Suggesting a way to join without an invite.

If people would have to do a giveaway to join the site, it would be like buying themselves in.
I think this was discussed before at some point, I think I remember people saying that it would not be confirm with the sites "spirit".

Although it would maybe take care of the faker-problem in some way.

How about this:

1. Get invite code to gain full access to the website

2. Giveaway games with total value of over $100 to gain full access to the website, until then, points will remain 0

This would probably actually help filter out people like me, which as far as I can tell from reading the forums, are the scum of the earth and should be euthanized unless coerced into creating a giveaway.

I think the simplest (and probably best) option is to restrict invites to people who gift games.

It keeps the 'spririt of the site' in that people don't have to gift in order to participate. People who can't or won't gift games will still be able to enter giveaways, so it won't turn into an elitist gift-swapping site (that's what private giveaways are for :P ), and it won't put an explicit price-tag on joining the site which in my opinion is a terrible idea.

It will however allow more control over who joins the site (the people who contribute most to the site get the biggest say in who joins) and prevents things like dozens of people all inviting each other with little intention of contributing (coughRussianscough), or people creating secondary accounts that just sit there and generate invites allday erryday. It also gives a reward to gifters that doesn't unbalance anyone's chance of winning something, unlike the idea of giving gifters extra points.

A system of "every $X gifted allows you to generate 1 invite" would be very beneficial in my opinion, and would be less abuseable than the current system.

No, this can and WILL be exploited...I don't care what anyone says. Invites are the best way and I swear, someone sells invites or randomly posts them to people. I will be their worst damn nightmare.
How will this be exploited? They can do a fake giveaway, more than likely private, make a friend join and say they got it, done deal. What makes you think that they wont?

This would cause a massive amount of fake giveaways from people trolling the website. Terrible Idea.

hilarious.
people pushing for "you must give away $100 to join" haven't given that much themselves.

Lets be honest.. the most giveaways are Portal/Humble Bundle. If this becomes public we wont get a thousand people per day but a few thousand. And the giveaways wont change. It is friendly of the people who are giving away games of course. It may not be fair but this won't last long with fakes,always the same giveaways, and if there is something new, there are already thousands of entrys.
Is is defenetly nice to see a page becoming more popular.. but not if most people join and troll with fake giveaways.
One thing defenetly has to changed I think. The $ limit you have to join with has to be bigger. Most people who own steam , own most Valve games and that's already around 50$ or what the limit is. That's why this page gets so many people per day.

Keep in mind, that we need poor leechers to boost the site numbers. That makes our ad space worth more which means more sponsored giveaways from good games that everyone wants and not just giveaways from other users that have an extra copy of portal around. If someone is willing to give away a game though. odds are they are a better member already than a lot of the beggars we have seen.

1. Giveaway private games for 100$
2. Accomplice inside wins as only entry and mark them received
3. Acquire membership
4. ?????
5. Profit

Am I reading this right? "force people to give away a game before they get an invite"

I like it. It would definatly stop invite point farming and make more giveaways.

I think this is a lovely idea.
Either that or just make codes easier to get.