Rethink a part of the Scratch teams mentality

NanoRook

I disagree strongly with the points presented by OP. What is being suggested here violates a lot of basic principles of website maintenance and infrastructure.

The service itself being up and regularly maintained will always take first priority over something like new features or quality of life changes. This especially goes double for something as large as Scratch that could easily be opened up to zero-days, excessive downtime, and other exploits if it's not kept updated.

The Scratch Team talking about new features is quite literally essential to their addition in the first place so I'm not sure what you're complaining about other than new stuff not coming out fast enough for your tastes. It would be chaotic mess if there was absolutely no planning or discussion for new features being added because there would be absolutely zero in the way of quality assurance, testing, etc. “Less chat, more work” is dismissive and comes off as an insult rather than an honest cry for something to be done.

Every other post I've read in this thread that supports OP seems to be extremely callous and/or flat out rude towards the team just because they feel owed something. A protip to advanced users who are adept enough in Scratch to want advanced features; you are not and will never be the target audience of Scratch.

I agree that more communication should be a thing; there have been suggestions in this subforum that I feel should be implemented or given an official reply (official dark theme integration, global custom blocks, Sprite layers and containers, etc.) but I won't hold my breath because the first priority is helping introduce new coders to coding. If you have a hankering for more advanced programming, then there's a whole world of other programming languages out there waiting for you.

Last edited by NanoRook (Jan. 21, 2022 20:24:11)

dertermenter

NanoRook wrote:
The service itself being up and regularly maintained will always take first priority over something like new features or quality of life changes.

I do understand how important server work and site performance is, but with items being (sometimes rightly) above adding features, it means features never get added. They need to happen at some point.

NanoRook wrote:
so I'm not sure what you're complaining about other than new stuff not coming out fast enough for your tastes. It would be chaotic mess if there was absolutely no planning or discussion for new features being added because there would be absolutely zero in the way of quality assurance, testing, etc.

No, they should discuss features, but it does not take a year to “gather feedback” for Scratch lab, nor with any other idea. How long does it take to outline to pros and cons of a dark mode suggestion? It does not take 5 years.

nanorook wrote:
“Less chat, more work” is dismissive and comes off as an insult rather than an honest cry for something to be done.

It is just a title that summarised my point, I have no idea how that comes across as rude. We are allowed to give constructive criticism to the Scratch Team, and I will say if there are flaws. This is one of them.

NanoRook wrote:
advanced features; you are not and will never be the target audience of Scratch.

I am hoping that this suggestion did not come off as “add advanced features”, as I understand that Scratch is not the place for advanced mechanisms. I agree with you.

NanoRook wrote:
I agree that more communication should be a thing; there have been suggestions in this subforum that I feel should be implemented or given an official reply (official dark theme integration, global custom blocks, Sprite layers and containers, etc.) but I won't hold my breath because the first priority is helping introduce new coders to coding. If you have a hankering for more advanced programming, then there's a whole world of other programming languages out there waiting for you.

Yes, the Scratch Team should still only implement suggestions with it matching the scratch design goals, and considerations on how it affects the status of Scratch remaining an introductory programming language. But some suggestions seem nothing wrong with them apart from taking time to implement, and of course, everything takes time.

Even with suggestions to implement features to make it easier, or features that go perfectly with the Scratch design goals, still do not seem to have any plans for these suggestions. Bring back the help button? Seems to be no plans. Implement the Scratch Lab animated text from (what I have seen) overwhelming support? Has not been done.

Last edited by dertermenter (Jan. 21, 2022 20:58:58)

DarthVader4Life

sonic__fan wrote:
sonic__fan wrote:
DarthVader4Life wrote:
sonic__fan wrote:
DarthVader4Life wrote:
-snip-
-snip-
-snip-
-snip-
I think you may not understand the “don't take too long” part. That essentially means “don't take 5 years discussing an easy-to-add, helpful feature before adding it”.
A good example would be the Dark Mode suggestion.

I think everyone here has forgotten that there's not that many Scratch Team members, and not all of them are developers. They have to prioritize, which means that they have to table some things for later. 3.0 is essentially an entire rework of the site. That takes a while to do, especially debugging. Contrary to popular belief, discussion isn't the only reason why we don't have something yet. Prioritization can also be a factor.

sonic__fan

DarthVader4Life wrote:
sonic__fan wrote:
sonic__fan wrote:
DarthVader4Life wrote:
sonic__fan wrote:
DarthVader4Life wrote:
-snip-
-snip-
-snip-
-snip-
I think you may not understand the “don't take too long” part. That essentially means “don't take 5 years discussing an easy-to-add, helpful feature before adding it”.
A good example would be the Dark Mode suggestion.
I think everyone here has forgotten that there's not that many Scratch Team members, and not all of them are developers. They have to prioritize, which means that they have to table some things for later. 3.0 is essentially an entire rework of the site. That takes a while to do, especially debugging. Contrary to popular belief, discussion isn't the only reason why we don't have something yet. Prioritization can also be a factor.

I think you may be forgetting this part of the OP:

dertermenter wrote:
The priority list in scratch is flawed. Whilst I do understand server work, site performance and making the site safe are important issues, but these should only be ranked higher than new features to an extent. The problem is, is that these 3 things on the priority list are constantly pushing down new features, and with no new features, the community starts to turn on the Scratch Team. Will dark mode ever be implemented? It is always said it is being considered, but then the Scratch Team get no work done because they talk about it for ages and then they have to do server work. And when it comes near the top of the priority list again - oh wait, surprise surprise, it has been pushed down again.

Dark mode is not even hard to implement. It is just a few CSS changes, isn't it? Surely professional developers can implement something even better than the teenage amateur coders did, and what they did was like 4 dark modes and tonnes of options.

DarthVader4Life

sonic__fan wrote:
DarthVader4Life wrote:
sonic__fan wrote:
sonic__fan wrote:
DarthVader4Life wrote:
-snip-
I think you may not understand the “don't take too long” part. That essentially means “don't take 5 years discussing an easy-to-add, helpful feature before adding it”.
A good example would be the Dark Mode suggestion.
I think everyone here has forgotten that there's not that many Scratch Team members, and not all of them are developers. They have to prioritize, which means that they have to table some things for later. 3.0 is essentially an entire rework of the site. That takes a while to do, especially debugging. Contrary to popular belief, discussion isn't the only reason why we don't have something yet. Prioritization can also be a factor.
I think you may be forgetting this part of the OP:
dertermenter wrote:
The priority list in scratch is flawed. Whilst I do understand server work, site performance and making the site safe are important issues, but these should only be ranked higher than new features to an extent. The problem is, is that these 3 things on the priority list are constantly pushing down new features, and with no new features, the community starts to turn on the Scratch Team. Will dark mode ever be implemented? It is always said it is being considered, but then the Scratch Team get no work done because they talk about it for ages and then they have to do server work. And when it comes near the top of the priority list again - oh wait, surprise surprise, it has been pushed down again.

Dark mode is not even hard to implement. It is just a few CSS changes, isn't it? Surely professional developers can implement something even better than the teenage amateur coders did, and what they did was like 4 dark modes and tonnes of options.

I think you may be forgetting that I've not yet read the new OP. It's been updated and I haven't read it yet. Also, very little of what I have said has been defeated by this snippet of the OP. Just the last two sentences, actually.
Also, you don't have to leave -snip- in each individually snipped quote, you can just leave one quote with one -snip-.

Last edited by DarthVader4Life (Jan. 21, 2022 23:03:32)

sonic__fan

DarthVader4Life wrote:
sonic__fan wrote:
DarthVader4Life wrote:
sonic__fan wrote:
sonic__fan wrote:
DarthVader4Life wrote:
-snip-
I think you may not understand the “don't take too long” part. That essentially means “don't take 5 years discussing an easy-to-add, helpful feature before adding it”.
A good example would be the Dark Mode suggestion.
I think everyone here has forgotten that there's not that many Scratch Team members, and not all of them are developers. They have to prioritize, which means that they have to table some things for later. 3.0 is essentially an entire rework of the site. That takes a while to do, especially debugging. Contrary to popular belief, discussion isn't the only reason why we don't have something yet. Prioritization can also be a factor.
I think you may be forgetting this part of the OP:
dertermenter wrote:
The priority list in scratch is flawed. Whilst I do understand server work, site performance and making the site safe are important issues, but these should only be ranked higher than new features to an extent. The problem is, is that these 3 things on the priority list are constantly pushing down new features, and with no new features, the community starts to turn on the Scratch Team. Will dark mode ever be implemented? It is always said it is being considered, but then the Scratch Team get no work done because they talk about it for ages and then they have to do server work. And when it comes near the top of the priority list again - oh wait, surprise surprise, it has been pushed down again.

Dark mode is not even hard to implement. It is just a few CSS changes, isn't it? Surely professional developers can implement something even better than the teenage amateur coders did, and what they did was like 4 dark modes and tonnes of options.
I think you may be forgetting that I've not yet read the new OP. It's been updated and I have read it yet. Also, very little of what I have said has been defeated by this snippet of the OP. Just the last two sentences, actually.

1. Ok, well, now you have read it.
2. It kinda does. You said how the Scratch Team needs to prioritize, but this snippet says that the ST needs to prioritize other things.

DarthVader4Life

sonic__fan wrote:
DarthVader4Life wrote:
sonic__fan wrote:
DarthVader4Life wrote:
sonic__fan wrote:
sonic__fan wrote:
DarthVader4Life wrote:
-snip-
I think you may not understand the “don't take too long” part. That essentially means “don't take 5 years discussing an easy-to-add, helpful feature before adding it”.
A good example would be the Dark Mode suggestion.
I think everyone here has forgotten that there's not that many Scratch Team members, and not all of them are developers. They have to prioritize, which means that they have to table some things for later. 3.0 is essentially an entire rework of the site. That takes a while to do, especially debugging. Contrary to popular belief, discussion isn't the only reason why we don't have something yet. Prioritization can also be a factor.
I think you may be forgetting this part of the OP:
dertermenter wrote:
-snip-
I think you may be forgetting that I've not yet read the new OP. It's been updated and I haven't read it yet. Also, very little of what I have said has been defeated by this snippet of the OP. Just the last two sentences, actually.
1. Ok, well, now you have read it.
2. It kinda does. You said how the Scratch Team needs to prioritize, but this snippet says that the ST needs to prioritize other things.

Well, one, it's still not all of it, and two, it kinda doesn't. “They need to prioritize” is a fact, a fact that the OP likely agrees with. “Which means they have to table some things for later” is also true, and I never said what things needed to be tabled. I also never mentioned if a tabled thing was tabled even longer. These things take time, and a lot of it. Technically, if you can make something relatively quickly (such as dark mode), you can put it off for longer because it wouldn't take too much time to do it. You're not going to want to put off something that would take a few months when you could put off something that would take a week or two.

sonic__fan

DarthVader4Life wrote:
sonic__fan wrote:
DarthVader4Life wrote:
sonic__fan wrote:
DarthVader4Life wrote:
sonic__fan wrote:
sonic__fan wrote:
DarthVader4Life wrote:
-snip-
I think you may not understand the “don't take too long” part. That essentially means “don't take 5 years discussing an easy-to-add, helpful feature before adding it”.
A good example would be the Dark Mode suggestion.
I think everyone here has forgotten that there's not that many Scratch Team members, and not all of them are developers. They have to prioritize, which means that they have to table some things for later. 3.0 is essentially an entire rework of the site. That takes a while to do, especially debugging. Contrary to popular belief, discussion isn't the only reason why we don't have something yet. Prioritization can also be a factor.
I think you may be forgetting this part of the OP:
dertermenter wrote:
-snip-
I think you may be forgetting that I've not yet read the new OP. It's been updated and I haven't read it yet. Also, very little of what I have said has been defeated by this snippet of the OP. Just the last two sentences, actually.
1. Ok, well, now you have read it.
2. It kinda does. You said how the Scratch Team needs to prioritize, but this snippet says that the ST needs to prioritize other things.
Well, one, it's still not all of it, and two, it kinda doesn't. “They need to prioritize” is a fact, a fact that the OP likely agrees with. “Which means they have to table some things for later” is also true, and I never said what things needed to be tabled. I also never mentioned if a tabled thing was tabled even longer. These things take time, and a lot of it. Technically, if you can make something relatively quickly (such as dark mode), you can put it off for longer because it wouldn't take too much time to do it. You're not going to want to put off something that would take a few months when you could put off something that would take a week or two.

Ok.
I really have no idea how to respond, as I kinda agree.

DinoMaster20

Full support with all of this, and complete agreement.

Not too much to say about it that hasn't been said. The priority list needs to change, or get set in one direction.

Last edited by DinoMaster20 (Jan. 22, 2022 00:47:22)

MrFluffyPenguins

DarthVader4Life wrote:
sonic__fan wrote:
We don't mean “rush updates”, we mean “rethink your mentality and allow some suggestions to come to fruition, but don't take too long”.
Or in other words, “rush updates.”

No.

dertermenter

DarthVader4Life wrote:
"They need to prioritize” is a fact, a fact that the OP likely agrees with.

Agreed, and server work should mostly come first, just that other things (like updates) need to make it to the top someday.

DarthVader4Life wrote:
Technically, if you can make something relatively quickly (such as dark mode), you can put it off for longer because it wouldn't take too much time to do it. You're not going to want to put off something that would take a few months when you could put off something that would take a week or two.

I do not really get this point. Surely the Scratch Team for sake of time, would only implement small updates, then they can shift their focus on maintaining the site easier?

10goto10

There has been a lot covered in this topic and this might not sound productive but you might want to close it and start over.

From the title it sounded like you wanted to Scratch Team to review their design goals and some people replied in that direction. A minimal set of features does not improve user experience. Otherwise people would just have PDP-8 minicomputers with just a front row of switches and LED’s. It’s not fun and does not provide a good user experience (but if you could go back in time you could get paid $1.25 per hour).

And then there is a sub-thread of wondering if the community is being well-served by the development team. Some people found this rude.

You, at one point, asked “Then what is the point of having the suggestions forum in the first place?” I thought that was a good question. If the Scratch Team routinely closes rejected suggestions to avoid having the community waste their time then why not just close the suggestions forum altogether until further notice to avoid having the community waste their time? It’s like typing comments into /dev/null. After a few years it starts to seem pointless.

Some people mentioned the popularity of Turbowarp and I still think SNAP might be good alternative if their server was not so darn slow (where do they still get parts for that old PDP-8 minicomputer?).

Lot’s of talk about the priority list but the Scratch Team does not share their road map so except for guessing that they are keeping their heads above water and continuing to work on the look and feel of the website, we don’t know what might be in their queue. So that might be a separate suggestion “please share with us your roadmap”.

warriorcats2155

BrowserExtension wrote:
Support! We should remove the addition block because it has such an easy workaround:
set [a v] to [1]
set [b v] to [1]
set [answer v] to (a)
repeat (b) // basically 1+b = answer. Does not work with decimals and negative numbers but you get the idea 
change [answer v] by (1)
end 
My point is that the Scratch Team shouldn't think the opposite of the truth.

That is just–
not easy for new programmers to understand, also extremely tedious to code in….

ALLENINFINITY99

dertermenter wrote:
bump

bump

dertermenter

10goto10 wrote:
(#79)
dertermenter wrote:
…with no new features, the community starts to turn on the Scratch Team. …
I have already posted once today - which I messed up by quoting all of the OP’s message instead of just the part that I meant to quote. However, all that I said a few replies up I was, I think, a good reply even if I did have an editing mistake.

But I wanted to comment on “starts to turn on the Scratch Team”. It might be better, if you are trying to propose something to the Scratch Team, to instead say something like “Scratch is likely to become less engaging to teachers, students, and everyone else. There is a risk of their product becoming stale and no longer considered “the gold standard” with so many other options to choose from”.

Right - that does seem more formal. Will change my post

There has been a lot covered in this topic and this might not sound productive but you might want to close it and start over.

I disagree. The suggestion is still about the mentality and the issues with the Scratch Team; I did change a few points in the OP since I thought the old one was poorly written but there has been so much discussion on the topic, giving it up is not an option. If you, or anyone, have any other ideas to make the OP better then I am happy for feedback.

10goto10 wrote:
So that might be a separate suggestion “please share with us your roadmap”.

They do give hints on the invisible but in place “priority list” which I have rambled about for ages, but this is a good point. This topics discussion has been quite diverse, giving ideas on communication from the Scratch Team suggestions (although they are working on that) and about what really is Scratch target audience.

Last edited by dertermenter (Jan. 23, 2022 12:20:54)

10goto10

dertermenter wrote:
…
They do give hints on the invisible but in place “priority list” which I have rambled about for ages, but this is a good point…

I had not see Cheddergirl’s comment about the current Scratch Team task list.

So, looks like there is a planned group of tasks:

Set number one:

Updating the moderation tools,
Making updates to the servers (we have a highway where I live in which there are some people that have spent their entire careers just expanding and maintaining that one highway),
Making aesthetic changes to the profile pages to give them a 3.0 look.

After Set #1 then set #2 is:
Making aesthetic changes to the forums.

That’s it?

What’s missing is any Scratch program language enhancements, editor enhancements, or paint editor enhancements.

If these are off the table at this point then it would be a kindness to the community if the moderators would just close any suggestions in these areas. They do this now for rejected suggestions to keep us from wasting our time. They should show us the same love by keeping us from discussing suggestions about any aspect not currently under any real or likely consideration for change.

Or maybe the formers could take this on by posting this on each suggestion about new blocks, new editor features, or new paint editor features:

“It’s great when people have enough interest in Scratch that they want to share their ideas but, just so you know, those of us who regularly use the forums have noticed that the Scratch Team is not looking at any suggestions about new blocks, new editor features, or new paint editor features and has no apparent plans to modify them. We’ve been recommending that people just close topics suggesting these type of changes, such as the one you have made here, rather than waste time discussing ideas that will not be included in any foreseeable planned change.

Instead, you might want to take a look at other programming sites, such as Snap! that have a wider range of features.

Scratch On,
———”

hiPeeps124816

Support, many blocks not added can be worked around, but the workarounds are hard and complicated

rdococ

I agree with this to an extent. However, you have to keep in mind that the Scratch Team are trying to create a learning environment for kids from kindergarten to grade 12 (or, kids of all ages) to learn programming.

In order to keep that environment easy and familiar to use for kindergarteners while still allowing grade 12 students to create advanced projects, you have to strike a very careful balance of features.

The Scratch Team is trying to balance the quality and quantity of features in Scratch with not overloading the brains of young children who see Scratch for the first time. Of course they're not going to add a bunch of advanced features suggested in the forums!

supergirl3212

rdococ wrote:
I agree with this to an extent. However, you have to keep in mind that the Scratch Team are trying to create a learning environment for kids from kindergarten to grade 12 (or, kids of all ages) to learn programming.

In order to keep that environment easy and familiar to use for kindergarteners while still allowing grade 12 students to create advanced projects, you have to strike a very careful balance of features.

The Scratch Team is trying to balance the quality and quantity of features in Scratch with not overloading the brains of young children who see Scratch for the first time. Of course they're not going to add a bunch of advanced features suggested in the forums!

No actually the median age of the site is twelve, and twelve-year-olds should be able to understand most of the stuff suggested. /lh

supergirl3212

NanoRook wrote:
I disagree strongly with the points presented by OP. What is being suggested here violates a lot of basic principles of website maintenance and infrastructure.

The service itself being up and regularly maintained will always take first priority over something like new features or quality of life changes. This especially goes double for something as large as Scratch that could easily be opened up to zero-days, excessive downtime, and other exploits if it's not kept updated.

The Scratch Team talking about new features is quite literally essential to their addition in the first place so I'm not sure what you're complaining about other than new stuff not coming out fast enough for your tastes. It would be chaotic mess if there was absolutely no planning or discussion for new features being added because there would be absolutely zero in the way of quality assurance, testing, etc. “Less chat, more work” is dismissive and comes off as an insult rather than an honest cry for something to be done.

Every other post I've read in this thread that supports OP seems to be extremely callous and/or flat out rude towards the team just because they feel owed something. A protip to advanced users who are adept enough in Scratch to want advanced features; you are not and will never be the target audience of Scratch.

I agree that more communication should be a thing; there have been suggestions in this subforum that I feel should be implemented or given an official reply (official dark theme integration, global custom blocks, Sprite layers and containers, etc.) but I won't hold my breath because the first priority is helping introduce new coders to coding. If you have a hankering for more advanced programming, then there's a whole world of other programming languages out there waiting for you.

Can you be a bit less hostile please? The entire tone of your argument sounds angry and accusatory. /lh

And no, we're not saying “Make more advanced blocks.”

We're saying that more new blocks should be added to provide workarounds for what typically need long coding scripts. This completely contradicts your accusation stated in paragraph four. Adding workarounds does not make scratch more complicated. In fact, it makes scratch much simpler for the younger coders to understand. And while it may be confusing to understand advanced blocks, there's nothing telling younger users they have to use them. They can just choose not to, and still be able to create high quality projects.

/lh /nm

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