wouldn't that cause a potential problem where the key is sent then the winner redeem it without responding that they claimed it?
One way I would suggest to avoid this scenario would be for the key to be hidden behind a "reveal your prize" button that would automatically mark the giveaway as claimed once clicked
With that system, the "Unresponsive Winner" could also be automated.
Comment has been collapsed.
If they have claimed it on their account, and not marked it as received, then you can request feedback through a ticket. If they have looked at the key, but not marked it as received or not, then... No good options, just like before this change.
Comment has been collapsed.
That can only work with an auto-redeem system without showing the key to the winner in the first place. After a sync done by SG, if the account still doesn't have the game the system shall know that either the key is wrong / expired / region-restricted. Without an auto-redeem system, it will just cause problems with fake / unredeemable-by-user giveaways.
Comment has been collapsed.
I also like the change even tho i didnt have too many issues yet, but apparently i was one of the lucky ones and it would be also annoying for me to wait for soo long, especially if the winner is online daily.
Thanks!
and here is a small GA to celebrate the change :P
Comment has been collapsed.
Thank you cg. I am sure the mods appreciate it even more than the creators. 😀
Comment has been collapsed.
I've never really had issues with the old system (or just didn't care enough to be bothered), but this is a welcome change.
Thank you.
Edit: It's disturbing how many people in this thread cannot just be grateful for a needed change. Instead, they have to reply with "but you didn't change what I wanted!" And those will be the same people who complain about entitled winners.
Comment has been collapsed.
Thanks.
At least a tiny step to make things better for the gifters.
Next, little, step forbidding the auto thanks script and let the mods suspend for spamming with them?
Because it is a part of the autojoiner program that can be activated and show the dumbest autojoiners very easiely to the mods (they are only a tiny minority but the most visible and annoying part of the autojoiners).
It is a bad joke that the mods can't use the script made thanks messages as evidence to suspend autojoiners and can't punish this users for spamming because "it's a GA related comment".
This would make the gifters and the mods a bit happier.
Comment has been collapsed.
"it's a GA related comment"
Except it isn't if they've never even seen the GA. But hey, thanks scripts don't have opinions so let's toss the community aside and replace it with thanks scripts!
Create 5 GA's with a description where you ask not to be thanked for entering. Get your inbox clogged with 5 tHaNkS fOr GiVeAwAy per script user anyway. Amazing interaction. So relevant... So human! The site is so alive!
Comment has been collapsed.
The sad thing is that a part of the mods would like to be able to punish for the thanks script messages but can't because of the existing rules.
And yes, the interaction is so relevant and the site so alive bcause of the used thanks scripts. Traffic!
Comment has been collapsed.
If you reply to your own post: 3 days suspension for spamming.
If you use script to automatically generate the same message in 100 giveaways daily: it's ok
SG in a nutshell.
Comment has been collapsed.
That's awesome;
The 2 weeks period was way too long. 1 week is more reasonable.
Thanks a lot.
I'd add this removes a lot of mental load for me. Having to contact the unresponsive winner on steam was always stressful. And for support tickets, i never had the correct combination of proofs .
Good thing we don't need that anymore
Comment has been collapsed.
A step in the right direction.
Now just reduce the time till someone can request a reroll to 48h after sending the key if the user was online in this time. If someone is able to log in (and join more giveaways) then they should be either able to redeem it or write a message why they are currently not able to do so.
Comment has been collapsed.
Will there be also some log collecting how often is that happening for certain users to remove autojoiners? I had multiple winners in past months (at high levels), which use autojoiners and come to site once a week to collect grinded stuff. Now we don't have to send them reminders, but it will help to solve just a peak of problem.
Comment has been collapsed.
And who checks the creators, that they didn't just try to "cheat" their way around sending an actual gift to a winner because they didn't like their avatar, name or alleged region or that they don't try to cheat the system to their personal gain? You cannot just assume that all giveaway creators are rule abiding users - especially when you see certain things as come across regularly.
Tickets need to be checked manually to ensure fairness across the userbase.
EDIT: Fixed typo "things as come" -> "things we come"
Comment has been collapsed.
The new way only works until the winner sees the key, so if the winner checks the key and sees something is up it doesn't matter for this system since then the countdown for this ended, I assume you can't just request a reroll if the key has been seen since then you have no clue if the key has been used or not, so to make it automated is a great idea since it will only work on gifts that were sending through this system and did not get seen by the winner after 7 days.
Comment has been collapsed.
I'm not completely sure what you are saying/arguing here as "the new way" is there to speed things up with unresponsive winners - nothing else. Also, you are assuming that an actual gift (key or gift link) was sent in the first place which is not always the case. For everything else you mention that stays as it has been in the past. So to "make it automated" is anything else but a great idea.
Comment has been collapsed.
I do indeed think that the automated part should only be for keys and not gift links since gift links are not as easy to see in the system like that, didn't think of that one since I always give keys. But for keys it should work fine without a moderator if it's though this system since they can see if a key has been seen by a winner or not and if not, automatic reroll and move on so that moderators can do other things that can't be automated. Even if a key is faulty that doesn't matter for this since the winner needs to actually see the key to know if it's a real key or not and then the automation should be off since it should only be done if the winner doesn't check the key within those 7 days.
Comment has been collapsed.
Again, you are assuming that an actual key is sent and not something that is neither key nor gift link. Once again, this cannot be automated. If it could be I wouldn't even argue against the suggestion in the first place.
Comment has been collapsed.
it doesn't matter if it's an actual key or not since the winner can't see that until he clicks 'reveal' and then this whole story ends because we are talking about after 7 days of NO KEY REVEAL so even if someone clicks send while it just says gibberish and not a real key, it doesn't change this part of the story! If a winner reveals and sees it's not a key or it's a wrong key, that is the next step, which we are not talking about here. It makes no sense that if a winner doesn't even bother to revealed a key within 7 days for a mod needed to approve of a reroll when they can see in the database that the winner never even checked it.
Comment has been collapsed.
You're missing the point. It only gets to 7 days if there's a gift in the first place. And no, not all winner's do what you think they do. You guys are assuming that all creators do it as it's required by the rules and that all winner's do it as well at the same time you are arguing for a proposed system that makes only sense when there are users that don't. It doesn't work as you think it does. It cannot be automated. I'll leave it at that.
Comment has been collapsed.
the real change that needs to be made is that if the user is "online" and joining giveaways while not accepting their win, AKA botting, there should be a much much much smaller time to request a new winner, or hopefully an automatic system to detect that and just blocks them from getting the win,
because it's extremely annoying to see someone online for 3 4 days, entering tens of giveaways daily and not react to their win.
Comment has been collapsed.
It'd be good if it always were the ideal scenario. Unfortunately, being always or often online does not mean the winner has access to their PC during this time. I've had situations where activating a game on Steam wouldn't work with mobile methods. Now you could say, add a rule forcing the winner to post a comment, but things are getting convoluted at this point. Not to mention there are better solutions against botting – one had been used on SG before – but it's just not a priority for the staff now.
Comment has been collapsed.
your case sounds like the exception to the rule though,
where the steam app wouldn't work, not even the website on phone would work for you,
also this is just a suggestion, maybe they can throttle your engagement, limit how many giveaways you can join without accepting the win,
maybe you get flagged on the system and if it reaches a certain amount you get manually checked,
maybe you have to enter a captcha on every single ga you join till you accept the win, which would stop the bot, but for a human it would just be a 2 seconds thing to solve and maybe waste a minute of your entire day, which isnt a bad thing considering how rare it would be where all mobile solutions fail to activate the key. which also solves the problem in case the key isnt working and you're talking to the ga host for a solution.
Comment has been collapsed.
I'm pretty sure it's easy to recognize an autojoiner virtually all the time if you have access to logs, which mods don't have. It'd make more sense to just automate the process there, or at least let mods see this sort of user logs so legit members don't have to spend an eternity on a single User Report, hoping a mod sees it one day a few years down the line and finds the report satisfactory enough... (because as it is, it's the regular users who do the moderators' job with the same limited tools and when the stars align)
You won't make me believe the staff actually welcomes ideas against botting.
Comment has been collapsed.
I agree, I too have been in such situations. However, I feel, that 7 days for such users is too long.
Also, when I am unable to activate a key, but still able to visit SG (weird, right?), I always comment on the GA. I feel it's only fair to inform the creator and not keep them in the dark, or even anxious (some do get like that, like me).
At the same time I am not sure what's a fair and safe system that can be implemented to automate it.
Comment has been collapsed.
when I am unable to activate a key, but still able to visit SG (weird, right?)
happens actually more often than 1 might think, cause i usually get logged out on steam more often on my phone than on SG. if i dont know or have my password saved somewhere with me i cant relog into steam to activate it through my phone until i get home onto my PC.
if it happens at work guess the creator can wait a few hours more until i get home. if it happens while away on a weekend or a longer vacation, well yes... no way to activate it in a timely manner. i would - like you said yourself - always leave a comment excusing myself for my inability to activate. but i guess some ppl are not that considerate or simply lack the language skills to reply(?).
after this happened to me a few times i saved my password on my phone so it doesnt happen anymore :P
i personally think the easiest way to make bot usage harder would be to implement a Captcha that needs to be solved like once somewhere between an hour and a day
Comment has been collapsed.
It's exactly as you said, specially when travelling. Was just too lazy to explain.
i personally think the easiest way to make bot usage harder would be to implement a Captcha that needs to be solved like once somewhere between an hour and a day
Well, actually it has been proved, quite some time ago, that bots are both faster and more accurate when it comes to solving captchas. Almost all of famous types. And this was before the boom of AI.
Comment has been collapsed.
Yet, they are able to pass them more easily than real humans.
recognizing curser movement and way of typing that it looked at instead
a human whiggles more around and has a less quick answer and the like
These aren't that hard to randomize and make "humanly clumsy". A small delay and random actions every now and then, and you have a human like bot captcha solver.
Also, not all captcha that great. Only Google's new reCaptcha was slightly effective. It still let bots pass almost 80% (+/-5%, don't remember very well) of the times, while for others, it's close to 100%.
imo, captchas would help slow the bots down, not eliminate them.
Comment has been collapsed.
I'm looking at it the same way. All the talk about real life responsibilities preventing someone to spare a few minutes to check their email/visit SG is just an excuse for cg's unwillingness to make substantial changes.
As this cosmetic change isn't automated it doesn't even ease the workload of moderators.
Comment has been collapsed.
1,457 Comments - Last post 16 minutes ago by jeffrey19844
15,464 Comments - Last post 24 minutes ago by OsManiaC
46,869 Comments - Last post 50 minutes ago by Bominus5
3 Comments - Last post 1 hour ago by FritoleXx
65 Comments - Last post 1 hour ago by jeffrey19844
26 Comments - Last post 5 hours ago by JonathanDoe
3 Comments - Last post 7 hours ago by philipdick
68 Comments - Last post 2 minutes ago by Wasari
1,205 Comments - Last post 28 minutes ago by Gelweo
46 Comments - Last post 46 minutes ago by ZungBang
52 Comments - Last post 1 hour ago by MansonKell
5,777 Comments - Last post 1 hour ago by Oppenh4imer
2,411 Comments - Last post 1 hour ago by igel2005
4 Comments - Last post 1 hour ago by Raggart
Hi everyone,
There was a new feature recently added to the site, that allows moderators to view a log of all feedback and key changes corresponding to each giveaway winner. For users, this will simplify "Request New Winner" tickets when the winner is unresponsive. In the past you would need to submit screenshots and information to prove you attempted to contact the winner over one week ago. Now, that is no longer necessary when you send a key or gift link through SG. You can just click the "Send Key" button as usual and that's it. We can quickly refer to the log and confirm how long the gift has been available to the winner. Reviewing the database, about 97% of gifts are sent through SG, so that will cover the majority of cases. If you choose to send a gift outside of SG using email or Steam, then you will still need to send us additional information if you cannot reach the winner. The FAQ has been updated to the below.
What should I do if the winner of my giveaway has not redeemed their key or gift, and I'm unable to get into contact with them?
If you did not use our site to send the gift, then when creating the ticket we ask you to show you made an adequate attempt to send the gift to the winner over one week ago. This needs to be screenshots for one of the following:
When providing screenshots, include timestamps when possible, as we will use these dates to determine when the conditions were met. If no timestamps are provided, we'll wait one week from receiving the screenshots to approve the request. When sending us a screenshot of an email, the date of the email and the recipient's email address needs to be visible.
A few notes...
Comment has been collapsed.