Allow asking for donations to causes (not giveaway related ones)

the poll isn't very clear on what you are asking
Should posts asking for personal help be allowed?: yes it's fine, as long as you only ask for advice/simple help and don't ask for money or a donation or anything like that.

I was surprised by the lock of that thread as it was up for a really long time until it got locked. I cant understand why if it wasnt allowed by the mods it got locked some months later....
Anyway back in the OP i think it should be allowed as long as its for important reasons like the health of somebody and not for begging some extra cash or cards or games etc.

Pls no talking about monetary help and no begging..its a gaming related site here, the world is already a sick and unfair place we all know, but pls use other sites and let us keep SG free of this.

I don't think it would be wise for SG.
SG has no ways to verify how valid the requests are, without throwing support staff into it however the support staff already has too much work to do, this would cause people to abuse and try to scam users for money.

It's safer for SG and it's users to just not allow that type of content to be spread here if it can't protect it's users from potential scams.

Others been closed in the past so i always questioned the double standards why this was kept open.
And if you allow one, it could just basically be setting up a flood eventually to much more, it's already maybe the reason why some people think they can open a thread and beg for a game, thinking we are charity.

While I agree with the sentiment, if cg would allow this, what would stop anyone from writing "hey SG, best community, my father’s brother’s nephew’s cousin’s former roommate needs 1 million dollars, please help"?

I kinda wonder, if someone not-well-known would write same post, would we support him or eat him with "no begging rule" in 5 seconds...

I'm going to agree with what people have said so far.

While we are a community and to many of us this website is more than just a site where we share games, I think rules should remain as they are regarding people asking for payments and donations to avoid the possible flood of such threads, where some or most of them could possibly end up being scams.

Our mods wouldn't have the time to regulate such threads and check whether or not are they legitimate.

I dont think there is any real need for it

it would open up a huge can of worms and giving people incentive to make up false stories and asking for money.

If we think of SG as a community, and not just a game exchange site, we must allow this kind of post.

The point, however, is that SG is a game-exchange raffle-giveaway site, not a social hub like Tumblr.

It is important that our users consider whether or not their posts adhere to the site's guidelines, making any changes or adjustments necessary to ensure their posts are permissible. While SteamGifts allows a user to advertise off-site content within giveaway descriptions, solicitation of payments or donations is prohibited on this site.

Examples:

"I am involved in "Cause X." Further details may be found on my Steam page." (allowed)

"Please support this cause by donating. Here are the details." (not allowed)

If its for direct helping for someone in need (ie sickness,poor family who needs food and such) then i think its ok, otherwise im not sure.

and on top of that if so i think the person cause who does that should be verified with Support Staff - so no scams of sort will happen.

I agree (with some of you) about making the guidelines clearer and more explicit, according to whatever the Support team decides, and then we stick to what they decide to the letter, however, as it is still slightly ambiguous, and there are currently double standards, such as personal help for family, or help through official means for the whole state, against simple stuff like “begging for games”, shouldn’t our community be allowed to express their support in whatever means (example donating giveaways as bumps to keep the thread going), to me personally it just seems the community is willing to help, but we should still make the guidelines more specific to YES ALLOWED or NOPE NOT AT ALL instead of the current “Erm this might be okay but it also might not be” so yeahhhh, anyways just a lil commentt

Some level 10 users are already advertising their personal causes in their giveaways, so either allow it for everybody or don't.

As the creator of said thread, I just want to put it out there that I understand and am not angry with support's decision to take down the thread - They know what is right and wrong for the community better than I ever will. I created the thread against all odds and fully aware than I could get suspended for it if it somehow fell into the "begging" rules set. I did so because getting suspended would have been a small price to pay to attempt to help people I care about.

I'm just glad that either support intentionally overlooked the thread for a while, or it simply slipped through the watchful eyes and tight nets of support in some way, giving a chance to the thread to prosper before being killed off (yes, a bit scummy of me but I don't care, I think what I did was right).

I've just reviewed the guidelines and now realize that I was indeed breaking a rule, while not extremely clear, it was certainly implied that what I've done isn't allowed. To quote the guidelines:

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.

I've highlighted the relevant parts - Bottom line is... it appears I was indeed breaking a rule. I think the only reason it stayed up for so long is that none of the support members wanted to be "that one evil mod" who closes charity threads, but the fact is that if the rules dictate that we shall not make these kind of posts, then it is support's duty to enforce that rule, without exception. This is why I'm not blaming support - I'm pretty sure at least a few of them intentionally took their time to get to it, but it had to be done eventually.

shows how people love to make exceptions for friends. if that thread was made by a lv0 guy it would have been instantly closed and the user blacklisted/called out 100 times in a second. 👍

Allow asking for donations to causes (not giveaway related ones)

No, just no. We'd have every scammer, YT creator, and Twitch streamer on the planet setting a collection bin by their SG account.

title
Allow begging

WD

People don't even bother posting thanks for winning games, those guys would never donate anything, not even a handshake.

Personally I agree with you, as long as the person who creates the thread isn't getting any personal gain from it I don't see the problem. Sadly most people here are overcautious. Sure it's a gaming site, but for me it's also a community. Why have a forum at all if you don't want people to socialize? Sadly Mully also has a point that if some random person posted that exact same thread, it would get burned to the ground.

I would like if some FREE PHILANTHROPIC causes would be permitted here.

Some BAD users reported me for giving link to promote "BOINC research", a way od donating your computer to science & research.
Had a ban for a few days, 'cause of mentioning the site here in comments (not going to do it again). But some promotional things like asking help, giving to charity or to research should be permitted.

Though, it's up to mods to change the rules. I'm only putting my comment. ;)