Implemented Moderation of Unofficial Giveaways

[Hoshi]

Spoiler: Cam message on Discord

Very recently, this topic was brought up in the official Discord and it got me thinking.

I don’t think unofficial giveaways should be completely disallowed. By doing this, you’re taking away a large chunk of community engagement and freedom. It’s also something that generates income for the network as none of these giveaways are sponsored.

The problem is that sometimes these giveaways end in the host not giving out prizes. When this happens, it results in there being quite a few disappointed participants, as well as it reflecting badly on, namely, the network and the community.

Now the question is: how do we solve this problem?

Moderation of Unofficial Giveaways​

For Java, people rarely host giveaways nowadays so it’s not much of an issue anyway.

For Bedrock, my suggestion would be that the giveaways should be moderated based on whether or not the host provided evidence of them actually owning a gift version of the rank or bundle. They can do this by attaching an image showing their gift inventory with the pre-purchased rank or bundle in it. If the host does NOT meet this requirement, the post should be either locked or deleted as a whole. That way, we can prevent players from participating in a giveaway that ends with the host not giving out the prize(s) and thus eliminates the problem.

Additionally, I think some ground rules should be set for giveaways. These would be some simple rules like no asking for likes or followers to count as a participant. It comes across as insincere and greedy and is like farming behaviour - which is already against the rules.

An argument against this would be, won’t it require more input from the moderation team or even admins? Yes and no. On one hand, it would mean moderators may need to keep a closer eye on players who host giveaways regularly and check every giveaway post they make. On the other hand, this should already be the case anyway as posts should be checked regularly for any content that goes against the rules regardless of them being giveaways or not. Message and like farming is already against the rules, so it should apply to giveaways too.

These are some of my thoughts on the subject I thought I’d share before a final decision is made. I’d like to know what everyone else thinks.

 

[Reesle]

For Bedrock, my suggestion would be that the giveaways should be moderated based on whether or not the host provided evidence of them actually owning a gift version of the rank or bundle. They can do this by attaching an image showing their gift inventory with the pre-purchased rank or bundle in it. If the host does NOT meet this requirement, the post should be either locked or deleted as a whole. That way, we can prevent players from participating in a giveaway that ends with the host not giving out the prize(s) and thus eliminates the problem.

I agree with most of your thread, however I have one concern about showing the gift inventory with the pre-purchased gift. I usually show my inventory when I do giveaways, but for others who do giveaways for “rank of choice” or “bundle of choice”, how would that work? Would it be sufficient enough to show that we have enough Minecoins to purchase the gift?

Cubecraft would almost have to add some kind of token system (like the hive has) where with X amount of tokens will you can buy a rank Tokens would be purchased with Minecoins. That way, player can prove they have a sufficient amount of tokens to be doing a rank or bundle giveaway. Just an idea.

 

[Hoshi]

Cubecraft would almost have to add some kind of token system (like the hive has) where with X amount of tokens will you can buy a rank Tokens would be purchased with Minecoins. That way, player can prove they have a sufficient amount of tokens to be doing a rank or bundle giveaway. Just an idea.

I think this might be a lot of extra effort that simply is not necessary if it only serves to simplify checking the giveaways.

I'd say in a case of a rank or bundle of choice, showing the minecoins would suffice. That's just my personal opinion though.

 

[Desiderata]

oh nah internal opinions hope this doesn't end up like the many other times cube refused to listen and i hope cam sees our input in this thread

personally i think officiating unofficial giveaways are cool and brings in more players to certain platforms like the forums or other cubecraft related community servers

that's honestly on the host if they decided to rig it or actually not give the winner the price, it doesn't really happen normally but if it does no one will participate in their rigged/scammed giveaways anymore given their rep.

and yes i think showing minecoins would be enough for bundle/rank of choice type giveaways, shows that the host is actually able to afford it

 

[Xavi | Goofy]

I believe a sentence such as “Holding a public giveaway without giving out the rank is not allowed. Cancellation of a giveaway is possible up to 1 week before ending.” being added to the rules is a lot easier. Players would be able to report players when they didn’t receive it and it can be checked when it happens once it may happen and can be punished accordingly. It’s a lot easier to check if someone has a rank rather than go through the hassle for both team members and the organizer proving they have the means to purchase it.

 

[Xi1m]

Spoiler: Cam message on Discord

omg omg im in this photo anyways VERY GREAT points hoshi you couldnt have explained it better!!

 

[CrystalLegend01]

Additionally, I think some ground rules should be set for giveaways. These would be some simple rules like no asking for likes or followers to count as a participant. It comes across as insincere and greedy and is like farming behaviour - which is already against the rules.

I am so glad this has been brought up,
Strongly agree here

 

[Eli]

After giving this some thought, I really believe the path of least resistance is disallowing giveaways from being hosted on the forums, or at least restricting them a lot.

The current issues with the lack of rules regarding giveaways are:

• Giveaways can be fake.
• Users can use them to farm reactions.
• There is no requirement to prove the winner was chosen fairly.
• There is no one holding the giveway host accountable if they never give the prize to the winner.
• It takes away from CubeCraft's own giveaways hosted via Discord.

The positives of course, are:

• It incentivizes forum activity (?)
• It helps small creators gain followers.
• It's a fun and wholesome thing to do.

So then to address these issues most of you are suggesting more specific rules regarding giveaways, which to me has its own negatives:

• CubeCraft's rules are non-specific for a reason, making an exception for giveaways is counterproductive.
• Moderators would be required to monitor ALL giveaways and ask for proof.
  • What would be admissible as sufficient proof? Is a screenshot enough? Do we need video?
  • How do giveaway hosts provide such proof? Do they start a ticket on Discord? Make a forum conversation?
  • How do we communicate to all Mods which users have been approved to host a giveaway and which users haven't?
  • What happens to an unauthorized giveaway? Is it locked?
    • People who have already signed up might feel disappointed/direct their anger toward the staff members who shut down the giveaway.
• Asking a giveaway host to pre-purchase the giveaway price might be unconsiderate, free giveaways are not legally binding, why should they be forced to go through with it?
  • What if they were expecting more people to participate in the giveaway? And now investing in the prize is not worth it?
  • For many small content creators giveaways are a business transaction, and they are an investment to grow their audience, who is CubeCraft to tell content creators how to carry out their business?
• Where is this information going to be displayed if not the official rules? Do we need to create a "giveaway guidelines" thread?

And it's because of this that I believe the most convenient thing to do is restricting giveaways to the following rules:

• Disallowing hosting giveaways on the forums for EVERYONE. Except for Staff Members and Partners.
  • This guarantees that giveaways are legitimate and carried out in good faith.
• If non-staff members and non-partners want to host a giveaway, they can do so, but through their own platforms, like their own YouTube channel or discord server. They can still however, advertise such video on the forums.
  • This eliminates CubeCraft's culpability on possible fake/rigged giveaways, and ensures that the only platform that is affected, is the giveaway host's platform.
  • This ensures that people aren't using the CubeCraft forums as a mechanism to obtain information from other people, in the shape of questions required to answer to enter the giveaway, usernames, etc.

 

[Reesle]

Just noticed they added a “Unofficial Giveaway” tag.

This is a much better and less drastic solution than banning all giveaways, in my opinion.

 

[Capitan]

Hello!

I have thought about what to do regarding giveaways, and after talking to Cam and then Elivat, I considered that the best option is to allow giveaways but with a prefix clarifying that they are not official.

This prefix can be applied by either the thread creator or any team member, and makes it clear that it is not organized by CubeCraft.

From the results of the poll, I see that a majority of the community prefers not to remove them, so I think it is necessary to make it clear that they are not official, and there is a possibility that they will not take place.

This does not mean that a user can make multiple giveaways and never give anything. In case we detect that fake giveaways are made to generate reactions, we will punish this forum account (the punishment will be discussed with the moderation team).

Thanks for your suggestion Hoshi!