Failure to Activate and Regifting...

TL; DR: Please check the winners of your giveaways before gifting, and we highly recommend you make sure they activate your gift.

ADDED: A couple of people have offered scripts for checking winners: the SGTools Activation Checker; and SilentGuy's Sidebar Script.

Yes, this is yet another topic about re-gifting. I am creating it because we just discussed this topic thoroughly a couple of days ago, and it seems a lot of people "didn't get the memo." It is somewhat frustrating when the same explanations have to be repeated over and over, again, but not everyone reads the forum, and even those that do cannot be expected to read every posting. I dearly hope that you guys all read this one.

Your Support staff tries their best to deal with infractions as quickly and efficiently as possible. Despite common opinion, we are neither "asleep," nor are we "idiots," nor "power-tripping," "lazy," and long list of other unfavorable adjectives. We knew that signing up for this position meant we would suffer unwarranted abuse, but we did it, anyway, because we wanted to help make SG a better place. We cannot, however, do it all on our own.

The "weakness" with the way this site is currently run is that it relies upon the users of SteamGifts to do their due diligence. Unfortunately, people give away their gifts and keys without first checking the winners of their giveaways for failed activations, and then also fail to ensure those gift are activated. Later, they complain that their gift has been misused, absolving themselves of all responsibility and dumping it on Support. Everyone has the power to make things better, but nobody wants to take action themselves. It is like a roomful of people sitting in the dark, every one of them saying, "Somebody really should turn on that light," but none of them are making any move to do so. And everything wrong is the fault of Support.

That is oppression.

This site is mostly run by its users, and that is a good thing. It gives SG flexibility and allows for the pursuit of both generosity and fairness However, if we as individuals do not take it upon ourselves to keep things in order and point out abuse when it arises, then it is unfair for us to complain about "how bad it is." We are the ones who choose to either let the mess pile up or clean it.

Speaking for myself, I thank God that I have never had too much trouble with my gift giving. I'm fairly certain that the fact I check each winner before handing over my gift, and demand that the gift be redeemed directly after it is received, has something to do with that track record. I am neither omniscient nor omnipotent, but I can tell you that if you win one of my giveaways, you'd better have your ducks all in a row because you're going to be checked thoroughly.

SteamGifts has thus far been successful because you, the users, have made it that way. More rules and restrictions will not solve our problems, individual responsibility will. Goodness is stronger than evil, but evil will spread and take hold if goodness does nothing but stand by and watch. If we want this to continue being a great community, then I suggest we stop waiting for other people to do the work for us. If we all choose to be active agents for the good of the site, then we need never fear that the challenges will be greater than our combined might. If everyone is reaching for the light switch, then that light will definitely go on.

I hope that what I have written here makes sense to you all. Thank you for your patience.