What's your thought on gofundme and similar links?
They aren't allowed as thread and in GA descriptions because none on sg can check if the stuff are true or not.
Comment has been collapsed.
If you see Gofundme links on SG please report them as they are not allowed(not in the discussion board, not in GA descriptions, not anywhere) as mentioned by Masafor.
Comment has been collapsed.
One polish, similar - reported one in a chain of such giveaways - staff can look into it I guess.
Comment has been collapsed.
Thank you for submitting a ticket. My level can't view them so once someone at a higher level sees it I'm sure they'll address it.
Comment has been collapsed.
Unfortunately user reports usually take a very long time to get addressed unless a support member see this thread and looks for the report. The user currently have 50 active giveaways asking for money in the description and another 50 that have already ended.
Also, it would also be nice if the site guidelines were more accurate. There are so many rules that are stated wrong or completely missing from the guidelines. The last update to the guidelines made things worse. I saw these giveaways a while ago, but thought it was allowed in giveaway descriptions just like almost everything else is allowed in the description. The rules specifically state that is is not allowed to ask for donations for the promise of future giveaways. I would rather it wasn't allowed at all because it's often a scam meant to guilt or pity people into giving money.
Comment has been collapsed.
I definitely agree that in needs to be updated to be more clear as these things aren't allowed anywhere on SG regardless of the reason. I've made a thread about this subject in the support discussion boards so the support staff can discuss this.
Comment has been collapsed.
I didn't know support had private discussions boards. Thanks :)
Comment has been collapsed.
BBR and Lugum wrote about me. TBH I didn't find anything against the descriptions I used in my last 100 GAs in the community guidelines or ToS. We now base the service rules on some random opinions from forums? I even asked about it in a support ticket, sadly with no response whatsoever:
https://www.steamgifts.com/support/ticket/xyHD7/lancet
We need precise rules in the HELP documents, cg should look into it and update them I suppose.
Comment has been collapsed.
Number 15 under the "User Content" in the guidelines is the rule that talks about collecting money etc. and it not being allowed.
Collecting money, items, or games for giveaways, lotteries, or group access. For example, asking users to donate a few dollars, with the promise of giving away a valuable game once adequate funds have been raised. Or, asking users to personally send you games and items for an event. Or, requiring users to send you annual fees to participate in your Steam group.
To my understanding as told to me by an Ultra Moderator SG has never allowed money gathering in any shape or form anywhere on the site, whether it be in discussion boards or in giveaway descriptions, so the links in yours need to be removed please.
As far as your ticket, I'm unable to see that at my level so one of the higher members of support staff will need to address it.
Comment has been collapsed.
Erm, I never did promise anything anywhere in SG for "giveaways, lotteries, or group access" or in fact for anything other in this rule nor did I ever asked for anything here in "barter" of any kind. In fact I gave away quite a few games through those years here and never asked for anything in return or didn't ever make any special requirements to win a gift from me. Please precisely cite the rule or part of it regarding my awful behavior and I will comply.
Edit:
Went through the ToS and community guidelines and I still don't see one rule against my late GAs descriptions. Even though I don't want to get banned I think, so if SG staff will decide that I broke the rules please give me time to edit those descriptions, I'm not here 24h/day and it will surely take some time to edit. Maybe mods have tools to mass-edit them all at once since they are all identical?
Edit no.2:
I edited all my GAs descriptions, as far as I know I didn't miss one. Closed the support ticket too. Still, my opinion above stands, you SG support guys should revise the site rules, make them more specific, with a blessing from cg. Have a nice day :-)
Comment has been collapsed.
I saw mainly 1 person last week that did a bunch of giveaways with the same kind of request.
Comment has been collapsed.
i see also 1 strange discussion with strange link for download music and i report it too but i was not able understand if that violate faq or not,because strang link not understand if legit or not.
Comment has been collapsed.
I read a news article this morning that states people that lost their jobs because they refused to get vaccinated are setting up these and begging for money to help pay their bills.
Comment has been collapsed.
Gotta watch out for the Nano spybot-shots. Gogo antivaxers!
Btw can you spare a few bucks? I suddenly have a craving for batteries 😮
Comment has been collapsed.
I hate beggars and I hate antivaxxers, guess such people would meet my dark side. At work we have 40yeared antivaxxer, she goes mad of it, many times rude yelled at me for wearing face mask, kept sending to everyone these "scientic sites articles" calling covid fake set by goverment. As I personally knew two good people who died in first wave, I considered that as idiot move.
And about SG, maybe he should start save money instead of buying games to giveaway them..
Comment has been collapsed.
Ask her if she'd rather you coughed in her face directly?
Comment has been collapsed.
I actually donated to a Gofundme once, and I will honestly never do it again.
I knew the girl I donated to. I had been going through BS myself in real life, so had been out of work at this stage for a while. She created the account complete with sob videos from her friends and such. Oh, sure, her story was true, she did have a rare illness. However, the money was not for her treatment as she claimed. It was for a lavish holiday where she stayed at a Trump hotel and bought Burberry handbags and posted it all on Facebook. I said nothing, but I unfriended her because she had no idea how much that actually hurt me. Other friends did the same. It was them who pointed me to look at Facebook.
Here I was in a mess myself. I could barely move because I was in so much pain and I was on a public waiting list. (I was on that list for a total of 2 years because I couldn't afford private healthcare at that time.) I thought this girl needed the money more than I did. Going private, my surgery was going to cost €13,500 and I was in the process of taking out a loan to pay for it and I had been saving my illness pay from work to try and raise credit. I was so furious because I needed the money way more than she did, and there was no way I was going to beg the internet for money. Some people are so friggen entitled.
Comment has been collapsed.
I think more often it's people who are in need that give to others.
Comment has been collapsed.
Indeed, that can be true in some cases. Not a problem when the need is genuine. When it's not, it just stings a bit.
Comment has been collapsed.
my surgery was going to cost €13,500
Sure, America is famous for the extraordinary 3rd world problems but I don't think this was one of them. Trump Hotel though sounds American but that currency symbol has me looping. (´･_･｀)
Comment has been collapsed.
Oh, I'll explain. I'm Irish, and I was the one taking out the loan for €13,500, so I could go private instead of staying on the public waiting list. I was NOT doing a gofundme campaign. I was diagnosed in 2017 and didn't have my surgery til 2019 when I went the private route. Lots of people were in the same boat as me. The waiting list for neurosurgery is insane. I had a prolapsed disc, so while not life threatening, it's incredibly painful. I did not feel entitled to beg off others.
That American girl who was doing the Gofundme was doing it for entitled reasons. I forget what she said her surgery cost. Yes, she absolutely had a serious illness that caused her a lot of pain and needed surgery to correct it. But turns out she was from a wealthy family, didn't need the money and used it for selfish reasons. She had her surgery pretty quickly and is now fine.
Oh and you know what makes it even worse? I was admin of a website and I allowed her to post the gofundme link because the community knew her for years and her videos were really convincing. She even got her hairdresser to talk about her on camera and what helping her would do and how it would change her life. Gah. Some things are just so maddening.
Comment has been collapsed.
Reminds me of that one trans dev that opened a gofundme for some sort of lead poisoning in their blood (?) but they wanted to use the money instead to get a sex change
Comment has been collapsed.
Wow. That was really stupid of them. If they had just told the truth, many people would probably have helped anyway without the notoriety that comes with lying.
Comment has been collapsed.
Now even people posting airbnb links, i believe this is getting out of hand now.
Comment has been collapsed.
Lol, i seen the same and i am not sure, in that case, if it is allowed or not.
Comment has been collapsed.
I am almost pretty sure it isn't allowed else it be open to all sorts of commercialized crap.
Comment has been collapsed.
Still, ppl advertise here their games, YouTube channels and other crap for like years...of course SEO, internet advertising, social media spread, making Steam scripts liking your product better by asking for wishlisting, so more ppl will see your game on the main Steam page or in the friends activity feed, all that is not related to money, completely altruistic ;-) I'm a bad beggar tho, I get it.
I love how the ppl most disgusted with what I done, in this thread, calling me a beggar and talking stupid things, comparing me to some vaccine and COVID non-believers and whatnot are a long time leeches. Pillars of this community! Think what you want, ban me if you have to. I kinda liked SG over the years, met some nice ppl here and would rather want to stay but we reap what we sow. I just want to say that it wasn't a scam, I know the lady and her cat(-s - at some point she had 9 of them, all rescued, strays) personally and also contributed my own money which anyone can easily verify by comparing my Steam account info with the list of contributions. That's why I decided to help her also in this way and I'm kinda sad that it gained such a backlash here. I have no regrets though, kitty have her operation planned on the end of this month and I will write about it here, probably with some photos, after hopefully successful procedure. Maybe not if SG gods will ban me. We will see.
Comment has been collapsed.
ppl advertise here their games, YouTube channels
Do you really compare promoting self-made content to asking for money, or to sharing airbnb links?
Comment has been collapsed.
Yeah, why not? You want money for yourself, so you advertise on SG and that's OK, I want money for a life saving surgery of a cat, so I promote it on SG and that's bad. It's pretty simple, really. Rules should be more precise and I mean written rules in ToS and community guidelines of SG and not some random mutterings in the forum and I also think they should be equal for all. What's the difference if you "beg" to buy your game or advertise it for free, YouTube channel or any other crap or to help some cat? It's still just asking for a SG users' money in one way or another.
Comment has been collapsed.
You want money for yourself
vs
It's still just asking for a SG users' money
There is a huge difference between making videos, and getting (any?) money for it from youtube, and just exclaiming USERS, GIVE ME MONEY as it is with gofundme.
One is promoting a product that one can consume for either free (youtube, twitch) or buy if preferred (etchy and such, games) the other one is directly asking for our money because "that's the nice thing", opening up opportunities for emotional or moral blackmailing, which is generally unwelcome.
You only ignoring the part when one is a free choice on people's part, and the other is based on guilting people into giving money in an intrusive and spammy fashion.
What's the difference if you "beg" to buy your game or advertise it for free, YouTube channel or any other crap or to help some cat?
It's troublesome if you see those equal. Like one involves a game that one can buy for money, an exchange of goods. The other is a free product that one can watch and doesn't inherently involves money, and the third is asking for money in a quite one-sided way.
There are distinct differences, if you're not adamant on willfully ignoring them.
Comment has been collapsed.
No mate, you got me wrong. I work on contract, do my thing - get paid for it. Developer doesn't have a contract with me but still he goes on SG and asks me for free, active advertising of his product by wishlisting or following it on Steam, which in return gives him sales boost there, I don't have to even buy it. The same mechanism goes with any other kind of "free" advertising here. It's really no different. I don't find it any better than straight up asking for "free" money, like in the gofundme-type events. You may be not interested in one's game, content, whatever, but by the way the e-commerce works that person already gained even if you didn't buy/wishlist/follow/like, etc., just by clicking his link or even just by posting it here (Google indexing service, SEO). I don't argue about a fact that it may be bad or good in general but about standards - they IMO should be the same for everyone, equal. So we just straight up prohibit anything even remotely commercial on whole SG or we allow more freedom and be precise in the rules.
Oh, about that emotional blackmailing part. Every person has different sensibility. I know a person who feels pity for indie devs all the time. That person comes on SG, sees poor indie dev giving away a few copies of his new game and asking for wishlisting, following and whatnot, and he not only buys this game even though it's from genre he hates but also does what the dev asked for, so promotes it on Steam for free and few of that person's friends buy the game too. It's allright to me but still no different than straight asking for money and also includes "blackmail" ("I gave a few games away on Steam, so advertise my product for free please" - you are a terrible person if you joined the GA and didn't at least wishlist the game ;-)). I hope that now I made it clear.
Maybe whole SG just should be clear, maybe only events, promotions accepted by cg should be allowed (even for some monetary gain) or maybe there should be some freedom but strictly pointed in the SG rules (for example only in GA descriptions with some reservations or in a dedicated subforum?).
Comment has been collapsed.
These things are not the same.
If someone has worked hard to create an amazing game and shares it here on SG, that's cool. At the end of the day, if they made some asset flip, they are going to get torn apart in the reviews, but if it's genuinely good and we buy it, we are getting an actual product for our money and some hours of enjoyment.
If someone advertises their Youtube channel or Steam group here, it's not costing me or you anything.
If someone posts a sob story about their pet cat, or their own leg falling off and wants money to fix it, how do we know that they're telling the truth? We don't know them. Why should we give them money to probably go on the sort of holiday that maybe none of us could ever afford to do? I'm not saying you are doing that, but you see my point? I made a post further up on why I will never donate to an online gofundme again. The person was an online friend who I am no longer in contact with. I have donated to causes since then, but they were local people who I knew were in need. Like, a man who needed an electric wheelchair. The town held fundraisers to get it for him. Things like that. But online sob stories from strangers? No. And they should never be allowed on sites like this.
Comment has been collapsed.
I agree but hey, let it be clear in the site rules! If you were wondering - I know the cat lady in person, visited her home on several occasions, not an online sob story - to me.
Comment has been collapsed.
Isn't advertising your game or Youtube channel more like offering people a service? Yeah, you'd get money out of it, but they are also getting something out of it. And if the service you're offering is... not good, then people will ignore it and you get nothing.
Meanwhile stuff like GoFundMe don't really immediately offer anything back. Yeah, if it's legit it could give you some emotional relief later... but it could also easily be a lie. You have absolutely no way of knowing.
While there is some overlap (scams exist everywhere and so do legit stuff), you can't really say that the two situations are the same. One is offering something now while the other one is pinky-swear-maybe offering some outcome in the future.
As for if it should be allowed on SteamGifts or not... well, it's complicated. While it's not really SG's job to protect people from scams, this site is, in essence at least, a donations site. Y'know, people are donating games to strangers and (numbers that some put way more value on than they should notwithstanding) don't expect anything in return (a bit of hypocrisy here from me since I do very much prefer for the winner to play the game XD ). So, in general it's expected that SG users are more willing to donate stuff to others than average.. which would make them prime targets for begging and scams that involve begging. So, y'know, it makes sense to protect SteamGifts users from that stuff.
Like imagine if mobile games with lootboxes had ads for casinos in them. Wouldn't that be horrifying?... Oh... ooohhh.... well, shit.
Edit: Ugh, of course this took me so long to write that others already said the same thing. Sorry for the spam. T.T
Comment has been collapsed.
Great opinion, really. I think that it should be allowed but with strict limits or completely forbidden minus promotion accepted by cg, for example when a service/product/content creator asks him directly, probably paying him too. It's not as "free" as some ppl here think it is. Anyway, actual rules IMO are not precise and need to be changed.
Some opinions here made me chuckle. Watching Twitch, YouTube, etc. is free, so it's not the same. That's why you have 3 different kind of premium users on YouTube and most ppl pay for Spotify, even though you have a "free" tier. SEO, online advertising, data collection, everything is free. Oh god, just kill me. All is free and Google, Facebook, etc. are one of the biggest and most rich companies on the globe with almost all their income from those "free" things :-D
Comment has been collapsed.
I don't see that big difference between youtube channel and airbnb links...
Giving away game you are advertising is at least somewhere in line with spirit of the site. Maybe even earlier games in series. Different titles start to enter same territory
Comment has been collapsed.
One big difference, I think, is the option and ease with which to 'refund' the action. I can take back a sub on channel, I can dislike a spammy video, and I can remove a game from my wishlist at any time. All of these are quick, easy, and can be done at any time. You can't really do that for gofundme or airbnb links and that is where it makes me uncomfortable. The action requested, once completed, is final and immutable. If you support a gofundme and it hits its goal, your money is spent; if you book an airbnb and use it, you'll have to go through arbitration if you want your money back.
The problem comes, as Shannon demonstrated, when someone falsely advertises themselves. A person lied and omitted info from their gofundme and that person's supporters feel not only betrayed but helpless. The airbnb could have falsely advertised themselves to unsuspecting people on the internet. Either way, the money is spent, the favor oftentimes irreversible; and I can't help but feel that is going a bit too far. You can't take back either of these examples without going through hoops, and that is wholly unreasonable for what is basically a favor for a stranger.
Comment has been collapsed.
I never implied yours was a scam nor did i mentioned you by name, normally i would just ignore these kind of things but now that we get cats, the sympathy for me to it has grown.
However to whatever you compare it, or if your case is indeed legit or not, it does not matter, because the next could not be legit, and to root that all out the decision has been made that any gofundme are not allowed.
And that it isn't allowed was said also by a staff member to report such cases.
You most likely get of with a suspension, but you might probably even do it again, as long as you can't grasp how there is a whole difference to promoting self-made content vs asking for money or sharing airbnb links and the likes.
Comment has been collapsed.
Nah, I read the short bits, and what i suggested earlier, you simply just don't want to get it.
Stuff you all said after what i said btw, nothing changes, you still get suspended, if staff is awake enough and enough reporting you.
Rules are rules. i am not happy with some either, but if we want to stick on this site, we gotta accept them.
Comment has been collapsed.
Suspension is irrelevant to me, just hope that it will not be a permanent ban because I still am a bit nostalgic about SG and that site staff will make some better, more precise rules, tidy up the ToS and community guidelines in the HELP section because as far as I am concerned writing some "rules" in the forums in random threads, as it is now going, is not a right way.
Comment has been collapsed.
Noone is writing rules in any forum, it's pretty clear in the faq/rules itself.
Comment has been collapsed.
Yeah, it is so clear that FateOfOne (Junior Moderator) wrote above about community guidelines on the subject:
I definitely agree that in needs to be updated to be more clear as these things aren't allowed anywhere on SG regardless of the reason. I've made a thread about this subject in the support discussion boards so the support staff can discuss this.
Sounds clear and legit, so clear in fact that he as a moderator had to make a thread about it in the mods/admin forum to ask about opinions :->
He also wrote then:
Number 15 under the "User Content" in the guidelines is the rule that talks about collecting money etc. and it not being allowed.
Collecting money, items, or games for giveaways, lotteries, or group access. For example, asking users to donate a few dollars, with the promise of giving away a valuable game once adequate funds have been raised. Or, asking users to personally send you games and items for an event. Or, requiring users to send you annual fees to participate in your Steam group.
To my understanding as told to me by an Ultra Moderator SG has never allowed money gathering in any shape or form anywhere on the site, whether it be in discussion boards or in giveaway descriptions, so the links in yours need to be removed please.
Sorry but I didn't do even one thing mentioned in this rule, cited straight from the official guidelines. I didn't promise anything and I didn't ask for anything in exchange for any GAs, lotteries, group access, games, items, etc. Didn't ever asked for any fees either ;-) Then, as you can see a moderator is writing his opinions or telling us about an opinion on the subject of other, higher ranked moderator but those are not parts of the written, official rules outside the random forum threads like this one we are writing in.
I think that you have never read official rules here at all, sorry :-P
Comment has been collapsed.
Oh come on ... donation stuff are Collecting money and that was listed from the mod in Number 15.
the only "unclear" thing is if that counts only for threads or for threads and GA descriptions because in the GA descriptions are in general more allowed as in threads.
But that had different, Ultra Mods and Senior Mods, answered in the past with "gofundme stuff aren't allowed everywhere".
Of course should that be added in the rules to make it waterproof and 100% crystal clear to each one.
Comment has been collapsed.
I don't agree, every rule, law, etc. has to be taken in whole, not some part of it. You have there:
Collecting money, items, or games for giveaways, lotteries, or group access
And then some more examples, none of which applies to my situation. Saying "I give a cake to everyone" has totally different meaning than saying "I give a cake to everyone for 5$ a piece", don't you agree? Especially when you have examples also in the rule. As I said many times already in this thread, I'm not interested in opinions stated in some random forum threads by moderators of any rank. All official rules are written outside of forums, heck, one could never go into forums and use SG happily. Rules are as they are and all signed by cg himself and not by some random moderators from random forum threads who come and go as years pass.
Comment has been collapsed.
You don't want to understand it.
Discuss it with the mods....
Ps.: I strongly assume that cg don't wrote all the rules.
Comment has been collapsed.
You are entirely missing the point mate. Discussion on my part isn't a proof of my misunderstanding. BTW, I did try to discuss it with the mods, you can see that even in this thread, above. I also made a support ticket. No one gives a damn though so I rant a bit here. Probably will get bored sooner than later ;-)
PS It doesn't really matter, he is a sole admin though and his name is under every official doc here.
Comment has been collapsed.
Literally no one allows private gofundme collections on their websites because of the potential for fraud. I don't know why you are so adamant that it should be allowed. "Collecting money" pretty much covers it. Maybe it needs to be bullet pointed instead of in a sentence to make that crystal clear.
Rules are generally written broadly on purpose to cover all eventualities. You make them too specific, people will exploit that and say "but it didn't exactly say that." And that is exactly what you are doing right now. You are trying to exploit the wording of the rules, even though you know you are in the wrong. I know people do this. I wrote rules for a couple of forum websites myself and knew to keep them relatively vague so people can't look for loopholes. Sometimes you have to update them when an asshole does find a gap, but that's how the cookie crumbles.
How about you just let it go and accept that it's not allowed.
Comment has been collapsed.
I am an asshole now? I'm pretty sure that calling me that is against the community guidelines. Good to know your true colors mate.
Oh, few years back I was also a forum global moderator, server admin and site editor on popular then in Poland gaming community. We allowed sometimes actions like that. Even now I know forums where such activity is allowed, of course with certain restrictions. I'm not adamant that it should be allowed here but that it is not well regulated. I said earlier, rules should be clear and IMO everything should be prohibited or if something is allowed it should be precisely stated in the rules. I still don't know why asking for free advertising is any better than "begging" for money. Not even one person in this thread did make a logical argument against that.
I accepted that I'll probably get a suspension, not a big deal. That's not what I'm writing about in this thread.
Comment has been collapsed.
Shannon did not call you an asshole. They are making a generalized example. Does not matter though, you already know you are wrong and just write here now for the hell of it.
Comment has been collapsed.
Saying that I bend the rules and then calling a person who does exactly that (in Shannon's opinion) an asshole isn't basically calling me an asshole? Interesting idea mate, gives a pretty wide range of possibilities to offend ppl without consequences. I have different standards of communication though but suit yourself ;-)
Comment has been collapsed.
Oh grow up. I didn't call YOU an asshole specifically. That was a general statement.
Comment has been collapsed.
Read my response above to Serale. I don't feel like commenting more, write as you see fit but don't give me bullshit like that, I'm too old for that. Have a wonderful day mate!
Comment has been collapsed.
Well yes number 15 could be clearer, and i did even adress it before (which usually falls on deaf ears).
Collecting money, items, or games for giveaways, lotteries, or group access can be taken very broadly, and depends how you interpretered it, you can also just read collecting money.. end. The given examples might make it look different.
But take it from people that are here longer it just simply isn't allowed, period,
Comment has been collapsed.
Wait airbnb?
Sure anyone wanna sleepover?
I'm kinda curious what is really was about.
Comment has been collapsed.
Someone struggling financially (what's new) so their relative got a airbnb registered, and if anyone ever wanted to go to Greece, they be'd sure to check x pages.
On a sidenote, people are using fake airbnb's, i saw on the news here, people came to a holiday here (someone from Sweden or Switzerland even fell in the same scam 3 times...) and the owner of the house didn't know anything about having put up his house for hire. Because it was all done through third party scammers. The scammers abused his adress and photos from other houses.
Comment has been collapsed.
Some are scams some are not, honestly a person cannot really tell unless they know the person even then it could be someone else using their pictures.
Comment has been collapsed.
Maybe you should consider closing thread and let Lancelot solve it with admins. Since 99% users are just losers wanting free stuff and not reading single word, he will raise there more insults than money anyway.
Comment has been collapsed.
Pretty much anyone can create a gofundme, and come up with some sad story,. they were all the rage on facebook and pretty much anywhere several years ago Usually they included some stock photo of a girl or guy in the hospital and unable to pay their hospital bill, or some kid who wants to ride a bike but can't afford it,. Most of these are scams however,.
And it seems they've finally reached Steamgifts.
I've been seeing a rather, significant increase in such links over the last few weeks - has anyone looked into these deeper?
Should such links be outlawed much like referral links are, since it involves money begging? Or left alone as long as they are only posted on giveaways?
Comment has been collapsed.