This is not just my observation, the discussions right now is a total public swamp with no rules, no moderation, crapload of shitposts and no constructive discussion whatsoever.

  • A guy regifting two of his wins, getting suspended and asking why he got suspended
  • Self-claimed SG sheriffs playing "the good policeman" calling out people publicly on their unactivated wins and telling them that they're blacklisted, like who fucking cares that you blacklisted somebody.
  • The same people doing the same mistake of trying to give away a game that went free, for the 7th time, learning nothing and waiting for the 8th free game, maybe this time they'll finally deliver the gift.
  • Bunch of people salty that they got suspended because of acting like a dick, now taking revenge with not being able to construct even a single sentence that is not a sarcasm.
  • Spammers filling discussions with several shitpost threads daily, that have nothing to do but to troll and cause drama, because attention whores have nothing better to do.
  • People with 100+ not delivered gifts that decide to not deliver a game to certain winner only because they don't like him. Because you have a privilege to do that when you have enough of games being sent, since you get 1 slot per each 3 delivered games, so you can easily ignore 25% of your winners just because of their crap ratio.
  • People leaking invite-only giveaways on russian forums and instead of banning obvious leakers with 100% solid evidence gathered by a lot of involved people, the best you can get is a "reroll if cheater wins". I could as well create site that gathers all invite-only giveaways automatically and let everybody know about it, so maybe then we will see a rule change that will actually punish people that are joining leaking giveaways CONSTANTLY hoping for giveaway creator to not find out.
  • People that are using shitty scripts to join every single giveaway they can automatically, and they don't bother even checking the site to REDEEM their win, annoying giveaway creator that SG should protect, and getting away with it. Do I need to write a bot like ASF for entire SG, with a feature of automatic discussion crawling and puzzle solving to point out that issue?
15:40 - AnonymousTouhouMember1: The way I see it, a few things can happen....
15:40 - AnonymousTouhouMember1: 1. Mods start actually modding, stop protecting certain users like <redacted>.
15:40 - AnonymousTouhouMember1: 2. The sites traffic suffers as it will actually become a "scam" site
15:41 - AnonymousTouhouMember1: 3. A group of disillusioned users breakaway and start their own giveaway site.
15:45 - AnonymousTouhouMember2: You know what's the deal with SG? The problem is it's still managed like it was 5 years ago when it was a small project with limited invites.
15:45 - AnonymousTouhouMember2: I feel like it's "self-moderated" by the users themselves most of the time.
15:47 - AnonymousTouhouMember2: But really, I can't blame support for it, they literally don't have the power to do much more than suspend for small infractions and reply to support tickets.
15:55 - AnonymousTouhouMember2: In fact, I started coming here in this chat as a "getaway" from SG bullshit. :P
16:33 - AnonymousTouhouMember3: I'd really like the fcking problem of gaben.ru finally solved. Fuckers have been leaking GAs for over 2 years straight and still nothing have been done with that...
16:34 - AnonymousTouhouMember3: I won't mention how many great contributors especially puzzle-maklers quitted puzzle altogether because there's no point wnymore with these fuckers leaking every puzzle there is

I could simply hide in my SG utopia aka elitist circle-jerk private giveaway group of people that are fed up like me, like I'm doing since last 2 years, but maybe before starting a war and wasting a lot of time on doing something stupid, we can fix what is broken, enforce no freaking double-standards and actually give support power to ban people, because apparently some people didn't learn shit after their 3rd suspension. Maybe if people would be afraid of crossing the line between jumping on insults, shitposts, constantly breaking the rules and not being afraid of anything, something would improve and I wouldn't feel disgusted every day I'm opening discussions, to find out about some interesting thread to look into.

Can we do something before it's too late and members that are actually building this community move elsewhere because it became a total pile of trash? I'm not in the mood of coding another giveaway site for me and ~100 more people who have enough of that, but I'm pretty sure that if I did, together with SG profile sync and people starting at their SG levels, quickly I'd divide the community into two, and this is not my intention.

I expect either several people raising hand (including silently agreeing with me, without wanting to disclose that), or a total drama thread that will quickly change into blacklists, insults and people saying how everything is okay when I'm more likely to create public L0 giveaway given to a bot capable of writing automated thanks rather than to "community" we have right now.

If you need blacklist button you can find it in my profile. I'm simply calling cg to mind before it's too late. I don't ask for dramatic changes - a few rule changes, and telling your newly-recruited support to start enforcing them - before it's too late.

JerkArchi out. Have a giveaway that perfectly relates to my opinion. And if you agree with me, it's a good moment to walk into the light and together show cg that something has to be done here.


Edit:

Because people are claiming that this thread is not constructive enough, I've included extra suggestions:

Rule Breakers - Perhaps we come together and re-write the guidelines/punishments which would need to be strictly adhered to with no exceptions

Issue permanent suspension on every member with unactivated wins, until he activated all of his missing wins in one way or another. Give him access to his keys list, and giveaway he won, so he can comment only there. This should exclude games that are no longer available in the store. Alternatively, just disable making him join any giveaways until he activated all of his wins. SGTools is already capable of checking that, SG can check too.

Leaked giveaways / Bots - This is beyond me but perhaps other forum members with the technical savvy such as Archi could offer assistance

If given SG user is constantly being found in giveaways he's not eligible for, he's a candidate for perma suspension as well. First incident - short 1 day suspension, then 2 weeks, then perma. User should ensure that he's joining a giveaway that he's eligible for - if he gets link to invite-only giveaway that doesn't come from giveaway creator, he should automatically assume it's leaked link. Not hard to check, should be evaluated by support during reroll request based on giveaway origin and available methods - if the same guy is being reported for the 4th time by 4 different people, likely it's not a coincidence or circle-jerk of people setting traps for him.

In terms of bots, a simple "I'm not a robot" captcha appearing after each 100P being spent when trying to join a giveaway would solve the issue entirely. Limit could be adapted as-needed, 100P is good starting point, but it might be too intense, so we could bump it to 200 or 300. No captcha required for anything else, only for joining too many giveaways.

In terms of discussions - give moderators power to not only close the thread, but also remove posts. If some thread is not going the right way, close it, if people are starting drama, suspend them for a day or two so they can rethink what they're doing, and remove their posts. Repeated offenders will receive longer vacations.

Implementing those 4 things - severe suspensions, anti-leakers, anti-bots and moderation of discussions would heavily help with nearly everything I listed, as automatically we'd also solve majority of calling out problems.


It also wasn't my intention to make a thread that looks like an attack, it's probably just my way of putting up words connected together with inner sadness how things are getting down as the time goes. After all I want to point out problems and suggest how we can deal with them, to improve SG community, not make it worse.

7 years ago*

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7 years ago
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here here
>_<

7 years ago
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7 years ago
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7 years ago
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Bump. I am not really that active since I do not have the money to giveaway games to others. But i really think it´s important enough to care even though I am not really a part of this community.

7 years ago
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sounds good to me

7 years ago
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For this I stopped visiting frequently the forums last couple months, but when you have "less power" (cof cof level), seems nobody cares.

But somehow we will miss this cheap soap operas, and oversized dramas, maybe not.

To increase threads awareness

/RPmPJ/

7 years ago*
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Hmm... Mentioning person with name? Then again it's all true... This site has grown too much...

7 years ago
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Well said!

7 years ago
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not sure about the rest - as we are often not in the know - the script one though especially - very annoying :( - we often avoid talking on the forum these days, as people seem to think we are arguing - even when we immediately appologise outright :( - it just insn't worth the stress monkey on my back :P

7 years ago
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When you let anarchy reign there no freedom left
Don't hate just saying and is not a Citation Is just a personal consideration.

7 years ago*
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It would require forum moderating, which means giving people essentially police officer privileges for the interacting part of the community. It would never happen. Like how SteamTrades was separated so the site doesn't have to deal with the obvious mire of shit that goes there daily, neither will happen anything related to tightening the community-level reins.
I mean, just look at the user report numbers: the new moderators largely cleared out the giveaway-related backlog after the low staff numbers boiled over the critical point of a simple reroll request taking over a week, but forum/community moderation still stays mostly at zero.

The moderator numbers would need to increase quite a bit. The forum would need actual rules and guidelines. And they would have to be enforced. Apart from the expected high-sarcasm thread we would expect around the change, there is a possibility to regulate the forums, but I am not sure the community as a whole would want that. And it still could be like reddit (or is like reddit now). Technically it is moderated, but the only reason it is not the worst cesspit of the internet is because 4chan and Breitbart attracts those naturally and largely keeps them there. (At least those who didn't create their own microcosm in facebook.)

7 years ago
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I mean, just look at the user report numbers: the new moderators largely cleared out the giveaway-related backlog after the low staff numbers boiled over the critical point of a simple reroll request taking over a week, but forum/community moderation still stays mostly at zero.

Because support members do not have power to moderate user report tickets. I talked yesterday with Delta and several support members I have in my Touhou group. The TL;DR conclusion is - cg needs to give them more power so they can start moderating properly. I'm not asking for impossible, I don't want to prove that by starting another giveaway site, but it's not a problem that can't be fixed, and definitely not with such "moderate" number of people participating in SG discussions right now.

7 years ago
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I don't even understand what is the point of User Reports if those will never get red again...

7 years ago
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Only mods+ can look at user reports. After tempete and jatan were upgraded, user reports went down almost 10k (major thanks to the new support members solving tickets in reroll/etc so the mods could focus on user reports)

7 years ago
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I reported about 20 people yesterday, 50% got suspended, including one perma.
So they do get read.

7 years ago
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I dont think so - still got one pending report from over 1 year ago ...

7 years ago
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I got one from 11 months ago too. But these recent ones seem to be checked.

7 years ago
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You might want to bump it then if that's the case?

7 years ago
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But they seem to get read from the front, not from the back.

7 years ago
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The lack of moderation has always been an issue on SG. There was one point where cg removed all of the support staff from moderation simply because they couldn't do anything and it was frustrating to them. They couldn't reroll, etc

7 years ago
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man every thing you said was right i read it all and i realy want to try to help somehow so if there anything i can help with even a simple command or anything just add me to my steam
i hope you will see this

7 years ago
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This - so very much this - also being British I have a high sarcasm level - it is just the way we are, and not meant as an insult to anyone - it just doesn't translate well it seems :P

7 years ago
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There is a huge gap between British humor and bad intentioned sarcasm.

7 years ago
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giggle - not to the British there isn't :)

7 years ago
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I am British myself and there is a big difference between friendly sarcasm and just blantant negative comments.

Like calling my friends bitches and sluts is a laugh. Greeting my friend saying sup cumstain is alright. But saying shit to a random stranger on he internet... One you haven't uttered a word to... I'm not laughing

7 years ago
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err - I wouldn't use any of those terms with friends and don't think of that as sarcasm - even to friends I would consider that rude and not very nice thing to do - so I guess we have a different idea on sarcasm there :)

7 years ago
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But that's where my point lies, I know my friends through and through. That come over time and trust. We understand each other and where something is too far.

So when it come to someone on the internet I would never say such a thing to them. It's rude and disrespectful and not "sarcastic banter"

I'm guessing you're not Scottish though? I know we have much harsher humour :3

7 years ago
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actually I just think we have different ideas on what sarcasm is and what is acceptable, even to friends - I also know my friends very well, but I would never use such rude language with them - despite knowing them so well - and subsequently would hope to treat them the same as I do others that I do not know - and visa-versa - maybe it's a generational thing, I don't know, but such language, even in banter, is something I would have had my mouth washed out with soap for :)

7 years ago
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Like jokes, you can have dark sarcasm. It's just the way my circle of friends are I suppose. They aren't bad people, it's just the odd thing here and there. rings Sup bitch, are you coming out?... trust me I'm actually not much of a curser, I'm rather soft spoken and reserved. It's just with my friends we are all comfortable :3

7 years ago
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That'll be the decay caused by the Irn Bru and the deep fried Mars Bars....or the climate...brrrrr.

7 years ago
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Honestly, it's The haggis that does it ;3

7 years ago
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I thought Haggis hunting season was over for this year?

7 years ago
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It's always haggis time

7 years ago
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To a certain extent I feel the same - it's difficult to make it come across as fun and not bitter or twisted when you can't hear someone's tone of voice, and when you add in cultural and societal difference, it gets really problematic. I try to dial my sarcasm down from a solid 34(out of 36.5) on an average day to somewhere down in the low 20s, but I do sometimes forget...

7 years ago
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this is so true - to me you don't have to be rude to be sarcastic in any way - and that is why it gets misunderstood - as being just a potty mouth is not sarcasm and is easy to see and undestand - but saying something like oh- you are so right, no please do tell us some more about your wonderful knowledge - is a little harder to convey :P

7 years ago
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It's not moderated or has rules?
My first (and only) suspension says otherwise... for "trading on forums, go to steamtrades"... where the trade request gathers dust indeed unlike that topic, till support started banning everyone for trading :/

7 years ago
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being moderated =/= enforcing rules. In moderation you have beside rules general guidelines, so you cannot be a smartass and destoy everyone's good time while using "well, technically i didn't break any rules" as an excuse. you misbehave, you get warned, you continue, you get kicku. Let's take "no calling out" rule as an example. Both ways. Person A creates forum train, person B aska "why am I BLed, I've never done nothing wrong, A BLed me simply because he is racist and hates my country", A responds "not really, I already told you in the past you got BLed for unactivated wins", B being smartass reports this comment as calling out and gets A suspended. In other situation B creates forum topic, he is angry about A, want to strat witch-hunt about him, but being smartass he is =he doesn't say "A is a fucktard, he scammed me on ST" he says "well, there is this guy, I won GTA5 from him some time ago, later on he scammed me" - technically he didn't call A out, he used the fact that we strictly, directly 1:1 enforce rules to go around said rules. These are hypothethical situations, but they show what happens when we just have rules, enforce rules and nothing else, when we do not moderate. If we would moderate instead the results of both situations would be opposite. A would not get suspended for call out, B would, because even if he did not his intention was clearly to call out.

7 years ago
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Amen.

7 years ago
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Agreed, the circle-jerk of spammer, elitist and rule breaker has to stop.

7 years ago
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Hear hear. Forum moderation is something we dearly need. I've basically stopped checking the forums altogether. I used to spend so much time before reading great posts and now I just log on for a minute or two and that's it.

7 years ago
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Same here, went from spending few hours per day (or rather night) on forums to just checking for GAs, trains and once in a week maybe seeing quality discussion to contribute in.

7 years ago
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Well said. But I think whenever i post something its shitpost aswell ._.

7 years ago
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I used to be very active in the forum here, and I loved it, we had a great community going on, but somehow this feeling dissolved and lately everything feels either toxic or negligible, I hardly ever check anything besides the deal section anymore.
So yeah, agreed.

7 years ago
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And I was wondering why we see so little of you lately.

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7 years ago
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7 years ago
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This alone is sad! :(

I think a lot of us retreated away from being active.

7 years ago
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Users like you are how the community strives. Losing people like you means it's not worth coming back :(

7 years ago
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Share the feeling, still wondering why the chicken died but well like i've always said, rather have a kitten than a chicken... right?

ON TOPIC i think archi's point is absolutely correct so i'm counting on cg to announce a couple changes so we don't loose our community and 2nd home (perhaps?, or at least to some of us ¯_(ツ)_/¯ )

7 years ago
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It's not just you...

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7 years ago
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DEC 16/ APR 17

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7 years ago*
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Yeah, mine looks pretty similar. I had some warm feelings for this community around Christmas, and so the graph got an upwards bump - didn't last tho...

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7 years ago
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Mine were never anywhere near as high, though April and December 2015 were my highest. I also think my blacklists are kind of funny so that's in the shot, too. :P
Though I don't think I've ever crawled the forums much. I normally just click on any interesting ones I see under the giveaways.

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7 years ago*
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Whoops, interesting leap your red line is taking there. What did you do?

7 years ago
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Shared some information about Mormons (seeing as I am one), and plenty of people didn't like it, lol. :P
I didn't expect it to be received too well, though, so I honestly thought it would be higher.
I don't really care much about the blacklists, and there don't tend to be many whitelist GAs I'm super interested in, but it still makes me happy to see more people like me than hate me. xP

7 years ago
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Oh, I remember that topic (vaguely). Didn't follow it because I'm not the religious type, but I read what you wrote and I didn't find it offensive at all. If anything I thought it was an interesting read, as your religion is quite rare, at least here where I live. Guess a gaming forum wasn't a good place for this discussion, but then, we see so many shitposts here with totally meaningless bullshit in them, you should think people would appreciate the chance on talking about something profound.
It seems humanity as a whole still has a veeeeery long road to travel to realize we're all one of a kind and that a supportive attitude towards each other is more helpful in the long run than hostility and fear because something is unknown, different and/or seems alien.
Sad times.

7 years ago
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Yeah it's funny. There's another user here who spams his religion at every opportunity and no one says a word. No one's offended by it, no one minds. You make one thread and people exploded. Gotta love hypocrisy.

People pick and choose the most ridiculous shit to get butt-hurt over.

7 years ago
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Latest I've seen is "Thanks, hope I win with the help of God"-style stuff.
Well, you wouldn't be allowed to communicate the user anyway, so why am I asking :D

7 years ago
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Made a post offering others the information about his religion, which obviously polarized into some WLs and BLs. I got BLs in that thread for merely asking somebody to explain a post they wrote.

7 years ago
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Religion seems to be quite the sensitive topic. Who would have thought...

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7 years ago
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7 years ago
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Lol, yeah. Though I didn't even fight. xD

And I still have a clear blacklist. :)

7 years ago
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You can see where I took my "break." I commented under 20 times a month on the forums in that period. The rest were wrapping up simgive and comments on giveaways both mine and others. I can feel it dropping again after April...

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7 years ago
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One of ius, one of us
Saying thanks, trying to react whitelist and such GAs' questions, but I think I comment more for bumps or to "sign" people that I've read their comments than for true discussions :\

7 years ago
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Would I be wrong in the assumption that nowadays your posts relatively often follow your friend first linking you the threads?

7 years ago
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Yes, I have the terrible case of curiosity - I can supress it by not even checking topics but if someone tells me about *something* going on in a discussion I can't help to check it. Without that I would have like half of the comments. ( Also hard to ignore stupidity, made me end up in quite a few "nice" discussions)

7 years ago
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That explain why i don't come across with ur comments lately. Sad but true, things need to change ASAP.
PS still waiting we can play something on steam u know. btw last week u changed ur nickname and i almost eliminate u for error lucky i had ur recent msg on my wall (?

7 years ago
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Oh, but I did not change my username at all. Still having the very same I used from day 1 on Steam. Changed my avatar tho.
And hey, I'm not much of a co-op or multiplayer (in fact I rather game in my own pace), so not sure where you got the idea of playing with me, but miracles do happen, so you never know ;)

7 years ago
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oww :(
Well i do believe in miracles so i'll just wait for one to happen then!
But we can still have some weird/bizarre conversation on steam again don't we?
Remember u have a friend in the other side of the globe in Argentina that will always call u Z (? (not hoping u remember why Z but again miracles do happen sometimes though)

7 years ago
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I could hardly say it any better. Exactly the same here!! I used to be active and love this forum, but it's just all so toxic now that I mainly am in the deal section too, and only once in a while check other threads if I find the energy for it.

I miss the good old days..

7 years ago
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Same, I've grown a bit distant and I'm sorry for that.

7 years ago
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Ignore the forums, only check the Guess the Game topic - better than 95% of the forums

7 years ago
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Funny enough I have never taken a look at this particular topic till now.

7 years ago
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I found a lot of joy trying to find their forgotten games for people (often succeeding even though I never played them) so a mini-game like that is really close to me - not really participating, but kind of seeing others having fun, trying to look for the games for a few min.

7 years ago
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Maybe you should link that here for the very lazy.

7 years ago
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+1, same feelings here, used to spend hours on forums, now even if I sometimes intend to I go to discussion and see wall of shitpost/spam topics and just decide to quickly go through GA topics and leave.

7 years ago
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I am just here to get blacklisted later by all the scammers. :P

grabs popcorn

I don't disagree with this sentiment, but I haven't really payed too much attention to all of this in the first place. I just use SGTools as much as I can.

7 years ago
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Bump, real stuff here.

7 years ago
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I agree. And you got whitelisted. :)

7 years ago
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Spammers filling discussions with several shitpost threads daily, that have nothing to do but to troll and cause drama, because attention whores have nothing better to do.

I agree with you 👍🏻

7 years ago
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Spam seeking for attention bump

I Agree x)

7 years ago
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... had thought about pointing out the same while poking fun at the pile of garb but wasn't motivated enough to shitpost:
[FREE] ISIS Summercamp 2017 or Guess-who-the-secret-Hitler-is-(his-cakeday-EDITION)

frankly i doubt there is any cure or betterment for this - it just isn't the right community/framework despite having plenty users of age,
but that doesn't mean anything ... it might just the setting overall "to unwind" sort of - but yeah, with some stricter moderation
"this kind of thread > CTRL+GTFO" might help a little

7 years ago*
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I think that might be true; a few very public and high profile - by that I mean the real scummiest of the scum - boots up the arse can often do the world of good, and even if it doesn't it can make people feel so much better at least temporarily.

7 years ago
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there is no perfect community, but there are better and worse communities.Moderation, actual moderation, not using excuses "well it's kinda spammy, kinda nasty, kinda shitty but not technically exactly against rules so nothing can be done" would actually make it probably a much better community.

7 years ago
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I was never the most active person but I was always lurking and reading in the background. I now avoid most threads because I know it is just going to end with me wanting to smash my face into the desk.

SG forums is a cesspit.

7 years ago
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Actually I don't think it has to do so much with moderating as much as the "community" some people here seem to revere.
For the most part the majority of the forum part of the site consists of the same people that did a couple years ago, give or take a small percentage. Cliques have formed, rivalries have formed, topics have been discussed at length time and time again to the point where you don't even feel like posting the same opinion again or even worse start a discussion about it, and let's not kid ourselves, SG is a greatly unwelcoming community to new users unless they come in with shiny new gibs and sparkly clean records of no rule breaking.
The solution isn't reducing the userbase, it's expanding it.

7 years ago
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You do not expand the swamp onto new territory with hope that it'll stink less, you work on it. You pointed it out yourself - if there were more harsh suspensions, people not being rude towards newcomers and actually helping, MAYBE we wouldn't see that problem in the first place.

Today the best you can do as a new-comer is to be called out under your post with sgtools link showing your unactivated wins. And you want to expand that onto new users, infecting people with toxicity and teaching them to be self-called sherifs of wild SG, because support can't do what they should be doing.

7 years ago
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Ok let me rephrase the first part of my argument and the main reason I find the discussion part of SG to be declining. Familiarity.
See, I could write whole paragraphs of why I believe that stricter moderating of content quality is not only not gonna solve anything but actually make the whole "community" even more elitist and stuck up than it already is. Plus you'd still get the same shit, only then it'll be tied with a pretty bow so it's prettier and less unpleasant. Still shit though.
But I am utterly unmotivated to do so because I know it's pointless. We've been around long enough that I know our views on this subject and our "ideal" SG are vastly different and we would not agree even if we continue debating this one for a month non-stop. I believe in rainbow farting unicorns, you believe in the iron fist, and that's okay.
And that's exactly what I meant above, we mostly know each other by now so a lot of the time you don't feel like spending hours debating something because you know how the other will respond. That's why we need new people, to get us out of our cozy, little cliques and intrigue us.

I do agree that all those self-assigned "sheriffs", to borrow the analogy from another reply, aren't actually contributing anything positive and it should be discouraged in some way from an official source but at the same time I do not credit the decline of the forum to the lack of moderating power. I blame us.

7 years ago*
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For the most part the majority of the forum part of the site consists of the same people that did a couple years ago

Yeah... except for like, almost all of the kindest, funniest and most generous members I've known who left shortly after I joined SG. :(

7 years ago
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I still wanna know what happened to Llama, that guy was hilarious!

7 years ago
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Odd llama? I think he got divorced or something like that and left the site, he used to do his threads accompanied by his wife.

7 years ago
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Oh I didn't know that! :( awful news, the guy was real fun!

7 years ago
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So... They all left after you joined?
I would think about that if I were you.

shitposting intensifies

7 years ago
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Or I'm just being so stubborn that I stick around even though people realized the community changed a lot.
But guilty as charged. :P

7 years ago
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People posting in the threads and bumping them. One user creates a shit topic, the others smell the poo, and then start shitting in the thread, continuously bumping it

7 years ago
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Personally, I fell foul of two rules within a VERY short space of time because I didn't know they existed. Now, this may well be my fault and now I know the site, I feel like a total (insert appropriate expletive here) because I now know what not to do, and just as importantly WHY.

However, when I did fall foul of the rules all I got was a torrent of abuse...no one took the time to check and see I was a wobbly legged SG Bambi.....Again, let me emphasise..MY FAULT...but some gentler guidance would have been appreciated.

7 years ago
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well tbh would you expect to be praised for breaking the rules? That being said - bashing, agressiveness etc towards you for breaking the rules was wrong as well, but as was you expecting noone to care, because you were just "wobbly legged SG Bambi". The fact of the matter is a lot of rulebreakers (generalizing here, not talking about you, don't know your circumstances) are agressive about it themselves as well. Attitude of "STFU! I WAS NEW! I ALREADY GOT SUSPENDED SO YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO BL ME FOR THAT!" etc. So both parties are aggressive and in the wrong here. Rulebreaker should accept that his rulebreaking is visible and it may affect his interaction with other users unless he fix it, Other users should accept the fact that even if he is rulebreaker and even if aggressive one it does not give them the right to be aggressive in response.

7 years ago
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I agree, but I wasn't aggressive.

I didn't find the rules, didn't know there were rules as I had never even heard of site like this before a friend on steam gave me the name.

I definitely was guilty of breaking the rules, and with hindsight I SHOULD have looked for some rules. All my fault, simple.

I was just disappointed that no-one took the time to check that I was new and say, "hey newbie, you can't do that".

Two problems arose - two rules I broke - oddly, on the same day. It was not a good day for me!!

The first problem arose because I won a DLC I already owned, something I was certain could not happen, as I was set up to filter out all games and DLCs I owned. Now, of course, I know the DLC exclusion is dodgy and am careful to check every DLC giveaway I enter, just in case. This I got banned for, rightly so - no argument from me.

The other one was for creating a giveaway for a game that had been given away for free. Again, not something I knew or why, but now it's painfully obvious that it gives you a, boost?, in points accumulated that you didn't earn.

All my subsequent giveaways have been fine, and I always add every key I win to my library as soon as I see it....that's the reason I enter after all.

I have never broken the rules since seeing them, had no problem with the automatic ban and will not be breaking the rules in the future....I was even extremely careful to ask someone that I had done it right the first time I used SGTools, just in case.

7 years ago
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Very well said, Archi. Another reason to have you whitelisted.

Of course I don't know the ins and outs of support, however I feel like if CG wants to keep this site stable and growing he needs to make some major changes to the foundation of the website. This means reconsidering who he thinks fits the role of support. It seems like support is always devided in terms of subjective morals They also seem useless without higher power to do what moderators should do. I have personally never filled in a user report out of the usual reroll ticket so I have no idea except from what I've been told about others being blantantly ignored. Therefore I think mods should be given more powers and I think a clear set of objective rules should be set out in terms of how the site is run and how users should behave. I feel like this site has been self policed for far too long.

I feel like there should be a section for staff recruitment to post an official application and users can voice opinions and current staff members can voice theirs. I've seen a lot of forums do this and it works.

We've lost some great people from this site and the scum have oozed out and are taking over. I feel like leaving for good, but that means leaving groups and I don't want to do that.

7 years ago
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7 years ago
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That's part of the problem. Most people see that reports take too long. Bad users are not punished. And that creates a low view of the support. Most of what support does, we don't see it.

You might publish some reports, with what has been done. Like this month xx.xxx amount of rerolls, so many users banned, etc.

But a problem is that a small part of the users are toxic. And growing because the site is growing.
But it seems the support group doesn't seem to increase as fast as the members, to keep up. But you see an increase of cases resolved with each support member added.

7 years ago
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Posted my previous comment on a separated comment.

How are bad users not punished? How do reports take too long?

Like this month xx.xxx amount of rerolls, so many users banned, etc.

But why?

Why is everyone in seek of our approval regarding our own work?

But you see an increase of cases resolved with each support member added.

In that, you are correct, and that gave more space and time for mods to handle user reports, but hey keep coming every day and it's impossible to keep up with the previous ones. You can't also just simply choose some random members and give them mod powers to handle tickets, patience is everyone's friend. And a lot of good work is being done

7 years ago
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Probably a modern management issue thing?
Where numbers need to go bigger, bigger, BIGGER so if for some reason one month less re-rolls get made by support they can all complain so you're forced into mindlessly increasing numbers, sacrificing quality to make people happy a number rises.

Again; pretty much like most current workethics or corperations :/
Quota's are going to kill us all some day.

7 years ago
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How are bad users not punished? How do reports take too long?

Didn't phrase it that well.
It's not that they don't get punished. It takes some time. But when you see the same user still active after a few weeks. You get that feeling. And feelings guides us more then common sense. And that's also what you read in the forums.

But why?

To take away the bad feelings, and giving us an idea how much work is done behind the scenes.

In that, you are correct, and that gave more space and time for mods to handle user reports, but hey keep coming every day and it's impossible to keep up with the previous ones. You can't also just simply choose some random members and give them mod powers to handle tickets, patience is everyone's friend. And a lot of good work is being done

That's what i'm saying. You can't keep up, because the site has grown that much. And I understand you can't give random members mod powers. Neither do I want that. It's what you said, patience is everyone's friend. But some havn't met him yet.

And let's put the emphasis on "And a lot of good work is being done". Because that's more then true

7 years ago
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Good work is being done re reroll requests, IMO.
Ticket-wise, work doesn't seem to get done to the backlog elsewhere.

7 years ago
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I feel like there should be a section for staff recruitment to post an official application and users can voice opinions and current staff members can voice theirs. I've seen a lot of forums do this and it works.

And I've seen a lot of forums do this and it fails, with everyone voting for their "best pals" to exercise their own sense of "right and wrong." Impartiality and unbiased behavior fall by the wayside, and certain cliques get away with murder while still others are persecuted for not going with the popular flow.

Bad idea.

We've lost some great people from this site and the scum have oozed out and are taking over.

I do agree with that statement.

7 years ago
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But right now being elected to be a support or moderation person also is random nepotism, isn't it? So essentially your point is that other people shouldn't be allowed to engage in nepotism, just those who currently are doing it.

7 years ago
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I'm saying we should leave it to CG to choose his staff, not a popular vote.
I live in the USA. I know all about how elections can end up a world of shit. ;)

Personally speaking, and this is coming from someone who's been suspended twice (though once was for posting a Monty Python clip - no hard feelings, I deserved the second and actually reported myself), I think all of the staff are doing an outstanding job.

Oh, and I'm sure I'll be suspended again. I have a penchant for speaking my mind.

Random thought: so glad I didn't miss a good Humble Bundle today.

7 years ago
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I'm saying we should leave it to CG to choose his staff, not a popular vote.

+1

I think all of the staff are doing an outstanding job.

Thank you

7 years ago
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I have a penchant for speaking my mind.

It's not always bad things. ;)

7 years ago
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I don't think posting here to support yourself is a good use of your time.

7 years ago
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I've commented enough on this thread regarding itself.

I needed a pat on the back

7 years ago
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How does a Monty Python clip lead to a suspension?

7 years ago
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Hehe, I like to think of myself as a pioneer.
Besides, it's a long story. ;)

7 years ago
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Well, what was punishable about it?

7 years ago
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suggesting new staff =/= choosing new staff by popular vote.

In the end decission still falls to cg, it should not be that we decide to all vote for konrad just for lulz and cg is forced to make him mod because how much votes he got, but at the same time if we'd like some actual moderation, and I believe we really do need it, we'd need much more staff than we already have. And having place for SERIOUS suggestions (while ignoring joke/manipulated ones) would make things a little or maybe a lot easier.

7 years ago
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suggesting new staff

Don't give two shits about suggestions, either.
Maybe I wasn't clear enough in my comment. I thought I was.

Just because users aren't getting the moderation they want (or the way they want it) for things they dislike doesn't mean there's no moderation, either. Maybe it just means they're never satisfied with what they're given, or maybe they're just being ridiculous and stomping their feet childishly when things don't go the way they want. I see a helluva lot of that here.

That's my view. I'm okay with things. I'm okay with the mods, and I'm okay with the moderation. If they "moderate me," I'm okay with that, too. This isn't my house. I'm just hanging out.

7 years ago
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ok, I'm done then, not going to disscuss with aggressive attitude of you "don't giving two shits".

7 years ago
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Is it aggressive because I said "don't give two shits" or because we disagree?
There was no aggression. That was me speaking plainly and honestly.

But hey, whatever docks your yacht, bud. ;)

7 years ago
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yes it is aggressive. If someone states his opinion about something and your response is that you don't give two shits about it it's both aggressive and disrespectful.

7 years ago
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I don't give two shits typically means "I don't care."

Don't care about suggestions, either. (in the context of suggesting people).

And I don't. Don't give two shits about electing support, either.
You can make it mean whatever you want, but that's what I meant.

7 years ago
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Then go fuck yourself! Oh ofc I meant goodbye, "go fuck yourself" is typically used as "ending discussion". And I ended it.

See the difference? I don't care would be you speaking plainly and honestly. I don't give two shits is you being rude and aggressive, even if it means the same thing.

7 years ago
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zelgh, what are you even doing

7 years ago
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proving my point :>

7 years ago
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We can argue semantics all day, but since I've explained exactly what I meant, the rest is on you.
Whatever docks your yacht.

7 years ago
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nah only relaxed people don't give two shits , i think you wound yourself up into a pretty little knot, just saying :)

7 years ago
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Mmm, I get what you are saying, but I don't know if you understand what I mean. What I mean is CG can create a sort of CV application where users can fill out information like maybe moderation experience on other websites etc to which they post it in a newly created section in the forum (which is public and not private like it is now.) Once it is posted users can chime in and say their opinion and so can staff, an application would be valid after a certain percentage of staff had approved. After this CG can look over the approved applications and select out of those if he wishes. So, in a way it is a popularity contest but in the end CG still chooses, it just means he gets a second opinion and people to select for him (because I'm sure he is a busy man.) Plus popularity means they are active, which means they have time to spend most of their day on the forums, in turn means that they can moderate better than most.

Of course this is just a suggestion, this is the first community I've ever been involved in so I'm not one to be suggesting things. I personally would like to see it, not to apply (because I think I would be a terrible mod) but I know of people that would be perfect for it and I'm sure others would vouch for them also!

I think a lot of people would agree. I wish the good part of the community would come back. I really want to stay here, its a nice place to escape to for a few minutes here and there throughout the day.

7 years ago
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Once it is posted users can chime in and say their opinion and so can staff

And that's precisely where it it becomes "who can benefit me most?" Who can moderate the way I want, who is my friend, who supports my opinions and who doesn't. And that's why I disagree with the idea.

Just because a community elects it's members doesn't mean those are the best people for the job. I'm sure you've seen people get the "better job" at work simply by who they know. Were they always the best people for the job? That also applies in this case. So far I've seen nothing to lead me to believe CG doesn't pick competent people who care about the community, but I most certainly have my doubts that the community itself would select the right people.

I think a lot of people would agree

I also see a lot here who disagree. I am among them. Again, the current mods are doing what they can with what they're given, and I don't believe a single one of them could be replaced by someone "better" chosen by this community. YMMV of course. I don't always agree with their decisions, but I do trust them (for the most part) to be fair.

I wish the good part of the community would come back

Good is entirely subjective. I see some people here (on SG) I wouldn't call "good" people, too, and I've seen some people I'd call "good" forced out by those "not good" people, same as you're claiming, but not everyone would agree with me or you on who is good and who isn't. Just because one group of people decides a person is bad for the community doesn't mean they are, no more than your boss choosing their nephew over you for a promotion makes that person better for the job than you.

Judging who should and shouldn't be here isn't my place. I'll leave that to support to decide.

7 years ago
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Yeah I get what you are saying but in a way it isn't the community that has the final decision - it would be CG himself. Think of the +1 system being a sort of "weening out the trash" for lack of a better phrase. It would just mean that the handful of candidates would be at some sort of standard as a user that is active in the community and hopefully has learned the ins and outs of the website. Like I said before, CG would go through them and pick who he wants. The whole system would basically be a way of having a different perspective on users and to get a second opinion.

Continuing your work analogy, just because a boss hires a new employee does not mean they are a capable one. First impressions are not always the right one and some times the boss may make a mistake. Since everyone is human, that means even CG can choose the wrong people and may be subjective in picking who he likes and not what is good for the website.

I don't believe a single one of them could be replaced by someone "better" chosen by this community

I'm just going to say... There is always room for improvement

I very much agree with you. Good is extremely subjective. In my opinion, I feel like the good part is the puzzle creators, discussion starters, information insiders, event creators and people who have created ongoing discussions such as "What is SG listening to lately?" or the selfie thread. Because if we didn't have those people... We would be stuck with users like myself and others that I won't mention cause callin' out.. And I think thats one thing you and I can most certainly agree with :)

7 years ago
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We've lost some great people from this site

This. Each and every of great contributors (inb4 someone comes and cries ELITIST! I mean all kinds of contributors - not just ppl making GAs, but ppl making puzzles, events, meaningful and fun discussions, experiments etc) we lost was worth more than dozens of the spam-trolls we got in exchange.

7 years ago
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I mean... The website is called steamGIFTS so of course great contributors are key to it. I do understand what you mean though. Literally it was Keo who really made me want to stay. It was his presence on the forums with his difficult puzzles that made it more than just blindly giving. It gave personally to just clicking "send key" which I suppose is why I much prefer giving to groups or doing group events because its fun and interesting and people get to give and receive games in the end! I try to do my best to create discussions by adding questions that interest me or seem like a laugh, I've dabbled and failed at puzzle creating but I don't think I'm cut out to be host xD I definitely feel like we have been saturated by troll posts. Its upsetting to see good posts getting lost in the mud....

7 years ago
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Closed 7 years ago by JustArchi.