Scratch

That doesn't belong here...

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Last edited by The-Whiz (2009-07-30 14:56:07)

big-bang wrote:

scratchcritic564 wrote:

big-bang wrote:

I agree. Sword fighting games? Those are... unrealistic... and lego.com tries to be appropriate. And (random) example: Goomba stomping - try doing that, you'll pull a leg muscle. Sometimes, "Cartoon Violence" is to keep people from really doing violence. But games without blood are scary to - one of the Resident Evil designers says that he makes gory games because otherwise, a guy getting sliced in half and not bleeding could lead to a misconception that doing an unspeakable act will not cause much pain. There's no perfect way out, unfortunately.

I agree. no offesnse, rico, but you obviously have problems, if you have to ban a site because of a few games with cartoon violence. as i've noticed, adults are always overprotective when it comes to violence. seriously, Super Smash Bros. Brawl is very non-violent, but somehow it got rated teen. and on scratch, blood is basicly nothing more than red stuff created in the paint editor.

I was wondering about Brawl. I was about to get it, but then I noticed the rating. I guess it's just the fighting itself, but still... good luck trying to pull a Final Smash on a jerk who shoves you over a fence.

I don't really understand that last sentence?
And did you get it?

blood is bad!

Scratch has gotten many visitors of young kids lately so it will be good if we take off games with alot of violence to some extent.

Mitch99 wrote:

why should the site change? it's the parents or teachers JOB to protect their youth or children, not the program.

That's true. But the problem seems to be that children are going on inappropriate (at least for their parents or teachers it is) stuff without permission.

yeah very bad 

With more than 1,000 projects a day, our best solution so far to deal with inappropriate content is to is to have combination of decentralized monitoring and centralized decision making. We do rely on the community to help us monitor the site and I believe this is not only a pragmatic solution but it also helps young people engage in thinking about their own moral reasoning as we ask them to explain why a project is inappropriate when they flag it.  I  would love to see more in depth discussions about these issues as there is never a right or wrong answer.

cumuniversity wrote:

With more than 1,000 projects a day, our best solution so far to deal with inappropriate content is to is to have combination of decentralized monitoring and centralized decision making. We do rely on the community to help us monitor the site and I believe this is not only a pragmatic solution but it also helps young people engage in thinking about their own moral reasoning as we ask them to explain why a project is inappropriate when they flag it.  I  would love to see more in depth discussions about these issues as there is never a right or wrong answer.

Yeah!

[blocks]<if>[/blocks] people just flag it for nothing, then it wouldn't be deleted!!!

[blocks]<<  <and>  >>[/blocks] I have [blocks]<<  <not>  >>[/blocks] seen anyone stupid enough to acually do that!!!!!!!!              

rico wrote:

PS - I just "flagged" the Scratch at the link in my original posting with this explanation: "Violence with blood and human victims." I'll continue to do this if I see students viewing... well viewing violence with blood and human victims. We'll see how it goes. I hope my flags don't become a bother.

I don't think they would become a bother! BUT

[blocks]<if>[/blocks] you REALLY want a project deleted I would suggest that you flag it more than once. Then it's more likely that it would get deleted.


I really hope that helps!                okay,

[blocks]<stop script>[/blocks]

Last edited by scratch_yoshi (2009-09-21 18:11:59)

scratch_yoshi wrote:

rico wrote:

PS - I just "flagged" the Scratch at the link in my original posting with this explanation: "Violence with blood and human victims." I'll continue to do this if I see students viewing... well viewing violence with blood and human victims. We'll see how it goes. I hope my flags don't become a bother.

I don't think they would become a bother! BUT

[blocks]<if>[/blocks] you REALLY want a project deleted I would suggest that you flag it more than once. Then it's more likely that it would get deleted.


I really hope that helps!                okay,

[blocks]<stop script>[/blocks]

I actually believe their may be rules about that, Or if not I feel Scratch is less likely to listen as in effect it's 1000 flags by 1 user. The result, 1 user feels a project is unappropriate, not "many" users.

DarthPickley wrote:

Food-dude wrote:

blood is bad!

blood is good! without blood you would die!
some people just don't make any sense...

Truer words were never spoken, DarthPickley.

I have a way to stop these murders!and blood and all that! ;D

andresmh wrote:

rico, you can certainly use Scratch without using the website. You could also configure your network to disable access to a particular page (the Chinese government does it all the time    ) 

With more than 1,000 projects a day, our best solution so far to deal with inappropriate content is to is to have combination of decentralized monitoring and centralized decision making. We do rely on the community to help us monitor the site and I believe this is not only a pragmatic solution but it also helps young people engage in thinking about their own moral reasoning as we ask them to explain why a project is inappropriate when they flag it.  I  would love to see more in depth discussions about these issues as there is never a right or wrong answer.

When people flag projects as inappropriate there are two things that could happen:

1. If the project receives one or just a few flags, the Scratch Team reviews the project and makes one of the following decisions:
a) censors the project, this sends a notification to the creator asking him or her not to post that kind of project
b) marks it as "for everyone" when we think it's something we would show to any person. For example, an animation of a ball or a scientific simulation.
c) marks it as "not for everyone" when the project show mild violence, are OK in the cultural context of the US media, but that we would rather not emphasize. Projects like this cannot make it to  the front page.

2. If certain content is flagged by many people it is automatically censored. Then the Scratch Team reviews it and makes a decision (see #1). This is useful because we don't have the resources to be checking the site 24 hrs a day and it has been successful mechanism at removing pornography and other kind of very inappropriate content very quickly. Unfortunately, this system is also abused by some members who sometimes organize with others to take down projects as a way to annoy their creator. That's why we always review community-censored project and sometimes un-censor them if they doesn't deserve to be censored. We also block accounts when people are abusing the flagging system.


In the future we would like to implement a filter that only shows projects marked as "for everyone", however we have not had the time or resources to do it and it also might be disappointing to browse such site because the percentage of projects that we can actually review is so small that it would be more of a place with an extended set of sample projects rather than an active sharing place.

At some point we spent some time implementing a solution for schools to have a shared and controlled environment in our site but unfortunately after talking to some teachers we realized that it was not a good solution. First, because there was not concensus on whether or not a shared spaces for all schools was something people would be interested in using. Second because teachers are already too busy with their work to be able to do spend time reviewing projects. Third, the rules in each school in each country are very different. Fourth, we would not be able to have the time and resources necessary to verify that the people joining such system were indeed schools and teachers.

In the particular project you point out, the Scratch Team decided to mark it as "not for everyone". It is very complicated to decide where the line is crossed. Each person and each culture has very different values. In general, it seems to me that people US are more concerned about sexual content while in Europe people tend to be more sensitive towards violence. I imagine in the Middle East and Asia the concerns could be different. 

One interesting data point is that there doesn't seem to be any concensus on whether or not violence in video games causes violent behavior. In fact, there is this report recently from the Harvard School of Public Health that claims that violence in video games does not not seem to be linked to real violence. I like the note ends by saying "Kutner and Olson have documented their findings in Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games, where they stress the importance of parental education and awareness. In a society where children who don't play games are considered to be socially inept, it is important for parents to understand what their kids are playing. In addition, they need to be able to block out the seemingly endless attacks on the video game industry and use the scientific evidence available to make judgments for themselves and their family."

I would like to think engaging the Scratch community in a discussion about the nature of inappropriate content is a great way of dealing with these issues as it is not only about censorship but also about the reason behind it. I would be happy to hear your thoughts and ideas suggestions or ideas. We are always very happy to find volunteers (programmers, educators, etc) to help us improve our systems.

In there you said if a project had violence in it or at least worse than mild violence, you won't show it on the front page. Then why do I see projects made by people with blood, and gore in it, and they make the front page? Also I think projects that are inapropriate should have a warning at the beggining of it before someone goes off, and flags it.