Scratch

The initial reaction to this was OK, then people started going against it. What exactly happened?

Aidan wrote:

Oh guys quit acting like it's the end of the world

Was your reaction when the TBG forums split this intense?

"OH NO MISC IS SPLITTING WHERE ELSE CAN I TALK ABOUT MY FAVORITE VARIETY OF FRUIT AND SHARE RANDUMB STORIES ABOUT SWKEWL!!!!!!!1!!!??!??/1?@?@?"

I'm guessing "Oh cool, seperated section for TBGs"

This is just making more rules, doesn't mean people will follow them, infact quite the contrary, newbie mistakes will be more and more common and Misc will come back.

Last edited by my-chemical-romance (2012-01-24 16:53:01)

This is just a note to say: We understand that some of you will really dislike this decision. And if you choose to  spend your time elsewhere because you disagree with it, we respect that choice.

As has been said many times before, sometimes the Misc has seemed like a "reddit for teens." There's nothing wrong with a reddit for teens, or an open topic forum for that matter. But, as stated in the initial post, we need to focus our energy on supporting Scratch.

Hey everyone, I thought I would chime in with my thoughts on the matter.

I feel that the Scratch Forums need to have their energy focused in a more productive way. As someone who joined Scratch before the creation of Inspiration and More, I can say that there was still a strong sense of community (I would go so far as to say a stronger sense).

While yes, this may upset a lot of you, it is a decision that is made with the best interest of the website and the forums in mind. The Misc. forums are ~1.5% of the traffic, and consume ~95% of our moderation energy. Something needs to changed. It seems logical that we focus discussion around making and creating programs. That is, after all, what this website is for 

Last edited by demosthenes (2012-01-24 17:07:58)

Dawgles wrote:

The initial reaction to this was OK, then people started going against it. What exactly happened?

Realization.

Can I just ask though, why couldn't we just have mods for Misc. only? There's plenty of users who would do a good job at it.

RedRocker227 wrote:

Can I just ask though, why couldn't we just have mods for Misc. only? There's plenty of users who would do a good job at it.

Yes, I agree.
If you think that like 95% of the mod's time is going here, just make more mods specifically for Misc.

RedRocker227 wrote:

Can I just ask though, why couldn't we just have mods for Misc. only? There's plenty of users who would do a good job at it.

It takes energy to oversee the mod program, and to consider carefully how to deal with the many problems that naturally emerge in open topic forums. For a community whose primary goal is creating a space to have open topic discussions, it makes sense to spend their energy in this way.

But we want our focus, and the focus of those who choose to join as community moderators, to be on Scratch - or creative expression that uses Scratch.

The_Dancing_Donut wrote:

[Great, fantasic, wall]

:'D

Last edited by imnotbob (2012-01-24 17:24:02)

The_Dancing_Donut wrote:

my-chemical-romance wrote:

Lightnin wrote:

It is true that some will no doubt decide to spend their time elsewhere - especially those who were part of the 1.6% of active Scratchers who post in Miscellaneous.

But it's not fair to the other 98.5% that we devote so many resources to maintaining a space valued by such a small percentage of the community.

Whenever I look at the other topics they seem to never really go anywhere and die in a few hours, on here it's much more active.

This.

Plus, the 1.6% here are very dedicated to this site (you'd be surprised) and you're basically letting down people who trust you; and seeing as Misc. is like a family...
...you're ruining a family. An online family.

+1

And the fact that shutting down Misc. might dissapoint some, and that will lead to trolling and bullying and protesting. Your just hurting yourselves. Misc. fans have stayed loud and proud over the years, and it's not fair to betray them.

Without Misc., we'll be like robots designed talk 99.9 percent about Scratch. It's boring.

Last edited by KyleK7 (2012-01-24 17:29:18)

ProgrammingFreak wrote:

cheddargirl wrote:

The_Dancing_Donut wrote:

I know yeah, they're doing it for a reason but there are easier options. There's not gonna be much scope for discussion in these new categories.
Exactly. I know it's not fair to lump loads of work on mods, but why not just elect more?

Part of it comes from the fact that Miscellaneous takes more time than necessary to moderate - it doesn't make much sense to have them moderate things unrelated to Scratch (let alone not really contribute to the ideals of the MIT Media Lab in general) when they should be focused more on Scratch-related aspects (helping out with Scratch Design Studio, giving input for new collab ideas and the welcoming committee, testing out the experimental viewer Flash and looking for bugs, looking out for prijects on the main site, etc.). So neither does it make sense to elect more moderators to do that sort of thing; if more moderators are to be hired, it really should be more towards the benefit Scratch as a whole.

The two new sections have a tendency to focus on those ideals. (On a somewhat off-topic note, that's why the TBG were moved to their own separate section on Scratch even if they're also unrelated - the creative gameplay from it follows more closely with the ideals of the MIT Media Lab).

I really don't see how limiting what we can say and whatnot will help us come up with collabs. It doesn't make any sense.
I think we should have a place to come up with collab ideas and such, but guess what? We already have it and its called 'Project Ideas'.
Do you want it to become more popular or something? Well, deleting what the community likes won't help. 

I hope I don't come across as being really rude or something, I just don't really see the point in doing something like this. Deleting misc will send the spammers everywhere else. It won't stop spam. Just kinda shift it somewhere else.
Kinda like how a 2nd grader cleans his room. 

It might shift the spam somewhere else for a few days, but after a while people will learn that Scratch isn't the kind of space for general free-for-all discussion. We'd like clear, creatively-based discussions. Which require effort to participate in.

While we'd of course be more than pleased with Scratch becoming more popular, the Miscellaneous forums have only done a small part in making Scratch popular. The rest of the forums account for just as many users, while only about 3% of users actually use the forums.

95% of a moderator's job right now is to moderate the Miscellaneous forums. Many of the moderators have chosen not to deal with Miscellaneous because it is outside of their interests and takes way too much time to deal with. Only about 1.5% of Scratch users post in Miscellaneous every week. Does it make sense to put 95% of your effort into something only 1.5% of Scratchers benefit from, which doesn't even have any relevance to Scratch in the first place? I'd be more than interested in spending more time browsing projects, but with the burden Miscellaneous puts on a moderator, it's just not possible.

So, we'd love Scratch to become more popular. But, Miscellaneous isn't an integral part of "Scratch." We have a number of users joining and participating only on the Miscellaneous forums. Several don't even know how to use the program. So while we'd love to support you all, and it's great seeing a community, it just isn't really our job.

Keep in mind that we're not putting a capper on all discussions, we're merely eliminating a few from the forums. You have always been (and still are) more than welcome to create and share projects on the main website on any topic you choose, so long as it fits the Scratch Terms of Use. This includes political topics. The forums aren't the only part of the Scratch website - use the main website to your advantage here.

If you don't like that, that's fine. You're free to leave Scratch as you'd like.

777w wrote:

i like it, although some topics may not fit in either category, such as polls and your daily life

Agreed.