I'd at least like the option to set some of my giveaways for the folks who have given more than they've won.
You can do this by meeting nice people on forum and manually adding them to your Whitelist and then running "whitelist only" giveaways.
P.S. I may be wrong but I believe that those who gave away significantly more games than they won don't really feel bad about sent/won ratio.
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I don't think a mechanism like that should be in place, because then everyone would use it and it would force people to give if they want to win. If you give because the site forces you to, it pretty much defeats the purpose.
What some people do and you can do, is make a group and only add people with a ratio you're ok with, and then make giveaways just for that group.
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I don't think so, we have levels requirements and not everyone use them. I don't think it would be different with ratio requirements.
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Yeah, but it's not the same thing. Levels are often a sign how much of a veteran you are, and how active you are, and most people are ok with giving to people who are new here or aren't very active.
If you have had the option to only give to people with a Sent/Won ratio of around 1 or higher, I think almost everyone would use it because it avoids so-called Leechers only.
I just don't wanna reach a point where I'm thinking: "Oh damn, I won a game, now I have to give more if I want to win any more". I want to give when I feel like it, when I have the money to spend and when I have a cool idea on how to make the giveaway.
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I think a 1:1 ratio would be very high based on what I'm seeing. Admins probably might have stats available, but it would surprise me if even 10-20% of users are over a 1:1 ratio. just a guess though.
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There are a lot of completely inactive accounts though. It would be interesting to have these stats for active users.
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Well, personally I don't think I'd use some ratio requirements, and there are surely a bunch of other users who don't care about it either.
Although I don't disagree that we shouldn't have this feature, as that would be unfair to users who give less but expensive games.
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Ratio could be based on dollar value. number, or combination of both depending on what folks felt was most representative of the idea. I'd have no prob using value if that's more fair. It doesn't have to be perfect. I think CapnJ's figues show that even a very rough tool would be informative when creating giveaways.
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Yes, any features can be exploited as it is with everything. But if the giver has good feeling from it, it is still better than having crappy feeling and hesitate to give games to anyone next time. The ratio requirement would be mere tool to use, just like any other requirements. At the end, it still should be up to creator to decide about whoever deserves his/her gifts.
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We currently have no built-in settings to restrict your giveaway to users with a certain ratio, but there are some workarounds.
You could create a "whitelist thread" where people could post and you can add them to your whitelist if you're happy with their ratio, then make whitelist giveaways for these users.
When you'll reach a contributor level of 5.75, you might also be interested in the Charitable Losers group.
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I've been creating a whitelist (I think I added you to it today), but was thinking it's pretty laborious and probably misses quite a few people.
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Yes it misses many people, but as far as I know it is only way how to enforce any custom rules. Although very inconvenient in time-consuming manner to rack up some decent number of applicants.
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It is a laborious process and it does require that you get to know people...
But, that means you get people who you really want on the whitelist.
I see the reasoning behind what you're asking for. There are lots of groups setup for what you're looking for though.
Keep looking around the forums and you'll come across things.
Personally, I'm content with the level system.
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While 'make one giveaway to hit Level 1 and then leech 40, 500, or 1000 games' accounts are unfortunately dominant, there's just no way to address that on-site that I see.
Given that Steam Groups [like Charitable Losers] exist and work easily with the SG system, there really doesn't seem to be any need to change the setup any.
That being said, it'd be nice to eventually be able to combine Invite-Only and Whitelist/Group functions when creating a giveaway; likewise for making a 'whitelist OR level' restriction, rather than only having the current AND arrangement.
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In my opinion it's quite simple really.If you joined to give games away then keep doing so and if you joined to win games then try maintaining 1:1 ratio.I'm pretty new here myself, but what i have seen so far is that a lot of people really doesn't like so called leechers and low levels.
As for myself, i don't really care about stats or ratio nor anything else, i'm just happy i can cheer up somebody with a gift :)
P.S. Welcome to SG and enjoy your stay :)
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I have a whole lot of games to give away. Just trying to figure the best way to go about it. And it does make me happy to give away games (or at least it feels good to get the keys to a home where the games will be played), but that doesn't mean I wouldn't be happier if my games were going to those who were more participatory. I think it might be healthy for the site also.
I guess I'm an economics guy, and can't get around thinking that incentives matter, and the incentives in place help shape the community.
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Or you can put a level limit to people who enter, some people who participates in groups giveaway have won a lot but also gave a lot, sometimes only for their group though, but you won't have winner who just gave out a bundle game and ammassed 50 wins as winners.
As Rupti said you could also take part in group or make whitelist only giveaway.
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My position is that the give/win ratio isn't always fair. It discriminates against those who are lucky and those who can't afford a ton of games to give away. I know this isn't always the case. Also the problem with this would be when people have given away a massive amount of games, but have also won a lot of games. They've still contributed a lot of gifts to the site, but would be penalized for their winnings (think about it like this, a person with 10 gifts given and 1 win has a better ratio than a person with 100 gifts given and 11 wins).
Also, as you stated, it is mathematically impossible for everyone to have more gives than wins, this automatically discriminates everyone that doesn't happen to fall into that category of more gives than wins, despite how much they've actually given.
So what I'm trying to say is, this is a giveaway site, you give to random people because you want to. Also, lets face the facts, if you won every single giveaway you entered, wouldn't you be overjoyed even though your ratio would probably be crap?
Anyway, I believe the level system works fine as it is as it measures a user by how generous they are, not by how lucky they are. If you REALLY want to filter out who can enter your giveaways, then either make a whitelist or your own giveaway group.
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Personally I think the sent/won ratio isn't really relevant to measure the generosity of someone.
The games sent/games owned ratio would make more sense for that IMO. Still not a perfect way to measure generosity anyway.
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I view the sent/won ratio as heavily based on luck, because a person could have 5 gifts given and enter 10 giveaways and miraculously win them all, suddenly bringing down his ratio. Also the sent/owned ratio doesn't work well for me either. Most of my games come from Steam cash that I've gotten from Christmas/Birthdays/Special Occasions (it's literally been the only present I've gotten for the past few years) and it would feel pretty icky to me to spend a gift to buy a gift for someone else. So I usually only spend money that I make myself to do giveaways, but I often don't have a ton of extra money left over as I need to save for college.
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This man speaks with good sense. I don't think any system of this short would benefit the community, quiet contrary as stated by mushclose. I'm smelling elitists in the thread. :P
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well..personally i try to gift more of what i receive :p or at least 1:1
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You could also make forum giveaways (invite only, then post the link here), this usually filters most of the people who don't care about the community. And maybe do a puzzle. We love puzzles here :3
also, welcome :)
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I don't love puzzles, that would require loving myself, at the very least I only tolerate me. :P
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Don't listen to nellyneko, puzzles are bad, just do forum ga's so idiots like me can enter.
Happy Deer comes after people who make hard puzzles.
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I didn't say it had to be hard puzzles, easy ones are nice as well ^^
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That's okay, in the land that is known as the Upper Peninsula of Michigan ... we hunt the likes of happy deer!
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Hi, fartheststar! Welcome to Steamgifts. ^^
Like everyone already said, a whitelist would be a proper choice. Another idea would be to create a private Steam group and only invite the people you want (you could create a group recruitment thread here on Steamgifts to get you started) and create group giveaways exclusive to your new group.
However, a whitelist is basically the same thing and is much easier to maintain/manage (in my opinion, anyways). :P
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Yeah, whitelist may be way to go. I'd love something super-simple. Giving away stuff can already take more time than I expected going through and verifying things.
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As others have mentioned, your whitelist is an option, but there are many groups out there as well that deal with ratios and might be a better option. Some groups track global ratios and others track ratios within the group, so there are many options available. Nothing stopping you from creating your own group either.
I am assuming the ratio you are looking for in regards to value and not game count as someone can send 1 $60 game vs someone else's 60 $1 games. The main problem I have with ratios is the same as with CV, it isnt a true representation of how generous you are. The CV has no idea how much you paid for the games you giveaway. Someone might see a popular game and decide to give it away at full price, whereas a month ago someone bought it in a bundle for next to nothing. According to the CV they are the same thing, though one person maybe bought it for 10-20x the price, or much more. Besides, if you are worried about ratio/levels/etc then you might as well trade your games away instead of gifting them. Seems strange to me that some use the site as a trading system where the game you get is semi-random.
Anyway, welcome to the site, hope you enjoy your stay :D
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I am enjoying the site, although I'm spending more time here than I had expected ;-) I've been warned
It's not so much a measure of generosity that I'm going for (and I can understand that different users might want measures to reflect generosity as opposed to some other measure), but instead I'm going for a measure of participation and reciprosity. Can such a measure be gamed? Sure. To me I'm looking at the value of games calculated as just a proxy for the mkt value of the "fun" a game might have - and some kind of measure of the "fun" that makes up gifts. Is it perfect, no, but it'll suffice for a ballpark measure. Whether it comes for bundles or otherwise shouldn't impact the "fun" aspect much imho. I guess in my case, my 3 winners, by a loose measure, have received 10X as much "fun" from SG as they have contributed, and I wonder if that is good for the community as a whole when I see lots of users who have given away several games and haven't won yet. It may not matter in the scheme of things, but I'd like a super-easy way to try to direct giveaways to folks who approach SG in a more participatory manner. I'd just like to throw those users a bone I guess, to help cultivate that group.
Re: Trading. For me trading games is highly time consuming and unpleasant so I understand why many folks would just prefer giveaways. I've traded a couple games on steam and just not worth the effort for me. I guess swapping games would be a great way to go among users if it wasn't so difficult and time consuming. There might be a good fast/easy automated way to do this that I'm just not familiar with.
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Glad you are enjoying the site :D I also enjoy browsing the site, checking the forums, though I don't often reply, this being an exception. I run the risk of putting my foot in my mouth, haha.
I never got into trading so I have no idea about it. I've only ever bought a couple games for steam and that is it, a lot of my purchases came before WoW was out and then I jumped into WoW from vanilla to WotlK, then I transition to free games like LoL and Warframe. Don't go discounting those 8 games though, they may be loads more fun than those 89 others, quality over quantity :D Sadly AAA doesn't guarantee quality, so many cash grabs these days :'(
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I sadly might like learning about and collecting games more than playing them ;-) (except for a few). I thing they're aspirational; as in "if I live forever I might eventually play this." <g>
I do enjoy the discussion on this board quite a bit. Different than you see on other gaming sites.
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I would LOVE if the current sent-only level system would be replaced with a sent/won ratio level system with the current checks for bundles and non-bundles in place – essentially calculating a CV for won games too in the equation. (Before being accused of hypocrisy: you can delete my whole "Sent" value, I would still want this.)
But this would more than likely not only bump down 90% of the level 5+ users to around level 1-2, but also cause a revolt among them. :)
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I guess I don't see a need to change the current Level system. Level 5+ could still be 5+. Heck, they've given away alot of games and helped build this site. I guess I'd just be totally happy with some easy/simple/global way to use the sent/win ratio in addition. Again, I'm new here, but the groups method of doing this seems fragmentory to the user base, and kindof difficult to understand. It seems many of the efforts of groups might stem from trying to make sure the winners of giveaways are more participatory in the SG community. It just seems the groups method is a complicated approach to doing something that could be easily facilitated by an additional ratio-type measure. But hey, I'm new here - so there's lots I don't understand. It's just my first impression.
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I actually had a really nice even ratio until like a month ago, but then things happened.
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Personally I prefer a straight "number of wins" condition, and have suggested it many times before. I don't think that someone with 100 wins and 1000 given is more worthy of winning than someone with no giveaways and zero wins (or one win). I'd rather see giveaways go to those who haven't won a lot than to those who have a major collection of wins regardless of how much they've given. For someone who wants to consider more than just the number of wins it would always possible to combine both criteria: level and number of wins.
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I understand what you're saying and agree. I just had to give a gift to someone with 97 wins that never gave a single game up... Just felt so bad.
Was thought that I should put a level restriction of 1 at least.
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That's sortof my feeling too. I had a a similar winner with 18 wins and no giveaways. Just felt kindof wrong when you saw the other people commenting it was a wishilist game, or you can see others who are entering to win who also do giveaways.
Edit: I'd also add - that's the kindof impression that could run new users away from steamgifts. The gut reaction is largely the impetus to this thread.
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I just started out entering and creating giveaways, and the last one i did was through a thread where i wrote a bit about the game and told people to only enter if they are interested in it. That way (hopefuly) only people that want to play it will win it, and not just by card idlers. You could also do a wishlist only GA and add them by hand, but that's a bit time consuming. Up to you m8.
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I very much support the idea of a ratio slider for public GA's (based upon CV).
Makes way more sense than levels IMHO. Having both would be optimal tho, so as to provide maximum flexibility for everyone here.
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I agree about having both and don't suggest getting rid of levels. Levels do make sense. Levels are important to recognize users that have contributed most to the site. I'd just like a better ability to differentiate via the second ratio metric which is probably more important at lower levels. Most users fall in the lower levels.
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Welcome to steam gifts! :3
Personally anyone can get to level 1, so if you are really bothered you can set giveaways to level 2. I personally try to keep my ratio in favour of giving(but it's rather difficult when you don't have the income). But as been said multiple times... doing puzzles, joining groups, being more active in the community to add fellow gifters into your whitelist will get around leachers and whatnot!
Honestly the levelling system is great, there is no need for change, at least to this degree <3
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I'm adding to my whitelist as I enter giveaways. That may be the best way to go forward for me. It's sortof labor intensive tho. ;-)
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Yeah that's probably a good way! I tend to just add people I see help in forums along with great ratios! Plus general friendly people because even if their ratio is bad I still feel they deserve to win a game when I do a whitelist GA! :D
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I'd say the best way of keeping them open to as many ppl as possible, but restrict to those you feel do not deserve it, is to use the blacklist. You can also see all entries on your GAs and randomly scan a GA for leechers. Also, lvl1 / 2 restriction works well as a buffer, since I speculate there are far more leechers under lvl 2 than there are above it.
I prefer this over whitelist because this way you aren't closing the doors to basically everyone.
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Hi all, I'm new to the site and am just feeling my way around, but was was wondering if steamgifts has toyed around with some form of a sent/won ratio as a metric, based on either pure #, or estimated value, or some combination? I'm asking because I just had my first 3 giveaways go down, and I'm wanting a better "lever" to make my giveaways eligible to people who are more participatory overall.
In total for my 3 giveaways the winners had sent 8 gifts w/ value of $47.93, and had won 89 gifts of $883.72. Now I'm not saying that's a bad thing as givers can give to whoever they like, but when I look at some members who giveaway a ton of games compared to the number of games they win, well I'd like to set up some listings for folks who are more roundly participatory and reciprical in their giving and winning. I think that'd actually be good for the site's appeal and longevity.
Additionally, the Level system doesn't necessarily seem to capture what I'm going for here. I don't want to have to crank up the Level necessarily, but have ability to set giveaways based up something like some level of sent/win ratio regardless of level. Obviously that ratio (sent/win) can't be higher than 1 for everybody as it's mathematically impossible, but there's probably a healthy lower bound to help reward those who put in more games than they win. There are probably site viability concern in this regard that would need to be balanced if a high percentage of the traffic has very low ratio. I don't know if that is the case or not.
Anyhow, just a thought as a metric I'd think would be nice to be able to setup my giveaways based upon (similar to setting minimum level, but different metric), as I'm a little disappointed that my gifts are so far going to folks who are taking far more than contributing to the gift pool. I'd at least like the option to set some of my giveaways for the folks who have given more than they've won.
Has this been discussed/considered? I appreciate feedback/conversation on this. thanks,
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