Help a noobie ^^

SGTools is a service (not created by SG) to put certain requriements on joining a private giveaway.
Bump is short for "Bring up my post"
You can use SGTools to find out your real CV (Contribution Value. It makes you level up) and your progress to the next level. Bundled games give you less CV. Bundle games are any games on this list: https://www.steamgifts.com/bundle-games
You get keys through buying from websites which provide games as keys (such as Humble Bundle, Indiegala, etc)
A train is when someone links a private giveaway which contains a link to another private giveaway which contains a link to another private giveaway, etc, forming a chain of many giveaways.
I believe community wishlist is just the most wishlisted game out of the active users. However, I am not sure about this.

About bundle sites, look at this discussion, maybe you'll find some interesting hints: https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/GoZGp/whats-in-you-opinion-the-best-bundle-site-and-why

Hi!

Welcome to Steamgifts, I'm sure you'll have a great time here :)

• SGTools is a website in which you can check several stats from here, including the value of your gifts and rule breakers. You can also protect your giveaways behind specific rules
• a "bump" is when you have nothing to say in a thread but you want to make it more visible. A new message will send the topic to the top of the discussions
• To increase your level you have to giveaway games. The increase in level is exponential, for instance I'm level 5 because I gave away more than 250$ worth of games. To get to level 6 I need to giveaway 500$ worth of games. When you giveaway one game you will be level 1 and start from there.
• You have to buy keys from some seller, bundle or win them on sites like tremorgames. You can also give gifts bought directly from steam
• A train is a chain of games that someone is giving away and that the next game link is inside the previous game description
• I think community wishlist is automatic taking into consideration the steam wishlists of all users here.

See you around :)

Im new here aswell... But I do know a few.

What is SGTool?
no idea on this one yet.

What is "bump"? (I'm not native english so I don't know if it is just a word or some kind of meme)
Bump = just a reaction to pump life into a thread. mostly done on forum to get the tread noticed.

Are the levels hard to obtain?
Giving away games that cost money raises lvl. More money given away = higher level. Think the amount progressively increases with level.

How do people manage to get keys, is there a place where you can buy them? (I'm thinking about doing a GA)
Many people buy bundles, @websites like humblebundle, bundlestars etc... They contain steamkeys... and lots of people have doubles. The doubles get gifted away.

What are those "trains" I've been reading?
Dunno, but has something to do with raising the level to the next step with a 'train' of giveaways?

How does the community wishlist work? (I've read there is a poll or something but I can't find it)
Wishlist = steam wishlist. Sync your steamgifts account with your steam account to upload your most recent steam wishlist.

As I'm new aswell, I don't know if i'm correct. But at least you get to know my thoughts on your questions.

• What is SGTool?
  http://www.sgtools.info. It's used to set more requirements for users to enter the giveaways (not only level). Also there are tools to check if users broke rules in the past.

• What is "bump"? (I'm not native english so I don't know if it is just a word or some kind of meme)
  Originally it's just an english verb, but it's used in forums and discussion boards for many years meaning to bring the thread/topic to the top of the forums again (by a new posting).

• Are the levels hard to obtain?
  The first 2-3 levels are easy, but since they aren't proportional, it's more difficult later on. Read this guide for further details.

• How do people manage to get keys, is there a place where you can buy them? (I'm thinking about doing a GA)
  Bundle sites. Official reseller and key seller.

• What are those "trains" I've been reading?
  Trains are several giveaways linked to each other.

• How does the community wishlist work? (I've read there is a poll or something but I can't find it)
  That poll thing is deprecated. It's just based on the wish list of all members.

Last but not least: welcome to Steamgifts! :-)

Welcome and meow! =^.^=

Getting to Level 1 is easy - just create one giveaway. Thereafter, higher levels require progressively more giveaways to attain. One piece of advice: before buying a game to giveaway, check that you can actually create a giveaway on Steamgifts, as some games that have been given away for free cannot be used as giveaways here.

Welcome to sg! .-)

EDIT:
some links to start out:
comment formatting: https://www.steamgifts.com/about/comment-formatting
useful scripts: https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/Zevqn/sg-add-ons-registry-list-of-all-scripts-for-sg
puzzlr guide: https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/TLR8m/zelgh-magic-guide-to-basic-sg-puzzling-update-april-2016
games considerd bundled: https://www.steamgifts.com/bundle-games
games you can't create GAs for: https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/pJRbR/can-we-have-a-list-of-games-that-cannot-be-created-as-giveaway-unofficial-list-inside

not sure how good / up-to-date this is, but there is an (unofficial) spanish translation for the FAQ: https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/pw3wr/faq-en-espanol

View attached image.

• A third-party website that acts as a rules checker (not activated wins, multiple wins of the same game), contributor value statistics tracker, and a means to set up limitations on a giveaway the site does not support natively.
• A means to send a forum thread on top for more visibility. I guess since forums are not as commonplace in this Web 2.0 era with emphasis on social platforms and instant messaging, the phrase is not that common.
• Level 1–5 are easy, 6–8 needs some investment, 9–10 is grindy as hell.
• Vast majority of the keys here come from bundles. (At least the commonly visible ones. Steam has certain countries/regions like Russia, China, or Brazil, where the game prices are natively cheaper… a lot cheaper. There are small sub-communities that post games mostly bought this way.) People also buy at authorised resellers, at Steam sales, and even from the grey market. We have a Deals section for your bundle information needs and IsThereAnyDeal.com can help to look for deals on any game at any legit store.
• It means you make a bunch of invite-only giveaways and hide the link for a giveaway inside the description of another giveaway, linking them together to a train. For some unexplained reason, the community likes it.
• It is just an aggregated score on which games are on the largest amount of users' wishlist. Not surprisingly, it is mostly a calendar of which $40+ AAA game was released last and only very vaguely represents what people would actually play. There are exceptions, though. Essentially, you can use it to know what games would be click magnets, but don't expect them to work as an actual means of mass communication; people don't read giveaway descriptions (and I am in the process of proving it with hard data).

welcome! It looks like everyone else has answered your questions already. If you have anymore questions, no matter how small feel free to ask :)

Hope you like it here!

Hi everyone. I'm new as well, ad also have a question that I didn't find the answers for in the FAQ. Maybe someone can give me a quick info on this ?

• I've created 3 gifts from unused bundle keys so far. I created two of them as "gifts" instead of "keys" (didn't really understand the difference at first). How can I transfer the keys to the winner (tomorrow) ? Is there a private message function on this site ?
  Thanks a lot for your answers and sorry for the noobish question !

Just saying WELCOME.to the site.
I havent read all the answers but i am sure that you have all what you wanted.

Hey xirne, welcome to SG!

You've already gotten pretty detailed answers for most stuff so just a couple more things. Here is a thread that has the exact values of what the levels represent, as already mentioned you'll easily reach a certain point over time and after that it gets quite "grindy" and costly. My advice is to generally not obsess over levels here, it'll happen when it'll happen, no reason to go out of your way just to raise them, especially after 4.

Also about the keys question a few people have already mentioned some good sites but I'd just like to add that it doesn't necessarily have to be a key for you to create a GA. You can buy stuff directly from Steam, keep them as gifts in your inventory and either send them to the winner's email or add them and gift directly after the GA's conclusion.

Hope you enjoy your time on SG!

Most people get their keys from HunbleBundle or G2A, they can be aquired from other places too. A lot of people also do steam gift giveaways too, so basically you add the other person and gift it to them. When buying a game on steam, there is an option to store it in your inventory for someone else. HumbleBundle and G2A has the best deals most of the time and HumbleBundle gives out in bundles, buy a game you wanted for less price, giveaway the other spare unwanted keys for someone who wants it. A steam code is basically an alphanumeric code with dashes that activates a game or item on steam upon it's use. Ex: XXXX-XXXX-XXXX-XXXX (Replace the X's with letters and numbers :P .)

Get a game during a sale to really benefit from it, the more the discount the more points you get for less money. If you giveaway a $60 game you bought during a discount or sale, you will still get the normal contribution point from it as if you bought it full priced. Most people do this and also buy the extremely cheap HumbleBundle Bundles.

Welcome to SG, Xirne! (SG doesn't stand for Stargate here)
Out of curiosity, can I ask you how did you discover this place? 🐱

Talgaby alone pretty much covered things well enough, not to mention the other contributions, but I suppose I'll add a bit:

In slang usage, a train is a sequential sequence of linked encounters of similar nature- for giveaways, that means a series of private giveaways linked to each other [by placing a link to a following giveaway within each giveaway in the train until the last one]. An alternate method is to just place all the links for following giveaways in the description of the first giveaway offered, thus allowing people to more quickly access the giveaways they're interested in.
I personally try to only use trains when they make some sense to [ie, if I'm running a narrative between one giveaway and another, and I want them to be read in a specific order].

SGTools is invaluable for filtering out basic rulebreaking [even just setting no restrictions at all can filter out known exploiters, as SGT has its own blacklist for such users, but you can also set checks against non-activations, multi-wins, and Steam VAC bans]. You can also use it to set more complex checks than just SG account level restrictions (such as how my usual SGT rules allow users with few wins or very close win:sent ratios to access my giveaways regardless of their level). This helps you set criteria that better matches your personal expectations of what is 'fair'- or sometimes, just what is the most fun arrangement for an event.

If you've any other questions, feel free to keep asking us, though you should probably continue to read through the site Help pages, as they do cover a significant amount of detail on how the site works [including detailing what each account level requires].

Since everyone already answered everything, I just want to say... welcome to Steamgifts! :D

As it is pretty common for new users to forget to do so (and in turn ending up doing things wrong and getting banned), I also want to point out that new users should probably read the FAQ and Guidelines. Once that's done, you'll not only know lots of cool features about Steamgifts, but you'll also avoid the risk of doing anything that may affect you negatively.

With that said I hope you'll have fun here, and thanks for checking out the forum!

this is a [bump](https://cdn0.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/bhTrQ2hpN1SC1FJkO-_jeqlRTN0=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/4088360/Screen_Shot_2015-09-22_at_8.50.16_PM.0.png)

my formatting is tired today... anyway, have this link as well:
https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/dsq6C/discussions-that-should-never-go-away-aka-sg-bookmarks