There seems to be a relatively new rule against (extreme?) flashing lights in projects, which is causing confusion as exhibited in this topic and this topic. The latter has included a Scratch Team message on this subject, and I'm inclined to believe it is actually real since the sentence structure and word choice is similar to other alerts I've seen in the past:

The Scratch Team has removed this project because it is inappropriate for the Scratch website. Flashing imagery like this can be harmful to others watching so we ask you to either please change the flashing our remove it from your project before resharing. Please follow the Community Guidelines when using Scratch.

The way I see it, there are two possibilities:

• This was an alert made exclusively for one or two specific projects because they had egregious amounts of flashing lights. (In this case, the “new rule” is not too widespread, so there's not much to worry about.)
  
  
• The Scratch Team has started sending out these alerts lately because they recently came to the conclusion that they would like to watch more carefully for flashing lights.
  

Over a year ago, I recall the Scratch Team not taking action against projects just because they had flashing lights. If this is indeed a new rule, I think it should be confirmed/clarified, just so that we can all refer to it when helping others. No “announcement” needs to be made, necessarily — closing this topic with an explanation is sufficient. Specifically, answering these questions would be helpful:

(1) Is it true that the Scratch Team is cracking down harder on flashing lights in projects?

(2) If the answer to (1) is “yes,” why is this new rule being enforced?

(3) If the answer to (1) is “yes,” is it enough to include a warning in your project in order to be able to use flashing lights, or include an option to turn them off?

(4) If possible, could you describe examples in which flashing lights in a project may or may not be okay?

I feel like this should be in QaS…

I searched Ocular like crazy, looked for all posts involving flashing lights, then ones just by “Paddle2See” or “cheddargirl”, but all that I could find is this post, but it's old. Strange.

bump

k7e wrote:

I feel like this should be in QaS…

I searched Ocular like crazy, looked for all posts involving flashing lights, then ones just by “Paddle2See” or “cheddargirl”, but all that I could find is this post, but it's old. Strange.

This suggests that the ST should clarify if the above post is true, even for scratchers who never asked for it, the OP never asked the ST if it is true or false…

I think it should probably be clarified because I've seen users before in QAS (this was several years ago, though) saying it's ok as long as you add a warning, but they didn't have a source. So, I think they actually didn't know, and were just making it up.

In other words, I think there is a lot of confusion on whether these kinds of projects are allowed, and it would be really useful, as I feel many projects contain flashing lights.

Za-Chary wrote:

No “announcement” needs to be made, necessarily

It would be a lot better if one was made though just so more users know about the rule change so more users know about a rule change, meaning that Scratchers know they can't put excessive flashing lights in a project before they do, which means less people break the guidelines and they don't make flashes that could harm others.

The_Blue_J wrote:

k7e wrote:

I feel like this should be in QaS…

I searched Ocular like crazy, looked for all posts involving flashing lights, then ones just by “Paddle2See” or “cheddargirl”, but all that I could find is this post, but it's old. Strange.

This suggests that the ST should clarify if the above post is true, even for scratchers who never asked for it, the OP never asked the ST if it is true or false…

Ahem…

Za-Chary wrote:

(1) Is it true that the Scratch Team is cracking down harder on flashing lights in projects?

bump

A recent Contact Us message clarifies the policy:

Contact Us 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.

This is all the clarification I need, so I'm closing this thread.