u should see how many regifters and bots u can find with a lvl 0 1 hour giveaway ;p

I have to say, my rate of comments decreased a lot. In the beginning I commented on all GAs I joined. After some time there was just to little variation for my taste in my comments, if the GA creator did not ask questions/ gave some kind of theme.
Now I all too often post something along the lines of "Thank you for the chance. Have a nice day and enjoy space" with some APOD picture attached.
I do c&p comments on giveaways that are obvious rookie mistakes linking FAQ, guidelines & beginner guides.

BeeP Boop Mr.Destructoid is not amused booP bEEp

bots? scripting users? you have any idea how crazy that sounds?

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Technically, assuming you're just too paranoid, there is a high chance that most users might be just as much paranoid as you are and will vote that you're not paranoid just because they feel the same way about this matter OR most users will not be as much paranoid as you are and will vote that you are indeed too paranoid about this matter, BUT the real trouble is who is right and who is wrong? Just because you start to feel like you might be paranoid, doesn't mean that you really are, but it doesn't mean you aren't either, there is no way to tell and so there is no reason to expect the poll results to give you a clear answer, but who knows maybe I'm too paranoid myself and leaving it up to the community to vote in the poll is all you really need to do to find out whether you're too paranoid or not.

No giveaways, no bots, no thank you messages :)

I almost always post a "<3" if I enter giveaway, not using script r anything. If comment is generic doenst mean it a script

What is your reasoning behind bots needing to say "Thank you"?

If anything, I would think that bots are those "users" who enter first, a week before casual users see the GAs on the front page, not those who enter in the last couple hours, when real people are most likely to see them.

So this is still a thing, hu? Feels like I made the right decisions.

So if most of them had way more wins than sent and comment the same generic message on each GA...THE BOTS ARE HERE!

I would say that there's not really a safe way to tell whether it is a bot or not. Even if people really use bots to enter giveaways, they still have to pick the games they win and activate them on their account manually, there are real users behind each bot and while I would agree with the argument that it's not too nice to let the bots grab stuff here for you, there are also real users who don't use bots and still may have bot-like comments.

Some people are just "blunt" like that and that's not to say it's a bad thing. You see they want to post something to let you know they appreciate what you did for the community, but can't think of any unique message. When you rationally think about it you will find out that no one can really post something really unique on each giveaway because people often enter a lot of giveaways to bring their chances higher. Well you can post a unique message to each giveaway, but if the quality of the post matters to you, then you're not going to post something stupid either and then you have to really think about each and every post individually which takes time of both you who must post it and giveaway creator who must read it and in the end, despite the best intentions, your comments may also be taken negatively by the giveaway creators anyway (not every giveaway creator enjoys reading through hundreds of comments from users who enter giveaways either) so yeah this is basically two sides of the problem, it's a never ending circle and theres no easy and universal solution to basically stay on the safe side for both sides.

There are many bots here. I guess the only way is to join them (not really though, blacklisting is fine).

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Thanks for this awesome giveaway!

I used to put thanks when I entered a give away but then saw someone say it was frowned upon so I stopped.. I'm really confused what is or isn't proper.

No you are not paranoid, however going through the hassle of blacklisting everyone and their mother kinda is.

Just set level restrictions, When I started doing giveaways I found out the ones without level restrictions were annoying (as a gifter) because, either the one that wins was usually not interested in the game (and took forever to mark as received) and leechers, leechers everywhere.

Ok this got a whole lot of attention... more than expected, I will do my best to read all of your lovely inputs on the matter!

Another thing I didn't see it coming is the fact that the 3 options of the poll are near 30% each, interesting... it must be the work of SKYNET!

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I've entered over 14,700 giveaways. I only have about 7 different thank-yous I typically use, with some variations on them, from which I pick one I deem appropriate for a particular situation. I try not to leave the same one on the same person's giveaways twice in a row. Sooner rather than later, though, I'm going to repeat myself, especially on days where I end up entering a hundred or more giveaways.

I don't copy/paste my messages, though I will copy/paste complicated usernames so I don't misspell them. Everything from entering to replying is done by hand (including the thanks I left for your 3D Realms Anthology giveaway, hotbullet8 ^_^). No scripts, no bots, just me, my hands, and my free time (which describes a lot of what I do for fun, actually...). I accidentally referred to someone by the wrong username, recently, which has thankfully only happened once, but at least it proves I'm doing this stuff manually.

If someone says not to leave a thank you, I don't.
If they say nothing, I leave whichever thank you message I feel is appropriate.

If they leave some kind of instructions, I either comply with them if I can or, if it's something I don't feel like doing, then I simply don't enter the giveaway. (I'll tell someone what my favorite food is or track down a funny GIF for them, but I don't know that many jokes and I'm not sharing my deepest hopes, dreams, and aspirations with someone just because they're giving away Letter Quest, no matter how many times I've tried to win it and lost.)

If I enter multiple giveaways at once from the same person, I try to thank them for all of the giveaways in one message, so I don't spam them with unwanted notices.

If the gifter actually leaves a message from which some kind of conversation can be started, I'll try to reply with something appropriate. But I can't stand people who write NOTHING and then complain that the entrants are just leaving a generic thank you. Why should anyone feel inclined to strike up a conversation with the gifter when they've made no effort to say anything in the first place? At least a conversation starter...

My ratio could be better, but I'm not in a financial situation where I can give away many games. Yes, bundles are relatively cheap, but they don't do much for your ratio as a consequence, so getting them just to boost your ratio to respectability isn't the best idea. At the end of the day, at least I'm doing this by hand, and I feel I put more than enough time and effort into thanking people for giveaways - which, most of the time, I will not even win (I've won 0.217 percent of the finished giveaways I've entered): Especially when I'm thanking people for up to a hundred or so giveaways in a day. I usually try to thank the gifter more personally if I win.

That said, bot/script users do irritate me. The last few giveaways I did, I left instructions saying the entrants didn't have to thank me, but they did need to copy a particular phrase from my description and paste it in a reply. In the most recent giveaway, out of 275 entries, only 15 people did as requested, while 1 person deleted their comment, 1 gave a generic thank you, and the rest left no reply at all. Thankfully the winner was one of the confirmed humans.

You've been whitelisted.

Just because you're paranoid don't mean they're not after you.

Ok guys, throwed in a GA since I left unread most of your posts and felt bad :]

I say thanks on most of the giveaways and I type each and every one of them by hand. Sometimes more personal, if there's something in the giveaway description.. When I write nothing, it's because it's a public level 0 giveaway that already has too many "generic" comments. In private groups, 98% of the time I write something.

I'll be honest, I'm not sure what the appropriate response is. I used to say thank you all the time, but I've stopped saying thanks when I enter a giveaway. I always leave a thank you when I win something though, both in the giveaway URL and the thread (where appropriate). I find that I have a ,lot less generic thank you's in my latest giveaway, as I've marked it as private and not public. The responses I get seem to be written by a real person and appropriate as well. I personally don't mind a giveaway with no comments at all, as long as the winner says thank you and activates the game. I don't think that's expecting too much. I do appreciate good comments in the giveaways, though.

May your day be peachy and your swag level over 9000! /s

I usually don't leave a comment on the giveaway unless the host has an interesting comment, the entrants have interesting comments or it's a game on my Wishlist that I'm excited about... I usually try to thank the host if I manage to win a game but I don't always get the chance to if they send it through SteamGifts itself.

Personally I just say "Thanks" unless the giveaway creator asks for a specific thing in the desc (what's your favorite joke? etc.) or asks people not to comment unless they win.

And both. You are paranoid, and there are a lot of bots/scripts in use on SG.