Don't like bots? Post your random invite-only giveaways here

Open

So you want to create public GAs, but you don't want bots and auto-join scripts to enter? Good. Just post a comment in this thread with a link to an invite-only giveaway. The idea is very simple and is really not different from many (most?) of the other threads in the forum, except that you don't need to invest much time or thought into it. Just post the link in a comment, and you're done :-)

A few additional guidelines:

Feel free to obfuscate the link to make it more difficult for bots/scripts to enter. This is completely optional and may not make much of a difference, because the forums are probably not as infested with bots and auto-join scripts as public giveaways (see example).
You may use itstoohard.com, sgtools.info or other sites as filters to the link, but do try to keep things easy (for humans) to enter.
Don't feel obligated to write anything to accompany the giveaway link. If you have stuff to share beyond just the link, you probably should create a dedicated thread for it. Needless to say, you can also write it here, but it's not required.
Cross-posting giveaways your posted in other threads is fine, as long as they are your giveaways.
If you want to add a dynamic signature showing the game name, giveaway end date and current number of entries, but without revealing the URL to bots, you can use this tool created by Reforced. It takes the signature created by SG and provides you with a new URL that hides the original giveaway address. Just add it to your comment using the regular format for posting images: ![](URL)
Just like public GAs typically have a lot of entries, there's no need to maintain a low number of entries in GAs posted here. If you want to give especially good odds to people who enter and still get CV, you may want to instead consider posting the link here (and then remove it when you have your 5 entries). This is not needed here in this thread. The more (humans) the merrier :-)
The best way to bump this thread is by posting a link to your own invite-only giveaway. With that said, if the thread drops from the first page a regular "Bump" would also be appreciated.

I'm trying to find how serious the issue with bots really is. So far the results don't really prove things one way or another. Here are some stats from my latest experiment:

Game: Space Trader: Merchant Marine
Number of giveaways: 5
Period: 3 days

Giveaway #	Level	Type	Number of entries	Winner's Sent:Won	Reroll needed?
1	Level 0+	Public	891	0:82	No
2	Level 0+	Invite only, direct link	55	4:47	No
3	Level 0+	Invite only, SGTools (no restrictions)	48	6:71	No
4	Level 0+	Invite only, shortened URL, captcha-free	50	1:205	No
5	Level 0+	Invite only, shortened URL with "I'm not a robot" captcha	54	162:86	No

Yet some more stats:

Giveaway game	Period	Level	Type	Number of entries	Winner's Sent:Won	Reroll needed?
Tales from the Void	5 days	Level 0+	Public	755	0:37	No
Tales from the Void	5 days	Level 0+	Invite only, obfuscated link	183	42:514	No
Hyper Box	4 days	Level 0+	Public	554	0:32	No
Hyper Box	4 days	Level 0+	Invite only, obfuscated link	193	178:188	No
Ace Combat Assault Horizon	3 days	Level 0+	Public	1596	0:28	Yes
Ace Combat Assault Horizon	3 days	Level 0+	Invite only, obfuscated link	234	88:107	No

7 years ago*

Comment has been collapsed.

7,969 Comments

skoloniaris

Postal 2 (Lvl 5+)

3 years ago