May I have Legends of Amberland: The Forgotten Crown? This game looks awesome!

Granted.

Thanks Doc0775 for the great game, Legends of Amberland: The Forgotten Crown! Thank you finkleroy for running this!

Your welcome. Enjoy Thief 2. :)

Might I request Speed Limit?

Granted.

Thank you, and a big thanks to Doc! You're a most excellent dude, dude.

Thank you Doc0075 for the game and finkleroy for hosting this giveaway! :)

Question:
Can you do this indefinite amount of times (should there be a need, say: a slew of unfaithful giftees) or is there a limit after reaching which the refunds requesting account would get some form of "restriction"?

You do what you desire.
Tho personally I would see that as a scam welcoming behaviour and would not allow it myself.
Imo whenever there's a giveaway the OP should keep a close look on scammer lists as well as have some common sense in form of "only 1 account allowed per user and if caught otherwise the user in question gets banned from now onwards".

Perhaps (and this is just a suggestion, and yes I AM aware of how ludicrous amount of work this requires) we could start drawing "behavioral profiles" to early detect possible scam attempts.
And before someone goes all "but privacy" - it's not like the data required isn't already public - the only other sources being PMs and with those I imo would call "justifiable" to include as an additional source.
I personally couldn't volunteer to be a "social investigator" (not now at least, maybe in few months) since I have too much IRL BS to deal with for another "at least month".
But IMO from now onwards reputable members in these threads should keep a close watch on how people behave and speak - a lot of scammers / pick-a-number-dippers don't randomize nor sophisticate their way of speaking enough and so patterns could be drawn between different accounts helf by same IRL people - this kind of profiling btw allows tracking people across entire global network between varying forums if the users in question merely change nicknames and don't mark thy self behaviour - it's a risky task and quite a pain but at least for scammers I would say it's justifiable eventually.

The problem with all this is that GOG's system is universally flawed.
On Steam there is globally unique ID per each account. There can be same nicknames there but the ID will always be unique.
That allows easy tracking of any "covert changes" to the accounts suspected.
Meanwhile on GOG a user can change their avatar, nickname and some basic forum info (country tag, custom text, etc) and at that point there is just NO way of telling who that is short of very time consuming backtracking through post searches (btw, ON STEAM there is the "post history", noticably absent on GOG as yet another thing that would benefit scam investigations).
It remains to be seen if any world-unique ID on GOG can be public-viewable - some website code checkup and possibly API calls may be in order (if anybody is up to the task then go ahead and I encourage you to do the research, I can only make a very bare surface crawl myself due to lack of time atm).
And I doubt we can afford counting on support with any of this - first they seem generally uncooperative - second they take too long to respond and at that point deadlines would be missed for us.

If this is indeed the case (if so I wonder how I missed it so far) then this is even bigger of an issue than I suspected.

I have personal rule that I don't bet.
But if I wouldn't I would say there is a very high chance of the user in question popping out with a new "legitimized" (account aging) account "donating keys" and acting like a "new user" within few next months.
This is unfortunatelly a problem due to general lack of "donated keys worth TO taken keys worth" ratio checkup as a means to bypass "forum participation" requirement (I don't mean to count the ratio for EVERY user, I specificly mean for those seemingly new ones who try to make use of the "donate fasttrack" rule while showing not much trace of forum activity).
To put this into direct context:
a scammer could "legitimize" their participation with a fresh account by donating some scrap cheap sh*t in a short period of time and there is close to no way to know for sure if the behaviour is legit or not until further investigation (ergo no way to tell if someone is legit or "scam master account hopper" just by looking at NUMBER of keys donated *).
* Yes, I am aware I don't exactly know the internal finkle's rules for "fasttrack". Just saying my hypothesis here.

As an idea I would suggest keeping a more detailed (than now) table of "donated to, redeemed by" table. (I am expecting you ARE doing something like that by now, tho I just merely suggest to now crossreference this with reports from donors checking who redeemed the keys).
Wherether there is free stuff there is always greed.
We should not take "good will by default" in such threads for granted.

EDIT:
It appears in the heat of crafting this post I lost a chunk of it and only noticed upon sending it.
At this point I don't know which post of yours I wanted to respond with this to and will generally shorten this.
Personally I wouldn't allow the offender to DONATE keys anymore.
Taking for granted that the offender will "definitely not try anything shady WITH THE DONATES" is poor and shortsighted.
For instance they could enact revenge in form of poisoning key pool with non working (remember, outside of GOG keys all other are non-verifiable until redemption) keys or legit ones but later refunded (at the very least leaving people unhappy).
TLDR, IMO I would ban ALL activities for offender and not just "taking" part.

I hear ya and I do check for scammers.....it's just I feel things are different with this user, like that they are donating despite being banned & also that they apologized a bit. To me that's a slightly better person than some i've heard about and seen.

As such, and because I am very forgiving in general, I give them a chance in my contests...of course I also limit them to one game same as everyone else.

Beyond that, I think some can be "redeemed" over time, so those ones are given a chance to try and do so in my contests instead of me banning them outright(though I can see/respect why OP and others might do otherwise).

You mean being careful to watch for potential scammers or blocking people out of contests based on various "warning signs" before they've done anything wrong?

If the former, sounds good....if the latter: to me that sounds a bit unfair and if one profiles wrong it could lead to unfair bans/blocks.

And that's why (no major offense meant) i'm glad someone link Fink is in charge....and not someone who thinks like you seem to.

Yes, fink and others here might be duped on occasion by being this way, but i'd rather have that & the nice mood/feeling/group we have then the system you seem to want with everyone seemingly suspicious/paranoid of everyone else & their intent/actions.

In short, in order for this to work and be fun for everyone people need to have some level of trust for those involved(while still doing things like watching who redeems keys, of course), else it stops being fun & possibly starts to fall apart.

I have opinions (and admit I do tangent threads myself from time to time), but this feels like a discussion that should probably cease here and move to PM or a separate thread, both for the breadth/length of the posts.

Moreover, it is an issue that isn't specific to this particular community GA, as highlighted by the fact we're now talking about how other GAs might/should be handled. Just feels like the focus in this thread should come back to this GA.

It was only two posts & the thread is more or less "ded" atm anyways.....that said, I agree we should get back ontopic.
(was planning on more or less leaving it there anyways, so no worries about rambling from me btw :))

The focus is on the issues at hand.
Shoving them under a carpet once they arrive isn't particularly beneficial.
Also imo length is IRRELEVANT if valid points are brought up.
It's not like the thread is currently active anyway (there are no new batches NOW and the requests are rare atm).
Also, afaik there's no way to make a group chat on GOG.

I think actions should be taken to better avoid malicious outcomes in the future.
We definitely should not just "get over with it" and "move on" saying nothing.
With that said with THIS post I generally have already said what I wanted.

Ultimately the choice is yours.
But you need to be careful where you draw the line.
If you forgive too much then people WILL abuse the system more.
Sometimes it's just not worth the risk.
But then again, every man for himself, choose your own adventure ;)

First of all "warning system" is a thing utilised in many environments.
It has it's pros and cons and can definitely work if utilised PROPERLY.
Second of all, you have to ask yourself 2 questions:
1."How many times is too far?"
2."If the users cheated in NOT-MY-THREAD then should I treat it the same as in MY thread?"
As a ruler of your giveaway you have to think your own rules through properly.
You have to assess the risks and choose wisely to not risk burning yourself on some loophole (SOME PEOPLE will feel ENCOURAGED to cheat if they for example see that giveaway ruler is "generous" and "forgiving" and that's the very fact I'm prying at here).
I'm not saying which approach is the best, nor that mine is (I was never suggesting that).
I'm merely discussing them.

Also, on the "redeemed" part - people certainly CAN be given second chances - but don't forget that with remote interactions you have VERY limited possibilities for verifying ACTUAL intent - so you have far less possibility of making the right call - you certainly can make it, tho with far less certainty most of the times.

I mean "actively assessing the situation and flagging suspicious activity as 'possible culprit' early on" to have more close watch on the accounts in question. Possibly having multiple risk levels and upon suspicious activity raising the level for account(s) in question.
Banning people preemptively isn't exactly a good approach and I definitely did not mean that.

My point isn't about total "everyone is untrusted" just about the fact that the default trust factor may not factor certain facts in.
If there's a raise in scam activities or possibly new ways it is being carried out then operations manual of OP should probably be reevaluated every once in a while to account for "rouge element" tactics changes.
I don't mean "trust nobody". I mean "be vigilant" and also "don't take the goodwill from EVERYBODY for granted".

Perhaps it's due to what I went through in my life, but I have general cautious approach to EVERYBODY at this point.
I have seen enough ill intent in my life to know that assuming somebody is good by default can horribly bite you in an a** :/
Therefore risks must be assessed and things cannot be TOO relaxed by default.
It's better to oversecure than one day realize the whole system is about to collapse because your security was too lenient because you "assumed" things will "be fine" or something is "unlikely".

With my approach (which btw, you have no full picture of) I would want to ensure it's still a fun for "everyone" and not "fun for few users and an entire bot network of alt accounts".
The point is to have a proper balance in operations and I am merely suggesting that perhaps some procedures should be strengthened.

With what I wrote in THIS post I hope you understand my point better.
(also, I don't understand why my previous post is low rated. I am discussing things that are in general best interest of the community here, so there shouldn't be any problem with my post's contests. And imo downvoting just because some post is LONGER is just PETTY and ungrown)

I won't say who showed this pot to me, but it might be obvious to some. The thing is, people seem to miss some fundamental things when trying to set up systems.

Let me be absolutely blunt, here, and fair to the guy I'm quoting before I bash him. These giveaways and such are all full of scammers who then turn around and use the codes for all sorts of crap. There's gonna be bad actors, especially where charity is involved. I've seen some weird goings on, especially in these threads as various people have pointed out to me. Frankly, it's why I don't get into them. But, hey, as an outsider who isn't donating, gaining, or even scamming this system, I think we can say that I ain't going to have some sort of natural bias in this.

Fundamentally, you're not going to do a damn thing to prevent it. Scammers will always get better, and your systems are going to strike false positives. You kinda need to know when you're doing this sort of thing you're going to have bad eggs. I get it, it's why i don't participate in donations (not that i'm in any position to be donating), but I also have no intention of joining some giveaway (I sure as hell don't need to be socially obligated to someone here in a way that i can't be truthful 'cause it might be mean to someone who did something nice for me [bad enough that GOG has given me alot of freebies, and acutally exclusively gave me a freebie in a giveaway once, which was for the wishlist promotion]). If you can't handle the fact that people are going to take advantage of you, stay out of this, because that's the chance you take. Oddly enough, the more systems you make, the easier it is for scammers to game you, because you create a system for them to game (just look at things like welfare in the US, where there's an unspoken industry that has made room for more scammers than just the people who are on it who are lying about their income). The more topheavy you make something, the more lucrative infiltration is.

I'm not sure what people mean by "tainted codes:" if you stick to GOG codes and make it a giveaway instead of an exchange, I'm not sure what these codes could be tainted by, unless you mean stolen by someone, in which case, well... Something else is going on. I understand there's cross site giveaways and trading going on, for things like steam keys and such, and you'll naturally run into alot of additional trouble that way. Meanwhile, those who implement a system of getting for giving, you're going to get tainted codes for that. As goofy and easy for corruption that it sounds, it'd be far safer to transfer money to buy codes rather than actually just transfering codes, 'cause you'll know whether you got the money or not, but then there's the chargeback system.

Can i also point out the inobvious, that a good bit of the forum fighting, including about politics, seems to have come indirectly from the giveaways? 'Cause, you see, there's a game going on here, and it can make real money. People trying to game a blacklist system has lead to quite a bit of destructive drama on here that manages to surpass the political drama, even. I'm sure some of you remember a certain paranoid nut that went after just about everyone involved wiht the giveaways, and even people not involved with them a couple years ago. I distinctly remember him going off his rocker (the crazy nut even came after me over it all) about the system being gamed. I distinctly remember him creating quite a fuss, and I've similarly heard he wasn't the first.

OP already took actions...they banned the user in question and advised people to be cigilant...to me that's good enough and better than nothing.

Some will find ways to abuse some systems no matter how careful one is, and eh....to me they're just games/stuff....if someone sneakily takes a game now and then from my threads i'm ok with it(though obviously I wish they wouldn't do it).

As I said above, some will find ways to cheat many systems.....no matter what one does....I find it best to be vigilant but not overly worry about such.

No one is often perfect in their assessments of others in such situations...I get that....but I am not worried about a few games being taken by scammers from my own threads as long as many others are happy....it's an "acceptable risk/loss" for me, as it were.

(also, one can make the wrong call sometimes....which is partially why I am against such screening systems as you seemed to have suggested earlier[when I thought you meant bans/blocks])

Thanks for clarifying and sorry for reading you wrong on what you meant.

That said, I think fink's current method(be vigilant and watch who redeems keys) is good enough.

Well fink already covered that first bit(and everyone seems to be onboard with it), and as for the second....I say trust people unless one has a reason not to.

I hear ya...i've had some such experiences as well. I will say this: it takes time and effort & can be hard, but learning to trust again(while also being vigilant) has it's benefits. :)

-

That aside, i'm also gonna leave it here for now...if ya want to talk more we can chat more on this topic in PM or one of the other threads.