Blacklists. And ethics. (GAs ended)

So a while back I started making giveaways. And the first batch I made were public giveaways with no level requirements. And certainly some of the games went to people who seemed nice. But I couldn't help but notice that some got regifted or simply vanished without trace. And I had to chase some people who didn't mark the games as received and it turned out they didn't want the games because they thought they were bad games or because it as a waste of time activating them because of their VAC ban and so on.

And for a while I maybe felt like a dick for going to the trouble of giving games away to people who didn't even want them. And I resolved to start experimenting with ways to maybe focus my gifting towards people who weren't such assholes. And I have experimented with various kinds of giveaways with varying degrees of success. And I have experimented with whitelists and group giveaways but I would feel a little guiltY about entering public giveaways if I made no public giveaways myself.

And I have experimented with blacklisting. Which I felt in theory was a great way of gradually focusing gifting towards the more lovable members of the community.

It's fair to say that that my first blacklistings were fairly haphazard and I'm not a perfect person and I'll even admit that I blacklisted a few people for quite petty reasons while druNk - but all of those have been reversed and I'm now quite consistent about why I blacklist people and keep a list of why I have done it.

I'm blacklist people for badly breaking the rules or abusing the system (like multiple regifters). I'm blacklisting people for having a bad ratio plus something else naughty, because I wouldn't want to discriminate against people who just can't afford stuff (like people who have a really bad ratio and moan about only winning crap games in discussions). And I'm blacklisting people who I felt were rude or abusive or entirely unreasonable (because it would stick in my throat to give a game to somebody who had told me to kill myself). This seems reasonable to me.

But to me things began to seem unreasonable when I made a giveaway for 3 copies of Skullgirls and woke up the next morning to find that despite a large number of entries more people were moaning about being blacklisted than had actually said 'thank you'. And I spent half the next day Being harassed by and arguing with various people despite also being really busy in real life.

If somebody asks why they are blacklisted I don't mind checking if I have made a mistake or looking if they have mended their ways - but when I commit to giving a game away I don't also want to commit to wasting a bunch of time arguing with people.

More recently somebody took the trouble of contacting me after noticing they were blacklisted to tell me what a good user they were, to express their surprise and upset and to issue some vague but malevolent threats. I checked my list and saw they were blackListed for several things ranging from having a terrible ratio to scamming people in trades. And I also noticed that this user had never made a giveaway that I had been able to enter.

I had been excluded from every private group giveaway this user had made and apparently now this user had discovered that I had made a giveaway that he was excluded from he found this entirely unreasonable. Is it wrong to be pissed off about that?

In conclusion I'm now about bored of this shit. I'm considering how to move forwards on the matter and thought it would be interesting to have a discussion and hear peoples opinions.

But before replying I would like people to consider that whenever I have previously posted a rambling wall of text in 'puzzles' there has been something far more important going on than the topic that appears to be the issue.

EDIT - I literally have several hundred new messages. I hadn't quite expected that response. Clearly blacklisting is CONTROVERSIAL or else folks are just really excited about the other thing. I'll reply to as much stuff as I can but it may take a while.

To clarify a few things at the risk of making a wall of text even bigger;

I'll always check why I blacklisted people as clearly I'm not infallible. Although in the past I have had several productive discussions with people I blacklisted I don't feel able to commit to that in the future due to a recent onslaught of bullshit. At this stage I'm reluctant to even get involved in discussions when so many of them end up wasting so much time.

I'm pretty sure I know what caused the onslaught of bullshit. Participating in the 'midsummer madness' event clearly brought me to the attention of some people who hadn't previously noticed my more subtle giveaways. And also I added 'really bad ratio + only making private group giveaways while raking it in from public giveaways' to the list of things I blacklist for which upset a number of especially argumentative and entitled individuals.

I'm not upset or else I wouldn't still be making giveaways. I have vented. I have put my point of view across. I will honestly consider the feedback. I will move forwards.

EDIT2 - 890 messages since I made this. I have read them all but it is unlikely that I will be able to reply to them all. The main lesson so far appears to be that the people who have contributed the least to this community are the ones most likely to get outraged about what other people are doing with their giveaways.