywhere that has links (which to my knowledge was practically everywhere)... thats pretty much the best ive been able to figure out due to this unclear rule..
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yeah, i mean if we were going to nitpick this rule it needs to just be no external links period, or the ref links being the ?ref=blah type stuff is what needs to be removed situation.. otherwise imo all the pc parts questions that have ppl linking to newegg and amazon should be in this category as well, if we include those, we mine as well not have links to bundle sites too. im sure we can find referral links inside bundle sites as well..
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the whole web is a chain of referrals, that is precisely what makes it a web.. =)
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im scared of the ruling of this topic though.. if it turns out it is actually this this links to ref links stuff, we really have to go thru and read thousands of lines of sourcecode just to see if something is hidden in each and every site we want to link too?? that imo is just crazy.
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what is the point of referrals in gleam giveaways?
- to give money to the group/person that made it.
- people posting gleam links here aren't affiliated to those groups/people.
= gleam+referral threads are closed and sometimes users posting them suspended.
what is the point of referrals in sgtools deals?
- to give money to the person that runs the site.
- people posting sgtools links here aren't affiliated to it.
= sgtools+referral threads are allowed?
arbitrary rules
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im genuinely trying to understand what "referrals" mean then. at the bottom of humblebundle or bundlestars there is dozens of social media links that refer you not to facebook, but to their specific facebook page. that is the exact same thing thats going on here in my opinion. i even went to sgt site and read thru the sourcecode on a page that had those links visible in the photo and did not read any specific ?ref= or relative link. it looked like a nice clean url without any trash referring back. i am not trying to argue, im just trying to grasp what the true definition is. and its not that i do not want to take your word for it, i just want to be educated in this better so i do know.
additionaly:: im sorry if i missed something that was already said in this thread, i have not read it all, it kept bouncing around where the newer stuff was typed all day long as replies happened. it was hard to follow so i stopped trying, i do intend to read all of them better to grasp this a little better too though.
edit: changed twitter to facebook as a better example since they accept money and clearly have links to other places.
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Referrals usually mean links for which the creator of the link get's money. If they link to their social media, they don't get money for it. If they have a G2A ref link, everytime someone that clicked on the link buys something, they get money for it. That is the big difference here.
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i understand that, but the link in question i have read... i do not see it as such a ref link, it is hidden behind a url forwarder.. i belive this to be true, do not get me wrong. but beyond the admittance off this it would of been unknown entirely.... so forget sgtools.. got it... but...
even without shortners. forgetting sgtools entirely for a moment. we are seriously expected to read the sourcecode to look at each and every single url to make sure it does not have a referral code in it? that is pure crazyness in my opinion. i have never seen such a wild rule anywhere.. this is why i had always felt, that it meant not a direct referall that YOU could make money off of, or benifit from such as the tremgame ref links that ppl used to use (i believe the true intent for the rule)...
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Referrals usually mean links for which the creator of the link get's money
that would mean youtube is out too then as well as i just found bundlestars giveaway has google adsense built into it.
just because youtube/google has a cleaner referal link program does not make it an exception.
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damn you steffke. you made have three discussions at once on your post ;)
lets see if this here makes a diff. have a bump (another one in 5 minutes)
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As a principle I understand how you and many others are angry, but when I use SGTools I never click those links or go into the Deals section so I've never seen the referrals anyway, I guess that's why a lot of us don't really care.
I like knsys work, it is really helpful for my SG experience (trains and non activation check for winners mostly), so I really don't mind those links that I've never even cared about are there with referrals, but that's just my honest opinion.
Well anyway, hope you have a great vacation (without a ban mind you... don't know if supp will deem this as calling out), you're also great Princess Kenny :]
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Oh I never noticed it, good find. I agree, they should be removed.
Also I don't see why you would get suspended over this, you can clearly see his comment confirming it. I don't think SGTools should be banned or anything, a simple fix like removing the links should be enough.
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As Sooth explained in the first page, the links don't break any SG rules.
The links are there to help KnSYS pay for hosting the site, which is not a different situation from most sites on the web. This is perfectly fine by me. In fact, if he ends up with some extra cash left, it's fine too. He is providing a great service to the community, and if anything it makes me want to click a few of these links to help him fund the site.
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i was told by someone yesterday to make a thread about it, but I thought it wasn't worth the trouble. stupid fanboys will defend sgtools to death, the ultimate tool to enforce arbitrary and sg rules, while at the same time it breaks one.
this is not only hypocrisy at its finest, it's also exploiting and taking advantage of steamgifts and users. the referrals aren't even visible, they are hidden.
anyway, I know how this will end. sgtools will be allowed to be used, maybe it will get a warning (oh sir pls remove the links :))))))) thx) and fanboys will get even more zealous.
funny how people got suspended for posting gleam links, but nothing is done here.
anyway, to anyone defending sgtools and using it, please blacklist me. since you are technically posting referrals, i will treat you all like rule breakers and do the same.
oh btw, let me know if you blacklist me for sgtools so we can ignore each other. thanks.
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"it's also exploiting and taking advantage of steamgifts and users"
in the same regards
"google exploits the WWW and its users"
just sayin' ;)
edit: safer to go with this example then the sg example i originally had.
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yo, Mullins, so if I use sgtools, I am fanboy automatically?
if so, you can bl me. I do use it someetimes .please inform me bout it lol I also use gleam (as taker), I do not mind people posting those.
I do not like refs,but I just ignore them if I can (in sgtools. in gleam, I cannot)
+1 for OP for raising awareness, so anyone can ignore entrance to sgtools check if they despise on that,
as many people ignore gleam when they see that :)
and follow up question: do you see rule breaking in posting links to monetized youtube/twitch channels etc.?
and it is well hidden monetizing, usually not mentioned at all
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if you defend sgtools despite breaking the referral rule, yes, that's what i said.
and follow up question
does sg forbid people from posting twitch or youtube links?
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that's not what I have asked, because I am not saying they are all good,
and I am still using it and probably will. Even more with what was proven in this topic (as Yirg pointed to one of the comments, there are more).
By your interpretation, yes it should forbid, if they post refs in video description or in the vid/stream itself and saying, yeah, c'mon, click/buy etc
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once we get swarmed in videos because people want to make money instead of sharing their work, then rules about youtube links should be updated.
right now sg isn't spammed with yt links, so there's nothing to worry about.
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is there rules about specifically youtube videos with ref links in description?
Personally I do not care, if creators want to post them, yeah, fine by me.
I was just curious, if you treat everyone equal, or you have some levels of acceptance of yours :)
Now I know, have a good week!
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+1 In my opinion this should be treated the same way as Gleam links, at least as long as there are ref links.
Now that I know about this, I'll try to avoid SGT even more then I already did....
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I'll try to avoid SGT even more then I already did
i'm not gonna avoid it unless i'm blacklisted by the ga creator or the filters prevent me from doing so.
and for everyone calling me an hypocrite that hates sgtools but still enters giveaways, remember you are on STEAMGIFTS, creating STEAMGIFTS HOSTED GIVEAWAYS.
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Well, I rarely enter GA's anyway, so I don't really lose much from avoiding it :p
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you forgot to protect your gib with SGTools :D
Thanks for pointing out this issue with SGTools. It looks like many people here are trying to neglect the problem since they either support SGTools or know knsys in some way. If same thing was made by eh let's say konrads they would totally report it to the support and talk about rule violation.
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Knsys is a "popular" member, though, so he's allowed to break the rules. Everyone fears the whitelist and blacklist so much that some people are given a free pass it seems.
That's how SG works lately.
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Just like people said he wasn't "calling out" at first, too, when he was explaining to people on the forums why they were banned from SGTools. Funny, I got a warning for answering a rule-breaker why I blacklisted him, and would have been suspended for it had I not edited my reply.
Like I said, some people are given a free pass.
EDIT: And I don't read Sooth's posts/comments. I'd have to eat two meals before starting one or I'd starve to death mid-post.
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EDIT: And I don't read Sooth's posts/comments. I'd have to eat two meals before starting one or I'd starve to death mid-post.
*silent laughing*
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So the no referral links rule applies not only to links on SG discussions, but people can't link to a site that uses them as well?
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Yeah, this is why several gleam giveaway links were removed.
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Was it clarified?
Maybe being forced to click the ref links to complete those was the reason, not the fact that they were there.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Most sites have ref links in one form or another and I don't see the point in getting punished for linking to them. I see google ads all the time with G2A ref-links
I get that some people might not like supporting SGT through ref-links, but I'm not really affected, I've never clicked on one of those and even if I did, it's not like it changes things, is it?
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no referrals means no referrals, either in a post, giveaway, linked to a site, a pastebin notepad, etc.
there's no excuse.
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I don't get the comparison.
There are still no referrals on the site (SG, not SGT).
How does a site with referrals as a byproduct violate it?
So I can't link to: www.reddit.com/r/FreeGamesOnSteam
because someone might click on something with a referral link?
I understand not liking supporting someone without being aware you are doing it, but it doesn't seem like a SG matter.
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So I can't link to: www.reddit.com/r/FreeGamesOnSteam
because someone might click on something with a referral link?
The irony :D
New rule - No referral links
You can't post links that have referral links in them, but you could theoretically post a link that has a link with referrals in them (if you go by the strict interpretation of the rules). SGTools is heavily used in SG, it even has SG in it's name, how is that not a SG matter? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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I know. the point was that you can find some there, rule aside.
how is that not a SG matter?
I don't expect the NFL to police fantasy football sites... so unless they are connected, SGT remains a third party, not subject to SG rules.
Is regulating SG a Steam matter, because it has Steam in its name?
I'm not saying don't discuss it, all I'm saying is that what SGT does isn't really up to SG and I don't see a violation of SG rules in posting a link to SGT.
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I just found it amusing :D
The NFL analogy doesn't hold up since fantasy football sites aren't involved with the NFL, so the NFL has no reason to interfere with them. The same applies to Valve, who don't care about anything unless it's taking money out of their pockets anyway.
SGTools was specifically designed to be used with this site though, so it's not the same. I'm not saying SG has any authority to regulate SGTools, the creator can do whatever he wants with his site, but if links are posted on the SG website they should comply with SG rules. Technically the users posting the SGTool links should be suspended, but seeing how the site was designed specifically to be used with this website, it should comply with it's rules. And since the referral links are hidden as ads, and the users themselves don't profit from them, the only reasonable thing to do is hold the creator responsible.
I don't see a violation of SG rules in posting a link to SGT.
Referral links are not allowed in the community, and if you choose to post a link, please be sure all referral codes have been removed.
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same way SG was specifically designed to be used with Steam, you cannot use SG without using Steam :>
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The SG website isn't specifically designed to interact with Steam while SGTools is. The keys SG provides are specifically designed to interact with Steam. SG also complies with the rules from Steam.
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yes it is - it uses Steam API to link your Steam profile, it does actions on said profile in order to work (GA filtering), anything you win must be activated on said steam profile and so on and on. Without Steam there would be no Steam Gifts. You bring up the topic of keys? The same keys are for SG related to Steam, the SG profile links for checking and SG GAs for SGT GAs are for SGT related to SG. Same as SG would not function without Steam data/functions (profile, library, gifts, keys) the same way SGT wouldn't function without data/.functions from SG (profile history, private GAs). SG is dependant on Steam the same way SGT is dependant on SG.
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Fair enough, you are right about all of that. I guess what I meant was more that SG wasn't designed to supplement Steam, my bad.
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if you feel sgt is exploiting sg, how is it you do not feel sg is exploiting valve?
i tried to use this as an example before but felt it was to direct and could cause me issues, however in this wording i think people will understand what was meant by this.. i do not feel like either one is exploiting the other. but i just do not see how one can be exploiting the other, but not the other way around..
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I don't really have a problem with people making money, it's the way they do it that bothers me. I don't mind if the creator makes money, but he's breaking the rules of this site and being devious about it.
Also one could argue Steam makes money from a certain percentage of the GAs made on this site, while losing very little revenue, so it's more of a beneficial relationship. But even if it wasn't, I don't feel bad about the exploitation of a massive corporation that only cares about making money and nothing about its costumers.
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i agree, i just had to throw that out there in a way people would understand what i meant, but without bashing on sg at all which was not my intent on that post.
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It holds up because they are 2 separate entities and one relies on the bigger one. If you don't like what happens in a fantasy football site, it's not up to the NFL to correct it. They can police their own site not others, even if they are tangentially connected.
The same with Steam. If Steam found that SG violated their community guidelines, like with the gambling sites, they can work with what they own/control (licenses, protocols, API etc.), not intervene in this site.
Referral links are not allowed in the community
Like I said, there's nothing there to mean that there can't be ref links in the website people link to, and interpreting it as such would allow mods to close any thread with a link to any other site with ads or public comments; as such, I agree with people saying closing Gleam giv discussions is overkill if the poster has nothing to do with whoever made the giveaway and any ref links contained within.
Hidden ref-links on the SGT price page is to me a different concern than if the no-ref-link rule applies to other sites as well. If you want to complain that the SGT dev/host shouldn't use/hide ref-links on his site that's fine, but it should not be a concern of SG administration.
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Fantasy Football sites don't directly interact with the NFL, SGTools directly interacts with SG, so SG is allowed to police what SGTools does on the SG website (they could for example ban the use of SGTools on SG). I never said anything about interfering in some one else's website.
if you choose to post a link, please be sure all referral codes have been removed.
How do you interpret that then? Ads are not referral links (even if they are very similar), it's not realistic to check all public comment so it makes sense that those links are allowed within reason. AFAIK the no-ref-links rule does apply to other sites. We will have to agree to disagree on the issue about SG being involved then.
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its this "as far as we know" thing that has me questioning the ruling even further.. we only know what support staff has said, and i mean absolutely no disrespect for support, but they are not the actual rule makers nor should they have their own interpretations be the precise ruling of this. this should be clear and solid for everyone. and if it is decided that "no-ref-links does apply to other sites" how are we expected to know or enforce this? the rule would have to be "before posting links, please read thru the thousands of lines of code and make sure there is not referral links" which would be one of the wildest rules i have ever seen.
edit:: even worse due to url forwarder/shortner, we would theoretically have to email (example) bundlestars.com and ask them if any of their links are forwarders to a referral link?? because not all reflinks are apparent or visible... so even worse the rule would be "before linking on this site, please send an email to the site you wish to link to and ask them if there are any referral links forwarders in their website" again, crazy rule if so..
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I honestly don't know how else someone would interpret that. Why woud you add that line if all you wanted to say was referral links aren't allowed? It's much easier and shorter to just say: "Referral links aren't allowed." if that was your intention.
In the end it's for Support and the creator of this site to decide, I'm just giving my opinion on the matter ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I think you have to use common sense, no one will expect you to do that. But if the link has obvious referral links in them you shouldn't post the link on this site.
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I honestly don't know how else someone would interpret that.
its missing a word, which word I do not know though.. "Direct or Indirect"
that missing word makes all the difference in the world as to how it should be interpreted.
In the end it's for Support and the creator of this site to decide
I agree its upto the site admin/creator, and the influence should come from support, but not that it is up to supports interpretation, there should be clear cut rules and no room for interpretation..
I think you have to use common sense
I agree, but common sense is not as common as I wish for most people. I also agree on clear obvious referral links do not post, that is very understandable. In this situation the admin of sgt has admited freely they have a urlshortner directing thru a reflink, so i understand this entire post as well.. however if that admin had not opened their mouth, its thru a url forwarder so we would never of even known. that is how i see this ruling as such a difficult one. it is not about the apparent ones at this point, now we are talking about such a grey area that imo even youtube falls under this category.
edit: spelling errors
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The rules could be more clear I agree with that, guidelines in itself is a terrible word to describe what are basically the rules of this site. If you use your best judgement and believe there's very little chance the link contains referral links you should be able to post the link, there's no need to check every single thing in the link. There are ways you can check links (http://www.getlinkinfo.com/). Youtube is kind of a grey area, but as long as your main goal isn't to make money of someone you should be able to post them.
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they are all grey areas really, the entire web is made up of referral after referral, that is precisely what makes it a web.
what about these examples? how are they not considered referral links yet this current topics is?
additionally> that getlinkinfo says sgtools main page is clean, and when i test a giveaway page it shows clean only due to the fact that the site is not logged into sgtools so it cannot see the links in question.. in other words, that tool is ineffective against this situation and most questionable other situations.
taking it one further step>> all links to steamcommunity.com should be invalid as well, i guarantee there are hundreds of comments that contain referral links. that by this very rule would invalidate any linking to steamcommunity.. or say you post a youtube video and then some douche posts a comment containing a reflink, that would instantly make you the rulebreaker.
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The examples you have given aren't referral links. I think a big part of the problem is people don't understand what a referral link is. A referral link is a link that you send to someone else and if they click on it and it and complete a certain action you receive a small reward. An ad is very similar but since it's embedded in a website it's not the same as a referral link. Your first example is an ad, the second one seems to be a facebook post (where you don't get any compensation if someone clicks on the link) and the third one seems to be a redirect from a twitter post (again no compensation received).
http://www.getlinkinfo.com/ checks for malware which SGTools doesn't have hence why it says the site is clean, but you can use it to find out what a link really links to.
It's not a reasonable request to check all those comments so no you shouldn't be held responsible if one of them does contain a referral link. Again use common sense.
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ok thank you, that does clarify things actually a little better for me. the only one still being the ever so slightly indirect youtube but 99% of those arent linked here for those purposes anyways at all (its usually not the person linking their own personal uploads). so that brings it more into the light then the grey area again i guess =) lol
UPDATED>
one final question: where is this rule actually posted anymore? i know it used to exist, so none of us are crazy, but i could not find it in the faq anymore. in fact several rules seem to be missing from it entirely that did indeed used to be there. -this is not a attempt to sway anyone into thinking its ok, it was and should still be there, i just cant find it now =)
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There are still no referrals on the site.
yes, there are
i'm not talking about the *ads, the concern here are the "deals" links which open a hidden ref for some of those sites. keywords here: hidden, referral
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On steamgifts.com?
I'm not saying there are no ref links in SGT.
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I totally agree with what Sighery said:
Ref Links = Ads - Annoying Pictures/Popups
However Ref Links reputation is even worse than the one advertisements have.
I'd say that's caused by people abusing ref links. Its annoying to see forums spammed with ref links everywhere. Same as with a website full of advertisements.
The big difference between ads and ref links is that ads stay exclusive to the website host, while reflinks can be posted by every ordinary user. If a webmaster uses reflinks on his own website they're not different from other ads.
In my opinion there is no real problem with sg-tools using reflinks. The only real problem would be if knsys posted links to sgtools with the intention of drawing more attention to these referrals.
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Hm, so the support hasn't answered your ticket yet? I'd like to have some official verdict on the matter. If the SG folks say it's fine then it's fine by me too. If it's not OK and the links stay there, I wouldn't make SGTools giveaways then. Not that I'm making now either, I'm just waiting to see how this is resolved.
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I think a poll would have been a good addition to this thread.
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It would be great if CG could incorporate rule-checking into SG
that would be so nice.
more like a "must-have on sg" than a petition to cg.
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I totally agree. It's kind of annoying that it's left to the user to manually check it or use an external tool for it now. CG could even ask the creator of SGT how he did it if he doesn't know how to do it (which seem unlikely). And while he is at it, he might make it so that it would also automatically create a ticket (if possible that is, but it might cause too much traffic, not sure).
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Yeah, frankly, I am more concerned and probably even a little annoyed that SGTools has links to grey market sites under each and every SGT giveaway filter. If it would use an ITAD-like legit storefront list, I wouldn't even care if the GMG link had referrals in it.
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it seems like you've blacklisted me. have any idea why ?
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Well, SGTools offer some pretty relevant tools for checking giveaways and users, something that SG is missing (doing manual checks on all your giveaways would take ages, as opposed to a couple clicks on SGTools).
SGTools is a relevant asset to this community. Also, it doesn't technically break any rules (ref links are on a different website, not posted directly here). It's not much different than linking a Youtube video with ref links in description, except SGTools provides a lot of useful tools and has some serious effort put in it (I don't create SGTools protected giveaways and I'm no great fan of SGTools checks, but I've used several times the "check activated gifts" and "check real CV" tools myself).
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I noticed thise a while back. Ref links in any shape or form shouldn't be allow and I think the rule for this should be changed and reworded.
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