How do you decide to whitelist people?

I don't blacklist too often at all. Takes a very special person to land on mine.

Mostly (weird, strange, upsetting, intoleratant) personal interactions and conversation with others lead me to blacklisting.

I don't whitelist anyone. In fact, I've blacklisted everyone so I can finally get some peace and quiet around here.

Easy, I don't whitelist or blacklist anyone.

what you said +

found good members and whitelisted? take a look at entries of those giveaways members
want to add people that actually play your games? take a look at entries of SG Groups dedicated to idea of "play your wins" (like Playing Appreciated, Play or Pay and so on...)
...
so, it kinda depends on you, and what your searching for.

want to do it fast? create a whitelist recruitment thread.
but, the more you "curate" your whitelist, the more the chances for you to have very good results (and maybe find a friend or two)

also, never forget that giveaway's creator needs some luck, just like the winner :D

have fun!

I see some common sense in a person- gets whitelisted.
Haven't done a single WL giveaway, but I'm getting there...

I rate on a scale given to me by the kitten overlords: Who they tell me to list is who I shall list

Welcome :D
I believe you've got all answers already, but here're my 5 cents:
For me — when you read the forum, you see that some people pop-up often here and there, you read their comments and get not full, of course, but still a picture of a person. And if you like them, you may want to whitelist them. Or blacklist.. Sometimes one single comment is enough. Or maybe one doggo/cat/bear/boobs gif, who knows.
Plus there are some people who host SG events, like Easter events or Christmas events and people who participate and helps them; puzzle creators, whose puzzles you like; train creators whose trains you like; groups moderators, sg moderators, and even steam curators. There are a lot of good people here :)

We all have fallings out with people on the internet from time to time. I wouldn't bother adding them to ignore list on a regular forum unless they were systematically being abusive toward me in particular. Likewise, I don't really see the need to blacklist someone just because I didn't agree with their opinion. I find that incredibly petty.

I wouldn't worry about blacklists though. It's inevitable that you'll get on a few people's list. Probably earned one or two just for making this thread lol. I wouldn't put it past them. The majority of people on this site are pretty cool.

One sure way to get on my blacklist is to win one of my giveaways, entered 10s or 100s of thousands of giveaways, won 1000s, gave away nothing AND didn't accept the gift for an entire week despite being logged in every day. I'm bound to believe that's a botter who doesn't use the site at all, but farms wins for worthless steam trading cards. Not cool.

As for my whitelist, meh, there isn't really a criteria. Sometimes it's because they are contributors, or simply because I like who they are.

Generally, if I "win" a giveaway for a decent game with decent value (i.e. generally not 1-3 point giveaways), and the game is successfully redeemed, I'll whitelist the person who gave the game away. I also tend to whitelist people who I find out put me on theirs. That way, once in awhile, I can create a whitelist-only giveaway to give back specifically to the people who have given me something.

I don't have hard and fast rules, though.

And since it came up in the discussions above, I don't blacklist people. I wouldn't unless someone did something egregious, and if that happened, I'd probably accompany with a report to the admins.

I usually just add people who I see often being kind and pleasant around the forums, and who are also generous (basically the great contributors to this community). I see whitelisting as just a way to give extra to a particular group of people, and it's a good feeling to get to reward those with the attitudes/behaviour I really appreciate and respect.
...Though this simple mindset has become an issue because there are just way too many kind and generous people here on SG and my whitelist has grown wildly out of control. And I feel too guilty culling it, especially since there's little really to separate the people in it. : P

Oh I guess one hard requisite I have for both the WL and BL is for the users to say thank you after winning giveaways. I feel like that's the very least everyone can do, and I guess just not saying anything at all after winning a gift from someone has always rubbed me the wrong way. It's so... Cold.
(Though I do realise that sometimes games are given through Steam and sometimes people are just forgetful, so if there's no comment I do make sure to check plenty of past giveaways. ..Believe it or not there's plenty of users who have never said a single thank you ever. :()

How do you decide to add people to your whitelist?

It's a secret... to avoid cheating... xD

View attached image.

WL:
People I really like, my friends.
People with outstanding giveaway history. Here I mean always giving high profile games, not many games.
People over a certain level - the level I consider ''easy to reach'' I am aware that this will depend on each persons specific situation, and might not be considered completely ''fair'', but hey - it's my WL....
People that for one reason or other catch my eye in that special way, makes me think they did something really nice, makes me laugh, or similar.
SG staff get a free pass directly into my WL If you're staff and see this, let me know if I've missed you

BL:
People who seriously piss me off read: I've had too much coffee and overreacted as a small child not getting his way
I usually clear this list after a while, sometimes rather immediately....

The best thing about WL and BL is that you don't have to make one. If you're unsure of the why, then why bother? If you're not, go right ahead.
And if you later on come to think that your criteria for the list was flawed from the beginning, then just clear the list in question and restart it.
Or not.
The SG is your oyster.

People who - do nice things for other people, are nice to me, have a very good ratio, do events/contests, give away things without an actual giveaway...that kind of thing. Basically contributing a lot without expecting things in return. I like to find people rather than recruit them.
I'm not as active as most people on here, so there are only 26 people on my whitelist.

every now and again when i see someone doing quality giveaways, i'll whitelist them

I don't
I don't use blacklist either

Whitelist... Blacklist... I'm the guy with the Gun!

I pick a random number with random.org, open that page of the users list and throw a dart at the screen.
Naaah, (like most other people in this thread) my Whitelist is more of a "people who are kind and helpful to others" list. Also people who I'm friends with, because favoritism. :D (And also one guy who literally asked... that was kinda awkward.)
Conversely, the Blacklist is "people who are consistently nasty and mean-spirited towards others". That one's basically just for documentation... it's not like I've made a puzzle giveaway in the last few years or a public giveaway ever. <.<

...They're both very short....

People who have played (not idled) at least half their wins, or done something I consider particularly generous, or I win a whitelist-only giveaway from them.

Nearly never doing whitelist giveaway so I don't really care much about it, perhaps I'll do some in future.

I also don't use backlist often, sometimes I add serious trolls and haters and sometimes I add win trader CV exploiters, for me those are users whose never doing public giveaways only group giveaways and only for 5-10 users with that many entries every single time. For me, it looks like some organized CV exploiting by users whose collecting games and buying bundles anyway and they giving away that way games to similar users and once they got to a point where no more 5 entries, so no more CV for those who not got the game yet get the key from those participants who not got his/her turn on giveaway but won the game already. These people usually high level, with this they gave away games to farm CV without actually giving away anything.

But overall I don't really care about these, I got only to 12 blacklists in 5 years. I like to spend my free time to play games instead of hunting forums for more whitelist/blacklist just because, but I also stopped to enter giveaways a few months ago and now I just enter what I really want to play sooner or later.

if I win a game from someone, I whitelist them
if I notice someone being particularly helpful and/or nice I whitelist them
if somebody makes me laugh, I whitelist them

I will consider adding a person to whitelist if they are:

• A scholar
• A gentle man or gentle woman
• A connoisseur
• They invented Christmas (said person would have to provide proof of that)
• Someone I was close to in past lives
• My cats if they ever decide to create a Steam account
• My wife (this position is currently open)