Does it bug you too?
In my humble oppinion, i can sorta see how "thank you" could becoming boring after a while I guess. It is probably more fun to read origional responses. The thing just is, if you give something to someone, the normal response is "thank you".
But instead of saying in the discription "blacklist for thank you" maybe people should just ask a general question or ask for a joke or whatever. So there is actually something to respond to.
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"Their games, their rules".
I myself post just a generic "cheers" under the majority of GAs I enter since majority has nothing interesting in the description.
If a description has something to what I can respond to, I do that, if a description has a "no generic thanks, please" there's not much you can say there so I just roll with a humorous "you can't stop me" and said "generic thanks".
That said, I think people are too obsessed with blacklists. It is a good way to filter out people you don't want to give games to but peeps often treat it as this scare mechanic or something. Eh
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I know, but still, when it came to pre-approved rules, they had to make sense and well, be approved. Now you can blacklist anyone for anything.
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People on this site are a such a bunch of entitled little kids.
Would you put rules to give some coins to a homeless man or food to a hungry dog?
The meaning of giving something is so out of focus on SG.
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did you seriously just put equality sign between giving away games, aka luxury commercial goods to feeding a starving dog or a homeless person with no funds to live? -.-
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Actually yes, the situations are different but the sense of giving is the same.
Well, to me at least. I guess it's different to you.
And nowadays games aren't exactly "luxury" commercial goods. A sandwich is more expensive than maybe the 80%+ of games you see on SG.
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you don't need game to survive, you need food to survive. Basic goods are ones needed for your survival - things like food, water, shelter, basic medical supplies. Then there comes second need goods - things like education, social abilities - things that are not essential to your survival, but greatly increase it's quality. And then there are luxury goods - goods that serve just for your own enjoyment and are totally not essential for your survival. So yeah - even if you spend 100$ on food and water and only 5$ on games - food and water will be basic goods and games will be luxury goods. You don't need them to live, you get them, because you have an extra money to spend on your enjoyment.
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That's not actually true; For example, for people with brain damage, if we don't engage in certain active visual stimulations [movies, games] our progress tends to regress. Similar effects are seen with other forms of dementia and the like. There's also a distinct emotional/psychological boon to many people, especially impoverished kids.
No, the proper argument here is, "there are enough free games out there, from flash, to (non-personally-provided) giveaway, to rpgmaker" that anything past those is a pure luxury.
You may have a claim to a basic luxury, but you never have a claim to the specifics of the luxury.
That'd be like complaining after being given a free steak because your steak was cooked too long, it's an absurd argument.
(Read my posts just a bit below if you're confused at where I'm coming from, we're on the same side of the argument. I'm just trying to make a more clear distinction, is all.)
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I probably would. I would not give money to a homeless man if I figure that there is a big risk of it being used for things like narcotics. So yes, that's one of my criteria for helping people, don't spend the money on narcotics. (I use that particular example as it's not entirely uncommon for people to become homeless due to narcotics).
And for the record, yes, I do actually give a bit of money to the homeless. There is a program in place that is supposed to help homeless people get a foot back into society, and give them honest work, and I support that. And they have rules in place for who can get money and support (being clean is one of them, and they also have programs in place to help people become clean).
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^ this ^
I remember that as a kid 2 homeless guys came to my family's homedoor during xmas, asked for money to buy themself food. My mom gave them shitload of food instead, as we had a lot from supper. The very next day she was taking out trash and found most of this food thrown away at the trash bin and both of these guys drinking cheap wine in front of booze store.
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I will never deny anyone food, I've spent most of my life without.
But given the opportunity to give actual food, I'd never give money, that's idiotic in that circumstance.
Then again, I literally was prevented from starving to death by someone giving me a $20 [I'd been 3 weeks without any food at all, and barely eaten for months before], so hey.
Don't exclude it out of hand.
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If you don't give money to the man because you think he may use it for drugs, that's a rule for yourself based on your perception not to him as the one who receive something.
And I work on charity, that's why giving and the sense of the action of give is important to me. I put my time on charity and give a game with the same intention, the honest hope to make someone a little more happy at least for a moment. But the aftertought of giving on SG has transmuted to something I don't really like.
About the place you talk about, I've been on places like that and rules work different. You always try to be inclusive with people and don't let anybody out, you never say "follow my rules or get out".
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Well, that is a rule I impose upon the homeless person in order to get money from me. So really, it's like a blacklist. Follow my rules or don't get anything. And in terms of SG, I would actually expect people to respect the gift-giver enough as to comply to simple requests, in particular ones that require less work from you than not complying. It's just common courtesy to accept simple requests like that when you're given something for free.
The program over here is quite simple. They give homeless people a job, and in return they need to stay clean. If they don't stay clean, they lose the job. And while they give people a second chance, they are also very clear that there are consequences for people that don't follow their rules, to avoid people trying to abuse the system.
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+1
A more succinct version of my own commentary, ha.
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Having been homeless for years, I can assure you, homeless shelters have VERY strict guidelines as a rule. I mean, beyond the obvious 'no drugs, alcohol' kind of thing.
And while places that pass out meals as a rule try to be as open and generous as possible [with some religiously-supported exceptions], certain cities impose restrictions on the providers, that they have to abide by, whether they like it or not.
Also, YOU'RE the one comparing this to giving out a necessity, such as food.
Which is absolutely ridiculous, and offensive to those of us who have gone without, and, considering your claims, something you should be ashamed of.
This is far more akin to a free raffle, and even the most basic raffle tends to have at least one rule, 'be present to claim your prize'. I'm not sure where we start making distinctions on what rules are valid and which aren't.
Seriously, comparing this to helping someone stay alive?
Not cool.
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I've never met anyone of any maturity and respectability that ever used age as a pejorative in making their point.
The only people I've ever seen do that are typically in their early to mid 20s; or the old half-paranoid people that use pejoratives against everyone, including racial and religious slurs.
Just something to keep in mind.
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I don't like it bit at least its helpful with adding to my own blacklist :D
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Or, just maybe, we want you to respect our right not to be flooded by meaningless messages, or to show some basic respect toward someone giving you something for free.
You're not entitled to say what you want to someone without consequence, regardless of appropriateness, or decide the rules of an interaction, that doesn't work elsewhere, so should it work in regards to someone doing you a favor?
I don't blacklist people that just say thanks, but if someone enters without reading the guidelines set (which may say don't spam), yeah, I'd blacklist them.
But even without any such guidelines set, I don't exactly look favorably to people that flood me just to appease their own whims,
However, I respect that they have their own perceptions of what is acceptable and respectful, and I acknowledge that, and thus don't blacklist them all out of hand.
I appreciate the same courtesy when possible in reverse.
And I have the right to all the things listed above, it's my show;
Just like you have the right to think I've a stick up my ass, I'm too ornery, or just generally unlikable.
You don't have any rights to deciding the appropriate conduct in my show, however, anymore than you could go into a bar that's doing a free-entry night and demand the entertainment be changed to your liking.
You're the one deciding to enter that area, it's up to you to respect the people who were in there before you.
You, of course, ascribe some sort of respectful meaning to the thank you flood;
So consider that to us, it's as aggravating as if 100 people decided to say 'BANANAS haha u mom so fat' on our facebook page.
Seriously, what's different about doing this, here?
/For those of us with issue, there's no difference in how we perceive these things[, other than our willingness to show respect for those doing it here, by assuming their good intentions]./
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:laugh: I'm actually not stressed or upset by anything here [other than a single perspective above, to which I waggled a stern finger].
My tone is just an unfortunate side-effect of my brain damage making me unable to perceive what I'm writing, combined with severe sleep-deprivation making me agitative.
Sorry for concerning you :)
That aside, some emphatic elements are necessary, have to make sure the point sticks, after all ;P
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I hate people like "thank me or I will blacklist You" and "If You thank me I will blacklist You!"
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I really hate all of that as well, but, what are you going to do? =\
Anyway, bummmp!
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OK, I think I may be one of those people that annoys the hell out of you. You can look at my previous giveaways to see examples of what I have done in the past. I've tried to make it entertaining, but essentially I let people know that if they comment with something generic, I will be blacklisting them from future giveaways. They are still able to enter that giveaway, and I will send them the game if they win, but I don't want them entering my future giveaways. Because this seems to be a somewhat unpopular way of handling things, I will try my best to explain myself, and I hope you might be able to understand why I chose this course of action.
When I first started using this site, I had noble intentions. I saw that I had the ability to blacklist people, but I hoped to never use it. When I created my first set of giveaways and kept an eye on the messages that came in, I noticed that some users were entering all of my giveaways simultaneously, and sending the same generic "thank you" message (or some variant) on every giveaway. It didn't take too much Google-Fu to find that there are a number of bots, scripts, and macros available to SteamGifts users to help automate or streamline the process of entering multiple giveaways without needing to actually interact with the site. I felt that entering giveaways automatically without actually using the website (in person) was contrary to the spirit of the giveaways I was providing. At the very least, I thought it provided an unfair advantage to some, while giving a disadvantage to those others who took the time to visit the giveaway page and read the descriptions written there. And so, in an effort to "level the playing field" for my giveaways, I created rules for people to follow in my descriptions. The goal of the rules I provided was simple, I thought: prove to me that you have read the description written, and I will add you to my whitelist for future giveaways. If you comment without thought, I will assume you are using scripts, bots, or macros to give yourself an unfair advantage over others who are actually interacting with the site, and I will blacklist you from future giveaways. Obviously, this doesn't stop anyone that might be using a script, bot, or macro that is not set to post a message, but those users won't have access to my whitelist giveaways, which will always have the "best" (in my opinion) game I have available to give away.
The alternative, I think, would be to create a giveaway with the description "DO NOT ENTER THIS GIVEAWAY OR YOU WILL BE BLACKLISTED" to catch the users who don't have their script, bot, or macros set to leave a comment on the giveaway. The polite thing to do, of course, would be to link to an invite-only giveaway of that same game in the description for any humans that might still want a chance of winning the game. I saw another user use this tactic in a series of giveaways, and I thought it was a quite ingenious idea for sifting out the people employing automated techniques to give themselves an unfair advantage here. I haven't used this technique myself, but I thought it was very clever, and I still might decide to employ it in the future...
I hope that this wall of text gives you some insight into why someone hosting a giveaway might say they will blacklist anyone posting a generic thank you. A user above in this thread made the comment that when he or she sees a message like that, they respond with a joke, and post, "You can't tell me what to do. Generic thank you." If I saw that, I would know that the user was probably a bit cheeky, but I would also know that they were a human who was actually interacting with the site and reading the giveaway description, and I would never blacklist them for that. Hell, if they proved to me that they read my description, they would end up on my whitelist. In that same vein, I would never blacklist a giveaway winner for thanking me after receiving their prize. "Thanks for the opportunity," does not mean nearly as much to me as a sincere, "Thanks for the game."
Thanks for reading, and have a great day!
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It annoys the hell out of me whenever I see a giveaway and the description says something like "post thanks and you go into my blacklist or something". I mean for the most part, I don't have time to sit around thinking oh I wonder what kind of non-generic thanks I should post. At that point, I just enter and move on without commenting. But like sometimes it's automatic - I mean whenever I see a giveaway, my first reaction is "Thanks" (if I think it's a cool game) or "THANKS SO MUCH!!!" (if it's some game I've been dying to win). I understand that they don't want auto entries, but what about normal folks?
Thoughts (don't think I'm in anyone's blacklist, just bugged out by this)?
http://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/dPIa0/verdun
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