Make an announcement explaining the Scratch Team’s decisions

Sliverus

I was looking through suggestions and I came across this. This suggestion, in my personal opinion, does have some flaws. And I mentioned that those flaws were there. But there was also an extremely important thing that would be accomplished if this were implemented.

KangaCoder wrote:
(…) it feels like there has been an increase in feeling that the Scratch Team is this small group of powerful rulers who rarely talk to their citizens. And this I think has led to a lot of toxicity against the Scratch Team, which is obviously not good.

The Scratch Team isn’t personal enough with other Scratchers. I’ve met an incredibly large amount of users who hate being left in the dark about updates, hate the delayed, strict, and sometimes unfair moderation (which, to be fair, the Scratch Team has a lot on their hands, so I think it is alright as long as users use Contact Us), hate the fact that Scratch’s design looks like it’s made for kids, etc.

I think the Scratch Team needs to make a topic in the Announcements forum. It shouldn’t be an essay per se, but them (metaphorically speaking) sitting down and talking with the Scratch community personally about the issues of being a Scratch Team member, and why, despite the fact that it seems like they’re overly strict and emotionless, they genuinely care about other Scratchers and want them to interact in a safe community together.

A little while back, Scratcher @jvvg made this essay justifying the Scratch Team’s actions. Many users seemed to like this essay very much, including it in their forum signatures. This essay was very useful in conveying the fact that the Scratch Team was justified in what they did. And there is absolutely nothing wrong with doing that. I think it is great that @jvvg made that essay.

But what if the Scratch Team did something similar, but speaking from their own perspective, in the first person? Wouldn’t this be a lot more meaningful, having a Scratch Team member talk face-to-face with the community? It doesn’t even have to be the Scratch Team as a whole speaking. Maybe even just one Scratch Team member discussing their own personal experiences as a moderator.

Basically, the idea is that a Scratch Team member could make an announcement discussing how hard their job is, and what sorts of issues they have to deal with every day. Perhaps expand on that more, but in a readable way. But despite that, the Scratch Team member should talk about how they love the Scratch community and want to keep it safe for everyone who uses the site.

Personally, I think if the Scratch Team does something like this, it would significantly help the Scratch community to better understand their position. Less users would be horribly disrespectful to the Scratch Team. Sure, this will not entirely stop the issue. That is inevitable. No announcements have entirely stopped the issues that they discuss; not the FNAF announcement, not the art theft announcement, not the advertising and F4F announcement, not the browser extension announcement, and so on.

But it significantly helps other users to understand their side of the story. In fact, I think that because of this announcement, there might even be significantly less disrespectful remarks, and as a result, there might be significantly less work that the Scratch Team needs to handle. But most of all, it will help Scratchers to better understand the fact that the Scratch Team actually cares about them.

Personally, I think that this suggestion is certainly feasible. It wouldn’t cost too much money, there shouldn’t be any development (to my knowledge), it won’t detract from moderation (in fact, it will improve it)…the only thing that I can see that it will cost is time. But at that point, I think that it is completely fine because if you can invest time into this announcement, then the payoff will be incredible, and you will have an easier time with moderation afterward.

Please let me know what you think in the posts below. I’ve put a lot of thought into this suggestion, but I am not perfect. Please let me know if there is anything I should change or clarify. And please remember to be constructive.

Scratch On!

Last edited by Sliverus (May 23, 2023 03:34:14)

Spentine

I understand that it's difficult to be a ST member. They're constantly dealing with large amounts of reports and traffic.

Unfortunately, I don't think children will understand how hard their job is. t's just beyond their comprehension. It probably won't help the situation either. It could, but it is also likely to not do anything.

ajskateboarder

Support. This wouldn't be very hard to do, and would help with fixing the ST's bad rap with some of the community (as stated in the OP)

The announcement should also include jvvg's essay somewhere

Spentine wrote:
Unfortunately, I don't think children will understand how hard their job is. t's just beyond their comprehension. It probably won't help the situation either. It could, but it is also likely to not do anything.

It's worth trying, though

Last edited by ajskateboarder (May 22, 2023 23:37:01)

Sliverus

Spentine wrote:
I understand that it's difficult to be a ST member. They're constantly dealing with large amounts of reports and traffic.

Unfortunately, I don't think children will understand how hard their job is. t's just beyond their comprehension. It probably won't help the situation either. It could, but it is also likely to not do anything.

Obviously, it won’t help all children. That is an inevitable, plain fact. But many users will understand, and this could really clarify the situation for those users. Hey, I (and many others) used to think that the Scratch Team was incredibly controlling until I used the forums more, and understood that they are a limited team with limited resources, and that they are legitimately doing the best that they can. I don’t think this will clarify the situation for all users, but it will clarify the situation for many. The Scratch Team needs to reach out to as many users as they can in order to explain the situation.

GIitchInTheMatrix

Theres a potential issue in which one defending themselves in a case like this could be seen as an act of taking control. Of course, its a reasonable measure, but perhaps its best to select a number of users to do so, than and add it to announcements.

Spentine

ajskateboarder wrote:
Support. This wouldn't be very hard to do, and would help with fixing the ST's bad rap with some of the community (as stated in the OP)

The announcement should also include jvvg's essay somewhere
Spentine wrote:
Unfortunately, I don't think children will understand how hard their job is. t's just beyond their comprehension. It probably won't help the situation either. It could, but it is also likely to not do anything.
It's worth trying, though

I guess, they might as well give it a shot perhaps?

But I'm not sure if they should, it's a minor announcement because nothing about the website has really changed.

Sliverus

GIitchInTheMatrix wrote:
Theres a potential issue in which one defending themselves in a case like this could be seen as an act of taking control.

And that is precisely why I am more inclined to it being less like an essay and more of them speaking personally. If they just uploaded a thousand words that are basically saying, “Hello fellow Scratchers! It is important to remember not to attack the Scratch Team because it is very disrespectful and we have a hard job. Please use the report button for any disrespectful comments you see. Thank you! Scratch On!”, doing that would be impersonal, could indeed be seen as taking control, and could even be interpreted as disrespectful. But I think if the Scratch Team genuinely explains their feelings on the matter, it could work out well.

GlitchInTheMatrix wrote:
Of course, its a reasonable measure, but perhaps its best to select a number of users to do so, than and add it to announcements.

Maybe, but that would also sacrifice the idea I had about them being personal. Specifically, I mentioned that the Scratch Team doesn’t feel personal enough with other users. If they just ask other users to do their work for them, that doesn’t help. Additionally, it could direct more negative attention onto the Scratchers who wrote it, which would be a bit less than ideal.

Last edited by Sliverus (May 22, 2023 23:46:13)

jvvg

I am the person who wrote that essay, and I honestly don't think it would help much. A lot of the people that make topics and posts complaining (not to be confused with actual constructive criticism) just want to complain and aren't actually interested in understanding the reasoning behind the Scratch Team's actions. As long as things aren't the way they think they should be, they aren't going to be happy and are going to complain.

Them writing an official post defending themselves may also incorrectly give the impression that the Scratch Team isn't interested in improving or that actual constructive criticism isn't allowed or will fall on deaf ears. It's not an easy situation for them to be in, and I unfortunately don't really know what the best answer is, I just wrote that essay as a result of my own frustration, and as someone who now works as a professional software developer, I can sympathize and have more insight into what goes into maintaining something like this.

blablablahello

I often like to discuss to people who think ST is bad, and the thing is, although personalized explanations made by other scratchers are quite convincing, a general announcement wouldn't be quite the same.

Similar to how if Jeff Bezos wrote an essay on “Why us billionaires using legal methods to avoid paying taxes is actually a good thing”, noone would even read it, everyone would just go “thats stupid”, but if say, your economics proffesor had a small lecture about how its actually not the worst thing ever, and gave loads of reasoning on what benefits it brings to everyone, then it would definitly be way more convincing (now tbh irdk if you could justify that at all, but this is just an example)

Last edited by blablablahello (May 23, 2023 01:44:37)

Spentine

blablablahello wrote:
Similar to how if Jeff Bezos wrote an essay on “Why us billionaires using legal methods to avoid paying taxes is actually a good thing”

Why me evading my taxes is a good thing:

(uh i explained how to evade taxes oops)

This is a good thing because i like my money and i dont like people stealing it to build roads im never gonna use

/j (all a joke)

Last edited by Spentine (May 23, 2023 01:51:43)

Za-Chary

I understand your argument, and I also understand the counterarguments given here. While I'm not entirely convinced it would help, I'm not entirely convinced it would hurt. That is, if such an announcement were made, I feel like the worst that could happen is that nothing changes — which certainly isn't a terrible outcome by any means.

I used to be a moderator, so I could somewhat speak from a moderator's point of view. Is there a list of questions that you think would be good for a (former) moderator to answer, which I could answer in a project or perhaps a reply in this forum thread (which could then be quoted)?

If nothing else, this would at least be a good exercise for you to think about what specific questions/information you would want the Scratch Team to answer in such a forum post.

Sliverus

jvvg wrote:
snip

That makes perfect sense, but worst case scenario, little will change. Some users will still pick up on this message. I completely understand that many users will not pick up on the message. They want to find a source to complain about, not focusing on a solution. But it is simply not right to think that all users are exactly the same.

blablablahello wrote:
I often like to discuss to people who think ST is bad, and the thing is, although personalized explanations made by other scratchers are quite convincing, a general announcement wouldn't be quite the same.

That’s precisely why I want it to be a personalized explanation and not a general announcement. But I think it is fallacious reasoning to think that because it is a Scratch Team member speaking, it cannot be a personalized explanation. In fact, I think because they have the personal experience of moderating, they’re the best suited for any sort of personalized explanation.

Za-Chary wrote:
I used to be a moderator, so I could somewhat speak from a moderator's point of view. Is there a list of questions that you think would be good for a (former) moderator to answer, which I could answer in a project or perhaps a reply in this forum thread (which could then be quoted)?

At the very least, I think these would be crucial to answer. I already know the answers to these questions for the most part, but 1), many users do not know these things, and 2) I want to hear your perspective:

What exactly does the Scratch Team have to put up with on an everyday basis?
How much actual effort is spent in implementing suggestions to Scratch, or are suggestions ignored?
Why are the rules sometimes excessively strict?
Why are there just so many times when users get alerts that are mistakes?
How many resources does the Scratch Team need in order to continue the website?
Do they have these resources?
How can we know that the Scratch Team actually cares about Scratchers?
Why doesn’t the Scratch Team tell us when they are making plans? Why do they leave us in the dark oftentimes?

Maybe that’s a lot of questions, but I think these are some of the most important questions for this type of topic to cover. Thank you for offering to help with this idea. I greatly appreciate it.

Last edited by Sliverus (May 23, 2023 03:11:43)

Gamer_Logan819

Sliverus wrote:
jvvg wrote:
snip
That makes perfect sense, but worst case scenario, little will change. Some users will still pick up on this message. I completely understand that many users will not pick up on the message. They want to find a source to complain about, not focusing on a solution. But it is simply not right to think that all users are exactly the same.
blablablahello wrote:
I often like to discuss to people who think ST is bad, and the thing is, although personalized explanations made by other scratchers are quite convincing, a general announcement wouldn't be quite the same.
That’s precisely why I want it to be a personalized explanation and not a general announcement. But I think it is fallacious reasoning to think that because it is a Scratch Team member speaking, it cannot be a personalized explanation. In fact, I think because they have the personal experience of moderating, they’re the best suited for any sort of personalized explanation.

Za-Chary wrote:
I used to be a moderator, so I could somewhat speak from a moderator's point of view. Is there a list of questions that you think would be good for a (former) moderator to answer, which I could answer in a project or perhaps a reply in this forum thread (which could then be quoted)?
At the very least, I think these would be crucial to answer. I already know the answers to these questions for the most part, but 1), many users do not know these things, and 2) I want to hear your perspective:
What exactly does the Scratch Team have to put up with on an everyday basis?
How much actual effort is spent in implementing suggestions to Scratch, or are suggestions ignored?
Why are the rules sometimes excessively strict?
Why are there just so many times when users get alerts that are mistakes?
How many resources does the Scratch Team need in order to continue the website?
Do they have these resources?
How can we know that the Scratch Team actually cares about Scratchers?
Why doesn’t the Scratch Team tell us when they are making plans? Why do they leave us in the dark oftentimes?

Maybe that’s a lot of questions, but I think these are some of the most important questions for this type of topic to cover. Thank you for offering to help with this idea. I greatly appreciate it.

Yeah these would be great to know. Although @Za-Chary s thing won’t be as seen as if the ST made it an announcement

Last edited by Gamer_Logan819 (May 23, 2023 03:18:40)

mitdk

I would have to agree with the points stated here. Transparency is extremely important in any relationship, including the relationship between the ST and the rest of the community. If the ST shares its struggles, I feel like the community would be more appreciative, and would just make the community a batter place. However, the ST must be careful about this, and i think the use of the word ‘defending’ might be too strong in this case. If the ST goes too defensive in an announcement like this, it could lead to more backlash from the community. However, if said announcement simply explains the actions of the ST and is more transparent as to why some actions(or lack thereof) were taken, the community and ST could reach a better state of understanding.

Sliverus

mitdk wrote:
I would have to agree with the points stated here. Transparency is extremely important in any relationship, including the relationship between the ST and the rest of the community. If the ST shares its struggles, I feel like the community would be more appreciative, and would just make the community a batter place. However, the ST must be careful about this, and i think the use of the word ‘defending’ might be too strong in this case. If the ST goes too defensive in an announcement like this, it could lead to more backlash from the community. However, if said announcement simply explains the actions of the ST and is more transparent as to why some actions(or lack thereof) were taken, the community and ST could reach a better state of understanding.

That is true. And maybe I misspoke. Certainly they must explain their own reasoning. I think they should also take some sort of responsibility for their mistakes, however. For example, apologizing for being very distant from the community and not explaining why they do what they do, just doing it anyway and risking kids having prejudice against them. Or perhaps for all of the times that they had misunderstood a phrase and had given out alerts (and bans) unfairly.

I think I will change the title for this reason. My word choices might not have been the most accurate here. I apologize.

Za-Chary

Thanks for waiting. I can only speak from a moderator's perspective.

Sliverus wrote:
What exactly does the Scratch Team have to put up with on an everyday basis?

Moderators need to look through hundreds of reports on projects, comments, studios, and profiles every time they have a shift. Some moderators work full-time and so they must do this for 40+ hours per week. Other moderators are part-time and so they only work on this for 8+ hours per week, but the part-time moderators usually have another full-time job or are a full-time student in addition to moderating for Scratch. Some Scratch Team members moderate the forums, but most moderators do not. There are so little forum reports in comparison with the rest of the website that it only takes one person about a few hours a day at most to go through all the forum reports. In contrast, it can take several hours for one person to sort through all the reports made in a 6-hour time frame on the rest of the website.

All other non-moderator Scratch Team members work full-time for 40+ hours per week. Many of them do different things, including: keeping the servers running, designing and updating the website, performing outreach to advertise Scratch to others, and engaging with the Scratch community through events like Scratch Week.

All Scratch Team members (moderators included) have meetings to attend to discuss various things. Moderators in particular have regular meetings, but I forget how often they occur. In these meetings, they discuss new trends that are coming up in the Scratch community and collectively decide what should be done about them. An example of a “trend” might be a popular new song that has inappropriate lyrics, or a popular new show that is rated 18+. Isolated incidents can also be discussed in these meetings. An example is if a Scratcher shared a new of project that seems questionable, or if Scratchers in a new studio seem to be engaging in questionable behavior.

Sliverus wrote:
How much actual effort is spent in implementing suggestions to Scratch, or are suggestions ignored?

As a moderator, I had almost no input in suggestions, and I was not part of the suggestion-implementing process, so I can't answer this completely. (I did give feedback on a couple of things, but this was for features that were already well in development, not things that I suggested myself.)

That being said, I don't think suggestions are completely ignored. I hear that Scratch Team members do look through the Suggestions forum for feedback. They often don't respond because there's not really a point in having a Scratch Team member say “Thanks for the suggestion” for every suggestion. Even if the Scratch Team doesn't implement a specific suggestion, looking through all the suggestions could give them an idea on how to proceed with the website moving forward.

Sliverus wrote:
Why are the rules sometimes excessively strict?

“Excessively strict” is a bit subjective. Is it really excessively strict to say that everybody should be treated with kindness? Why might someone claim that it is excessively strict to forbid browser extensions from being mentioned, but it's not excessively strict to forbid 18+ adult videos from being mentioned? But I digress…

The bottom line, though, is that Scratch is for all ages. Many Scratchers attempt to share things that are not appropriate for all ages, whether they did so on purpose or by mistake. Since Scratch is trusted by parents and schools all around the world, the Scratch Team needs to enforce these rules to keep the website safe and productive for everybody.

Sliverus wrote:
Why are there just so many times when users get alerts that are mistakes?

I'm willing to believe that most cases of “mistakes” are really just users who don't understand the rules. For example, someone could claim that the Scratch Team removed their scary violent project “for no reason” even though they included a warning at the beginning of the project stating that it's scary. Indeed, as experienced Scratchers know, a warning is not sufficient to post a scary project. But to those who don't know this, they may believe that the Scratch Team removed their project by mistake.

Other “mistakes” arise when a Scratcher sees their friend or idol get banned, and they don't know why they were banned, but surely they were so cool that there couldn't have been a good reason for their ban! The truth is, we never know when or why someone gets banned. Just because you don't know why someone was banned, that doesn't mean the ban was issued by mistake.

As I've said on my profile before, back when I was a moderator: “99.8% of the time someone gets banned, they were banned for a good reason. If you don’t know that reason, that does not mean that the ban was issued ‘for no reason.’ For the other 0.2%, we may have made an honest mistake (because we’re human, and humans make mistakes), in which case the banned user should use ‘Contact Us’ to sort things out with us.”

In the event that it is a mistake, this happens because Scratch Team members are humans, as I mentioned above, and humans make mistakes. In fact, humans who do repetitive work for 8+ hours straight are bound to make a mistake here or there. (I am describing moderators.) So, when mistakes do happen, this is why. I'm willing to believe that most alerts are not mistakes, though.

Sliverus wrote:
How many resources does the Scratch Team need in order to continue the website?

I don't know for sure. The number likely increases every year, though, due to increased activity on the Scratch website.

Sliverus wrote:
Do they have these resources?

I'm sure they do.

Sliverus wrote:
How can we know that the Scratch Team actually cares about Scratchers?

The fact that they're moderating the website is enough proof. If they didn't care, they would let everybody be toxic and violent. If there were no moderators, I'm willing to believe that less people would like Scratch.

Sliverus wrote:
Why doesn’t the Scratch Team tell us when they are making plans? Why do they leave us in the dark oftentimes?

Here are two hypothetical examples to think about:

Adding video game controller blocks as a Scratch extension seems to be a popular suggestion. Let us suppose that the Scratch Team started working on these blocks, and they told the Scratch community that they are working on them. The Scratch community gets excited that they can start using their favorite video game controllers for their Scratch games! However, after some time, suppose the Scratch Team finds a reason why these blocks just will not work. Maybe the reason why is too technical for the average Scratcher to understand.

So not only do we have all these Scratchers get disappointed that the blocks are no longer being made, they don't know of a reason why they were discontinued. This can cause Scratchers to lose faith in the Scratch Team for “not being transparent” and for “wasting their time” working on a feature that isn't getting implemented.
Let us suppose that profile comments were causing a huge problem in the Scratch servers. To remedy this, the Scratch Team has decided to remove the “Load more” button on profiles, so that profile comments still exist but there can only be one page of them. This is a new restriction, not really a feature, so by announcing it ahead of time the Scratch Team would get a lot of backlash from Scratchers who are angry the feature will be removed. But of course they would get backlash once it's removed anyway, so by announcing its removal ahead of time, they get twice the backlash.

If the Scratch Team doesn't announce the change ahead of time, this gives them more time to think carefully about whether or not this feature removal would really be the right choice, and it gives them time to think carefully about how to announce this change to the community.

cheddargirl

It's 2:50am here, but I'll bite despite being off-duty right now. Just keep in mind my brain is currently not on coffee mode.

Sliverus wrote:
What exactly does the Scratch Team have to put up with on an everyday basis?

I genuinely have no idea how to answer this one without delving into topics that will most absolutely break the Community Guidelines at best, may affect your psyche at worst.

So I'll just say: we deal with a lot. D8

How much actual effort is spent in implementing suggestions to Scratch, or are suggestions ignored?

Most of the effort right now is being placed into website maintenance and updates, followed by functions/features that have been planned for a while (e.g., such as improved accessibility for those with visual problems), and wiggle room for any oddball curve thrown our way (like if a browser update breaks website functionality).

Suggestions aren't being ignored, we just gather them all in once space (the Suggestions forum section) to look at them later. Every once in a while a suggestion might be in line with what we're working on (like dark mode), and we might give that higher priority.

But otherwise, most Suggestions get looked at later if/when the resources are there for it. There is a lot of good stuff, but things take time, and trying to do everything at once will result in things not getting done at all.

Why are the rules sometimes excessively strict?

Strict is kind of subjective here.

One thing to keep in mind is that the Scratch software is intended to be accessible to everyone, which means the rules in place have to be in line with measures to protect kids. With most websites generally having age restriction of 13+, it's natural to see the rules here as being ungodly strict when compared to elsewhere. (Moreso in that a lot of the 13+ websites benefit from ad revenue, so they have lax rules on purpose to get more visitors).

I can think of some cases that are even more weirdly strict than Scratch, though, (and in my opinion, not in a good way). There's a lot of weird country-specific forks of Scratch out there.

Why are there just so many times when users get alerts that are mistakes?

This question is rather quite broad and vague.

If we're talking about the word filter, you get a mix of people complaining about:
- how the filter was wrong when it was absolutely right
- how the filter was wrong and it was wrong
We expect users to report cases of the latter.

If we're talking about the notifications sent by a mod, you get a mix of people complaining about
- how the notification was wrong when it was absolutely right
- how the notification was wrong and it was wrong
- the wrong notification sent for a given action
We expect users to use “Contact Us” to inquire about that if they're not sure of a notification so the issue can be discussed in private. Most of the other methods, like posting on a profile or forum thread, are too publicly viewable and can come across as putting a beacon on yourself for being a bad person (though I'm surprised why some people do that anyway and then get a “surprise Pikachu” reaction of knowing it's public)

If we're talking about blocks: those are really, really rare, since they're usually not given unless a user has been repeatedly breaking the Community Guidelines. You'll want to be incredibly wary of cases of that.

How many resources does the Scratch Team need in order to continue the website?

It's hard to put an exact number on that because things change a lot, and sometimes quickly.

Do they have these resources?

Also hard to answer, based on situations shifting a lot.

For example, if you asked this question pre-COVID, I probably would have said at one point we were lacking developers since some were MIT students who graduated and moved to elsewhere.

When COVID hit, I probably would have said we're lacking mods at one point due to increased website activity.

That's not the case anymore, and I would say now we have an aging forum infrastructure and we need to replace it with something else. (And a lot of the resource options out there aren't so great).

How can we know that the Scratch Team actually cares about Scratchers?

The website is free and running on donations. We're not making any money off what we do. We're accessible to some degree in many way, and so long as you aren't abusing that accessibility (such as spamming our profile pages to get something featured, or intentionally skipping the ticket line to get your report handled first, or being snippy) we'll usually answer.

I suppose that kindness and compassion does have a limit - we don't really have much patience for users who don't care about others. And we become especially suspicious of those who try to go out of their way to hurt the ST because it's usually indicative that they're likely to hurt others even more so.

Why doesn’t the Scratch Team tell us when they are making plans? Why do they leave us in the dark oftentimes?

In consideration that people already know most upcoming changes via GitHub, that's kinda strange. As for making announcements on them, we generally don't announce anything public until we're sure. For example, during 2.0 we talked about how onion skin was probably gonna be added. It's already 3.0 and we don't have onion skin. It would not have made sense to officially announce we were working onion skin back then.
———-
I think it's only fair to do the reverse: me asking you questions. Doesn't have to be just you answering, could be anyone:

There is clearly some really weird disconnect in how long people believe a suggestion should implemented from the time the suggestion was made. What did you originally feel is the ideal time a suggestion should be implemented, and what was your reasons for coming up with that time frame?
If you perceived the rules to be excessively strict, what were your reasons for staying instead of moving to a community elsewhere with a similar scope (e.g. Snap!, GameMaker, etc.) or using the offline editor?
How did you come across Scratch, and how effectively was it communicated to you that the program was a tool primarily aimed at young children (5-8 years if age)? If you didn't know it was aimed at children, does that fact affect how you view the software and website and what projects you'll upload going forward?
How effectively was it communicated to you that the website was designed for asset-sharing and remixing, with an emphasis on copyleft principles and not copyright principles?
In what ways have you positively contributed to the Scratch Community in the past year? If not, what plans will you take to do that going on forwards?

CST1229

cheddargirl wrote:
(#17)
I think it's only fair to do the reverse: me asking you questions. Doesn't have to be just you answering, could be anyone:
There is clearly some really weird disconnect in how long people believe a suggestion should implemented from the time the suggestion was made. What did you originally feel is the ideal time a suggestion should be implemented, and what was your reasons for coming up with that time frame?
If you perceived the rules to be excessively strict, what were your reasons for staying instead of moving to a community elsewhere with a similar scope (e.g. Snap!, GameMaker, etc.) or using the offline editor?
How did you come across Scratch, and how effectively was it communicated to you that the program was a tool primarily aimed at young children (5-8 years if age)? If you didn't know it was aimed at children, does that fact affect how you view the software and website and what projects you'll upload going forward?
How effectively was it communicated to you that the website was designed for asset-sharing and remixing, with an emphasis on copyleft principles and not copyright principles?
In what ways have you positively contributed to the Scratch Community in the past year? If not, what plans will you take to do that going on forwards?

IDK
The community! I (and certainly other people) have made several friends on here (e.g the mineral fish fandom and the Advanced Topics), and in some cases there aren't a lot of other platforms they're on (and in that case we essentially can't move elsewhere due to the chat policy existing).
I don't remember now (though I did program before using this site, so I probably joined to make and share stuff).
Well (I like this principle).
IDK

Last edited by CST1229 (May 30, 2023 07:14:57)

jvvg

There is clearly some really weird disconnect in how long people believe a suggestion should implemented from the time the suggestion was made. What did you originally feel is the ideal time a suggestion should be implemented, and what was your reasons for coming up with that time frame?

Now that I work as a developer I understand that not only are suggestions pretty hard to implement, things like determining what is in and out of scope are even harder. I actually write an essay about this topic and very much do understand that most suggestions won't be implemented and those that do often take a while.

If you perceived the rules to be excessively strict, what were your reasons for staying instead of moving to a community elsewhere with a similar scope (e.g. Snap!, GameMaker, etc.) or using the offline editor?

This one bothers me too. The one absolute right people have on this site (and many other online communities) is the right to leave, and people complain and do a lot of saber rattling when if they really don't like it they are welcome to leave and even start their own community if they wish. It also is strange how many people threaten to quit Scratch over their dislike for something here but never actually follow through with that threat.

How did you come across Scratch, and how effectively was it communicated to you that the program was a tool primarily aimed at young children (5-8 years if age)? If you didn't know it was aimed at children, does that fact affect how you view the software and website and what projects you'll upload going forward?

I came across Scratch when I was in elementary school when my dad found out about it (in its early days) in a tech magazine and told me it was a tool to help kids learn programming. At the time I didn't even think about the fact that it was aimed at younger people since I was one and that was kind of the default (and this was the first online community I was involved with). As I got older (especially as a teenager) I will admit I became a bit more rebellious and dissatisfied with the rules since it felt like they were holding me back, since similar to when I was younger I just kind of assumed everyone on the site was in my demographic (teenager at the time). Now that I am an actual adult I understand that the site is primarily aimed at children and as a result everyone needs to act in a way that's suitable for that demographic.

How effectively was it communicated to you that the website was designed for asset-sharing and remixing, with an emphasis on copyleft principles and not copyright principles?

I personally have never had any issues with the remix culture so I don't have any comments to make on this.

In what ways have you positively contributed to the Scratch Community in the past year? If not, what plans will you take to do that going on forwards?

While admittedly I don't do as much now as I used to (turns out working full time is a major time sink), I have done a few things, including answering questions on the forums, trying to give a bit of insight into why things are the way they are (including my essay about the subject), making the occasional project to show off slightly more advanced programming techniques in Scratch, maintaining the Wiki (mainly through engineering work at this point, but still some content improvements and administration), among other things.

Prince_Wolf1

cheddargirl wrote:
There is clearly some really weird disconnect in how long people believe a suggestion should implemented from the time the suggestion was made. What did you originally feel is the ideal time a suggestion should be implemented, and what was your reasons for coming up with that time frame?
If you perceived the rules to be excessively strict, what were your reasons for staying instead of moving to a community elsewhere with a similar scope (e.g. Snap!, GameMaker, etc.) or using the offline editor?
How did you come across Scratch, and how effectively was it communicated to you that the program was a tool primarily aimed at young children (5-8 years if age)? If you didn't know it was aimed at children, does that fact affect how you view the software and website and what projects you'll upload going forward?
How effectively was it communicated to you that the website was designed for asset-sharing and remixing, with an emphasis on copyleft principles and not copyright principles?
In what ways have you positively contributed to the Scratch Community in the past year? If not, what plans will you take to do that going on forwards?

I would think 2-5 years for at least a response on popular suggestions for at least if the scratch team is interested at all or not.if there’s a response then it shows that ST does look at suggestions.
I don’t really think of them as strict anymore, but I had friends and had fun doing stuff even if I thought the mutes were unfair.
we used it in school and couldn’t do anything with people outside our class so I made a personal account.somewhere I saw 8-16 but I don’t think that’s enough for everyone.but it was for me I think (since I was 9 anyway)
I don’t know

Last edited by Prince_Wolf1 (May 30, 2023 17:21:30)

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