Should people use SGtools?
Reserved for spyware
I won't vote since neither option applies imo, since it's not a question if they should...It's a neat tool for keeping unwanted people out (having an entry cap, different rules so on) and I mainly use it to have an overview of people who have entered through it and that's pretty much it, but there really is no reason to use it unless you want to keep your invite only giveaway leakless. All in all, I'd rather tilt towards No than Yes, but then again I don't it really matters that much ^_^
Personally, my ratio is really shit and I can't enter about half the SGtools giveaways, but I think it's fairly reasonable if the creator deems ratio as important
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It also implies that SG itself is a scam site. You can see for yourself. I never won anything in the 3 years I've been here!
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http://www.steamgifts.com/users and search for name.
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There's a group for you somewhere in Group Recruitments. You should join that if you haven't.
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So, in those 3 years, did anyone explain to you how the site works? ;)
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Reserved for potato option haters, including me. xD
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I wrote it below. ;) I just wanted to reserve a comment. xD
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SGTools is simply a filter of which kind of people somebody wants to enter in his giveaways, and its up to each person to dictate how he wants his participants to be. Just as Steam Gifts has levels, whitelist, groups, SGTools just expands that horizon.
I have my doubts about all that ban stuff going on lately with SGTools and I don't 100% agree with them, but I find them a nice addition. Just because one can't enter in that giveaway, doesn't make SGT the guilty party.
imo, they have their space. Just depends on SG's users.
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The filters are fine since it's just an automation of something you could do manually.
I don't like the bans since it effectively prevents users from entering giveaways they should be able to enter, assuming they meet the requirements and are not blacklisted by the giveaway creator. It's basically an invisible site-wide blacklist, and they shouldn't be the one to decide if an user can enter someone else's giveaways. At the very least they should include an option to allow banned users or not when creating a giveaway.
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Yea this is the part that disturbs me the most when I make giveaways in SGtools, some people might be blacklisted from my giveaway without me even knowing about it :/
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The more I think about your statements, the more I agree with you. I think the SG Tool ban should depend on the giveaway creator and not be a universal prohibition when applying for SG Tool backed giveaways. SG Tools is built by one person, but invented to be used by everyone on this site.
@Topic
Personally I enjoy using sg tools for its convenience, simplicity, and customization. I feel more safe knowing entering my giveaways illegally is almost impossible. I can even discover who entered into my giveaways illegally without no hassle at all and blacklist them, then enjoy my day longer. The rules are listed and are easy for everyone to understand, so I do not have to be agitated by questions the rules' meanings. Maybe I want to be creative for my giveaways, but I am not in the mood for using Jigidi or It's Too Hard. That is when custom rules hit the sweet spot. Rules made for my liking gives a sense of power.
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At the very least they should include an option to allow banned users or not when creating a giveaway.
Most certainly. For a site whose intent is to offer options, forcing an option is deeply counter-intuitive.
As far as the banning itself, it makes up for SG itself being so lenient on leakers. It's a good option to have, same as the (rule-breaking ban even if it wasn't within the past month).
Has it been a bit clumsily handled? Sure.
But I'm all in favor of having more options, on the whole.
The more I think 'hey, this would be nice to do', the more like I am to, y'know, actually do it :P
Besides, SG alone doesn't allow me to set filters based on a repetition of the numbers 1 2 and 3, in a certain Barbie-loving individual's honor. What a tragic shortcoming that is! Thank goodness for SGT! :D
Seriously, it's all good fun, until someone starts getting prickly about being excluded.
So it's the same old drama, just in a different way.
I'm not going to argue some things can't potentially be handled better, but the "SGTools is inherently bad" bit is nonsense, with no actual supporting element thus far.
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Solid answer, basically the spirit of SGtools has changed from what I originally saw it as. kind of blinked and it changed =(
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I'm mostly neutral about it. It was an interesting tool and "experiment", but since it became more popular, I've felt that it has been generating a hostile environment around the forum, with a massive increase in drama, complaints, heated arguments and accusations. I am pretty concerned about where the Steamgifts community is headed lately, SGTools being on of the main reason for it.
Don't take me wrong - SGTools is a great thing, or at least was, but it feels like SG is becoming "not SG" every day. The entire concept behind Steamgifts is slowly drifting away and being remade into something else. Users are making their own rules. Users are handling the suspensions of other users. Luckily, not everyone is using SGTools, but still, when I consider the good versus the bad of SGTools, it doesn't feel like using SGTools regularly is worth all the bad it brings to the Steamgifts community.
Then again, who am I to complain. SGTools giveaways don't affect me all that much because I stay away from public and forum giveaways in general. If you ask me if SGTools affects Steamgifts from the perspective of the community, then yes, of course. The question here is whether it affects it positively or negatively. At this point, it's all a matter of opinions. It's debatable. And then that's usually when the shit hits the fans in a heated argument.
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For the most part it's the same drama-promoting [typically highly entitled] subset of SG as always, or people misinformed about how SGT works, so it's unfair to blame it on the site itself.
SGT encourages many people to post private giveaways, who otherwise would only post group giveaways (myself included). The only downsides are people wanting to control how others give games away, or complaining about the ban system, despite the only issues with it so far being recent, unforeseen glitch, and a difference in opinion on whether the ban system ought be applied retroactively.
Neither is exactly worthy of pitchfork-raising.
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I totally agree with everything you said. I've been here for a couple years now and I've also noticed a change in this site that in my opinion isn't for the better. It feels like it's become much more cliquish, divided, and dramatic, and things like SGT seem to exacerbate that.
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I think once knsys and Archi change it so using the ban system will be up to the GA creator like VAC and all other filters (which they plan to if I remember correctly) tempers will calm down and we won't see as many banned threads. There are also still some kinks to be sorted out like timezones.
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I hope that by offering a neutral forum where people can express their opinions people can be convinced by the arguments of the other side to some extent and by trying to prevent ad hominem attacks I'm hoping that people will be civil and comfortable with commenting.
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I mostly agree with the guy above. While there's definitely space for filters like SGTools, there's a lot of stuff associated with it I don't agree with. More recently, there's been this ban stuff where someone can be permanently banned out of ignorance (which seems like it's going to be reduced to 1 month strikes, but that doesn't make it much better. It doesn't have to be up to them to ban people or not. People should be innocent until guilty and that's not really happening in this case. There's also the standard set of rules people like to use (no multiple wins, no non activated wins, no VAC bans) that I don't agree with, since I don't see why people should be permanently affected for a single action done years ago. Sure, you can use a custom rule and make these timed, but few people actually do it.
I just don't see myself using SGTools anytime soon (not a guy with an amazing ratio anyway), because I don't want to exclude people who might have clicked a direct link to a giveaway sent by a friend on chat not knowing the giveaway is protected by this third party filter. Even without the banning stuff, while I understand why people use it, it makes me feel like I'd be segmenting people too much with unnecessary rules (different kinds of minimum ratios, for instance). So I'll stick to regulsr giveaways.
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Mainly, people are held accountable for SG rule-breaking because all you have to do to permanently remove the infraction, is give the game back to the GA creator or add it to your library. Certainly, complications may occur, but for the most part it's a simple process that anyone caring enough could deal with.
Ought there be a time limit to it? Maybe, likely, and SGT allowes custom setting to do exactly that.
VAC ban does seem overly highlighted, given that it's not near on par with the other two [and why is it even listed, if community ban isn't?] but it's still up to the giveaway creators to determine if that's something they care about or not.
Most I've seen, myself included, don't care about it.
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I agree in the category of VAC bans. I have a VAC ban for using a "non-official" FOV fixer for CoD: MW3. This shit had 65 FOV and it was hard to play without getting a migrane headache from 20min of multiplayer gameplay. I mean, 65!!?? It's on PC ffs, not on console. People sit more far away from their TV screens so it' okay, but sitting behind your desk and close to the monitor is gonna be one hell of a rollercoster ride. The whole case with was like - "we allow it. we don't allow it. oh..we only allow this one specific fixer, others will be flagged."
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Now, in a serious note, about sgtools, I like a lot that it has an option to check my real cv (which I use a lot) and I appreciate the rules checkers option. The negative thing about it is that it adds even more restrictions, which is something I dislike. Steamgifts has already some unnecessary restrictions (level, whitelist, and group giveaways - blacklisted people that can't enter giveaways) and sgtools adds even more restrictions, making it less friendly and making giveaways unapproachable by even more people. Is there any need to add so many restrictions? Is this how the act of giving ended up to be - restricted? I don't feel like giving away something only to a specific group of people. I prefer giving something away with everyone having the same chance to win it. Of course, that's just my opinion. And opinions differ. Also, the fact that we got unreasonably banned recently by sgtools makes me wonder if that happened in the past too or if it will happen in the future. Of course, we got unbanned shortly afterwards (and thank you sgtools for the fast response), but we wouldn't have been unbanned if we wouldn't have complained about that. That's all from me. Here's a song.
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It is pretty much wat happens when people start getting the feeling that they are being 'cheated' on their generosity or get the idea that some people can be 'unworthy' of winning. Policing starts and it becomes less and less about feeling good about giving and more about feeling good that somebody is playing something you gave them. I argued about it several times, but everybody will have their opinion, of course.
As far as I am concerned - 'gifts' in the name of the site pretty much became invalid, as it is drifting towards becoming something really close to being just another form of trading and closing itself off from people who would be the most happy with winning. The people who don't have cash to buy all that many (or any games) and thus can't pass all those high criteria of ratios, levels, contributions and what have you. They can't because SG nowadays is an 'investment' of the 'I scratch your back, you scratch mine' type. People give away for the entitlement of being able to win some better, close off stuff.
And to hell with those who can't, right?
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True that. :/ It ends up being an investment, because getting in a higher cv level, means that you can participate in better giveaways, so you give money in order to get them back. :/ But giving away games to high cv level users, that probably have hundreds or thousands of games, doesn't ensure that they're even going to play them. xD Instead, people with low cv level, will probably play it, if they only have a few games on steam. (And thank you for your recent giveaways :P )!
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i still support the use of sgtools as a means of checking users (sent/win/ratio etc tools) and using it as a filter for giveaways.
what i don't support is to prevent people from entering giveaways by banning them, either permanently or temporarily. there's absolutely no need for that, since sg support takes care of reroll for invalid entries.
if the ga creator dislikes leaked entries, there's a blacklist button for that. no need to play "steamgifts god" and prevent them from entering other giveaways with sgtools.
and i will repeat it again, sg doesn't punish leaked entries except with a reroll if they win.
there's nothing in the rules that says you can't enter a giveaway posted elsewhere, it only says you shouldn't leak giveaway urls so the blame is put on the leaker since it's impossible to prove that the entry is guilty or not.
sgtools just assumes that any invalid entry is guilty and consciously trying to break the rules, thus going down the road of "guilty until proven innocent".
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Pretty sure I agree with this, but none of my games have been leaked. I think I'm going to start using it more to be frank with my future events. I mean as amusing as our mutual "friend's" problem is, it's not exactly fair system, like this is why we have blacklists, if we don't want someone entering our giveaways, there are blacklists and a plethora of features on SGtools to make it harder for people you don't want entering your giveaways to enter.
Though really if you have a history of getting into leaked giveaways there should be a feature maybe under VAC Bans that allows you to click and move on. Like a history of sorts.
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and i will repeat it again, sg doesn't punish leaked entries except with a reroll if they win.
And do you really think that it's good MuIIins?
You know that I don't share KnSYS opinion about banning people in 100%, and I have my own concerns about banning system (because nothing is 100% trustworthy, and mistakes happen, with such tools even more than usual), but not doing anything with people that have giveaway creator and his rules deep in the ass, doing everything they can just to "enter giveaway" is simply put - wrong. How would you feel if I created a group dedicated to leaking SG invite only giveaways, where I'd post every single SGT and non-SGT giveaway I can find? Of course I wouldn't do that from my own account, I'd do that from an account that is not registered on SG and not in any connection with me, so nobody could prove that it's my account. Everybody could anonymously leak post invite only giveaways, and nobody would be doing anything with that.
Innocent until proven guilty, right? SG doesn't punish leaked entries, right? Do we want that? People joining leaked giveaways left and right because of no consequences? Because it's only a matter of time if nobody will be willing to do anything.
One of the reasons why I stopped doing massive amount of public giveaways and moved almost exclusively to group giveaways.
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how do you know that a leaked entry is trully guilty?
guilty of knowing consciously that they are entering an invalid link?
did you guys ever thought that lot of people barely speak english on this site, not even sharing the same alphabet?
or that they are new to the site and oblivious to most stuff that goes on the forum, and they don't know how to behave?
i'm not even talking about unactivated wins or other infractions mentioned on steamgifts faq and guidelines, this "do not enter leaked giveaways" rule is something made up in the forum because of invite-only giveaways. the only thing that sg supports is rerolls for winners, not punishing everyone that entered those giveaways.
and back to point #1, what harm are those leaked entries doing to the ga creator?
they are rerolled if they win. so, to answer my own question: none.
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what harm are those leaked entries doing to the ga creator?
Time. How would you feel with 20 entries, assuming that 50% are leaked entries? How would you feel, wasting SG support time to review your tickets, confirm your assumptions and issue reroll - one, two, five times? If you don't know that yet, SG staff doesn't issue rerolls out of the box, they have to investigate the case, and investigation of SGT "leak" has to be done via tools it offers, and that costs time.
Sorry but 90% of GA creators that do use SGT, use it to SAVE time, not be even more annoyed because of people who are joining those giveaways. Take a step back in the past, half a year ago, and try to remember how it looked back then. Remember first people using SGT giveaways function? Remember the first reason to use that? To get rid of rule breakers and save time on issuing rerolls, also save time on checking people for unactivated wins or multiple ones.
how do you know that a leaked entry is trully guilty?
I don't, and if I followed your logic we could as well trash the entire ban system because you can never be 100% sure that leaked entry is guilty, which in your system would mean that no one gets banned, therefore we're back to leaking group theory I posted above and the same portion of questions.
Innocent until proven guilty, right? SG doesn't punish leaked entries, right? Do we want that? People joining leaked giveaways left and right because of no consequences? Because it's only a matter of time if nobody will be willing to do anything.
Your solution is not right. KnSYS solution about banning people is not right either. I don't have a good solution to this problem as well, but I have a solution that will make both parties happy - make SGT ban as a rule, same as unactivated wins, and let people choose whether they want banned people in their giveaways or not. I don't agree with neither your stance, nor KnSYS one, but I agree that something has to be done, so I'm closer to KnSYS opinion rather than yours about no bans at all.
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Not knowing the rules or being new to the site does not give one right to break those rules. Additionally, way too many of those leaking cases are done fully aware that the giveaway is being leaked.
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let me know where is the rule that states you can't enter leaked giveaways.
and again, you could have 99 out of 100 cases that are trully guilty, but are you willing to burn that 1 person that didn't know he was doing something wrong? is it justified?
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No, there isn't a rule that prevents entering leaked giveaways. Doesn't make the contributor feel nice when people enter through leak, though, even if it the rules do not prevent it. Being a jerk just because rules do not explicitly prohibit it is a bit poor reasoning in my opinion.
You can always turn the numbers around. Would you want those 99 guilty people to run freely without any restrictions because you fear that one may burn? Wouldn't it then be better to have no rules at all? There wouldn't be any errors in judgement then. No system is perfect, unfortunately. I merely hope that with human interaction, the number of problems can be lowered as few as possible.
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so there isn't a rule and people that are new or behind a language barrier have to guess how to behave. that doesn't seem reasonable, or fair, at all.
and yes, i'd rather have no rules at all inside sgtools. the only thing the tool needs to report are invalid entries, and in case one of them wins, it's rerolled by sg support.
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This is pretty much where I stand on the issue. I and a few other people were the first couple of test cases regarding SG support doing a re-roll for an illegal winning entry. To me, that's more than enough as it serves as a warning but doesn't give me the power to exert influence over whether or not the person can enter other GAs.
To put a bit more of a personal touch on this, I did have a winner at one point who entered through an illegal entry. They reached out to we on Steam chat after the re-roll was approved. They apologized and explained they didn't realize the link was gated and said I absolutely had the right to request a re-roll. No hurt feelings on their part, and I more than happily took the person off my blacklist.
Now if I'd had the option to report them to SGT, I'd had felt like a total shitheel getting them banned from other's SGT GAs (and my own) after they reached out to me in such a friendly and understanding manner.
Which all goes back the point. There's no way to prove guilt in a case like this unless you have hard evidence that the illegal entrant is in fact the person who leaked your GA. And even then SG has support to deal with that.
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I think it's a tool with real usefulness. I voted Yes. I do not mean by that that everyone should use it, or all the time.
But I think it solves in a really good manner the problem people have with I've given away a really nice thing here and this doofus ended up winning and so now I am honor bound to give my nice thing to this doofus. Now I feel bad about giving.
The gifters who are creating complex restrictive rules - well, I guess that they have wished all along that they could make those rules. And perhaps it has even allowed some gifters to give to a wider group - instead of, say, not even publishing the giveaway but giving secret notices to people only on their whitelist. Now they can put it out there on the forum with whatever rules they want, and more people can enter.
Potato, potato, potato, Grey Potato!
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Big "FAQ" button at the top of the screen, 2nd item on the left. ;)
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But I think it solves in a really good manner the problem people have with I've given away a really nice thing here and this doofus ended up winning and so now I am honor bound to give my nice thing to this doofus. Now I feel bad about giving.
Certainly. While I in no way regret the awesome group that it's become, I created Positive Thoughts because nothing like SGT existed at the time, and I was tired of having to manually filter each giveaway (or deal with, shudder, public giveaways).
After SGT, I've become a lot more comfortable with making non-group giveaways, and feel better about the site as a whole.
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I've only used SGTools to check CV, not to make giveaways. But IMO, nothing wrong with managing who has access to your private giveaways. I think all of the SGTools features should be native to SteamGifts in the first place, which would render SGTools mostly obsolete. You know your site can be improved when it is common practice for your users to install scripts or use third party tools to have a better experience. People are going to use it anyway, so it would be nice if SG users didn't have to create a separate forum topic to announce every single SGTools giveaway/train, and rely on an outside party to do these things.
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I haven't reported anyone to knsys. Yet. But I have reported a user that managed to enter one of my sgtools giveaways to support (I know it's not a punishable offense if I can't prove the links were leaked), and he got away scot-free, even having won not two, but three copies of a certain game.
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That's really unfortunate. I had someone cheat and enter two of my SGtools giveaways that had only minimal requirements. I'm disgusted that people would leak the link, and disgusted that people would cheat at that basic a level because the filter I used was essentially just level 1 without a level 1 minimum requirement (.01 real CV requirement, no reroll fodder).
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I have had some leaks, but I haven't reported them either. I did track down some leakers (I'd say like 90% accuracy since, the only person on their Steam friendslist that had entered my SGtools link) and I asked them why they leaked, since I had only basic rules...
I did blacklist the leakers though, since the two I found refused to give me an answer ^_^
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I'm not sure they were leaked, since it happened only twice with people from the same country and similar usernames -- I'm inclined to think they were brute-forced. They were blacklisted, of course, but are still happily leeching away.
There was a third time, actually, that I cannot understand. It was a level 0 GA, and the person that entered bypassing sgtools was eligible.
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I had someone enter with 5 multi-accounts once- on a limited entry giveaway, past the limited entry cap [minutes before it ended, so there oughtn't have been time to post a leak, which combined with the low levels of 4 of the accounts, seemed to verify the multi-account].
If nothing else, SGT is great for catching stupid cheaters. :P
Also, leaked giveaway entry is not a punishable offense on SG, period. (Staff informed me they simply reroll and move on when a leak is reported).
So SGT taking a harsh view on it rather makes sense, since it's the only way we can actually deal with that kind of thing.
Could it be changed to something more "fair"? Maybe, though anything that clears through the cesspool of exploiters thriving on SG is a plus, by my perspective, even there's imperfection to it.
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As a giveaway creator, I have only used it once myself to test it out. As far as that one experience goes, I had no particular problems with SGTools itself beyond the additional time and effort it took to create the giveaway, but it's not something I will ever use again in my own giveaways. Steamgifts already offers every option and setting I need for creating and distributing my giveaways. The whitelist, blacklist, group, invite-only, and level settings are everything I need, and I don't need to go outside SG to get that.
Another reason I'll not use it in the future - I believe the system should follow the same rules/regulations that Steamgifts itself uses - in particular in regards to the punishment system. I don't agree that breaking any rule on SGTools should result in a first time perma-ban, as those same rules don't result in a perms-ban on SG for a first-time offense (and one of the rules doesn't even merit punishment on SG, merely a re-roll of the win). My reasoning? People on both sides of the fence (the people addressing the bans and the people banned) can and will make mistakes, and while SG provides for the option for people to redeem themselves, SGTools is far less lenient in that regard, and again is used as a direct means to circumvent SG's own rules and support staff.
My final reason for not using it -- I have in the past fully supported SGTools as a means to provide more options to giveaway creators, despite not using it myself. Recently, however, I believe those options have been taken a bit too far. Adding restrictions for amount of giveaways to groups, private, public, and the worst of all to me, restricting entry based on region restriction ratio -- well, it's just a bit too much, in my opinion. Also, restricting max level entries circumvents the entire level system on SG, and while I don't mind that myself, I disagree with the principle of using an outside site to circumvent certain aspects of SG's "features".
YMMV.
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Interesting. As far as I know, knsys implemented most if not all of those filters because of user requests, so I don't know how to judge the tool if it's just giving people the options to do what they want; however, some people have stupid and arbitrary requests (IT life T_T).
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Oh, I'm sure there were people who requested all of the current features. I simply don't agree with some of them. I didn't bother becoming vocal about it, however, until the perma-bans were implemented.
I like things simple - I'm here to give away games, and maybe win a few at the same time. SG has what I need, and support staff, in my opinion at least, do a fine job for the most part. The more complicated the rules become, the more it dilutes what I feel to be the "spirit" of why SG was created in the first place. Obviously that last bit is left to one's interpretation, but it's my take on things.
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I requested a (Last_Giveaway_Won_Date) so I could target people who hadn't won in a while.
Knsys told me it was heavily requested and being worked on. He implied all the features were user requested.
Really, don't think it's our place to say if they're stupid or not, it's not as if we're having to use them.
Though, if you can point out one that's definitively stupid, perhaps I'll reconsider that outlook. :)
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SGT just mimics all the rules people were setting for private invite events to begin with, it just makes the process more efficient and reliable.
If you view SG as a site that facilitates giveaways, then SGT is inherently intuitive to the process.
If you view SG as a site where "you need to freely give away games without restriction", then it's profoundly counter-intuitive.
Whether some settings are nonsensical or overly strict or whatever, I don't see how that matters in the least. I don't pay those filters any mind, and I still have tons of giveaways to enter and countless amazing games won on a regular basis.
SGT isn't harming me, and it's helping creators feel better about giving things away.
Let people behave the way they want to, so long as they're not going out of their way to actually hurt others. If it's what's comfortable for them, then that's okay by me.
If you think they're applying needlessly strict standards that aren't fair to their own wins, then remove those giveaways from your perception of their sent games and re-review their profile. If suitable, consider them a leecher at that point.
..no issues with leechers? Then why would we care about SGT?
There's no validation that these games would be given away otherwise.
Certainly, my own would not [though in fairness, I only use the Non-Act/Multi-Win and some very simple ratio requirements].
I don't get this hubris, that makes people think they know better than others about how giveaways ought be given away, beyond the scope of what a blacklist can already respond to.
It's the same argument that's made against blacklisting, whitelisting, and group giveaways, on a regular basis- and very often, by the same individuals.
If people (somehow) started applying their SGTools filters to other giveaways than their own, then yes, it goes too far. But so long as they don't, it's on them to determine what too far is.
Hell, SG itself allows you to use the region restrictions as a filter already, even if your game copy isn't actually region locked. How is that not the same thing as what you're describing?
For the most part, all SGT does is let you refine the filters SG already provides, expand expectations on rule-breaking for those not comfortable with SG's approach, and add in a few similar concepts like VAC ban filtering.
Sure, you can argue against that last bit, but again, why should we care if someone doesn't want to give to someone else?
We're not businesses, we're not obliged to serve everyone. If someone wants to be whimsical, or even an outright bigot with their filtering, then we just decide whether to blacklist them and move on.
If it's something outright abusive, that's for SG staff to consider, not us, same as any of the [sometimes dubious] rule enforcements on this site.
I respect your right to your sexuality, your religion, your giveaway preferences, your boat party invite list, whatever. I don't see why that's not a mutual thing..
Because SGT is 'harmful to the community'?
How, exactly?
Let's review: I do private giveaways because I feel secure in them now, because of SGT.
SGT filters based on public and private ratios/CV encourage me to do more private and public giveaways than I would otherwise [which is close to none].
Ergo, I'm going to counter the thus far unfounded sentiment others are promoting with the opposite: SGT is better for the community.
Could there be improvements, could SG integrate features, etc? Sure.
Do those things currently exist? No.
Take what we have and appreciate it, and don't force others to meet your expectations on things they should have the rights to set the rules for.
I mean, gosh. They're giving away freely, isn't that commendable, fairly nearly regardless of the specifics?
Not everyone has to take your approach to the site- appreciable as it may be, it's just not comfortable for many of us.
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When did it become about agreeing or disagreeing? I thought it was about understanding the situation clearly. Sticking your fingers in your ears and saying my perspective is invalid in affecting your own, is still a response to it.
I wasn't aware opinions were something to hold so deeply on to without allowing further consideration, at the expense of the sentiments of others. I respect your right to your opinion, and your right to stick by it, but I don't see why that entails my perspective need not be given respect as well.
I present opinions because I favor the chance to have them be reviewed, so I can validate or adapt as necessary. Forgive me in that also meaning I don't understand perspectives outside of that approach.
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Do me a favor. Don't reply to me anymore, and I'll extend you the same courtesy.
I'm tired of the 5000 word expositions condescending to correct me constantly.
Whatever OCD you have, it's annoying as hell.
Thanks in advance.
EDIT: Damn, if I'd have known it was that simple, I'd have taken your advice months ago, Mully.
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There's no need to be sorry, it's very hard to read emotions from a text, especially if you have no insight into full story between two parties. Assumptions can go very deep and very wrong sometimes. Not agreeing with somebody's opinion doesn't automatically turn you hostile to that person, as somebody above thinks, wink wink ;).
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Regardless, my apologies. I made an incorrect assumption, and it would be wrong not to apologize.
I may be a lot of things, but I like to think I'm not above admitting my mistakes.
And yes, I can certainly agree with you on the last part. Differing opinions should not be grounds for hostility. :)
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Nah, SGTools should die already, too much pointless banning and lying about it ("there will never be any accidental unfair ban") so I've lost every little piece of respect I had for it. Right now they're hurting the community more than they're doing any good.
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This again.
I think there's nothing wrong with it, if used responsibly. Sure, it's great to give to the great unwashed masses. Sure, a level restriction will mean only people who give a little can get a little. But, SGtools lets you weed out the leeches. For some, it feels kinda shitty when the winner of their gib has won a thousand games already, and barely given any. Putting in a requirement that the recipient hasn't broken any rules is fine. Putting in a requirement of, say 1 GA for every 4 wins, well, it's really not that hard to buy a $1 indiegala bundle of junk to get your ratio up.
Then again, that's assuming it's used responsibly. It's ok to reward the most generous on steam, but I'm sure quite a few people who require a $1:$1 ratio don't fully understand the ramifications of what they're doing. Same as when I see steam groups that require maintaining a 1:1 ratio. there's a complete math fail there, and those groups tend to collapse pretty quickly, from what I've learned.
TL:DR don't SGT drunk
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I love the idea of having a system where you can select attributes you couldn't in a normal giveaway. I think its very useful. I don't like the idea tho of the bans tho. Private giveaways are leaked in some underground forums a lot of times, and I bet there are a lot of people that join them without knowing the rules, or have bad english, or don't completely understand how SG works. So I don't think they should be restricted from future SGTools giveaways. You could even use this to make someone you don't like get banned, I've never seen this happening, but the idea itself is kinda horrifying.
I think GA creators should just deal with re-rolling, if possible, and they have that right guaranteed by the rules. But this is just an opinion and I respect who disagrees.
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Much as I want to agree with your argument for the sake of hoping people aren't terrible and intentionally gaming the system, I don't want to make ignorance a get out of jail free card. That said, I'm still not sure I like the way bans are implemented; I preferred an earlier draft of the system with incremental strikes, but even that I'm not entirely sure about.
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Voted for no.
sgtools in nice idea and good tools, but have one big problem. checking rules can be dynamic. It's posible to manipulate. one day i can enter on certain giveaways, tomorrow maybe i will not pass. someone can report me and i will get banned even if i don't break rules. That can happen when someone ask for ratio (type of ratio is not important, because all ratios are dynamic). rare person are willing to explain and tell i join to giveaway and i was pass sg tools, but next day one of my giveaways game was bundled or price dropped and because of that i can't pass check.
For complex rules very bad tools. for simple rules, perfect tools
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I'm not entirely sure, but I want to say that once the link is issued you cannot be banned for falling out of ratio; I haven't tested this, and I haven't checked with knsys, but if I understand how the system works it's impossible for the link to be revoked or your entry invalidated once you pass, which is why people try to game the system in another way with unactivated wins, by marking the giveaway "not received" and then trying to pass through. I think knsys said he found a way to block that, but again, he'd know better than I.
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i support sgtools, but didn't vote for yes because still can be some problem. i saw some person are banned even they not deserve to be banned. That should be fixed.
person who make giveaway. when he manually check for example my real CV ratio and see my ratio is lower they will be reported me and probably put me on blacklist. He will think someone share link with me. That is problem. can be some complication without reason.
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The people who got banned were due to two factors:
They're known issues that are being addressed.
Complaining because a handful of people had an issue from a casual mishap, is not in line with asserting deliberate wrong-doing or an overall unreliability.
SGT has almost exclusively worked without issue, and those who are picking at the above issues are well known haters of the tool who are just using the recent mishaps as an excuse to attack it.
Once there's valid reason to mistrust SGT, we can discuss it reasonably, but right now it's all over-exaggeration and hidden agendas.
As far as your other concerns, that's not how SGT works.
The giveaway creator gets two lists, Valid Entries and Invalid Entries.
Whether someone's entry is valid is determined by when they entered the giveaway, and isn't changed past that.
Whether they check it manually or not, they won't have rights to reroll or get you banned from SGT, because you'll still show as a valid entry regardless of your ratio change, because the site only cares about your ratio at the time you used the filter.
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One more to add to your list: There were a couple of people who were banned due to some train mishap. I'm not sure the exact cause, but it's in the sgtools thread.
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Oh, right, that.
Well, so long as people are self-reporting the issues, it's hard to verify things suitably.
It'd be better if you had a week-long "You were reported for leaked entry, please appeal within a week or risk being added to the ban list" or something so you could refute such things without immediately being banned on a he-said/she-said.
While SGTools staff can verify the filters themselves, they can't immediately verify if the OP also gave the link away directly or how they applied those filters, and they shouldn't ban without testimony from both parties about the nature of the matter, imo.
And, of course, the ban list ought be an optional-to-use filter.
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No system at the start is perfect. Before I finally made my group bot reliable, I ran through countless number of bugs, issues and situations that were not that great, even a member being kicked from the group because of a mistake in the logic.
It will improve with time, KnSYS can guarantee it. Question is if it improves enough.
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I think it is a one time check, it caches the entry time and whether or not you passed.
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Too lazy to use :P.
Honestly, I don't care. Peeps will always qq about something and I just drown it out. I understand the frustration from both sides, but my life has enough drama as is and I don't need internet wars to add to it :P.
In short, once I have reason to give a fuck, I will. Otherwise, live and let live.
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So others should share their hard-made money with you, but you can't do the same (I see your inventory is worth quite a lot)? So pathetic...
And just for a record: I don't have anything against leeching as long as people don't try to use false excuses and attack users who are making giveaways.
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According to steam.tools your CS:GO inventory is worth 562.5$, you have over 300 games on account, yet you keep telling to yourself that you're poor, without job, and without a way to create giveaways.
No, you don't. You lie to yourself, and instead of showing a minimum of appreciation, buying random IG bundle on HH via group buy, spending literally 1.10$ on 12 games for a giveaway, you keep telling yourself that you can't do that because >reasons<. That one dollar is 0.20% of your CS:GO inventory, it's not even 1%, because with spending 1% - 5$, you could give away more than you won on this site, at least in terms of SG value.
In order to register on this site your account must own a given amount of unbundled games, 100$ in unbundled games is an investment of AT LEAST 30-35$, and that on super-duper sales, because we can say that one spent at least 50$ on that. When it comes to bundles, we're talking about a maximum of 2% of value you were "forced" to spend on your account before even being able to register, and in your case it's not even 2%, but 0.20% from your CS:GO inventory alone, probably would be 0.1% if I counted your account as a whole (but I prefer to use tradable amount instead).
You're not poor, with no money or no ways to make giveaways. You're classical definition of leecher - somebody who only takes, but never gives, despite of being able to do so. I don't expect from anybody to make giveaways if he can't spend money on Steam, but you know what? People that own much less than you, very often with empty inventories, maximum of dozen of games, bought on sales and via retail copies, usually are way more generous than you. It doesn't take money to spend one dollar on IG bundle with 12 games inside, it takes only a minimum of willingness and generosity, but instead you decided to repeat the lie of being poor to yourself a hundred of times, believing that after 100th time it will become truth.
Want to change something? Start from yourself. I don't have a great ratio myself, but at least I'm not lying about not being able to create giveaways, but rather calling myself lazy and disgusted to make public giveaways after recent events. And I don't have anything against people with bad, or even ultra bad ratio, I've never ever used SGT ratio rules, and I am happy when winner is grateful for the gift, regardless of what ratio he has.
I didn't mean to insult you, if I did I'm sorry, but the way you use SG is so flawed that I barely can handle amount of bull**** you put in that post.
And BTW, one more thing.
I'm not poor, I just don't have the ways to get my IRL money going into Internet stuff....
Many group buyers accept CS:GO keys and other items, not to mention that you can also sell that and buy directly from steam store. Buying unbundled games on sale is even better and more satisfying, you just need to stop being greedy and spare that 0.2% you already gathered. But I'm not here to decide for you or tell you what is good and what is bad. I'm here to tell you that you lie to yourself, and if you want to keep being greedy and don't spare even that 0.2% of your "hard earned money via trading", then at least don't say that you can't, but admit that you don't want to. If you keep acting the way you did, the only thing which you can get is a spot in several blacklists, and definitely not mine.
Lastly, I agree in 100% how you might feel, or rather how people in really difficult situation might feel, but those are taught by life to not be greedy, and I'm yet to spot an user with really bad ratio who indeed can't give away anything. And I spotted at least a dozen of those who can, but don't want to. Apart from that, keep in mind that SGT and those restrictions were applied because of people, not because of some inner urge to restrict good members of community. This is the end effect of all of us, combined.
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And here I thought SteamGifts was all about handouts....
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I understand your frustration to some extent (though giveaway level requirements do the same thing and get much less hate, and VAC bans can prevent someone from playing the game to its fullest or indicate a contempt for rules/etc., though In think it's the hardest criteria to justify). However, SGtools can also be used for screening for rules violations with no other criteria, which doesn't seem to be an improper use of SGtools in your argument.
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You're supposed to just gift it to someone who wants to play that game,
On other hand I see it as great way to stop part of population that enters everything possible. Or at least have provided something equal in value to community. Maybe not all users are equal worthy to win...
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I could as well make invite only group and ask who wants to join. Then only invite those people whose ratio I like.
In the end it's just a tool for me and other creators to easily choose the pool of people they want to give to.
If I don't pass the rules I'm like: "Oh, well, would have been nice, but doesn't really matter" As it's not like I really do need more games.
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Make gib of a game no one has > use sgtools to make a DS3 gib with stupid requirements in the description > laugh to yourself as no one can enter it > cry as Archi kicks you for trolling :P.
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Pick something no one owns or no one will see the gib silly :P.
Hypnosis or Fear Equation would work. The fact that they are both on my wishlist is just a coincidence :P.
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8:55 PM - Cjcomplex: !gib 34900
8:55 PM - ArchiBoT: Please wait...
8:55 PM - ArchiBoT:
GameID: 34900
Wishlisted by: 0/102
Not owned by: 34/102 (Emma Stoned, Golbez, ViktorStahl, Annenouk, GR, fourtonmantis, KnSYS, PppnRppp, LosingStreak, xKomachi...)
Yes but a few are missing it O.o
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Personally, I went for yes because it's a double-edged sword, I feel, and I chose the lesser evil(aka the one that won't get me stabbed). Yes, because it's a very useful tool for easy rule-making and organizing a simple giveaway as well as the giveaway method is up to the giveaway creator and SGtools is pretty convenient/simple to use but it also easily eliminates without remorse and redemption/explanation(the VAC ban for example) and just overall gives off an unfair vibe. No, because it's easily misused and is kind of annoying to have a wall blocking the giveaway. Puzzles is different because it's interactive and generally fun to do but on the other hand, it's really up to the giveaway creator if they wish to use it or not but it's not necessarily convenient as it is representative of a "wall"
I'm missing some thoughts there but it's no different than me making a private giveaway and saying "You can't get the link if you don't have a 1:1 win/send ratio!". It's really just a medium to restrict your giveaways with, only there's a wall of possible bans and specific rules that get put in front of you, daring you to climb over them.
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For me SGT is just a tool giving giveaway creator power to specify target group of his giveaways. The problem is that the tool provides too many options, and giveaway creator usually doesn't fully understand the result of using them.
I'm totally in for "all wins activated", also for "no multiple wins". It encourages people to play according to the site rules, which is good for everyone.
Any other option IMHO hurts the community, and I'm against filtering by ratio, number of giveaways, RAW values or such stupid facts such as being VAC (which has nothing to do with giveaways, and because VAC bans are perma, it's even worse factor). I do understand people using those filters, and I can see a purpose, but I simply don't agree with it. Level requirement encourages people to give more, same as all activated wins / no multiple wins encourages to obey rules. Filtering by ratio punishes lucky people, while VAC filter punishes even people who used a custom skin for dark souls, or tried to find out how wallhack works TEN YEARS AGO, when they were kids.
SGT bans are needed, because without them people could post real links to giveaways left and right and nobody would even bother doing anything with it. I still think that there should be a checkbox and SGT ban should be another rule for giveaway filter, and not enforced option, but that's my own opinion about that.
In the end, using SGT leads to even more drastic requirements, so I voted "no". The idea behind SGT is good, but people often are too close-minded to notice how given option applies to the community, even if they have good intentions of rewarding selected group of people. I still believe that it should be SG implementing those two filters, and not third-party tool. If cg was about do so something, SGT wouldn't exist, as well as this thread.
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SGT bans are needed, because without them people could post real links to giveaways left and right and nobody would even bother doing anything with it.
I remember when there weren't blacklists and instead people made a huge pastebin of blacklisted people. Not sure why that wasn't calling out, but would this be better: an anonymous googlespreadsheet with names + offences be made public, and then have a script that users could used to autoadd those reported users with different numbers of offences to their blacklists. The only issue is the blacklist limit, but it could give users even more control. (A thought from your report center thread and Twitter block lists).
The only issue about introducing a SGtools bans rule is that the decision to ban/unban people is rather contested in the forums. Even though those banned users can message the giveaway creator to get the link directly if they're deemed worthy, I don't see many people doing so for good reasons.
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an anonymous googlespreadsheet with names + offences be made public, and then have a script that users could used to autoadd those reported users with different numbers of offences to their blacklists
Do you really believe that it would cause less drama than we currently have?
Because I can guarantee that it'd make everything even worse. Public shame list is not a solution, people were salty about that when we were going to do that, even more salty than they're about bans right now. There is no simple solution to problems of both interested parties (as I posted in reply above), because if there was a solution - we'd do that already.
I don't like bans either, and I stopped banning people until I'm happy with the way how banning works.
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Good point, considering that some people get upset that individual users blacklist them. There is no good solution since there's always going to be upset people.
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People just love to get upset, unfortunately. I think it somewhat comes with greed. Site that has free stuff floating around is bound to have some of it.
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Depends how you define it.
Are needed to keep making giveaways? No, and you know very well why not, as you pointed it out yourself.
Are needed to support giveaway creators, avoid wasting time on rerolls and checks, and blacklisting manually people after each giveaway? Yes, because SGT was created for giveaway creators in the first place, and it's supposed to reward them, not people breaking rules or ethics. I explained that case a bit better above, so you might want to read my reply.
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I understand your stance on filters but each of them has at least two perspectives. You can argue that ratio filters punish lucky people or you can view it as rewarding unlucky people. It is the same mechanic in both cases but has drasticly different meaning based on which point people view on it. Filters are just tools to automate and speed up giveaway making and control. Some of the giveaways wouldn't ever be made if there weren't tools for them.
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I can't agree with you more, although being rejected is much stronger feeling than being awarded. It's exactly the same as reactions to being robbed and being gifted. A thing we lose hurts much more than the thing we receive, assuming both have similar value for us (and not in terms of money).
I don't have a problem with filters, neither with people using them. I'm just sad that people decide to restrict themselves even more instead of rewarding.
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It is humane thinking that we place so much more emphasis on the negative aspect than the positive ones. I find it a bit sad when people keep pointing out about restrictions whether it is about levels, groups, puzzles or lately SGTools. They can have hundreds of giveaways available but when they see a single one with restrcitions, people tend to forget the first group.
I would understand such argument better if the estrictions got to the point that people couldn't enter any (or only few) giveaways. At such point, the segmentation would go too far. But there are so many members using the site. I personally think that it is good both mechanically and community wise that we have different kind of giveaways aimed at different people. Just because one doesn't happen to belong into specific section that some giveaway is targeted at shouldn't make anyone feel bad.
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It shouldn't, but you can look above at the post of @Residentsevil to notice that it's the case, and moreover - I somehow agree with the way how he describes emotions, because that's how humans work in general. I'm lucky enough to not worry about such silly factor, but I do worry for other people who might feel being discriminated because of ratio, VAC ban, or whatever.
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I read some of his/her messages. I think both parties handle these situations too aggressively. Contributors call people too often and in too harsh manner in discussions and then people who do not meet requirements take it too personally. I see often that people from latter group begin telling their life stories why they are not putting money on giveaways. It is alright and fine. The site is free and you are not required to make giveaways. But on that very same manner, no one else is required to make his/her gift available to you.
I just wish people could work in nice manner and enjoy entering and making giveaways.
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I just wish people could work in nice manner and enjoy entering and making giveaways.
I do not wish for anything more, really. Sadly, it's working like an endless loop. One guy turns out to be bad apple and breaks the rule, that affects giveaway creator who is angry, that contributes to more restrictions, more restrictions are hitting more users and so on. It never stops, and the worst thing is that there is really no culprit, because both users and creators have their 100% valid reasons.
That's why I try to keep being neutral. I don't like restrictions, but I don't like SG bad apples either. I don't want to choose what I hate more, I just want from people to think more when applying restrictions, because that's the primary match causing a fire. If you don't balance it well, whole forest will burn, while balancing it nice can keep a small fire keeping you warm and comfy.
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Well, my opinion on SGTools is sort of mixed. I do use SGTools. I enter SGTools GAs. Using SGT helps to minimize the work I have to do after the GA ends. Especially the contacting support bit which I really really hate. Using SGT is clearcut and I can be honest about what I expect from the GA winner.
While it gives me those results, I also feel that it is a bit 'clunky' to use. First you create a GA, then you go and set the rules for that GA, then come up with a post to tell people about that GA... Sometimes (recently) it also refuses to work for whatever technical reasons which is the downside of any external site or service. Personally my latest problem was with failing "over 60% region free GAs" rule. Err. 100% >/ 60%. Thanks, glitch.
So, ideally, what I would like, would be to see the SGTools functionality implemented in the SG GA creation page.
As for drama: I think SGTools is just the fashionable scapegoat of the moment. Were there no SGTools, people would create drama about, I don't know, blacklists, whitelists, ratios, RCV, bundles and non-bundled...
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I probably talked too much about SGTools already today. But let's see, since I like how this thread looks dramafree, I'll say a bit more.
It is one of the best tools ever made for SG actually, it complements the missing features of SG as a custom giveaway filter, also provides some essential stats for user's gifting history and CV. It was going pretty good except a few downtimes (which makes the giveaway entry impossible) till they decided to add a forced banlist among their features. I don't know what they were thinking while making claims like "There won't ever be a wrongly banned person.", but their invalid entry system itself looks pretty easy to fail. Anyone getting the links from an external source without going through the SGTools check will be marked as a cheater and will probably be added to that big bad ban list.
As many others said here, I think its main problem is the forced ban list. SG already has its own rules, punishments and bans. I don't see any need for another rule set or ban list coming from an external tool. If there's a need for new rules, the change must be made inside SG. Probably knsys won't like to hear it again, but 3rd party tools should not pretend to be the SG police. I would love to see implementation of some of the SGTools features to SG actually. Probably that won't happen, so for SGTools the ban list should at least be made optional with the default option being "not selected" and people should be able to make changes on the list. Best solution in my opinion, is the complete removal of that ban list, as long as invalid entries can be rerolled and those users can be added to the blacklist, a global ban list is just asking for more drama and more work to do for support.
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My issue with the ban list is it can catch people who use the leaked link, but not the leaker. That's a shame, because I don't care if someone who can be rerolled free has the link, I care that someone leaked it, and the current system mainly punishes entrants. Don't get me wrong, I'm not crying over them getting banned if they've been warned and didn't care/read/have basic human decency, but I agree that the optional ban list idea is nice. Perhaps someone should suggest that to knsys...
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As it is now, it can even be exploited in order to put people you hate into that ban list. Just leaking your own giveaway link with another account on forums/groups/chats will mark people using that link as cheaters.
Optional banlist that everyone can modify might cause some database management problems probably, I am not sure, so I hope Archi or knsys can confirm if it is possible or worth trying to do at least.
But why do you even need to see those people in a ban list if you can just reroll the giveaway and add them to your blacklist?
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But why do you even need to see those people in a ban list if you can just reroll the giveaway and add them to your blacklist?
My thoughts exactly. We have the tools for dealing with that right here on SG. There's no need for an outside judiciary system.
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I think my biggest gripe with SGtools bans is that anyone who you ban for using a leaked link can still use a leaked link. It's insolvent, and while it might deter some people, the real problem are people who habitually use leaked links, and those people aren't impacted as drastically.
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for SGTools the ban list should at least be made optional with the default option being "not selected" and people should be able to make changes on the list.
Even that is not a good idea at all.
Imagine you'd get banned for no reason as it's so popular now, and half of the people will actually use the ban list in their rules... that means you'll not be able to join some GAs you have the right to join, until you go through the annoying process of providing proof to some dudes who are not even SG support, and they have the right to keep you in the list because they don't like your (lack of) proof. And if you try to make noise about it on forum, it will be you who gets all the blacklists because it's their word vs. yours, and you're the banned cheater and they're the good developers.
Even if you manage to get out of your unfair ban though, you'll never get back the time and nerves you lost while dealing with the shit you shouldn't have been dealing with in the first place.
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I agree, if you read the rest of my post I actually think complete removal of ban list is the best solution.
I said a lot of things regarding the issue you pointed out now in other threads. Developer or not, it is not even directly related to SG, they are just regular users on SG like you and me, there should be no discrimination.
This is why I don't like the idea of giving regular users control/power over other users' giveaway entry rights.
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This time it is about bans, next it can be some other rule asking for every user to set their inventory public or post a comment to every SGTools giveaway they join, otherwise it will be counted as invalid entry. The point is, SGTools rules should not conflict with SG site rules.
I think problems should be solved by talking, not by leaving.
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You keep forgetting that SGT rules are set by the creator of giveaway, not SGT staff. It's up to giveaway creator what he expects from you, if he expects from you to pay him 10$ in CS:GO items for a chance to join a giveaway, then you either accept it and join, or laugh off badly and go away. Actually I wouldn't be shocked if KnSYS added an option such as "require comment for enter" or so.
There's no rule that conflicts with SG. SGT is external tool and giveaway creator authorizes that tool to allow selected group of people chosen by the tool to join a giveaway. It works like a third-party man-in-the-middle who decides who is allowed to join and who is not. Rules that determine the decision, whether to be SG-based, SGT banning-based, religion-based, country-based on steam account-based, should be entirely up to giveaway creator.
That's why I'm up for making SGT bans as a rule to pass, instead of forcing it. But I'm not against removing it.
You don't agree with SGT rules, or the way how it's handling things - you do not use the service. Nobody is obligated to use it, and nobody will ever be. Discussion is always great and I have my own list of flaws that SGT currently has, but the point stays the same, regardless if changes will be made or not.
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A lot of people are saying "You don't like the way it is, then don't use it.", I am having trouble to understand that logic. It looks like an easy escape responding any disagreement with that fixed answer.
But when you apply the same logic to SG-SGTools relationship, shouldn't all SGTools supporters and developers stop using SG and start their own site then?
I don't want any misunderstandings, I don't support that logic, I am actually against it.
Problem is SGT is directly effecting the giveaway entry system of SG as an entry filter tool. It is almost like an improved new private giveaway type, but that doesn't change the fact that it is just a filter for SG hosted giveaways.
Why should anyone refrain himself from entering SG giveaways if they don't 100% support some external tool ruleset?
You keep forgetting that SGT rules are set by the creator of giveaway, not SGT staff. It's up to giveaway creator what he expects from you, if he expects from you to pay him 10$ in CS:GO items for a chance to join a giveaway, then you either accept it and join, or laugh off badly and go away. Actually I wouldn't be shocked if KnSYS added an option such as "require comment for enter" or so.
I was talking about the global rules of the site that are made by the admins and in effect for all giveaways and everyone using it.
You can try making nonsense rules like asking for money for the giveaway entry on SG, but no one will ever respect those rules and they will have no effect.
Indeed I can see what you are trying to say. Just using an external site as man-in-the-middle for our giveaways, we are actually overriding some of the rules of SG. Things, rules that won't be considered eligible for rerolls suddenly start to be respected through an invalid entry flag. I didn't consider SGTools more than an extended CV filter for SG giveaways before, but even then it gives users extra control and reroll powers that they won't normally have with standard SG structure.
There has to be a line drawn somewhere. It shouldn't at least override the core SG user ruleset and stay limited to being a CV filter.
(Saying that thinking about all those possible nonsense filters like: religion, age, your country, account age, people in your friendlist, gender, sexual choice, SGT global bans, forced particular comment for entry etc..)
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I somehow agree with your opinion, but keep in mind that invalid entry is invalid only when he doesn't pass the rules, and something like "must comment for join" would not grant reroll as user got giveaway link (by authorized third-party tool) and whatever happens next doesn't matter. Although, yes, and I'm not sure whether it's good or bad that staff now grants rerolls to invalid entries pointed by SGT. It's definitely abusable and owner of the site (KnSYS) can point whatever people he likes, if he wanted.
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I'm going to ask a serious question from a position of neutrality (well, sorta): what do you think of SGtools giveaways? I've used SGtools in the past, and while I don't think it's been a problem, since I'm usually a softy and give the link to people who ask politely, I know a lot of people are vehemently opposed to it. I suppose that I fall somewhere in between; I don't want to discourage people from creating giveaways just because some rule breaker or leech entered their past giveaways and they don't want to give games to people who "don't deserve them" (this is what I assume their reason is, not my opinion myself) but at the same time the system does have flaws, and while I respect knsys for doing a solid job of essentially maintaining the tool for free and trying to make it a viable tool for the community, sometimes people use it in ways that create drama. I've used SGtools only a few times, and as someone who created six giveaways with the tool I haven't had any issues with leaks (except once, when two out of three of my links for an event got leaked, and I was actually rather upset because the criteria were quite lax and it was partially my fault for not setting a level 1 requirement for a giveaway that had a minimum CV requirement, which is clearly too much temptation for some people to bear, but I digress, since I would have been just as bitter about a linked puzzle giveaway or something like that). I can understand why people say you shouldn't use SGtools, but I can also understand the arguments for, so I'm interested to hear from both sides.
To raise the stakes, serious answers of more than 100 words will get you whitelisted (or removed from blacklist if you've been naughty, unless you've done something truly egregious). Ad hominem attacks (in original responses OR REPLIES) will get you blacklisted, because the forums have enough drama. Drama about blacklist/whitelist will get you... well, let's just guess on that one, alright? Answers of less than 100 words are appreciated, but will not reward candy. After we get five or so solid responses I'll make a giveaway for something, okay? Can't promise it will be good, but it will be something.
The poll has two options on purpose; I didn't forget the stupid potato option.
To check if you made it in: http://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/o5lN2/chivalry-medieval-warfare
If you're a salt miner, you won't notice the difference. Rough. :3
Giveaway: http://www.sgtools.info/giveaways/29e31418-fd04-11e5-a85e-04019cc0dc01
If you would rather not use SGtools, the link is also in the whitelist giveaway. I will not be checking for invalid entries nor reporting the list of invalid entries. It's just to make sure that people read the thread and don't just come here for the giveaways. :3
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