Za-Chary wrote:

Scratchers who just joined cannot use the forums.

I wrote this from a New Scratcher account - although it has already got invited to become a Scratcher

SpyCoderX wrote:

Recently, scratch introduced a new button. The Debug button.

It appears in the project editor view. When clicked, it opens a popup with several pages about how to debug your code.

At the end is a “Ask for Help” page.
Currently, it looks like this:


I suggest adding a small link that connects to the “Help with Scripts” subforum.


Why?
First, this would help bring new users to the forums, but would also be quite discreet (unknown). Most users might not notice the menu, and if they do they'll just skip through a few pages and close it. Only the users who actually need/want help will look all the way through it.

Second, a lot of users don't have good friends who can also/are willing to debug their code. Connecting users to a group who has a lot more knowledge and time to help out would benefit these programmers.

support, lets just hope if it gets added the forums dont get flooded with stuff like “OH MY!!! EPIC SUPER GENERIC PLATFORMER PLAY NOW BEST PROJECT EVER” or “GUYS HELP PLS HOW DO I PUT A LINE UNDER THE CAT”, or “HOW DO YOU MAKE THESE FUNNY HAHA GRADIENTS CHAT PLS TELL”

SpyCoderX wrote:

Recently, scratch introduced a new button. The Debug button.

It appears in the project editor view. When clicked, it opens a popup with several pages about how to debug your code.

At the end is a “Ask for Help” page.
Currently, it looks like this:


I suggest adding a small link that connects to the “Help with Scripts” subforum.


Why?
First, this would help bring new users to the forums, but would also be quite discreet (unknown). Most users might not notice the menu, and if they do they'll just skip through a few pages and close it. Only the users who actually need/want help will look all the way through it.

Second, a lot of users don't have good friends who can also/are willing to debug their code. Connecting users to a group who has a lot more knowledge and time to help out would benefit these programmers.

support, lets just hope if it gets added the forums dont get flooded with stuff like “OH MY!!! EPIC SUPER GENERIC PLATFORMER PLAY NOW BEST PROJECT EVER” or “GUYS HELP PLS HOW DO I PUT A LINE UNDER THE CAT”, or “HOW DO YOU MAKE THESE FUNNY HAHA GRADIENTS CHAT PLS TELL”

nembence_2 wrote:

Za-Chary wrote:

Scratchers who just joined cannot use the forums.

I wrote this from a New Scratcher account - although it has already got invited to become a Scratcher

It's not exactly “New Scratchers” who have this restriction; that why I said “Scratchers who just joined.” I think if your account is less than 5 days old or something like that, then you cannot post in the forums. (Admittedly, this is a short amount of time, so maybe that's not a problem for the sake of the suggestion … but only if changes were made so that users could see when they would be able to post on the forums. Currently I don't think they have this information.)

Create-Scratch101 wrote:

(#20)

Za-Chary wrote:

I actually think this could be helpful. I don't think this is comparable to bringing back the “Discuss” button, because adding a link to the forums in the debug menu is significantly less visible than adding a button to the top of the website. I somehow doubt that people would start advertising in the forums because of this specific link.

Ah, but one issue that I was just reminded of: Scratchers who just joined cannot use the forums. Considering that new users are ones that probably would use this Debug menu the most, would this be a problem if someone is told where to go for help but then cannot actually get help there?

Maybe have it only show once you are old enough to post in it?

That would probably make the most sense.

Plus, very new users may not even understand scratch yet. Giving them a few days (or is it weeks) to learn about scrach before introducing them to the forums may be good.

SpyCoderX wrote:

Looks like an issue on your end?

An issue for mobile users. And apparently some school devices.
Not just them.

Bump

Bump

Rosics wrote:

This is actually a simple thing anyone can do, go to Scratch Foundation's github and make a Pull Request fixing it.

It's been a loooooooooooooooooong time since the ST has accepted a community-made PR.

Anyways, I actually agree with @Za-Chary here. While it would make the forums slightly more visible it wouldn't be visible enough to fall under TOLORS 9.1.

Support, however the ST doesn't really want to get more users on the forums.

50_scratch_tabs wrote:

Support, however the ST doesn't really want to get more users on the forums.

False. Otherwise they’d remove the link at the bottom of every page.

I think the ST specifically doesn’t want more trolls and spammers, since the forums is very easy to abuse.

I thought of making this suggestion immediately after the update was released.

But New Scratchers/Non-Forumers would likely not know how to use the forums, with that being said, there will likely be some unwanted spam, or advertisements. So as of right now I don't believe this would be a good idea.

glitcX wrote:

(#32)
I thought of making this suggestion immediately after the update was released.

But New Scratchers/Non-Forumers would likely not know how to use the forums, with that being said, there will likely be some unwanted spam, or advertisements. So as of right now I don't believe this would be a good idea.

we could just add a guide thing instructing people on how to use the forums, by adding something like ?origin=gettingunstuck

Listen, the mentality of the new Scratcher will most likely never change. New people will inevitably appear in the forums just to advertise in the wrong places or to spam, and instead of pointing at the cons and nothing else as with virtually every discussion and suggestion I see in here, we have to look at the pros.

The forums shouldn't be left to the same 5 pseudo-intellectuals. Since loads of people here pride in being the moral compasses of Scratch, how about you put that to use and welcome new Scratchers into here?

Support. Assistance with scripts is easier and faster in the forums. The whole website can't be built off studios and projects. You can't even have a long centralized conversation with others in studios, yet we're expected to use them for everything.

Vetzlan wrote:

The forums shouldn't be left to the same 5 pseudo-intellectuals. Since loads of people here pride in being the moral compasses of Scratch, how about you put that to use and welcome new Scratchers into here?

Support. Assistance with scripts is easier and faster in the forums. The whole website can't be built off studios and projects. You can't even have a long centralized conversation with others in studios.

I'll add on to this and say that the OP's suggestion is actually a pretty good way of introducing people into the forums. I expect spam would occur far less from users who are already looking for scripting help. They might not know what the forums are, but if they were introduced to them per the OP's suggestion, they would at least know that it is a place where they can get help with their code.

I suspect most spam really comes from Google searches, anyway, as opposed to the Discussion Forums link — and the Scratch Team can't exactly control Google searches, to my knowledge.

Za-Chary wrote:

the Scratch Team can't exactly control Google searches, to my knowledge.

So I did a bit of research and found that there is this thing called a <noindex> html code which prevents the webpage from being indexed by web crawlers.

Bump

cookieclickerer33 wrote:

Menu looks like this on school devices (bitly is blocked)

It Does not look like that on my school computer

Create-Scratch101 wrote:

Za-Chary wrote:

I actually think this could be helpful. I don't think this is comparable to bringing back the “Discuss” button, because adding a link to the forums in the debug menu is significantly less visible than adding a button to the top of the website. I somehow doubt that people would start advertising in the forums because of this specific link.

Ah, but one issue that I was just reminded of: Scratchers who just joined cannot use the forums. Considering that new users are ones that probably would use this Debug menu the most, would this be a problem if someone is told where to go for help but then cannot actually get help there?

Maybe have it only show once you are old enough to post in it?

That sounds like a good idea.

SpyCoderX wrote:

Za-Chary wrote:

the Scratch Team can't exactly control Google searches, to my knowledge.

So I did a bit of research and found that there is this thing called a <noindex> html code which prevents the webpage from being indexed by web crawlers.

Who said that the ST wanted the forums to not be indexed by search engines?

At least according to robots.txt, the ST is fine with search engines indexing the forums, just (ironically) not the (mostly broken) search feature.

They might not like the spam that comes from it, but most of the people spamming here would be doing it on the main site anyways. Besides, it's actually a good way to find help from people who have had the same problem in the past and been able to solve it.