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Doc0075: snip
I like the new rules. I'd much rather support Doc with his Community giveaway than move over to Discord.
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PaterAlf: That was the best giveaway ever. Must have been a nightmare for Doc to manage, but I loved how it brought the community together and made a lot of people to interact with each other. And I still remember you character and the crazy stuff you came up with. :)
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mrkgnao: My all-time favourite as well.
Hear, hear. :)
Post edited April 12, 2022 by BenKii
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Doc0075: If someone else wants to start up a replacement Community Giveaway I'm fine with that. Otherwise I will start one in a few months time.
Thank you very much for trying to go on with this activity and I agree with the rules. I think that to manage these kind of giveaways it is not easy and it is time-consuming and some times you do not receive any kind of recognition. And I would like as well to thank finkleroy for having done the giveaways
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PaterAlf: That was the best giveaway ever. Must have been a nightmare for Doc to manage, but I loved how it brought the community together and made a lot of people to interact with each other. And I still remember you character and the crazy stuff you came up with. :)
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mrkgnao: My all-time favourite as well.
Second that! Wish Doc would do another one. :)
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Doc0075: If someone else wants to start up a replacement Community Giveaway I'm fine with that. Otherwise I will start one in a few months time.

In my version a new month for claiming games would start on the 1st day of the month after I post a message announcing the month has officially begun. I would do this at different times of the day to make it fairer to people in different time zones.
There would be two different days in each month for any donations to be added to the giveaway - the 1st and the 15th. No games would be added on any other day of the month. The limit would remain at one game per month.

It would still be first come first served. To nominate someone to receive a game you would have to wait until the 3rd day of the month and the 17th respective of when the batch of games were added.
I know that some people would not be happy with this but it is for a good reason. I feel it is unfair for an early poster to miss out on a game they really want and believe that they have legitimately claimed because someone who posted just before them both claimed a game and nominated someone else for one at the same time, effectively reserving that title for someone to receive at a later date.

Edited requests would be denied, no exceptions. You may only request one game at a time, no list of titles you would want to receive. Any post with multiple requests on it would be denied. If you make a typo just leave it as it is. If you changed your mind you would have to make a new post to request the game you now want.

Anyone requesting a game that I don't recognise as part of the community would have to show me where they have been active. Only active community members would be eligible to participate, no donating games to fast-track yourself into contention. That is not what I consider being an active part of the community.
Sounds very fair Doc0075 , I look forward to see how this plays out now :)
Post edited April 12, 2022 by jimrh69
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bluethief: Agree with everything. All sounds fair.

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Doc0075: There would be two different days in each month for any donations to be added to the giveaway - the 1st and the 15th. No games would be added on any other day of the month. The limit would remain at one game per month.
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bluethief: If I understand this correctly, then you'll be announcing a new update on the 1st and another one on the 15th of each month, but on different times of the day. Won't this kill the unpredictability of when an update will drop and make everyone be here on these two specific days?
Yes, which is good as not everyone is ready to hang here 24/7.
Most of that sounds good, but if I may make a few comments...
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Doc0075: There would be two different days in each month for any donations to be added to the giveaway - the 1st and the 15th. No games would be added on any other day of the month.
TheDudeLebowski made a good point, expiring keys should be an exception here.
But also in itself, that'd basically guarantee busy times, instead of maybe having a few additions here and there, it'll only come in batches, which will bring a rush of requests and all the workload and problems that brings... Including the issue that will hit this other new rule:
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Doc0075: You may only request one game at a time, no list of titles you would want to receive. Any post with multiple requests on it would be denied.
Though during rushes, 2-3 titles may be reasonable, considering the chance of people posting at the same time but maybe even more importantly the new page bug.

On the other hand, I was worried that the changes may be skewed towards leniency, while this is all making it stricter, which in itself is a welcome thing from where I'm standing.
I'm on board with your rules, Doc. :) My personal favorite: "Anyone requesting a game that I don't recognise as part of the community would have to show me where they have been active." Quite fair and a great time-saver for the host!

I believe finkleroy did an excellant job of managing such a daunting task and as we move forward, it's great to see many GOGlytes motivated to make the next Community Giveaway even better! ;)
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Doc0075: If someone else wants to start up a replacement Community Giveaway I'm fine with that. Otherwise I will start one in a few months time.

In my version a new month for claiming games would start on the 1st day of the month after I post a message announcing the month has officially begun. I would do this at different times of the day to make it fairer to people in different time zones.
There would be two different days in each month for any donations to be added to the giveaway - the 1st and the 15th. No games would be added on any other day of the month. The limit would remain at one game per month.

It would still be first come first served. To nominate someone to receive a game you would have to wait until the 3rd day of the month and the 17th respective of when the batch of games were added.
I know that some people would not be happy with this but it is for a good reason. I feel it is unfair for an early poster to miss out on a game they really want and believe that they have legitimately claimed because someone who posted just before them both claimed a game and nominated someone else for one at the same time, effectively reserving that title for someone to receive at a later date.

Edited requests would be denied, no exceptions. You may only request one game at a time, no list of titles you would want to receive. Any post with multiple requests on it would be denied. If you make a typo just leave it as it is. If you changed your mind you would have to make a new post to request the game you now want.

Anyone requesting a game that I don't recognise as part of the community would have to show me where they have been active. Only active community members would be eligible to participate, no donating games to fast-track yourself into contention. That is not what I consider being an active part of the community.
Everything sounds good to me!
I like all the Doc's rules. Doc, you rock! ^_^
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Cavalary: But also in itself, that'd basically guarantee busy times, instead of maybe having a few additions here and there, it'll only come in batches, which will bring a rush of requests and all the workload and problems that brings... Including the issue that will hit this other new rule:
I like the proposed rules, but like Cavalary notes, I would have preferred a few additional key drops at random times, because otherwise all the requests are likely to be a "race" who asks first. The additional drops would ensure that even if you miss the major additions on the 1st and 15th, you could have a chance of some game you are looking for. Ultimately, this is Doc's decision of course.

I felt the difference between 1 request per post, and multiple preferences (say 3) was just convenience, since the limit was anyway just 1 game per month. At times when there are multiple posts submitted in the space of a few seconds, it can be very hard to be aware what keys remain at the time one clicks the "Submit post" button. If only one request per post is allowed, it may lead to many "My previous requests were not available, can I have game X instead" posts. But again, this is ultimately Doc's decision.

Thank you very much Doc for keeping the tradition alive!
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DiffuseReflection: I like the proposed rules, but like Cavalary notes, I would have preferred a few additional key drops at random times, because otherwise all the requests are likely to be a "race" who asks first. The additional drops would ensure that even if you miss the major additions on the 1st and 15th, you could have a chance of some game you are looking for. Ultimately, this is Doc's decision of course.
There would be an easy fix for that.
Instead of 1st and 15th days, the giveaway times could be some time between/during 1st and 3rd days and 15th and 17th days.

That way everyone would know when to expect them, but not the precise moment. And very few people would have the time or patience to keep looking for max. 72 hours non-stop, and if someone actually would, guess that person deserves to get the game then.
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TheDudeLebowski: There's one complication with that: time sensitive GOG freebies (daggered keys). Maybe an exception to those?
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Cavalary: TheDudeLebowski made a good point, expiring keys should be an exception here.
It's where automatic tool can come in handy. ;) Working with real, yet less valuable keys will be a good opportunity to test and improve web-application.

If Doc is not going to manage expiring keys, I suppose, they could be distributed in separate thread by different maintainer.

And we may use it as a backup option, in case Doc decides to suspend his version of giveaway at some point in future.
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To clear up a few things, most games will be added on the 1st of the month. The 15th is for if anyone gives me a few codes to add after the 1st of the month has gone. I am keeping it to two days to make it easier on myself and also so everyone knows when to check to see if new games have been added to the giveaway.

Regarding freebie games with a time limit on them - I would rather that they are sent to the expiring codes clearinghouse thread.

When requesting a game have a quick look to see what has been requested before you. In the current giveaway I have seen it happen so many times that people see game X on the list and request it not bothering to look at the other peoples requests that four other people have already asked for game X.
Post edited April 12, 2022 by Doc0075
GOG freebies have now about 1 month expire date, no? That's enough time for everyone to make for at least one update round and if can't for any reason then, well, it's not end of the world.
I see a very good reason why Doc prefers go for fixed date updates and making any exceptions would just defeat a purpose (namely that he won't have to monitor situation 24/7 because someone might forgot of a key expiring in one day).
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Doc0075: When requesting a game have a quick look to see what has been requested before you. In the current giveaway I have seen it happen so many times that people see game X on the list and request it not bothering to look at the other peoples requests that four other people have already asked for game X.
Back on the old thread (run by zeogold), when he was struggling to keep on top of things towards the end, several of us made "request round-up" posts. I think one of the ones I did (post #6471 on page 129 if you view 50 posts per page), I remember posting examples like "there were 7x requests for 2x Witcher 3 keys, 9x requests for 3x Divinity Original Sins", etc, and people did comment and respond more to a polite request to double-check they're not posting duplicates when it was more visible on the last page than simply being in the rules in post 1.

So it may be worth posting a short one-line post like "New Update! Before requesting a game, please read the rules in post #1 (link) and scroll up to make sure it hasn't been already requested" as a new post on the 1st day of each month as you update the game list, as the extra visibility on the last page could cut down on the duplicate requests workload a bit, then save that response along with other common ones like "I'm afraid you lack the community participation to qualify" and "Granted but you need to change your chat settings to allow me to send you the key", etc, in a text file locally, so that you can just copy / paste each time. Likewise, I type long posts into notepad first in general anyway, then copy-paste in the GOG forum box, that way if there's any "GOG Bears", you can simply create a new reply / post and re-paste without needing to re-type the lot. (Or at least if you do type directly in, select the text and copy to clipboard before posting).
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Post edited April 06, 2023 by AB2012