Some Suggestions

I moved the bolding to cover the first sentence, which summarized everything, yet not one read them. They were already numbered and the numbers were bold. Please stop pointing out that it is too long to read. I don't personally care and there is no reason to keep doing this, trying to look cool. I'm not willing to shorten what I posted, as that would lead to people pointing out things that I had in the first place or making poor assumptions. Yes, I have Aspergers and yes, we are notorious ramblers for those reasons. We do this talking and typing. I'm just saying, if you don't want to read it, move on. Stop blocking what could be legit comments. You aren't helping anyone and you don't look cool. All you ever had to do was read the first sentence. I'm sorry it strained some of you.

Well, everyone else is throwing suggestions out to the wolves, so I figured why not. Here is my list to make the site better, without creating more work for the mods. I am going to lean towards less effort, more user feedback, and faster overall response times. The aim is to clean things up a bit and help to solve problems. I am not focusing on all different individual features that I think should be added or upgraded. Everything is focused on helping to deal with users and helping to make the job easier for the moderators. Basically suggesting to fixing problems, while cutting back on support tickets and forum posts. I'll just jump right in to the suggestions.

#1 - A Flag button for each content type. Giveaways could have a flag that, when clicked, could give reasons like looks fake, beta, breaks site rules, and other ones. Comments and forum posts could have flag buttons, that when clicked, would offer up reasons like rule breaker, calling out user, and others. Each flag would have an "other" section and an optional comment, that one would be encouraged to not leave. Maybe an extra button push to get to add your own comment. All flags could be tallied, in private, on the backend. Then the mods could just quickly see problematic posts and do something about them, right there. You could add extra features like warnings or temporarily removed comments, at a certain number of flags. I would imagine a tally of all people thinking that something is wrong would be a lot faster than the support system is, plus it would limit the need to add your own words, most of the time. An Ajax button and popover would cut down on user time spent on something that they want to report, encourage more reporting, and then, on the other end, the mods would have far less to do. Shifting through posts, comments, and giveaways is a lot easier when you don't have to deal with tickets as well.

Of course you could add this to report users as well, but a more advanced one because user accounts are a bit more sacred. You would have to actually fill something out. It would still eliminate the report need, more often than not. If everyone notices an unactivated gifts, they could quick flag the user and then have it ask for a link to the gift in question.

The purpose of the flags would be to eliminate the need for support response and to gather all reports together in one place, quickly. A quick answering of a flag would allow a moderator the ability to answer everything with one quick response or checking off. Faster for both the user and the mods, with better targeting. The response shown on the user side needs some work, but that could be worked out over time. Think of it as a rapid, all-in-one, reporting, alert, and moderation system. Additional automatons, like temporary removals and messages, would only add to the benefits.

The idea actually comes from originally seeing the backends on some early Drupal flag modules, years ago (An example module.). Built to be fast and time-saving always made sense to me. I have no idea how the backend administration/moderation works here, but I'm guessing things could be sped up a great deal. Obviously it would have to be built from the ground up, I just wanted to show an example of what I mean.

#2 - A short, translated popover that quickly explains the site, when a user tries to make their first giveaway. They should also have to type out a response, in their language. Imagine that something popped up and said, please choose your language. Then you get presented with a bunch of flags or names of languages, in their native form. Then you click on it and it gives a very short message, that users here could translate to help out. Something like, "Please type the following to make your first giveaway:". Then, they could have translated messages offered that cannot be copied and that have to be hand typed out. Something like: "I acknowledge that I am the one who will be giving the game". Then the user enters that and a second one pops up, "I acknowledge that I will receive no contributor value for a game until it is sent and marked as received by the winner". And then after another submission, a final one that says, "I understand that I am not getting any games by creating this giveaway". You could also have a simple set of rules that could be quickly opened over the message or in a new tab, translated in their language of choice, that explain everything. Not the full site rules, just a quick list of what they need to know, right there. If the typing system is too much, then you could offer the messages with a check box and a 10 second delay before they can check each one.

#3 - Better blocking of accounts in the first place. Say a higher account value and some time on Steam needed before they can join the site. Something like 6 months on Steam (I have no clue if there is one in place for this, right now) and $250 in games, maybe even higher I would rather more people show up that can afford to buy games and that actually know what they are doing. This could eliminate many fake accounts and people that will be too poor to ever contribute. If they can't contribute, they may be the ones most in need of a site like this, but also the ones that should be blocked from ever joining. I know it sounds harsh, but it really hurts the "well oiled machine" feel that this site could have without them. I'm not an elitist, I just feel that if you can never contribute, you shouldn't be here. Those people could go to TremorGames, Swagbucks, or something, then spend their time actually earning games. Eventually they could join here and maybe even learn how to earn things they could later share. They don't have to contribute here, they just shouldn't be guaranteed leechers, either. Some filtering up front could lead to a better community down the line. People can then join when they are in a better position to, later on. Accounts that haven't contributed could be recursively dropped, optionally, to get rid of leechers. They could rejoin later on, when they could better help. I'm not saying active accounts. More like ones that haven't logged in, pretty much ever and other problematic accounts. Let them resign up when they are actually ready. The basic idea is that if you could contribute, eventually you might. This strengthens the site against those that could never contribute.

The thing is, right now, it is way too easy to hit $100 in games. One quick trip to a big sale at a non bundle site and you have $100 for $15 - $25. I could have done that off Amazon multiple times this holiday season, not to mention GreenManGaming and their coupons/75% off sales. Anyone with no money, whatsoever, can wander in and win games. It is nice, yes, but this really isn't a charity, either. When I give games on various sites, I like to know they are going to people that are giving their games away to others. My aim is to give away more than I win and I am not looking for it to be that close. I like knowing that it is going to someone that isn't trying to leech or scam. It would be too easy to create many accounts with $100 or to get all your friends to do it. I say throw a wrench in it and then proceed on with a tighter system. It isn't like I have much money, so I would rather give my extra stuff to someone that fights for their Steam account. Also, think of how many fewer "fake giveaways" there would be.

#4 - A better suspension/ban system would be nice. I personally would like to see permanent bans, eventually, similar to the sports leagues. They eventually figured out that if you throw the fear of a permanent ban in, people tend to stop breaking the rules at a certain point. I'm not talking about the past approach they had where they would slap people with them, then let them back in. I mean the modern day ones, like performance enhancer suspensions in baseball. Perhaps a set in place tier based system, where eventually you are no longer a member of the site and each suspension gets considerably longer. Now is this in place already? I don't think any of us would know because too much of this happens behind the scenes. This leads to my next thought, on this. Why not have suspension counts and reasons listed on profiles, at least going forward. This would save a ton of time because right now, I see way too many people stating reasons and mods being like this person was already suspended for this reason. Like Vac bans, I think that it should be stated that a person has committed an offense before. I think the added reason would allow for a skipping over of repeat reports and an opening up to new ones. People do love to keep tacking on new offenses. Giveaways show why they were canceled, but suspensions don't show up past when they are active. I think most people would like to keep track of this, since they are giving away things that cost money. It is nice to know, for many reasons. I am not saying that people don't believe in reform, but more that they like to be on the lookout for repeat behavior and to be ready to be cautious, when need be.

#5 - A limit to the amount of times a game can be given away in a week, by an individual, without moderator approval. Fastest way to stop contributor farming? Make them sit on keys and gifts. People aren't going to want to do that for weeks or months, just to try to exploit the system. Something like that would scare off most users from trying to farm contributor value, but still allow users the right to ask to give stuff away at a faster rate. What actual number per week? I don't know. Something low, but decent. That could be selected at the time of implementation, should the suggestion ever be chosen for it. I don't think there should be a set limit to how many times you can give away the same game, but I would like to see it slowed down a bit. This will spread out giveaways and also run some people off from abusing the system.

#6 - Slower point regeneration prior to very simple milestones. 1/3 speed to start. You could make it something like 1/3 added for your first contribution and 1/3 after both your first month on the site and 10 comments. This prevents some abuse, in my opinion. The system could simply eat every 1 or 2 points, out of 3, depending on what they are. This also allows people that have added a bit to the site to qualify for more giveaways and also to prevent any sort of automated approach. People can still enter giveaways from day one, they just have to work a tiny bit to enter a higher number, down the road. I wouldn't make it anything past that. No need to punish anyone or make the site elitist. Just something for brand new users that are learning the ropes. This may actually exist partially, I just can't remember and I am too lazy to look it up beyond checking the FAQs, where it is not listed.

I feel like every single public giveaway is about 90% new people. I know that they aren't, but man do they feel like it. I think it is a way to help veterans with their entries and to aid in the learning process of the site. Over time, they will get more points to spend and have a better understanding of what they should be using them on. If you give too many points to them out of the gate, they will just flood the server. Slow them down and let them earn some points. If they can stick around for a month, participate a bit, and contribute a game, they would be better citizens and better fits for the site.

#7 - How about a one year limit on bundle/exploited key limitations, from the last time they were considered as one of the two. Most won't hold onto their keys for that long. They will give them out on other sites or here, if they have enough contribution room. After a while, both bundle and exploited games seem to dry up at sites that severely limit them, but eventually there aren't that many copies left. No, I'm not saying DOTA2, but pretty much everything else could be allowed back or at full price, with limitations on a game by game/bundle by bundle basis. For example, an exploited game probably wouldn't end up back at full value.

I think this would cut down on the many, many people who seem to constantly ask about this stuff. If people want to hold onto their keys for that long, I say no big deal. By that time, you usually have to pay regular or regular sale prices for those games, anyway, so having them for giveaways would be nice. I believe this would be a good idea because I have only been buying games since this past December, so I can tell you firsthand what it is like to miss out on these free keys and bundles. Some things just don't pass this site and maybe it is time to encourage people to post them. I have ended up buying a number of these items and I think many others have, as well. It would be nice to at least have the option of entering to win some of them. I just got discouraged on many games and ended up forking over money because I knew they weren't going to show up on here. Braid comes to mind. I bought multiple copies of Metro with the Humble Bundle and also THQ bundles off from Amazon. I know that people still want them because I gave away (Posting on forums and through Steam) the extra copies I had and people were very grateful for them. I could have had a thousand copies and still left many without the game. Games may be acquired for little to no value, but once that has passed by, they have value to people that didn't get them.

I think I will end there, for now. I don't want to get into small features or anything like that. Feel free to tear into it or for a lynch mob. There have been many suggestions on here, so I won't claim a single one to be unique, as I am sure there is a post somewhere with each one, even if I never read them. I just wrote these out with suggested ways that I think they might work. I also typed this up in a text editor, so don't expect much in terms of spelling, grammar, or anything else, that is related.