I don't know to be honest. I mean the GOG version of the giveaway was never at any risk of being removed from the GOG forums in the first place. It's literally encouraging people to buy gifts from GOG. So given the "trigger" is GOG's recent rule changes of discussion non-GOG stores, it's really only the non-GOG version that needs the off-site discussion.

The two issues seem to be 1. Phone Requirements. A lot of people don't like the sudden need to start giving out private phone numbers to 3rd parties. In fact depending on location / payment method, there are people who've been buying games from GOG for years and not even needed to give GOG itself their phone number, so it does seem weird to start 'needing' it for a 3rd party chat app used once per month for one topic. And 2. Is a 'community' still the same community when it loses it's running theme? ie, is it going to be a place where people discuss GOG related stuff, or just a revolving door for Steam keys where people grab one then vanish for 30 days whilst still calling that "GOG community"...

The other option is of course to not have one centralised giveaway at all. Just have the key donors create their own series of direct giveaways / competitions. Examples from the past:-
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/the_big_try_linux_gog_game_giveaway_5_part_3/post1
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/skimmies_and_pateralfs_christmas_surprise_party_giveaway/post1
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/giveaway_another_giveaway_of_trust/post1
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/the_christmas_giveaway_express/post1

If anything this greatly reduces the load on one person administrating them and creates more varied themed giveaways with an actual 'community' feel to them.

Moderator rights can be granted to giveaway maintainers. Therefore, multiple maintainers will be able to work in shifts.

In addition, they could attach posts with rules and other important announcements.
I don't think, it is fair. In that case Discord users will be in favourable position in comparison to others, who need to maintain their eligibility on regular basis.
What if maintainer won't be able to post on forums for some time? ( several days, maybe even a week )
It would significantly increase maintainer's workload and require rules to be completely rewritten.

I think, we should keep only GOG giveaway for a while. Non-GOG edition can be restored later, if necessary.
I agree.

Do they? Doesn't strike me that somebody who became eligible stopped being so so far, unless maybe we're talking of years of inactivity and then suddenly popping back in straight to the GA thread.
Then any requests made between the start of the month and then also won't be acted on, and games donated also won't be added to the list, so why not wait to pull the trigger?
Indeed. And also make it much more tedious for eligible users to check for something they're interested in, especially for those who have no interest in Steam/Epic/Origin/UPlay/other DRMed stores.

Both categories should be treated equally. Discord users, who are no longer active on forums, will eventually become ineligible.
Users might be absent from forums for a while as well. This will lead to the following issues:

Many people will start checking thread every 5 minutes, 24/7, until the month is officially started. This might result in unnecessary stress and damage the community atmosphere even more.

Others, who do not spend all their time on forums, might regularly miss an opportunity to request a desired game.

I agree with the idea of sharing eligibility idea between discord and gog giveaway
Since discord transition evolved from the two threads here, it makes sense that eligibility for one would satisfy the other

However, the prerequisite would be for both discord and new gog thread owner to continue to share and carry out similar rules and regulations. On this regard, the easiest way would be for the mew moderator of gog giveaway to adopt a similar system that is already currently being used. Modifications and openness to real suggestions are fine but no major overhaul. There is no need to overhaul a complete system that has already been tested and confirmed viable by all the previous moderators who have passed down this tradition.

A ball of yarn is best kept intact limited to a few tugs. A pile of strings is impossible to rewrap back into a ball.
I should know. I have tried it.
Meow~

You mentioned about concerns for privacy, may I ask what exactly?
Because I don't use discord so I am not aware of the intricacies.

I would suggest that if someone is starting the GOG giveaway again that they keep the current rules intact, get the giveaway up-and-running, and then...

... when issues arise changes can be contemplated with more perspective.

As for some rumblings I've heard about making giveaways into contests based on chance or writing entries, let's face it...

... RNG can really s@ck and some people just aren't great with stringing pleasing words together (or conversely, some can spend inordinate amounts of time and energy on entries only to have them "tossed"). To me, it just seems most fair that first-come with a monthly limit is the most fair...

... but maybe encourage people to write why they're interested in said titles?

1) Agree. There can be confusion, but I've never felt that piling on to the confusion helps. It's a fun GA, and sometimes you get something and sometimes you don't.

2) It's feasible. The limitation is the forum software - since only the poster can edit a post, which is an issue if the list of available games is in a forum post. If you ran the games offsite like the google sheet style of the non-GOG GA, then that is doable, it just requires that extra step for a GA that in a typical month may only have 10-30 keys cycling.

It can also be done on the forum. Just split the list into two posts, each maintained by a separate maintainer. If one maintainer goes on holiday, the entire list is merged into the other's post, to be resplit when the holiday is over.

People report in current giveaway thread, that Discord requires phone verification to register nowadays.
Indeed. I suggest to write guidelines for such cases.

Simply increasing number of posts per page in forum settings and using browser search feature ( Ctrl + F ) is very efficient way to check, if the game has already been requested. Even during very long queues of requests with frequent additions of new posts.
I think, two-posts system might only complicate things and make lists confusing to users. Especially if maintainer is absent due to emergent circumstances.

And it won't scale well, when we need to increase the number of maintainers.

While that is reasonable most of the time, in those very busy moments there are valid reasons why allowing a few choices may actually keep things cleaner, so those should be exceptions. Can limit, say no more than three, but when you have both the fact that multiple users will write at the same time in those situations and therefore more posts will appear while you write yours and, even more so, the forum bug delaying the appearance of new pages when it's busy, means that people may be beaten to their first request without being able to see it until after posting, and maybe a fair bit later in case of that bug, and when you couple that with the (very fair) rule against editing, banning multiple-choice requests even at such times may actually generate more posts and more of a mess to keep track of, "oh, wait, I was beaten to X, then I'll go for Y" "oh, Y too, then Z" instead of a single post taking care of that. And the auto-merge of consecutive posts would make it even messier still.

So, I know I have little stake in this despite being an active GOG user for 4+ years (I know it is short compared to many of you). I don't know the reason for the split, but I'm sure there are reasons.

As one who has greatly benefitted from both giveaways
1. THANK YOU to finkleroy & zeogold (and those who went before) for their hours of often-thankless work running these giveaways, and to all those who donated keys.

2. If the discord becomes largely non-GOG keys and another only-GOG-keys giveaway spawns here, I see little benefit to having any sort of ban such that users from one are unable to access the other.

I've had a discord account and have never had to give out my phone number to create an account, though some servers require a phone number added to your account in order to chat on that individual server.
That said, I have no desire to give my phone number to discord.

GOG-keys are great because the very fact that they are on GOG means you get the installer, you own --not rent--a copy of the game, and the ownership of the game isn't tied solely to your remaining in good standing with the hosting company,

Bler? is 100% right that (aside from a few generous souls), the non-GOG giveaway appears--not is, but appears-- to sometimes be what might be termed "bundle leftovers." There is no shame to this, in my opinion. Certain other websites sell bundles, and while you might want one game from it enough to buy the bundle, you now have a few "leftover" keys collecting virtual dust doing no one--except maybe the dev--any good whatsoever. (I'd argue that having their game sitting on your shelf doesn't do the dev any good either, because if it is a decent game, the dev's reputation would increase, and therefore sales of other games by them might also increase.)

Well, the non-gog giveaway thread is a nice spot to give some of these extra keys. I make no claims to have given any sort of meaningful amount of keys, because I know I haven't I've gifted one or two to the pot, but I honestly don't know if anyone took them or if they are still in Finkleroy's pot. I'm NOT tooting my horn, but just stating that from personal experience the few keys that got given to the non-GOG giveaway tended to be the keys I didn't want for myself.
I'm NOT saying this is the case for everyone. On the contrary, there are some generous souls who give stuff month after month after month that wasn't in any bundle I was aware of. And I do appreciate it.

Contrast this with GOG keys which, with one or two exceptions all were purchased here, and tend to fly out the door if it wasn't a key for a freebie here. These are frankly more valuable than a non-GOG key, not only because they cost more, but also because they tend to be DRM-free.

So, all that to say, as one who benefits from both threads, but who is also shamed to say he rarely has extra resources to give to others, I would not personally care to keep people (especially active GOG posters) out of one giveaway (here or discord) just because they took a key from the other one. I do like the rule about only taking GOG keys for oneself. My family members have also tremendously benefited from some of the games on the non-GOG giveaway and have repeatedly thanked me for it.

TL;DR sorry for this long ramble. I'll shut up now.

I've counted at least 22 people who have posted that they don't use discord and don't plan to begin, so I'd say we have more than enough to start a local GOG giveaway over here.

I don't plan on going to discord either.