The issue even with a 2 month cooldown will remain the " first come, first served. " , there will always be people fast to spot a game, and people frustrated because they weren't fast enough to spot it first.

I think for the Standard there should be 2 months yes but with the addition of the same system as for Starred one (people that request a Standard game are added in the pool and there's a random pick in that pool for the game going, this way it's not a matter of being lucky to be first to notice the game you're interested in +being fast, but only about being lucky (and so more fair)

And if none enter a specific game for a week or 2, maybe this one could then drop into the same category as amazon games (the 1 month cooldown without random pick)

All while the Starred has no change , random pick + 3 months cooldown i mean

So, you think rationing is more important when there's a lot to go around, rather than when there's not much to go around?
That's not logical to me, but to each his own I guess.

But, it doesn't matter. As I said, I don't mind longer cooldown, I actually want more.

I still think Starred should have at least 4 months compared to Standard's new 2 months, since that's were all the newest and most expensive games always end up.

I think you're mixing up the cause and effect. The fact the drop is large may have allowed the host to notice more easily in one go where the donated games are going. Or maybe there's been some quiet complaints. Or maybe BenKii has noticed for a while and has decided it's time to do something.

To understand the logic, you have to have to widen your perspective to the possibilities.

Indeed, that would make it clear. When the pickings are slim, even those who try to maximize their gain won't have anything to pick. When there's enough to go around, they'll be able to keep asking.
That said, if that's the cause, this is a case of punishing everyone because of a few. But a 2-month cooldown seemed fair to me for a long time, as the number of active members increased (even if sadly a handful of long-term regulars have been toning down or even stopping participation), so I for one don't even take it as something done for this reason, but just as a means to balance donor and recipient potential overall, the current temporary influx of titles notwithstanding.
Granted, I would strongly prefer, and keep advocating for, much stricter activity requirements, which would lower the number of eligible recipients and would probably affect those who do mainly look for giveaways and otherwise just aim to do enough to be active the most, but...

This is very similar to what I've been thinking about for a while.

Honestly, I've never really got the whole normal vs starred keys thing, it all feels way too arbitrary and subjective to me. Any game could interest multiple people, but sometimes we try to be fair and give everyone the same chance, and other times it's just whoever's fastest that wins. I don't really get why.

So basically, I'd just handle everything through draws and set the cooldown based on how many people are interested.

We could run draws on a regular schedule, closing the current ones and opening new ones every two weeks, for example.
To make sure some draws don’t hog all the attention at the expense of others, each user could enter multiple draws at once, maybe up to three per period
No priorities, all your entries would carry the same weight. You'd just have to be happy with whatever you win, since that's why you entered in the first place, and winning anything is already a pretty good prize.
Each user could win at most one game per month, same as now, and the cooldown would adjust based on the number of entries, up to a maximum of three months.

I'd take this as a starting point and tweak it as we see how things go.

And again, if the Starred category made it take quite a bazooka hit already, making all of it draws would be the full end of the CG as it's been known all this time. One of the rules was first come first served. Yes, it favors those who can keep checking, but as long as they're also sufficiently active in general, isn't that really the point, to potentially reward people who are here a lot?

I beg to differ.

1) I don't think checking the thread often is an indication of positive forum activity. If A checks the giveaway thread twenty times a day and writes one useful forum post a week, while B checks the giveaway thread once a day and writes twenty useful forum posts a week, which would you say is the has more positive forum activity?

2) The first-come-first-served has indeed been there since the beginning, but that is not an indication that it is somehow the best. I personally think it is quite flawed and inherently unfair, which is one of the reasons I rarely donate keys to the giveaway. In the past, I ran my own giveaways here (I still sometimes do, but not here anymore). Nowadays, when I do gift here (which is not a lot), I mostly do so directly to people.

3) The first-come-first-served benefits people who can check more often around the time BenKii posts, which could be:
- people who live in the same time zone as BenKii
- people who have lots of free time
- people who take special joy in winning or collecting games
none of which is, in my opinion, tied to being a particularly active forum member.

Obviously I meant this for after the changes to the standard category were in place which they arent since we are still in January and the cooldown for the person who requested it is ... a few hours till tomorrow. But I think its good someone requested it now since it would probably stay there forever(or we will never know)!

I don't get this at all. Is that GA thread intended to be a chit-chat thing? If so, I've completely misunderstood it. :( I wonder if / how BenKii would be able to sift through pages upon pages of arbitrariness though.
I have only once seen a GOG key available on the ninja thread not be gone within seconds. A couple minutes with the more obscured ones. That one took me too long to figure out the puzzle so in the end I also got a "taken already". I don't like that thread at all, and I wonder why people don't just hand the keys over to the Community GA in time. Maybe because it's intro posts are quite the read already and most people having the occasoinal amazon key to give away won't bother nor care, IDK. I can see noone going to sift through the "clearinghouse" thread just to see if someone would want the key they have, though some are so kind to even PM or otherwise ask if someone still needs a key. Then there are those who post their requests as soon as the Amazon list is out, but in that case the gifter would have the choice of whom to gift the key, it's not first-come, first served per say, even though it's handled that way most of the time.
At least that's how it is to me. Because, frankly, why post knowing it's gone anyway. I know I tried it recently despite that, but the result was the expected one. :)

Not sure about the 2 month thing. 1 month used to be enough of a deterrent for me, but obviously I'm trying to be civil and not request anything I don't actually care about in the final days just because I could (in the past, anyway). Didn't help me with the things I was willing to temporarily sacrifice eligibility for because I'm just not fast enough / not here at the right times as has already been said.

But what will happen if the cooldowns get raised to astronomical levels like some propose? 6 months? IDK, I guess we'll have to see what the new 2 months will achieve.

Speaking of Broken Sword 4: I actually briefly considered asking for that, but combined with the reviews I decided not to enter even with 1 month and even with only 1 week to go. Looks like I'm not the typical GA participant, then. :)
This is true. There should probably be a grace period for this at least. I guess one could oppose a nomination, but noone will risk running afoul of the GA manager over something they're likely to lose regardless. I don't know if this actually is a problem though, at least I didn't see it happen often (once per quarter IIRC) and I didn't check the timing.

First and foremost, it is giveaway, not a lottery. Nobody "wins" anything here.

When you see a game, which you want to play, you can ask for the key. And you will certainly get it, if you are eligible.

Any user is able to check the list at any time. It is perfectly normal, if somebody has already requested the game. It does not mean, that this person has written a post "faster", than you. Simply happened to check the list earlier. Nobody knows in advance, when it will be updated.

GOG Community Giveaway has always been first come - first served, and nobody complained. Only after the introduction of "starred" section some people started to lobby random distribution. While some rules might be a subject to change, the core principles should be set in stone.

If you want a lottery instead of giveaway, you are welcome to start it in a separate thread.
Currently, users ask for the games, they really want to play. You suggest to gamble for just "anything" instead. It is a characteristic of lottery, not a giveaway.
None. Neither posting on forums is a job, nor receiving free games is a payment.

Participating in discussions, people naturally become part of our community. If their participation is active enough, they have a privilege to receive games from this giveaway.
Exactly the opposite.

If the current host wants to turn it into a pure lottery, that's their prerogative. The community has no ownership of the giveaway. It's mere existence is tradition by name only; how it was ultimately run was always to the host's discretion. Basically the fact it has shared the same format or used the same name in no way is indicative of how it is to be run.

As always, if you believe that the host isn't being "traditional" enough there is nothing stopping anyone from running their own and calling it a similar name. The community never has had any ownership of the giveaway. The fact that the hosts humour us with suggestions about how it is run in no way means we have any control over it.

That's a bit much. The giveaway admin has a lot of leeway, mainly in determining eligibility, and also in the specifics of the rules, but it is the community giveaway after all, and tradition has a lot to do with it, it's not the admin's personal giveaway.

So... in taking it up the host must only run the giveaway in a rigidly tight traditional manner? Where has anyone ever stated this as a rule?

I recall back in Finkle days, there were some noise about it. When some big list would drop, most high profile games would be gone in minutes, sometimes pages of requests in a couple of minutes and many people complained but tbh, there were also a much higher number of users around.