So you do exist :P.
Glad to see the rules cleared up on this issue :D.
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This was the best one without going full weeb.
┬─┬ノ( º _ ºノ)
Who doesn't love Pokemon
(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻
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So what does this mean about sgtools? is it allowed or not?
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Yes.
It was already clarified in the past that it was acceptable, and the new phrasing makes it pretty precisely clear that it continues to be. Moreover, people were saying that Knsys was going to remove the referral advertisements anyway, so it may end up a moot deliberation regardless.
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SGTools is allowed, since they're not breaking any rules. Using referral links as a method of monetizing their site is perfectly acceptable, and no different than any other site including banners or advertisements to generate revenue.
IF their site prompted users to perform an action, such as clicking a referral link before accessing content, then it would no longer be allowed since it would not follow the new guidelines.
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We believe that is fair - We Do put a link to our little etsy shop in all our giveaways, as we are sponsoring them (not many I admit, but as many as we are able) - but at no point do we request that people click on them to enter the giveaway - I would love everyone to visit our little shop (but this is in no way required) - it is not the main reason we take part in this community :) - I hope that is acceptable? - if not, then ho hum sad day for us :(
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Somewhat related but what SG steam groups that ask for donations? Is that allowed and just frowned upon?
I've seen some Steamgifts Steam groups and when you click on the steam page they are asking for donations. Always kinda seemed odd to me.
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Are buddy refferal links for EvE online mmorpg allowed in giveaways?+ helping out the new friends who get recruited when they upgrade from alpha to Omega clone?:D
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no, those types of referrals are what the original rule was intended to prevent.. it was just being argued that non-referral links were also to be included in them, when the intent behind the rule was not to block all external links, but just to prevent people slapping referral links up all over the place trying to benefit from them.
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Thanks for clearing it up cg
Was also wondering, are the community giveaways coming back at some point? If you need keys or anything, I could provide a few for ya
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Thanks for offering, and yes, the community giveaways will return in the future.
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Thank you for your continued efforts.
(Please note, so long as they do not violate the previous restrictions, in giveaway descriptions we do allow users and developers to link to their related Steam Greenlight, group, and store pages, as well as their social media channels. Users are also able to reference their group giveaways when posting in the Group Recruitment category of our forum.)
Probably should reclarify that none of those are allowed to link toward another GA that violates the previous restrictions, since the current phrasing implies that so long as you're linking through an existing GA, you're fine to promise further GAs [for completion of tasks by way of the link].
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thanks, gonna share a blog filled with referrals in every single ga/thread i make.
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Hey Mullins, I know you're joking, but some users were previously wondering if this could be used as a loophole in the guidelines, since technically their referral codes would not have been in the URL posted, but rather in the linked content.
I think we have that covered in the updated guidelines...
When posting links or content, that content should not force users, encourage users through reward, or primarily exist as a traffic source for users to perform an action for promotional, commercial, or monetary benefit.
We want users to post content that's interesting and beneficial to the community. We don't want users posting content that's trying to leverage our community for their own personal gain. Therefore, when we see a link or content, we're going to ask ourselves why it was posted, and if we conclude the primary reason behind sharing it was to profit from our audience, then it's going to break that guideline.
Also, keep in mind repeatedly posting a blog with referral links would be spam, and seen as commercial content to generate traffic, both of which are against our terms of service.
the Content is not spam, is not machine or randomly-generated, and does not contain unethical or unwanted commercial content designed to drive traffic to third party sites...
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if i really wanted to be annoying, i could set up a blog with reviews so each time i post a giveaway i would update and link it (which would also contain optional referral links inside, just to create revenue for my site so i could keep spending time on reviewing games). ツ
what about the fact referrals in sgtools deals where "hidden" to the average user?
is that also allowed by sg rules, tricking people into clicking "safe" links while getting "peanuts" for affiliate programs?
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I think it's standard practice for referral links to be incorporated into outgoing store links. It might not be the most transparent at times, but the same monetization strategy is widely used across the internet. We allow links to other sites that use that same technique, so I don't feel that we should treat SGTools any differently in that area, regardless of whether or not we agree with their service.
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btw, i don't really know where you get all the required patience to run this site, it probably needs more of that than bandwidth per month. :3
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Thank you for clarifying, cg. And thank you for creating this site! =)
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Wait, is this thread stickied? Is that possible now?!
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It's been possible for years, although it's rarely used since I prefer not to clutter the top of the discussions page.
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Isn't the point of sticky posts so that users see those threads first so they are aware of them? If they have to go throught a dropdown menu, it kind of defeats the purpose of sticky posts (except for quick access). People that are new and have a question that is stickied that way, may not look through the dropdown.
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on one hand - yes. on the other it still would be better than current situation while you either have to remember topic name and use search or keep loads of bookmarks to older relevant topics. Also even with dropdown menu still a lot more users would read those than currently when many important topics are burried pages deep.
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only cg's threads - exactly! And a lot of important things got posted not by cg, but by mods and support. Threads like "we no longer allow custom rules in private GAs" was posted by jatan, "if a game is been given away free, please don't send individual user reports." was posted by bobo, there are many more but just 2 I remember from the top of my head ;)
Other solution would be to allow not only cg but also mods and support post in announcment section as well as change categories of their previous "announcment" threads to this category as well.
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the FAQ/Guidelines no longer says anything about custom rules, so this is covered. But thing is - do you check FAQ/Guidelines every day? or even week or month? no, you don't. Because you read it once or twice already, plus you've been around for a while to know exactly how things work already. Then if somethings gets changed in FAQ you won't even notice it because you no longer refer to FAQ, becauzse you already know it. And if you miss non-sticky announcment made by someone else than cg and it gets burried in forums, you can go a long time unintentionally breaking the rules, because you are njot aware the rules changed.
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popup is not a great solution ;) a lot of people have multiple tabs of SG opened, even if there will be pop up on one of them you may fail to notice it. New section sounds better, but again - you don't visit FAQ daily, you would have to to notice these "new" changes ;) I still believe a designated section - be it as mentioned drop down or by adding mods access to Announcments section would be the best solution - for both veterans and newbies. no veteran would miss any important info and newbies who may not have read FAQ or not fully understand/remember it would be more likely to notice such information if it was on the forums they are visiting ;)
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Maybe not a pop up, but what about a notification like you get when you get a new comment?
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it's not something that happens often enough to require a new UI element I believe. I mean theres like change once or twice a year, kinda pointless to add UI element that would be used so rarely.
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I'm not talking about a new UI element. Just a notification at the same place as the other ones. Some people may overlook it, but most people will see it.
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Seem like you had a great discussion with Deleted. He (she?) always brings such an interesting point of view, too bad they're so shy.
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tbh I have no idea why deleted, it was civilized discussion where simply both pages stated their arguments, ended with "well you are right I agree" - I see no reason for deleting something like that o.O
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Thanks for the answer (and the lack of clutter, which is nice).
Have you ever thought about sticking one thread more permanently? There are a bunch of useful forum threads (providing answers to things that are asked a lot, guides, tips, links to off-site resources, etc.), and even threads that serve as directories to the others, but they're all perpetually buried and hard to find. One sticky thread to point to resources might go a long way towards making all this available, and even to making the site better documented.
(Alternatively, a community wiki would be nice. But that would take set up, whereas the functionality for this is apparently here already.)
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I was already impressed with steffke. She's the real deal.
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Steffke brought light to the issue with SGTools-- so focused on keeping out rule-breakers-- having referral links in it (which are against the rules). It divided the community (more than it already was Re: SGT) and "forced" cg to clarify the rules about referral links. It also clarified the issue with gleam.io posts/links. Steffke brought about awareness and change (in the referral links guideline documentation if nothing else).
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Oh really? I was wondering about that...I didn't follow the story all the way through. Last online a week ago...huh.
Well, I hope she returns.
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Thank you for the update. =)
As far as I can remember, there always were some people against SGTools, for different reasons through its existence, including some girl in red hair...
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Does this update clarify anything regarding the SGTools issue though? Or am I missing something?
Edit: I clearly missed something - using the reversed commentx option is not always beneficial. Earlier comments from cg, for me below this post, clarify everything. Nevermind me.
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how can you even navigate discussions if you're using reverse comments option? I tried it once and it made forums unreadable for me ;p
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What do you mean? Most of the times it's really really handy. New threads are fresh enough so I can just scroll them down and for the ones I already visited new comments always are on top of the pile. I'm finding that quite useful. And if everything else fails there's the "Hide read" button.
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it destructs the flow of discussion for me. it's automatical thing to do for me to red from top to bottom, if I read from bottom to top many comments will refer things that was posted in earlier comments, comments I haven't read yet, so I cannot get the refference ;p And for threads I already visited - the mentioned "Hide Read" button is all I need, to find updates on topic I already discussed :>
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precisely what i thought the intent behind the rule was, thanks for clarification =)
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one more micro guideline update please.. this one does not really get abused by the majority that read the faq/guidlines, but its a small annoyance of mine =)
"Won gifts should be activated" = "Won gifts must be activated"
its only a technicality, but...... well you know how people are.
UPDATE> i did find the rule is correct in the terms and service though
any Gift you receive is for personal use, and must be activated, or redeemed by the Steam ID associated with your SteamGifts.com account.
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That's actually a really good point. I've seen people use that before as a reasoning that they are allowed to regift...
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I suggested things like that a long time ago (not officially via Support, just in a thread). I'm sure others have as well. I was told it wasn't "friendly" enough or "not in the spirit of giving" or something like that. I understand the sentiment, but personally I think it's a no-brainer.
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it is for the most part a no-brainer, thats why i said it was more of a small annoyance of mine really more then anything. but it would take maybe 10seconds to change just that one word over. this might be the perfect place to catch CGs attention to do so =)
i used this as a joke over here, but then when i saw there really was a update to guidelines and i realized i already had a post on page1, thought it was worth a shot to get that annoyance fixed :D
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I never even noticed that :D Though if he changes that he should also change guidelines to rules, since guidelines by definition are not mandatory or enforced.
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lol yeah, thats true too. ive joked about that in the past as well =)
"there are no rules here, only guidelines and frequently asked questions" xD
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terms of service at the bottom has the rule proper actually i just now found out =)
any Gift you receive is for personal use, and must be activated, or redeemed by the Steam ID associated with your SteamGifts.com account.
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What this rule clarification does is bring SteamGifts into parity with Steam. If a developer or publisher is giving away their own games, then posting a gleam.io giveaway is fine. It's only the disingenuous use of giveaways to promote networks of third-parties that have nothing to do with the original developer or publisher that Steam has banned, and now SteamGifts is clarifying that they are banned here, too.
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Hi SG, a few updates to the guidelines page are below.
Before
After
There were a few questions on the forum recently about referrals, and whether the previous rule implied that referral codes needed to be removed from URLs, or whether pages being linked to were not allowed to contain any referral links in their content. It was originally intended to mean the former, that referral codes should be removed from URLs posted to the site, and the example now better illustrates that point.
The new guideline has been added to help reduce advertising in the community. Most of our users have seen links to Gleam and related sites, asking people to perform a wide variety of actions to win a game. Occasionally these sites are used by developers to promote their games, but more frequently we see them used by individuals asking others to like Facebook pages, follow Twitter accounts, and click referral links to receive a random Steam key from a bundle. We don't feel our community should be used as a platform to advertise and promote these pages, and for that reason we ask users not to share this type of content in the future.
If you have any questions, feel free to comment. Thanks.
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