Am I paranoid with bots?
I only comment when I win to thank the creator (unless otherwise stated), but when I do it does sound kind of robotic since I use the same phrase over and over again. Its very noticeable in my giveaway descriptions. Last 300 or so have some variation of - "Good luck, key via steamgifts menu" Mostly because I am non native English speaker and tend to fall back on set phrases... and because I am lazy and dont wish to think variable sentences.
Comment has been collapsed.
Same here. I only thank when I win, using the same phrase most times. Thinking of new words is hard, even if English is my first language!
Comment has been collapsed.
Same, I tend to comment/thank when the GAs have interesting descriptions and when I win, also if I enter a GA that has no comments too.
Comment has been collapsed.
If I'm running public giveaways and I get the exact same "thank you" on both they get the list.
Comment has been collapsed.
I just take a few seconds to scan the thanks (in case there's an actual message hiding in there) and mark them as read.
Life's too short to be bitter about repetitive gratitude!
Comment has been collapsed.
i post generic thanks all the times because i am grateful for the giveaway and the possibility to win. Only sometime i post something more than a thanks. I know someone blacklisted me for saying thanks to all of his giveaways and i don't take it personal but Jesus H. Roosevelt!!!.
Comment has been collapsed.
Someone lvl 7 (last time I checked) has an auto thanking script I supposed cause they posted 3 different variations of their thank you message on a public GA of mine lol. 2 different ones in the same minute and then another one 2 minutes later.
Comment has been collapsed.
For each entry? I suppose it would reduce some of the automated entries, but if you're dedicated you can just use something like captcha brotherhood or deathbycaptcha to bypass them altogether.
Comment has been collapsed.
well, i write only thx, ty thanks ecc, i'm a bot :( ? but lately I do not write anything.
But for example, my name is PaRaNoID, and i see: thanks PaRaNoID, its a bot/scripted 100%! And i blacklist who have 70 win 10 sent..
Comment has been collapsed.
That doesn't mean that someone is a bot. I thank each giveaway creator I enter that is from my wishlist. I copy their name exactly as it appears from SG into my thank you message.
Comment has been collapsed.
yeah but whishlist. i entries 99% public giveaway and i see that. normally who write this , is a scripter/leecher (not your case btw)
Comment has been collapsed.
Maybe they're lazy or just don't know english much.
Plus there are people with awful ratio, but typing on forum much...
Hey that sounds like me!
I feel so ashamed O__O
Comment has been collapsed.
<generic annoying thank you message from friendly bot>
Comment has been collapsed.
Saying thanks was encouraged by this site, though far as I can see isn't now, probably because people freak out about it for some reason.
I'm sure there are scripts and such but probably most people just write generic 'thanks' because it's easiest. It's rather hard to think of a new way to say thanks for each giveaway when you enter dozens of them a day.
Frankly I think that blacklisting for saying thanks is idiotic. It's terribly easy to not say thanks, it's terribly easy to enter with a script and not say thanks. People who choose to say thanks want to show some appreciation, and then they get penalised for it? So you feel that it's much better to just be ungrateful?
Comment has been collapsed.
There's a strong reason between not writing thanks and being ungrateful.
If you say thanks every 5 minutes, after a few hours that word is meaningless for you, it doesn't have any value or thoughts, it's a random sequence of characters being repeated over and over again.
I am always grateful for winning giveaway, and I always post my unique thanks gif for every person who provided me with the gift, but I do not "spam" by posting meaningless "thanks" in every giveaway I join, where's the point? You don't have anything constructive to add? Don't do that, if you have something constructive to add - do that, I've never seen anyone blacklisting somebody for writing something nice.
Comment has been collapsed.
I'd say that even if there's not much meaning in that spammed text, there's still more meaning in it than in not posting a thing. At the very least there's more courtesy to it. In any case, I can't see how thanking is inferior to not thanking, and certainly can't see a good reason why someone would find it so offensive as to blacklist those who thank.
Comment has been collapsed.
I can't understand it either, but most people seem to live in some flawed world without any logic, so I just stopped commenting unless I win, because I don't want to guess if they like those thanks comments or not. The only exception is when creator clearly states so.
Comment has been collapsed.
JustArchi summed it up nicely, I don't think that blacklisting ppl just for generic messages is good, but when you made a handful of public GAs and you see the same user with the same generic messages... it just loses its value, heck I would prefer to see "ty", "thanks", and "thank you" instead of the same characters copy pasted over and over again.
Comment has been collapsed.
Usually, I:
a) block games I'm not interested in (currently at 4016 games, yikes!)
b) enter the other ones
conditional c) leave a thank you upon winning said giveaway
Comment has been collapsed.
now I will press ctrl + v : Thank you!
hah!
and to make matters worse I didn't even type it the first time, just ctrl + c'd another generic thanks comment and used it on every giveaway I entered in this session
I'm a horrible person, I know.
Comment has been collapsed.
lol, well your ratio defend you from being cataloged as a bot.
Wait. Or was that your plan all along... SKYNET!?! D:
Comment has been collapsed.
Honestly.. i got a shitty ratio and i know it...
i just dont have much money.. still i could do better probably.. :/
but.. everthing i enter is by hand.. and even tough a bot could do it faster and even if its just for my wishlist.. which isnt too long...
i think i owe it to the people who do the giveaways.
- if anyone writes something (not a wall of text) in most cases i read it and if theres a little funstuff like adding a pic... i ll do it
- i dont like to put a "thanks" below, because some people blacklist you.. on the other hand... some blacklist you for not doing it... or for doing it the wrong way... or... whatever.. point is... i do write somehing... except if the creator himself doesnt write anything
- i really thing that the best way... are riddles :) that way there is no "hard" restriction for people who like privacy (like me) and you nkow that only people who solve the riddle get in :)
anyways :) just my mustard ^^
Comment has been collapsed.
I usually only enter for games that are on my wishlist, or the dev GA's at the top, but I do so manually. I try not to make a generic "thank you" on everything, but I will copy paste if I have no light in the room or am very tired.
Comment has been collapsed.
I used a simple phrase for saying thanks when entering giveaways, and only changed it up if there was something I was responding to in the giveaway creator's description. I probably did look like a bot to s
Sorry, had to stop to change my batteries. As I was saying, I probably did look like a bot to some. I've since stopped saying thanks, because it's more likely to make people think it's bot-carpet-bombing entries and makes them read my thank you messages, and only a few ever responded to those anyway (out of hundreds).
oils squeaky finger joints and books seasonal maintenance at garage for himself
Comment has been collapsed.
People scripting here too? Seriously... Tomorow ppl will start scripting in IRL... "Oh im too lazy to go to work I'll use my script to go to work instaed of me while my brain is AFK" XDDDD Seriously (rofl)
Comment has been collapsed.
Its all a bit insane you know? I remenber people re-rolling or blacklisting because someone didn't said 'thanks'; Others because people said thanks (like a crusade against the normal way of being thankful). Because of the 'no thanks prior to winning asking for re-roll' (yeah, happened to me) i started saying thanks everywhere (ctrl+v), then because of the latter i started saying something else.
then i found a script; I don't even recall the name of the extension, wich answers for me soon after i click 'join'.
...and now theres people blacklisting because of those who use said messages?
I guess theres no way around it then- we're either being blacklisted by one or another portion of users, for such banal reasons. Modern times i guess.
Am i the only one who don't blacklist people outside of cheating, being offensive and the like?
Comment has been collapsed.
Yeah, I've found only 1 user who blacklisted me and it appears it was for not commenting on a GA that I entered without commenting. Still it's their right to do so, but I'm more in the camp who thinks that it's better to "speak only when your words are more beautiful than the silence".
I hate writing boring messages, at least I compliment the user, the game or something you know :] having an inbox full of boring copy pasted messages isn't pretty, still I've only blacklisted 1 user for doing that and having a really poor ratio, that's it.
Comment has been collapsed.
Wow, they were saying THANKS to you? Pfff, how did they even dare to thank you? That's an obvious reason to blacklist them. :B
Comment has been collapsed.
You may jest, but it can get really annoying:
Comment has been collapsed.
I assume that the 500 comments in the picture were all about thanking you? Still, nobody forced you to check all the notifications. :P I'm even trying to answer to everyone.
Comment has been collapsed.
Not really about forcing. But when you are in some conversations, it is somewhat annoying to see notifications and realise it is nothing interesting but another dozen "thanks" messages. If I could make the notification disregard GA comments and only show a number for everything else, I wouldn't mind them at all.
And I'm not even trading here. Notifications would be even more of a nightmare, probably.
Comment has been collapsed.
Go to notifications and then select the Discussions category on the left. That way, you'll check if you have any new notifications from the discussions.
Comment has been collapsed.
I know. :) I'm talking about the little icon on the header. It cannot tell me if that little red number is for some GA comment or someone answering me. If I could tell the site to only count certain categories there, then I'd be happy. ^^
Comment has been collapsed.
You missed the point, copy pasting the exact same sum of characters over and over is quite lazy, just the opposite of being grateful with someone in my opinion. After I checked them I came to my senses and unblacklisted them, even if they were using a script or something, only one of them had a leecher syndrome tho... that one stuck in the black.
Comment has been collapsed.
Even a simple thanks is better than nothing. :P Still, recently, when I added one of my giveaway winners, I'm like 90% sure I was talking to a bot. He wasn't answering. He was more like saying "standard things". o.O
Comment has been collapsed.
lol wtf, something like:
-How's your day?
-Huh... fine, thanks. How about yours?
(5min later)
-So what have you being playing?
-Not much lately, really busy these days
-Great! I love that game too!
-Dude wtf...
-Your momma
-Dafuq u douche?!?
-You smell like poop
-FCK U DUDE
-So what have you being playing?
-Are u serious...
-Great! I love that game too!
:D:
Comment has been collapsed.
I don't remember exactly. I remember that he wasn't answering in my questions and I wasn't seeing him typing any message when he wrote something. It was like:
Me: Hello.
Him (immediately): Hi
Me (immediately): Congratulations. You won in my steamgifts giveaway. Please respond in order to send you the gift.
Me (after a bit): Are you here?
Me (after a bit): Anyway, just respond when you get back online.
Me (after hours): Are you here now?
Me (after even more hours): Nevermind, I'll send you the gift now, but please mark the giveaway as received after activating the game.
Him (immediately): Marked as received on....(I don't remember about which site he said, but he talked about a completely different giveaway site, not about steamgifts). Thank you.
Me (immediately): You are welcome. You like the game?
Me (after a bit): Nevermind, goodbye. :P
His profile was always online, by the way.
Comment has been collapsed.
Wow... that sure seems like a bot or a really strange fella, maybe a screenshot would have granted you a reroll, but I guess you just wanted to get done with it and move on :]
Comment has been collapsed.
Well, you know, it's just a hypothesis. I can't prove it somehow. And I'm not a guy that rerolls, blacklists, reports, etc. - except if it's for a serious reason.
Comment has been collapsed.
I'm starting to like the idea of blacklisting people that DON'T thank you after winning, just finished about 20 give aways and only a handful of winners said anything to even acknowledge they won.
That's just assholery to me. If you're that lazy, I'd like you to take a break from breathing, not long, just 10-15 mins (after all, it's all that sucking in and pushing out, who can be bothered?)
Comment has been collapsed.
I've been tempted with the same thought, in the end I let them slip.
It's funny how many copy pasted "thanks" message you get from participants and how many winners don't even post one of those right?
Comment has been collapsed.
It's even more frustrating when it's a group give away.. Most of us don't want to BL group members, and so I won't but come ON.
whats even funnier is recently I had a public winner with a really bad ratio, I thought to myself "Ok buddy, you won this one, but I'm adding you so you never win another.." Then the guy (or girl) sends me this great thank you and is excited for the win and is eager to play.
So i couldn't really BL that enthusiasm, even though they had a terrible ratio they were really nice and thankful.
Comment has been collapsed.
Yeah, that's why I don't BL people just because of their ratio, we don't know their social and economical conditions, some are clearly leechers that don't even bother to show true gratitude or even been active on discussions, I've only BL one guy for being just like that... but I don't enjoy BL-ing people, I think this community is great and hope it will thrive in the near future :]
I'm glad you got a grateful winner, I remember my first couple of wins, I was ecstatic! Even if I ended up sucking at the first 2 (fighting and point and click game) hehe
Comment has been collapsed.
I'm with you on BL'ing for not thanking after a win. Especially the group bit. :/
Comment has been collapsed.
LoL! i misread this at first without seeing what thread it was from and thought it said you were blacklisting me for not saying thank you in a group GA ...
short term panic mode there!
Comment has been collapsed.
hold on hold on. so, let me get this straight please:
-
if you say thanks in every give away you enter it's offensive/blacklist material to people now? WTF is wrong with you that someone who is grateful for having a chance to win something is someone you feel you should punish.
-
in some GA i see no description and a hundred or multiples of that entries and ZERO comments. first thing that comes to my mind is how the owner of the GA might be frustrated by that and i proceed to leave a grateful message like "sankyu" "tank u" "much obliged" "ty" or whatever i can come up with - i dislike repetitiveness so i try to vary the "thank you" words. so my worries may backfire because i tried to be kind/grateful and didn't win?
-
i have a crappy ratio. which is why i can't enter many groups or remain in them, or high level GAs. this is because i live in a poor country, was forced to drop out of university and am trying to go back, i can't always find or maintain a job, when i do work it doesn't pay much, what i do get to save after paying the bills and food is used for cloths, going out with friends, trying to date someone, birthday/xmas gifts, and once every 5-10years a PC.. so now, you want to forsake the REASON THIS SITE WAS CREATED and limit the GAs i can enter even further by requesting me to spend the 3h/day of thew 6h/day i have free to NOT play games, but instead try to win 1 game for each 300days invested?
-
i play a lot of League of Legends and other non-steam games so my steam profile doesn't tell the full story about my gaming, so i'm forced to give up on everything else and only play the steam games to satisfy my patrons or i'll be "rerollbanned" out of winning anything?
Comment has been collapsed.
Let me get that straight for you then:
- If you copy paste the same generic "thanks" in all or most of the GAs you look like a mindless bot, and yeah some people blacklist them, others like me might just freak out, lol. If they don't have the decency of writing "ty", "thank you man" or the slightest variation then they aren't so grateful are they? 2 seconds more than just clicking Ctrl+V is too much?
- As you stated there, that's the decent thing to do, you even stated you write different things, THAT'S grateful.
- I also live in a 3rd world country and I don't have the greatest paying job either, that's why I don't blacklist people with poor ratios, I don't know why you say I want to forsake that... I only stated that a user seemed like a mindless bot spamming messages and also had a terrible ratio, both of those was reason enough to stick in the blacklist for me. People can blacklist you from whatever they want you know, also whitelist you in the same way, that's how the site works, each gifter can use different filters to let some kind of people to win (private, levels, sgtools, black and whitelist)... I don't know why you felt so offended honestly.
- I never mentioned steam profile, but I do recommend you to not being level 0-1 since people aren't psychic. Then again, if you post some message stating that you play a lot of LoL you might not be considered a bot, sadly that's the cyber environment we live in, blame the spammers, phishers, cheaters and thiefs out there.
Comment has been collapsed.
- so if you enter 50 GA at a time, 2 times a day (which is not in any way uncommon and high numbers) you expect us to find 100 variations of the expression "thanks"? let me remind you saying thanks is not a rule for this site, and that is for a reason. if the GA demands it though that'd be different ofc. we are also not talking about after win thanks. this whole shenanigans started because paranoid people where blacklisting persons that entered GAs without saying thanks for fear of them being bots. the only thing they accomplished is people made the bots say thx. the only thing you will accomplish with this is to get the bots saying thx in 100 ways and punishing valid users even further.
if you actually wanted to achieve the goals you state, you'd leave something on the GA description for the human to reply to that a bot can't process. even then a smart bot can be made to cover a lot of those. and by then, the only real solution is a captcha.
-
yes but i don't write it every GA like a slut xD mostly because of time. i work 8h. in the future i'll work and study. plus family. plus friends. plus cat. where is the gaming? nope too busy entering GAs xD
-
i was making generic points aimed not at you exactly but at the people thinking like you more or less. to get people thinking more than getting answers from them.
the thing is, it seems some people want to blacklist for this or that, which will punish collateral valid users, instead of making higher level GAs or private GAs or what have you. it's not about the 'why' of them being selective but rather about the 'how'. if people decide to blacklist user "A" because he has "A" on its name and it rained that day, fine, so be it, but at least state that was the reason and don't blacklist users "B" because b is the letter next to a. -
i know, see point above xP you're saying i should say in every GA i play LoL? if it catches on, every bot and leecher will do it and we're back to square 1. being lvl0-1 in steam is terrible. there are free to play games on steam or something anyone can use to advance from such levels. in fact, i think this should be something SG actually requires, discloses and monitors: steam levels at minimum steps. it should be required to enter the site to have at least like lvl5 or something.. don't you agree? quite the elegant way to aid against the bot war.
Comment has been collapsed.
Personally I'd prefer is someone is entering 40 of my GAs that they comment on ONE GA, thanking me FOR the GAs...
I don't need 40 variations of thank you... but appreciation is nice.... It's just annoying when it's the same message 40 times...
Comment has been collapsed.
-
You don't get it... not 100 variations, at least the same 3 variations mixed up you know. Also, as you state you don't need to write anything on GAs, a lot of users prefer not to get our inboxes full of bland and boring messages over and over and change, uniqueness and originality are way much appreciated as gratefulness.
If not then it's ok to not write anything unless you win, there are very few ways to prevent bot account from winning (sgtools and special rules on the description pre-approved by Support are some of them). And I don't state any goal whatsoever, I just wanted to listen to the community about this matter. -
lol, know dat feel.
-
Yea I know, but there is little we can do against those user's free will.
-
I just said that if your Steam profile is lvl 0 or 1 then to put on your Steam description that you play LoL. Well I don't know if lvl 5, I think you need to be at least lvl 1, maybe lvl 2 to be fair for people who don't craft badges right?
Comment has been collapsed.
To join steamgifts, you already need to have $100 account value (and i think it takes into account bundled vs not bundled but i could be wrong)
Comment has been collapsed.
i also don't know if it takes that into account. but that is easy to bypass, the investment will be offset by the returns of the GA wins the bot will gain. actually forcing people to spend time is harder as often the kind of people that resort to bots are not at all patient or willing.
Comment has been collapsed.
well there are probably.
that is why the solution is to make higher level giveaways
Comment has been collapsed.
Yeah, but I kinda feel bad for the little ones you know, we all were level 1 at some point and wanted to see if the site was not a scam (LOL).
Comment has been collapsed.
Not saying thanks after having marked as received, welcome to my blacklist. Saying thanks beforehand, I don't care about, no matter if it's with a script or not. If I've done a giveaway that bots can reach, that's on me. As long as the winner, bot or no bot, is thankful, it's all fine.
Also, hi hotbullet8! Haven't seen you in the puzzle section lately. You should come visit some time. I have cookies.
Comment has been collapsed.
Hi Nordh! I've been really busy at work these last couple of months, got a promotion so there are some smooth days (like mondays) and some hectic days when I have very little "break" time, I miss the puzzles a little... will try to advance some projects and do a couple soon, specially if you have chocolate cookies!
Comment has been collapsed.
I can neither confirm nor deny that the bomb that you have to defuse in my current puzzle is made out of a chocolate cookie.
Comment has been collapsed.
So I finished a handful of public GAs, odd enough I found 5 users who enter a lot of them within the last couple of hours with generic thanks messages... my first reaction was to blacklist ALL of them! (most of them were level 1 with poor ratios)
So if most of them had way more wins than sent and comment the same generic message on each GA...THE BOTS ARE HERE! But.. one is level 3, another has 2 more sents than won, another is even... so this makes me think that they are just regular people with a script that automatically comments a generic thanks message for every GA that they enter.
So in the end I removed all but one from my blacklist because that dude has not only sent annoying generic messages, but has a ratio of nearly 0.05, and I can tolerate either a horrible ratio or an annoying generic messages but not that combo.
What do you think... am I paranoid with bots?
Update:
If you didn't read everything or misunderstood me, writing "thank you" might get repetitive but I don't blacklist people who do that, using lazy scripts to post the same boring message hundreds of time on the other hand is quite condemnable. Bots gimme goosebumps tbh! wink wink
Comment has been collapsed.