GachaLife_785492 wrote:

No we are trying to stop A PART of the toxic community! And F4F only makes people get hungry for fame and followers! But if we changed the follower button to a friend request button, people wouldn't think about followers cause it wouldn't exist!

f4f would likely still exist but would be “friend me”

They would at least care less about FOLLOWERS and more about friends!!

GachaLife_785492 wrote:

They would at least care less about FOLLOWERS and more about friends!!

why does it matter what it's called if they aren't actually friends?

Because scratch should be more about friends and not followers! Friends is like more friendly than people that only cares about popularity! If we change the follower button things would change! Scratch would be about less popularity and more about friends and coding! If you're against that then thats your problem, but I'll at least do ANYTHING to change this toxic community through spreading my words around scratch!

GachaLife_785492 wrote:

Because scratch should be more about friends and not followers! Friends is like more friendly than people that only cares about popularity! If we change the follower button things would change! Scratch would be about less popularity and more about friends and coding! If you're against that then thats your problem, but I'll at least do ANYTHING to change this toxic community through spreading my words around scratch!

I dislike people being fame-hungry, but changing the name of a feature won't magically make that disappear. even if f4f ends and nobody cares about who's following who, fame still exists in the form of likes, favourites and views. changing a name doesn't instantly cure toxicity.

Here's the comeback to end it all.

This feature is going to be pointless because people will become friend hungry instead.
And F4F isn't going to change, IT'S GONNA BECOME FRIEND 4 FRIEND OOOOOOOOOOOO

I understand what you're saying but I am not saying that ending F4F stops EVERYTHING! I am trying to make scratch a little better through stop the following-thing! And yeah. People would still search for popularity through likes and faves and thats the big problem!

Although I wouldn't mind this change, I don't know if this is really needed. While Scratch is designed to act as some sort of social media site, the issue of people obsessing over fame is not only something that has been around for many years now (probably also consistently), but also something that people need to learn about themselves.

No support. Following reminds you of what a user is doing. It is not a social function.

-EmeraldThunder- wrote:

Following reminds you of what a user is doing. It is not a social function.

Uh, it very much is?

the2000 wrote:

-EmeraldThunder- wrote:

Following reminds you of what a user is doing. It is not a social function.

Uh, it very much is?

Everything to do with the follow button and popularity was created by scratcher not the scratch team.

I just want to stop a part of this toxic community! F4F have made people care too much about followers! If we delete it forever the toxiz community would be less toxic!

-EmeraldThunder- wrote:

the2000 wrote:

-EmeraldThunder- wrote:

Following reminds you of what a user is doing. It is not a social function.

Uh, it very much is?

Everything to do with the follow button and popularity was created by scratcher not the scratch team.

No, I'm pretty sure that Scratch Team made the decision to add the follower count. It was inevitable at that point, and if they really wanted to avoid adding popularity to the website (which they didn't, by the way) they would have been stupid to not have caught that.

This discussion is interesting to me. However I don't really think we need to change the button. If you really want to make the community “less toxic” then people just need to know they don't have to except f4f, that they should make sure something is inappropriate before reporting it, understand that Scratch is just a programming website and not a place to purposely get famous, etc. Trying to do that manually by making adjustments to the site likely will just cause more craziness.

Also, by changing the button, you'd pretty much destroy a whole lot of the popularity true scratchers have, such as @griffpatch. Along with that, the follow button is just a button to notify you about people on Scratch, nothing more.

My argument is:
I like Griffpatch's projects, so I followed him. However, we are not friends.
Shouldn't that make enough sense?

AwezomeXD wrote:

My argument is:
I like Griffpatch's projects, so I followed him. However, we are not friends.
Shouldn't that make enough sense?

Yup, no support.

AwezomeXD wrote:

My argument is:
I like Griffpatch's projects, so I followed him. However, we are not friends.
Shouldn't that make enough sense?

Again, I think this is missing the point. They want the follow system to be replaced with a friend request system. They don't want followers to exist at all so I have no idea why people keep going “b-b-but where are the followers!?!?!?!”

(Still don't like this suggestion though)

Well I understand what you're saying but a friend button would make people care LESS about followers! I want scratch to be a more FRIENDLY site! And not about followers! Only because it would say “friends” it just means something friendly! You dont need to be real friends!

GachaLife_785492 wrote:

Well I understand what you're saying but a friend button would make people care LESS about followers!

And they'll care about more friends instead.

Why is NOBODY here realizing this?

No support. I do like the idea of a Friend Request button, but only in addition to the current Follower system.

1. Scratchers like @griffpatch would be completely spammed with constant friend requests, and likely wouldn't accept any of them. Now no Scratchers would be able to automatically see when @griffpatch posts a new project.
2. Some people take pride in knowing that people like their content. When I'm not feeling confident in my abilities or skill, that little number lets me know how many people think I'm good at something. That makes me happy. I would be pretty upset if I couldn't see that anymore.
3. It would be pretty hard to host events for follower milestones, though this isn't a great concern.

It also wouldn't really solve any current problems.

1. How would it solve mass reporting? It's only a number on someone's profile page.
2. The streams of “Follow for Follow” would only be replaced by “Friend for Friend”. People could still brag about “Look how many friends I have!”
3. Bullying still exists. Humans are humans, and no Scratch feature can change that.
4. Spam wouldn't be solved, either. Again, it's a number on someone's profile.
5. Advertising would only increase. When following ceases to become a measure of fame, project views, loves, and favourites will become more important to users obsessed with being “popular”. Instead of F4F (or “Friend for Friend”), Scratch would be completely flooded by “Hey, come check out my project! I spent two whole minutes remixing it from the original!”

Plus, I've been on Scratch for over four years with varying accounts, and it was not and will never be a perfect website. Small communities got a lot of hate, featured projects got tons of ads, I myself made generic platformers, and famous Scratchers got hundreds of F4F requests. These aren't problems that have just magically popped up. They have gotten much worse, but I do think it's strange to imply that Scratch's community was completely ruined in the past year.