Hello Steamgifts! I'm afraid that as of today (10 October, 2017), I am stepping down as an admin of APG. I will be shortly closing this recruitment thread - hopefully another admin will start one in time. If you applied to join APG and got no response (beyond a "your application in under review" response), it means that there were concerns about your application, but due to lack of participation from the other group admins, these concerns were not able to be adequately discussed. But please don't be discouraged from applying again in the future.

Hey there Steamgifts!

We have a friendly little giveaway group that could use more users. For us it's important that the users are the right ones for this group, so please spend some time reading this description.

Most of the members of the group think it's more enjoyable to do giveaways where the winner ends up playing the game, and that's exactly what the group is for: members on Steamgifts who like playing their won games. By playing, we don't just mean idle for the cards or try the game for 20 minutes then retire it, but playing it for real and finishing it. The group is focused around playing and finishing games both in general and games won on Steamgifts (and the group) in particular.

Our current members are a bit picky (in a good way), only entering giveaways for games they would actually play, and that's one thing we're looking for in new members - those of you who know which games you would want to play, enter giveaways only for those, and then go on playing the games, resulting in a decent rate of won games being finished, and not hundreds of games in your win list that will never be touched, and only a handful of games ever played.

Requirements:

To help members keep track of their won games, as well as making it easier for group admins to check the progress in won games for those applying for the group, a BLAEO account is required. BLAEO is a great tool for tackling your backlog, it syncs the games in your Steam library and Steamgifts wins, and lets you mark your progress in the games and create lists (to-play lists as well as lists of finished games) with an easy drag and drop interface.

If you're already an active BLAEO member that's great, if not, you would need to sign up, categorize your games and make a list containing at least one of your games won on Steamgifts (a getting-started guide is available here) before applying.

The suggestion is that those of you who are new to BLAEO do a "games to play soon" / "attack plan" list, containing a few games you want / plan to play. One of them has to be a game won on Steamgifts (if you haven't already finished all won games). This is mainly to let new users to BLAEO try out the site functions to make sure you know what it's about, and there is no requirement to play the games on that list in that order (or to stick to the list at all), but it can be a very handy tool that some of you might end up using a lot, and if not - it's nice to have tried at least once.

When it comes to finished games, we would like to see a minimum of 35% of your won games on Steamgifts finished. This will be evaluated on an individual level, and 35% isn't an exact amount, it also comes down to amount of games won, and the games played. For users with few wins, 35% could be as little 1-2 games, and that would not be enough, so a higher rate would be needed for users with few wins. At the same time, someone who has won 20 games and only played/finished their five shortest won games and left all the longer ones unplayed might not be a good match for the group before finishing more games.

If you would like to check your stats a bit without registering to BLAEO, this userscript can check your progress (hours played and achievements gained) in games won on Steamgifts, so you can get an idea about how many games you have played.

The minimum Steamgifts contributor level for applying is 4, and we would like to see a positive Real CV ratio.

Group rules:

We have a few rules in the group, everything is explained in more detail in the group forum, but should be mentioned here as well, so anyone thinking of applying can consider if they would be ok with the rules.

In short, the rules are:

1. Read the giveaway description before entering a group giveaway, and respect any wishes of the giveaway creator.
2. Leave a comment when entering a group giveaway.
3. Make sure to play games won from the group, either within any timeframe the giveaway creator wished for, or the group standard timeframe (3/6/12 months depending on the game).
4. Leave a new comment in the giveaway after finishing a game.

This of course also means that users should only enter giveaways for games they would play.

There are no rules about mandatory giveaways or in-group ratio (the time each user has to play their won games being the only "ratio").

We have a pretty nice thing going in the group, with each giveaway most of the time getting several more comments than entries (members who don't enter a giveaway might stop by to "chat", often owners of a game chime in to give recommendations). Also, so far we have had very good results when it comes to playing won games - with lots of newer / highly wishlisted games being played and finished shortly after the giveaways end.

Guest gifters:

We have had some inquires about guest gifting, users who would like to do giveaways for the group, without meeting the membership requirements themselves. This is of course welcome, and the recommended method would be to do an invite-only giveaway, which one of the moderators could post in the group-only discussion. None of the current members would be likely to leak an invite giveaway, but it could be good to write in the giveaway description that the giveaway is only shared with the group members (and link to the member list).

Another positive thing with an invite-only giveaway is that the giveaway creator can invite others than just the group members, which in some cases might be needed to get to 5 entries. Be sure to mention which users are invited in the giveaway description.

Checklist for applying:

1. BLAEO account
2. Have categorized all games on BLAEO and made a list / "attack plan" containing at least one game won on Steamgifts (only needed for new BLAEO members)
3. Minimum of 35% won games finished
4. Steamgifts level: 4+
5. Real CV Ratio: 1:1 or better (same or higher amount sent compared to won)
6. Agree to the group rules

To make it easier for the group admins checking the applications, please use this template when you apply (edited to replace my details with yours):

[BLAEO profile](https://backlog-deepness.rhcloud.com/users/kelnage)
[BLAEO list/attack plan](https://backlog-deepness.rhcloud.com/lists/3lx2nyb)
[Real CV Sent](http://www.sgtools.info/sent/kelnage/newestfirst): 756.65
[Real CV Won](http://www.sgtools.info/won/tso184/newestfirst): 120.05
Real CV Ratio: 6.30 (sent/won: 756.65/120.05=6.30 in my case, you don't need to add the info inside this parenthesis)

If you haven't had time to play as many of your won games as you would like, don't worry! Spend some quality time with those games, get your numbers up and come back later. The group will keep taking in new members.