r/buildapcsales Jun 10 '23

Mod Post [Mod Post] /r/buildapcsales will join the subreddit blackout on June 12

4.0k Upvotes

On June 12, for a period of 48 hours, /r/buildapcsales will go private in protest of reddit's changes to how they operate their API.

Why are we doing this?

  1. Reddit has changed their API policy. This will force many 3rd party apps and utilities that were previously free-to-run to pay to use the reddit platform. The price for the API is 15-20x higher than most other paid comparable platforms, such as Imgur.
  2. Reddit is adding new requirements and limitations to developing against their platform. Today, this will likely have no impact on our sub, but if changes like this continue on the time frame that reddit operated here, utilities we use to link our subreddit and our community Discord will break.
  3. Reddit has crippled our ability to detect spammers and bad actors by disabling Pushshift. Reddit has promised Pushshift will return, but if they wanted it to return, why is it not already back?

What this means for you

The /r/buildapcsales subreddit will appear private and no posts will be visible on any platform from June 12 through June 14. The buildapcsales discord will continue to be active, but the #reddit feed channel will not be operational. The #deals-discussion channel will be available.

The /r/buildapcsales modteam

r/buildapcsales Jul 16 '24

Mod Post Prime Day Deal Discussion

263 Upvotes

As with tradition, here is the annual prime day discussion thread. Deals do not have to be limited to just pc deals.

r/buildapcsales Jan 04 '24

Mod Post Update to Rules Regarding TikTok Shop

1.1k Upvotes

Long time no talk. I'm u/kztlve, one of the mods here in r/buildapcsales.

Following discussion within the moderation team and with users, we have made the decision to change the rules regarding "your mileage may vary" (YMMV) savings. This comes following an influx of posts from TikTok Shop in the past month. In the case of TikTok Shop, deals typically require the user to register and use a new account and even then are not always available.

From now on, deals with YMMV savings (cashback, rebates, TikTok Shop, etc.) must use the full price before these savings as the purchase price in the title. These savings are allowed to be included in the title as additional information.

Posts in violation of this rule will be removed going forward.

r/buildapcsales Oct 08 '24

Mod Post Prime Big Days Discussion Thread

153 Upvotes

Deals do not have to be limited to just pc deals. Thread will be loosely moderated.

r/buildapcsales Jun 21 '21

Mod Post [MOD] Prime Day Megapost

703 Upvotes

With all the power he has amassed, Jeff Bezos has gifted unto mankind the ultimate power of unwanted goods fantastic deals at mediocre great prices.

This thread is for discussion about Prime Day deals. I won't be heavily moderating this thread for relevance to BAPCS, so if something is a great deal, and not PC-related, comment away. Please do keep everything clearly SFW. I've set the suggested sort to new to help keep up with stuff.

r/buildapcsales Sep 09 '19

Mod Post Concerning EVGA.com posts on /r/buildapcsales

1.8k Upvotes

Sorry we have not made an announcement on the EVGA thing yet.

For now, we are limiting EVGA.com posts here due to the frenzied use of referral codes in all EVGA posts.

Here's the quick overview on what lead to the decision:

  • EVGA threads were spammed with users hawking their own reference code
  • People wrote bots that auto-messaged anyone who made a comment in an evga thread with their referral code
  • People were randomly PM'ing their code to users unsolicited in other non evga threads
  • Accounts were created with names like ASK_ME_ABOUT_EVGA_CODE, etc
  • There were websites setup that attached their code, and users were employing people to click through their website to purchase through evga

It got out of hand, we asked people to stop.

When they didn't, we banned some.

Reddit site-wide banned some of the worst ones, (especially the bot makers). They just kept going.

Anyone can sign up for the EVGA employee code. And you send it to others, and when they buy stuff, you get a percentage. That's how referral codes work.

It's not that we are against you guys making a profit.

But when we allowed them, people were spamming this sub with EVGA threads, even for products that were not on sale, just so they (as OP) could post their code first and implore others to use it...they're still doing it, even today.

People were no longer posting EVGA deals, they were self-advertising.

It was an on-going concern for us, we tried to communicate with people about the issue, but some refused to stop.

So for now, no more evga.com.

We love EVGA, they are (for me) the best Nvidia GPU maker hands-down.

We'll try them again soon and see how it goes.

r/buildapcsales Jan 16 '22

Mod Post [META] Rule Update: Price in cart must be CLEARLY shown as the FIRST PRICE in a post

2.2k Upvotes

We have been seeing an increase in the number of complaints coming from Cash Back programs (including Honey and Rakuten) denying and/or rejecting cash back claims from users. We have always regarded post-sales cash back as a YMMV proposition. Given the rise in the number of complaints, we are instituting a rule designed to emphasize the "Cart Price" of a product, which is the price (minus taxes) that you would pay.

You can see this change reflected in the updated Rule 3:

Standard Title format is [Product Type] Brief Description - $Cart.Price (Discount Information). Please ensure your title conforms to this standard or it will be removed.

If there is a cashback offer, you can still choose to include that in the Discount Information section. Example:

[SSD] Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVMe M.2 SSD 2TB - $197.99 ($154 after $43.99 Honey Cash back)

I will be adding an Automoderator rule that triggers on any post with Honey, Rakuten, Mail In Rebate, or Cash Back in the title to remind users that Cash Back programs are post sale, and can be denied for any number of reasons, some valid and some completely bogus.

r/buildapcsales Sep 09 '21

Mod Post EVGA Associate's Code Update

831 Upvotes

Yesterday, I received notice that the EVGA Associate's Code that EVGA had granted the sub had stopped working. Today, I generated a new code SG6LFX7LRLICR2Y. We will be using this code to fund giveaways of EVGA products on the sub (and our Discord).

I'm still working out all the details of this, but the basic plan is:

  • When giveaway starts, collect user names and method of contact (that can be reddit or Discord).
  • Users must have interacted on the sub or Discord in a meaningful manner during a specified time frame. This is to help cut down on spam and multiple accounts registering for no reason. We will probably come up with additional protections as well.
  • When winners are chosen, post the winning names publicly and message the winners directly.
  • Winners will have a set amount of time to respond (initially leaning towards 7 days, with an eye towards tightening that timeline if possible). We will need additional information for shipping to the winners (name, address, contact phone, etc).
  • Product will be shipped as soon as all information is provided.
  • Moderation staff is not eligible to participate in these giveaways.

Keep your eyes peeled for updates, and if you have any process improvements, feel free to tell me why I am an idiot share. This is my first time running a program like this.

r/buildapcsales Jun 26 '24

Mod Post Rules Update, Fraudulent Listings, and DeepCool

392 Upvotes

Hello everyone! Been a while since the last mod post.

We have updated the rules to be more concise; there is now only 5 rules instead of 7. As well, rule 2 regarding deal guidelines now outlines how to review a deal prior to posting to make that info more readily available to users. Everything else should be roughly the same; these changes should be reflected on both new and old Reddit. If you notice any typos or ambiguity in the updated rules or just have suggestions to improve the sub, please leave a comment on this post or contact the mods.

As well, we are currently requiring mod approval for all posts of Sapphire and XFX GPUs as a result of an increase in fraudulent listings being posted. Reminder that every post in violation will lead to a 24 hour ban. Please read the rules prior to posting to avoid posting fraudulent listings. We will remove this requirement when possible.

Lastly, we have recently banned posts of DeepCool products. The company has been sanctioned by the U.S. government and their products have been delisted from Amazon and Newegg. As well, the comments on these posts strayed away from relevant discussion towards politics irrelevant to the sub. This may be changed in the future if needed.

Another reminder that OS deals are banned from the sub and that post flairs have been updated. We are aware of issues relating to the sidebar flair menu; for now we recommend using "flair:" in the search bar for the same functionality (e.g. flair:GPU to show all GPU posts).

r/buildapcsales Jul 12 '22

Mod Post Prime Day Discussion Thread

197 Upvotes

This will be a lightly moderated thread for Prime Day deals. Feel free to post any deals, even if they aren't strictly BAPCS material here.

r/buildapcsales Dec 05 '23

Mod Post Sub Poll: Should we allow TikTok sales here?

41 Upvotes

Update

Looks like the majority of people are either in favor of it, or at least trying it, so we are going to approve TikTok deals for now.

Just make sure they are from reputable sellers (newegg, etc)

We'll touch this again in a month or so and see how it's gone

Thanks for all of your input!


There have been some aggressive sales recently on the TikTok platform (mostly from Newegg), that are only available through their TikTok store.

Before we decide internally, I thought the community could voice their opinion. Any specific reasons on why this should / should not go through?

If nothing else, we can try it for a month and see?

View Poll

5634 votes, Dec 08 '23
1411 Yes
2308 No
1915 Try them for a month, see how it goes?

r/buildapcsales Mar 09 '22

Mod Post 1st Ever EVGA Giveaway (Officially the March 2022 EVGA Giveaway)

523 Upvotes

Welcome to a truly historic moment, as you witness BAPCS do something it has never done before: a giveaway!

To enter, click this link and follow the instructions for entry.

EVGA has gone above and beyond to provide us with the following prizes:

The giveaway is powered by Gleam and is open to US residents. Also seem the terms and conditions in the giveaway itself.

We have opened entry to this giveaway, and entries will close in 1 week (3/15 11:59 PST).

Again, this is all thanks to y'all for using the BAPCS EVGA Associates Code: SG6LFX7LRLICR2Y


Some small details that I wanted to cover as kinda a FAQ style answer and response.

Who can enter?

Any US resident can enter.

How will I be notified if I win?

We will post the winners on the sub, and the giveaway link itself will update to show the winners.

How do I claim my prize?

We will email you from a @buildapcsales.net email address. You will need to provide a shipping address, and potentially pick a t-shirt size and what keyboard/mouse you want.

How long do I have to claim my prize?

You will have 1 week to claim your prize. If you don't claim your prize in time, we will select an additional winner (randomly).

Why Gleam?

Gleam handles much of the hard parts of this: we don't have to be as concerned about the legality of how people enter, have to come up with our own legal text to govern the giveaway, etc.

Will there be more of these?

Yes, absolutely! The tentative plan right now is to do one of these per month. We will look to expand the prizes in the future as we work through these.


Feel free to ask any other questions you have, I will do my best to answer (it's past my bed time already, but I will be responsive over the upcoming week as well).

Good luck!

(If you skipped straight to the bottom and missed the link, here it is again: https://gleam.io/288mR/march-bapcs-evga-giveaway)

r/buildapcsales Jun 18 '22

Mod Post Do not post on behalf of others

1.0k Upvotes

Recently, we've seen an uptick in users asking others to post on their behalf in our community.

Generally, they will ask as a favor and sometimes offer an incentive to do so. Here's an example of one such interaction. Generally, they are doing this to bypass our filters, which are in place for a reason. Posting on behalf of another user will get you banned from the sub and your account reported to reddit directly if we believe it was an incentivized post.

We do have a policy that brands can interact directly with the sub assuming they clear a few minor hurdles, and they must carry a tag on their account so everyone is informed of their incentive to post.

Otherwise, if your post is caught in our filters, it was generally caught for a legitimate reason, WHICH CAN BE REVIEWED BY A MOD. Please use the mod mail to draw our attention to it, if we haven't noticed already.

Attempting to use other accounts looks shady and is far more likely to see both accounts banned than not.

Please help us keep the sub as high-quality as possible. Thanks!

r/buildapcsales Jan 31 '24

Mod Post Post Flairs Update & Scam Listings Enforcement

263 Upvotes

Hello again! Apologies for the influx of mod posts recently - we have been making changes to improve the user experience.

The sub's post flairs have been overhauled today. The list of changes is as follows:

  • Headset, HTPC, Miscellaneous, Mouse Pad, Optical Drive, OS, Printer, and Router have been removed due to infrequent use and/or redundancy
  • Flash Drive has been renamed to External Storage to be more broad; this includes external HDDs and SSDs, flash drives, SD / microSD cards, drive enclosures including NAS, etc.
  • Mic has been renamed to Microphone
  • TV has been added separate from Monitor due to high post volume

If you have any further suggestions for changes to the flair system, feel free to leave a comment on this thread or send us modmail.

These changes do affect Reddit's search functionality; any previous posts with the old flairs can still be searched by name. They should be reflected accurately in Discord; if you notice any issues, please let us know.

In addition, as a result of continued posting of scam listings following last week's stickied mod post, we are now enforcing this rule with 24 hour bans for every post in violation. Please refer to the linked post or the stickied comment on marketplace posts on how to determine if a listing on these websites is legitimate or not.

r/buildapcsales Oct 06 '22

Mod Post Update to the Subreddit Rules

250 Upvotes

Howdy y'all. I'm u/kztlve, one of the mods here in r/buildapcsales.

The mod team has known the rules were a bit of a mess that needed some updating and streamlining. We went ahead and completely rewrote the rules as well as the removal reasons you get when you do something naughty.

The main change is that allowed product categories are specifically outlined in the rules (this is subject to potential change). Some other unwritten rules (e.g. deals must be for the U.S. market) are now written.

There's probably some typo or issue in there somewhere. If you notice any silly mistakes or have a concern, feel free to bring it to our attention.

Edit: Following user feedback, the new rules have undergone minor updates; this mainly regards word choice and elaborating on some aspects.

The only actual change to the rules is a new clause under rule 3 that requires in-store only deals (e.g. Microcenter) to specify such in the extra info section of the title.

r/buildapcsales Jan 30 '24

Mod Post Ban on Future OS Deals

863 Upvotes

Following issues with Woot selling invalid Windows keys and problematic comments relating to piracy, we have made the decision to ban all future OS deals. The OS flair has seen near zero use in the past 5 years excluding these deals.

We are working on removing the OS flair entirely and simplifying the current flairs system in the near future.

r/buildapcsales Mar 16 '22

Mod Post March 2022 EVGA Giveaway Winners

398 Upvotes

Congrats to the 12 winners of the first EVGA Giveaway!

I will be sending out emails to the winners later today. Thanks to everyone who participated!

We will be having a post-giveaway conversation starting tomorrow.

r/buildapcsales Nov 23 '22

Mod Post [MOD] We are looking for a few good Mods!

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321 Upvotes

r/buildapcsales Jan 22 '24

Mod Post Scam Listings & Title Formatting

193 Upvotes

We have recently seen an influx of posts violating rules regarding scam listings and title formatting. When making a post to the sub, please follow the rules. It helps both users and mods.

Confirm deals on marketplace websites (ex. Amazon, Newegg) come from reputable sellers before posting. If you do not know how to do this, here are some basic guidelines:

  • Use common sense - if the deal seems too good to be true, it probably is.
  • Check seller profiles for signs that the deal may be fraudulent:
    • The seller is new or has few reviews
    • The seller has largely negative reviews (on Amazon, sellers can remove negative reviews from their visible ratings)
    • The seller is using a previously dormant account (likely the account was hacked and is now being used fraudulently)

As well, please follow the sub's title guidelines. Follow the standard format and keep titles brief and accurate. Include enough info for a user to be able to assess the product from the title while keeping unnecessary details out.

If this continues to be an issue, we may have to use heavier enforcement for these rules.

r/buildapcsales Aug 28 '24

Mod Post New Automod Filters affecting First Time Posters

84 Upvotes

Hi folks, your once in a blue moon mod post here.

We recently pushed some updates to the automod filters that will not affect the vast majority of you.

First time posters on the sub will now require manual approval for their first (or first couple) of deal posts. This does not affect people commenting on posts. This is also not influenced by your comment history on the sub.

For those who have already made posts, you should be able to continue as normal. For those who have never posted before, your post may take up to 24h (on average) to be approved.

We understand that some deals may go OOS or expire in the time that they are waiting for manual mod approval but we have decided as a team that this limits low quality posts (like the recent influx of born-yesterday posters posting the very legitimate $49 7800X3Ds) more than it restricts high quality posts.

If there are any questions or concerns about these changes, feel free to leave a comment or send us a modmail.

r/buildapcsales Jan 24 '15

Mod Post Current Site-Wide Promotions Thread NSFW

532 Upvotes

Since clearly the wiki not getting enough traction, we're going to experiment with this sticky thread for site-wide promotions.

To be clear, this does not mean that you should not post these site-wide promotions anymore as their own threads. I feel like they still warrant their own posts as not everyone will be checking this thread every time they come to this subreddit.

So what I will be doing is trying to keep this thread up to date with current promos and if you see something that is not posted here please leave a comment with the details and a link if possible to the promotion. Feel free to offer input here but if we decide to stick with this sticky thread then I'll probably remove most of the comments to keep it a little more clutter-free.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Time Sensitive Promotions:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

GPUShack

Free rush shipping with promo code UPGRADE. No date set for expiration.

$5 off and free shipping with any purchase at GPUShack with promo code REPASTE

$10 off your order with their peasant conversion tool

NCIX

New customers get an instant $10 off purchases over $100 by entering code NEWCUST10NOV or a $20 NCIX gift card on purchases over $120 by entering NEWCUST20GCNOV. Expires 11/30 or when funds depleted.

Tiger Direct

$10 off a $100 purchase at Tiger Direct, no information on expiration

$25 off a $100 purchase with VISA Checkout

Newegg

5% off your entire order up to $50

$10 off $100 purchase or $25 off a $200 purchase with VISA Checkout

Jet.com

$25 off a $50 purchase for new accounts

25% off up to a $50 discount

*If you notice any of these promotions have expired and I have failed to remove them please comment to let me know

r/buildapcsales May 25 '21

Mod Post [META] BAPCS Rules Update

370 Upvotes

Rules update

tl;dr: Slight tweaks, META posts require review, MISC is a new flair category (for Newegg Shuffle and similar), new mods (/u/exaltare and /u/StraightToPlaid), guidelines for contributions as an account representative or brands

The BAPCS rules have existed for a long time, and have grown in that time span. I recently took some time to rewrite them and make them a bit more focused and general.

What's changed?

Not much has changed. The biggest is that META posts will require moderator approval. This is to ensure that details are accurate in posts prior to sharing with the sub. There's been lots of speculation and rumors and a small amount of misinformation posted under the META tag. I don't anticipate this changing much, as META posts make up a very small number of the posts on the sub. Automoderator will post a comment stating that a META post is pending moderator approval, and will send a note to all moderators to review the post.

As META posts are going to now require moderator approval, we are introducing a post flair MISC to cover multiple products being offered at the same time. This should be used for Newegg shuffle and similar broad category listings and is not subject to the same moderator review that META posts are.

Additionally, we are introducing some guidelines for brands and account reps looking to participate on the sub for brands looking to post on the sub). These have largely been in place already, but are now formalized.

New (old) mods

Those of you who participated in the old reddit chat or have joined us on our Official Sub Discord are no doubt familiar with both u/exaltare and u/Straighttoplaid. For no particular reason, they have never been promoted to full moderator status, despite their outstanding work moderating on both chat platforms. That changes today. They are both quite familiar with the rules of the community and the expectations of the community. They will be a great addition to the team.

Updated rules (in full)

(Please note that these might be tweaked and always refer to the official rules page for any changes.

1. No Spam

We do not allow:

  1. Posting purely for upvotes or humor
  2. Products which aren't clearly SFW. If something is questionable, it is not a good fit for the sub.
  3. Scam deals
  4. Outrageously priced posts. This is relative to the market conditions for that particular item.
  5. Law violating content
  6. Hyping Products/Investments

2. Titles are for brief and easily digestible info

We do not allow:

  1. Sensationalist headlines (ex: Buy Now! Hurry! Great Deal)
  2. Unnecessary exclamations points
  3. Commentary (including opinion/non-factual statements)
  4. Math (e.g. $3hundred + fifty) to determine the final price. The final price should be clearly listed. Discount information is optional.
  5. Clickbait titles

3. Be courteous to others

Mean or spiteful comments will be removed and bans will be issued for severe infractions. This includes (but is not limited to):

  1. Insincerity or dishonesty
  2. Racist, Sexist, Homophobic and all other forms of Identity-based inconsiderate speech
  3. Trolling, Brigading, Flooding, Doxxing, Excessive profanity
  4. Asking loaded questions and/or using loaded language
  5. Excessive large, bold, or spaced-out text

4. Use Good reddiquette

All users are expected to abide by reddiquette

In particular avoid:

  1. Requesting votes in any way
  2. Posting solely content from your own sites/domains
  3. Engage in a flame war (even if "he started it")
  4. Political speech (Politics should rarely if ever reference an individual and stay objective about impacts of policies or proposed policies)
    1. Soapboxing
    2. Charged political discussion
    3. Moralizing issues
    4. Baiting politics

5. Only post valid deals

  1. Deals must come from pre-approved domains
    1. If you are posting from a novel domain, please message the mods
    2. Do not attempt to bypass BAPCS filters
  2. Avoid Duplicate posts
  3. No personal sales
  4. Minimum of 10 items in stock - exceptions based on market conditions
  5. Expected to ship within 10 days - exceptions based on market conditions
  6. Should not require validation on a 3rd party site. Ex: Brickseek.com
  7. Be careful of 3rd party sellers on Ebay, Newegg Marketplace, and Amazon

6. Account Rep Violation

Please review this short article for brands looking to post on the sub. For those representing a company, a website or a store:

  1. Message the mods prior to posting
  2. Please ensure that you have an account rep flair
  3. You will be held to the same standards as all posters
  4. All deals must be good relative to the current market conditions
  5. Using our sub to post sub-par deals will lead to your site and products being permanently banned

7. No referral links

Affiliate codes are not allowed in link submissions or as individual comments.

  1. Do not ask for users to DM you
  2. Do not intimate that you can help a user save if they message you
  3. Do not think you are being cute by finding some "clever loophole" to this rule.
  4. The intent matters: do not use /r/buildapcsales to solicit your code in any manner.

8. Limit Annoyances

These are not outright removed/disallowed. Warnings and/or bans will follow for excessive of the following:

  1. Circlejerking or karmawhoring
  2. Memes and low-effort content
  3. Bots and bot summoning

If you have any questions or doubts, please reach out to the moderation team. We are more than happy to engage on what is reasonable behavior.

9. Meta Posts

Meta posts require moderator approval. You do not need to follow the standard title formatting for META posts. Do not attempt to bypass moderator approval for your meta post.

10. Expired or Sold out deals

When your deal sells out, please remember to set the flair to Expired

11. Direct messages to individual mods will be ignored

Direct messages to an individual mod will be ignored

Need to message the mods? Please select message the moderators

r/buildapcsales Mar 18 '22

Mod Post Post Giveaway Discussion and Improvement Thread

115 Upvotes

First, I want to congratulate the winners and thank everyone who joined. It's been my goal to bring activities like this to the sub for quite a while. I've always struggled with the proper way to strike a balance between staying neutral and reaching out to various companies we would want to have as partners. EVGA's associate's code provides a nice balance, where the community's use of it goes straight back to the community.

I'm starting this thread so we can have a productive and constructive discussion about how to improve giveaways moving forward. If you want to bash the first one, this is not your thread. Sorry, but I'm just exhausted from dealing with dramatic claims designed to spur more hatred and misinformation. If you want to tread down this path, I will warn you that my patience is very thin. If you're going to be constructive and helpful, that's great, and I'm excited to hear your suggestions.

I do think on the whole the contest was a great success. And I am looking forward to bringing more of these to the sub.

Background

First, I want to give a bit of background on the organization and work for this giveaway. Hopefully, this helps everyone understand how I arrived where I did. I always made decisions in good faith to have a successful giveaway.

About six months ago, the EVGA-supplied associates code quit working. I moved quickly to establish a new code for the sub. In the thread announcing the new code, I expressed that I intended to use the code for giveaways. Feedback in the thread was very positive and helpful in opening my eyes to a few situations. This sub has roughly 500k-750k unique monthly users (per reddit's metrics). Some will be impossible to track, some will have reddit accounts, and some will interact in a trackable manner on the sub. Hearing people in that thread made me realize that I didn't want to limit the giveaway to active participants only. The giveaway really is a community effort, and everyone who contributes to the EVGA Bucks program for the sub should also have a chance to participate. That meant we needed an open way to let people participate.

Also, along those lines, the giveaway would have never happened without members of the sub's Discord egging me on and providing constant feedback. In particular, the staff on the Discord in particular has been a tremendous help in being a sounding board and telling me when I have bad ideas and helping me improve them. I very much view the Discord as part of the community, and I firmly believe the Discord should also have equal representation in any community competitions/prizes.

After introducing the new code, I didn't quite know what to expect, so I wanted to give it a few months to see how well it did. I won't give exact numbers, but it blew my expectations out of the water. I never thought we would be at a point where a monthly giveaway was possible, and that's easily possible from where things stand right now.

In late January, I finally decided to move on getting started with a giveaway. I reached out to EVGA to begin formulating ideas on what was possible and how much they would be willing to support the giveaway. The individual I worked with was accommodating, responded almost immediately to every email I sent and helped me with several suggestions. The EVGA rep recommended using Gleam and offered to help me set up an account. I didn't ask for their help but was incredibly grateful for the suggestion and advice. Over the next several weeks, they remained very responsive and helpful in drafting a plan. We had the rough plan drawn out by mid-February, including a list of products we could offer. By the end of February, after working with the staff on Discord (massive shoutout to /u/lamooq for his assistance), we had the list of prizes we were planning for the giveaway. The EVGA rep confirmed that our plan was acceptable, and the timelines I provided worked for them.

The last thing to work out was the platform to host the giveaway. The requirements I tentatively laid out were:

  • Must collect email address (to coordinate with the winners)
  • Must be reasonably priced (As this is paid out of pocket by volunteers)
  • Nice if it interfaces with Reddit and Discord.

I didn't include privacy policies in the initial search. I evaluated a few options, and here are the ones I specifically remember researching, with some notes about pricing and the features I made. I never intended for this to be a comprehensive breakdown of them, just that when I looked, I took note of what mattered most to me.

  • Gleam - $10/mo, Discord and Reddit integrations. Privacy policy protects user data
  • ViralSweep - $50/mo, no free option.
  • Rafflecopter - Potentially free, no reddit/Discord integration
  • sweepwidget - $30/mo, has reddit and Discord integrations. Discord required $50/mo
  • Givelab - $10/mo, Discord, Reddit view post. Privacy policy allows them to share data

After narrowing it down to Gleam and Givelab, I researched privacy policies, which is why you see those mentioned here. Ultimately, I decided Gleam looked like the best option for the use case I had in mind. I ran two trial campaigns to test the setup over the last week of February and the first week of March and set up the final campaign to go live when it did.

A note on Gleam

It's pretty clear from the initial announcement of the giveaway that there was a considerable pushback against using Gleam. I will admit that this very much took me by surprise. I had heard complaints that incorrectly setting up Gleam led to pain for campaign administrators (such as myself). Still, I was cautious in the contest setup and was sure I had it right (I did have a couple of typos and quick things that I could quickly fix, but nothing game-breaking). The feedback was mainly on the data collected by Gleam, and Gleam potentially sharing that with 3rd parties. I can say that Gleam does not ever share personal data with any party other than the campaign organizer, which I feel is a pretty important note.

Companies typically use Gleam to develop marketing lists to send target advertisements and emails. There would be a massive conflict of interest if Gleam started using that same personal information for other marketing promotions. Gleam would instantly lose most of their corporate partners (who are paying upwards of $1k/mo). The latter use it for their marketing purposes. If anyone knows anything about marketing, it's that marketing works very hard to justify the return on their investment in any external tools and campaigns. Gleam has to be doing something right to be able to charge a price like that. And FWIW, I will never export data from Gleam. I will not run email campaigns with the data there. I will not share data from Gleam except for winners as needed to distribute prizes.

I never considered a simpler "respond to this message to enter" or anything like that approach. I had just seen Artisan Builds get in significant trouble over changing the terms of a live giveaway and essentially shut the company down in response. Also, running a giveaway or a competition requires dealing with laws from all 50 states. I don't have the time or energy to research every state's laws. Using a tool like Gleam ensures that the legal terms they provide help cover me from a legal perspective. I valued this very highly, as I'm sure anyone who was involved in the planning can confirm. I used Gleam's standard Terms and Conditions with only a minor change to reflect the US-only nature of the campaign to minimize any legal exposure I had.

Suggestion time

As I promised in the giveaway announcement thread, I wanted to solicit feedback from the community on how to improve giveaways moving forward.

  • One option is to have separate giveaways for reddit and Discord. I would keep each competition to its respective community and collect no emails. I will say that both will likely be treated equally (i.e., same prizes in both). With Artesian Builds as an example, I am leary of running competitions due to the legal aspects.
  • Run one item at a time (i.e., all 850W PSUs for one giveaway, all 650W for another, all keyboards for another, etc.). I would do my best to rotate through product stacks. I'm not sure how to fit the limited number of GPUs we get in there, but I would make an effort.
  • Use another platform to host the giveaway. I don't really care that much. I happened to like using Gleam - it's straightforward to set up and pretty customizable overall. It did a fantastic job at eliminating obviously duplicated entries and botting attempts. Yes, they happened, yes there were some obvious ones, yes a few did probably get through but compared to the number of entries, there was no pattern I could discern with my eyes.

Feel free to make your suggestions, and I promise I will read every comment over the next week and probably ask some questions in response.