Thanks SteamGifts, for sending my nice long original post to the void. >:(
I can see an advantage to both methods.
Shown - Easy to identify members of fake gifting groups.
Hidden - Can do public group giveaways for members without worrying about random SteamGifts users checking profiles and entering every public group with an active giveaway to boost their chances.
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Was this a problem in SG v1? If groups are public and accepting members, it would be logical for them to want people to join, that's the point of not being private.
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Public is used for a lot of forum groups. Doesn't mean I want some leach from here that has joined 500 groups to go and join the GameFAQs one and enter all my giveaways for members of the forums there. I've come across such users in the past, and it honestly sucks to have someone win when they clearly never used the site it was intended for.
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What if you want to keep the group only for people who speak a specific language and random asians and russians join the group only for the giveaways (this actually happened a lot when I was in such a group, and I even asked for a reroll on this matter, which was approved).
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Absolutely against it for the reasons stated by other users above.
Already now I've encountered users that apparently went to my Steam profile and entered all public groups I'm in.
Being able to see the groups just makes that worse.
I sometimes want to create a giveaway as a thank you for group members that are in a themed and not random public group (A group of a Twitch streamer for example).
Those aren't for random users then that just joined the group to enter my giveaway but rather for the members that joined because they are actually interested in it. (In the case of my example those that joined cause they watch the streamer!)
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I found a lot of fun groups that I became active in through seeing a giveaway that brought the group to my attention. Even went to those groups and rained some keys down on them. Can't do that anymore. I kind of miss doing that.
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Hmm, at first i thought "yes please, bring it back".
but after reading about it here, i agree that it should stay like this.
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This was how it worked in SG v1. If you looked a group GA and weren't a member, it would say "You are not a member of _____."
Now, it just says: "You do not have permission to view this giveaway, since you're not a member of the required Steam groups.", leaving what those groups may be a mystery.
Many (most?) groups are public and always interested in getting new members, noticing a GA and the group name may get someone interested to look up the group page and possibly join.
If a group is private, it is irrelevent anyway, as they will see the "invite only" message on Steam, and can't interact with the private group regardless.
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