What about smile.amazon.com? It's kinda like a referral link but it's to support charity.
Comment has been collapsed.
Glad to see common sense has prevailed. Thanks for the clarification, hopefully it will finally put this business to rest.
Comment has been collapsed.
" for that reason we ask users not to share this type of content in the future."
but is it impose ? are we forced to do that ?
Comment has been collapsed.
Why not include the rule checks into SG itself and eliminate the need for a 3rd party site at all?
Hell, you could even include them as a giveaway criteria (like level, group, whitelist, etc), and leave out the useless ones (VAC, region restriction, etc, that have nothing to do with SG).
Seems this would avoid the referral issue altogether and it would cut down on at least one idiot's spamming every thread with SGTools propaganda :X
Comment has been collapsed.
People wishing to use said criteria you seem as useless would still do so using SGT and you cannot prohibit them from doing so, because people can post their privatre link wherever they like, including 3rd party websites where link is hidden behind some kind of barrier (in this aspect SGT is no different from ITH or jigidi). As for incorporating rulechecks into SG - look how much time it takes for checking big accounts on SGT (my account usually takes minutes to calculate for example). And SGT is relatively used by small partt of community, a lot more users would use something incorporated into website itself (a lot of people who don't visit forums, may not even be aware of SGT, but if they saw something like this incorporated into SG they would use it. So traffic and load would be way higher than on SGT which already is laggy. It would mean severe hit to the server work capacity I think, so that's why we don't have it.
Comment has been collapsed.
rule-checking can be cached once per day, or every time that user wins, or *insert option*.
Comment has been collapsed.
then it would be easy to exploit it ;) all you have to know is what triggers rulecheck. If it's weekly or daily - just unmark your unactivated wins right before it and mark them again. if it's upon "marking as activated" just unmark them b4 clicking marking new one and then mark them again. and so on and on ;)
Comment has been collapsed.
till you make 1 mistake and you lose your account...
Comment has been collapsed.
and it can take months if not years before I do this one mistake ;) we all know support here is undermanned and totally report-dependant. Until I make a mistake there is nothing to report, I can go uncaught for really long time ;)
Comment has been collapsed.
But you could already do that now before you win a GA, still nobody bothers :p
Comment has been collapsed.
if you do so now it's much easier to get caught - you'd have to keep false info on your account for a lot of time, if not all the time, and all it takes is one of people you won GA from to notice they have "unreceived" GA, report you and bang you get permabanned for missuse of GA feedback. but if you knew that check would happen exactly at midnight every day - all it takes would be to unmark for a few seconds before check, then mark again. much much smaller chance for anyone to notice it and to report you for missuse of GA feedback ;)
Comment has been collapsed.
Ok, I understand what you're saying, but what if the system that decides who wins the GA's checks the winner before assigning the win and otherwise automatically rerolls? That shouldn't create too much additional traffic right? I'm not an expert on the matter though.
Comment has been collapsed.
depends on winner - for people with hundreds or thousands of winds SGT system is struggling already. Now imagine a case of Simultaneous Giveaways event for example - over 1500 thousands of GAs ending on the same second. almost every member of the event has hundreds of wins or more. And suddenly instead of one stessing check you have 1500 of stressing tests ;p we would crush the server with a single event, and we're hosting these events twice a year. Not to mention many other events hosted in other groups or on forums, maybe smaller, but happening more often and each such an event equals let's say few hundreds checks happening at same second. And now imagine mass developer GA, let's say 20000 keys - suddenly you have to make 20000 checks in the same second :D:
Comment has been collapsed.
Be honest ;) Most of that struggle comes from generating and downloading megabytes of html (with delays as not to flood SG with requests) to parse out few kB of relevant data (and SGT server isn't top of the line).
Checks won't be very stressing, most of needed data can be precomputed and cached. And cache updated when underying data changes.
SSL eats up much more processing power
Comment has been collapsed.
let me remind you that in the past something as trivial as picking a little over a thousand winners at the same second was enough to break SG. And now we're talking about persorming several tens of thousands of activation checks in the same second ;)
Comment has been collapsed.
That really depends on the code, indexes on db and server specs.
If what you say is true , maybe the sg code needs some update .
On a perfect world(TM) , that task should be really fast, but making things scalable takes some serious coding and lots of time.
Comment has been collapsed.
Bad old times, but the grass was greener and sun hotter back then )
Most, if not all, values needed can be stored together with level. Db access cost stays about the same. Extra comparisons and logic expressions costs are negligible compared to db acess. I must have missed somehow SimGive breaking SG this year. Maybe I was napping :)
Values needed for conditions would be calculated at the same moment when level is updated and when clicking received. Extra computational cost of this are low and pretty unlikely to have extreme spikes
Comment has been collapsed.
Hmm, large events might pose a problem. You could still implement the system for GA's with only one winner (or a small number of winners), and simply not use the system for large amount of winners.
Comment has been collapsed.
I noticed you've blacklisted me, and since my positive opinion of SGTools is well known, I guess I'm a prime candidate to be that "idiot'. That's ok. I'm not planning to blacklist you. In fact, I recently dedicated a GA to you and your many giveaways on this site, and used the same level you use for public GAs. I thought that was a nice tribute :-)
Comment has been collapsed.
That's awfully narcissistic of you, but you're wrong.
So, I guess you can still be "that idiot", but for a different reason now. :-)
Comment has been collapsed.
The major benefit I see of adding the rules to SG is that they could be applied to public giveaways.
Comment has been collapsed.
Hello, thanks for clarifying.
I have a question regarding these kind of giveaways, can I still advertise a site that provided keys ?
Example GA's - 1 , 2
Site that is advertised has some fb, twitter, green light e.t.c. tasks but they are optional and are not required for entering giveaways to get keys, they are only needed to get additional points. Will be waiting for your answer! Thanks.
P.S. Also have a personal question since only you have means to resolve it (it has been open for 7 months :( ), please take a look it will take only 1 minute of your time link
Comment has been collapsed.
I think li nking orlygift is no longer ok with these new guidelines.
"Such actions include but are not limited to clicking a referral link, liking a Facebook page, following a Twitter account"
orlygift falls into all 3 categories. In order to gain more credits you are required to do different things - including clicking referral to offsite web-games or mobile games and playing X amount of them, site gets paid revenue for introducing new players, you are required to follow twitter acounts and liking FB pages. It all is quite obviously against new guidelines.
Comment has been collapsed.
zelghadis - hope you don't mind me asking - can we assume that our giveaways are acceptable - we always include a link to our etsy shop in the giveaway text box, but we never require that people click it to win anything - much as we would love everyone to visit our little corner of the internet we decided at the start of sponsoring giveaways that it we did not like the idea of forcing people to do anything; we simply have a link there just in case people want to visit :)
Comment has been collapsed.
I'm not zelghadis but You should be fine. As long as people are not required to click the link, it's allowed.
Comment has been collapsed.
yeah that is what we figure - forcing people to do something is just not what we are about - so a link they can click or not seemed fairer :)
Comment has been collapsed.
I think your case fits perfectly to what cg stated in new guidelines:
(Please note, so long as they do not violate the previous restrictions, in giveaway descriptions we do allow users and developers to link to their related Steam Greenlight, group, and store pages, as well as their social media channels. Users are also able to reference their group giveaways when posting in the Group Recruitment category of our forum.)You are promoting your store in GA descriptions and guidelines specifically states that promoting store page in description is fine as long as it doesn't break previous rules so you should be perfectly fine ;). Unless on your store site you start running GAs that will require clicking reflinks, twitter follows, fb likes etc ;p Keep in mind that it's my personal opinion and it's not binding in any way, you may also wish to wait for official response from either cg or some staff member ;)
Comment has been collapsed.
thanks all for the responses it is appreciated :) - I have left a reply under CG comments - but thought I would just ask generally of people who have been around the block, so to speak. We did think of various ways we could have done the sponsorship, but after lurking for some time we decided it would be rude to force people to do something they may not want to - and we are not just here to make people visit our shop (much as we would like to) we actually like it here :)
Comment has been collapsed.
then like I said - unless your shop itself starts hosting something that is against mnew guidelines, your situation for me fits perfectly what cg stated is ok ;)
Comment has been collapsed.
As I understand it they are not okay as they "encourage users through reward". In this case it would be the additional points.
Comment has been collapsed.
Hi Tetsuj1n.
The Orlygifts freebies are fine, if they do not require users to perform actions listed in the updated guidelines (clicking a referral link, liking a Facebook page, following a Twitter account, joining a Steam group, completing a survey, making a donation, etc) and if every user who decides to take part is guaranteed to receive a key. Basically, anything like "click the FREE button and claim your key" is fine.
The Orlygifts giveaways are not allowed, however, since by entering the giveaway the user only gets a small chance to win a key and might be tempted to perform the aforementioned actions in order to increase his chances. Since this kind of giveaway serves no other purpose than to drive traffic to the websites and various social media accounts and promotions, this is considered advertising.
Comment has been collapsed.
gud rules. I agree, and I'm annoyed by that site spam where I need to give them access to my twitter...
Comment has been collapsed.
Wow, an update. Awesome! :D Now gonna wait for a trade FAQ! ;P
Comment has been collapsed.
Thank you for clearing things up CG! ^^
As I said and thought before it's much to do about nothing and a lot of artificially made and inflated drama by some of the worst SGTools haters that make a lot of noise on the SG discussions and silently enter as much SGTools giveaways as they can while using SGTools also to check their winners. :3
And the nazi dickhead is the worst.
Comment has been collapsed.
The person was potentially breaking the rules, just because it's a popular or well liked person and you may interpret it as a minor infraction does not mean that person should be exempt from the rules. That is neither justice nor equality. I don't have anything against SGTools (apart from the hidden referral links), I am a strong believer that someone who gives something away can set any rules they want. Also calling someone names, because they disagree wit you is fairly immature IMHO. I'm not here to cause an argument or any drama though, you are free to believe whatever you like but I felt the other person(s) deserve(s) to be defended.
Comment has been collapsed.
As I said much to do about nothing and just making something bigger than it is.
O yes and those insults are not my normal way to do, it's just giving back the change to a moron that likes to post insults towards me and say the same things about me (I'm Jewish) that nazis said in WWII.
You're defending a very nice person indeed...
Comment has been collapsed.
It may not be a big problem for you, but someone else might think otherwise. I personally thought they had a legitimate point and supported them, but since it has been clarified that he wasn't breaking the rules I'm leaving the issue behind me.
I do apologize, I didn't realize there was a person saying those things to you. Racism is never right, I was speaking about the original person that made the thread and those who supported it (including myself) in a respectful way. Unless it was the original poster that made those comments against you, which I wouldn't condone.
Comment has been collapsed.
I also apologize to you and to all those that read that greyed bit and maybe thought I was talking to you/them except for the one person it's intended to and it's not the original poster you mean.
Comment has been collapsed.
Oooh hopefully this can end some of the chaos :)
Can we all be friends again? :3
Comment has been collapsed.
it is stickied. no need in bumping, its stuck at the top regardless for now ;)
but good info that needs spread around indeed ^^
Comment has been collapsed.
I still expect some frantic rearguard action from those that don't like cg's post and answers.
Comment has been collapsed.
That just means we can't see more of this, thanks to the Flying Spaghetti Monster! Oh, and CG
Comment has been collapsed.
Does this mean that the puzzle GA's (jig-saw puzzle and quiz puzzles) are in violation of the rules?
Comment has been collapsed.
no, they are not.
"When posting links or content, that content should not force users, encourage users through reward, or primarily exist as a traffic source for users to perform an action for promotional, commercial, or monetary benefit. Such actions include but are not limited to clicking a referral link, liking a Facebook page, following a Twitter account, joining a Steam group, completing a survey, or making a donation."
As long as a part of your puzzle it's not required to do any action for your promotional, commercial or monetary benefit, this puzle is not breaking the rules. On the other hand if solving a puzzle qould require clicking ref link or joining Steam group - then yes - this particular puzzle would be breaking the rules, but it doesn't means other puzzles do as well ;)
Comment has been collapsed.
Great news, new policy is fair and makes any REX / YOLO / anything future attempt to circumvent the rules pointless.
Comment has been collapsed.
Q: Can developers link to their related Steam Greenlight in the discussion, which also contain the info on the game and SG giveaways. Or are the links only allowed in the giveaway descriptions.
Comment has been collapsed.
Hi SG, a few updates to the guidelines page are below.
Before
After
There were a few questions on the forum recently about referrals, and whether the previous rule implied that referral codes needed to be removed from URLs, or whether pages being linked to were not allowed to contain any referral links in their content. It was originally intended to mean the former, that referral codes should be removed from URLs posted to the site, and the example now better illustrates that point.
The new guideline has been added to help reduce advertising in the community. Most of our users have seen links to Gleam and related sites, asking people to perform a wide variety of actions to win a game. Occasionally these sites are used by developers to promote their games, but more frequently we see them used by individuals asking others to like Facebook pages, follow Twitter accounts, and click referral links to receive a random Steam key from a bundle. We don't feel our community should be used as a platform to advertise and promote these pages, and for that reason we ask users not to share this type of content in the future.
If you have any questions, feel free to comment. Thanks.
Comment has been collapsed.