jeffalo fixed the forum lag so plz add back for 2025

Wdym by “fixed the forum lag”, jello isn't an ST member at all
& wasn't the removal of the AFD forums due to moderation reasons?

IceCreamTub wrote:

Wdym by “fixed the forum lag”, jello isn't an ST member at all

He was an intern in July

Forum lag wasn't the main reason that the AFD forum didn't come back this year.

Since @Jeffalo fixed the forum lag, would you say that it's okay to spam on the forums now?

April fools’ day was a lot of fun and had good participation.

I think lag must have been a big concern.
Cheddargirl once gave us this explanation

There's kind of a reason why I've been yelling my head off the past two years about how I don't like the forums being used for April Fools Day. Which is nothing compared to how growly some of the remaining engineers feel about the forums. Not all the website lag is caused by the forums, but if the website lags and then forums go down afterwards, it's because the forums transformed into a lag monster. Nothing much we can do until after the lag monster has gone through its temper tantrum.

https://scratch-mit-edu.ezproxyberklee.flo.org/discuss/topic/726186/?page=1#post-7663453

10goto10 wrote:

I think lag must have been a big concern.

jeffalo fixed it

A-MARIO-PLAYER wrote:

10goto10 wrote:

I think lag must have been a big concern.

jeffalo fixed it

Are we certain that @Jeffalo fixed the specific lag that the forums cause? Yes, large threads load faster now, but I'm not certain whether the forums are still taxing on the rest of the website. (If you think about it, most joke posts on April Fools' are not large topics anyway, so evidently these quick-to-load forum topics still cause problems for the rest of the website.)

BigNate469 wrote:

Forum lag wasn't the main reason that the AFD forum didn't come back this year.

Exactly. It was probably a significant reason, but whether or not it was the majority, there are still the moderation concerns. Scratchers in recent years haven't really respected the purpose of April Fools' Day in the forums … lots of spam and disrespectful comments were made in recent years on April Fools' Day. Lag or not, the moderation issues are enough of a reason to prevent April Fools' in the forums from coming back.

A-MARIO-PLAYER wrote:

IceCreamTub wrote:

Wdym by “fixed the forum lag”, jello isn't an ST member at all

He was an intern in July

Was? He still is.

starlightsparker wrote:

(#9)
Was? He still is.

Read his comments, he said his internship ended

Za-Chary wrote:

Lag or not, the moderation issues are enough of a reason to prevent April Fools' in the forums from coming back.

Are you sure? Do you have a source for that? Moderation issues just come with the Scratch territory. We only see a small part of it but the fights over plagiarism, the cyberbullying, the cliques in the studios (and the spam, and the disrespectful behavior) must require a large amount of moderation effort. I don’t know what the Scratch Team report queue looks like but I would expect it to be full all the time. If moderations issues control what usage is allowed then perhaps the Scratch Team should go back to the days when galleries were not allowed to be chat rooms https://scratcharchive.asun.co/forums/viewtopic.php?id=6992&p=1

However, if the Scratch Team has decided that the April Fools forum activity is the straw that breaks the camel’s back that’s that. But there was some creativity that could be found in the things that people posted and I think there was more there than I see in many of the chatroom studios.

10goto10 wrote:

Za-Chary wrote:

Lag or not, the moderation issues are enough of a reason to prevent April Fools' in the forums from coming back.

Are you sure? Do you have a source for that? Moderation issues just come with the Scratch territory. We only see a small part of it but the fights over plagiarism, the cyberbullying, the cliques in the studios (and the spam, and the disrespectful behavior) must require a large amount of moderation effort. I don’t know what the Scratch Team report queue looks like but I would expect it to be full all the time. If moderations issues control what usage is allowed then perhaps the Scratch Team should go back to the days when galleries were not allowed to be chat rooms https://scratcharchive.asun.co/forums/viewtopic.php?id=6992&p=1

However, if the Scratch Team has decided that the April Fools forum activity is the straw that breaks the camel’s back that’s that. But there was some creativity that could be found in the things that people posted and I think there was more there than I see in many of the chatroom studios.

The issue isn't that the website needs to be moderated, it's that the AFD forum invited things that could otherwise be considered spam (and are, especially on the forums), but there was still several things considered spam. As a result, unknowing Scratchers would post things still considered spam, and there was so much of it that it was hard to moderate. In addition, it kind of functioned as an off-topic forum in a way, which is a rejected suggestion for it's own reasons.

A-MARIO-PLAYER wrote:

starlightsparker wrote:

(#9)
Was? He still is.

Read his comments, he said his internship ended

Oh wow, I thought it was 6 months or smth?

Back to topic now,
Well, forum lag wasn’t the only issue. There was probably other issues regarding spam and etc.

BigNate469 wrote:

The issue isn't that the website needs to be moderated, it's that the AFD forum invited things that could otherwise be considered spam (and are, especially on the forums), but there was still several things considered spam. As a result, unknowing Scratchers would post things still considered spam, and there was so much of it that it was hard to moderate. In addition, it kind of functioned as an off-topic forum in a way, which is a rejected suggestion for it's own reasons.

You’ve done a good job of defining the problem. I’m still waiting for an ST member to say “we have the resources to moderate plagiarism, cyber bullying, studio cliques, raids, spam, endless off-topic chats, and disrespectful comments, but there is no way we will ever deal with the hard to moderate problem that came with the AFD forum activity. Any brain storming or creativity in this area is unwelcome. Post your AFD suggestions in a project where it will never be seen”(after 10 days my AFD suggestion project still only has 2 views).

If that’s the answer then okay, I’ll just move on and it will be another policy and practice that I don’t like but after all the website belongs to the Scratch Foundation.

10goto10 wrote:

BigNate469 wrote:

The issue isn't that the website needs to be moderated, it's that the AFD forum invited things that could otherwise be considered spam (and are, especially on the forums), but there was still several things considered spam. As a result, unknowing Scratchers would post things still considered spam, and there was so much of it that it was hard to moderate. In addition, it kind of functioned as an off-topic forum in a way, which is a rejected suggestion for it's own reasons.

You’ve done a good job of defining the problem. I’m still waiting for an ST member to say “we have the resources to moderate plagiarism, cyber bullying, studio cliques, raids, spam, endless off-topic chats, and disrespectful comments, but there is no way we will ever deal with the hard to moderate problem that came with the AFD forum activity. Any brain storming or creativity in this area is unwelcome. Post your AFD suggestions in a project where it will never be seen”(after 10 days my AFD suggestion project still only has 2 views).

If that’s the answer then okay, I’ll just move on and it will be another policy and practice that I don’t like but after all the website belongs to the Scratch Foundation.

AFD requires 100% active forum moderation from everyone, something they don't like

10goto10 wrote:

You’ve done a good job of defining the problem. I’m still waiting for an ST member to say “we have the resources to moderate plagiarism, cyber bullying, studio cliques, raids, spam, endless off-topic chats, and disrespectful comments, but there is no way we will ever deal with the hard to moderate problem that came with the AFD forum activity. Any brain storming or creativity in this area is unwelcome. Post your AFD suggestions in a project where it will never be seen”(after 10 days my AFD suggestion project still only has 2 views).

I was a moderator for Scratch back in 2019 - 2021. Let's remember that in 2021, the spam got so bad that the Scratch Team had to stop new topics from being made in the Suggestions forum. This is not something that usually happens in day-to-day forum usage.

Yes, it is the moderators' job to clean up all the stuff you mentioned, including spam, but that doesn't mean that Scratchers need to make such spam on purpose. It's similar to school janitors — it may be their job to clean up any messes, but that doesn't mean we can dump all our trash on the floor without a care just because “it's someone's job to clean it up.” The Scratch Team can mostly handle the stuff that normally gets reported, but the added April Fools' Day topics just add a lot on their plate that they frankly shouldn't have to spend the time and energy to deal with. Every minute they spend cleaning up the forums for April Fools' Day is a minute lost that they could have spent taking care of more important issues (like removing inappropriate projects).

I agree with you that the creative and well thought-out joke topics were very fun to read. But the fact of the matter is that a majority of the April Fools' topics starting in 2020 - 2021 were just spam. It got to be too much for the Scratch Team to handle.

I think this time you are saying that the issue you saw was that Scratchers saw this as a special opportunity to disrespect the website. This has to be addressed before any brain storming opportunity could be provided again. Perhaps there are ideas that could be suggested and tried to help mitigate that problem.

I’d rather see it stated that way instead of just no, not ever, we are done with that.

Again I’ll mention that the Scratch Team once emphatically said no to using galleries as chat rooms and now they are everywhere.

No. A combination of both moderation issues plus lag were the reasons for not allowing April Fool in the forums in 2024. Even with forum fixes aside, large amounts of spam present a huge breadth of moderation and lag issues. So having AFD on the forums still present the same challenges now, as back then, even when taking the current backend changes into account.