Scratch

This discussion is very interesting!

I agree with Jman720, that some more / other custom graphics, sounds (and perhaps even scripts) for Scratch would probably result in more ideas for Scratch projects. There could be a special section on this website to share such resources, like JSO's truly excellent website has already shown. And, of course, professional, freely licensed graphics (like the LEGO sprites) are always a welcome inspiration.

archmage's idea to organize (more) projects into categories and not just by tags is something, I also absolutely would like to see become real.

As far as improving the Scratch program is concerned, I'm not really sure. There are so many suggestions (some by me) for new blocks and changes to the interface that look promising at first sight, but when you think about them a little more and compare them to the current implementation reveal their downsides. In fact, Scratch constantly keeps amazing me, just how good, easy, stable and well done it is!

I don't know about why some users are leaving the site, but I guess there are lots of reasons, not all of them related to Scratch. People might just at times become tired to constantly come up with new project ideas, and there might even be some sort of 'peer pressure' to show up and post often, lest other users declare them 'missing' or 'gone'. So I'd just suggest to take it easy: Scratch is fun to use, but it's also perfectly okay to take a break and leave it for while!

archmage wrote:

What I think would make the scratch site better would be organized groups of projects.  Right now it is difficult to find a certain type of project. Galleries are nice, but it would be easier to find the projects you want if people from the scratch team gathered some of the model projects and sorted them into groups. Then, you would have a good library of simulations, artworks, tutorials, ect without going through the hassle of looking though a bunch of galleries.

It is very difficult to track down projects right now.   This idea has a lot of merit - I see the same questions showing up again and again in the forums.  So clearly people are not finding the examples they need.  The gallery system is totally out of control, IMHO, way too many people are making "Anything Allowed" galleries which soon get too large to be useful.  Maybe what we need is a set of Content Moderators to build useful galleries.  I'd volunteer.

It is very difficult to locate projects (and even galleries) of interest because of the enormous number of them.  Paddle2 hit the nail on the head with his statement about out of control galleries.  Too often, galleries that start out with a specific theme quickly fill to overflowing with unrelated projects. 

I find projects by using my friends list (which has people whose projects I find interesting) and visiting the people in my friend's lists of friends. 

I like Paddle2's idea of having some "official" galleries put together by moderators.  An additional thought; Perhaps the "public" galleries would benefit from a limit on the number of projects?

-MrEd

Thanks a lot for the feedback. It's interesting to read what's in everybody's mind.

I like Paddle2Sea suggestion of moderated galleries. I especially like the idea of letting people like Paddle2Sea manage some of those galleries instead of adding more tasks to the Scratch Team.

What do you think galleries need to be used as you describe? In some ways you can already create a gallery and having full control of what goes in it. Is it just a matter of creating a place where all those well-managed galleries are displayed so they don't get lost in the sea of "Anything Allowed" galleries?


Jman720: I do not think many people are leaving, in fact many people are signing up. It is natural that some people might want to leave due to classes or other time constraints. Some people leave and then come back (Oldschooler2 for example).

You do bring an interesting point about customization of web pages. Customizing your own page could be seen as a creative activity. Other sites like MySpace let people customize their pages a lot. In fact, it's almost the only "creative" thing you can really do on MySpace. I often wonder the boundaries of what the Scratch website should do and how much it should replicate what other sites do.

Should it be like MySpace? Would customization of personal pages move people away from the main goal of programming and focus more on finding backgrounds for their page? Would customization stop at background and music? Should it go beyond that?  Is there really a place for Scratch to try to "compete" with MySpace (and other sites) in that area of personalized pages?

andresmh wrote:

Thanks a lot for the feedback. It's interesting to read what's in everybody's mind.

I like Paddle2Sea suggestion of moderated galleries. I especially like the idea of letting people like Paddle2Sea manage some of those galleries instead of adding more tasks to the Scratch Team.

What do you think galleries need to be used as you describe? In some ways you can already create a gallery and having full control of what goes in it. Is it just a matter of creating a place where all those well-managed galleries are displayed so they don't get lost in the sea of "Anything Allowed" galleries?


Jman720: I do not think many people are leaving, in fact many people are signing up. It is natural that some people might want to leave due to classes or other time constraints. Some people leave and then come back (Oldschooler2 for example).

You do bring an interesting point about customization of web pages. Customizing your own page could be seen as a creative activity. Other sites like MySpace let people customize their pages a lot. In fact, it's almost the only "creative" thing you can really do on MySpace. I often wonder the boundaries of what the Scratch website should do and how much it should replicate what other sites do.

Should it be like MySpace? Would customization of personal pages move people away from the main goal of programming and focus more on finding backgrounds for their page? Would customization stop at background and music? Should it go beyond that?  Is there really a place for Scratch to try to "compete" with MySpace (and other sites) in that area of personalized pages?

See, his post was about people leaving orginally, but not anymore, I'm gonna edit that out, but it shouldn't be like Myspace, Myspace is(from what I've seen), more of a blog and chat room than scratch, my brother has a Myspace, and it doesn't allow you to do half the stuff scratch does, but anyway, custom backrounds I think would be a very good "touch" to the scratch site, it wuld make it exciting, not that it isn't, but scratch DOs(and no offense) get boring after an hour, even just a new backround other than a white page on a my stuff or user page would be good, like, if your logged in on your page, thre could be a "choose backround color", like, underneath your pic. or something!

andresmh wrote:

Should it be like MySpace? Would customization of personal pages move people away from the main goal of programming and focus more on finding backgrounds for their page? Would customization stop at background and music? Should it go beyond that?  Is there really a place for Scratch to try to "compete" with MySpace (and other sites) in that area of personalized pages?

Last question: No.

Scratch is Scratch and MySpace is MySpace. They are two different websites.

Continuing with my previous post, I think another good benefit out of creating a library of galleries is that it would lead to more specific and better maintained galleries, once people realized that in order to be a part of the library, they need to have specific-interest galleries.  All of these "Anything Galleries" are, by definition, unorganized and would not be part of the library.  Hopefully, it would become a mark of prestige to have ownership of a gallery that is part of the library.  This would lead to more organized behavior and more people voluntarily maintaining the structure.

EdnaC wrote:

An additional thought; Perhaps the "public" galleries would benefit from a limit on the number of projects?
-MrEd

This would have two benefits:  Imposing a limit would force the owners to be more selective.  And the galleries themselves would be small enough to navigate in a reasonable amount of time.  I would also suggest that you have an upper limit on the number of galleries that a person can create, since the first thing that is going to happen is that people are going to try to get around the limit by continuing their galleries: "My Anything Gallery 2" , "My Anything Gallery 3" etc.

relyt12101 wrote:

Also, they could "group" galleries, ie - animation galleries on this page (http://scratch.mit.edu/galleries/group/animation) and the normal scratch.mit.edu/galleries page would have all the group names on them. (To fit in a small section of the page, group names would have to be general and there would have to be few.)

Also, each gallery could say what groups it is in.

I don't see how this has any advantages over heirarchial galleries that can include other galleries.  I do like the idea of listing what galleries a gallery is listed in - just like projects.  But having a set of hard-coded groups will lack the flexibility of heirarchial galleries.

Honestly i am going to have to disagree with you Jman! I don't think scratch is boring i have been hooked on this site for 6 months and for those 6 months i have been on EVERY day! if there was a hour count on how many hours i have been on the site total i think it would be well over 500 hours!  When i get home i go right to the computer and go here! I LOVE THIS SITE SO MUCH ITS PART OF MY DAILY LIFE ROUTINE. might sound dorky and stupid but thats your opinion. I think this is a brilliant way to make things about how you feel, what you like, and express those in projects! and i think i am getting better at it! I love to see how others work and i like to discuss about the site, i talk to my parents about it and i show them the work of other scratchers and my work! My dad said to me  " This Site Has Progressed a lot in the work effort and creativity!" That made me happy! So that is my opinion i definitely  don't think Scratch is boring!

my opinion: it sounds like ur just saying the scratch site is boring

This may be true, but the point of scratch is learning basic programming skills, for fun or potentially as a platform to more " official" programming software, then ppl share the projects to show whatthey can do!

So if the site itself is boring it's really not that vital based on the purpose of Scratch

And if you're saying the Scratch program is boring you are either:

A) simply wrong, you must just not understand computers and programming
B) scratch isn't "your thing", a lot of ppl would probably think that computer programming is boring. It's the people who find it interestig at all (at least) who should use and like scratch

*gets off soapbox*

Hey, I noticed that counter on the front page just hit 70.001 registered users, seems like Scratch is actually catching on instead of losing ground! The number of projects posted is also exploding in a way that makes it next to impossible to follow. So introducing structurable galleries moderated by expert comunity members like Paddle2See sounds like just what's needed to me.