If I get suspended I'll be pissed.
I do refresh the site every so often (roughly 15-120 minutes based on episode or length of movie unless I'm at work or sleeping),
but I am not using any sort of auto joining scripts. The amount of points that are generated currently due to free games are enough to let me enter almost every single giveaway that's for wishlisted games.
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I could definitely see legitimate users being penalized.
Like how companies think DRM is a good idea when it only hurts the legal consumer.
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I'm using a script that automatically refreshes the site every 15 minutes (because points get updated every 15 minutes).
It's not autojoin but it does use up site resources to keep me informed on how many points I have without doing it myself.
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It's because I keep entering every single wishlisted giveaway I can, and I keep myself floating around 100 points for people who make 1 hour flash giveaways.
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theorethically if some very good deal pops up (humble monthly, good bundle, good sale) it's easy to hit 300P cap in less than 1 hour (if you are sitting on 100P it's even easier) - so in such scenario if you really worry so much about wasting points refreshing every 15min to notice sudden point spike is better ;p
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Did I anywhere said I am against decreasing point generation? I'm all for it (see my post in Point Distribution topic). I simply believe that the way cg plans to decrease point generation is a terrible idea, not that decreasing it is terrible idea. I agree with what should be done, I disagree with the way it's going to be done.
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Well, then we're in agreement on lowering the rate of point generation at least. I don't personally have any strong feelings about how it's being done at this moment.
I suspect we're not in agreement on the other thing that would alleviate the need to refresh the site frequently though. Namely increased minimum giveaway duration ^^
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I suspect we're not in agreement on the other thing that would alleviate the need to refresh the site frequently though. Namely increased minimum giveaway duration ^^
To this I doi not have strong opinion anyway, not that I don't care but I see benefits and minuses to both ways. Flash GAs promote activity A LOT but they also give incentive to use bots to snipe them. On the other hand long GAs give better chances to people who live in shitty time-zones (shitty from SG perspective, ppl who can be active when most of community is sleepieng/at work) but similar to fixed point regeneration - they do not promote activity in the slightest way. Whether you check the website few times a day or just in 12h intervals the results will be exactly the same. As I actually believe promoting activity is more important, I slightly lean to first option and hoping to get rid of most of bots other way, but like I said - as I see pros and cons in both ways I don't have strong opinion on either one.
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Well, if you think refreshing the site and entering giveaways more often is a good measure of an active community this is indeed the way to create, or rather maintain it. I don't really see any benefit from this besides from maybe generating more money for cg, which I guess would be reason enough to keep it like it is
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And if you believe that an active community can be maintained when there is absolutelly no reason (beside socializing on forums, which let's be honest, very small minority of us do) to log in more than twice a day for 5 minutes max, then indeed, let's put in those changes. Or even go further - let's make a system when everything can be done with logging once a week for 5 minutes. And then let's see whether other activity in the community overall increase or decrease.
You know why are we having an active conversation now? At leastr on my part? Because I refresh website every 15-30 minutes if I'm on my PC anyway, I see message notification and I reply to you. Imagine how conversation would look like if I were to respond once every 12h. So yeah - refreshing site entering GA is main reason many ppl may be active, but as a side effect they more often notice notifications or featured topics etc giving them more opportunities for social activity. Heck today I spent maybe 10 minutes total entering GAs. Yet I spent good 3-4 hours writing on forums.
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You know why are we having an active conversation now? At leastr on my part? Because I refresh website every 15-30 minutes if I'm on my PC anyway, I see message notification and I reply to you. Imagine how conversation would look like if I were to respond once every 12h
What boggles my mind is why you think everyone needs the incentive of having to regularly check giveaways to stay active in a community. I'd say the overlap between people obsessively checking the site for giveaways and activity on the forum is likely less than you imagine.
Edit: While I can believe that your main purpose for visiting the site is to hunt giveaways it's certainly not mine.
Also, it could easily be argued that both of us are too active on this forum ;)
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I am saying that I visit as often as I do (when I can) in order to check new GAs, but overall time-wise I spent much more times in the forums that I do in GAs. And partially it's thanks to these GAs - because I notice replies more often so reply myself more often. I generally find all ideas of separating like "GAs" or "forums" silly - they are both part of the same website, same community and are internally connected. You post GAs in the forums, you discuss GA related stuff etc.
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oh, sorry for not being an active participant in the community. I think I get your point now - no mattter how active you are on forums, how active you are on SG chat or Discord, no matter how many GAs, puzzles, trains, events etc you create - you are not active member of the community as long as you visit SG to enter GAs. How dare we unactive bastards visit GA site to enter GAs!
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I'm sure there are many points considered to make sure that legit people don't get suspended by mistake, because people using scripts should have some obvious patterns that regular users won't have. Like logging in frequently but neglecting won GAs for hours or days, spending points as soon as they fill, entering GAs in bursts at fixed intervals, never commenting on GAs, or commenting but always the same stuff. I wouldn't worry about it.
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I recently blacklisted a user who was still entering giveaways despite neglecting the giveaway they won from me for 6 days.
So there are indeed bot / autojoin script users on this website.
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The user that won my giveaway for Styx 5 days ago didn't claim it, yet every time I looked on his profile it said he was online. I looked on his profile earlier and seems like he just got suspended for a month, I wonder if the script suspensions are already being handed or if that's just a coincidence.
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or commenting but always the same stuff
This is the single most annoying feature about bots or scripts. It annoys me to no end when I see autogenerated comments on my giveaways. There are even scripts/bots that cycles through "thank you" in different languages combined with a random emoji.
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amount of points that are generated currently due to free games
free game are at only 15%
https://www.steamgifts.com/stats/community/giveaways
Real reason for current flood is this:
https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/Mhyp7/bundlestars-dollar-jumbo-bundle
and over soon
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That's still going on? I bought 2 copies of it when it started, but I have most of the games hidden.
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Yeah! no scripts! there are a lot of people winning games and no response. They activate keys after months!!!
Now is not posible ¿?, but until weeks ago Winners which won the same game many times, they mark one as received an others "as not received". After months!! I suffer this, and my tickets for support are there since months (I know admins have a lot of work, I hope with no autojoin will reduce their work).
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By "open for all" GA's on lvl 0 + 1 you have 90% of this foul apples (when you set it on groups you have 50%)
When you use sgtools, with a dew rules, to protect it you have 1%
I only make sgtools protected GA's since i am on lvl 2 and had tested "open for all" + lvl 2 ... was not happy with the result and my decision was then to secure every GA. More work at beginning but much lesser work after the end.
It saves time.
But bad that we must use such ways because all the infestion with bots, autojoiners and leechers
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and my tickets for support are there since months
Uh, tengo un ticket esperando desde hace 2 semanas por uno que me puso no recibido...voy perdiendo las esperanzas.
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Question:
If the rule is
Scripts should not be used to automatically enter into giveaways. This includes scripts that enter multiple giveaways at once, or scripts that enter giveaways while you are away.
This is still fine right?
Scripts that place an "Enter Giveaway" button beside each giveaway on the homepage. Users manually click this button to quickly enter a giveaway without needing to open the giveaway page.
Since you still have click the button manually right? Or am I misunderstanding?
Edit: It has been almost a week and I did not get suspended yet so I guess it is alright ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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Thanks, it will be interesting to see what the effect is. In my own tests such as this it's apparent that a huge number of people are either auto-joining or blindly entering without actually opening the giveaway. Usually it is under 5% who are proving themselves to be "real". Some of them are very obvious (like a person who enters 20 giveaways and says the same "thanks" on all of them within two seconds). And I'm sure re-roll requests for DLC from people who don't read the description (and thus don't check whether or not they own it) indicate that is an ongoing issue as well.
I don't expect you to disclose the countermeasures of course, but I wish you good luck :)
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Interesting, I got a few more entries in my traps (maybe because I posted the link in the description instead of the first coment?), check my stats if you want:
Public vs Private
https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/uc0ho/hackyzack (539 vs 54)
https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/s3hSQ/pineview-drive (235 vs 17)
https://www.steamgifts.com/giveaway/dV5Qt/frog-climbers (819 vs 62)
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By not reading the comments at all, those people are actively avoiding the social/community aspects of the site. I don't blacklist anybody because of it, I see it more as a reward for the people who are more actively participating and to make things more fun.
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I'm not making any harsh judgment against anybody, it's just mainly to keep things fun and interesting... Who doesn't like to find a secret GA? :)
I also once made a layered-bonus-giveaway ... bonus giveaway link in the public GA description/comments, and then a question in the GA description of the "secret" giveaway, and then I would invite the people who actually responded to a third secret giveaway. :P
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That test is 'evil' as it hides inside a comment instead of description. ;-) That lowers the notice rate by around 5% absolute (65% relative) from ~8% to ~3%.
I read all descriptions always, but would miss that too cause ESGST doesn't display comments.
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I tend to use the most cheap and common games in my tests, so that probably is causing my "success" rate to be worse. Because if it's a game that was 10x bundled or given away for free, or a shitty asset flip that no real person wants to win, then it'll be more liklely entered by bots or people who enter everything without reading it, and the more "Serious" SG users probably already have all those games anyway or have added it to their block list. :)
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To fix this issue I want to lower point distribution to a more reasonable amount. This will allow users casually visiting the site a couple of times a day to use all of their points
Real fix for that is putting the cap at the daily influx amount as I detailed more thoroughly here
But I'm all in favor of action against bots as I've promoted that myself for many months.
Only thing, please be careful in the detection to not hit false-positives with bans for users of legitimate scripts like ESGST or SG++.
I can give hints on correct distinction but that shouldn't be public.
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Another way to solve it would be to simply ask people to enter a captcha to enter any more giveaways if their pace of entering giveaways have been unrealistically high in the last few minutes or hours or whatnot, then whitelist that person for a short moment, and reset the counter when they run out of points or stop entering so quickly.
Because there's probably more than a few people who - like me - have the site open on another monitor through the day and enter giveaways as the points refill. This doesn't make us bots, I for one just have good tags set up on everything I want and hide everything I don't find interesting so I can just rapidfire enter whatever is left after cleaning things up like that. Would be a shame if the people who spend the most time on the site gets in trouble by mistake.
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Sure, but some people do have insomnia and stuff - or just wake up in the middle of the night and sit at the computer for a bit. I'm sure there is a more detailed metric and better ways of detecting this kind of thing, I just prefer to err on the side of caution.
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I probably never show as offline aside from the rare times I restart my machine and even then its only for a couple of minutes.
Though there will be 8-12 hours going by every day that I haven't refreshed the page or entered anything. But the SG tab is still open pretty much always, along with the 5-6 other essential tabs I always have open.
I rarely turn my computer off due to liquid cooling, instead going into sleep mode after 1 hour of inactivity -- but everything is where I left it when I come back so I'm pretty sure I'm always considered active. Does that mean I will be in danger of being seen as a bot just because I'm always "technically" here, or will the fact I'm online but doing noting for long gaps be taken into account by whatever algorithm is used?
This isn't really directed at either of you guys to have to solve, just a thought.
EDIT: As much as everyone finds captcha a pain, it might be the best answer. Though I wish there was a way to force the "simple" click ones instead of the annoying photo ones.
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This is nothing. ArchiBoT is active on my account each 15 minutes as he's responsible for maintaining our giveaway group giveaways, and he's operating on the site with cg's approval himself, as I discussed that matter with him personally.
Not all bots are bad and not all bots are giving unfair advantage. There are many friendly bots operating on the site for third-party integration or automation. I hope cg reviews it carefully and starts banning people that are actually entering giveaways.
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Correct, but people tend to see every bot as something evil coded with bad intentions in mind, which is quite incorrect. My bot is just one example of friendly bot operating on SG that makes my account being online 24/7, which could give false impression that I'm entering giveaways 24/7 according to your logic.
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Wrong. We regular users do not get less points - we just happen to let them puff out by not using them. The simple issue here is the efficiency of how you distribute your points. Therefore I don't see a need to give us less points - I actually quite dislike that idea. Stopping the use of auto-joiners already does the trick.
Eventually it's on everyone himself how much time he wants to spend on the website to participate in giveaways (spend the points that are available) or socialize with others.
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we just happen to let them puff out by not using them.
That was what I tried to say. If your counter stays at 300P while you're sleeping, you can't get more points. Meanwhile, all the bots are spending points while their owners are sleeping too or doing other things AFK.
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Yeah, but spending points efficiently is quite different from "you'll get a lot more points than a regular user".
As said, getting rid of these bots already does the trick. Giving us less points is completely unrelated to the problem and a bad way of trying to fix a problem by just covering a symptom (no matter how convenient and simple that would be).
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Hail https://www.steamgifts.com/user/cg
My pleases, a few days ago, are heard.
GREAT that the autojoin users get now the SUSPENSION HAMMER
( ok i liked more the BAN HAMMER but hey... the Suspension Hamer can hit for a very very very long time too .... or ? =) )
I am really very happy over this change.
And because i please only since 1 or 2 weeks for anything against all the lvl 0 + 1 bots, leechers and autojoin users (last ones are over lvl 0 and 1 too) i can not say "better late then never".
I can only be happy :o)
The point spamming is normaly when new bundles came out. And yes all in all it is good when we have lesser points and must not be 24/7 around to "not waste" points.
I am a guy that often sleeps only 2-4h/night AND with that you can spend the points MOSTLY. When i sleep 7h the points are always on 300 when i come back. This is a bit frustrating because you know that all points above are "waisted" and bot's and autojoiners use all there points.
When you are on the way to make a few things better .... i had a other thing to bring up.
Short:
The real CV calculating for games.
I think you should combine isthereanydeal with your site (use there lowest price statistic) to make the CV ouptput more realistic.
Then a lot of bundles don't show up so often in the GA's and more AAA Games jumps in this breach.
Longer:
When you buy for a GA a expensive AAA title (not bundled, fresh out) you get good real CV but that drops very fast when the price gets reduced.
A other one that buy a $1 bundle with (at the last times around 30 games inside) get 15% of the Gameprices, what is much more then the bundlecost price and a pricedrop hit's the GA creator near zero.
A short example:
New AAA Game: $40 (real CV $40), after 3 month first price drop (real CV $30), after 6 the second (real CV $20) after 12 the next (real CV $10) -i think i have calculated this on a nice/low level...mostly the cuts after 3 month are much higher!-
The Bundle: $1, 30 Games calculated with 15%,let's say the games are on steam for $5 each, than each game is calculated with $0.75x30 = $22,50
So the bundle is at everytime the much cheaper and much better way to raise his real CV worth/level on sg.
(i know that you get the AAA Games unbundled with discounts too but that it is equal to a $1 bundle with 30 Games you must get 90%+ ... thats unrealistic -only spoken out before anyone came with this example around the corner^^-)
You have now a whitelist from me. Maybe you will use it in a far far future :o)
You have at least the POSSIBILITY (if you use it or not is your choice)
friendly regards and a happy thanks :o)
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Secondly, starting October, I am going to start assigning suspensions to users that are using these scripts
Will the use of auto join software be placed in the same category as scamming, multi-accounts and misuse of giveaway feedback?
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Again, I'm for anything that decreases the advantage of bots. I'm also in favor of anything that encourages users to read (or at least open and skim!) descriptions. Thank you!
I'm a little concerned about false-positives, though. And a cat-and-mouse game of scripts trying to outsmart your script-detection heuristics. But you gotta start somewhere...
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I haven't made my mind up about the point distribution changes but since Captchas have been suggested here a few times I just dropped by to leave this here: https://www.google.com/recaptcha/intro/invisible.html
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Well, it's provided by Google. Google is inherently evil, so less Google is always better. Having pretty extensive experiences with captchas I can also assure you, this "invisible" captcha does not work as advertised ... it's more like your human-ness is detected by whether you use Chrome spyware, are logged it a Google account and lick their ass in other ways not documented. As much as I personally despise bots and those who use them, I'm not sure, if I would like to fill out a dozen captchas in case there's an abundance of giveaways due to a bundle release, for example. I might be willing to do it for some very special giveaways, like a group/whitelist giveaway with increased chances of winning, or a single giveaway fro a title I want very much, but that would mean having captachs only as an option for giveaway creators, thus making them pointless for repelling bots.
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it's more like your human-ness is detected by whether you use Chrome spyware, are logged it a Google account and lick their ass in other ways not documented.
That's correct, I use Firefox and the captcha ALWAYS detects me as a robot when I open a new incognito/private window. But if I use a regular window while I'm logged into my google account the captcha doesn't show me cars, street signs and shit like that hardly ever.
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Great news. I just fear, that people using a bots/scripts won't be stopped so easily, they'll just reconfigure their scripts until they're not detected anymore. What's a few days suspension compared to a free games grab where all you need to do is set up your bot to watch out for giveaways and wait?
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Scripts should not be used to automatically enter into giveaways.
PLEASE, stop using should. Half of the FAQ is written that way, and lots of people don't understand if it's mandatory or optional. Make it explicit, even if it sound less polite : You cannot use scripts to automatically enter into giveaways.
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I feel the same way. It makes it feel like it's just a recommendation, not a rule.
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Hi SG,
I want to remind everyone that using scripts to automatically join giveaways is against the rules. To help clarify, I updated the site guidelines today:
I would like to try reducing the usage of these scripts through two approaches...
The last few weeks I've been logging and reviewing data. On average, a user with scripts enters 4x as many giveaways as a user without scripts. I believe this happens because users currently receive a high number of points, and scripts are able to use those points more efficiently. To fix this issue I want to lower point distribution to a more reasonable amount. This will allow users casually visiting the site a couple of times a day to use all of their points, and therefore reduce the need and advantage of using such scripts.
Secondly, starting October, I am going to start assigning suspensions to users that are using these scripts. I feel they do not benefit the community in any way, and I want to try to ensure SteamGifts stays a fun and social place for everyone to visit. Of course, that only happens when real people are interacting with the site.
If you have any thoughts on the topic, please leave a comment.
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