Do you check winners of your giveaway before sending keys?
I always check, but don't report users with infractions that are older than ~3 years. Those are mostly DLC multiwins in a short timeframe, or free / low quality games not being activated, not something I want to go after.
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Makes sense, tho i had some users banned for some really old stuff in the past. But it's better than nothing :D
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When someone is "Permanently Suspended", it is NOT really permanent.
A winner of one of my early giveaways (just over 4 years ago), won the giveaway, viewed the key and was "Permanently Suspended" before he could make the giveaway as received. I had to ask Support what to do (create a new giveaway in the hopes they didn't use the key?).
Turns out that member is no longer suspended ....
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Yea, you can always appeal and if the ban was based on not activated wins, as long as they activate everything they might get unbanned i suppose. But it all depends on the case, i can only speculate, as i'm not a support member, but yea, it can happen.
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Permanently suspended means that suspension will not run it's course, as it doesn't have end date. If it would be forever permanent then permanently suspended users would not be able to make unsuspension requests.
If we permanently suspend someone for inactivated wins (say they removed 100 won games from Steam account) and then they restore them - they will be unsuspended. But if they do the same thing again they will be permanently suspended without right to appeal.
If someone is suspended for having 3 strikes in multiple wins and they go out of their way to contact creators of years old giveaways to sort it out we will also unsuspend them. But any other infraction in this category will lead to permanent suspension without right to appeal.
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I'm curious now, what happened with them, if I can ask? Never heard of them
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To put it shortly, the guy has a history of being suspended multiple times due to publicly admitting to breaking SG rules and providing the most nonsensical arguments in defence of them, and also just generally being a dick. Just from the few from the top of my head, he has:
- Publicly called out another user with their username in the discussion title
- Made a big number homophobic/racist comments and is a religious nut. Threathened to report anyone who supported gay marriage, and asked anyone who do to blacklist him
- Basically accused people who do group/private GAs as CV farmers bcos he couldn't join them (even though he himself also made such GAs)
- Leaked GAs that were behind SGTools checks, and when he was found out and banned from SGTools, he claimed that ppl were stalking him and that SGTools is a spyware site
- Tried to do a trade on Steamtrade which fell through, left a false negative feedback, got suspended for it, then opened a thread complaining about it & calling the other party a scammer despite not losing anything. Also not the first time he had misused trade feedback system.
- Harrassed people's steam profile comment sections
- Repeatedly started fights in threads of users who blacklisted him
- Openly said that he had zero intention of playing any games he won and will only use them to farm cards for Profitzzz™
- Spammed support with hundreds of nonsensical tickets whenever someone disagreed with him, and called support useless when they rightfully ignored him
- Once won the same game twice, marked both as received and never asked for a re-roll on the duplicate win, and then opened a thread complaining about it when he failed the multiple win check in SGTools
- Continously tells ppl to add him to whitelist, breaking the no begging rule
- One time, he opened a GA "train" thread that it was time to unblacklist him cos the train is "ENORMOUS" with "1000+ GAs", and that only those who are unblacklisted by him are allowed to comment in the thread. Obviously since SG is an open forum nobody cared about that which made him really mad, and so he reported everyone in his thread for "spamming/trolling" en masse, and then went on to post same thread over and over again 10+ times in matter of minutes to get rid of the comments. Oh yeah, and his "ENORMOUS" train literally consisted of one GA. He blamed it on the "spam comments" for distracting him from making more.
- Opened a thread once complaining that he had been suspended for using auto-join scripts, basically publicly outing himself that he uses one. The argument that he used as a defense was that 90% of the ppl on this site uses it, and that since scripts that changed steamgifts visually existed (e.g. Dark mode, ESGST, etc), then auto-join scripts are allowed too. He also tried to argue that auto-joiners are equivalent to visual changes for some reason
- This
But the one that broke the camel's back was when he was discovered to be using multiple accounts. He claimed that they belong to his family members (his brother, his cousin, etc). And also, coincidentally, his "brother" a while later created a new acc to protest against his ban.
These are prob just the tip of the iceberg tho, and I might be misremembering stuff, since it has been quite a while & and I only joined SG a short time after his ban
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The only thing that's surprising is he's not banned from SteamTrades nor does he have any negative feedback. I actually traded with him years ago too.
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Actually that is not difference between Permanently Suspended and Banned.
Permanently Suspended means that suspension will not run it's course, eg is indefinite. You can appeal and get un-suspended if you meet all the conditions given by support, like activate all missing wins and get rid of all multiple-wins. You can create new tickets to support while being suspended.
Permanently Suspended without right to appeal means that you were already permanently suspended, you tried to look like you fix your ways and then again break the same rule. You can still make unsuspension requests to support but they will be ignored.
Banned is reserved for crème de la crème. Users that get permanently suspended and keep making enormous number of pointless tickets. Banned accounts can't make tickets, so they can't also ask to be unsuspended. Only cg can give a ban, as it's not really a suspension, more like account "status" from what I understand.
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Ahh okay, didn't know that permenantly suspended has 2 different version. Thanks for the info!
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I know that problem.
I seen more as one, "perma suspended", users came back.
One got 4 times a suspension for unactivated wins + i reported him for the use of a autojoiner (i think the ticket is, years later, still open and unseen). His entries shown it very clear and after i warned a owner of a group that guy said to the owner that he use different ones (so it wasn't a "maybe").
He came back after 1 year, after he activated all the unactivated wins (bought/traded the games).
And the best.... he write here on sg in the threads about the rulebreakers, autojoiners etc. and play the "yes we should hunt them..." card (it's sick, for me, to see that...).
I wrote because of that a very direct, and unfriendly, ticket to the support. About "i am done with helping the support with my tickets" -i don't made tickets for months till my frustration was so much lowered that i could accept that the support made a shit decission to let that scum back into the site.
The one support member that needed to read that ticket was a bit in a bad situation and partly unguilty, so it wasn't perfect but it wasn't possible to be silent because of that big pile of shit that happened there.
[And yes, i am still pissed that this guy is still around.... on page 2 in this thread]
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Yeah I always make sure to check. I think the most I came across was 20 and like 70ish unactivated wins. Now both these people had just that amount of wins so basically every game they had just weren't activated apart from a minor few that I guess were probably dlc. Otherwise the most I've had away from that was like 5 asset game wins all the way back to 2013
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My record holder had like 200+ not activated wins, basically nuked half of their library xd Mostly tho it's usually like 1/2 not activated games or some multiple wins. But fortunately most of those users already served the infractions, so it's all good :D
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Oh you're back Pete! So glad to see you here :D I've loved those long nights when we sat down and checked all the users, those were some good old days :D Hope you're doing great!
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So this is where all the support bandwidth is going.... I wish SG had a way of indicating if old infractions have been served or not.
I let old infractions (>1 years) slide because they've probably been dealt with or would be difficult to investigate now. If every person reported every infraction that they saw, support would be getting duplicate reports for the same users, over and over again. Old violations can't be expunged unless the user decides to add the missing games to their library.
If I see a more recent violation (last 4 months), I'll scrutinize that user's activity. If I suspect that they weren't suspended, I'll file a report.
Sometimes I do random spot checks of the entrant list. If I catch a user with numerous offenses, or a repeating pattern of bad behavior, I'll BL that user simply because I don't want to deal with the headache of verifying their record should they ever win one of my GAs.I don't feel bad about it. It's a massive QoL improvement to me and a minor impact to them. They still have tons of GAs to join and they always have the option to clean up their record.
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If every person reported every infraction that they saw, support would be getting duplicate reports for the same users, over and over again.
It would be helpful for support when they are handling a user report to see all other open+closed user reports for that user 🙂
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I have strong dislike for dishonesty and so I do make an effort to flag rules breakers. I am relatively new here and still trying to determine the best manner to do certain things. Just 2 days ago, I started to request a reroll for someone who had not activated a game - I had thought that was grounds for a reroll, but I check the rules another time to refresh my memory and did not see anything to that effect. So I gave the key and a black list. A second user had various games inactivated, but I saw that all but one were several years old... there was also a double win, but the timestamp showed that there were within a few hours of each other and very possibly the user had not had a chance to withdraw from the second contest. And this user had given more prizes than he had received and at a higher value. I decided to let him thru without reporting or blacklisting.
My suggestions to help moderators (I am guessing this is already in operation, but just in case, I mention it) and to help game givers.
For moderators:
This is probably already built into the reporting system: Every time a report is made about a user, his or her account gets tagged with that report case. Based on that, moderators could for example, easily choose to investigate users with the most reports and so the most egregious offenders could be more easily dealt with.
For game givers:
When a case has been satisfactorily resolved, an icon identifying this case as resolved. Hovering (or perhaps clicking) the icon would show the date resolved as well as a standardized description of how [Activated game, Successfully appealed, etc.]. So the moderator would not have to do anything more than select a reason from a dropdown or radio button list (surely this is already being done) and the icon / description would automatically appear next to that case on the users profiile.
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I started to request a reroll for someone who had not activated a game - I had thought that was grounds for a reroll, but I check the rules another time to refresh my memory and did not see anything to that effect.
I believe they can get a suspension for that, which in turn allows you to reroll
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Unactivated wins are against the rules.
Make a reroll request in that cases and the mods will do the rest.
Which means you get told "suspension served" or "thanks for the report, here is your new winner^^".
You can still report the blacklisted guy for the not activated win. 50/50 that he already served the punishment or not.
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i catched one of my winners with a red mark from 2020, made a re-roll request, almost 6 days ago, mods didn't do anything yet, any ideas what to do now?
not to mention it's quite disappointing, to be left alone with the issue
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You can't do more as to wait till the support answer your ticket.
And the winner have to wait too.
Easy, and unpleasant, as that.
Normaly a winner don't have a problem with waiting as long as needed, when the gifter can't do something to speed it up.
Bron99 had other experiences with his winners that questioned direct after the win "where is my key?" because they expected that the keys get sended automatic, as for all GAs with 50 or more copies possible. It was a funny thing to see how a good bunch of them got catched with unactivated wins.
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thanks for your answer, so should i inform my winner, that support is slow and it may take several more days until my ticket will be answered?
i mean, i don't want to receive a not received, when it isn't my fault
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If i were you, i would write the winner that you still wait that the support answer your ticket and as soon as they gave you the OK you will send the key/gift.
That way the winner is informed that the situation can't be changed from you and that you react ASAP when something change.
Don't worry about a "not recieved" mark. If you would get such one and send later the key/gift, the winner can switch it to recieved and if he don't do it can the mods change it.
And if he would get rerolled, the not recieved would be deleted too.
Besides that, the "not recieved" have nearly no effect and is only a cosmetic thing.
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Don't let old infractions slide.
I catched a lot of accounts with 3-4 year old infractions.
If the support gets over and over and over the same report it is bad but we can't do something else and it lay in the hands of the support to poke then cg and DEMAND a change.
I see it, after years, as "Not my problem, they should be happy that i sacrifice my lifetime to report the rulebreakers" [sorry for the mods that i like but we as users have no power to change something... cg give a f...]
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I do check winners and wait for support's answer, but I didn't do it when I made 50-copies giveaways in the past. Too much work. Not to speak about 1000 o_O.
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I always cheek winners (history of activation, duble and game library). BL persons who have to many red marks.
My record: user with: 20 winnings GA 19 (!) no activated. Of course I don`t give my key to him. Finally perma-baned
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I used to check, but eventually got tired of the "suspension already served" replies from support, not to mention making the winner wait for almost a week for apparently no good reason and the time it takes to run SGTools (yup I don't use big Tampermonkey scripts because it's just slowing down my browser too much).
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Oh, is there a Tampermonkey script to check multiple users on sgtools? Got a link?
ESGST doesn't allow it for some technical reason. Only 1 user at a time.
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Pretty sure the script that was creating me trouble was ESGST indeed, so idk about a script to check multiple winners at once, sorry :/
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Ye, I like idea that when user creates request new winner ticket with "did not activate wins" as a reason, they would get notification if it was already served.
It would need change to site code so don't think it would happen. But it would cut tickets a lot.
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I use on giveaways level 5 requirement and always check winner, when he has inacctivate/multiple win, I always try reroll. When I do some bigger trains, I learnt to use sgtools, but magicly people are getting over it even wirh broken rules.
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I imagined that an sgtools gateway to a contest would be defeatable, I had hoped I was wrong as I gear up to make my first train. Thank you for raining on my train. (I am saddened by the news, but joking about it and that last sentence is said with a smile!)
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As long as someone solve it, he can give the direct link (wihout sgtools protection) to someone else or use it for his other accounts.
A good bunch of accounts are perma banned on sgtools but that, sadly, don't harm them on sg and don't stop them from entering sgtools protected giveaways, when they get the direct sg link to the GA.
We catched a few of them because it was clear which ones are the mainaccount behind them but far from possible for all of them.
So yes, sgtools isn't a full protection for a train, if you not secure each cart with it.
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Thank you for this explanation as well as your first reply to my posting. I will use sgtools on each cart in my train.
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I do check winners, but I send keys anyway and add those who give me trouble and those who have multiple violations within the last year or two to my blacklist. Other than that, I'm pretty lenient. I'm fine with single or old violations. Games can be deleted by a user who doesn't know that deleting them earns them a violation, or the creator of the giveaway could have added a game with a package that is not in the database or the wrong package..etc.
I don't report. I'm too lazy for that.
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I am too lazy to check so I rely on the hard work of Masafor and his investigation team for most of my giveaways.
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Thanks :-D
Yes, we invest a good bunch of time to hold our group clean and make level 0 GAs possible without all the bad stuff that comes after it when you do them public.
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I think at least level 1 would make your job easier, but its up to you ^^
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Yep, i also check all my winners.
But i do way less giveaways than you :D
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I now always check. I started doing the sgtools check when I happened on this older discussion, https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/Uax0F/guys-please-check-your-giveaway-winners-for-unactivated-wins-before-delivering-your-gifts
I decided after reading the discussion to go back and check my previous winners (at least 2 permanent bans and a number of temporary suspensions resulted). From that time onwards, an sgtools check and check of their steam library is a must for me. I don't necessarily follow through with a support ticket - depends on how old the unactivated win or multiple win is. I will always check if the infraction is within 3-4 years old. If older - sort of depends (might be a dlc, might be a removed game, might occasionally depend on my mood, lol).
And occasionally, after talking to the winner, I do delete the support ticket (almost always this is due to the winner having won a game that does not match the giveaway in a previous win-in one case the winner got a gog key for the game).
So .. perhaps I am judgemental, anal(?), annoying, grouchy :)
But if the winner is sticking to the rules, they get a free game. Mostly, they do not have to work for it and 99% of the time, the winners are grateful.
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And occasionally, after talking to the winner, I do delete the support ticket (almost always this is due to the winner having won a game that does not match the giveaway in a previous win-in one case the winner got a gog key for the game).
Winner should make ticket to support about it, otherwise they may get suspended anyway in the future. If we have screenshot that shows wrong game was delivered we can adjust feedback.
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Noted. I saw your reply to Prosac below first. I do have a current situation where a current winner had a game flagged by sgtools. Looks like the game was gifted under the incorrect game name (received game name is very similar but not exact). After looking at the suspect game, and the other multiple winners of that suspect game, I beleive this user should have his previous win deleted - the user has contacted support and is trying to talk to the giver of that previous game about a deletion. I told this winner I would wait - am hoping this will not take longer than 4 weeks, not sure how that reflects on me, but am happy to get this guy his win from me eventually.
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How do you get your tickets resolved that fast, i made a user report for a user who didn't activated a game this february, it's still not resolved after a month
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Request new winner and delete tickets are pretty much always resolved within few days, as creator needs to send game to the winner within 7 days.
User reports may take months to be resolved. And sometimes few people report the same individual, one ticket is closed and rest is missed. So there was action taken but tickets were never closed.
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User reports may take
monthsyears to be resolved.
Corrected to the right timeframe
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Noted. And I currently have a winner of my game in a similar position. In this case he is trying to contact the previous gifter of the game that flagged my sgtools check and has contacted support also :)
How long can I wait without causing issues for myself and the winner of my game?
I told him he would probably have to tick not received at the 7 day mark - but am not happy about waiting much longer than a month.
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How long can I wait without causing issues for myself and the winner of my game?
You mean winner is waiting for you sending the game, as they have inactivated win due to receiving wrong game?
They can keep your giveaway in awaiting feedback status infinitely, as long as you both agree. Only drawback is that they won't be able to enter in any new giveaways for said game if they'd want to receive it earlier and ask for re-roll on yours.
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So recently i did 1k copies public level 0 giveaway
You must have the patience of a saint 😅
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I used to check the winners, warn puzzle rulebreakers, had my own blacklist before blacklists were implemented and special rules were allowed, then just gave up. It's a waste of energy and my time.
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It does feel like trying to cut off all the heads of the Hydra, doesn't it?
I always assume that most rule breakers have alt accounts anyway so...
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I always check (unless the winner is on my whitelist) and try to reroll. I usually don't bother with older infractions, then BL is just enough.
Most of the time people are patiently waiting and aren't begging for "their key", just once I was threaten with ban one day after asking for reroll, lol.
You the real MVP ♥
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Thx for showing that screenshot, added guy to blacklist to save myself a possible trouble.
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Hahaha wow! And salty to boot!
I guess they really didn't read the rules if they think not delivering a win results in a ban.
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I dont bother with checking tbh, i mostly give to smaller groups now and people there are responsible enough to not enter frantically without checking ownership. Even when i give in big groups like "Delete giveaway if key not working" i dont check winners, its just too much of a hassle, imo.
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I don't check winners, cause I'm just too lazy. And I don't do public level 0 giveaways anymore. I could not imagine doing it 1000 times, props to you. 😜 And sorry for these people... 😵💫
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Fun fact, that 1k copies giveaway had about 150 people suspended, from which probably 20/30 bans were permanent. Record holder had 186 not activated wins!
For me are this not really "funny".
I am known as Rule breaker hunter, with a lot of experience and much success.
But each catched one demotivate me more because i know how infested the site is. I would say, AT LEAST, 20% of the active users use autojoiners. Not activated wins from "normal" accounts not calculated in
I sit lately on ONE guy that created 160+ sg accounts. And he still create new ones everytime when one, or more, gets catched.
I am 0% motivated anymore to do public GAs for low level accounts.
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I'm curious: how do they get around the minimum Steam spend rule for joining?
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It give, much too much, games that are still listed as full value but were free or for cents in different stores.
Alone from me are around 550 add game tickets open, to set different games to reduced or free.
Not to speak from other loopholes that i will not explain, in the hope that not more use them.
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Yeah, it wasn't smart of me to ask this question when many people are already exploiting the rules. I get the general gist of it, though. Thank you.
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People who don't check their winners are actively working against the community and are actively creating more problems for the site because they - indirectly - support rulebreaking by letting infractions go unpunished.
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That's true in the situation SG is in. You moved away from doing public giveaways yourself. I don't want to be pressed in the role of Judge Dredd because lack of moderators and if caught rule breakers getting away with a slap on the wrist to re-surface a week later.
So doing invite only/whitelist/group only giveaways is the only viable solution for me.
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because lack of moderators
The same problem we're discussing for years. And nothing changed. If we would have at least 20 active support members more... But I lost all hope that CG will change anything.
So much that, for me, SG doesn't feel like fun anymore. I used to come here and had an enjoyable experience. And I don't really feel that anymore.
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Actually you can complain on me for lack of new support members. cg did give us ability to promote users to new mods but I personally struggled with time due to RL work promotion and then change my field of work entirely.
We will try to add more people soon™ but can't say when it will happen.
https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/aMGDM/new-moderator-role-ultra-moderator
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Hey :)
I don't want to complain to or blame anyone of the support team, because I don't see anything about this situation as your fault. I am glad for everyone of you who still is here on a daily basis and still does her or his "job" (so to speak) despite everything that is going on.
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I doubt that support could handle it if everyone did these checks. ;)
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i had an encounter with someone, who i made aware of the possibilty to check winners, they said they check their winners and after i checked them too, i found the user i've talked above. I told them and their excuse was, they opened a ticket, but mods didn't respond in 24h, so they gave the key to the rulebreaker, this left me speechless.
Not to mention, they didn't got my point why to set a level restriction and blacklisted me after some discussing
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Well I currently have an open ticket with a winner who didn't activate a win in April. I've been waiting six days now. It certainly makes it less likely that I'll bother in the future. This kind of tickets used to get resolved within minutes.
But I don't really blame the mods. cg let years pass by without doing anything about this bovine task. And there always was a huge potential for improvements.
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I guess I'm working against the community then.
When you go to a concert or sporting event, do you check that the other attendees have valid tickets?
When you go to the store, do you check to make sure the other customers aren't stealing?
If your answer is "yes" -- good for you, I guess.
But there are people who have an actual responsibility to do those things.
I am content to let those whose responsibility it is do their job. If they can't do it 100% perfectly, I am okay with that. I get to spend my time doing things I enjoy.
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Difference is, if you're looking at a sporting event or a concert, for example, the "support" checks for valid tickets before a person enters the stadium or concert hall. The game or concert after the check is the "win", so to speak.
At SG, winners get their keys without support approving their wins. Only if you as a giveaway creator actively involve support, the legitimacy of the win is checked by them.
To apply this to a sporting event or concert, everyone can enter the stadium or concert hall however they please to do. Only after the game or concert they are checked for tickets by "support". If they had no tickets and thus weren't allowed to see the game or concert, too late, they already enjoyed the experience.
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So recently i did 1k copies public level 0 giveaway as i like to catch some rulebreakers and give out to all people. As many can guess i always check my winners prior to sending out the keys. Apart from countless comments "WhErE iS mY kEy?" to which i got used to, today i got such a cutie (check the image)
Obvious alt account of someone who won my giveaway, but still found it funny, made my day :D As you can guess there are no "special requirements" to get a key. I'm adding all manually, as stated in the description, as well as checking all the winners, so people with no infractions get the game first and then all the people with some infractions get the key later, as i await confirmation from support whether it was already served or not. It's no rocket science and is all done within 7 days i have to send out the keys (which many people forget that it exists lul). And do trust me, it takes a lot of time to check 1000 people and manually add the keys XD
So i wonder, do you guys check winners? Or am I in the minority.
Fun fact, that 1k copies giveaway had about 150 people suspended, from which probably 20/30 bans were permanent. Record holder had 186 not activated wins!
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