Discuss Scratch

WindOctahedron
Scratcher
1000+ posts

Don't allow users with less than 100 posts to post in Announcements

Introduction

It was the 17th of November. I saw that someone with a strange username posted something in announcements, so I clicked the “Last post” link in curiosity to see what they posted. I looked at other posts, too…
"OH MRES, THE SPAM!" I thought. “The wrong forum posters!”*
*I'm not talking about the same people.
I wondered: “Why are they spamming with the ”forever“ blocks so much? Why are there users who don't even know about the other forums?”
It turns out that it's mainly because the Scratch News are a direct link to Announcements and the individual topics in it. (Thanks, CatsUnited!)

Why is this happening? And why is this important?

Here are some of the answers to why is there so much spam:
  1. Only a few users check the Announcements forum regularly, so there's not many people to report all this spam (and for some reason, the Scratch Team members, who are the owners of these topics, don't delete them themselves).

  2. There are not many reasons to post something in “Announcements” anyway (if you are not a Scratch Team member), so the users don't exactly see an example post that is typical for a specific forum, so they just think that posting something miscellaneous (or everything) is allowed there.
And here is the reason why are there so many wrong forum posters (let's call them WFPs):
  1. They don't know about the other forums, because there is no immediately visible link to the “main page” of the forums, only to Announcements and the individual posts in it, and they don't look around to see links like “Discussion Home”.
On top of all of that, none of both types get notifications when someone replies to them, so they don't know that they are doing something wrong.
I was also going to say that there is only one sticky that does not explain the rules of the forum, but 54329 is working on a guide to the forum, which might get stickied one day.

But why is this important? Well, the spam posts clog up the servers with their posts that only “forever” loops, and more importantly, WFPs don't get answers to their questions.

CatsUnited already came up with a solution to this problem (see their third paragraph), but I have another one - not allowing users with less 100 posts to post in Announcements.

How my suggestion would solve the problem

Spammers would find out that they can't post there. After that, they would either quit or spam elsewhere. If they made a new topic for their spam, it would be simply closed with a message that they are spamming (which increases the chance of stopping that). And if they posted it as a post on someone else's thread, it would be noticed more quickly.
WFPs would start looking for a place where they can post, so they'll probably notice the “Discussion Home” button, which will bring them to the page where they can find what they want. And again, if they still posted in the wrong topic, it could be moved, and if they made a post instead of a topic, it would be noticed more quickly.

Why my solution? Not only it prevents spam, but it also helps people to discover the other forums.
Why not my solution? Well, because of the same reasons the Scratch Team didn't bring back the discuss button, only in a milder form. Also, this suggestion might be too restrictive, and users would also try to reach 100 posts by spamming to “unlock” Announcements.

Other questions

“Why specifically 100?” If you want to be a Forum Helper, you have to have at least 100 posts. They put that requirement to make sure that all applicants are experienced enough to be helpful. To be helpful, you have to understand the rules of the forums. This means that 100 posts = experienced enough to understand the rules of the forums = experienced enough to not spam.

Feel free to request any improvements to this suggestion or leave feedback.

Last edited by WindOctahedron (Feb. 21, 2020 17:43:35)

--Pop-and-Cub--
Scratcher
18 posts

Don't allow users with less than 100 posts to post in Announcements

Full support, there is so much spam there, and this would help cut down on it quite a bit.
DoNotFoIIowMe
Scratcher
100+ posts

Don't allow users with less than 100 posts to post in Announcements

Full support.

I have less than a hundred posts, but I still agree with this. Each time I go onto an announcement topic I see so much spam, I mutter under my breath “Dude, what is this?!”

Yeah, if this doesn't get implemented soon the forums are gonna be in serious trouble.
cheesyfriedeggs
Scratcher
1000+ posts

Don't allow users with less than 100 posts to post in Announcements

I've noticed a trend in the Announcements forum recently where people(most of them have less than 100 posts) spam forever loops inside forever loops, which can really lag people's computers. Support.
DoNotFoIIowMe
Scratcher
100+ posts

Don't allow users with less than 100 posts to post in Announcements

cheesyfriedeggs wrote:

I've noticed a trend in the Announcements forum recently where people(most of them have less than 100 posts) spam forever loops inside forever loops, which can really lag people's computers. Support.

I have not heard about this ;-;

forever
forever
forever
forever
forever
forever
forever
// sorry
end
end
end
end
end
end
end
cheesyfriedeggs
Scratcher
1000+ posts

Don't allow users with less than 100 posts to post in Announcements

DoNotFoIIowMe wrote:

cheesyfriedeggs wrote:

I've noticed a trend in the Announcements forum recently where people(most of them have less than 100 posts) spam forever loops inside forever loops, which can really lag people's computers. Support.

I have not heard about this ;-;

forever
forever
forever
forever
forever
forever
forever
// sorry
end
end
end
end
end
end
end
The loops people do there are MUCH bigger.
CatsUnited
Scratcher
1000+ posts

Don't allow users with less than 100 posts to post in Announcements

cheesyfriedeggs wrote:

The loops people do there are MUCH bigger.
Yeah, I'm assuming they just made a small forever loop as a demonstration and so their post wouldn't be flagged for spamming.

As for the suggestion itself, I'm not sure why there's ever really a reason to have an Announcement page open most of the time. I know that the Scratch Team wants to hide the forums from most of the Scratch community to prevent things like spam, however the Scratch News section on the front page is the main gateway other than through hearing about it through other Scratchers to find the forums. As a result, we see a lot of forum spam there that doesn't usually exist on other parts of the forums.

Personally, I think Scratch Announcements and News should be done separately to the forums. They already have this page around doing nothing, so I think they could update that page to the Scratch 3 styling and then just host announcements, Wiki Wednesdays etc. over there.
WindOctahedron
Scratcher
1000+ posts

Don't allow users with less than 100 posts to post in Announcements

CatsUnited wrote:

As for the suggestion itself, I'm not sure why there's ever really a reason to have an Announcement page open most of the time. I know that the Scratch Team wants to hide the forums from most of the Scratch community to prevent things like spam, however the Scratch News section on the front page is the main gateway other than through hearing about it through other Scratchers to find the forums. As a result, we see a lot of forum spam there that doesn't usually exist on other parts of the forums.

Personally, I think Scratch Announcements and News should be done separately to the forums. They already have this page around doing nothing, so I think they could update that page to the Scratch 3 styling and then just host announcements, Wiki Wednesdays etc. over there.
Hmmm… I didn't think about the “Scratch News” on the front page. I agree with your post, and I'll include the problem with the Scratch News in my original post.
coder2045
Scratcher
1000+ posts

Don't allow users with less than 100 posts to post in Announcements

WindOctahedron wrote:

I recently checked out the only open topic in Announcements, and I thought: "OH MRES, THE SPAM!*"
*And other off-topic things, too.
To prevent this, I came up with a solution that you can see in the title.

You are probably saying: “But this doesn't stop users from spamming in other places!” I know, but:
  1. Only a few users check the Announcements forum regularly, so there's not many people to report all this spam (and for some reason, the Scratch Team members, who are the owners of these topics, don't delete them themselves).

  2. There are not many reasons to post something in “Announcements” anyway (if you are not a Scratch Team member), so the users don't exactly see an example post that is typical for a specific forum, so they just think that posting something miscelllaneous is allowed there.

  3. They can't make their own topics there, so their posts can't be simply moved to another place or get closed (and they most likely don't know that you don't get notifications when someone quotes you, let alone that it's rejected).

  4. Announcements is at the top of the page, so if the user doesn't read the description of the purpose of the forum, this is, in a lot of cases, the first thing the user clicks. Actually, as CatsUnited pointed out, it's because the Scratch News on the front page are direct links to the forum and the topics.
If they found out that they can't post there, they would start looking for a forum for the thing they want to say (and possibly reading the descriptions), which increases the chances of posting in the right place (and if they still posted where they shouldn't have, the topic could be moved).

“Why specifically 100?” If you want to be a Forum Helper, you have to have at least 100 posts. They put that requirement to make sure that all applicants are experienced enough to be helpful. To be helpful, you have to understand the rules of the forums. This means that 100 posts = experienced enough to understand the rules of the forums = experienced enough to not spam.

Feel free to request any improvements to this suggestion or leave feedback.
No Support. It would help prevent spam, but:
1. People might click the 2nd section and spam there.
2. It took me 3 months to get 100 posts (mostly because I couldn't find good topics)
3. I think the Announcement section would get less spam because there's only about 1-3 topics open at a time and I think it's one of the least interesting sections.
4. I also think people would be more motivated to spam because they would want to get 100 posts to “unlock” the Announcements section.
badatprogrammingibe
Scratcher
500+ posts

Don't allow users with less than 100 posts to post in Announcements

No support. The quality of a user's posts is inversely proportional to the amount, so if anything we shouldn't allow users with more than 100 posts to post in announcements.
Either way, spam in the announcement forums doesn't matter as all anybody with any sense reads is the first post, anyways.

Last edited by badatprogrammingibe (May 24, 2020 06:16:31)

WindOctahedron
Scratcher
1000+ posts

Don't allow users with less than 100 posts to post in Announcements

badatprogrammingibe wrote:

Either way, spam in the announcement forums doesn't matter as all anybody with any sense reads is the first post, anyways.
True, but think about the servers.
WindOctahedron
Scratcher
1000+ posts

Don't allow users with less than 100 posts to post in Announcements

Okay, I think that I should make a clear distinction between "spammers“ and ”wrong topic posters" in my original post so that people don't get confused. Magenta denotes something which adresses both.
Nevermind, that wasn't a good idea.

Last edited by WindOctahedron (Nov. 18, 2019 15:51:23)

WindOctahedron
Scratcher
1000+ posts

Don't allow users with less than 100 posts to post in Announcements

coder2045 wrote:

1. People might click the 2nd section and spam there.
They could click any section and spam there. However, there is a higher chance of creating a new topic, and as I said in my post, it's good, because they are able to get notifications for the replies that can explain forum rules.
Also, another bad fact is that the Announcements forum contains only one sticky that does not explain the rules of the forum(s), while other forums that the user is likely to post in have more stickies that explain the rules.
2. It took me 3 months to get 100 posts (mostly because I couldn't find good topics)
And how much about the forum rules and etiquette did you learn? I bet that a lot. Also, why wouldn't you tell me the number of posts you think should be required (suggest an improvement to the suggestion), instead of listing the high requirement as one of the reasons to not support?
3. I think the Announcement section would get less spam because there's only about 1-3 topics open at a time and I think it's one of the least interesting sections.
The fact that it's the least interesting section is actually one of the reasons why it contains a lot of spam. Firstly, people don't look there, and secondly, there are not that many constructive posts to serve as an “example post”, both because there's not that much to talk about (“not interesting”).
And it all gets worse by the fact that the front page contains a direct link (Scratch News) to the Announcements forum.
4. I also think people would be more motivated to spam because they would want to get 100 posts to “unlock” the Announcements section.
Let me think about it more… just wait a little bit.

Last edited by WindOctahedron (Nov. 17, 2019 19:35:52)

--Pop-and-Cub--
Scratcher
18 posts

Don't allow users with less than 100 posts to post in Announcements

cheesyfriedeggs wrote:

I've noticed a trend in the Announcements forum recently where people(most of them have less than 100 posts) spam forever loops inside forever loops, which can really lag people's computers. Support.
This is a another reason i support, i found a post like this there and it made my computer lag so badly.
54329
Scratcher
500+ posts

Don't allow users with less than 100 posts to post in Announcements

I want to say support with a deep passion, but I feel like this would be too restrictive. I am 100% in agreement with you on the fact that spam in the Announcement forums has to stop (so much that I made a guide on it), though. I just don't know if this is the way.
badatprogrammingibe
Scratcher
500+ posts

Don't allow users with less than 100 posts to post in Announcements

54329 wrote:

I want to say support with a deep passion, but I feel like this would be too restrictive. I am 100% in agreement with you on the fact that spam in the Announcement forums has to stop (so much that I made a guide on it), though. I just don't know if this is the way.
What negative consequence does spam in the announcements forum have?

WindOctahedron wrote:

badatprogrammingibe wrote:

Either way, spam in the announcement forums doesn't matter as all anybody with any sense reads is the first post, anyways.
True, but think about the servers.

The space used up by forum posts is negligible when compared to the space used by projects.
WindOctahedron
Scratcher
1000+ posts

Don't allow users with less than 100 posts to post in Announcements

Bump.
DoNotFoIIowMe
Scratcher
100+ posts

Don't allow users with less than 100 posts to post in Announcements

coder2045 wrote:

-snip-
4. I also think people would be more motivated to spam because they would want to get 100 posts to “unlock” the Announcements section.

I'm slightly changing my view of this suggestion due to this - this feature could cause users to start spamming in the other forums as well.
54329
Scratcher
500+ posts

Don't allow users with less than 100 posts to post in Announcements

badatprogrammingibe wrote:

What negative consequence does spam in the announcements forum have?
You like spam?
badatprogrammingibe
Scratcher
500+ posts

Don't allow users with less than 100 posts to post in Announcements

54329 wrote:

badatprogrammingibe wrote:

What negative consequence does spam in the announcements forum have?
You like spam?
In general I do not approve of spam, however I am indifferent towards it in the “announcements” and “new scratchers” subforums due to their nature.

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