Why it's important to assume people are decent

i personally buy gifts for here during the sale, not because it raises my contributer score easier, but because that way i can get an extra copy

Good point.

Don't hate the player, hate the game.

Fine, you're pretty much telling us to give these people "the benefit of the doubt," but I have a question for you: What would cause your doubts to vanish? What would make you change your mind and think "hey, these people are in fact abusing the system"?

I understand that you're an optimistic, but I suppose that your tolerance has a limit too, right?

[EDIT: Just so everyone else knows, the only 'abuser' I personally refer to is the one who obtains a contributor status from freely obtainable games that everyone can have if said 'abuser' had the decency to share that information in the forums]

I totally agree with you. We got from point where this is site for giving away free games, to point where this is a site where lot of people's concern is how much did contributor pay. I personally buy games at discounts for SG and for myself, because I cannot afford to buy them at full prices. If they shouldn't be given away because of that, then they won't, but I'm not convinced that is the case. Discounts are here for everyone, not just for some people, so everyone has same opportunity, if contributor value is what they are concerned about.

Bundles and free games can be abused, but ET3D explained that better.

Thank you for this post, I was planning to write something similar, but yours has everything I wanted to say.

I am not decent

Hate gaben. He's the root cause of all this xD

Fact is, it's a site where people give away free stuff. Whether they do so for fun or with some ulterior motive shouldn't matter. Of course people are going to be more likely to give away games on sale. If it wasn't for the contributor value, it's simply for the fact that you can give away more expensive games at a less high price. Why would someone care if the game they won cost the gifter $50 or $10? It's still the same game. Quite a few games I've given away were on sale as well. All it means is that I can do giveaways more frequently than if I bought everything at full price, since I really don't have infinite money.

I mean, if it's about exploited keys or something like that I agree that they shouldn't be allowed to benefit from it, but other than that everything is fair game as far as I care.

As dieselguy points out, all this complaining makes it seem like the site is more about how much money someone has spent than about people giving away free games.

i agree with you, really, all the hate to free things (and for the offers right now in steam) are not just anoying, are really bad or this community...

You talk about the importance of assuming that everybody has good intentions, yet you repeatedly call those who don't share that point of view "cynics" and their point of view "cynical", while in most cases they might be just people that worry about the status of the site and simply don't want to see people abusing the system.

Not really preaching by example here, man.

I was going to purchase a few games to giveaway but after all the posts by people complaining about others abusing the system by giving away games. I have decided that at this time holding a give away is not worth my time or money because there are entirely to many people complaining about the games being given away.

Argument from emotion, argument from ignorance, ambiguity, and slippery-slope fallacy are all present here, as well as exaggerated generalizations. Moreover, I'm not seeing even point one that even claims to support your premise--instead, you seem to actually be arguing "Why assumed abusers might not actually be".

I bought 500 Skyrim copies but now I feel bad to give them away.

I don't assume people are decent.

I hate everybody equally.