I think it's great. Hopefully it will help against script/bot overload :)
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Looks reasonable...
Edit. Better yet, provide us with an API, which will drasticalllllly lower all these requests for those who use scripts/bots in an user-enhancing non-abusive manner..
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it's nice and all but I think that for those 9,425 requests 418 code should be a better fit :D
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I can't help but want a cup of tea to chill out XD
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14400 requests per day gives the the highest acceptable maximum amount of continuous requests at 10 per minute, which is a bit low. If my theory is right and you also count redirections in form of 3xx http codes, this would check out with my current code based on blindly trying to guess the right amount, which ended up at 5 requests per minute, but not counting 3xx redirections.
Which comes down to:
120 requests per minute
40 requests per minute for an hour
10 requests per minute for a day
Are you willing to bump the second and third value a bit? 120/80/40 or 120/60/30 would satisfy my use case. Or perhaps you could do that on as-needed basis, so I could ask nicely to be included in more generous limits for 2nd and 3rd bucket?
First bucket is very generous indeed and I don't believe anybody should need more, but for people that are running maintenance bots and otherwise busy systems, the most harsh limits plays a role here, and 10 requests per minute is a bit too little for such use cases.
For my use case, as you know since I asked for approval personally, ArchiBot is running our Touhou Giveaways group as a 24/7 bot - previously it activated itself every 15 minutes to do small part of constant work. Current limits are too little to give it some breathing room, which resulted in constant load and excessive delays to avoid getting rate-limited at your side. Increasing size of the last 2 buckets would greatly improve things for me, while not hindering the original goal. If it's not too much to ask, I'd deeply appreciate relaxing the last 2 buckets a little.
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Alternatively, just fit your scripts within the framework of the site. Your code isn't (and shouldn't) be cg's concern.
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I'm not doing any scripts old man, I have a bot that is running our whole group, tracking members giveaways, winners, calculating points, statistics, ratios and otherwise fully-automated giveaway system that requires next to no attention from its staff members.
There is no way how this can operate without a centralized system.
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OK, your group and/or bot isn't (and shouldn't) be cg's concern.
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That's for cg to decide, not you. The same problem is facing knsys with SGT, which operates in exactly the same way. BundleQuest by Dyna works on the similar concept. You could also claim that custom scripts run by users is not cg's concern either, then why bother with this thread to begin with? It's not SG adapting to my use case, if I wanted to run 100 proxies and do what I need, I would, but I want to open a dialogue and not a battleground.
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Maybe it would be better to whitelist IP's or use API keys. The main issue here is that individuals are causing a significant load to the site combined. They should be limited.
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your group has 90 members. does it really need to rerun all that you said so often?
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You don't understand ozo, this is Archi's group and it is REALLY IMPORTANT
Edit: I agree, ozo. It seems rather silly to place such great importance on an extremely small portion of the site's userbase.
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Please don't make toxic comments like this.
Archi has a fair point that he's trying to balance the best he can for his automated steamgifts group site.
Better would be even if SteamGifts were to be able to provide with some API's that could be used. That would lower the load on the site by these bots with like a 1000 fold.
@cg it would be really cool if those API's could be implemented. Many users would benefit from them.
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Well Dyna is right here. You should discuss topics with arguments, not by passively-agressively attacking other users. ozo pointed to a fact, and you attacked the group owner.
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Yes, it allows for example modifying giveaway's value by modifying its comment. From other things, it also tracks giveaway entries, notifies members about wishlisted titles being created/discounted, and most importantly kicks people out of the group if they happen to join giveaway that is ending in less than an hour that they should not join and didn't willingly leave upon previous notification.
There is more stuff that is going on there, that's just example. Contrary to what I make use of, the bot is VERY gentle towards SG server. The problem I'm having is that it needs to run 24/7 and activate itself in fixed intervals, and not like expected user use case, which visits the website like once per hour or so - with mandatory 8h sleep to give room between 2nd and 3rd bucket.
And the bot frequently visits the same pages too in order to refresh their current status - e.g. that giveaway's comment or current entries. I don't run stupid stuff like crawling 10k pages of giveaways, I'm pretty much tracking status of currently opened giveaways, which usually is around ~50 active giveaways - you can guess how many requests I need to make to have full info about one giveaway, it's around 5 per giveaway, which gives us about 250 requests to make, in around 15 minutes interval would give us ~17 per minute, adding 3xx redirections resulting in 34 - so a limit between 30-40 would satisfy me entirely.
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don't get me wrong, automation is great thing but sometimes it's an overkill. i don't know how you run your group or who does it but maybe find someone willing to do some of those tasks manually or ask members to do some when creating a giveaway? half of what you wrote doesn't really need constant updates but that's just my opinion
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No, I'd rather close the whole group than force people to voluntarily waste time like slaves just because they'd agree to that - people are expected to do much better things than something like that. I have higher respect to my group members than this.
Besides, I'm not complaining, I'm the guy who will always succeed regardless of the obstacles, I already fixed my bot to continue operating despite those unhelpful limits, but that doesn't mean the limits are good. This is why I'm opening a dialogue instead of saying "yeah, fuck this shit, I'll just launch 100 proxies and show cg a middle finger", I'm doing my best to help SG, not destroy it, if I wanted to work it around, I'd already have done that.
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Don't get me wrong, i am no programmer, and don't know much about the limits beause i use sg without scripts and bots.
You say you respect your group members higher than "this" because they have better things to do as something like that.
To pick one of your examples, where is the problem that your members look by their own if a wishlisted game is available in the group ?
Both sounds as your group members are "better then the rest at sg" or "as their time are of higher value as from other users".
The kicking members out, if they don't follow the rules and enter GA's they aren' allowed, sound very helpful and i would be happy to have such a automation but i don't expect that each group can have such, let's call it "luxus", stuff or the site get problems. Besides the fact that not all have your programming skills to realize such things.
Oh and contact me at steam, you have a very black sheep (discord multiaccounter, win reseller) in your group and, trust me, you don't want to have him. Because of the "calling out rule" i can give you the name only outside of sg.
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To pick one of your examples, where is the problem that your members look by their own if a wishlisted game is available in the group ?
There is no problem in this. The problem is that you expect me to downgrade my group experience just because native users do not have something like that - no. Besides, this info is actually available with no extra cost, because ArchiBot already needs to track all giveaways to award people with points upon winners receiving the gift, the fact that in addition to all of that tracking it can also send a Steam message is an extra, not a requirement. What is a hard requirement for me is giving people points as soon as winners mark received, kick people and change giveaway's value upon members modifications. Last thing could be done through custom website instead, first two not without expecting from people more manual work.
Both sounds as your group members are "better then the rest at sg" or "as their time are of higher value as from other users".
Why are you putting things in my mouth that I didn't say? No SG user is better than any other one, there is no "elitism" here that toxic part of SG likes to share so much here in discussions. The objective of my group is to add as little manual effort as possible, in a way to provide native SG experience to everybody interested. Despite one of the most complex within-SG giveaway system, everything is done automatically and members can enjoy their time on more interesting stuff than having to deal with a burden of being in a group - a burden that native users do not have, because they're not in one. If somebody is jealous that he doesn't have such "luxus" features like being notified on his wishlist giveaways being created, that's on him, you can ask cg or anybody else to add such feature if you're interested, my features stay in my group, and actually there is not a single "convenience" feature that puts SG server at harm, there is the most basic, raw system required for keeping the whole thing running, and extra stuff based on data which already got gathered - if I already have giveaway data to calculate points from, I can as well notify people upon gibs they're interested in, because that "extra cost" is on me, not SG. Ozo asked for examples of things that need constant updates, I pointed out several, there are much more interesting features in the group that actually do not require SG at all, but it's not a thread to brag about my group - there is group recruitment for that.
As of those "raw" requirements, ArchiBot needs in timely manner to spot new giveaways, add them to the database, track their updates (entries, winners) and award people with points according to that. For achieving this, I have 15-minutes parsing windows during which all of currently ongoing giveaways are refreshed. This way any eventual change (such as new entry, new winner marking received, updated description changing giveaway's value, giveaway being deleted etc) can be tracked with no additional delay. That's the foundation upon which my group is running, a very successful foundation I'd say, and I love to hear all the good feedback from our members praising this system and allowing them to have fun playing games and making giveaways with ease, instead of wasting time tracking some excel docs, activity tables and otherwise completely pointless manual labour. And I believe that for all humans, not just my group members, this is for example why my ASF is available to everybody for free - saving time over 1.25 million of people as of today.
From typical user's perspective, all of the above might sound abstract and elitist, but that's because I'm bringing this up to explain why I need it in the first place. It won't be hard finding people outside of the group claiming how this isn't needed, if they're not making use of any of that. Exactly the same how people not using ESGST will claim how it's useless and unneeded, until they actually realize that it's very useful. Personally I'm not even doing it for myself anymore, I stopped my investment into SG years ago, I'm doing it on behalf of my community now that is enjoying the system I've built over 5 years ago.
Still, what I'd like to see doesn't matter because cg is in charge here. I can only ask nicely and then decide if I'm going to comply or not, potentially providing arguments why, which I'm doing right now. I'm not surprised that people outside of the group have hard time agreeing with me, I'd have hard time agreeing with myself in their shoes as well.
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Personally I'm not even doing it for myself anymore, I stopped my investment into SG years ago,
To play devil's advocate, this isn't really true. The currency of your investment may have changed, but it didn't cease.
You've won a dozen giveaways in the last week alone.
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Why are you putting things in my mouth that I didn't say?
I wrote "Both sounds as...", that should be a clear sign that i don't laid words in your mouth that you didn't said.
I were sure that can't be missinterpreted.
So again, that was only how your words came over for/to me. That doesn't mean you said them that way or wanted to say them how they could be taken.
If you say, you can catch the wishlist thing with other data without a extra request, then of course is it no problem to get that "luxus" data on top.
I would be happy about the one or other time saving option at sg but i don't make discussions about it because it is wasted time. I learned that the last few years ;o)
To the rest i can only say that i don't know enough about programming and as you wrote it too, in the end have cg to decide what fit's for his site and then people can bring arguments, discuss with him and maybe find a "middle way". But in the end he must decide and the rest look what they do with the frame he set. Not from interest if points, allowed script/bot requests, allowed program to use and so on.
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I would wager that projects like this or ESGST receive a lot more developer work hours per year than the site itself.
Of courses something as simple as a source IP or two being whitelisted (and publicly acknowledged as such) would lead to even more high school drama than this mere question already did.
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I have a bot
Enough said. Any argument you make to facilitate the use of said bot goes against site rules in the first place. The fact cg tolerates the use of bots and scripts should suffice, and you should be complying with the restrictions, not pushing his already exemplary allowances for people like yourself.
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Any argument you make to facilitate the use of said bot goes against site rules in the first place
Except, there are no rules against them? The only rule regarding scripts and automation is that they cannot be used for entering giveaways (something people here seem to confuse with bots being against the rules). A bot is not that different to a script, really. Just a different type of automation.
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Well, prior to the most recent update of the guidelines/faq, this line in the ToS was the exclusive element that staff always referenced on the matter, as the rule basis for prohibiting bots and automation scripts:
the Content is not spam, is not machine or randomly-generated, and does not contain unethical or unwanted commercial content designed to drive traffic to third party sites or boost the search engine rankings of third party sites, or to further unlawful acts (such as phishing) or mislead recipients as to the source of the material (such as spoofing);
Of course, the updated pages now list the following as well:
Scripts are not allowed to be used to automatically enter into giveaways. This includes scripts that enter multiple giveaways at once, or scripts that enter giveaways while you are away.
As such, there are now two rules in place related to scripts and bots (as the previously mentioned ToS is still in place). One, yes, is very specific. However, if the old rule interpretation still applies, then any script or bot which creates content on the website (as Archie's bot does do, as it is- or at least, the last time I saw one still was- creating posts and such) is in fact also against site rules.
Note the distinction there against bots or scripts which don't create content, but simply pull content. In other words, scripts which have client-side effects and/or which make calls on the site are fine. This is, naturally, the focus of typical SG scripts. Conversely, scripts or bots that automatically send information to the site- like giveaway entry scripts, automated reply scripts, group bots, etc- would be interpreted as being against site rules.
Meanwhile, one-click entry scripts skirt those rules, as one still needs to manually engage in the giveaway entry call, effectively making the scripts just a UI change rather than any sort of content adjustment [ie, as the script never actually creates any content itself- it simply moves an entry button from one site page to another].
Any argument you make to facilitate the use of [any] bot goes against site rules in the first place.
The only rule regarding scripts and automation is that they cannot be used for entering giveaways
To summarize, there aren't any rules against scripts (or bots), but there are rules against automation.
Well, though one may also want to check what the site states upon account creation, as there may in fact be a stated restriction somewhere against creating multiple accounts, which would act as a restriction against the creation of bots.
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This line about machine-generated content is still in ToS, and on top of it - it's pretty common phrase, probably ToS was adapted from some other site or made with some template. Question is what "machine-generated content" is. Usually by this phrase they understand texts generated by AI, that mislead users into thinking author is human. ArchiBot do not post AI-generated text, it only posts some data tables. And I strongly believe this is not against the ToS, let me try to explain why.
If a user makes some external tool to organize data, like making a table for example, and then copy-pastes this formatted data to the site - it's not considered machine generated content. So, if a bot posts same content - it should be allowed too, since the rule is about content, not about the way it gets posted. But if someone uses AI to generate a human readable text (like an article, or a novel) - even if they post it manually - it's not allowed.
restriction somewhere against creating multiple accounts, which would act as a restriction against the creation of bots.
You don't need multiple accounts to run one bot. ArchiBot is using Archi's own account. If it used a separate account - yes, that would have been against the rules.
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from the community guidelines:
Scripts are not allowed to be used to automatically enter into giveaways. This includes scripts that enter multiple giveaways at once, or scripts that enter giveaways while you are away.
that is the only mention of scripts.
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Don't be ridiculous. Bots are not forbidden here, there is nothing in rules about it. Go read the rules again if you believe otherwise. Entering giveaways automatically is forbidden, but that's it. And Archi's Bot never does this. And calling something so basic and common "exemplary allowances", are you even serious?
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I second that.
For my tool 120/minute is good enough most of the time (maybe I'll even optimized it further), it'll run a bit slower, but that's it.
But in some rare cases, for example adding a new group, or updating users data, It may need to run more than 20 minutes at a 120/min rate.
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Is your bot doing a constant sync? Or only every <value> amount of minutes?
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It's activating itself in fixed 15 minutes intervals, if it manages to finish its work in that window, there is a time when it's not doing anything until next window, if it doesn't, it's always behind the schedule, so working 24/7.
Right now second thing is happening, previously it was able to finish its work in less than a minute, having 14 minutes of free time.
You can notice how this is actually worse to SG right now, than it was previously.
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Yeah kinda, would it possible for the bot to break down it's order in multiple chunks and do 1 chunk every x amount of minutes? Or would that also generate more traffic than before?
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This is how it's working already, except instead of being able to finish faster it's too slow to keep up with the schedule due to harsher rate limits. I've already made use of all the optimization tricks that came to my mind, there is no way to further limit the number of requests sent, apart from increasing the window.
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Damn that sucks. Good luck with creating a solution.
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Don't worry, I've already adapted my use cases to the new "problem", but just because I succeeded doesn't mean I consider the new limits good, hence I'm suggesting a small change in regards to two last buckets, so the bot can keep up with the schedule again, even if no longer under a minute, then at least in those 15. Right now it's simply delayed with every additional giveaway that it needs to parse, running out of the expected window and overworking itself, but that's needed to keep up - this is why our bot exists to begin with.
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Well most of us dont really pay to CG for the server running cost or upgrading cost. An intermediate action is taken by CG to resolve before issue is blown out such as overloading the server is a good initiative. Well everone just have to either adapt or compromise and hope that your bot works well even with the limitation.
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If SG can show more information natively, I think part of those script won't be needed any more.
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When are you going to stop allowing particular people to run a bot on a site that explicitly forbids the use of bots?
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"All animals are equal, but some are more equal than others".
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the Content is not spam, is not machine or randomly-generated
Terms of Service . Who here hasn't seen that machine-generated content in multiple giveaways?.
Also, the use of those bots is strictly "on their word" (per one bot user) that they're not using those bots to enter giveaways. Since they're using their personal accounts to run those bots, there's no way of knowing they're not entering giveaways.
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2 Responsibility of Contributors. If you comment or post material to the Website, post links on the Website, or otherwise make (or allow any third party to make) material available by means of the Website (any such material, "Content"), You are entirely responsible for the content of, and any harm resulting from, that Content. That is the case regardless of whether the Content in question constitutes text, graphics, an audio file, or computer software. By making Content available, you represent and warrant that:
- the Content is not spam, is not machine or randomly-generated, and does not contain unethical or unwanted commercial content designed to drive traffic to third party sites or boost the search engine rankings of third party sites, or to further unlawful acts (such as phishing) or mislead recipients as to the source of the material (such as spoofing);
It would be nice if you didn't take words out of context to make your argument. What you just quoted has nothing to do with what was argued in the posts above.
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By making Content available, you represent and warrant that:
the Content is not spam, is not machine or randomly-generated,
I didn't take anything out of context. The first part of your quote defines what Content is, the second states what sort of content isn't allowed. Bots posting material fits into one of the parameters listed (aka "machine-generated").
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So according to your interpretation bots are allowed as long as they don't post anything (and enter giveaways as stated in the guidelines of course).
But then why did you argue against andreeeeeww and why did you write
When are you going to stop allowing particular people to run a bot on a site that explicitly forbids the use of bots?
in the first place when you basically admitted that bots are allowed and when cg is expliciting allowing bots and scripts himself. I'm curious.
Also I would argue about the bot posting thing, but I do not intend to waste time on that since that is not the main issue so I'll just post this.
the Content is not spam , is not machine or randomly-generated , and does not contain unethical or unwanted commercial content designed to drive traffic to third party sites or boost the search engine rankings of third party sites, or to further unlawful acts (such as phishing) or mislead recipients as to the source of the material (such as spoofing);
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So according to your interpretation
Rather, according to the official staff interpretation across maybe the past 4 or 5 years now.
I've clarified the scope of the official interpretation of the rule in a comment a bit above, if you're interested.
Side-note, not sure why you're referencing that ToS in your post. The various ToS ones are cumulative [ie, "AND" operations] not selective [ie, "OR" operations]. There's no meaning at all in looking at any other ToS statements if you've already found one which invalidates the element in question.
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Rather, according to the official staff interpretation across maybe the past 4 or 5 years now.
I've clarified the scope of the official interpretation of the rule in a comment a bit above, if you're interested.
You know, in the civil law (at least here in Italy) we can distinguish three different types of interpretation based on the subject that is doing the aforementioned interpretation (and I apologize but I'm gonna translate the naming from italian, so the names used in the english can differ a bit)
- Judicial interpretation - the interpretation made by the judge when emitting the sentence and in this interpretation the judge (the staff and cg here) has to interpret what was the purpose of the legislator when he wrote that law.
- Legal interpretation - the interpretation made by the legislator (cg only) to clarify the content of the law if there are doubts and/or different judicial interpretation. In this case the legislator could make a new law to solve the issue. This already happened fairly recently here on sg when after years of having applied the rules in the same way a member of the staff (judge) decided to interpret the rules in another way and cg (legislator) had to step in by rewriting the rules and doing that he clarified what it meant what he wrote in the previous version. I'm talking about the case where links external to sg were being posted in some group recruitment thread.
- Doctrinal interpretation - the interpretation made by the studios of law, in this case since we users are arguing and studying in this thread the rules of the site I'm gonna regroup us here.
You are stating that this is the official interpretation (judicial interpretation) made by the staff yet I don't see any proof of that, I've never seen any judicial interpretation being made about the scenario we are talking about.
I've never seen any official statement, the bots and scripts that according are still running, they are well know and also used by many people. (Analog interpretation: since the controversy is not regulamentated by a specific rule and what you are arguing is the rule that should be used has never been enforced against said bots/scripts I'm searching for similar cases to analyze to find out the will of the legislator who made the law) .
cg himself is trying to help those bot/script makers. Proof of that is this topic itself and the fact that in the other topic he is replying to people using and or making bots/scripts and he is trying to help them, not banning them for rule breaking. If I use the logical interpretation and try to use logic to figure out the intention of the legislator (the admin/owner of the site in our case) I would have to assume that the purpose of that rule is not to ban the use of all bots, not to ban bots that post useful, not spamming, not harmful, content, but rather to ban only the ones that would post contents with malicious intents that go against the interest of the site itself. Afterall scripts and bot like esgst, sgtools, the group managing one (which is basically what archibot does but specific for archi's group needs, and in the past used in a more basic form by at least 1 other group), archibot and others are made with the intention of improve the user experience, and if the user experience improves the site will benefit of it as well.
Not to mention that archibot posting useful info in the group giveaways (think about the bundle charts that you can find in the deals section of the forum with additional info regarding the impact of the giveaway in the group and for the user in case of win) got cg (the legislator) approval/permission in the past and has little impact on the site load. We are talking about 1 post per giveaway + 1 edit when the gib is finished, occasionally there may be an additional edit or two but that’s all. But that is a bonus feature, an inexpensive one, not the real the issue here as there are other necessary functions for that and other bots and scripts that are limited/blocked by those limits.
And speaking of load, a lot of issues could be resolve by an API.
Now regardless of the interpretation of that ToS, the ToS in question only refers to machine or randomly generated posts, as stated in my reply directed to tzaar.
So according to your interpretation bots are allowed as long as they don't post anything (and enter giveaways as stated in the guidelines of course).
Now I’m sorry but I’m getting tired and need a break from writing and since the posting part isn’t the main issue as stated above and in my previous comment and since I've already wrote way more than what I wanted to after my last comment (which was 0 btw) I’ll leave the second part of my comment for later or tomorrow morning (cet time).
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This bot post machine-formatted content, not machine-generated. You need to learn what "machine generated content" is.
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i see the part about automatically joining giveaways, yes. but the script (bot) i use breaks no rules. so to say that the site "strictly forbids the use of bots" is kinda misleading, don't you think? not all bots/scripts break the rules. if you wanna be more specific in your comment, go ahead.
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The simple fact is that there are bots breaking rules on this site, and they're being exempted from the rules. I want to know why those users are exempt from the same rules applied to (the vast majority of) the rest of us.
- One bot posted over 4000 comments in under 48 hours on this very forum (in 15 different threads that were constantly spammed to the top of the forum).
- That same user asked for donations (in the form of games or paypal) no less than eight times in the same thread, before finally receiving a warning (aka slap on the wrist) from support.
- That same user posts machine-generated comments on a daily basis, multiples times a day, and has done so freely for years.
Had I done even one of those things, you can rest assured there'd be a "Perma" on my account. Hell, I was suspended for "trolling" (which isn't even against the rules) for this comment.
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i agree with you 100% and those people annoy me as well. it's bullshit and wastes everyone's time. i've seen certain users enter and leave "thank you" comments on my giveaways, and when you look at the time-stamps, they're all within a second of each other. no way someone can join multiple giveaways and comment within a second of each other. easy blacklist. i'd much rather have my games go to humans who will actually play them, though i'm sure most of us would attest to that. what i have issue with is simply the part where you said sg explicitly forbids use of bots because i don't see evidence of that.
i'm curious what was in the video you posted that got you suspended. it says "Video unavailable This video contains content from Believe Entertainment, who has blocked it on copyright grounds." though honestly i'd probably see it unfair to get a suspension for one comment/post, especially a single youtube video. in my opinion, it's the ones who persistently post troll/hateful comments that really deserve suspensions or bans.
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I hadn't noticed it was removed. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bW4vEo1F4E
It's the "spam song" by Monty Python. One poor soul was spamming the forums seconds apart to bump other threads down (by people he didn't like), and I posted the video in the music thread around the same time. "Inappropriate Behavior." I didn't care about the suspension itself (if trolling is against the rules, I deserved it), but how some users are suspended while others aren't seems unbalanced.
I wanted to know why I was suspended for trolling (I most definitely was, and admit to it), while the other user was allowed to troll in his own (numerous) threads. I was told (by the same moderator who suspended me) his type of trolling (calling people white trash, Nazis, etc) was allowed. Apparently a Monty Python video about spamming was not.
TLDR: I'm weary of "different weights and measures" on this site. All too often I find the rules of this site aren't applied equally and fairly to all. Not even remotely.
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i guess that's the fundamental fucked up thing about trolls like that is they're able to cry "free speech" and "i'm just stating my opinion. you can, so i should be able to!" even if they are ideologically outnumbered. the moment you throw their bullshit back in their face, you're the bad guy. i'll never understand the mindset of a troll.. stirring up a crowd for laughs. they're a blight to any community.
i gotta say though, i wouldn't consider posting a single youtube video to be trolling. kinda pales in comparison to what others do - and get away with. if i had seen your comment without any context, i would think nothing of it. odd choice to have on playlist, but nothing troll-ish.
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Who here hasn't seen that machine-generated content in multiple giveaways?.
I'm genuinely asking here because I want to know your opinion. I use the ESGST presets on steamgifts.com/giveaways/new to autofill values (how many days, what level, what groups), including a default previously-saved message. This message varies from group to group, as in some it reminds of a group rule, in others it mentions "this is my monthly giveaway for [month]. When I was making giveaways for the various SG Community Trains, I had a preset message for those giveaways rather than typing out something similar for each one or copying/pasting the description of one into the description of another.
In all of my giveaways, I usually promote the fact that common courtesy from the winner is expected, but not required. I could copy/paste it from a word doc, but because the preset option is there, I use one or another of a handful of presets 90% of the time for these descriptions, and then tweak it if I have the time and inclination. At the same time, the basic "root" message is either identical or at least included across many, if not most, of my giveaways.
My question is, does this appear as machine-generated content to you? In my case, anyway, I can assure everyone that it is not. 😂 Is this what you meant by complaining about the same? (I know there are scripts to filter out the same-old everyday descriptions from any particular user (such as "unlucky 7, open to all" "lootboy rules apply" "the game will be found on steamgifts.com/giveaways/won" etc), but have never been bothered enough to use one.)
Thank you.
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Thank you for revealing the limits! Will try to fix ESGST to fit these limits as soon as I can. And I sure hope it wasn't ESGST making those 9423 requests, because it has measures to detect the last page and not load anything further.
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Thank you for everything to maintain the community. CG!(∩´Θ`)∩
Let me tell you one scary story here.
Recently, an update was made to an add-on that doesn't matter.
The content of the update was to change the browser to P2PBOT.
It seems that the user who noticed denounced the creator and the add-on returned to its original state.
It seems that somewhere in the world, a completely different function was temporarily given to perform annoying acts.
For that reason, users in the community who saw "429 Too Many Requests" and did not know that they were performing abnormal operations should disable the add-on and wait an hour when they felt something was wrong. We Recommend that you try it.
When it normalizes, there will be a problem with the add-on.
(In many cases, security software is unresponsive)
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Auto-join bots were already banned years ago:
https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/h9RxE/autojoin-suspensions
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people complaining limits imposed by the site's admin aren't enough for them, like they are running some kind of multinational business 😂
pity cg doesn't go on a ban rampage and removes all these useless individuals that contribute nothing at all. i'd rather have 99% of lv0 users around than them, at least zeros don't complain.
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Welcome to web2.0 (btw, it's here since 1999). SG would not exist without users. All content on site is generated by users. So yes, in a way - SG belongs to all it's users. SG is successful because cg listens to the users, and at least tries to do what people want. Without this site would cease to exist already.
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It's not about implementing anything people ask, but about listening to users feedback. Even if few special snowflakes believe that it causes problems with the server.
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Wrong. cg said people with crappy scripts cause problems. And people complaining are people who use bots for various services, this is completely different. If script makes 1000 request, and is used by 100 people, and let's say 10 of those users has two different devices, it will end up with 1100000 requests. And if bot makes 1000 requests, and is used by 100 people, with 10 of those users has two devices - it will be still 1000 requests. Difference is huge, and the more users involved, the more noticeable will be difference. And if bots were the issue - it would be much more effective to help them, not to fight them. If, for example, bot makes 1000 requests because data it needs to download 10 pages of giveaways made by every user (if we assume there is still 100 users), it will end up with 1000 request. If cg made some api to return all giveaways by a single user as raw data, it would be 100 requests, and every request may end up smaller this way. This approach may work with scripts too, but would be less effective of course.
We have a huge example right by our side - steam. It has more users than SG, so it faces the same problems in bigger scale. There is a rate limiting, but it's not as strict as cg made here (to be more precise, daily limit is strict. limit per minute is more than enough). And there is an api, so that people who use some automation hammered steam less.
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hopefully cg will get tired of all this and close sg for good.
pity some hard workers will lose their jobs, damn unfair life. ;_;
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zeros don't complain? really? Every time I see complain threads - it's always users of 0-1 level. You must be used some different sg.
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I would ask that the daily max rate be set higher for cases such as Archi's.
Also, I don't ever use a bot on this website other than archibot, which he says you granted an exception for, but I do use ESGST to save my default giveaway description. I do use 3rd party websites to check how many people in any one group have any particular game, and some of these websites go through SG to find out how many games that a user has given or times a game has been given inside the group. (websites such as this one or similar, as well as SGT for rules checking.)
@CG If you would please set the daily and hourly rate higher so that the few approved scripts and tools used by this community (archibot, SGT, the other scripts mentioned in the other thread, etc) and the average "heavier-use" user (or those who don't realize a script is acting up, or who realize it is messing up but who are clueless or powerless about how to fix it) is not penalized, it would be tremendously appreciated. (Also, please don't refer to us legit users who open a lot of tabs at once as having "unnecessary" page views just because we browse differently than others, but this is a side-note.)
As i said elsewhere, the one time that ESGST decided to sync while steam was down, it removed every single "free" appid from my library, and two hours later re-added them. This website hung for quite a while then, and I can only imagine what it would have been like if I had timed out in the middle, because as you no doubt know, I cannot control when ESGST syncs. It usually syncs first thing when i open this website, and does it 2-3 times per day.
Please see the attached pic from September 8th. Also, using ESGST etc to check for WL/BL is extremely time-consuming, and checks potentially hundreds of users (I'm running one right now that is checking ~500 users. Having this done sooner rather than having the process slow down in order to avoid the cap (and thus taking significantly longer) gives a happier end-user feeling toward the site, which seems to me like something useful to promote.
Anyway, thank you for considering this request, no matter what you decide.
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Archi's bot is the exact example cg shouldn't change anything.
The elitist "group-only" members around here don't need special privileges, they're already working their cliques well enough without cg succumbing to their begging.
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Haha, you're funny :D
The group specific-tools running on a single server or a bot are not the problem (as much as they annoy you), because they generate a limited amount of traffic, cache received results, and can be used by multiple users without any effect on SG.
The problem is with the user-scripts, people use for everything from checking WL/BL, to checking who owns any specific game, and everything in between.
Because then instead of a single point of contact sending thousands of requests, you have hundreds or thousands of users, each sending thousands of requests. And then you get millions of requests SG website needs to process.
Same data can usually be either served by SG itself (like WL/BL for example) or cached for all users combined (like owned games for example). The fact that it's done on the client, is mostly because people don't know how to, or to lazy to do it on a centralized server, and SG allowed this abuse up until now.
Apparently, not anymore.
I'm obviously not objective here, as I'm also developing such a tool (https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/5vQp7/tool-sgmt-steamgifts-group-management-tool-open-source-tool-ive-been-working-on) which I allow to use to any group that wishes it, and even add features when I'm asked nicely :)
But from my end, adding some delays will not change the operation of the tool that much - as it's running in the background and caching data as it is, so my users will probably not notice the difference at all.
client-side tools on the other hand, that instead of showing you data in real time (and using tons of SG requests for that) will now show the same data after 10 minutes of you waiting and staring at a blank screen, so will probably become mostly useless.
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I'm sorry, but I'm dumb or ignorant. What is the difference between a client and a bot, and between client-side tools and scripts? I'm confused.🧐 🤔
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The way web servers work is there is a client side (usually the code running in your browser on your computer) and a server side, running on a remote server.
For example the Google search bar is the client side code, but the search itself runs on the server as your PC wouldn't be able to hold all the data.
Everything that is a chrome extension (also called add-ons) by definition is client side, but they sometimes communicate with a server side as well.
Every mobile app is a client side app, but many communicate with servers as well.
A bot basically a script that runs autonomously. It can be a client side code theoretically, but then you would need your PC to constantly run so the bot is able to run. So many bots run on various servers (reddit bots, slack bots, etc.)
The difference between a bot and a script is a script is something you need to run actively, or is trigerred by something (for example an hour has passed, or you performed a specific action, like accessed a specific site) while a bot runs on its own and decides when/what to do.
You might say that your browser activating a script when you access a certain site - is a kind of bot. But in this case your browser is the "bot" not the script.
I might have confused a thing or two (the lines between them are sometimes blurry) but that's the gist.
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because as you no doubt know, I cannot control when ESGST syncs. It usually syncs first thing when i open this website, and does it 2-3 times per day.
ESGST can automatically sync only once per day, so if it's sync 2 - 3 times per day you need to do it manually
Select how often you want the automatic sync to run (in days) or 0 to disable it.
Unless there is an option that requests data more often. But I don't see it.
Also, using ESGST etc to check for WL/BL is extremely time-consuming, and checks potentially hundreds of users (I'm running one right now that is checking ~500 users. Having this done sooner rather than having the process slow down in order to avoid the cap (and thus taking significantly longer) gives a happier end-user feeling toward the site, which seems to me like something useful to promote.
Scanning for who blacklisted or whitelisted you is not essential part of the website. Especially that it's something that will never end, as users can remove you from their WL or BL and re-add at any time. I think that if admin would want to have this data public they would just make a page that would show who BL / WL you. Not hide it and "force" users to scan thousands of profiles.
They deliberately made only pages for who you BL / WL. Not who put you on theirs WL / BL.
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Sorry for interjecting to this discussion with an offtopic question, but there's a dispute in the "Deals" section about if links to sites like DIG and HRK are allowed on SG forums or not. https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/C0hpX/new-master-list-of-ongoing-steam-bundles/search?page=95#HZu2bfq I've sent a ticket to support, but maybe you or cg can provide clarification on this matter? Are these sites breaking SteamGifts rules or not?
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ESGST can automatically sync only once per day, so if it's sync 2 - 3 times per day you need to do it manually
I did not know that. Thank you for mentioning that, and for correcting my erroneous impression of how often it synced. It has seemed sometimes like it synced every time I opened SG, but maybe that was just an impression and I wasn't opening it as often as I thought, or else I opened the site just before and then again shortly after the "day" reset.
Okay, reasonable enough. That does make sense. However, my point about scripts being slowed way down (ESGST takes forever as it is, such that my browser often pops up a "this extension is slowing down your browser, do you want to disable it" message), and thus making a less favorable impression among those who use them, is perhaps still valid. Idk, I just don't want to drive anybody away because of frustration with the speed of extensions etc.
Thank you for your response!
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Is it an anti-bot measure or a server-load issue? The stance in the case of GA-farming bots could be generally clearer.
By "bot" I mean a process of automation that hinders the overall winning chances of an average user in a significant way by auto-joining GAs, be it in way of script, shmipt or what have ya. I mean taking care of what I assume is a ratio of at least 20 synthetics entering accessible GAs for every frustrated peep.
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I think cg was pretty clear this was meant to address server load issues.
I'm pretty sure all auto-joining bots were banned years ago, and account of anyone caught using them is suspended:
https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/h9RxE/autojoin-suspensions
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Right. I thought server is code word for bots. I got confused by thus far replies on this thread. Mdk25 you'd tell me if I'm getting the paranoias, right?
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<looks suspiciously>
...
<blink>
...
<blink>
...
<murmur to self: who is this guy? why is he talking to me?>
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Lol to "all auto-joining bots were banned years ago" :-D
Sadly not.
I can't show here user accounts but if you want i send you examples at steam and you decide by yourself if they are able to reach that entry numbers with normal human activity or not ;o)
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They were banned in the sense it became against group rules to use them.
Not in the sense that all users that used them in the past, use them now or will use them in the future will be suspended the second they use it.
If you know of such a user, you should report him/her to the site support, because it's definitely against site rules nowadays.
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Yes, it is against the rules but it don't interest much of them. At least thats how it looks for me.
And of course i report such people but the tickets need ~1 year till handled. With that timeframe to make bad stuff (on top to the time they done it before someone report them), aren't the results able to be good ones in the most cases :o(.
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I agree that there definitely not enough mods in SteamGifts.
I think last time new mods were announced was years ago (and people are leaving all the time)
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Yes and all help offers from different known, friendly, respected, active sg members weren't looked at.
Help like giving them a tracker they can scan automatic and put the listed games into the reduced list were not used and that didn't lowered the work for the staff members.
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Are these restrictions per sliding window or fixed window (time-wise)?
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Good job. Contrary to some opinions before, per-hour and per-day values could be even lower, while having per-minute value on par with how a real person could use the site.
On another note, if a user is making thousands of requests per day, they are obviously abusing the site and gaining advantage over "intended users" of this giveaway site.
Making giveaways, browsing giveaways, enrolling to some of them, this takes not that much requests.
If "experience enhancing" scripts do generate high server loads, these should be lightened or removed.
I wholly share the sentiment of a few people who use scripts for group control, but essentially this is not a point of benefit (and inherently, of concern) for SG site and the whole SG userbase. And for each group-bot there can be virtually any number of other bots/scripts.
Of course no matter how the limits are set, all bots will be adjusted accordingly, but at least loads can be lowered
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Making/browsing etc does use a lot more requests, as I understand it, if you are running an extension or two (as I am). CG in the past has refused to add items that only a few people want, with the culture being "there's a script for that." This is all fine and good, so long as the scripts continue to work.
because I no nothing about coding, I could not tell you how many pull requests ESGST, SGLinkies, RAChart Enhancer etc use per minute or per hour, but I do know that extracting a train (when the giver does not care) takes a lot in a very short time. I'm sorry if you don't think this is normal, and it may not be for you, but if the train has no description beyond "next" etc, i will open the train extractor after the first 3 carts or so.
Therefore, I appreciate the per-minute being high enough that extracting a train won't bar you from using the site. Also, as I said elsewhere, when browsing for example the wishlist page of giveaways, i will open everything not-already-entered essentially "at once" (one after another after a third and so on, clicking on everything not greyed out as I scroll down) in new tabs, before looking at any of them, which means there will be (as I understand it?) a spike of pull requests in a very short time. How many, I don't know, and my concern with the per-hour and per-day limits goes back to my first paragraph and hoping CG continues to support the long tradition of enhancing the user experience via scripts, or rules checking via SGT gates (another 3rd party officially supported tool).
(I must be dense, but would you please explain the benefits of lowering the loads--I am rather confused as to what the practical or theoretical benefits are?)
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when browsing for example the wishlist page of giveaways, i will open everything not-already-entered at once in new tabs, before looking at any of them
Then maybe change that to "i open it one after the other", look at the content (means trailers, store page, pics, reviews and so on) if needed and all is ok ;o)
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Fun fact as you guessed those limits do redacted for autojoin scripts and making the limits to harsh will actually bring more harm to users (even the one who don't use scripts) than to the autojoins.
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+1 If I'm using the site, I'm going to be opening tabs a lot per minute. The per hours or days doesn't matter to normal users who only check 2-3 times/day instead of 10 times per hour or something like a bot.
So, To CG, please up the per minute rate, the 429 is ridiculous, forcing me to HAVE to multitask to wait out the "minute reset timer".
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Hi SnowyK, in your case, I can see you hit the limit once in the past 24 hours, and that was from automated requests, and not from opening giveaways in new tabs.
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Sorry, you're correct, I've should've known tech issues are 90% user-end.
Found the culprit, auto sync only runs when I'm on site but obviously if on site, I need the requests to open links instead. Turned sync off completely.
Thanks for putting up with us CG.
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I wonder how this will impact ESGST and SGTools, 2 very popular tools for this site.
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It's very simple to add an exclusion for SGTools (in site code).
ESGST works similarly to users so this is a problem.
We need the API.
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It's very simple to add an exclusion for SGTools (in site code).
Question then will be if that doesn't create an exploit for other scripts to use to get the same exclusion.
An API for bots and scripts would be the best solution, but that will require a lot of work from cg
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How do you want to exploit when the TCP packet comes from the desired IP?
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SGTools is bit different. Just need a system with multiple IPs to use. As it really doesn't need to have logged in user.
User scripts on other hand require a session as there needs to be an user...
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cg has refused the same when I offered to add an exclusion for my tool (SGMT).
So I presume no tool will get an exclusion.
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knsys said that sgtools isn't affected: https://www.steamgifts.com/go/comment/PMpIns7
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https://www.steamgifts.com/go/comment/wU6T92j
It seems to be a difficult situation now, about two weeks later.
Wouldn't SGtools be excluded from communication restrictions?
It's a little worrisome story.( ;'Θ`)Umm..
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Can I ask, I might be stupid for suggesting this but... can't we use those reCaptchas from Google? Like have users doing the "I'm not a robot thing" once every like 6 or 24 hours when they are entering a giveaway. I've also seen reCaptchas where you don't even need to tick the "I'm not a robot" box because it somehow automatically detects if you're a bot or not? I don't really know this stuff so forgive me if I'm wrong. Just an idea to think about. ^^
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Nooo, never, this is just disturbing for people!
Bots can easily bypass those captchas, but just humans have hard time to complete it.
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Bots can easily bypass those captchas, but just humans have hard time to complete it.
Sure...
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I suggested that, but I got some Blacklists for it. Maybe it is time to bump the thread ;D
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I think cg isn't trying to get rid of the scripts/bots. He's trying to make the scripts writer be more efficient so the script doesn't generate a huge amount of traffic to SG unnecessarily. Hence rate limit (so inefficient scripts stop working) but not recaptcha.
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That would be the moment I leave this site. I hate those and try to not use sites that require it, I'm down to 2 or 3 sites. SG is not something I need to use, so I would leave it behind in a second.
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I would consider it great if there were something as such as option for GA-makers (and/or being able to raise points needed for entry up to e.g. 5x), as that would somewhat counter-act some issues that come with low-level public GAs, increasing chances for those who care about a game when some others wouldn't automatically enter whichever +1 GA and/or have their points drained quickly if they are not a bit picky too.
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Captchas will, sadly, not stop the black sheeps.
I know here different users that use 30+ accounts AND bots at freebie sites to grab all in seconds (the worst used, at least, 161 different email adresses...).
"Secured" stuff from the kinguin daily freebies, the chrono site, the indiegala daily freebies and so on.
And you seen, maybe, that their sites were down after one or max. 2 seconds when the GA's were up. That's the very clear proof that the bots can solve/sneak around the captchas in some way. Don't question me how exactly, i don't know it.
I can't write you names at sg but i can say that all are high level sg users that are seen as "generous guys".
If you want names, write me at steam.
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cg has mentioned the word "bot" 0 times in his post, and explicitly explained "users are not aware the scripts they're using are generating so much traffic in the background of their browser".
Yet somehow everyone just automatically assumed there are some evil bots trying to ruin the site, which we need to mobilize and go to war against ASAP...
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Google ReCaptcha is a fucking hell. Same for hCaptcha.
Other captchas that work properly, why not, if they're limited to one per week or something. I kind of like the one used be Epic Games. Keycaptcha is pretty decent too.
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reCaptchas make me think I really may be a bot sometimes.
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I hate you. You are worse than Hitler.. EDIT: I was wrong, it seems you are actually much better than Hitler. But I still hate you for this suggestion.
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Is that supposed to be a joke or do you really mean it? >x<
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Captchas, and especially reCaptchas, are humiliation of human dignity. Some robot questions your humanity, and by default don't even consider you a human. So, I have the same question to you - is your suggestion to use captcha supposed to be a joke or do you really mean it?
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Hmm maybe I should go and bumb this: https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/5E7xh/suggestion-captcha-for-entering-giveaways
I support them.
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This kind of jokes stopped to be funny when previous user who was calling everyone Hitler get suspended.
Well, they were never funny, but I thought no one would go back to this way of "discussing" stuff.
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Not everyone, only captcha-lovers. And they really deserve it.
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I visited Auschwitz this year, and I can surely say that captcha is pale in the comparison to what Hitler did.
And I dislike them because Google get their AI taught how to work and grow at the expense of users that had to write down hard to read text to feed it with data. I'm deliberately picking wrong images till captcha gives up on me and let me pass. And I was always writing only one word from the pair, knowing only one is required to pass.
Doesn't mean I will call users who like them naziiii.
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Ok, you have a point here. I've made some calculations.
If average user spends 10 seconds on captcha, and needs to solve it once a day, it will end up as
10 * 365/60=60,8(3) minutes per year. Let's say it's one hour for easier calculation...
So, if average user stays on site for 5 years (that's just an assumption to make calculation easier), and we have 1,114,746 user, it will be
1,114,746 * 5 / 24 = 232238,75 days
232238,75 / 365 =~ 636,27 years.
Average human life is about 60 years, so we can estimate that user suggesting captcha killing about 10 people. That's nothing compared to what Hitler did, I was totally wrong.
But I still hate people who suggest using captchas, this part is correct.
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Only that solving a captcha did not actually kill anyone, just took a couple of min of human life.
Same as using a lawn mower to trim the grass does not kill x humans per year, even when it takes (x minutes) x (y times per season) x (z number of people who does it in the season). When calculation will add up to 50k hours in 5 years it does not mean it "killed" 500 people who'd normally live up to 100.
That's really convoluted logic to justify calling someone a Hitler. But it still fails, and kind of falls under reductio ad Hitlerum.
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Well, I see no difference between taking people's time and killing. Everything we do slowly kills us (yes, including trimming the grass). No reason to make it even worse.
I already said that I was wrong when I jumped to assumption that liking captchas is worse than Hitler. It's not, at least not for a small site like this one. It may be true for huge sites like google or facebook, but they don't do something this stupid, and only throw captcha as a last resort, when other tools give high chance that it's a bot.
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IMHO there's a huge difference because I can freely choose to not solve the captchas or trim the grass.
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Yeah, I mean, sometimes I think if people using Nazi, fascist and so on to describe someone over something mundane actually experienced first hand some of the horrors of living in a regime like that, they'd never use them.
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He only made a suggestion which I'm also not a fan of and you obviously hate but how can you even compare that to what Hitler is responsible for? Such comments play down what national socialism did.
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If you read the branch above you'll see that I already admit I was wrong with this comparison. I overestimated the effect of captchas, an honest mistake.
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May I ask, if you see a decline in entries for (public) giveaways?
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I have just noticed it but maybe is because there are more giveaways as a consequence of the Humble Choice. But it would be great if these limits were stopping the auto-join bots to run properly :D
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Yes, but now they will have to run slower by force :)
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You get 24 point in an hour...
How much traffic do you think an "auto-join bot" needs to generate to spend 24 points/hour?
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It seems that there is now 1,162 public giveaways.
So bot could open all of those and enter them in a hour... Or even enter reasonable 60 giveaways in a minute...
So I don't think this works too well against properly coded auto-join scripts...
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You're math is way off...
Max points you can have is 400, so if an average giveaways value is 10P, a bot can enter maximum of 40 average giveaways total.
and 2 additional giveaways every hour afterwards.
It would take a bot 20 days of constantly accruing & spending points to be able to join 1,162 giveaways.
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I wasn't even considering the points here. Just number of open public giveaways and rate to open those and enter...
Just to show how high the limits really are.
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That's the problem - you're throwing around numbers like "a bot can enter 1,162 giveaways in an hour" without considering the question: can a bot enter 1,162 giveaways in an hour?
No, it cannot.
No matter how you present it, "auto-join bots" (even if they actually exist) would not generate nearly as much as a single regular user, who uses a script (chrome add-on) to determine WL/BL and sends thousands of request per minute.
Or who uses a script/add-on to calculate how many people in a group own a game he wants to give away.
These are the people / scripts cg is trying to limit.
Not some imaginary "auto-join bots" supposedly creating load on the site...
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"auto-join bots" (even if they actually exist)
Of course they do exist, and they are used by thousands of members. The most popular one is an extension for both Chrome and Firefox that runs in the background so you don't even have to visit this site, but it causes a periodic load to it.
The creator is not even suspended, is a regular member (leech).
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The most popular one is an extension for both Chrome and Firefox
That's an add-on/script, not a bot 🤦
A bot basically a script that runs autonomously. It can be a client side code theoretically, but then you would need your PC to constantly run so the bot is able to run. So most bots run on various servers (reddit bots, slack bots, etc.)
The difference between a bot and a script is a script is something you need to run actively, or is triggered by something (for example an hour has passed, or you performed a specific action, like accessed a specific site) while a bot runs on its own and decides when/what to do.
You might say that your browser activating a script when you access a certain site - is a "kind of bot". But in this case your browser is the "bot" not the script.
While the add-on itself is legal, because it does various different stuff.
The auto-join functionality is forbidden, and is a suspendable offense:
https://www.steamgifts.com/discussion/h9RxE/autojoin-suspensions
Even the add-on itself has a warning that if you use the auto-join functionality you will be suspended.
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Question then: Why is that button there?
And the addon (and user) okay when it us an option?
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Well the button was there when it was still allowed.
Why haven't the creator of the tool removed that option completely when it became forbidden?
Well, that's a question for the tool's creator...
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Who cares about the correct terminology in this case?
That script is constantly running in the background while the browser is open, so it is harmful to this site because Steamgifts servers are funded with advertising. Those users are exploting this website in multiple ways, they are leeching, avoiding the ads and consuming bandwidth at the same time. And they are thousands.
And finally, who cares about the rules when even the creator is an active member and uses his own extension without any problem?
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And finally, who cares about the rules when even the creator is an active member and uses his own extension without any problem?
that's SG™ in a nutshell 👏
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And finally, who cares about the rules when even the creator is an active member and uses his own extension without any problem?
First of all, why wouldn't the creator be an active member?
He has the same rights to be a member as anyone else.
Even more right, as he created a useful tool for the site, that many people use. It enables infinite scroll, one-button giveaway joining, one-button description loading, and is generally very useful.
Makes sense the creator uses his own creation.
That script is constantly running in the background while the browser is open, so it is harmful to this site because Steamgifts servers are funded with advertising.
No it doesn't.
First of all, if you don't turn on the prohibited "auto-join" functionality, the script doesn't do anything if you're not actively browsing SteamGifts.
If you're stupid enough to turn on the "auto-join" functionality, and risk being suspended as thousands of people were.
Even then the script's impact on SteamGifts' bandwidth would be minimal. You only get 24 points per hour. So once the script depletes all available points, it would take it 1/2 hour to an hour to get enough points to enter a single giveaway (at best). Even if the script queries SteamGifts every 10 minutes to get the up-to-date status, that's 1 request per user, per 10 minutes. That's nothing.
Secondly, most people browse the web with various adblockers, so they don't see any ads on SteamGifts either way.
If ads was such an important revenue stream, ad blockers would have been prohibited (there are technological solutions for thi), or at least mentioned in the rules.
And finally:
No one complained about the traffic of the "auto-join" addon, most of the complaints are about ESGST, which has a gazillion of features, and really does sends thousands of requests per minute. And is used by thousands of users.
So it would need to become more efficient, maybe work slower, and will need to give up some of it's functionality.
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Even more right, as he created a useful tool for the site, that many people use. It enables infinite scroll, one-button giveaway joining, one-button description loading, and is generally very useful.
I don't know if you are being sarcastic or you are too innocent. Who uses an extension named "Steamgifts Autojoin" to enable infinite scroll? Come on...
If you're stupid enough to turn on the "auto-join" functionality, and risk being suspended as thousands of people were.
The extension was modified at that moment to avoid the risk of suspension.
Secondly, most people browse the web with various adblockers
That's completely wrong. The vast majority of Internet users browse the web (the World Wide Web, not this website) with a mobile phone (mostly Android based) using the embedded Chrome browser (where you can't block the ads). Those are statistics. You are extrapolating your personal use to "most people". If "most people" would browse the web with an ad blocker, the Web as we know it would disappear, because the "free" websites have ad based revenue.
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I don't know if you are being sarcastic or you are too innocent. Who uses an extension named "Steamgifts Autojoin" to enable infinite scroll? Come on...
Now you're just being argumentative.
I do, I'm sure so do other people.
How many people do you think have it?
The extension was modified at that moment to avoid the risk of suspension.
Prove it.
Show me the change
That's completely wrong. The vast majority of Internet users browse the web (the World Wide Web, not this website) with a mobile phone (mostly Android based) using the embedded Chrome browser (where you can't block the ads). Those are statistics. You are extrapolating your personal use to "most people". If "most people" would browse the web with an ad blocker, the Web as we know it would disappear, because the "free" websites have ad based revenue.
Ok, so not most (because most browse on mobile) but many do, and as I mentioned: If ads was such an important revenue stream, ad blockers would have been prohibited (there are technological solutions for this), or at least mentioned in the rules.
And there are ad blockers for mobile as well.
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Hi Oppenh4imer, I just posted the number of entries in public giveaways during the past 10 days, and there is no decline. Keep in mind this change was never intended to lower these numbers, as these rates are set to 14,400 requests per day, while a script could easily spend all a user's available points in fewer than 100 requests per day.
- Oct 31: 225,714
- Nov 1: 230,612
- Nov 2: 231,331
- Nov 3: 268,165
- Nov 4: 234,536
- Nov 5: 261,654
- Nov 6: 241,906
- Nov 7: 247,532
- Nov 8: 225,968
- Nov 9: 241,445
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Thanks a lot cg,
I just had the impression that there were less entries.
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I didn't realize there was so much bitterness between some of the well known users in this community, reading some of the comments in this thread was a bit sad. Kinda glad I happen to be on an involuntary break from steam, sg, and the like at the moment.
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cg has mentioned the word "bot" 0 times in his post, and explicitly explained "users are not aware the scripts they're using are generating so much traffic in the background of their browser".
Yet somehow everyone just automatically assumed there are some evil bots trying to ruin the site, which we need to mobilize and go to war against ASAP...
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Because some people think that the only way to hit these limits is to use crazy bots running absurd routines thousands of times per hour.
I run no bots, just ESGST and I hit the rate limit every time I try to just sync. It's impossible for me to sync anymore. I hope revil adjusts the script to fix issues, and I believe he'll be able to; but the notion that the changes only affect powerusers like Archi is just false.
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This isn't really aimed at bots. But horrible spammy scripts that users run. Like it see ESGST is...
As non script user I haven't seen any errors related to this yet.
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How exactly is ESGST spammy? Just because it generates a lot of requests (which is required to deliver the important features that users need), doesn't make it spammy.
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Nope, it depends on the frequency of those requests. ESGST has already had some rate limiting and caching for years. It's not like it just makes request after request.
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Apparently it does. And this proves it.
And then add its not just you but possibly thousands of users and you get a ton of extra requests clogging the server constantly.
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It doesn't. The sync feature mentioned here only runs at a minimum once per day rate. And not every user syncs the stuff that demands SG requests. It's not constantly.
I'm not saying ESGST is perfect. There's plenty of room for improvement, and I'm constantly working on those improvements. But it's not a "horrible spammy" script.
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Well, on a wiki I am at we sometimes get scripts that do like 6k requests per minute. And the admin can show how bad a performance impact those have, and they get promptly banned.
Seems EGST does like, 1k requests in a minute for sync? Doesn't seem bad, but add that every day and multiply by thousands of users and you might see the additional strain done on the server.
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What? Where are you getting that number from? I find it very unlikely that ESGST is doing 1K requests per minute.
Again, not every user syncs the stuff that demands SG requests. And even for those, there are options that allow the user to keep their data synced without having to do a single request.
Of course ESGST causes additional stress on the server, but that stress is somewhat controlled. That was my whole point. I don't appreciate people who don't even use ESGST calling it a "horrible spammy" script when they don't know how the script works.
And it's not like I'm not willing to make changes to reduce that stress. I'm already implementing my own server to keep some SG data shared between users. A while back I implemented a 2 requests per second limit to some ESGST features (that was the recommended rate back then), and as soon as this rate limiting system was announced I implemented a 1 request per second limit to every feature.
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I just pushed a new update that limits requests. You might be able to sync now, since it's a lot slower.
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I'll definitely try it again once google finally lets the update through.
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I'm glad it's preventing 429 messages...but holy crap, the group page loading speed for stats is now sooooooooo slllllllloooooooowwwwwww.
(not your fault, just sayin' ;) )
Also, entering things is slow, especially if there is a GA popup for it (I might just need to turn that feature off). Other things as well. I was kind of afraid of this being an effect of having to work within much more narrow limits.
I'm genuinely concerned about my ability to create large trains via ESGST for my events. Can you imagine what happens if I get a 429 in the middle of making one of those things? Disastrous.
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I'll add an exception for entering giveaways in the next version, so it can be as fast as before, since I don't think that should cause big problems. But yeah, the group stats have to stay that way for now, I'm afraid.
As for creating large trains, it's in my TODO list to implement a way to fix trains if the creation process is interrupted. Maybe I'll get to that soon. But in the meantime, you could create smaller trains and connect them manually.
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Sounds good. Sorry that you're ending up with a huge coding job. BTW...did you have to decommission the functionality for sending all GAs to winners with the single send button? Because as of the last update, the ellipsis button and everything behind it has disappeared.
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Hey, I just wanted to say that the most recent update made the general GA pages load more quickly and the Enter button is now a usable feature again. Thanks for all of the hard work here. I know that this was a sudden, hard pivot.
The way that I work with SG is pretty much all through ESGST (largely due to the type of volumes that I work with), so when it wasn't working well, it made my whole SG experience kinda brutal. I'm glad that at least the basics are working again.
Were you able to add any code for recovering from a train creation failing partway through? Before I do any new events, I'll probably wait for that functionality. I'm busy with a new job, anyway, and won't have time for anything like that until at least January.
Thanks again!
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It wouldn't be the Internet if people didn't fight each other on a bi-hourly basis ^^
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The problem is that too many times people take everything personally. As if a measure or comment is aimed at them personally or as if it's aimed at their work (be it a bot, script or whatever) which they'll defend as strongly as a parent would their baby.
The reality is that CG obviously saw a reason to make changes to reduce the server load. (A valid concern for anyone running a server especially if it's popular enough). And he is taking completely understandable action in a logical and actually not too strict manner even. It would be more appropriate for people to thank him for doing what's necessary to keep this free website up and running properly.
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Thank you for your continues support and improvement of the site. This addition should help whole community of this site.
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people really still be malding after all these years
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Can you confirm if redirects count as separate requests? For example, making a request to /giveaway/XXXXX/, which redirects to /giveaway/XXXXX/game-name, counts as 2 requests or 1?
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As they don't serve any data, shouldn't they get excluded?
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Those requests may not be serving data, but they're still using resources and looking up information in our database. For that reason, I think they should be included.
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Following up on that, given how it does not matter what is written after the giveaway code, why redirect at all and not just serve the webpage directly then?
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It's useful for a couple of reasons.
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A search engine might crawl this discussion and then afterwards I decide to change the discussion title. When the search engine checks the page again, it'll notice the 301 redirect and realize the previous URL has been deprecated and moved to a new location. The same applies to changes to the naming of Steam games, or when we update a game being given away, and how we want search engines to update their links accordingly.
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It helps to keep URLs more informative and up-to-date when being shared. If you're using an add-on and your giveaway URLs do not include the name of the corresponding games, then when you share links in the community they're missing a valuable piece of information for the readers. Or, going back to my example of changing my discussion title. If you share an outdated URL with the wrong title, and then someone opens your link and sends it to a friend, and that friend posts the link to social media, the wrong URL keeps propagating, instead of getting corrected along the way.
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Hi SG,
Some people noticed we have new rate limiting features on our site to help prevent too many requests from an individual user in a given period of time. When a user exceeds these limits, they now see a 429 Too Many Requests error page.
In many cases, users are not aware the scripts they're using are generating so much traffic in the background of their browser, and in other instances scripts have errors which cause them to run out of control, such as when I review our logs and see someone loading page 9,423... 9,424... 9,425 all day long when the giveaway results stopped at page 50. This causes a lot of unnecessary load on our servers and the rate limiting features help to address that issue.
A few people were asking what the exact values are so they can keep them in mind and stay within those limitations. They are currently set to...
Some examples of a request could be opening a page, entering a giveaway, or adding someone to your whitelist. I think these values are reasonable, but let me know if you have any questions or concerns. Thanks.
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