My idea:

A forum bot (similar to wikipedia bots) that can spot duplicate posts or rejected ideas as soon if not close after someone posts it. With the prevalence of AI, this wouldn't be too hard of a task.

For example:

@User1: We should have Scratch name changes!
@ScratchBot: REJECTED - See Rejected Suggestions 8.1, this topic has been closed."

Or:

@User1: How about forums in Scratch projects?
@ScratchBot: DUPLICATE - See this topic hyperlink. This topic has been closed."

(please note: this would work pretty well if the Bot noticed a particular idea, that's my suggestion)

There's hundreds of thousands of suggestions; more likely than not this bot would close a topic that isn't a duplicate or rejection.

I don't think bots that do social actions are allowed. Also how can the ai detect if it's rejected or not.

Crispydogs101 wrote:

I don't think bots that do social actions are allowed. Also how can the ai detect if it's rejected or not.

Pre-program it with the official list of rejected suggestions, and update it's programming every time a suggestion is officially rejected. Also, how is that a social action?

pavcato wrote:

There's hundreds of thousands of suggestions; more likely than not this bot would close a topic that isn't a duplicate or rejection.

That is a legitimate concern. However, it could be easily avoided by using a bot to

1. Take that idea and use an internal search function to search other topics
2. Find the most relevant one of those topics
3. Generate the message and link that topic.

Maybe, we also don't have the bot close the topic.

TLONScratch wrote:

Crispydogs101 wrote:

I don't think bots that do social actions are allowed. Also how can the ai detect if it's rejected or not.

Pre-program it with the official list of rejected suggestions, and update it's programming every time a suggestion is officially rejected

One problem solved which is a good thing. Also with the fact it only will say the quote of TOLORS and not anything else. But it still breaks the rule of bots not being able to do social actions.

Crispydogs101 wrote:

TLONScratch wrote:

Crispydogs101 wrote:

I don't think bots that do social actions are allowed. Also how can the ai detect if it's rejected or not.

Pre-program it with the official list of rejected suggestions, and update it's programming every time a suggestion is officially rejected

One problem solved which is a good thing. Also with the fact it only will say the quote of TOLORS and not anything else. But it still breaks the rule of bots not being able to do social actions.

@ScratchCat's commenting is also a bot.

Crispydogs101 wrote:

I don't think bots that do social actions are allowed.

The Scratch Team can make any sort of bots they want, if they believe it will help run the website. This already occurs on @ScratchCat's profile.

k7e wrote:

Crispydogs101 wrote:

TLONScratch wrote:

Crispydogs101 wrote:

I don't think bots that do social actions are allowed. Also how can the ai detect if it's rejected or not.

Pre-program it with the official list of rejected suggestions, and update it's programming every time a suggestion is officially rejected

One problem solved which is a good thing. Also with the fact it only will say the quote of TOLORS and not anything else. But it still breaks the rule of bots not being able to do social actions.

@ScratchCat's commenting is also a bot.

True! So that proves that not all bots that are programmed to do good are all not bad. And the ST have a bot that does social actions which is bending the Community Guidelines a little which should be changed a little too.

Za-Chary wrote:

Crispydogs101 wrote:

I don't think bots that do social actions are allowed.

The Scratch Team can make any sort of bots they want, if they believe it will help run the website. This already occurs on @ScratchCat's profile.

But I’m confused, if they allow pre-made bots, then why can’t most of them perform social actions?

PaperMarioFan2022 wrote:

Za-Chary wrote:

Crispydogs101 wrote:

I don't think bots that do social actions are allowed.

The Scratch Team can make any sort of bots they want, if they believe it will help run the website. This already occurs on @ScratchCat's profile.

But I’m confused, if they allow pre-made bots, then why can’t most of them perform social actions?

The Scratch Team allowing themselves to do something is different from allowing anybody to do something. It's the same reason why you're not allowed to share your email address on Scratch, despite the fact that the Scratch Team shares a way to contact them via Contact Us.

Za-Chary wrote:

PaperMarioFan2022 wrote:

Za-Chary wrote:

Crispydogs101 wrote:

I don't think bots that do social actions are allowed.

The Scratch Team can make any sort of bots they want, if they believe it will help run the website. This already occurs on @ScratchCat's profile.

But I’m confused, if they allow pre-made bots, then why can’t most of them perform social actions?

The Scratch Team allowing themselves to do something is different from allowing anybody to do something. It's the same reason why you're not allowed to share your email address on Scratch, despite the fact that the Scratch Team shares a way to contact them via Contact Us.

Makes sense. Thanks for clearing up my confusion Za-Chary!

YES.
I have an idea: What if it detects if it's rejected before the post is even published? Like before you post it, it shows a warning like:

Hold on! This suggestion may have been rejected by the Official Rejected Lists of Suggestions:

8.1 Changing usernames or changing display names
If a user could change their username (or even set a certain “nickname” or “display name”), this could be very confusing for the Scratch community, especially for those following that user. In addition, this would make moderation of the website more difficult because it would be harder for the Scratch Team to keep an eye on what a user may be doing. The Scratch Team has allowed username changes only on very rare occasions, such as if the username contains personal information or causes gender dysphoria. Generally, the Scratch Team does not change usernames on request (including for reasons such as “I do not like my current username anymore”).

However, because of the way that usernames are stored on the server, changing the cases of letters in your username (for example, changing @Za-Chary to @ZA-CHARY) is NOT rejected; you can discuss it on this topic.

Please check the stickies before posting.

Yeah, that's probably the best I've seen so far.
(did that sound sarcastic? it's not, it's actually true)

Semi support. The bot may be wrong.

I will full support if they added a This seems wrong… button (it reports to be re opened and tells the st to fix it), and a Thanks button.

@ScratchBot wrote:

This is a duplicate. See This topic for the non duplicate. I also closed this topic.

This seems wrong (0) - Thanks (0)

No support, the ai could get confused, for example:

Lets say someone suggests something that could get mixed up with a rejected suggestion, changing users.

And he types: this is NOT changing users

The ai could get confused thinking it is changing usernames.

And good news for god sake, chatGPT is getting sued so they cant do it for scratch haha perfect timing

And there are moderators that take care of these stuff

And last point, ai arent purrfect

Semi-Support.
Us Scratchers and the Moderators already keep the Suggestions forum kinda in check that way, but, a bot could be useful to make it easier on the Moderators and those who just want to help.
Other people here also have a point; the bot/ai would probably get confused and possibly miss a topic. Or tell a different, original topic that theirs was a rejection or duplicate. It would be a matter of training the bot/ai.
Even then, which ai would power this bot?

Crazibot wrote:

Semi-Support.
Us Scratchers and the Moderators already keep the Suggestions forum kinda in check that way, but, a bot could be useful to make it easier on the Moderators and those who just want to help.
Other people here also have a point; the bot/ai would probably get confused and possibly miss a topic. Or tell a different, original topic that theirs was a rejection or duplicate. It would be a matter of training the bot/ai.
Even then, which ai would power this bot?

Well not chatGPT *pu tu punc*

Actually, I think that the bot should do 3 things: check if it is a duplicate/rejected suggestion, posts that it thinks it is, and reports it to the scratch team. For example:

User wrote:

I think we should be able to make custom reporter blocks!

ScratchBot wrote:

It seems like this topic may be a duplicate of Better Custom Blocks.
Please check the Suggestions Directory before posting.

If the topic is a duplicate, and this:

User2 wrote:

I think Scratch should be in 3D!

ScratchBot wrote:

It seems like this suggestion is rejected:

1.7 3D Scratch
This block, and others, could be used with a z-axis in the project stage to make it easier to create 3D projects. But, Scratch is a language that is designed to be as easy as possible for beginners to learn. Adding 3D features would make the language more difficult for beginners to understand, and a 3D engine is not exactly the purpose of Scratch. This suggestion also includes the possibility for virtual-reality features in Scratch, or “Scratch VR.” A lot of the same difficulties come up.

For those who are interested, it may be worth checking out Beetle Blocks or CreatiCode. They are block-based programming languages similar to the Scratch editor, but with 3D features. There is another similar program to Scratch that contains block programming with 3D features, called Starlogo TNG. You can also try Alice; it is not exactly like Scratch, but has some similar features.

go to x: () y: () z: () :: motion

Please check the Official List of Rejected Suggestions before posting.

if the suggestion is rejected.
Also maybe detect if the topic is off-topic, like:

User3 wrote:

Hi!
Please play my video games!

ScratchBot wrote:

It seems like this topic may belong in the Show and Tell forums.
This forum is for suggestions to make improvements to the Scratch website.

but that last part may be too complicated.

+1

I agree with many of the points mentioned above about the confusion, but there are four more things that I wanted to point out:

1. This doesn't sound feasible. I believe that the forum structure is much harder to change than the rest of the site. I won't go into the details, but basically I'm not sure it's very easy to implement, if possible.
   
2. Is this really a priority? Most of the users don't use the forums, and the moderators already seem to do a great job handling duplicates. I don't see a need to add a whole other technical feature for this.
   
3. Why add a bot that will close a topic immediately after a duplicate is made, instead of just stopping the post from being made in the first place? That way, it will save a lot of money.
   
4. Users have already said that there will be some false positives, but I think that's a bit unspecific: I think just about all topics would be closed upon creation due to a false positive, and would have to be asked to be reopened. This would put a lot more stress on the moderators, who would have to reopen topics left and right.