Apparently almost no one reads the descriptions (3+ train inside, ended)

thanks for skyrim

bump ~ :)

I certainly am making assumptions from that.

Bump and meow for reading.

View attached image.

I don't usually read descriptions for public GAs, especially true when I'm using my phone which allows me to enter without viewing the page.

But I always read description in invite-only GAs

People who don't want to use yet another tool/system/whatever-you-call-it for one more check, which also requires yet another login to some site. Which by the way is proof that you can't just make assumptions based on "stats"..
And yes I would pass the test. I just don't want to take it.

People don't like a better chance to win, they enjoy the thrill of competing against a crowd

What a brilliant spin. That cracked me up.

But yeah, very few people/scripts read descriptions and some don't even bother checking whether they already own something. Giving away certain DLCs (game was bundled only with DLC - nearly everyone has it) or bugged games (don't show up on profile game list when you own them) are hell to give away as you may have to re-roll several times to find an appropriate winner. Unfortunately that's just the way public GAs are, even if you up the level (which helps to a degree).

I studied at the center for kids who can't read good

I lost motivation in reading giveaway descriptions since most are not willing to let me thank them.

Gifters mostly type "Thanks=Blacklist," "Post ___ GIF," rules everyone should know, or something not worth commenting for.

About the number of comments... since sgv2 was released there's been a lot of people complaining about the message icon and how it can be annoying for some of the users. Personally, I don't care about that. Actually, I like to read the comments even if it's just a simple 'thanks'. But I started to comment only if I do win the game.
Anyways, here's my 'thank you' for all of those!

I guess the problem may be that those who actually read giveaway descriptions either already have the game your train started in or they organise themselves in groups with enough giveaways to spend their points on, so they don't bother with low level public giveaways because of the significantly lower winning odds.
The main reason for those groups is that the common SG leecher uses tools to enter giveaways without even opening them and the people in the groups are simply fed up with this behaviour among some other issues.
On the plus side, the members of those groups usually read giveaway descriptions, so what happened to you is much less likely to happen in group giveaways (most of the time). (:

Something else to consider could be setting a level requirement on giveaways like this because in general the descriptions of higher level giveaways are read more frequently. At least this is my impression. ;)

Strikethrough-Part erased due to comments below.

Sadly, people on public giveaways really don't care much what you write in the description, even if you included a link for fallout 4 or similar.

It's also a matter of extensions such as Extended SG, which are further discouraging people from reading description, as they now have a way to join giveaway without even opening it. That's one of the reasons why I stick with my SG++ and open gibs as pop-ups, so I can always read description of the gib I'm entering, and perhaps also comments if I feel interested.

You expect too much from average SG user, who is here only to join all the giveaways and leech everything. Yes, it may sound ridiculous, and neither you, me, or other people posting here are such type, but far majority of people on public gibs are exactly like that. I still remember old times when we had at least 2 comments per 3 entries, even in less popular giveaways. Now it all changed.

One problem with starting trains with public giveaways would be that people are highly unlikely to even get a chance of finding it if they already own the first game.

I'd make a valid point here, but I skipped reading the topic description

Reason #7: People keep posting these while I'm asleep and they've already ended when I wake up :3
Thanks for the gibs

the poll result just confirmed the second option in it

View attached image.

I've still yet to find the fifth public giveaway I ever saw where the description had anything meaningful in it besides promoting something. Since I now mostly enter around 1-2 giveaways a day, I check if there is something in that field, but even if there is, it is always a group GA. And even there, it is ultra-rare.

I've done the same, with similar results :-)

I tend to read the descriptions. Sometimes they ask for people to say what their favourite movie is, tell a joke, post a funny picture, or other things rather than just say thanks (of course, a lot of the posters still just say thank you and that's it). I try to post whatever the person doing the giveaway asked for unless it's for a subject I am unfamiliar with.

I've been able to enter a few private giveaways that way. They have them "hidden in plain sight", but the majority of people (or bots, I guess) don't even bother which increases my odds for a win in that particular giveaway.

The answer is bots. Personally I always check out the descriptions.

On Feb 14 I did a batch of giveaways for bundle games, like this one:
Bridge Constructor
1095 entries

For the record, here is what's in the description:

Here's a MUCH better giveaway: http://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/gOuBI/bridge-constructor

.▄█........▄██████▄...▄██████▄.....▄█...▄█▄......███....█▄.....▄███████▄.
███.......███....███.███....███...███.▄███▀......███....███...███....███.
███.......███....███.███....███...███▐██▀........███....███...███....███.
███.......███....███.███....███..▄█████▀.........███....███...███....███.
███.......███....███.███....███.▀▀█████▄.........███....███.▀█████████▀..
███.......███....███.███....███...███▐██▄........███....███...███........
███▌....▄.███....███.███....███...███.▀███▄......███....███...███........
█████▄▄██.▀██████▀...▀██████▀....███...▀█▀......████████▀...▄████▀......

An extremely obvious link to another giveaway (same game) with 2 copies and only 129 entries.

A third link within that one to another giveaway with a 0.8 ratio restriction and no basic rule-breaking, 27 entries for 2 copies.

So yeah, a ratio of about 1:9 for people who read vs. don't read is pretty normal for public GAs.

The results you got are what they are, but I don't think that on their own they justify the title, or call for making assumptions on the scale you suggested. Yes, the 101 people that entered your giveaway behaved in the manner you described, but I don't think you should expand your conclusions to the site population as a whole, based on that experiment alone.

You've shown that out of the people that visited the site during the time your giveaway was running, noticed your giveaway (so didn't have the game hidden as owned already), were interested in the game given away (as there are hundreds of giveaways that I at least don't enter because I don't want the game, but don't bother hiding them), met the level requirement, and reached the giveaway page with the description, where the option of more giveaways was offered to them through an sgtools link (which apparently some users avoid on principle) and with the requirements listed out in the description (basic requirements, but it's possible that a user not meeting them might have decided not to click the link after reading the description). Out of those 101 people (some of which may or may not have been auto-join scripts with no reading comprehension) only 4 moved on to the private part of the giveaway. And yes, that is a little disheartening. I'm not arguing the point that many people don't read the description, I just think that the context of the experiment matters when interpreting results.

Now, the requirements to participate in the experiment are at least level 4 and not owning and being interested in the first game and being able to read and comprehend English, or at least click links. Now the game in the public giveaway is a pretty nice hidden object game, bundled three times so far (one bundle ongoing). This already excludes large segments of the SG population: anyone under level 4 (by design and intent), and anyone over level 4 that's not interested in the game (being HOG, which not everyone plays - this would have been true for any single game) or already owns the game (given the popularity of Artifex Mundi game bundles, a lot of people already have this game (to play, hoard or idle cards), whether they bought a bundle containing it or obtained the game through trading or won it, etc.) or anyone interested and planning to get the current Bundle Stars bundle featuring it. So there is a very specific (and in my opinion small) proportion of the SG population that your experiment targeted, in a very narrow time slot (if your giveaway ran for a few hours). I don't think there's grounds for generalization, but I agree that 4 of 101 of those people getting the link is indicative that the majority of those 101 users either didn't read the description at all (for whatever reason) (or bypassed it completely, using a browser add-on or something, or with an auto-join script) or didn't want to bother with pursuing the link further, or didn't understand what you were saying and simply avoided clicking the link, thinking it a promotion of some kind. There could even be some that wanted Mind Snares, but owned the game behind the sgtools check and never asked for the link.

Just to be clear, I am not justifying ANY of the reasons listed for not reading the description of a giveaway you're entering. I'm just saying that the numbers obtained are unreliable for extrapolation. Personally I always check the descriptions of a giveaway. I like reading them actually and I don't mind sgtools at all.

I think the main point is that you only see the description of a giveaway once you open the giveaway page - and people not interested in the initial game will simply miss the whole thing - so every time you do one of these, you're evaluating the segment of SG population after the initial game, at a given time slot.

Several users already pointed out certain aspects of the above. Sorry about the wall of text.

People don't have time to read "The Great Wall" of text.