The only member of mine at this time is the person I sent a game to who couldn't be bothered to mark it as received, then turned around and blocked and unfriended me when I asked why. :P

I just blacklist the people who don't activate the gifts won, or giveaway free key. because fuk'em!

It is up to anyone who he wants to add to his blacklist, whitelist or any other colour of list. Quoting you;

It appears to me that many people are abusing the blacklisting system, which is really only intended for rule breakers and those who share puzzle answers, by blacklisting anyone and everyone who doesn't completely flatter them.

Eh, really? And who is to say what the intended use of the blacklist is, or what is considered its abuse? What you say might be what you use your blacklist for, but honestly, I don't see how being on your blacklist or not would make any difference.

Personally I don't want to blacklist anyone, if he/she/it was favored by the supreme gods of luck then who I am to object? Not cheaters, VAC- or trade-banned persons, regifters or even butthurt leechers with 12 wins, 2 gifts and a lot of big empty words who constantly annoy people by pointing out where they made a small mistake.

Meh, who cares if you end up on a blacklist because someone has a bad day and takes it out on me for a comment in the forums etc.

The black and white lists are there to give gifters better control and it is their choice.

There will also be GAs limited to whitelists where groups of friends share games in private circles as well, again who cares.

I doubt either will be used that much

I mostly fall into the "Yes, but only those who are known scammers, cheaters, and regifters, or who deliberately breaks the rules." category but I do also occasionally blacklist people who say EXTREMELY offensive things (things that they had to know would be hurtful to post and would rouse anger in others like racist, sexist, homophobic comments). For the most part though, I do believe that blacklists should be entirely up to the person creating it.

Why SHOULD people I dislike get to be included when I choose to give a gift? After all, when I get gifts for people in real life I'm certainly not going to buy one for someone I don't like. In any case, I wouldn't even want anything from someone who thought I was so deserving of blacklisting when I haven't broken rules. If it's the case that they're frivolous blacklisters who have issues with people even disagreeing to something they say then whatever, I'm happy to never come across them in my life. If I truly got on the wrong side of someone through some argument or another then I wouldn't want anything of theirs. If they were truly offended by something I said and didn't ever address me about it then there's nothing I can do about that; not everyone in life is going to like you.

No such thing as excessive blacklisting. Just for suggesting it I'm going to blacklist you.

Nah, not going to use that feature. Too lazy to hold a grudge.

Currently, I have no-one blacklisted. I'd blacklist known cheaters etc. - but I don't know of any cheaters so far.

I refuse to blacklist someone just because I think - however justifiably so - that they're a moron. I don't think it serves any purpose.

But I do understand the puzzlement of being blacklisted for no apparent reason by a person you don't even recall interacting with. While it can be a sign of supreme villainy (For you, the day Bison graced your village was the most important day of your life. But for me... it was Tuesday.), it is more often a question of what have I ever done to this person?, and it is annoying at best. I mean, I know why certain people on Facebook decided to block me; I'm not necessarily a very nice person. But some people have blocked me, yet I have no idea why - I'd never done anything to them. I don't really care, mind you, but I'm still puzzled. And I understand how it must feel to be blacklisted for no apparent reason.

Blacklisting is personal. There is no "unjustified" use of it. One very good reason to get in a blacklist would be creating "whining" topics about the way people behave, or call them out "pathetic" for using scripts they find useful... if you get me ;)

i wrote about in other thread
i think everyone has the right to blacklist who ever they want BUT this need some "fair use" rules or it is just an exploit feature

when i blacklist someone than all his giveaways should be hidden for me too (for ever - like im on his blacklist than) - than its fair and its my decission to block him or not

If someone don't like me blacklisting him - he can blacklist me too.
Also, if I blacklist too many people - my giveaways won't get 5 entries limit.
So, I don't think there is a problem. You know, sg support is overloaded, and thus very slow. We need some way to control scammers at least in our giveaways.

I haven't really had a reason for blacklisting anyone so I've never used that (not only on this new version of the feature but before either). Also, I can't think of a reason that is enough so someone can't win a game I give away. If it's rule breakers or harassment then users are punished according to the site's criteria or blocked/reported on Steam, respectively.

The reason why the blacklist was added as a built in feature is because a lot of users already had a blacklist that was manually handled. This, apart from being quite some work, also had the issues of making it hard to keep track for the owner, possibly being missed by an entrant and hard to check and verify in case this went to support as a reason for a reroll. When it was not built in the site, a user could potentially abuse their blacklist, also, and claim they had the winner on it, if they didn't like the winner that was picked. Now, instead, nobody can ask for a reroll based on the winner being on their blacklist. If a user won the giveaway it means they were able to enter and thus, they were added later in that blacklist, which makes them a valid winner for that reason. This part was blacklist abuse, while adding people to a blacklist for whatever reason is more like preference, even if the reason doesn't make sense to others.

The reasons someone adds a user on their blacklist can be anything and not just puzzle spoiling or cheating as you mentioned. Though I do find a lot of the random blacklisting that I notice on threads to be a bit harsh, it's really up to each user to decide. I do understand that some people just don't like certain others and want to exclude them from their giveaways. This is not something new and it used to happen before, just there wasn't a visual notification that obvious on the site itself. Comments like "Welcome to my blacklist" are not something new either.

As for extraneous rules I saw mentioned earlier, old blacklists were considered to be special rules. Unless a user had submitted a ticket for approval they could not ask for a new winner based on their blacklist. Same applied to any special rule and thus, after a winner was chosen, the giveaway creator could not retroactively apply a rule or enforce a rule he had on the giveaway description if it hadn't been approved before the giveaway creation. That, apart was a lot of work for support and quite confusing for entrants occasionally.

To sum up :

• I don't have any reasons, for the time being at least, for blacklisting people personally but I do understand other people do.
• About blacklisting people for their posts, same as the previous sentence, though I don't find it enough of a reason for myself, others might, so it's up to them to decide. Not liking someone's views or inappropriate behaviour seems like the main use of most blacklists.
• About excessive blacklisting, it depends on what you mean by excessive. Is it about random posts getting the users blacklisted? Personally, I find it more excessive to blacklist every single rule breaker, since those have either been suspended or will be suspended eventually, but I still understand that some people might not agree with temporary suspensions and want to blacklist users indefinitely.
• About its impact to the community, I hope it doesn't impact the community in a way that people are afraid to post (and no, I don't mean the shitposting and spam, we could use less of that). A lot of users seem worried and I don't really like that, especially users who just don't know how to express themselves well and are afraid they might offend someone as a result.
• What could be done to fix excessive blacklisting/unjustified blacklisting? Both of these are subjective. To you it might need fixing while to others it works fine. If you mean the impact to the community, then not being vocal about who you blacklist is a good example of what could be done. Those "Blacklisted" posts, apart from looking really hostile, deter users from posting, even if they had something constructive to post.

It's going to take me a while to read through the massive wall posts on the first page, but I do want to say the following:

You seem to very rigorously defend your version of what a blacklist should entail. You posit that the blacklist "is really only intended for rule breakers and those who share puzzle answers." This is an opinion you hold that many do not share. Yet, from what I have read so far, you have continued to belittle and abuse those who do not share your point of view. These actions most certainly do not impart any credence or invoke any sympathy for your side of the table.

Edit: Spelling error

I'm afraid I stopped reading halfway through the first page - Houdini's posts, I believe, about using the blacklist as a whitelist - so apologies in advance if the following has been brought up already.

Basically, this blacklist hampers the community, in that people won't be allowed to freely post anymore. I am not only talking about 'help guyz i need moar winz', but also about entirely normal posts. Nokkenbuer will know what I am referring to.

So, indeed, why would I even participate in this forum, when it 1) takes time and effort, and 2) could easily lead to negative consequences? Now, these 'negative consequences' would be that I'd have access to a tiny few less giveaways, which really isn't a big deal at all, but it's the principle of things. The community is (or can) actively punishing the community for being a community - so why bother?

Nokkenbuer made a very important point; the blacklist is not an ignore list. And yet, people do use it as an ignore list, which is rather troublesome to me; you post something I don't like, fine, you're blacklisted now. So, I reiterate, why would I - or better, someone who really cares about giveaways, as a lot probably do - post anything at all, then? That train of thoughts is a worrying development.

Personally, I'd remove the whole blacklist idea - that was my vote; I will never use it - and add the option to ignore people's posts / comments / et cetera. So, remove anything that touches the main function / goal of this site - creating and entering giveaways - as that is too open to abuse, but allow people to restrict secondary purposes; comments.

Should blacklists be kept - very likely, of course - then I would be in favour of allowing everyone to see who has blacklisted them.

There are no rules for blacklists. That means people are free to use them however they see fit. I don't see why it's worth worrying about whether other people are using the feature in the exact same way you use the feature. Unless some rules show up to the contrary, every use of the blacklist is justified, because every reason, or even the lack of a reason, is legitimate.

All the giveaways here are posted on a whim anyway, so blacklisting people on a whim seems perfectly in character with the rest of the site.

You know... there is one point I got from reading half way down this topic's first page, I don't want a black list, I want an ignore list, that both black lists them from any giveaway I make, and ignores them so I don't have to hear about it.

Giveaways are a favor, not an obligation. The person who bough the game have every right to blacklist whoever they choose for the pettiest of reasons if they want to. You people need to stop being entitled princesses. You don;t deserve to enter a giveaway of someone who doesn;t want you there. They have the right to blacklist for any reason they choose. Their gift their rules. Unless, of course you want them to stop giving things awaay because someone if forcing them to give to people they don't want on the receiving end.

To ilustrate my point I'm simply blacklisting everyone who thinks they deserve to define wich threshold if "fair" to blacklist people or think excessive blacklisting is "abuse". Because I can.

I blacklist whoever is extremely rude, disrespectful, or just a plain scumbag to other forum users. I also blacklist (most of the times) beggars, scammers, and all around rule breakers that apparently do not care about anything.

I do not feel like handing over a game to one of these users, thus the blacklist.
Also, "abusing the blacklist function" is not a possible thing. The purpose of the blacklist is to let a user block other users for whichever reason they want, without justifying why.
It's not an abuse of the system if the system's main purpose IS this.

Like nearly everyone said already, their giveaway, their rules. I see no problem with that. If one gets blacklisted, it is more than likely that they did something to displease the user who blacklisted them. They pretty much brought it on themselves.

i mostly blacklist those who doesn't comment on my giveaways :)

Hopefully, I will never use a blacklist. If someone deserves punishment, I will leave it to the site's support. If someone I dislike wins my giveaway, I will give the game and move on. In a way, I feel I gave the game to the site (or to the gods of chance?), and the site decided whom to give it too, so I do not want to pick or exclude people individually. If the user is ok to receive a game in the site's view, I am not going to single-handedly (is that a word?) change that status.

Well, here is something to think about: why do we have the "no calling out" rule? The way I see it, it is mainly because:

1. We often misjudge someone, and we should not accuse someone without being really really sure. There are "official" ways to report someone, do so and move on, right? We should be humble in our judgments.
2. It is toxic for the community, specially for newcomers.

The way I see it, blacklists have the same problems... As it is right now, blacklists are "official", so users are free to blacklist whomever they want. So you are not doing anything wrong when making a blacklist, it is totally ok. But I also feel that they lead to a stiffening of the discussions we share, and of the community in general. For example, I am really thinking 3 times here if I should post this; I seem to be defending the "bad" people, and I might be associated with them... But I feel that people that break the site rules should be punished with their official suspensions; once you paid your "penalty" you should be a free man again. Blacklists sound like "double punishment" to me, dispensed by individuals, which are prone to make judgment mistakes.

Also, I slightly disagree with a too broad use of "gifter's rules"... I mean, we have "no extraneous rules in public giveaways unless previously approved by support", for example, don't we? Again, as it is, blacklists are in the rules, so they are good and official right now. But I do feel a strange disconnect between some of the principles we have to foster a generous community (including giving to total strangers) and the blacklist idea.

And yes, it is very different from whitelists and group/level giveaways. If I am unable to enter a group or level giveaway, I know exactly the reason, and it is not personal.

Anyway, just my $0.02. Personal disclaimer: I never broke a site's rule, and I think my views are rarely source of heated discussion, so I do not foresee myself in many blacklists in the future. However, I did get included in someone's blacklist once, I have absolutely no idea why (possibly my "where is my CV?" thread that was actually a hidden giveaway? who knows?) and that bothered me a lot and made me a bit bitter about blacklists (can you tell? :) ). Not because of the giveaways, mind you, but because of the negativity of the act ("I hate you more than a total stranger on this site"). Not pleasant at all.

Cheers!

I have only used a blacklist once, and that list was only used to exclude the person who was being a dick at the time.

I believe that everyone has the right to exclude whomever they want, for whatever reason they want, from their giveaways. If that means excluding me "just because," then so be it. Life goes on, and it is unreasonable for me to expect everyone on the planet to like me.

If someone wants to give away a game, I have no problem with them being in charge of who they want to give it to (group, private, whitelist...) - and who they don't want to give it to (blacklist). Gifter may blacklist anyone they want, for whatever reason they want.

Gifts Won: 12 ($201.89)
Gifts Sent: 2 ($2.98)

Games on Steam account: 280
https://steamdb.info/calculator/76561198068204190/

OK please continue bitching

I blacklist rule breakers, known leechers who were kicked from groups I'm in, and generally people who keep complaining on forums because they stick to their stupid ideas... It's not that easy - for example a regifter can be somebody who haven't read the FAQ (okay, that's a problem) but overall he wanted to give back the game. On the other hand, other people can't read FAQ even after being on the site for over 1-2 years, dumps free games to giveaways just to get more CV, and things like that. So I don't blacklist everyone who brakes the rules (usually I forget to do so, anyways), but rather people who are basically don't care about others, don't want to correct their mistakes (saying sorry, not repeating violation of rules again).