Despite the unnecessary amount of hostility in this thread, I hope you don't stop working on this script. Thanks for sharing it with us.
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Cute. Except I already posted this several hours before Cross even showed up, and the only person I argued with was some asshat who insulted other users and tried to claim they didn't have a right to their opinion. Good job actually reading through the thread, though. Kudos.
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I already did many a time. But apparently verbalizing an opinion that differs from someone else's counts as an insult.
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Correction: You didn't just verbalise an opinion that differed to mine and the other people you replied to. You called me conceited, condescending, illaudable, and implied that I was proud, selfish and obsessed with being thanked. I'd call that insulting, but whatever.
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If that's how you feel, I offer an apology. I'm pretty sure I was talking about "If you don't bother with thanks comment, don't bloody enter" attitude.
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I appreciate you putting the time and effort into something that you think will help the community, misguided though it seems. You're trying to streamline the process, which sounds nice, but it only serves to encourage false sincerity. Good initiative, poor judgement.
Things like this makes me want to only do private "public" giveaways, so I can have special rules that forbid people that parrot "thanks".
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If you don't feel like dedicating the 10 seconds it takes to type "thanks" in a text box and hit the submit button, then you shouldn't really be saying thanks in the first place because you're not really thankful at all and it's a meaningless gesture at that point. All this ends up doing is falsely inflating your comment count.
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And that is exactly the reason people will use it.
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Added in a little bit nicer gui.
As soon as the submit is sent it replaces the button text with "Processing...", and preventing clicking again and submitting multiple comments.
And if the submit fails, it just sends it again.
So, in the situation of a heavy load, you should just be able to click and forget (leave page open), and it will keep trying until it succeeds.
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Just downloaded to test, and see if I could fix.
But it all worked. In both quick and full mode.
I am using the version I got here (https://code.google.com/p/steamgifts-plus/downloads/detail?name=steamgifts-plus-latest-install.user.js). And the latest version of my script.
I suggest making sure you have the most up to date version of my script.
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Tested, and this script does not work in FF.
FF version: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/174964
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I tried the firefox version and this version works :)! Unfortunately only sometimes and there seems to be no specific pattern. I always see the "processing" text, the site reloads and most of the time it also submits the comment. However, sometimes it does not (and I reloaded the page another time to make sure it is not some sort of "display delay").
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I don't see anything that's against the site rules. Do you?
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This matter has been around long enough for people to come to terms with how this may never go away and everyone has their own personal views on being grateful on this site. Whether users identify this userscript as being lazy or not is totally up to the users as it's only a declaration of opinion and not a fact. I for one wish there was a signature feature that rotates with a different signature after every post for specific giveaway types to brighten us the day of that one giveaway creator but this userscript may be the closest thing to it. But I'd rather wait til my idea comes to be.
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imho the script itself isn't the problem. It's just the logical result to the mandatory thanks
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Just checked the code, be wary if you enter a giveaway, leave it, and enter it again it'll double post.
To avoid this, you can probably use localstorage to keep track of giveaways you already entered (to avoid wasting space have the values set to expire after the "remaining time for a giveaway" has passed)
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Great idea, never thought of that.
You sounds like you might know more than me.
I have been researching it, and none of the storage types seem all that great.
Cookies will not work, because they measure the absolute maximum number of current cookies at like 180, and sometimes way way less per domain.
Userscript storage will not work, as it is too permanent, and I would need to create my own garbage collector to get rid of the old ones.
LocalStorage is also permanent.
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Cookies will work, there are 2 issue however
Size limitations (Rougly 3k~4k). Also i think that cookie size limits are shared with all the cookies SG uses. If they rely more on cookies you'll be further restricted in what you can do.
Waste of Bandwidth, cookies are transmitted to the server, but as you may guess SG has no use for manually set cookies, so it just sends them back to you. Since you are creating a new cookie with each entry, this can be cumbersome.
Localstorage is better suited as values are not retransmitted and you have nearly unlimited storage capabilities (although 180 seems a lot if SG changes something and uses a lot more cookies you will be further restricted).
Localstorage is only "permanent" with regard to automatic expiration, you can still manually delete values. You can do garbage collection the same way you are currently implementing it.
The only drawback to Localstorage is that its an HTML5 feature, with most browsers automatically updating nowadays, this really isnt an issue.
//First Change your entry object to be something like this.
entry = {id:XXXXX, giveawayEnd:YYYYY};
//Giveaway end is given in text format so you'll have to parse it. (About 2 Weeks Left = 2*7*24*60*60*1000) I think thats what your currently doing, but your using it as an expires value instead.
function onContestEntry(){
if(typeof localstorage.allEntries === 'undefined'){
localstorage.allEntries = [];
}
else{
//Remove Closed Giveaways
var currentTime = new Date().getTime();
$.each(localstorage.allEntries,function(index,entry){
if(currentTime > entry.giveawayEnd){
localstorage.allEntries.splice(index,1);
}
});
}
//Parse how much time is left
parsedTime = your_parse_time_function();
//Create a new contest entry
entry{id:XXXXX, giveawayEnd:parsedTime}
localstorage.allEntries.push(entry);
}FYI I have not tested any of this code.
Edit: now that i think about it, i've never tried greasemonkey + localstorage, i hope theres no limitations there.
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Thanks. That is informative.
But:
I encountered a conversation complaining about some inability to use some localStorage feature in a userscript. I did not look into it, but it worried me.
Since localStorage does not have an automated expiration, I feel that using them is just too complicated and bad (their number will just grow, until they cause performance problems).
And I figured out a better way to do it the cookie way, so that there is loads of space and minimal wasted bandwidth. A cookie is only saved if you CLOSE a giveaway, it is then deleted when you reenter.
I assume no one exits 100 unique giveaways a week. I assume only about 5 at any one time would be a normal maximum. So this is minimal.
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my main worry is that its not possible to use localstorage via userscript too.
your other concern regarding unlimited storage is nothing to worry about
//Remove Closed Giveaways
var currentTime = new Date().getTime();
$.each(localstorage.allEntries,function(index,entry){
if(currentTime > entry.giveawayEnd){
localstorage.allEntries.splice(index,1);
}
});this block clean up closed giveaways, the splice command will remove the closed giveaway and fill in the hole in the array. Since its called everytime you enter a giveaway the storage size can never be larger than the number of giveaways you entered.
On a side note
I think its a great idea to only save data when you exit a giveaway. Its very clever, lazy evaluation at its finest.
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"I created a userscript after I was inspired by the Thanks filter."
So after a member of the community tried to do something good by introducing a method to reduce the spam we're all so tired of, you are "inspired" by it to offer people tools to create more spam.
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I'm using it on Firefox 22.0
I clicked on your link above to install it, it took me to the script's page. I clicked install on that page, got the greasemonkey pop-up that made me wait a few seconds to install it. I clicked install on that then greasmonkey popped up with "'SteamGifts Thanks' has been installed succesfully" I clicked ok. Greasemonkey is enabled and when I click on manage user scripts I see SteamGifts Thanks listed there and it's not disabled. I am also running SteamGifts Enchancement Addon 2.0 if that makes any difference, although I tried disabling it and SteamGifts Thanks still didn't do anything. I've also tried restarting Firefox.
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Strange that FF handles things so different that a generic script does not even run in both of them.
But, you are right, it simply does not work.
I uploaded a version that will work. http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/174964
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Why need you say "thanks" on all giveaways? Like spamers
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lol, this thread made me laugh several times. Many complaining because a script just autothanks on a giveaway. I would argue: copying thanks with ctrl-c ctrl-v isn't the same thing? typing it just to increase the comment ratio ("ty") don't count aswelll? I think the current system is simply flawed, and many people can "farm comments" and enter giveaways that require a thanks anyway, with or without this script.
I have brought an idea long time ago to make any thanks more valuable, but it was rejected many times. I just think about a captcha that you must complete to submit a "Thanks button" or a "Thanks comment" in a giveaway. This way an user must spent at least 5 seconds to say thanks, and this encourage only the ones that truly want to say thanks to do so. If you think laziness is the problem, here is the solution, but I think many people here just want to act like the best one of the community while leeching the system.
Also keep in mind that if someone want to be unfair with all this, he/she will do anyway.
Thank you btw for the great effort on giving the community a tool to use (like any tool, can be used for good or for bad)
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A lot of people seem to think effort equals worth.
Using this idea, it makes sense.
Note: A far better way to remove spam in my opinion would be to make an algorithm to sense spam. Make submitting 'ty','thanks','thank you' just impossible to comment.
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well at least say why you think is "so stupid" to call that the most stupid. Also I want to highlight that I was talking about Thank you comments, not regular ones (and don't tell me there is no way to separates the two...)
Another question: You think the current system to say thank you is fair? Because if we want to continue to look at that blindfolded then I will not have anything more to say. When a regular user that maybe want to say thank you aside from posting it to prevent too much spam, and is called a leecher... and when an user just type "ty" or copypaste a sentence is considered a high member of the community, because of the high comment ratio... just think about it.
btw I was expecting a fairly more constructive answer from users here, figure a member of support team, but this seems to be the way things goes...
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Captchas are meant to require human intelligence to pass in order to prevent bots or scripts from doing things like automatically registering accounts or requesting things.
The only 'problem' related to people posting comments thanking giveaway submitters is that some people don't want to have to actually thank people for giving things away for free, but they don't want to have to deal with the stigma of people considering them ungrateful and rude because they refuse to. In other words, they whine because they don't get to have their cake and eat it, too.
Captchas have absolutely nothing to do with this situation at all. Making people jump through pointless hoops just to post a comment only causes hassle for everyone. Forcing people who already resent that they have to pretend to be decent people to avoid ostracism from the community to perform additional tasks isn't going to magically make them grateful, and it's not doing any favors for the rest of us who already offer our sincere thanks to submitters for their generosity.
What you're suggesting would be a waste of time coding and implementing in order to waste even more of everyone else's time on the whole site solving captchas constantly, never mind how basically everyone will completely hate it. The only reason why someone would actually implement a system like this is to intentionally piss everyone off and make life around the site more difficult for all of us.
Is that a thorough enough explanation of how incredibly stupid that idea is?
Also: "btw I was expecting a fairly more constructive answer from users here, figure a member of support team, but this seems to be the way things goes..."
I'm fed up with people who act like just because we're site staff we don't get to have opinions of our own. Just because I volunteer my free time to help around the site and try to make it better for everyone doesn't mean I'm not allowed to have an opinion or to express that opinion the same as everyone else. You and all the other people who seem to think you have a right to decide what we're allowed to say or talk about can all just fuck right off.
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+1 for all of this.
If you are planning to stand for Steamgifts Man of the Year 2013, you can count on my nomination, for what it's worth...
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Captcha are also meant to prevent spam and I don't think you are forced to use them how they are meant, they are a tool and you can use them as you wish. The problem is that people whine because a script let everyone to post a thank you message automatic, because they think it will not be sincere. Same people don't complain about a "ty" copypasted message that have the same meaning ("i want to increase my comment ratio, i don't wanna waste time on this site"). Why? Because this seems to easier the work of these leechers, but apart from that, noone cares if they take 0.5 seconds to do the same identical thing. So my concern is, do people realize that if they want only sincere thank you comments they need to make this a bit more "difficult" that just hit 2 buttons in a row? Surely it will not remove at all the problem, but will address many cases. And come on, you are saying that a user that want to thank you someone for their gift (which takes 3-4 minutes only for buying and creating the giveaway) would not """waste""" 5 seconds to post the message? I see a lot incoherence here...
Implementing this would not be a waste and is really easy to setup, and I'm pretty sure many people that hate them don't understand what they effectively do (never seen internet before 2000? A giant bot spam machine?). However, if your problem is captcha, you can implement a simple counter that wait at least 5-10 seconds before posting, although is very less effective. It's not meant to slow down users, is meant to make thank you comments worth more, since many seems value that based on the time someone waste on writing it.
I don't know also where to higlight you better than I was speaking for thank you comments, and not the others. So the only "issue" will be for people that want to say thanks. Others kind of comments are completely unaffected. You can make 2 sections separates for regular comments and for thanks. If a user want to truly be grateful, they will lose 10 seconds of their precious life to do that.
And no, it's not a good explanation since you seems to completely miss the whole point, just thinking about how wrong this idea is and nothing more.
Well you know what? I'm completely fed up from arrogance of people like you. I don't care if you think a completely different idea from mine, we are in a forum, let's discuss. What's wrong with your comment is the tone, very rude and pretentious, like you are the holy knight that knows the true truth. You can have said that in many ways, also pointing out that in your opinion is stupid, but why focus on the fact that is "the most stupid idea ever"? I think you are trying to just act superior here, and you know what? There are people like me that find it difficult to express their ideas or show a bit support not only on what they care, but also on other subjects (I really don't care how this will end, I will continue to post thank you message when I think it's good to do so, like in ga I'm enetering or puzzle I can solve) and comments like you don't encourages to express without being singled out.
So if you really want to "make it better for everyone" you should do that everytime, not only when you feel in the mood. And since now, I NEVER pretend to decide what you're allowed to say. I just point out that being so rude, like in your last sentence, is not a constructive way to deal with, if you are fine with this behavior than good luck.
Personally I was expecting many people discordant with my pov... never I expect that someone waste his time to say "it's too stupid, deal with it, cya".
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Again, your whole argument is predicated on a false equivocation. Just because someone has to work harder or take more time doing something doesn't make it any more sincere. It only makes it a bigger hassle.
Imagine two couples, both having their anniversary. One man climbs to the top of a mountain to collect a bouquet of rare wildflowers. The other man stops by the local florist. Which man loves his wife more? The answer cannot be determined from the scenario because it says nothing about the matter. Just because one of them went stupidly out of his way to do basically the same thing is irrelevant. It has no bearing on their feelings.
I don't know why you can't understand that effort is not the same thing as sincerity. Your 'solution' accomplishes nothing except making using the site a bigger pain in the ass for everyone.
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Wait, I don't mean that, I'm not the one who says more effort = more sincerity. But if you read many comments in this thread you realize that the problem is there: An user must take more steps to thanks, this way is considered worth more than one that use a script.
I like your example, so let me use it in the other way around: If someone use a script to say thanks, does this make his/her comment less valuable than one that waste 10 minutes to write it? Maybe for you is no, but from what I can read in the whole thread, this is the point.. many people whining because this script let users post easily a thank you, and this bother them.
I want also to specify that I don't use script at all, neither sg+, I like vanilla browsers, so I'm the last who would take advantage of that script. But I don't like when people start whining about a problem that in fact is already present: people will continue to post thanks to just be kind, others will continue to post for incrementing comment ratio or just to be able to enter on another ga (like the ones that clearly say you should say thanks). It's not a tool that will make a significant difference here, my idea is just to determine that people who said thanks are only ones that truly want to do that (if on the top of the mountain there will be the girl who you love, if you truly love her you will do anything to reach her, no matter the pain) and masochists.. you will lose some thanks from people that don't want to be bothered, but at least you will know a small group that love to say thanks. But again, it's not my way of thinking, is just an answer to people rantling. To me, it does not make any difference on say thanks or not... Every person just would be grateful as they wish, no matter what they write. (I want to specify that I, apart from the first months on the site, start to thanks on every giveaway I enter, also trying to say something more than a simple thanks in the majority of cases).
So imho this script won't determine if a user is truly thankfully or if they just want to grind games, nor it will make it more people to do that (0,5 seconds to copypaste a message is enough fast to not bothering leechers). And I don't like people that complains about this, and not write anything about the current system that is flawed anyway in this perspective.
Also I would like if you write 2 more lines about the other argument, I don't want to have disputes with anyone here, so let's try to clear that and be polite each of us. I was a bit upset by your comment because I find it a bit offensive, so I probably need to excuse me for my excessive reaction, hoping you didn't do it on purpose just for flaming, but I want to believe that you acted in good faith.
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Okay, I think I see what you're thinking. You think that the kind of people who copypaste their thanks will stop if they have to solve a captcha, right? The thing is, I don't think they will. It might stop people from using scripts like this, but I don't care about people using scripts like this, and I think anyone who does is kind of silly. It's not any different from the people who just copypaste, and you can't stop them. I think people would still copypaste thanks but solve the captchas too. I don't think it would make much difference. A few people might stop if they had to do a captcha, but I don't think it would be anywhere close to being worth the trouble it would make for everyone else.
In short, I don't think punishing everyone on the site by making them solve captchas to post in giveaways is worth getting a few people to stop copypasting insincere thanks here and there. What benefit there is just isn't anywhere close to being worth the cost.
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The irony is, the people most likely to benefit from such an advent will never thank you for it.
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Screenshots: Giveaway Entry, Filtered Comments, Unfiltered Comments, Options: Comment, Options: Filter
The Steamgifts Giveaway Improvement Script was originally designed to automatically thank the giveaway's creator when entering their giveaway; Saving you both time, and making sure you remain polite; But has evolved into much more. It is now a general efficiency improvement tool for everything to do with the giveaway page of Steamgifts.com. It comments and enters a GA with a single form submit, halving the amount of server communications time it can take to both enter and comment on a single giveaway. The script also makes the site slightly more stable when the site is particularly laggy and unresponsive. Specifically, because it uses AJAX requests; If one fails it can tell, and the script just sends another one, and so on and so forth until the request gets through. Additionally, you can specify a number of End Behaviors to perform, after you have entered into a giveaway, including closing the tab.
The script first looks for any content in the page's comment box, and will use that if it is available. Otherwise, it uses whatever custom comment you have set, or just defaults to "Thanks!", if one is not available. When the script submits a comment it records this, and stores an expiring data point to remember not to auto comment if you re-enter this giveaway. You can also set a specific "end behavior", to perform after submittal of both the comment and entrance into the giveaway (e.g., close the page).
The script is also built with a filter specifically designed to recognize other auto thank comments, as well as a host of other generic thanks spam. Filtering them out, and adding them to the "thanked" summery. So you can personalize and lengthen your default comment as much as you want, while still having it filtered out as generic "thanks" spam. The filter ignores your own comments, but will filter out all default auto thank comments, while leaving the personalized ones (read: comments that you wrote for a specific giveaway). When the script encounters replies, it only filters out the entire comment tree if every single comment is considered spam, otherwise the entire tree is left intact. While viewing the comments, or through the options menu, you can add more messages to filtered list, or more authors to the whitelist.
Another major feature is the Markdown toolbar. Steamgifts uses the Markdown language to style and format comments. This first version of the toolbar only includes two features, but they can make using Markdown far easier. One button converts the selected (or entire comment) from HTML to Markdown, and by default strips out any remaining HTML code as well. Meaning you can create links, list, or bold text using HTML code, and one click of this button will convert it to Markdown. The other button simply strips out HTML code, useful if you are copy pasting.
This entire project, and in particular the auto comment feature, was inspired by BarefootMonkey's Thank Filter Userscript. Additionally, the visual style of BarefootMonkey's "thanked" summery is almost copied for my own.
The HTML to Markdown conversion is done using Dom Christie's to-markdown JS engine, copyright © 2011 Dom Christie and released under the MIT license.
(Options will not take effect on any current pages, until they are reloaded)
Compatibility:
Designed and tested on Chrome, using the Tampermonkey extension.
Firefox - Does not work, and I cannot get it to work. This project needs a Firefox expert to port it. If you are interested in giving it a try, please contact me.
SteamGifts Plus - Some minimal testing. Appears to be compatible.
Help Needed - If it works for you, or does not work for you, in any unlisted ways, please let me know.
Version History:
Version 2.3 – Added fully featured, and customizable filter system. Preload options. Fixed some bugs, improved stability. Moved options link to option in "Account" dropdown; Changed page to "/giveaway/improvement". As well as a bunch of really nessesary little features to improve normal commenting. Two buttons arounds the comment box to make using the markdown easier; One to conver HTML to markdown, and anouther to strip out html code. Added in reset to default buttons for all text options. (August 24th, 2013)
Version 2.1.1 – FIX: Page closing by default. (August 7th, 2013)
Version 2.1 – CHANGED: Name, some wording in about page changed. ADDED: highlight options link when in options page. (August 7th, 2013)
Version 2.0 – Complete code redesign and many features added. Code stabilized, improved, modularized, and documented. Designed to be feature complete (aka, have all the necessary features, but nothing fancy or particularly involved). (August 7th, 2013)
Version 1.X – Original design and release of the Auto Thank Script. Many rapid updates were released to stabilize and improve basic design. All it did was comment "Thanks." every time you entered a giveaway. It worked, but had ragged, patchwork, code. Latter versions tried to prevent double comments. (August 2th, 2013)
Potential Future Updates:
Expand the Markdown toolbar.
A mark/badge to denote that you have already commented on this current giveaway.
When script launched for the first time or newly updated, show About page.
Add more End Behavior features.
Keep points up to date on all pages.
Check for new replies, and show in menu bar.
Add in support for special tags, that would be replaced by the gifter's name, the giveaway name, etc.
Add in support for multiple different auto comments, and allow user to select one when entering giveaways/commenting.
Add support for more special tags to select and insert from a randomly chosen one from a range of other auto comments.
Add support for simple IF/else special tags for use within the comments.
Allow support for templates. Comments that are designed to be added to (e.g., signatures).
(Submit any suggestions, bugs, or compatibility information to the Official Steamgifts Giveaway Improvement Script)
Links:
Official Steamgifts Giveaway Improvement Script
Userscript Page
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