Private Messaging Feature

This suggestion was made multiple times over the last years.
The owner of sg (cg) don't done something and i am absolute sure it will not be done in the future too.

And your winner that visit the site multiple times a day but don't react on his win etc., will be most likely a autojoiner, the most of them check after 4 - 7 days their wins.

You can add them on steam.
Or reroll and blacklist.

If people dont notice they won a game now, they wont notice if you sent them a message on the site either.
As masa pointed out - probably an autojoiner, so dont feel back about not sending the key.

If someone (lets pretend not bot user) manage to overlook wining notification pop up and then red flashing 1 at trophy icon, I doubt they would notice red 1 at messages.

I fully understand why private messaging isn’t a feature, as I wouldn’t want someone to be able to message me privately.
They can still do it publicly on one of my previous wins or giveaways (and if they can’t do that, then they must be blacklisted, lol).
As for the giveaway… it’s really unfortunate, but I tried to warn you 😕😅

i read through some replies here and looking at the games that still need to be activated ... so my 2 cents

so far i can see only 2 of your giveaways that are still awaiting feedback
Dragon Age II: Ultimate Edition - ended 1 day and 16h ago
River City Girls 2 - ended 11hours ago.

first of all, both of them only just ended recently. 1 day ago is really not much of a time that would require being concerned.

second, neither GA has any form of description that tells anyone that this is supposed to be a steam gift. so the winner may very well be waiting for you to finally send the key through the SG-own system. since he doesnt know any better he may not know that he is supposed to check for a friend invite on steam to get his win.
also not everyone checks steam often, maybe only to actually play, at home, at their PC, when they're not busy with other stuff. SG can be accessed through the phone as well, so coming online multiple times per day but not so much on steam is very well normal and doesnt mean they are a bot. though its still possible.
btw... a lot of ppl are vary of accepting "random" steam invites from ppl in case it could be some scammer.

i would suggest doing the following (if you havent alreeady done so).
if your winner has made GAs himself, then comment on one of their GAs - like someone else already suggested - and explains whats up. that way they will receive a notification and understand why you wont send a key :P
update your GA description with the fact that its being given away through steam and that the winner needs to accept your friend request. better do this for all the other GAs that are still on-going/awaiting feedback and you are also giving away through steam. hopefully your other winners will see the description and know what they'll have to do

In my opinion, the system would be automatically abused so much by haters (that would then be banned) that it would reduce the number of active users and boost the ratio of bots using the site.

Private messaging for contributors isn't exactly needed as they are provided with the winner's email. This offloads the necessity of granting some access to private messages in cases of abuse, which of course can lead to its own abuse.

That being said, providing people's emails brings their own problems. There really isn't a reason why I still have access to people's emails years after the giveaway I made was marked received. Once it is marked as received it should be removed. That would solve potential problems if someone's account got hacked, for example one of the dev accounts with thousands of giveaways. Another potential problem would be someone posing as a dev and doing one of the massive giveaways, not sure what protections are in place there.

A public message board could be added to everyone's profile. It could then be easily moderated and that would allow everyone to be contacted in case they haven't done a giveaway or left a comment you can find.

Cheers for any suggestions, guys, but there's no need to offer them anymore. Over the past day I've learnt a lot more about SteamGifts, including but not limited to its administration and its culture, and let's just say that my favourable opinion has taken a 180.

I know that some people will oppose my viewpoints here because of their loyalty to the site and I get that, but are you really happy being a contributor to a site that treats you like a second-class citizen while opportunistic botters reap all of the rewards? And how the site is working against you because of an admin who doesn't wish to develop a fairer system (he already developed an anti-autojoiner system but deactivated it), probably because he's simply happy with the advertisement and Fanatical revenue. The real heroes here - including many of you - are treated like crap.

I haven't been here actively for long. I think I've given away a decent amount of games, but honestly it feels empty when they're claimed by people who run scripts en masse. People have come up with workarounds for the autojoiners (such as a placeholder giveaway that contains a link to the real invite giveaway) but it seems they may be penalised for trying to do the right thing. I joined SteamGifts because giving away games to friends or acquaintances directly can be a bit awkward. You won't always find people who want what you're offering, it can take a while, and maybe they think you want something in return. The anonymity of SteamGifts is appealing, but the system is marred by bad actors who wish to scoop up everything, including games they'd never touch with a bargepole in reality.

That's about the end of my little rant. I expect I'll be banned soon for one reason or another. It's been an interesting if slightly frustrating past few days and I'm glad that I was able to give games to at least some genuine people. But I'm not a fan of how things work here so I'll choose other means of this goodwill in future.

Thanks and good luck everybody.

Your winner is a Bot aka Autojoiner.
And I am vehemently against a private message function, it will only result in flame wars and insults if you look at the trajectory this community has taken for several years.

this is fun.

You should indicate in description of giveaways that this is a gift and the winner needs to be added on Steam. SG users love to win games, but they don't always have time or opportunity to play, so they may not log into Steam very often. User is probably just waiting for the key. When you win a giveaway, it is displayed by a notification on top, and when the giver sends the key, this notification flashes.

… and this is why people give mainly bundle leftovers…
It hurts less when you’ve not spent a lot of money.

You kinda need to be patient when it comes to the winners activating their wins since it can sometimes take a few days, that's why it's usually better to limit the reach of the giveaways involving gifting things directly through Steam to people that will at least read the description and be aware that you'll be adding them to deliver the gift. About how you restrict said GA, that's up to you since there's several methods of variable usefulness, my suggestion is private giveaways put behind a puzzle of some kind, if they have to use their brains to access the GA then there's less chance that they'll mindlessly click that green button without paying attention.

I guess it could be useful but you also can write to him on one of his GAs and he will get message. Of course it is not so fluent as chat but good enough for basic communication needed. F.e. you can write to him I try to add you on steam with nick XX, please accept etc