A few days ago, Scratch user -TheBlackParade- posted a topic that raised some questions about the appropriateness of the ST changing their icons, featuring projects, etc. for Pride Month and other politically charged events. It accrued over 100 posts and over 1000 views, and prompted an official response from the ST.

ceebee wrote:

Thanks for bringing this up. If we understand correctly, the issue you’re raising is that it’s hard to be a Scratcher and have members of the Scratch Team share content which may not match your own opinions or beliefs. We understand this concern, and will continue to discuss it as a team.

We think it’s important to explain why we chose to feature a project supporting Pride Month, and why Scratch Team members sometimes share projects or icons related to LGBTQ+ issues. The Community Guidelines say, “Scratch welcomes people of all ages, races, ethnicities, religions, sexual orientations, and gender identities.” We believe Scratch should be a space for people to express themselves and share what is important to their lives such as race, gender, religion, etc. We feel respectful comments, projects, and studios about LGBTQ+ are appropriate for the Scratch website. When someone shares their identity, or celebrates their friend’s identity, we want to support that. When someone shares something that is against another person’s identity, we see that as unfriendly and unwelcoming. As members of the Scratch community, Scratch Team members create and share projects about topics important to us, and for some of us, that includes sharing LGBTQ-related projects. And we hope this will inspire other Scratchers to create content about topics that are important to their lives.

In regards to concerns about the recent feature of a “Pride Month” related project. We chose to feature this because it was a project related to a current event, Pride Month, which is important to many people on Scratch. Moreover, the project had a supportive message and expressed the desire of a group to be treated with the same dignity and respect as members of any other group - which we think is a cornerstone of the Scratch Community. The decision to feature a project about a current event is not unique. In fact, we often feature projects related to events that are important to many Scratchers. This includes holidays like Christmas, Easter, Lunar New Year, Hanukkah, and Ramadan and events like the beginning of school or Pi Day. We appreciate that Scratchers can remain respectful of the many diverse events and holidays celebrated on Scratch even when some events aren’t important to some individuals.

Thanks and I hope this clarifies your questions.

The suggestion then descended into pointless political debate, despite –TheBlackParade-‘s efforts to quell it, and the ST closed the topic. Understandable, but it shut off debate on a very important issue.

3 attempts to restart the topic by Gallegio, MathlyCat, and Blaze349 were closed for ‘normalising homophobia’, ‘going off-topic’ and ‘the ST has already explained their stance’ respectively.

It’s those last two that really bug me. It’s not the creator’s fault that the suggestion went offtopic, surely the ST can just remove the offending posts?

And the last one just doesn’t make sense. When ST member ceebee posted the official response on the original topic, the conversation was allowed to flow for 3 more pages of discussion before it was closed for another reason. Users should be allowed to continue to discuss the stance on those other topics as long as the topic is not closed for another reason.

Closing these sorts of topics just brushes the issue under the carpet. The issue will not go away.

Anyway…

I feel like the official response above is inadequate. It brushes off the bad effects of the political activities that the ST enters into with a ‘we’re looking into it’. Then it goes on to explain the intent behind these political activities. I 100% agree with this intent, it’s great that Scratch is supporting LGBT people and sticking to the CG in that respect. But they are ignoring the effects this has on members of the community who have different or opposite views.

I propose (thus making this a suggestion) that the ST adopts an immediate policy of political neutrality. So

1. The Scratch Team refrains from putting anything political or remotely controversial on the Front Page. I don't think this should apply to educational projects about a religious holiday, so long as that project only teaches, and doesn't try to convince others that this custom is better than their customs or something or that they should convert to that religion.
2. The Scratch Team refrains from changing their profile picture or forum signatures to express a political stance.
3. The Scratch Team can, if they would like, share their political views in their about me/WIWO, but should make it clear that these are personal beliefs and not everybody has to share them. Similarly, they can express their political views in comments.
4. The Scratch Team refrains from following/curating political studios, but can leave supportive comments in these studios.
5. The Scratch Team can share political projects, so long as they express that these are just their personal views and by no means are the only valid viewpoint. Furthermore, these should be NFEd to prevent being top loved/top remixed and appearing on the Front Page.
6. Other users can express themselves in whatever appropriate and respectful way they so choose. Non Scratch Team-made political projects can be top loved or curated, but the Scratch Team should refrain from putting these on the Front Page themselves.
7. The Scratch Team continues to delete all comments that are disrespectful in any way.

Thanks to -TheBlackParade for creating and editing this list. Strikethrough text are edits to the original that could be reverted.

If the ST wish to support LGBT people, they should spend more time moderating and removing all the hate which is unfortunately prevalent on LGBT projects. Under this proposal, they can also do so on their WIWO/About Me or in their own projects, but must make it explicitly clear that these are personal views and not the only correct viewpoint.

READ BEFORE POSTING

This suggestion does not advocate for homophobia or censorship. As Blaze349 put it, we only want neutrality, which would be applied equally to all political issues, not just LGBT.

This suggestion only wants these standards to apply to the ST. Users would still be as free as ever to create as they please (within the CG). This includes the Top Loved, Top Remixed and Curated rows (but not the Featured Projects or Studios, as these are chosen by the ST).

This suggestion is not a place for political debate, nor is the Scratch website in general. Only post things relevant to the topic - The ST should not make political statements. (If you want to post on what constitutes a political statement, I would recommend opening a new topic)

Please don't dramatize your posts, especially if they relate to specific examples. That leads to flaming, and flaming gets the topic closed and we're back to square one.

EDIT: Just discovered MathlyCat's topic was actually closed because ‘the forums are not for reports’. The problems with that reason is 1) They weren't reporting a project, they were suggesting that the ST stop making political statements like featuring a LGBT pride flag project 2) The problem was not that the featured creator's project was breaking the rules in itself, the problem was that the ST was endorsing it.

Another one of these threads? Lot's of these have already been posted and closed

scrooge100 wrote:

Another one of these threads? Lot's of these have already been posted and closed

I know, I acknowledged this in the OP.

cul8er wrote:

scrooge100 wrote:

Another one of these threads? Lot's of these have already been posted and closed

I know, I acknowledged this in the OP.

op means original poster

scrooge100 wrote:

cul8er wrote:

scrooge100 wrote:

Another one of these threads? Lot's of these have already been posted and closed

I know, I acknowledged this in the OP.

op means original poster

OP = Original Post
The point is, I have acknowledged this.

cul8er wrote:

And the last one [the ST has already explained their stance] just doesn’t make sense. When ST member ceebee posted the official response, the conversation was allowed to flow for 3 more pages of discussion before it was closed for another reason. Users should be allowed to continue to discuss the stance as long as the topic is not closed for another reason.

Mind rewording that? That's a bit contradicting…

I feel like the official response above is inadequate. It brushes off the bad effects of the political activities that the ST enters into with a ‘we’re looking into it’. Then it goes on to explain the intent behind these political activities. I 100% agree with this intent, it’s great that Scratch is supporting LGBT people and sticking to the CG in that respect. But they are ignoring the effects this has on members of the community who have different or opposite views.

ceebee has already stated that they support all groups. Besides, I feel that its okay because many different parts of Scratch are having their share of attention, whether that be LGBTQ, New Years, or other local but known events. Though I don't agree with what they're doing in terms of family life, I don't agree that we should persecute them based on what they think is right.
In a similar manner, some people may not agree with what I believe, and they shouldn't persecute me for my reasonings or activities that I think is okay to do. Therefore, the Scratch team, based on this philosophy, has decided that it's best to accept all communities and give them equal attention to the best of their ability.

cul8er wrote:

scrooge100 wrote:

cul8er wrote:

scrooge100 wrote:

Another one of these threads? Lot's of these have already been posted and closed

I know, I acknowledged this in the OP.

op means original poster

OP = Original Post
The point is, I have acknowledged this.

Actually, no

It will sometimes mean ‘overpowered’ in the world of online gaming. More commonly, OP means ‘original poster’ in discussion forums. The original poster is the person who started a discussion thread, and OP is used to refer back to that person as the responses grow.Apr 21, 2017

Google.com! It works great!

Finally I have a chance to actually post something before the ST shuts it down because of phobias.
Support. If you're a owner of a major website, you should be neutral to prevent some conflicts in the first place xD
It's the community that matters more.

scrooge100 wrote:

cul8er wrote:

scrooge100 wrote:

cul8er wrote:

scrooge100 wrote:

Another one of these threads? Lot's of these have already been posted and closed

I know, I acknowledged this in the OP.

op means original poster

OP = Original Post
The point is, I have acknowledged this.

Actually, no

It will sometimes mean ‘overpowered’ in the world of online gaming. More commonly, OP means ‘original poster’ in discussion forums. The original poster is the person who started a discussion thread, and OP is used to refer back to that person as the responses grow.Apr 21, 2017

Google.com! It works great!

“OP” is used on Scratch to mean either “original post” or “original poster”. Cul8er was referring to the original post, let's just leave it at that, this is not a good reason to get off topic.

cul8er wrote:

snip (I'm quoting the original post)

For the reasons I outlined in the previous threads, I support this idea. Scratch is supposed to be a welcoming community for everybody, and when the Scratch Team expresses a political opinion, although I can't imagine this is intentional, it sort of gives the feeling that Scratch has an official stance (which is that political opinion) and it makes those who don't share in that opinion feel unwelcomed. Furthermore, many view the Scratch Team as role models and I don't think this is the place to try to convince people of a specific stance on a controversial issue.

Anyway, we've already heard what the Scratch Team has to say about this, and we can argue and argue about whether the ST's freedom of expression is more or less important than ensuring that everybody feels welcome, but I don't think that will get us anywhere. So ultimately I think the only way this issue will be resolved is to find a balance between the Scratch Team's right to express themselves and everybody's right to feel welcomed to the community.

Lastly, just to reiterate what the original post said, this is not a thread to argue politics. If it turns into that, it will probably be closed, and I think it would be great if this issue could be resolved. If you have something to contribute which will contribute to the discussion of the issue of whether or not it is okay for the Scratch Team to take a stance on a political issue, great, please post it. Otherwise, if you want to talk about what constitutes a political stance, debate why people would/wouldn't support specific things, here is not the place.

DownsGameClub wrote:

cul8er wrote:

And the last one [the ST has already explained their stance] just doesn’t make sense. When ST member ceebee posted the official response, the conversation was allowed to flow for 3 more pages of discussion before it was closed for another reason. Users should be allowed to continue to discuss the stance as long as the topic is not closed for another reason.

Mind rewording that? That's a bit contradicting…

I feel like the official response above is inadequate. It brushes off the bad effects of the political activities that the ST enters into with a ‘we’re looking into it’. Then it goes on to explain the intent behind these political activities. I 100% agree with this intent, it’s great that Scratch is supporting LGBT people and sticking to the CG in that respect. But they are ignoring the effects this has on members of the community who have different or opposite views.

ceebee has already stated that they support all groups. Besides, I feel that its okay because many different parts of Scratch are having their share of attention, whether that be LGBTQ, New Years, or other local but known events. Though I don't agree with what they're doing in terms of family life, I don't agree that we should persecute them based on what they think is right.
In a similar manner, some people may not agree with what I believe, and they shouldn't persecute me for my reasonings or activities that I think is okay to do. Therefore, the Scratch team, based on this philosophy, has decided that it's best to accept all communities and give them equal attention to the best of their ability.

Successfully reworded!
For your second point, that is true, but it's really hard for Scratch to do that without making parts of the community feel unwelcomed. (This was the reason the threads were created in the first place). It's lot easier to just be totally neutral, featuring projects and studios based on their creativity, aesthetic, etc.

How about this:

No political or religious projects on the front page

No hateful social activism content on the front page

No positive social activism content on the front page

Everyone is happy.

Blaze349 wrote:

How about this:

No political or religious projects on the front page

No hateful social activism content on the front page

No positive social activism content on the front page

Everyone is happy.

I think it is better for users to keep their freedom of speech. But

No political or religious projects endorsed by the ST

No hateful social activism content endorsed by the ST

No positive social activism content endorsed by the ST

I recently posted this

Since the ST are viewed as educators shouldn't they be under the same scrutiny as other educators? If a teacher posted in the school newsletter about bridges not walls then imagine the reaction…

While the ST may not be ‘educators’ they have a similar level of responsibility with the children that visit this site. Teachers that push whatever political opinion on a child are seen as brainwashers whether or not it was intentional. This is because young children cannot properly discern what to believe and simply consume information and ideals. I know the ST isn't trying to brain wash young children but unfortunately that may be the outcome.

Blaze349 wrote:

I recently posted this

Since the ST are viewed as educators shouldn't they be under the same scrutiny as other educators? If a teacher posted in the school newsletter about bridges not walls then imagine the reaction…

While the ST may not be ‘educators’ they have a similar level of responsibility with the children that visit this site. Teachers that push whatever political opinion on a child are seen as brainwashers whether or not it was intentional. This is because young children cannot properly discern what to believe and similar to consume information and ideals. I know the ST isn't trying to brain wash young children but unfortunately that may be the outcome.

'Brainwash' is a bit strong. But I agree that this is one of the problems.

cul8er wrote:

'Brainwash' is a bit strong.

True.

Support, so Scratch won't be banned in some countries, just because of Scratch Team that wants to support LGBT, that would make Scratch lose many of good programmers that are wanting to start their adventure. Scratch is NOT a site for supporting any group, or hating it. It's a programming site.

Can't we just end this already? This has been controversial already and I do not want to see more of it. Scratch Team already had their say on it.

It doesn't hurt to welcome minorities.

MeIoetta wrote:

Support, so Scratch won't be banned in some countries, just because of Scratch Team that wants to support LGBT, that would make Scratch lose many of good programmers that are wanting to start their adventure. Scratch is NOT a site for supporting any group, or hating it. It's a programming site.

The Terms of Use (section 12) state that Scratch operates under US law. And I disagree with you in that I feel that it is important for users to keep their free speech within the CG, I don't want that blocked as a result of this suggestion. I agree with the ST that you are and should be allowed to support any group or organisation, within reason. But it is not a site for hate, that is true.

PrincessPanda_test_ wrote:

Can't we just end this already? This has been controversial already and I do not want to see more of it. Scratch Team already had their say on it.

It doesn't hurt to welcome minorities.

It's a conversation that needs to be had. I'm not saying it hurts to welcome minorities. And just because the ST had their say, does not mean the discussion is over.

PrincessPanda_test_ wrote:

Can't we just end this already? This has been controversial already and I do not want to see more of it. Scratch Team already had their say on it.

It doesn't hurt to welcome minorities.

It is getting a little bit irritating/repetitive but I don't see any harm in discussing it even if it is rejected.