You know, I'm kind of surprised that the "leave a comment" bit is the main source of "drama" regarding giveaways based on the recent happenings.
The way I see it, the reason all this dialogue has come about is because we're having people not reading the actual rules of giveaways and entering blindly due to the "see free game, want free game" mentality that is so very prevalant wherever oppurtunity for free games exist. It came about because people were being asked not to enter giveaways if they did not have the base game, not to enter if they had majority of a base game or things to do around that. NOT about comments. But upon making these requests, people were still entering, people were found to be not activating their wins, people were found to be not caring about the gifter or the gift.
So from that came the "leave a comment" messages. And people were still not paying attention staying loyal only to their "see free game, want free game" mantra. From that, we found people who don't gift at all while being in the group, not being a part of the group and leeching to their hearts content all becuase they reached 20 rep on the GOG forums one day and were eligible to be in the group. We found people gifting to their OTHER groups and making comments in their other groups showing they had no respect for our GOG group at all other than the oppurtunity to see free game, get free game. We found people entering 1000's upon 1000's of giveaways and not even taking the time outside of their mantra to even say hello, let alone thank you.
I don't want people like that entering my giveaways. I want people I know in this community and people who are part of the community here to win games so I feel good giving it to them. And I think the majority of the people debating this should feel that way too.
This isn't about being "forced" to make a comment. This is about being respectful of your fellow community members and appreciating what they are doing to contribute in making this the community that it is/was. I'm really shocked some of you have taken this to the opposite extreme and simply made it about "leaving a comment" and being "forced" to abide by "rules". It is so not about that. To me, I see a guy with 70 wins and 2 giveaways of DOTA 8 months ago, and I have no idea who this is on the GOG forums because he doesn't particicipate, I do not want to give this guy a gift. He/she is a leecher plain and simple. I'd rather it goes to someone who participates and gives comments from time to time. I do not want to see a guy blaming his little brother for having access to his SG account and being mischeivous on it over and over and over again having a chance to win my giveaways. My god, the little brother excuse is as old as the internet, how is it still being used as an excuse. Thats just an example but when called out on stuff, people come up with all kinds of random excuses to not be kicked out of what is a "see free game, want free game" group that this was on the verge of becoming (still might).
Anyhow, to me, its not about the comments at all, like I said. Leave a comment, don't leave a comment, no one really cares about that. Its about the underlying purpose of what a comment serves. We can certainly just make this a pure gifting group - that kind of group will die quicker than the kind that requests for members to interact and get to know each other by leaving comments and hellos and thank yous. I leave comments cuz it makes me feel good to at least thank the person taking the time to offer me a chance to win a game I want. Its the least i can do. And sure, when I make giveaways, I don't care for the dozens or hundreds of "thanks" spam but if I were to see no one at all cared to do that, I'd delete the giveaway before it ended.
Its just simply about respecting the giver and appreciating the gift.
TLDR? Please read it.
