There's a new rule in town, i think. Because flashing can cause seizures. I've heard of 2 seperate projects being taken down because of this (kinda). While this is great to remove those unwarned, extremely flashy intros that give me seizures even though I don't have epilepsy, it could be destructive to games that involve flashing effects.

My game contains flashes, and will have a big old massive warning at the start saying “Warning, flashing lights” and an option to make flashes smaller (small bar at the bottom of the screen, instead of full-stage flash) and no flash (even though it'll make the game suck).

This is mostly a question about the rule, and no, I do not plan on ‘playing it safe and not having flashes at all’. So don't tell me to.

I AM NOT GOING TO REMOVE THE FLASHES COMPLETELY, DO NOT SAY THAT, please

Without any further information on how the Scratch Team enforces this rule, I am only to assume that it will be enforced the same way that other rules are enforced (regarding blood, 18+ content, jumpscares, etc.). Namely, I assume, but do not know for sure, that the Scratch Team will remove projects with extreme flashing, regardless of whether or not there is an option to turn them off, and regardless of whether or not there is a warning given in the project.

Since you state that you are not willing to remove the flashing lights from your project, the only way to play it safe is to keep those projects unshared.

Za-Chary wrote:

Without any further information on how the Scratch Team enforces this rule, I am only to assume that it will be enforced the same way that other rules are enforced (regarding blood, 18+ content, jumpscares, etc.). Namely, I assume, but do not know for sure, that the Scratch Team will remove projects with extreme flashing, regardless of whether or not there is an option to turn them off, and regardless of whether or not there is a warning given in the project.

Since you state that you are not willing to remove the flashing lights from your project, the only way to play it safe is to keep those projects unshared.

If they take it down even when you give both a warning and an easy-to-access, or even better, a straight up popup before the actual project, option to turn the flashing off, that's really dumb. At that point, with both the option and the warning, it's ignorance on the players part, not on the project creator

Gamer_Logan819 wrote:

If they take it down even when you give both a warning and an easy-to-access, or even better, a straight up popup before the actual project, option to turn the flashing off, that's really dumb. At that point, with both the option and the warning, it's ignorance on the players part, not on the project creator

^I agree. Also, how extreme are the flashes? Like, whole-screen, super-bright, every-five-seconds flashes? Lots of Scratch games have flashes, and they rarely get taken down unless it's really extreme.

Gamer_Logan819 wrote:

If they take it down even when you give both a warning and an easy-to-access, or even better, a straight up popup before the actual project, option to turn the flashing off, that's really dumb. At that point, with both the option and the warning, it's ignorance on the players part, not on the project creator

Are you saying that should also be sufficient for including 18+ adult images, jumpscares, or blood in a project?

Gamer_Logan819 wrote:

Za-Chary wrote:

Without any further information on how the Scratch Team enforces this rule, I am only to assume that it will be enforced the same way that other rules are enforced (regarding blood, 18+ content, jumpscares, etc.). Namely, I assume, but do not know for sure, that the Scratch Team will remove projects with extreme flashing, regardless of whether or not there is an option to turn them off, and regardless of whether or not there is a warning given in the project.

Since you state that you are not willing to remove the flashing lights from your project, the only way to play it safe is to keep those projects unshared.

If they take it down even when you give both a warning and an easy-to-access, or even better, a straight up popup before the actual project, option to turn the flashing off, that's really dumb. At that point, with both the option and the warning, it's ignorance on the players part, not on the project creator

“The browser and the roblox official website both says to not trust free robux sites. Therefore, it is the 3 year old's fault to be doxxed”
“The police and his family both told him to stay safe, therefore, it is his fault he got brutally murdered while on an evening stroll”
“The robber and the other robber both told her to give them her money, therefore, it is her fault she didn't and instead got stabbed”

-not Glitch

Za-Chary wrote:

Gamer_Logan819 wrote:

If they take it down even when you give both a warning and an easy-to-access, or even better, a straight up popup before the actual project, option to turn the flashing off, that's really dumb. At that point, with both the option and the warning, it's ignorance on the players part, not on the project creator

Are you saying that should also be sufficient for including 18+ adult images, jumpscares, or blood in a project?

'18+ imagery' As you call it is strictly not allowed, and clearly stated so. Flashing lights are not directly against a rule:

The Community Guidelines wrote:

We welcome people of all ages, races, ethnicities, religions, abilities, sexual orientations, and gender identities.

I'll welcome them by allowing the option to turn flashes off, which I'm starting to think will have to be the default option.
And as for jumpscares, if you are warned clearly before they happen, they don't count as jumpscares.

Nuclear_Melon wrote:

'18+ imagery' As you call it is strictly not allowed, and clearly stated so. Flashing lights are not directly against a rule:

Flashing lights clearly are against a rule if Scratchers are getting alerted for using them.

Nuclear_Melon wrote:

I'll welcome them by allowing the option to turn flashes off, which I'm starting to think will have to be the default option.

This is like saying you'll welcome people of all ages by allowing the option to hide/show all 18+ adult images.

Nuclear_Melon wrote:

And as for jumpscares, if you are warned clearly before they happen, they don't count as jumpscares.

That's not entirely true. If the jumpscare is too scary for Scratch, it will get removed, regardless of whether or not a warning is included.

It's probably worth re-clarifying that I don't 100% know the Scratch Team's stance on this issue. This was never discussed when I was a Scratch Team member (granted, this was over a year ago). All I know is that it appears as though a couple of Scratchers have gotten their projects taken down for including flashing lights in them. I have no idea how strictly the Scratch Team plans to enforce this, and I don't really know what counts as “flashy” enough.

But with any rule like this, my default response is to say that, just to be safe, don't include any flashing lights in your project. Since this is not a solution for you, then your only options may be to never share the project in the first place, or just share it with flashing lights anyway and risk having the Scratch Team unshare it for you. This is your choice.

There's nothing inherently wrong with including a warning or an option for something in a project — for example, I could put a warning that my project contains the color blue, and make an option to turn all blue into pink, and that would likely be fine. But historically, including warnings/options like this do not influence the Scratch Team's decision to unshare a project if it contains material that is not appropriate for the Scratch website.

Za-Chary wrote:

Flashing lights clearly are against a rule if Scratchers are getting alerted for using them.

But that's the thing, and we're back where we started! Where did this come from? And what are the conditions? What rule? Is this new? According to logic, a warning is all that is needed, right? And that's not even including the fact that adult content is quite different to flashing lights.

Nuclear_Melon wrote:

Where did this come from?

It is a well-known fact that extreme flashing lights can cause seizures in some people. This has been known for many years; I remember my Nintendo DSi warning me about this every single time I turned the system on.

Nuclear_Melon wrote:

And what are the conditions?

“No extreme flashing lights,” probably. That's not completely clear itself, but that's generally how the Scratch Team operates with a lot of these sorts of things. That's good, because then Scratchers won't be able to make projects that are just on the border of breaking the Community Guidelines. The goal of any Scratcher should be to make projects such that this ambiguity is not even an issue.

Nuclear_Melon wrote:

What rule? Is this new?

The rule of “no extreme flashing lights,” probably. I assume this is new since I had not heard of anyone getting alerted for this until earlier this week.

Nuclear_Melon wrote:

According to logic, a warning is all that is needed, right?

There are all kinds of “logic” we could throw out here. By “logic” one can claim that a warning is enough to post adult content on Scratch (it's not). By “logic” I could claim that of course extreme flashing lights shouldn't be allowed to prevent seizures. By “logic” you are claiming that a warning is enough to post extreme flashing lights on Scratch.

The logic I use follows patterns previously exhibited by Scratch Team members on other various rule-breaking content.

Nuclear_Melon wrote:

And that's not even including the fact that adult content is quite different to flashing lights.

It's an example. Feel free to replace “adult content” with “blood” or “jumpscares” and my point remains the same.

Za-Chary wrote:

Gamer_Logan819 wrote:

If they take it down even when you give both a warning and an easy-to-access, or even better, a straight up popup before the actual project, option to turn the flashing off, that's really dumb. At that point, with both the option and the warning, it's ignorance on the players part, not on the project creator

Are you saying that should also be sufficient for including 18+ adult images, jumpscares, or blood in a project?

Blood and jumpscares, sure. Adult images are completely a different thing

Za-Chary wrote:

Gamer_Logan819 wrote:

If they take it down even when you give both a warning and an easy-to-access, or even better, a straight up popup before the actual project, option to turn the flashing off, that's really dumb. At that point, with both the option and the warning, it's ignorance on the players part, not on the project creator

Are you saying that should also be sufficient for including 18+ adult images, jumpscares, or blood in a project?

For jumpscares and blood? Yes! For adult images? That's a completely different thing

GUYS, contact us happened. The answers, I guess:

A Scratch Team Member wrote:

Thanks for reaching out. We don't remove projects just for flashing effects unless that is the only thing they do (i.e., intended to disturb users). If you make the effects toggleable, that should be sufficient.

Very good, and we can now understand what the rules are, although this is subject to change, etc etc.