User Bloat continues

Woould like to see giveaway creators receiving double points after completing a giveaway (including receivement confirmation) and not be punished pointswise because the are generous.

Agreed. Why anything would be counted without a confirmation is beyond me.
There should be a newb status of a free account that gets less points than a seasoned contributor to the site, whether that contribution be social or gift giving. Yes, this would provide some bias towards people who put more into the site, but that is not a bad thing.

Other ideas may be adjusting for inflation. Start by using a ratio of gifting users to taking users, or use the influx of points across the user base to adjust the entry value for games.

In theory, there is a better balance that can be achieved, but I suspect the site programmer doesn't have a lot of experience in this particular area. There should be an ideal condition that the algorithm should strive for, whetehr that is one entry per person per game, or otherwise.

I'm new to the site so I don't know if my suggestions will work. Basically just set limits on users who haven't gifted yet.

Are users allowed to enter multiple giveaways? I have only entered once so far because I'm not going to enter for games I won't play. If this is true, a regular user should only be able to enter one giveaway at a time. This would reduce the amount of people within each giveaway. As an incentive for users to gift, people who create giveaways will be able to enter more than one giveaway. Of course, this all depends on if you can even enter more than one currently.

Point amounts. I heard the maximum amount is 300, correct? If so, limit that amount for people who haven't made giveaways. Something that will allow users to enter giveaways of expensive games; 100 points?

Now, the problem would be users gifting once just to get those bonuses. What you would do is reset the bonuses once a month.

Are these good ideas, or are they a bit harsh?

Maybe I'm ignorant, but I've been pleasantly surprised by how people have continued to give gifts despite the utter lack of monetary or material incentive. When the site had 9000 members, it had 3000 gifts. Now, at 18,000 members, we have 6,000 gifts. It seems to be maintaining a 3:1 ratio all by itself.

Certainly, at some point it'll start changing...but it seems like we are still cruising along well for now.

That is why I run my public giveaways for only 1 hour. Keeps the numbers down and rewards the frequent visitors of the site.

strongly agree with everything said here. however i have given this some thought and while i believe that the registered users might balloon the number of entries will reach a point where people no longer believe worth entering, and old users, frustrated by the lack of a win, will cease to frequent the site as much. Therefore number of entries per game will reach a point of equilibrium at some point, but when that is, who knows? for instance does 5000 entries give too low odds for a free game to be worth visiting the site?

I have made 5 invites. if say each user makes a avg of 3 invties community members went up by 4k thats a potential 12k more invites this will keep multiplying and wont stop

Limiting entries according to how much you have gifted OR WON would be a good idea.

Something must be done here!

First of all, majority of users on this website DO NOT GIFT and DO NOT COMMENT and DO NOT PARTICIPATE in forum/chat.
I am not willing to give my gifts to that kind of users. Up until now I created only 1 public giveaway on this website and it will be my last.
Why?
For the above stated reason. I am willing to share my gifts with other people, I do not require something in return (gift definition), BUT I do not want for my gifts to go to someone that checks this website now and then, never participate in the community, accumulate 300 points and then enters bunch of giveaways for the games he will not even play.

That is why I will not post public giveaways no more, and I believe I am not the only one!

My suggestions are:

1.) Users have control over rules of their giveaway. We who create giveaway should have an option to limit entries to those who actually gifts something, to those that are active on forums etc. (lots of filters)

2.) We should have power to kick someone out of our own giveaway

3.) We should have power to create invite only giveaway (one link per person that we send invite too to stop link sharing).

etc etc. You get my point.

I am not selfish, but I will not give my gifts to those that do not deserve it!

Private group giveaways ftw

Wait, what if you used a system like http://tf2r.com/ where you can set a maximum users per raffle number, and once it reaches the maximum number it draws a winner?

600 entries into giveaways each with 600 users entering is still only 63% chance to win :-). I joined site after the lock down, but I am having fun so far. As long as the 3:1 ratio mentioned above stays consistent I am okay with it.

today, i clicked a random user...this person entered 4 givaways and won once. i've entered 51, in each i've left comments and still havent won a single thing. this said, i also agree either there needs to be more custom givaway rules, or the point-to-everyone thing vs new users thing should be re-evaluated.

edit: i mean just look at the numbers on the bad luck streak threads

As someone who has won plenty of swag from the internets over the years (Including a nice Geforce GTX275 when it was launched), I am not fussed about odds, frankly.

One of the first thing I done when I joined here was posted a giveaway (Of Lego Batman, just because it was a sort of game that didn't really appear here) and will be doing a random quirky giveaway a month. If I don't win anything, I don't care, if I do, great. The odds are the same for everyone and if you want the ratio of giveaways to "takers" improving, encourage more people to post giveaways or find kind hearted friends to do so!

yeah. those damn users. THOSE LEECHES WHO WANT GOOD GAMES BUT DONT WANT TO PAY, damn bastards!
/sarcasm

Really, this site is for the private giveaways anyways. and there isn't much point if all your friends can't join...
public giveaways are meh anyways. more people = more appreciation and less winning all around. Fine by me.

As a completely new user here I feel the need to chip in.

I've just posted Dawn of War 2, Trine and Aaaaaaaa giveaways. Collectively, 44 people have entered. Of those 44 entries, people have only bothered to submit 9 comments (8 different people). More disturbingly, of those 9 people, not one has posted a gift of their own.

I've entered a few random giveaways but am not particularly hopeful that I'll win anything. I actually used the invite code in the hope that I would be able to donate games in a generous environment where people would appreciate it. Instead I feel like this is just a few generous people donating and thousands upon thousands of leechers wanting games for nothing.

People should be required to provide gifts before they can start entering if only to limit entries and give some sort of hope to those entering that they might actually win something and to discourage leechers from coming onto this site. The scavenging for invite codes on the Steam forums is absolutely absurd.

huh, since when you need invite codes? now you can join w/o invite code ...
which means influx of bot-net driven accounts to follow
the invite code generation needs recaptcha , the site registation too ...
that will slow them a bit ... but not stop (recaptcha is already broken)
it needs human like computing checks (e.g. how many legs have chicken?) :)