Scratch

Ace-of-Spades wrote:

This is part of the inspiration and more section isn't it? If we looked for inspiration in the project ideas forum, that would be copying. The miscellaneous forum is the inspiration forum.

Some of the threads on the project ideas section are accually for generating ideas. Also, one time someone posted a topic about what they were working on and someone else got inspiration for another game by looking at it without copying.

I'm not entirely for the moving of Misc. or deletion of Misc. As mentioned before, some threads are ok. I think on the other Misc. thread, someone mentioned that if you changed the description on Misc, it would be better. 

Last edited by greenflash (2010-02-16 16:54:28)

So people will post religious and politics in spite of that. There are a lot of crazies out there.

@Greenflash: But that doesn't necessarily mean the miscellaneous can't be used for inspiration.

Lightnin wrote:

...So - no decisions have been made yet, but we're considering closing the miscellaneous forum....

So if I be more rowdy, there's a greater chance of the Miscellaneous forum being closed! That means I should be more rowdy!!! :D

kiwi95 wrote:

No one wants it to close!!!

*cough*me*cough*

rdococ wrote:

hmnwilson wrote:

D:

Before we do anything too drastic, let's consider the other options.

• Moving Misc. to a new forum (like the TBGs)
• Making it unavailable unless you have a certain number of posts in the rest of the forums
• Making a new rule against discussing religion and politics
• Any combination of the above

We don't need to close it, even the offtopic forums can be a part of the community. And a lot of people would be disappointed to see it gone. 

...with hmnwilson.
The "Making it unavailable unless you have a certain number of posts in the rest of the forums" part has the bolded bit as "100".
So, it will be Making it unavailable unless you have 100 posts (or more) in the rest of the forums

Though that wouldn't remove any of the craziness and rowdiness in the forums.

Chrischb wrote:

Lucario621 wrote:

TheSaint wrote:

You may disagree with me, but I think that a forums based entirely on scratch will not work because people have other things in their lives. They make friends through the website, which is something you wish enforced, and yet if they can't talk about anything but a certain topic, it will probably drive them away, if for no other reason than boredom. Do you get my meaning?

No, actually, they can invite their friends to join twitter, facebook, or some other site, and talk to them about non-scratch-related topics there 

Or they could do it outside the forums.

I am sorry. I personally think that inviting members of a site where the average age is 11 to chat on a site meant for college kids is not a very good idea. My opinion.

Lucario621 wrote:

TheSaint wrote:

You may disagree with me, but I think that a forums based entirely on scratch will not work because people have other things in their lives. They make friends through the website, which is something you wish enforced, and yet if they can't talk about anything but a certain topic, it will probably drive them away, if for no other reason than boredom. Do you get my meaning?

No, actually, they can invite their friends to join twitter, facebook, or some other site, and talk to them about non-scratch-related topics there 

But I have no friends 

TheSaint wrote:

Several topics non-related to scratch have perked my interset, and have helped me make good projects, even if they were not intended to do so. The TD defense topic, the Pokemon Center topic, and the Sonny's Topic (Long time ago) all helped me get ideas for projects I make. Besides, some of these topics help us learn about other cultures, and recent events, such as the Winter Olymipics topic.

I feel that it would be unfair to have no place to put these, for while they have no specific relation to scratch, the users that read and care about these events can make it related to it.

Now we have the Projects Ideas forum for inspiration - which means that Miscellaneous has lost a lot of good inspiration. 

Jonathanpb wrote:

Lightnin wrote:

Jonathanpb wrote:

Brilliant, Lightnin! Now we can discuss. 

Well, my problem with Miscellaneous is that people are just using it to chat about whatever they want, even if it's not Scratch related... instead of using the Scratch forums for that, they should use a chat site (and for younger kids, something like Club Penguin would work).

I like illusionist's idea about changing the description for Miscellaneous: Not sure which forum your topic goes in? Post here. And as a bonus, we might have less problems with topics that need to be moved. One thing to make clear here - the topics that would go in the new Miscellaneous would be Scratch-related. It's just that the topic posters didn't know which forum their topic belonged in.

What do you think, Lightnin?

In talking with Andresmh about this, he pointed out that there are some topics that are unrelated to Scratch that we would be fine with. For example - topics about other programming languages, or other online communities. So it might be tough to define what exactly is ok or isn't based on whether or not it is related to Scratch.
We're still discussing different ideas about Misc, but it seems like things are starting to gel - so I should be posting more about this soon. Thanks again to everyone for all your helpful feedback. You all are great! 

Glad to help, Lightnin. 

Well, I agree that there are some topics that are not Scratch-related but fine, but most of the topics aren't that 'fine'...

How would we keep the 'fine' topics, but not get the 'bad' topics? There's no exact line between 'good' and 'bad', is there? The only thing I can think of for only getting the 'good' topics is simply having moderators close all the 'bad' topics. But that's harsh, isn't it? And there would be a lot of those topics to close...

Does anyone else have a solution?

I have an Idea!    Seriously though, read this.

First off, we ask nicely. "Please don't post new topics about religion, or disscussions about politics..."  or whatever The list can go on.
Then, we introduce a Karma point system. Better Karma, easier to post, and bragging rights. There is another thread detailing this out. Anyways, people will want to post good things because the Karma point system will turn into the post counts of today, which I think is a good thing.
We post the rules of the forums as a sticky in here. It will help remind people of what not to do, along with a list of topics Strictly un-postable.
Finally, we have a new moderator to help with the Miscellaneous Forum. We also advocate the use of the report button to alert them of bad topics.

That should significantly cut down on the bad topics.

Last edited by TheSaint (2010-02-17 06:33:13)

Jonathanpb wrote:

Ace-of-Spades wrote:

This is part of the inspiration and more section isn't it? If we looked for inspiration in the project ideas forum, that would be copying. The miscellaneous forum is the inspiration forum.

It doesn't say Inspiration, it says Inspiration and More. That means that not all forums in Inspiration and More have to have inspiration. 

Project Ideas is in Inspiration and More, isn't it? I think the inspiration is in Project Ideas, and that Miscellaneous has lost it's inspiration to the forum...

Oh yeah because Collaborations and Requests provide so much inspiration. At least half of the Inspiration and More forums should be Inspiration, and that's Miscellaneous and Project Ideas.

I can't reply to comments for some reason.

Chrischb wrote:

Lucario621 wrote:

TheSaint wrote:

You may disagree with me, but I think that a forums based entirely on scratch will not work because people have other things in their lives. They make friends through the website, which is something you wish enforced, and yet if they can't talk about anything but a certain topic, it will probably drive them away, if for no other reason than boredom. Do you get my meaning?

No, actually, they can invite their friends to join twitter, facebook, or some other site, and talk to them about non-scratch-related topics there 

Or they could do it outside the forums.

...Basically what I said.