Giveaways does not = spam.

Spam = the selling of WOW gold and penis enlargement pills. Spam = disruptive commercial messages.

Giveaways = people being generous. And of course you don't like that because your avatar is a pic of a cat . And cats are evil so you must be evil. They have been constantly attacking primates and birds since the beginning of time. Fuck cats(doesn't apply to your pet cats if you've been nice to me in the past or I like you).

Thanks, that worked swimmingly. :-)

Thank you so much!!

Well, we do have an offtopic forum. It is the general forum. The on-topic fora (forums?) are the ones dedicated to specific games (or series).

But isn't the main forum an offtopic forum already ? Don't forget we have 500+ subforums for the games.

Maybe we could have a giveaway subforum for the minimalist, "ninja-like", "just post if you want it", giveaways. At the condition of still allowing the more fun, interesting and elaborate, "give your opinion on", "answer this", "solve the puzzle" giveaways in the main general forum.

Then again, you are right. But there was another discussion about the forums in general in another thread, where some veterans complained the discussions even on the general forums aren't what they once were and how the game subforums aren't really used (I have seen that for the less known games there are hardly 2 pages of threads..).
The best compromise would be the possibility to mark the thread as a giveaway and have a forum filter which always filters them out. That way everybody's happy, I guess.

I don't think we need a forum for each different type of thread, the giveaway threads are great to have in this forum. If you install grimwerk's script, all you have to do is click to view them when you want; it's very convenient.

What we should encourage is the usage of the word "giveaway" in the title of such threads, nothing more.

It stills makes a too strong distinction between giveaway and non-giveaway.

To take an exemple : Think of ghorpm's sleuthing puzzles. They are very cool forum games. Sometimes they also offer a giveaway reward (or incentive) for those who solve them. Are they or are they not giveaways ? Should the people who filter out giveaways still have access to them, or not ? What about my hundred-rep-milestone giveaways, which pick randomized winners but are also general questions on fun/interesting issues (migrating ancestors, irrational beliefs, exotic language songs, local folklore legends), shouldn't they reach the people who filter them out ? Don't they benefit from all the "not in, but" posts ? Same with the recent series of "suggest me detective stories" giveaways, on the forum. The suggestions of those who aren't there for the gifts are also useful. Not to mention that you might want to open your offer to people who, in general, wouldn't care for giveaways, but might care for that specific one (because of the game, or because of the thread) : my XIII giveaways are the only way, these times, to get XIII on GOG, and this is interesting for more people than the general giveaway public...

Maring the thread as giveaway or not would be a very delicate decision, with unwanted consequences.

If you stop, this GOGer will be waiting for some new owners.

Great. Problem solved. Thank you!

I think a general discussion and an off-topic separation is all that is needed. All giveaways, ninja or not, should fall into the off-topic as well as any non-GOG/gaming topics.

We'll never find a solution which pleases everyone! I know where you're coming from, so I could see we could have two types of giveaway filters :D Or those giveaways simply shouldn't be marked. I do enjoy some quirky giveaways, but I usually don't join those with puzzles because I'm either too dumb or don't have the time :D

But anyway, in the long run, the forums will change and the one or the other surely won't like it.