Yes, entering deleted giveaways now adds to your entry number, and I think estimated wins was gotten rid of to save bandwidth.
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Considering it required a not-insignificant database trawl to retrieve the number of giveaways you'd entered, count the number of entrants in each, and do the math, I'd be willing to bet it was far more significant than that.
SteamGifts, so far as I know, doesn't make much money. We aren't talking high-end blade servers, here. We're talking Virtual Machines on a strict budget, or perhaps a real (likely low-end) server or farm. The database is growing quickly, too, with ~1k giveaways ending per day (IIRC). As the number of giveaways goes up, the time required to search even a well-indexed table of giveaways will increase. It must then join those to the table of entries.
In short, it likely takes the database a significant fraction of a second to calculate this each time the profile page is hit, just so we can bitch about having 3.99 estimated wins, and only winning 2 free games.
Source: I'm a web developer who works with databases and data-driven sites day-in, day-out.
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They should have just said it was a totally useless statistic that doesn't really make any sense.
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But it's not a useless statistic and it's basic probability.
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It was a statistic with no use, hence its a useless statistic. Since each giveaway has an independent probability, our estimated wins didn't mean a thing. Sure, over a long enough period, it should balance out so our estimated wins and our actual wins are close, but there aren't nearly enough data points for most people to have that happen. There are plenty with far more wins than their estimate, and there are people who are lagging far behind their estimates.
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"There are plenty with far more wins than their estimate, and there are people who are lagging far behind their estimates."
It follows a normal distribution. Also, can you argue then CV is a useless statistic?
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Same here. Cant even distinguish which features are vanilla SG and which are SG+.
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I always liked having that stat. It let me know how much of a failure I am. I was already lagging behind my estimated wins when the stat went away, and considering I haven't won anything in almost two months, I'm sure it far far worse now. Its darkly amusing. :)
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In the beginning Cg created Steamgifts and Steamtrades. Now Steamgifts was formless and empty, the forum was empty, and Cg was hovering over his keyboard.
And Cg said, “Let there be forum replies,” and there were replies. Cg saw that the replies were good, and he separated Steamgifts from Steamtrades. Cg called a feature “Replies,” and the other he called “Estimated Win.” And there were gifts, and there were users—the first day.
And Cg said, “Let there be a limit between the giveaways to separate beggars from givers.” So Cg made the contribution value and separated the beggars from the givers. And it was so. Cg called these giveaways “CV requirement.” And there were more users, and there were giveaways—the second day.
And Cg said, “Let the users create giveaways.” And it was so. Cg called some giveaways “Private,” and the group only giveaways he called “Group Giveaway.” And Cg saw that it was good.
But now Cg removed Estimated wins, he removed replies, and now I'm sad. :"(
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Only to be replaced by people crying because they've entered 100-200 giveaways and not won yet. Estimated wins might've stopped some of those but either way people are going to cry. SG can't win.
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Not "should have won", estimated wins was more like how many probability says you probably should have won. I have a feeling people were too upset not knowing that distinction that it had to be removed.
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Wasn't there once a line in the profile called "estimated wins" which did display the games you "should" have won compared with your entries?
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