an option to automatically navigate to last unread post in a thread would be a huge improvement in the usability of the forum

Why is there an option to report spam, and yet the wishlist is full of it? I don't know.

I wouldn't be surprised if the merging of duplicates is still a manual process as GOG likely doesn't want to double, triple, etc count votes and would need to keep track of everyone who already voted for the new merged wish.

Personal fantasies aside, I don't really know what's considered in in Poland, but surely they put them through something. Add cleaning up the wishlist to it.

Yeah I know. I think the problem is in the U.S. because of the extreme cases it has become a whole other monster and one that, in many areas of society, bothers me; but this is NOT one of those areas. :D

Dang, quite a strong statement you made with your first sentence there. I would venture to say not quite everyone here would think the same :P. But truly, thank you for the encouraging words and the vote of confidence.
Needless to say, your second sentence is just as important and one that I completely agree with. You said many of the same things, but in a much more concise manner than I'm ever capable of doing.

Anyways, I do appreciate your public acknowledgement (and the private acknowledgement from others) of my forum observations.

Thank you for this thread, it shows you care about your product, and your members. And I appreciate it.

I like how vBulletin uses the rep system. It is more about being used as feedback. You can give positive, negative, and neutral rep. When you choose to give rep a small comment window opens up if that gives a private message to the person who posted, linked to the rep given, that gives a little feedback about the post, positive, negative, or no rep but wanting something to say. The person who receives the rep can see a list of the last 10 reps (before they scroll out), who game them, and the comments for each rep. That know you know who repped you and why since it is linked to the post. There may be a good reason to negative rep someone, and in this manner it allows this.

As far as search goes I am all for being able to see the search history for any other registered member, including myself. I often want to use a post that I, or someone else, has used in the past to quote or reference.

To alot there is no "good" reason, not only will people get downrepped but they will also get spammed with pm's then.

I'm not sure which forum you are talking about, vBulletin does NOT send PM's to people when they get repped: that will likely have been a mod added by that site's administration.

Also note: the ability to see who gave you rep on vBulletin is normally disabled for all but administrators to prevent abuse.

My problem is that people are not respecting the filter- at least include "giveaway" in your thread titles so people can sort what they want to read.

However, I think that leeches and scammers will abound regardless of whether there's a subforum for giveaways.

No.

1) This whining about "oh noes there are giveaways on the forum my eyes cry i want the other threads about the steam bundle sales" is ridiculous. Forums have threads about things that are not written for you, deal with it. 5% of all threads are interesting for me, and I am not weeping or asking for a filter to shield me from topics that hurt me by not adressing me personally. Have you ever wondered why many people who don't seek games from giveaways are not particularly bothered by their existence ?

2) Much more importantly : Such filters (and anti-giveaway neurosis) create a strict and stupid distinction between what is or isn't a "giveaway thread". Many "giveaways" (AAARGH HORROR) including a gifted game (NOOO I CAN'T WATCH) were also interesting threads, about interesting themes, or interesting minigames. This is why they contain so many posts by normal people with the "not in" mention. This hysteria and this filter simply ruin this. They mean that if you do a giveaway, then, because of the free game, a large portion of users will simply not care to read the question, answer, or participate in the discussion, or you have to trick them in by not mentionning the word and oh noes it was a trap my poor eyes. I have made multiple giveaways that turned out to be great threads, because they were still considered as threads at that point, and still broadly visible (not only to the freebies hunters). The giveaways basement or the filter -or just this "wargl awayaway" mindset- define these threads as what they are not. They ruin it. And having to choose between making either a giveaway or a topical thread is shit. It's impoverishing.

3) I have actually ceased doing giveaways because these whinings -and this filter- have disgusted me of it. I guess that should count as a little victory already ?

I have no respect for this query. Those who are SO horrified by giveaways can set up their solution (throw them away in a "exclusively for leeches" subforum, program a software protecting them from their sight, or gouge their eyes out), but I do not feel bound to participate in it. I do not "feel" enough this specific suffering to consider myself responsible for it. I don't care for steam and kickstarters, and I do not demand people to put a warning about these subjects in their thread titles so that I don't even have to notice their presence. Because I do not feel the necessity to cover my screen with both hands when I see them.

What the HELL is that thing.

Made me laugh; and I agree.

It's called being considerate of other people's wishes in a shared space. I am not the only person to wish of some way to sort thread topics, and I certainly wasn't the one who made the filter- it was made, obviously, since there was a fucking demand for it.

You're free to like what you like, as is someone else, myself included. Personally, I am okay with just the filter as long as people use it; if they don't do that, then there might be a need for a subforum.

edit: to clarify, the grievance is that if someone wants to read cool things, they want to be able to find those threads. Giveaways threads are only useful for people taking part in them, and don't really apply to the general audience. This subforum is for general discussion, so maybe a subforum would be appropriate for those threads which are not about discussion topics.

As said above, this is THE most important post on GOG right now regarding rep and a the history of the site regarding gifting.

Some of you have seen my "crusade" as some have put it to try to show up a few of these people. If I was to post what I have found through hours of detective work on this site and off, I wonder how much of this community would be left. Then again I wonder if that would be a bad thing. After all these forums are now bloated with flies trying to take advantage of our good shit! :P And because we are so proud of our shit, word has spread so flies from all parts of the internet are attracted by that smell and one the major focus of GOG forums at times appears to be game gifting.

What has saddened me the most is coming across other generous people I know who are supporting the efforts of these flies! Even when shown evidence, they prefer to say things along the lines of "Oh but so and so is NICE, just look at this compliment they gave me" (paraphrased with my cynicism) and can show me NO evidence of them giving away anything of their own, and as Teshra mentioned above, if they do then their 'gifts' are merely other people's gifts in new wrapping paper.

I have been complicit in EXACTLY what I am complaining about and have learned my lesson. My gifting practises will change but my generosity won't! I hope others can follow suit so this place can be cleaned up a bit. For those who don't see any problem on the forums(and the problem isn't REP, it is a lack of transparency, ease of hiding on the forums by changing names, lack of post history. To find quoted post history replace my name with any you are curious about http://www.gog.com/forum/general?search=Tarnicus it doesnt take long to get a feel for what someone is like or direct evidence that they have been dishonest, scammed, etc. Please GOG make my detective work less time consuming! :P), I would suggest that reason is due to:

1/ You are unaware of the history of this or
2/ You profit from this

You won't catch me putting the word "giveaway" in a forum post ever again! lol That is one of the beautiful smelling feces I mentioned that is attracting such flies!

I think steamgifts is a nice place for giveaways- their money spent on account requirement precludes a lot of potential scammers. Perhaps there should be a goggifts in the same spirit.

In short, I do not post here much. I usually come here if I have a question or something I want to know about a particular GOG game I have, before I decide to contact support. There has been a few times, such as today and a few months ago I got to just talk. I'd say it's nice so far. Again, I really don't use this forum much.

So far, I wouldn't change a thing. I can't think of how this forum can be improved at the moment.

I would really like to see more organization, as I mentioned earlier, by having sub-forums for other topics than just games. But beyond that, it would be supremely helpful if each individual game in a series had it's own subforum underneath the series forum. Keep the series subforum for discussing things that apply to the whole series or more than one game, but then have individual forums for each game in the series. Just look at the Wing Commander subforum and imagine yourself trying to find an answer unique to a specfic WC game and tell me that the current setup is an intuitive way to have community support and discussions.

Also, accessible profiles, friend list, and SEARCHABLE individual post history are needed. Not just for Tarnicus's reasons (although they are VERY valid), but also for vanity's sake. I like to track down my old posts and see the later discussions, but the current system only let's me do that if someone replied directly to my comment. That system is only useful in a small percentage of incidents.