How Much Can A Gifter Discriminate?

BAN THEM RUSSIANS

"Refusing someone on their behaviour in the community or other offensive content (e.g. avatars)"
This is one "rule" I would understand. If a person was a complete dick on the forums, wore a swastika as their avatar and posted a death threat on every giveaway he doesn't win, I would be, at the very least, hesitant to give them a game if he won my giveaways.

I think they have the right to do so. They bought the game, they make the rules of the giveaway.

Hey hey, I take offense to the whole Ginger thing...no no, I'm kidding. Lol, but really. It is the fault of the person who entered and won because it just shows people do not read and just blindly enter. If the guy made his own rule to say you needed it in your wishlist. They should of taken 3 seconds out of very very very busy schedule and put it in their wishlist.

I think that if you want to make certain rules for a giveaway you should make it a private giveaway, and then only invite those who meet your criteria. Anyone should be able to enter any public giveaway if they have enough points to enter it.

"Not gifting to people who haven't uploaded"
"Not gifting to people who refuse to comment in their giveaways/forums"
"Refusing someone on their behaviour in the community or other offensive content (e.g. avatars)",
"Refusing people on the grounds they've won too much",
"Refusing people who have no steam time on their account for ages",
"Refusing people who might be vac banned/assumed stolen account",
These are reasons I understand and if they are stated in the description.

There would be no end to the drama if this behavior is allowed. I am completely against anything like this.

Either do a private giveaway and offer it to the people that meet your high standards or give the gifts no matter what. There should not be any alternatives to this.

your missing a key point.... it is THEIR Gift to giveaway however they want too.
you may not agree with it in some way.... but ultimately, it is a game they paid for or earned in some way and are being generous enough to offer it up in a giveaway to people who meet a criteria that they decide on.
As long as they aren't being rude, racist or offensive in some way (other than feeling offended at the criteria).

Damn Gingers shouldn't be stealing our games. They don't even have souls.

I think gifters should be able to enforce any (at least mildly reasonable by some logic) rule(s) they care to, honestly. Sometimes people are forgetting that this site is about charity, not about entitlement. :( Noone is obligated to gift anything, and noone would ever see anything except exploited keys and $0.01 humble bundles without people willing to make charitable donations.

If you don't like someone's rules, don't enter their give away -- simple as that. Remember that at the end of the day they're giving something they bought with Real Life Moneys away for free.

If I had won a giveaway, and didn't happen to notice the "fine print" of what the gifter said his/her rules were...Then I would completely understand him/her not gifting the prize to me. Really, as someone above pointed out, it only takes a second to read their comment - it's RIGHT underneath the game picture...And, they're the ones putting up the RL Monies, while I only sacrificed points that were given to me for free. Nobody here can say that anyone HAS to give away a game after they put up a giveaway. Not gifting after a giveaway IS shady, but if they had a reason, and even STATED that reason before I ever entered the giveaway, then I'd believe they were in the right, and I was in the wrong for blindly clicking-to-enter (haste makes waste) instead of reading. "THE DEVIL IS IN THE DETAILS."

I think rules are fine, as long as they are stated in advance, in the description. Gifters should not be able to deny a gift for some random reason they came up with after the winner was chosen.

People shouldn't be able to add any restrictions to public giveaways imo. If they want to do something like that, do an invite-only.

I just can't believe there are people agreeing to this ludicrous notion regarding public giveaways. This site is supposed to be a fun, relaxed place for people to share games and spread the joy. Not somewhere where you have to read dozens of rules on every giveaway, sign up on agreements to only to get booted out of giveaways you won so some smartass can claim that you messed up and not getting your price.

Do you love bureaucracy so much that you want more and more of it? Do you really want every user to put up a couple of dozen rules on every giveaway, rules that are written in crafty ways that can easily be misunderstood?

Lets pretend that this is a giveaway, is this really what you want to see on every game that interests you slightly:

Here are my rules lowlifes, obey them, or you are not getting my gifts, since even though it is a public giveaway it is my gift and I can ask whatever I want.

• You can't win my gifts if your profile pic isn't your actual picture.
• You can't win my gifts if your name includes numbers, or includes multiple words or starts with a non capital letter.
• You can't win my gifts if you are a member of other Steam Groups other than Steamgifts.
• You can't win my gifts if you have more games than me, why should I gift you if you are richer than me.
• You can't win my gifts if you have less than $100 worth of games on your Steam account, cause it means you are not serious about Steam!.
• You can't win my gifts if you have Killing Floor, because I suck at that game.
• You can't win my gifts if you don't let me kill you on TF2 ten times in a row first.
• You can't win my gifts if you haven't gifted an odd number of games on Steamgifst first.
• You can't win my gifts if you haven't gifted me a game.
• You can't win my gifts if you don't have Saintsrow 3 on top of your wishlist.
• You can't win my gifts if you don't have at least 30 games on your wishlist.
• You can't win my gifts if you don't post an embarrassing picture of yours on the forums.
• You can't win my gifts if you don't have all the achievements for this games sequel.
• You can't win my gifts if you are not of 20 or up.
• You can't win my gifts if you are a member of xxx race, because they suck.
• You can't win my gifts if you say that you are a girl, because I know that there are no girl gamers.
• You can't win my gifts if you are a leftie, you need to link me a video on Youtube to prove.
• You can't win my gifts if you don't have at least 256 posts on forums.
• You can't win my gifts if you don't write how great I am in no less than 5000 words in the giveaway page before the giveaway ends. You lose if I spot a single typo.
• You can't win my gifts if you haven't registered in at least two months ago, I hate newbies.
• You can't win my gifts if you don't give me your full address with photos of all your family members.
• You can't win my gifts if I don't like your attitude on our talk over Skype when I ask you why you entered this giveaway instead of buying it cheapstake.
• You can't win my gifts if you don't like Community and can't answer the three random questions that I'll ask.
• You can't win my gifts if you don't insult the users I'll tell you on the forums in no less than two dozen insulting words, I hate those buggers.
• You can't win my gifts if you don't have a 50" TV, what kind of a loser are you?
• You can't win my gifts if you don't preorder Deus Ex3, I think it'll be cool so should you.

Am I out of my mind? No. If a gifter decides, for whatever reason, that they are not going to gift me a game that I won in a giveaway, and I say something on the forums about it, I will be told - essentially - "quit your crying over not getting a free game, won with points that you didn't pay for."

How is that any different than now? You and I both know what this site is supposed to be about, but you're out of your mind if you think there isn't a good number of people who use it purely to snag free games, without any intent to return the favor. You cannot force charity - it stops being charity. You start telling users that they either have to a) only offer their game to the select few that they know, or b)offer the game to every Tom, Dick, and Harry and Chernobyl that registered on the site, and you will start seeing a helluva lot less games being offered (unless you're sociable enough to become invited to the bevvy of private giveaways that will occur).

This will be the last thing I'll say about this subject. I don't read, care, or recognize any rules outside the ones on FAQ and Guidelines. If a gifter refuses to give a gift to me, I'll mark it as undelivered, and refer that person as a fake gifter to the mods for their discretion.

As much as i dont like those stupid rules that gifters create, It is their game and their rules. All it will do is ruin their reputation as a gifter by getting negetive feedback. Not really much you can do i dont think.

I think gift givers blaming people for not reading their rules didn't read the faq. The idea of saying I bought the game so I'll give it to whom I want is a really good one. But going on the streets saying I'm giving this away with a raffle and saying to the winner I don't want to give this to you is just rude. There are billions of other way to organize your giveaway with more obedient people, but if you use this one when you say you are going to giveaway, you do giveaway.

At the end of the day you have entered your game as a gift onto a pubic (well private almost) international website that allocates the winner using a random selection algorithm.

Though I do believe that the gifter should have the right to deny a winner the prize if they so choose. Such as people begging for games on their community page etc, not having the game even though they entered into DLC etc etc

The hardest thing though would be to decide if the person is "dodgy" by the amount or lack of games, VAC bans on record etc.

Although requesting people to have the game in their most wanted wishlist is something I can agree with it is pretty absurd.

Regarding the winner not posting on the entry to say "thanks for the sub" etc I think that is a matter of manners... though people could argue that it has more to do with those who really want it versus those who blindly enter every competition they come by. BUT same could be said as how many people enter countless competitions and post anyway?

One thing I would look at though is worthiness. I might decide not to gift a game if the winner has a buttload of games in their account already (they aren't exactly poor enough not to buy one by the looks of things kind of way) or those who have won a serious amount of competitions on the site I would maybe prefer someone else to have the chance at winning.

My 2 cents

What about the concept of a Gifter having rules that are identical to the ones listed for the sight? Such as leaving a comment saying 'thanks'? I'm sure I saw a bullet point mentioning to thank the Gifter for the giveaway. So if I put up a giveaway, state that it will only be given to a winner that left a comment...Is that being bureaucratic? I don't understand why it isn't seen for the simplicity: I don't join giveaways for games I already own, and I don't join giveaways for DLC if I do not own the game...There's a restriction in place, and as such, no different than a user-specified restriction. Please notice the lack of a plural, btw. There's a definite line between allowing one restriction versus multiple (see: Reasonable restrictions). echoMateria's example is flawed, then, due to the fallacy of necessity ( that if we allow someone to imply a user-created restriction, we'd have to allow everyone to imply a user-created multi-restriction.)

Nah, i guess another shitty idea is coming. Don't you think user avatars, forum posts, etc are their own business? Not yours, capisce? If you don't want to create a public giveaway, just create a private giveaway. Problems with that?