If you don't know what these are, they're basically meant to detect when you press the love or favorite button. On the surface it seems harmless.
But then you realize users are exploiting this.

You see, a decent amount of the projects on trending right now (or atleast under #games) have this same detector- and how do they use it? They put a giant slab of text on the screen saying something along the lines of “love/favorite for 10 free coins!!!” and that WON'T go away until you love/favorite. See the problem now? It's, in a way, manipulating users so that the project can get on trending (which I'm pretty sure is a violation of section 3.3.5 of the terms of use, correct me if I'm wrong)

Obviously, it would be impossible to automatically detect one of these things, but I think they should be reportable/banned.
Loves/favorites should be earned, not obtained.

(And if they already ARE banned, then sorry that I didn't see it)

I'm quite sure that they are against the rules, and I think that they are reportable. Of course, I'm probably wrong, but they should be banned anyway.

If they aren't banned, they should be .

support, and I think it does violate the TOU

If it gets abused too much, then yes, I think it could be no longer allowed. I guess the amount of love and favorite detectors and reminders have gone up recently and people feel more than ever like actually loving and favoriting a project, so.

By the way they're not completely accurate – you can just hover over the love and favorite buttons to activate the detector.

D-ScratchNinja wrote:

If it gets abused too much, then yes, I think it could be no longer allowed. I guess the amount of love and favorite detectors and reminders have gone up recently and people feel more than ever like actually loving and favoriting a project, so.

By the way they're not completely accurate – you can just hover over the love and favorite buttons to activate the detector.

Some can even be tricked with a right-click. Although they are indeed inaccurate, there is still a good chunk of people that do not know how to trick the system.

In my opinion it's completely fine as long as their not forcing you or using it so you cannot do anything unless you love and favorite the project. Although, it's already simple enough to go inside the project and change the code.

Off Topic: Yay! First post on my alt.

ShyGamer16-alt wrote:

In my opinion it's completely fine as long as their not forcing you or using it so you cannot do anything unless you love and favorite the project. Although, it's already simple enough to go inside the project and change the code.

Off Topic: Yay! First post on my alt.

Also, they usually can't detect if you unlove or unfavorite the project meaning that you can love and favorite it and get coins and then you can unlove and unfavorite and still have 10 coins.

Literally just unfav immediately

ShyGamer16-alt wrote:

In my opinion it's completely fine as long as their not forcing you or using it so you cannot do anything unless you love and favorite the project. Although, it's already simple enough to go inside the project and change the code.

Off Topic: Yay! First post on my alt.

Or bribing you.

If you just hover over the button, it will “detect” it. I don't think they should be banned outright, but if they're used for harm they shouldn't be allowed.

MeIzAwezomeDede wrote:

They put a giant slab of text on the screen saying something along the lines of “love/favorite for 10 free coins!!!” and that WON'T go away until you love/favorite. See the problem now? It's, in a way, manipulating users so that the project can get on trending (which I'm pretty sure is a violation of section 3.3.5 of the terms of use, correct me if I'm wrong)

This is a Gaming the Community scheme which violates the ‘be honest’ community guideline. ref: https://scratch-mit-edu.ezproxyberklee.flo.org/discuss/post/3827252/
And it don't think it matters that some people have figured out how to out-game the scheme by just hovering and not actually clicking.

MeIzAwezomeDede wrote:

Obviously, it would be impossible to automatically detect one of these things, but I think they should be reportable/banned.
Loves/favorites should be earned, not obtained.

(And if they already ARE banned, then sorry that I didn't see it)

So, Scratch Team, that's the question. Are these types of projects instances of being dishonest and do you want us to report them?

People can easily exit the project and ignore it. Plus, a sucuessful game maker wouldn't do this, and if they did, (if you really wanted to play the game) you could see inside and remove the scripts.

bump

mtech22 wrote:

If you just hover over the button, it will “detect” it. I don't think they should be banned outright, but if they're used for harm they shouldn't be allowed.

1.5 Social action reporter blocks
This block could be used to obtain the current number of loves, favorites, or views of the project. Similar blocks could return the number of loves or followers that the user or creator has. But, project creators can easily use these blocks to prevent Scratchers from playing unless the project is given enough loves, favorites, and the like. These blocks could also make people think that getting these social actions are important, or that Scratch is about fame. In reality, if a user presses the love button on a project, it should be because they enjoyed the project, not because they are trying to reach some sort of goal.

This suggestion extends to all social actions, including views, loves, favorites, remixes, comments, and followers.

(number of [loves v] :: sensing)

How do the “detectors” play any different role than a social action reporter block? I'm all ears.

Super_Scratch_Bros20 wrote:

mtech22 wrote:

If you just hover over the button, it will “detect” it. I don't think they should be banned outright, but if they're used for harm they shouldn't be allowed.

1.5 Social action reporter blocks
This block could be used to obtain the current number of loves, favorites, or views of the project. Similar blocks could return the number of loves or followers that the user or creator has. But, project creators can easily use these blocks to prevent Scratchers from playing unless the project is given enough loves, favorites, and the like. These blocks could also make people think that getting these social actions are important, or that Scratch is about fame. In reality, if a user presses the love button on a project, it should be because they enjoyed the project, not because they are trying to reach some sort of goal.

This suggestion extends to all social actions, including views, loves, favorites, remixes, comments, and followers.

(number of [loves v] :: sensing)

How do the “detectors” play any different role than a social action reporter block? I'm all ears.

They aren't as accurate, I haven't ever seen them used in a project that wasn't specifically for them

I agree that they are not welcome in projects - it does seem like they are trying to “buy” social actions. Social actions should always be freely given - not coerced.

That being said - I'm not sure how easy it would be for our moderators to verify that the feature is being abused. I wonder if there isn't a technical fix that could be applied. Why is Scratch detecting mouse position outside of the boundaries of the Scratch screen in the first place? What if we were able to make it so that it didn't?

D-ScratchNinja wrote:

By the way they're not completely accurate – you can just hover over the love and favorite buttons to activate the detector.

But nobody admits that, so it's tricking the community if you ask me.

Paddle2See wrote:

Why is Scratch detecting mouse position outside of the boundaries of the Scratch screen in the first place? What if we were able to make it so that it didn't?

That would be a good way to fix this without taking down every single project that uses it!

Paddle2See wrote:

I agree that they are not welcome in projects - it does seem like they are trying to “buy” social actions. Social actions should always be freely given - not coerced.

That being said - I'm not sure how easy it would be for our moderators to verify that the feature is being abused. I wonder if there isn't a technical fix that could be applied. Why is Scratch detecting mouse position outside of the boundaries of the Scratch screen in the first place? What if we were able to make it so that it didn't?

then projects like getting over it would be even harder to control, within the small box of the stage

Fun_Cupcake_i81 wrote:

D-ScratchNinja wrote:

By the way they're not completely accurate – you can just hover over the love and favorite buttons to activate the detector.

But nobody admits that, so it's tricking the community if you ask me.

Paddle2See wrote:

Why is Scratch detecting mouse position outside of the boundaries of the Scratch screen in the first place? What if we were able to make it so that it didn't?

That would be a good way to fix this without taking down every single project that uses it!

But there wouldn't be able to do that without removing all instances of detection of the mouse location, because it detects the mouse right before it goes of screen, not after.

Paddle2See wrote:

That being said - I'm not sure how easy it would be for our moderators to verify that the feature is being abused.

That is a good point- it could be a pain to moderate. I'd imagine you'd only have to check for a detector if the project gets enough reports (plus with most projects, the “like/favorite for …” prompt appears very quickly (and sorry if that's not what you meant))

Paddle2See wrote:

Why is Scratch detecting mouse position outside of the boundaries of the Scratch screen in the first place? What if we were able to make it so that it didn't?

I don't know how well that solution would work, though, because there are some projects that use this feature/bug in clever ways (for example, moving the mouse around obstacles outside of the screen as the game's main mechanic)