1. Scratcher decides to make projects with the goal of becoming popular.
   
   
2. Scratcher makes derivative, low-quality projects in pursuit of this goal.
   
   
3. Scratcher is rewarded with loves, favorites, and follows.
   

This cycle is the center of many complaints I have seen, both recently and less recently. I believe this cycle is an accurate depiction of the cause of the problem. I have evidence supporting this, which I will go into in-depth.

Some contributing factors are not inherently bad, and don’t need to be “fixed”. Keep this in mind as you read.

Step one is caused by people seeing popularity as the end goal. This results from the core audience Scratch is made for, some parts of the community, as well as aspects of the Scratch website’s design.
Many parts of the internet make fun of “nine-year-olds” who are stereotyped as following trends too much, being toxic or cringy, or generally lacking sophistication.
Whether this is rooted in fact or not (and if so, whether older groups are any better) is up for debate, but Scratch’s core audience is in that age range of 8-16. This means that most users have a prefrontal cortex that hasn’t matured, as that only happens at 25. It also means that many users will be using Scratch after (or during) school, looking more for entertainment than for a deep experience.
This may lead to a perception of Scratch from these users as being closer to Youtube than Github, if you will.









Scratch’s community doesn’t help this much. F4F comments, “Famous Scratcher” projects and studios, and love/favorite/follow requests are all reflections of a mentality of fame being considered inherently good.

Now, you might say that this is simply the community’s problem, but I would disagree. The way an interface is designed can radically alter the experience, and Scratch’s design is an example of this.
I would like to start by giving the Scratch Team credit for some things they have done, such as not showing project stats in Search, followers on a user page, and removing the message button on the creation interface. However, all of this is ruined by what seems like a normal design choice.





The site displays project stats very upfront, making them feel like something that of course you want to see. That sends the message that the numbers matter.



Making the followers bar visible immediately from clicking on a user page is also a problem. It also gives the followers list a sense of importance (when there’s little that following someone actually does), and also could make new Scratchers feel odd or left out when their bars are “empty”.

Because the numbers are emphasized by both the community and the website’s design, it creates the impression that those numbers are desirable.

The scratcher then makes derivative platformers/animations with the well-intentioned backpack, and is rewarded by the nine-year-old audience with loves and favorites. This can also put them on the front page via the “what the community is loving” tab, despite the fact that they likely did very little work.

The core problem with this cycle is simple: Scratch is supposed to be an educational site. This cycle puts an emphasis on fame, and thus compromises the value of integrity and quality. When uninspired projects make the front page, that discourages quality.

When quality and effort is discouraged, we have a problem on our hands.

Please discuss below! I will put my proposed solutions in a separate post directly below, as my main point is to start discussion around the problems that we are trying to solve.

Here are some possible solutions:

• Ban “Famous Scratcher” projects and studios. These create the impression that fame is a desirable trait, and that shouldn’t be an impression people should have.
  
• Users get a message when someone they follow shares a project. This makes a follow more meaningful, and discouraged following hundreds of people.
  
• Collapse “following” and “followers” into one “tabbed” box, with “following” being the default. This reduces the emphasis of follower count in the UX.
  
• Require users to manually show view/love/favorite/remix stats. It can be interesting to see these numbers, but making them things you have to “show” should reduce the emphasis on popularity. The love and favorite buttons will still exist, just without the numbers next to them.
  
• Remove the “what the community is loving” tab. I don’t trust nine-year-olds to run a meritocracy, but maybe that’s just me.
  
• In order to avoid the remixing tab becoming a replacement, add a one-hour delay between when a remix is created and when it can be shared.
  

I cannot call all of these ideas mine. However, as this thread is supposed to mostly discuss the problem and solutions in general, rather than a specific solution, I am completely fine with that. I am simply listing those here as reference.
Please share your own ideas if you have any.

These are some nice suggestions! However, making “suggestions lists” is not very effective(People get confused, it's harder to have meaningful discussion if there are several suggestions, etc), so it's better if you make a separate topic for each suggestion.

Also, make sure you search the forums and see if your suggestion has been posted about before, I see several things that have been suggested before. Because if it is, you can continue the conversation there. I would recommend checking out this topic to search.

Banning “Famous Scratchers” studios is a duplicate.

My point in this thread is not to propose specific solutions, rather, to describe the problems to be solved, so that Scratch Team know what they have to fix. My solutions are simply possibilities, which is why they are in a separate comment.

I don't want to get too involved here so I'll just add this which I wrote in an earlier topic a couple days ago. It was mainly about followers but it appliea to any sort of internet fame.

BearSlothCoding wrote:

Followers are great motivation to know that people liked you enough to follow you, as long as you're not obsessed with it. The Scratch Team knew this sort of thing would happen eventually (young children and internet popularity don't mix well) when they made following a thing, yet they still did it. Obviously, there is a reason.

I want to keep followers as a thing, and tracking follow count is interesting, however, I want to make it just a little bit less obvious to view.

SelixScratch wrote:

Here are some possible solutions:

• Ban “Famous Scratcher” projects and studios. These create the impression that fame is a desirable trait, and that shouldn’t be an impression people should have.
  
• Users get a message when someone they follow shares a project. This makes a follow more meaningful, and discouraged following hundreds of people.
  
• Collapse “following” and “followers” into one “tabbed” box, with “following” being the default. This reduces the emphasis of follower count in the UX.
  
• Require users to manually show view/love/favorite/remix stats. It can be interesting to see these numbers, but making them things you have to “show” should reduce the emphasis on popularity. The love and favorite buttons will still exist, just without the numbers next to them.
  
• Remove the “what the community is loving” tab. I don’t trust nine-year-olds to run a meritocracy, but maybe that’s just me.
  
• In order to avoid the remixing tab becoming a replacement, add a one-hour delay between when a remix is created and when it can be shared.
  

Please share your own ideas if you have any.

1. it is a duplicate that @WindOctahedron posted
2. That is an interesting suggestion, and I think that making it more meaningful would be good. Support! I am assuming it would only be for a project though, and not other activity
3. That is an interesting idea, but I am not sure how I feel about it yet
4. No support as that is just to show what people like and what other people might like. Also, what is a meritocracy? Imma look that up. (Plus, it would be 12 year olds running it, there are mostly 12 year olds on scratch)
5. I think that is interesting, but should be a separate suggestion in itself.

BearSlothCoding wrote:

I don't want to get too involved here so I'll just add this which I wrote in an earlier topic a couple days ago. It was mainly about followers but it appliea to any sort of internet fame.

BearSlothCoding wrote:

Followers are great motivation to know that people liked you enough to follow you, as long as you're not obsessed with it. The Scratch Team knew this sort of thing would happen eventually (young children and internet popularity don't mix well) when they made following a thing, yet they still did it. Obviously, there is a reason.

100% agreed.
I'm not against followers. They were a good addition to the website. I like to know that lots of different people enjoy the content i make and post for fun. Of course, i would not encourage followers as your ONLY motivation, because that's just not right.

and is rewarded by the nine-year-old audience with loves and favorites

Why are you blaming nine year olds for this?

Scratch’s community doesn’t help this much. F4F comments, “Famous Scratcher” projects and studios, and love/favorite/follow requests are all reflections of a mentality of fame being considered inherently good.

I disapprove of F4F or contests/raffles that reward you loves, faves, and follows. Ya gotta earn 'em.

The core problem with this cycle is simple: Scratch is supposed to be an educational site.This cycle puts an emphasis on fame, and thus compromises the value of integrity and quality. When uninspired projects make the front page, that discourages quality.

When quality and effort is discouraged, we have a problem on our hands.

Yes. Most projects on the top loved are either platformers with some kind of simple theme where you are a block jumping over spikes. And animations by ‘famous animators’. No offense, but most of those are not funny. I like 7sofa and Sterlon, though. And, to be honest, most of the famous animators are just begging for followers.

So really, despite their coding skills (possibly) some famous Scratchers are not good role models and beg for followers.
I agree with some of what you say.

That took me an awful long time to type.

Edit:

SelixScratch wrote:

Here are some possible solutions:

• Ban “Famous Scratcher” projects and studios. These create the impression that fame is a desirable trait, and that shouldn’t be an impression people should have.
  
• Users get a message when someone they follow shares a project. This makes a follow more meaningful, and discouraged following hundreds of people.
  
• Collapse “following” and “followers” into one “tabbed” box, with “following” being the default. This reduces the emphasis of follower count in the UX.
  
• Require users to manually show view/love/favorite/remix stats. It can be interesting to see these numbers, but making them things you have to “show” should reduce the emphasis on popularity. The love and favorite buttons will still exist, just without the numbers next to them.
  
• Remove the “what the community is loving” tab. I don’t trust nine-year-olds to run a meritocracy, but maybe that’s just me.
  
• In order to avoid the remixing tab becoming a replacement, add a one-hour delay between when a remix is created and when it can be shared.
  

Please share your own ideas if you have any.

1. Yes, just yes. No explanation needed.
2. No. It would be annoying. I get enough messages already, and i follow like 500 people.
3. I don't get this one. Why?
4. I have no opinion.
5. Despite it's uncreativeness, some creative projects actually show up.
6. That'd just be annoying.

Merging into my previous post because why not

MeowyTitan08 wrote:

Why are you blaming nine year olds for this?

I don’t specifically mean to blame those who are nine. My greater complaint is that, with the emphasis on popularity numbers not specifically associated with quality, people are incentivized to make weaker, more pandering projects.

MeowyTitan08 wrote:

Edit:

SelixScratch wrote:

Here are some possible solutions:

• Ban “Famous Scratcher” projects and studios. These create the impression that fame is a desirable trait, and that shouldn’t be an impression people should have.
  
• Users get a message when someone they follow shares a project. This makes a follow more meaningful, and discouraged following hundreds of people.
  
• Collapse “following” and “followers” into one “tabbed” box, with “following” being the default. This reduces the emphasis of follower count in the UX.
  
• Require users to manually show view/love/favorite/remix stats. It can be interesting to see these numbers, but making them things you have to “show” should reduce the emphasis on popularity. The love and favorite buttons will still exist, just without the numbers next to them.
  
• Remove the “what the community is loving” tab. I don’t trust nine-year-olds to run a meritocracy, but maybe that’s just me.
  
• In order to avoid the remixing tab becoming a replacement, add a one-hour delay between when a remix is created and when it can be shared.
  

Please share your own ideas if you have any.

1. Yes, just yes. No explanation needed.
2. No. It would be annoying. I get enough messages already, and i follow like 500 people.
3. I don't get this one. Why?
4. I have no opinion.
5. Despite it's uncreativeness, some creative projects actually show up.
6. That'd just be annoying.

2. That’s the point. I want to encourage people to consider carefully who they want to follow, so that each follow has greater actual meaning.
3. The idea here is that the viewer now has to click once to see if they have less than 10 followers, and twice for an exact count. Hiding the follower count away makes it seem less important.
5. That’s what curation, trending and featuring are for. Trending is the most likely for pandering, but also requires users to exit the front page.
6. Explain? If the remix is actually making significant changes (new art, new levels, etc.) it won’t be a problem. More importantly, I want people to think about if their remixes are significant enough to be worth sharing.

PizzaAddict4Life wrote:

SelixScratch wrote:

Here are some possible solutions:

• Ban “Famous Scratcher” projects and studios. These create the impression that fame is a desirable trait, and that shouldn’t be an impression people should have.
  
• Users get a message when someone they follow shares a project. This makes a follow more meaningful, and discouraged following hundreds of people.
  
• Collapse “following” and “followers” into one “tabbed” box, with “following” being the default. This reduces the emphasis of follower count in the UX.
  
• Require users to manually show view/love/favorite/remix stats. It can be interesting to see these numbers, but making them things you have to “show” should reduce the emphasis on popularity. The love and favorite buttons will still exist, just without the numbers next to them.
  
• Remove the “what the community is loving” tab. I don’t trust nine-year-olds to run a meritocracy, but maybe that’s just me.
  
• In order to avoid the remixing tab becoming a replacement, add a one-hour delay between when a remix is created and when it can be shared.
  

Please share your own ideas if you have any.

1. it is a duplicate that @WindOctahedron posted
2. That is an interesting suggestion, and I think that making it more meaningful would be good. Support! I am assuming it would only be for a project though, and not other activity
3. That is an interesting idea, but I am not sure how I feel about it yet
4. No support as that is just to show what people like and what other people might like. Also, what is a meritocracy? Imma look that up. (Plus, it would be 12 year olds running it, there are mostly 12 year olds on scratch)
5. I think that is interesting, but should be a separate suggestion in itself.

You only have five points here. Which items are you responding to?

SelixScratch wrote:

Here are some possible solutions:

• Ban “Famous Scratcher” projects and studios. These create the impression that fame is a desirable trait, and that shouldn’t be an impression people should have.
  
• Users get a message when someone they follow shares a project. This makes a follow more meaningful, and discourages following hundreds of people.
  
• Collapse “following” and “followers” into one “tabbed” box, with “following” being the default. This reduces the emphasis of follower count in the UX.
  
• Require users to manually show view/love/favorite/remix stats. It can be interesting to see these numbers, but making them things you have to “show” should reduce the emphasis on popularity. The love and favorite buttons will still exist, just without the numbers next to them.
  
• Remove the “what the community is loving” tab. I don’t trust nine-year-olds to run a meritocracy, but maybe that’s just me.
  
• In order to avoid the remixing tab becoming a replacement, add a one-hour delay between when a remix is created and when it can be shared.
  

Please share your own ideas if you have any.

1) I honestly don't know how I feel about this one
2) I do not see the ST implementing this in any way shape or form, this would cause more harm than good
3) I really don't care about this one, it's one extra click for me, and if the one above gets implemented, I doubt the following tab would be very full anyway.
4) I have no opinion here
5) Eek, that would be a mess, a lot of the community likes that row, I know I can grab random projects from there when I get bored, and having it be removed? Great StarClan that would be annoying.
6) Duplicate

Support for all of these. This would really make it so Scratch isn't about fame.

SelixScratch wrote:

-snip-

PizzaAddict4Life wrote:

SelixScratch wrote:

Here are some possible solutions:

• Ban “Famous Scratcher” projects and studios. These create the impression that fame is a desirable trait, and that shouldn’t be an impression people should have.
  
• Users get a message when someone they follow shares a project. This makes a follow more meaningful, and discouraged following hundreds of people.
  
• Collapse “following” and “followers” into one “tabbed” box, with “following” being the default. This reduces the emphasis of follower count in the UX.
  
• Require users to manually show view/love/favorite/remix stats. It can be interesting to see these numbers, but making them things you have to “show” should reduce the emphasis on popularity. The love and favorite buttons will still exist, just without the numbers next to them.
  
• Remove the “what the community is loving” tab. I don’t trust nine-year-olds to run a meritocracy, but maybe that’s just me.
  
• In order to avoid the remixing tab becoming a replacement, add a one-hour delay between when a remix is created and when it can be shared.
  

Please share your own ideas if you have any.

1. it is a duplicate that @WindOctahedron posted
2. That is an interesting suggestion, and I think that making it more meaningful would be good. Support! I am assuming it would only be for a project though, and not other activity
3. That is an interesting idea, but I am not sure how I feel about it yet
4. No support as that is just to show what people like and what other people might like. Also, what is a meritocracy? Imma look that up. (Plus, it would be 12 year olds running it, there are mostly 12 year olds on scratch)
5. I think that is interesting, but should be a separate suggestion in itself.

You only have five points here. Which items are you responding to?

Oops…

1. it is a duplicate that @WindOctahedron posted
2. That is an interesting suggestion, and I think that making it more meaningful would be good. Support! I am assuming it would only be for a project though, and not other activity
3. That is an interesting idea, but I am not sure how I feel about it yet
4. No opinion
5. No support as that is just to show what people like and what other people might like. Also, what is a meritocracy? Imma look that up. (Plus, it would be 12 year olds running it, there are mostly 12 year olds on scratch)
6. I think that is interesting, but should be a separate suggestion in itself.

PizzaAddict4Life wrote:

Oops…

1. it is a duplicate that @WindOctahedron posted
2. That is an interesting suggestion, and I think that making it more meaningful would be good. Support! I am assuming it would only be for a project though, and not other activity
3. That is an interesting idea, but I am not sure how I feel about it yet
4. No opinion
5. No support as that is just to show what people like and what other people might like. Also, what is a meritocracy? Imma look that up. (Plus, it would be 12 year olds running it, there are mostly 12 year olds on scratch)
6. I think that is interesting, but should be a separate suggestion in itself.

For 5, why do people need to be told what people like? so much
We already have the
• Explore page
• What the Community is Loving
• What the Community is Remixing
• What's Happening
• Projects Loved by Scratchers I'm Following
to show us what people like.

SelixScratch wrote:

Here are some possible solutions:

• Ban “Famous Scratcher” projects and studios. These create the impression that fame is a desirable trait, and that shouldn’t be an impression people should have.
  
• Users get a message when someone they follow shares a project. This makes a follow more meaningful, and discouraged following hundreds of people.
  
• Collapse “following” and “followers” into one “tabbed” box, with “following” being the default. This reduces the emphasis of follower count in the UX.
  
• Require users to manually show view/love/favorite/remix stats. It can be interesting to see these numbers, but making them things you have to “show” should reduce the emphasis on popularity. The love and favorite buttons will still exist, just without the numbers next to them.
  
• Remove the “what the community is loving” tab. I don’t trust nine-year-olds to run a meritocracy, but maybe that’s just me.
  
• In order to avoid the remixing tab becoming a replacement, add a one-hour delay between when a remix is created and when it can be shared.
  

Please share your own ideas if you have any.

1 is a repost
2 that can be annoying if one of your friends doesn't have a test account and constantly shares tests and you don't unfollow because that would give the impression that you don't wanna be friends anymore and could be a bit offensive
3 i don't understand
4 is actually a nice idea but thats up to the ST
5 is not a good idea in my opinion, scratch is about sharing projects and viewing and the top loved tab is a source of quality. Me, @bluestem, @-ABIC-, and @Azzz09990 are discussing solutions and removing any part of the front page would pretty much destroy the source of quality
6 i guess would only DELAY no change remixes so yeah

ArcherMAPS wrote:

is actually a nice idea but thats up to the ST

Doesn't the same apply for all suggestions?

I want to point something out.

1: If fame is what motivates people to make projects, so be it! Motivation is important.

2: People want their hard work to be recognized. Of course it’ll be a bit annoying when you work months on a project and you get only 20 views. Fame is a perk, not something bad.

JC20092009 wrote:

I want to point something out.

1: If fame is what motivates people to make projects, so be it! Motivation is important.

Shouldn't their motivation to just create something for people to enjoy, not for some meaningless number to go up?

How is it meaningless? Having friends and good people admire you and decide your project is worth checking out? I wouldn’t mind that.