After reading people's thoughts here and PMs from various donators about the Leaderboard idea. I think I will shelve it for now. Most folks didn't have a problem with it, but also didn't want to participate in it either. Since the whole point was supposed to be Community engagement, I don't see a reason to do it at this time when the Community doesn't really want to participate. To those of you that liked the idea and wanted to participate, I apologize that I won't be moving forward with it.

Thank you for the effort and for trying to find new ways to encourage the Community engagement :-)

Benkii if a game is a Amazon "free" (still need membership so not really free) game it might be worth noting it as a Amazon Gog game even if the game was bought outside of Amazon. The main point of labeling Amazon or not is to know if the game is available for Amazon Prime members?

Similarly please mark Amazon starred games as Amazon.

On the other topic, what Cavalary said about gamifying donations makes sense. it also cheapens donating IMO, It also represents more work and a additional point of contention. I don't really see much benefit in return. Do you really think anyone would donate more or feel more appreciated with a leaderboard? I didn't read many of the posts though.

Way I see it, the point of marking them is to know that:
1) The lack of a number means there are plenty of them, not just one as it'd be for "regular" keys.
2) The keys have an expiration date.
3) They may have a different product ID which may cause some oddities in library and order history.
4) They weren't specifically purchased by someone in order to be donated, but received and unneeded. That may also make a difference for those who are rather edgy about requesting.

But yes, based on all of that, starred codes that are from Amazon giveaways should be marked as such too, for those reasons.

I disagree. It would be misleading. And people should know, that the key is not going to expire.

The list of currently available Amazon games is not long, you can always check it in respective topic when necessary.
Keys, distributed in a bulk, should never be starred.

Tomb Raider Remastered experiment clearly shows, that the product is not high-demand. Participants / keys ratio is constantly low.

Therefore, most of the users, who want the game, receive it. Just like in first come - first served approach.

I completely disagree. I was about to comment how well I think the starred game approach works here (equivalent to having the other amazon keys start as regular keys, before going to daggered).

There have been two batches of this game so far, for 5 and 2 keys, and both have had more people entering for it than there were keys. That means more people who think the game is "worth" 3 months of no other keys - or in other words, these games are going to people who really want them. If they had been regular keys, I strongly suspect the pool of people who'd have asked for them would be much larger, and far fewer of this smaller group of people who really want them would've gotten one.

Maybe, eventually, the supply will outstrip the demand, and some keys for the game will be listed as regular keys. But at least at that point we'll know that everyone who really wanted one will have gotten one, so people who're only mildly interested in the game won't need to feel that if they request a key, they'll be depriving someone else who'd have enjoyed the key more.

I agree completely.

I also agree considering there were 7 keys for the game and probably there will be more. If the keys become more than the entrants though and the approach have to be changed it would kinda suck for those who already joined for starred TR so probably it would not be a good idea to be changed or if a change have to be made it has to affect those who already won it too I think. Its an interesting situation because the game is new, very good value but still this is a collection of 25+ years old games. Personally I thought somewhere in the middle would be ideal for the games - for example special 2 months waiting period just for the TR games.

Don't argue with me about it, it wasn't my call. With Tomb raiders 1-3 from amazon was/is starred. Because popular expensive item I was told. I'm rather indifferent on that point, just if you are going to do that please indicate it's Amazon keys. It won't be confusing if you just put (amazon) at the end of the game name or something.

Could there be games that are starred in the sense you draw for them but don't make you wait 3 months before you can ask for another game? I'll leave it to others to determine the terms for it.

Just slightly more.
I am against random distribution, not against longer cool-downs. The compromise solution would be to require 2 - 3 months cool-down for more popular Amazon games, but still with first come - first served approach.

Amazon keys keep coming. So people, who are first to ask, have no benefit here.
It is also possible, that some users enter the draws just for the entertainment of gambling. Not because they really want the game.

Does it suck for those who request a regular amazon key when it becomes daggered later? To me, that feels equivalent, and that's happening all the time. I think it's desirable! I personally got several such keys immediately, rather than having to gamble on being around when they got daggered weeks to months later. (And for the starred Tomb Raider keys, no one - including probably BenKii - knows if the point where they're no longer starred will even be reached.)

Ah, that was not at all clear from your previous message.

After a moment's consideration, I'm personally neutral about the random distribution versus first come with a longer cooldown. The longer cooldown is what I think does most good in the current situation - the random distribution feels to me like it makes it more "fair" to people who only look in occasionally and then see one of their highly desired games - but if that part was done away with, I'd not give it a second thought either.

You are right - I didn't even think that this happens all the time with other amazon keys but still its only 1 month for regular vs 3 times longer period (3 months) - I think this is a significant difference to be mentioned

BenKii shelved gamifying the donations, as explained two posts above yours.
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/gog_community_giveaway_tradition_discussion_and_poll/post1126

Given the surge in requests that happens now when the Amazon keys expiring in the new month get daggered, I thought it could be worthwhile to implement a rule limiting requests to 1 (per user of course, and) per "processing cycle".
In other words: after requesting a game, the user must wait until BenKii awards it before being allowed to request another one.

Given that BenKii usually goes through requests every other day or so, and that he daggers keys well in advance of their expiry date, I don't think it would be a problem.
This most likely should be limited to daggered keys, and not apply to "no forum participation required" last-call ones.

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Advantages: it would clean up and streamline the CG thread a bit after the batch of Amazon keys get daggered, reduce BenKii's load as it wouldn't happen all at once and there would be less "not approved" requests, and allow more users to get the game they desire the most as it would reduce the inevitable front-running by people who happen to check in first after the "key daggering".
Drawbacks: I can see some people being concerned with "what if the single request gets denied", but since the number of keys is available and it's quite simple to count the number of preceding requests for a given game, we're just currently being lazy at BenKii's cost by blindly requesting keys "in case there're some left" and the cost to after that behavior isn't that high IMO. I can also see some people editing their request and making new ones as they see some keys going away faster than they anticipated and/or just changing their mind, potentially negating the whole benefit (for BenKii, as the benefit for the requesters would remain) of it by turning the thread back into the same kind of bazaar, but I think it's worth trying out to see how widespread such behaviors would turn out to be.
And most likely some other drawbacks I haven't thought of (?).
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I don't know what everyone thinks of this, and maybe it's been suggested before, but seeing how big a job it's become every start of the month, I thought I'd throw it out here for discussion.

Something to think about. Most of the surge of requests are over now so I'll keep this in mind for the future if Amazon is gonna keep doing these mass giveaways.