I agree month to month is a more fun-spirited way to handle it and would encourage people to check it more often.

Very well then.

Your post was difficult to read, not only for its content but for its lack of structure.

You cherry-picked the worst possible outcome of BenKii's idea, describing future possible behaviour of users here not currently on show in the GA now, despite the activities of donors and donees hardly being hidden from sight nor difficult to collate. Said prediction was based on very little real evidence that a text leaderboard with no other benefits but ego-stroking would lead to attracting attention-starved rich people to spend like wildfire in order to "win the race".

You failed to explain how having big-spending egomaniacs flooding the giveaway with thousands of keys is a bad thing for the majority of the community.

You deliberately overreach when conflating the issue into the realm of "doxxing" previous names of accounts, something which is for the most part rectified by simply telling the host to remove or change their name on the leaderboard.

You make generalisations on the wants, likes and dislikes of community members. ie Not everyone gives a damn whether or not a leaderboard is used, either a donor one nor even a donee one. This is coming from a user which would be very low on the donor list and very high on the donee one. I for one simply don't give a sh*t because myself (and God I suppose) are the only ones fully capable of judging my whats, wheres and whys.

You failed to realise that people calling others out, belittling them and picking on them based on the leaderboard data would possibly result in the aggressors themselves being banned from the giveaway.

You say the host has the right to do whatever they wish, but don't accept when BenKii doesn't run it by the community first on an arbitrary thread he didn't create. In other words you don't respect the rights of the host.

Every claim of non-insult preceding the word BUT is considered to most people a thinly-veiled lie. Your lack of respect towards BenKii was further proven by the repeated use of the word FOOL. You want responses to be civil, yet lack the ability to speak tactfully yourself.

Your personal grudge against BenKii is clearly affecting your judgement on this matter.

That enough?

In my humble opinion, I do not see any disadvantage in having a Leaderboard. I'm not going to fight to be in the list, or to be in top. I know that Doc0075 is very possible to be the number 1, and I'm not going to be jealous for that and I'm not going to fight to be the number one or to be in the top. Moreover, I'm very grateful that Doc0075 has given me some games. I suppose that if someone does not want to be in the Leaderboard, he can ask BenKii for not to be in. So nobody is forced to participate and nobody is going to win something for being in the list. So it's voluntary and just for fun. If you do not like it, you can refuse to be in the list. Moreover, if we see that Leaderboard is giving us problems, BenKii can cancel the Leaderboard in any moment.

Just I want to ask a few things. We, in general, should be very grateful with BenKii. To manage the giveaway is time consuming and he is doing it in his spare time. We can give him our opinion about something, criticize his decisions or disagree with them. But when we say our disagreements with him, we should reread what we say for two(or three) reasons: first of all, he is doing us the favour of managing the giveaway, secondly, written language is very easy to be misunderstood and last but not least, for many people here (for instance, me) English is not their mother tongue, so we should be very assertive to avoid any kind of misunderstanding. To sum up, if the way we say something is not assertive, we should rewrite it in a more suitable way, just to avoid any kind of misunderstanding or to hurt people.

It was said that the count starts from May...
That would be a good thing if it'd certainly work that way, have the leaderboard presence be separate from anonymous donations, so some who wouldn't actually ask to be anonymous donors may still ask to not be on the list if for whatever reason they wouldn't want to be.
Yeah, that'd probably sort out most of the issues. Like I said above, make donation recognition (for lack of a better term) be separate from leaderboard presence, and specifically ask at least the first time once the leaderboard is active, unless the donor specifies their preference on their own.

I'm not the one making it about you; you're managing that very well on your own. Apparently the world is full of naive, morally bankrupt fools who just can't understand the fundamental truth you speak. I certainly did not miss your point (to my mind the one made with any clarity), in fact I explicitly offered a suggestion to address it. Additionally I made the case of my objection in three short paragraphs while remaining respectful and polite, without the overuse of text formatting and all-caps.

A significant portion of your post wasn't about arguing your point of view, it was expressing your deep antipathy to the notion and apparently also BenKii. None of that was necessary, rather it was rude and passive aggressive.

Making imperative statements—particularly at the end of a lengthy diatribe—statements that lack the expectation of refusal can be and are absolutely described as demands. This goes double when the whole thing is written in Bold text.

Well well well... I'm sorry to dissappoint you, I am not a book author ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

I pointed out a possibility.
Is it bad?
Or would you like to keep living in a delusion of "this what I described being IMPOSSIBLE"?

You know, it's really not a great idea to put equal sign between "unlikely" and "impossible". But alas...

You must have not been paying attention as some people already HAVE:
1. Tried to "buy their way" into being accepted into the giveaway ( with varrying results depending on giveaway edition )
2. Tried shaming others for number of keys donated. Some even with passive aggressive "suggestions" of "insufficent donations, while taking things".
You may faint ignorance, but both things DID already happen.

Prior to THIS LIST there was NO list that would tally people with nickname and "numbers of keys donated". There was only "donators list" ( nicknames only, no numbers ).
You may PRETEND like going through couple hundred pages of the forum is an "easy task" so "anyone can ALREADY tally this", but:
1. This is a lie
2. This doesn't include keys donated, but not yet activated. As well as keys donated, and then expired.

I would like to also point out that the original wording of the original idea made it sound like "spreadsheet of all keys donated ever, TOTAL" and not a "reset per month". Just so that we are on the same page.
Basically a "permanent hall of shame", and not a "monthly shaming contest with same winner ( almost? ) every month".

Bold of you to claim there are no books describing sociopaths and narcissist doing more or less this exact thing in non-game-giveaway scenario.

The " "prediction" " was based on:
- humanity's long and more-or-less well-recorded history of behaviours
- millions of posts online, showing vile behaviours, behaviours of "no consequences because this is ONLINE" ( noone can slap you through the screen ), and countless others

There's plenty of "evidence" of what hummans are CAPABLE of. You are just choosing to turn your head away and whistling around, pretending "this SURELY won't happen TO US".

And it's not a prediction.
I don't know what WILL happen.
I am pointing out what CAN happen.

And when you pitch the idea, you should always consider all pros and cons - sometimes POSSIBLE cons are enough to discard an idea.
For all intents and purposes it would seem BenKii only ever considered the pros of this idea, and several members of the community are peddling alternate reality echochamber in which "low-likelihood" == "impossible".

One should never, NEVER, assume that "everyone will behave orderly".
Your plan should NEVER set "baseline" at "perfectly disciplined squeaky clean citizens".
This is a surefire way to get to "find out" part.

Because it's a part that doesn't need explaining. You REALLY are trying to PRETEND like this is some sort of stereotypical exaggerated "tipping scale with 2 spots", when it's really not.
Obviously more donated keys are a benefit, a pro, that goes w/o saying.
But the cons will not magically dissappear, because it's not a scale.

"Sir! Please remove my non-public information after you have ALREADY doxxed it for the world to see".
Ah yes... of course...
https://i.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/mobile/000/022/138/highresrollsafe.jpg

You know - it's really funny how you accuse me of generalisation, and then you do the exact same thing.
I never said "everyone will have the same opinion as me". It is MY opinion.
You are free to have yours.
But then YOU strongly suggest in-between lines that "if not everyone will care, then it doesn't matter", whereas it's really not how this works.

My posts alone are already proving my point:
some people DO care. Even tho many may perhaps NOT care.
You can't just say "majority of people don't care, therefore it's a non-issue".

You really ARE petty.
Let me repeat myself like a broken record:
this isn't about ME.
It's about the whole idea being wrong. Stop TRYING to spin this around "ME problem", as it is NOT one.

Your assessment is incorrect. CCTV cameras don't stop crimes. They only register them.
Banning someone won't reverse any possible emotional damage already done to some individual being called out and personally attacked.

This is such a dense take...

You seem to be in some grand delusion of:
"Admin can do whatever he wants, therefore admin cannot be criticised", and "criticism equates to lack of respect".
I can respect BenKii's decisions, AND I can simultaneously criticise them.
Those 2 things are not mutually exclusive.

Mighty hypocritical of you mister "don't give a damn".

And if the word "fool" sparks such an outrage - you people seriously have nothing better to do with your lives...
Yeah - sure - TRY and spin this machine some more, after all the word "FOOL" is the most important - NO - the ONLY important part of the relevant msg!
Have you met MURPH yet or is it not enough spins yet? :P

Wow. You really went out of your way here to make s**t up! xD
I don't know what fantasy top hat you pulled THIS rabbit from. What else is in there? Are you also going to look into a crystal ball and tell me how I currently look like?

Dude... It's HILLARIOUS... You tell me, you claim, I have a "grudge against BenKii", based on zero evidence, where's evidence mister "where's evidence, I got you now! haHAAAA!" ?? :P

CRITICISM does not auto-equate to "grudge".
I don't have a grudge against BenKii, and I find this accusation totally hillarious...

This has nothing to do with me NOR with BenKii.
I am criticising the IDEA.

It's really bland and dissappointing how many people here have this "frat culture" attitude of:
"you are getting things for FREE ( eagle screech for comedic effect ), don't you DARE speak out against our lord and saviour giveaway administrator. dUUeh!".

Dude, if a different giveaway administrator would pitch this idea, I would criticise it all the same. If I would donate 1000 keys myself, I would ALSO criticise this idea!
Because this has NOTHING to do with me, or the giveaway admin, and EVERYTHING to do with the IDEA.

The idea is simply incredibly short-sighted. And evidently an echochamber of "people who fail to see the problem" has already formed and is functioning well...

Oh no! How dare you use the bbcode the forum CMS gives you for your disposal! GAH!
**hillarity ensues**
xD

Gee! Thanks for the tip mister "English language EXPERT from New Zealand" /s
( I repeated it a whole lot of times over the years, INCLUDING in this thread, that Eng is NOT my 1st lang, and I DO make mistakes sometimes, but I'm not expecting you to comprehend it at this point, after all you just want to nickel and dime me on words while ignoring the whole core point )

Yeah the thing is... the OG idea WASN'T an "opt in". It was CLEARLY worded as opt-OUT...
OPT-IN instead of OUT, would fix MANY problems ( not all tho ) with this ( shortsighted and naive ) idea.

It appears not everyone is on board with the idea of a leaderboard of donations. I think I'll postpone it for a month to give folks a chance to chime in about it and offer their suggestions.

It is not stated in the file. In a couple of years, few people would recall the fact.

And there are many benefactors on the list, who were active before, but do not donate games anymore ( for one reason, or another )

Their counter will remain "0" despite any previous donations. In my opinion, it is both confusing and unfair.

Hey, moron: I was describing myself, not you. XD

And I associated your dislike of both BenKii and Doc to this previous post you made last year:
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/gog_community_giveaway_tradition_discussion_and_poll/post859
Remember? When you called out some rather benign nomination activity as "textbook corruption"???

As for the rest. Wow. Must have struck a nerve there. :P

You know, mate you could just leave the giveaway thread right alone and never go back there. That way, all that happens there won't be your concern ever again.

B1tF1ghter suggested to Doc0075 to evaluate his spending decisions and prioritize his other needs instead?!! Next thing I expect is to ask him what his job/business/exact source of income is, how big family he’s got, and what his wife’s opinion is for her husband’s spending habits!!!

That is already the case. You can check the spreadsheet and see that I have already opted out, long before this discussion here had erupted.

Even though you may very well be entirely correct in your assessment in regards to said user, this meltdown has happened before and resulted in the banning of this user from the giveaway (back in finkleroy's time).

My previous post has been ignored, but this user hasn't even been active outside giveaways or giveaway-related threads in the past 12 months.

If a user is primarily concerned about getting games with other people's money, and thinks one has the right to also insult these very same people, I don't see how one's part of the community in any capacity.

Just my 2cts added to the leader board idea. I don't donate that much so I might not be on top of such a list anytime soon ... but I agree with BenKii and I also think that it is harmless fun ... as long as there is no price to be on top of the leader board nobody should feel forced to be on top of it and most people probably won't feel bad if they are not - especially not those who simply like to donate some games to the community because they want to. Since there is no way to buy yourself into the giveaway to be eligible the only reason for donating a game to the giveaway is because it is nice to help others. Sometimes you have a spare key and sometimes you are able to get a key on sale so cheap that you think you could buy another one for the community .... sometimes you enjoy a certain game so much that you want to share this with the community. It might be hard for some people to believe (especuially those who are cynical), but gifting can actually be enjoyable for those who are doing the gifting (I am sure Doc is agreeing here). I've learned this in one of the last true insomnia sales (if GOG is reading this - I am hoping for a continuation) when people helped me out getting games I wanted to have but couldn't because I had to sleep - stupid timezones. I then decided that I want to give something back. Yes, this is not exactly the community it was back then but it still is the best community I can think of.

Looks like I kicked a hornet's nest, I was the donor who suggested the leader board, I knew there was a spreadsheet and made the suggestion because I thought it would be easy to implement, but I didn't know it wasn't updated. I donate Amazon & giveaway keys I don't use, dozens of them, that's it, I had no notion of "buying status" or creating a convoluted notion of class struggle around community cred. As BenKii said, I think it would be fun, and when I'm too busy to post in these forums but still make the effort to try to contribute something, it's nice to see that little bit of acknowledgement. This is not something I especially want though, it just popped into my mind as I was making a donation. I agree with making it month to month, maybe with year-end tallies, to help recognize donors to encourage donations, so it's a rolling ongoing thing, a gameplay dynamic, but I don't see a problem with all-time high scores either, there's no monetary value and people are contributing something to the community, why not recognize that? If someone else feels shame for not being higher in that all-time donor listing that seems like a very awkward response to other people's contributions, it's like saying I should feel shame for not posting more often, I do feel a little bad for not posting so I donate instead, but not shame, I just miss community engagement - forums in general, I was not especially active here on GOG, but now I'm not active anywhere, too damn busy all the time.

On using donations in place of forum activity, I went back a few pages and noticed my name: In that case, less than two weeks after I made that request I broke my Amazon boycott, needed something only available from them and opted for a discounted $2 Prime 7-day trial instead of paying for shipping or buying more, which gave me access to the game I requested from CG, so I donated back a new key for the same game I got, along with everything else on Prime I hadn't claimed yet & didn't want, 10 more games. I don't see a problem with my case because what I requested is in the same "tier" as what I donate, but I agree this policy should not allow people to donate lower value stuff to qualify for higher value stuff, even if the accumulated values are equal, CG is not a barter system, but swapping in & out 1 for 1 seems harmless.

Overall I really miss gaming, I still buy stuff from GOG, anything which looks cool and I know I'd like to play, albeit almost exclusively stuff on sale, but I haven't actually played anything in months. Last August was the last time I played a game through to the end, since then I've installed several, kinda aspiring to play if I can ever find the time, but usually don't make it more than 30min and none more than a few hours. Since August I've added 67 items to my GOG library, all "aspirational", got 3 more from Prime today bringing me up to an even 400 items.

That's why I donate games, nostalgia and I like GOG, I don't have time to play or participate in forums, and a leader board might be fun, but it's not attached to my self esteem, right now any ranking at all would have no influence on my donations. That said, I do admit if what I'm working on now goes well so I have more disposable income (maybe a lot more) I could see myself buying everything (or maybe just Linux games) which goes on mailing list deep discount then dropping it in CG to give back & support GOG's mission of preserving games (and promote Linux gaming), objectively a leader board could influence that, so I can see & acknowledge the counter argument about it being potentially seen as classist but I both disagree with that interpretation and kinda just don't care, in the larger context of socioeconomic class struggle cross western civilization this is kinda like looking for a fight which just is not there, I suggest putting the energy of this forum thread into more important causes. If we wanted to look for ideas to encourage more donations and looked to the dynamics of gifting economies, those do actively use shame to encourage more donations, co-equal participation in smaller communities or at extremes NGO's are shameless in their use of shame, and I agree that would be caustic to the community, but I think a leader board is not.