Scratch

Edit 20 (writing new chapters atm  )

-Introduction-

Thanks for opening this book. Before you start reading, please be aware of some things:

1. We cannot have a chapter on every single user on Scratch.
2. If we have a chapter about a user, it is not because we like them. It is because they have had some impact on the Scratch Community.
3. Names may be cut.
4. The chapters may not always be in order of occasion. It is instead put into an order that flows.
5. The word "we" is used in place of "I", to avoid a first-person narrative.
6. This book will be updated when neccessary.
7. This is not guaranteed to be 100% correct. It's probably more like 90%. But if you see a mistake, we'd appreciate it if you tell us.

-Contents-

1. The start of Scratch
2. Scratch catches on
3. Old Forum Days
4. Scratch 1.2
5. The flagging system
6. Revisions and Updates
7. The gallery system
8. Top Downloaded
9. A large leap in time
10. Scratch Day
11. Scratch 1.3 and 1.3.1
12. The time of games
13. The Inspiration and More forum
14. Two new administrators
15. Front Page renovation
16. Animation Frenzy
17. Scratch 1.4
18. Founding and Deletion of the Text-Based-Games
19. New signature rules
20. A very slight change to the front page
21. New default icons
22. 1 Sprite 1 Script
23. Splitting of the Inspiration and More forum
24. Problems in the Miscellaneous forum
25. The revival of Scratch Wiki
26. 1,000,000 projects!
27. Remix images
28. Community Moderators
29. The official Scratch Wiki
30. Troll attacks
31. The Experimental Viewer
32. Scratch Resources
33. The second community moderator election
34. Newest Projects change
35. Beta flash player
Epilogue
_________________________________________________________________________________
-Chapter One-
-The start of Scratch-

Scratch was released in the spring of 2007 (Northern Hemisphere seasons). The founders at the MIT lab needed a website, of course (so people can get Scratch), so they started one.
And far later, the first user on Scratch was discovered. His name is Nio.
Here's a link to his stuff (empty, however): Nio's stuff

Also, the Scratch Website is now home to lots and lots of projects. But at first, it wasn't! There always is a first, so here are the first three projects. All made by andresmh!

1: Weekend
A project that has an interactive café.
2: Sandwich
A project in which you guide a person around a street to find a sandwich.
3: BubbleWrap
A project in which you can pop lots and lots of bubbles. Sound is provided.

There are also Scratch versions. We are currently at 1.4, but it didn't start there! It would have started at 1.0, not counting all the beta versions and previous stuff.
If you want to experience ancient history, you'll have to try digging for it yourself - a page listing projects in order of age was removed.

-Chapter Two-
-Scratch catches on-

Scratch attracted more and more people from around the world. Some people talk about the Scratch population decreasing due to quitters, but they're wrong! Lots of new members join every day, and the population rises.
There are many old users who are still around today. Some are andresmh, MyRedNeptune, and Archmage, coka, The-Whiz, and there are lots more...

If you like, you can type "http://scratch.mit.edu/users/showfriends/" into the web address bar. Add any number after the last slash, and visit the webpage! Note that some numbers don't work, such as 2.

Scratch was being updated, and it caught on once again. Some forum threads mention the old days, where people were easily amused. But now Scratch has changed, and projects are more complex.
You can try searching old projects for some examples. Even better, try downloading them and look at the scripts. What blocks didn't they have? What blocks did they have back then?*
Lots of people were sharing with eachother and making new friends. That was a good time.

*You may not find any, but there was the old-fashioned comment block that was replaced by the new system.

-Chapter Three-
-Old forum days-

Now, there are ten different forums in English. But at first, there weren't so many. The following numbers are not 100% accurate, as we were unable to find the oldest thread in each forum.

Age of each forum from oldest to newest:

07-3-07 Troubleshooting
07-3-14 Advanced Topics
07-3-20 All about Scratch
07-5-09 Suggestions
07-5-22 FAQ
07-7-20 Show and Tell
07-12-26 Announcements
08-8-22 New Scratch Members
08-8-22 Inspiration and More
09-3-26 Text-Based-Games

As you can see, the first three forums were rather close in date, by approximately one-week intervals. The last three forums were far off in date, and they will be mentioned later.

Back then, there were only two moderators (with the exception of the Scratch Team). Jens and Kevin_Karplus were chosen for the job, but later Jens joined the Scratch Team (and still moderates) while Kevin_Karplus resigned.
The Announcements forum contains a thread on their appointing, and here is part of what was said:

"They were selected not not only because they are very talented Scratch programmers but because they are often helping and giving advice to others.   They will be helping us in monitoring the forum posts, move post threads to their appropriate forum, make posts sticky and delete inappropriate content."

A satisfying speech. And they did their job well!

-Chapter Four-
-Scratch 1.2-

As software made by responsible programmers, Scratch was being revised and updated. It can always be improved, and people are working hard at it.

The Scratch Team put a beta version out, for people to test for bugs. But they soon shared it, and put a thread in the Announcements forum. There also was a link to a webpage that listed the updates... but unfortunately, it was deleted. But fortunately, we know some of what was there.

• A new inteface.
• The comment block. Remember it from chapter two, as a side note? That's when it was introduced.

You may be wondering, how did the comment block work? Here's a comparison.

The new system

You right-click on the construction zone, click "add comment", and one appears. You can adjust its width to fit the amount of text you want to place, and there's one more thing! It can snap to any rectangular block that's in a script, provided nothing's in the way.

The old system

You reach into the Control pallette, and drag it out. You place it like a normal rectangular block, but don't worry! It does nothing, except show some text that you input. Some older projects still have these, but the projects don't function. To make them run properly, you have to edit the blocks out... which can unfortunately be a burden.

That was a long discussion, wasn't it? But that's the story of Scratch 1.2.

-Chapter Five-
-The flagging system-

Now, you can flag comments, projects, and maybe galleries in the future. You can also report forum posts, which will send a message to the Forum Moderators.

But back then, you couldn't. Lots of people could be rude (out of the forums, because of the moderators) and get away with it! But there was a thread in the Announcements, explaining how it works.

1. If you flag a comment on one of your own projects, the comment is deleted permanently. The Scratch Team will also get an e-mail about it.
2. If you don't own the project, the comment is not shown to you for the future.
3. If the number of flags crosses a certain amount, and the project is not yours, the Scratch Team will get an e-mail and decide whether or not it should be deleted.

It may sound like common sense, but those features weren't there back then.
But don't worry; now, you can flag comments.

-Chapter Six-
-Revisions and updates-

This chapter tells the simple story of Scratch 1.2.1. 1.2 had lots of glitches, so a new version was released to fix them.
But there's more! There were lots of side additions as well. But because of the glitches, they called it 1.2.1 instead of 1.3.

Fortunately, we know the changes because of johnadmin's thread:
"* new block: "rest for _ beats"
* hidden sprites no longer can block clicks on other sprites in presentation mode
* the tempo block monitor now looks global, rather than sprite-specific
* fixed the "change tempo by _" block
* default time for "say" and "think" blocks is now back to 2 seconds
* key names ("space", "left arrow", etc.) now translate correctly
* at startup, sprite and costume names show in the current language
* better image compression for some images
* fixed tooltip message for the sound delete button
* in the Macintosh disk image all Scratch subfolders and files are writable by all
* several fixes to sample projects"

There is one other thing to mention: Scratch 1.2.1 was the last Scratch version to have a plain picture of a script by the download button. Later versions had small numbers over the script.

-Chapter Seven-
-New gallery system-

Galleries were there early on. But the system was revised and updated, like lots of other things. The Announcements forum had a thread on it, so we decided to quote andresmh:

"We have introduced a new gallery system that allows you to control who can add projects to it.

Now gallery creators can delete projects from their galleries.

Also, now you can add projects to a gallery from the project page itself or from the gallery page. Adding projects to a gallery from MyStuff seems unintuitive and it has been disabled.

We used to allow galleries to have the same name, but not anymore. The names must be unique. There were hundred of galleries with the same name so we did a quick fix: we renamed all galleries by adding a number to the end of the name. For example: a gallery called "Food" became "Food-1787".  You can rename the gallery and remove the number part.

Since now you can control who can add projects to a gallery, by default all the old galleries were automatically set so that only the owner of the gallery can add projects to it. If you want to change this just go to the gallery home page and change it from there."
That's a long message, but it says it perfectly. A simplified version would do no good.

-Chapter Eight-
-Top Downloaded-

Yes, there is no sign of a Top Downloaded part of the front page. But it used to exist, and used to not exist.
The point is simple: The top downloaded projects get on. It was a good idea, although it wasn't neccessary. Many projects reached the front page as well, which was also nice.

Andresmh put a simple message in his announcement:

"A section with the top 3 projects downloaded recently has been.  There is no link to browse by number of downloads yet though.
It says it all, as always. And what a short chapter!

-Chapter Nine-
-A large leap in time-

Now was the "Medieval Period". Not much was known, and the Announcements forum didn't have much.
The period lasted a year, until something broke it. It was a sad thing, but it leads to our 50-posts-for-a-signature rule.

Near the end of 2008, lots of spammers were making accounts and putting links to inappropriate websites in their signatures. The Forum Moderators worked hard to stop them, but it became too much.
The Scratch Team disabled signatures.

"Unfortunately some people external to our community are abusing the Scratch forums and using the  signatures to post links to websites with inappropriate content. These are professional spammers that are typically paid to do this kind of thing. It's very sad, but we are going to have to disable signatures on the forums :-( I'm so sorry!"

Everyone disliked it, but then Archmage stepped in with an idea.

"Maybe you could make it so that you can only have signatures if you have a certain number of forum posts or projects. Most spamers have no projects and very few posts.

Not to mention, that if a person has made 50 or so posts you can see if they intend to sell you stuff or something unwanted like that. I don't think that spamers would put in the effort to make 50 forum posts to make 1 or 2 posts to advertise their own things."

A wonderful idea! Andresmh liked it, and it was soon implemented.

-Chapter Ten-
-Scratch Day-

We recived messages from a reader about Scratch Day. He provided a wonderful description of the event, and it was only right to quote him:

"There were 3 main time slots, and when you registered you chose what you wanted to go to for each one. There were ones such as Show and Tell to show your projects, also ones where you specifically used Picoboards and Lego Wedo, and others where you would just make certain types of projects. Between them, there were 30 minute intervals, where you could join groups and collaborate, and you can talk to others, and more. Oooh ooh! And in the beginning the staff has a speech about the history of scratch and the staff and stuff. And in the end, everybody had pizza and soda! Woohoo Sprite! Also in the beggining you would get a packet, and there were certain activities. One was to get a signature from different people, that have certain achievements, such as "has a scratch account on the website", "has made a project", "knows who gobo is", and more. Also in the beggining, you would get a name tag of course, and it would either have the scratch cat on it, an octopus, or something else. Well one project was to find 2 other people who have the different character on their name tag than yours, and make a collaborate project using those characters. By doing certain activities, you could win a picoboard, a scratch t-shirt, and more."

What a lot of information! Keep your eyes peeled for the next Scratch Day, and maybe you can go.

-Chapter Eleven-
-Scratch 1.3 and 1.3.1-

Another version of Scratch! This chapter won't be long, but it lists the information about it and includes the new comment feature.

Andresmh posted in the Announcements, as usual:

"We are happy to announce the release of Scratch 1.3.  This version includes expanded international language capabilities, as well as several new features, such as lists and comments. Many of the additions are based on suggestions by Scratch community members; other suggestions from the community are high on our "wish list" for future releases.

Scratch 1.3 comes with new sample projects that illustrate how to use the new features. Also included in this release are an updated Getting Started guide and Reference guide.

Note: Scratch projects saved with Scratch 1.3 cannot be opened with earlier versions of Scratch.

Scratch 1.3 for Windows OS requires Windows XP or Vista;

Scratch 1.3 for Mac OS requires 10.4 or higher."
That's simple enough. Now for the next chapter!

-Chapter Twelve-
-The age of games-

We received messages from some of our readers about the age of games, and their main contributor, who somehow stayed on the front page for a month (that's why he's the star of this chapter): Newareagle.

Sadly, he's not active any more, but you can still check out his projects. They're lovely, simple games. It's been said that you can't find that type of thing anywhere else... and if so, it'd be rare.

Here are some links for you all:

Box Buncher
A game in which you put boxes into a small shape, with lots of dangers.
Lasers
A game in which you place mirrors to reflect a laser into a receiver.

There are many more games to play. Search newareagle, and find the games you want... it's like a free online website.

Anyway, back to the ages of games. Many people were popular, such as Tanner-FBI (still active...?), Bosox397, and many others. Games were popular from the start, but it was the peak of popularity.
But then... animations, anime, and other current projects took over. See Chapter Fifteen for more details.

-Chapter Thirteen-
-The Inspiration and More forum-

Now, the Inspiration and More exists. You can find surveys, discussions, and almost anything! Well, it wasn't perfectly new. The older forums were ancient in comparison!

Well, it was launched. And it took off! Lots of threads (some serious, some Scratch-related, some crazy, some just-plain-random) poured in, and so did the posts. It was a bit wild, but the moderator power was able to stop it from exploding with pressure.

Some threads became famous, such as Dragon Egg Hatchery or The Pokémon Center. They have lots of pages, and you can check them out yourself!
And maybe start your on thread.

-Chapter Fourteen-
-Two new administrators-

Nowadays, everyone knows Paddle2see and Jens* (remember him?). Well, they met the Scratch Team at a conference, and were impressed with their passion for Scratch and other qualities.

"They have been very active members of the community for quite a while, always helping others and making great contributions as moderators.  We met both of them during the Scratch Conference and we were very impressed with their passion for Scratch and their excellent ideas of how to improve it."

Most certainly! Both of them are still active, and you can see them in the forums!

*Unfortunately, Jens lost his status - he said that he hadn't done administration duties and wanted his status cleared.

-Chapter Fifteen-
-Front Page renovation-

Now, the Scratch Front Page reads:

Newest Projects
Featured Projects
My Friends' Latest Projects
Projects Selected by [curator name]
Top Remixed Lately
Top Loved Lately
Top Viewed Lately

But before, it read:

Newest Projects
Featured Projects
Top Remixed Lately
Surprise Projects
Top Downloaded Lately
Top Loved Lately
Top Viewed Lately

That's a small, but major difference. The Top Downloaded was gone! (Remember it from earlier?) And the My Friends' Latest Projects was introduced. Well, that's the order you're familiar with.
....................................
Curators are users who can feature projects of their choice on the front page. They get a shift of two weeks each, and it seems that a past curator cannot return to their post after it has been completed.

To apply, post in this thread and say why you want to be curator.

-Chapter Sixteen-
-Animation Frenzy-

Back then, animations weren't very common or popular. All animations were rare, and praised.
But now, they're everywhere! And people love them!

Maki-Tak uploaded a project called Worst Day Ever (made to celebrate Friday the 13th). It reached Top Loved, which was a pleasant surprise. She then made some more animations, and they caught on.
For example, you may see Nikkiperson2's animations on the Top Loved as well. Or Dream-Caster's funny episodes! They're everywhere, and there's always at least one on the Front Page.

You may think, what's so big about an animation? Well, it's like watching a short movie. And the sprites are usually made by the animator him/herself! And the scripting has to be done, along with timing and lots of other issues.
It's all a bit complex to make, but once you have one, it's there! You can watch it over and over.

-Chapter Seventeen-
-Scratch 1.4-

Another update! Scratch 1.4 introduced the snapping system in comments, which was handy for keeping it all together.

Here's the post from mres-admin:

"We are happy to announce the release of Scratch 1.4 !  With this new version, you can:
* ask users to input text from the keyboard (with new "ask" and "answer" blocks)
* take photos directly from built-in or USB webcams
* run Scratch on smaller screens, such as on netbook computers
* control robotics with LEGO WeDo

Thanks to everyone who provided suggestions for Scratch 1.4. We really appreciate all of your help.

To learn more about Scratch 1.4, check the Release Notes.

Download Scratch 1.4 and try it out!

MIT Scratch Team"

The ask and answer blocks were big, and paved the road for a lot of new projects! Chatbots, questions, quizzes; they all were there.

-Chapter Eighteen-
-Founding and Deletion of the Text-Based-Games-

Once Inspiration and More was launched, some forum games came. But big-bang suggest a Text-Based-Games forum, and it was a good idea! No more clutter.

It took off beautifully. Lots and lots of posts, threads, and so on. Some threads became incredibly popular, such as WOTF RPGing. But sometimes it went a bit wrong...
Some people had joined specifically for the forum games. And lots of the forum trouble started there. Paddle2see was concerned, but kept it to himself and the others with moderator power.

Eventually, Jonathanpb suggested deleting the Text-Based-Games. Nobody took him seriously until a few moderators agreed; then others joined. Andresmh announced that they would think about it, and then there was a wait.

And then there was a sticky in the Text-Based-Games itself, announcing its deletion in one week. Andresmh said that they would move it to a seperate part of the website if some moderators could be found.
A flurry of elections started, and MyRedNeptune was asked to host a Selectricity survey. Everyone was allowed to vote, and had to drag thirty-seven names in order from top-to-bottom, in order of preference. Lots of people voted, and then the results were announced.

The-Whiz and Nikkiperson2 were the new moderators!

They did their job well, and it took off to a good start.
But what about the deletion? No, here's a surprise! They archived it.
So you can still visit it, but you can't post... unless you're a moderator.

-Chapter Nineteen-
-New signature rules-

Earlier in this book, we mentioned the 50 post rule. It's been around for a long time, but now there's a new idea!

"We used to require 50 posts in order to be allowed to post a signature. This has changed now. In order to prevent unnecessary posts, signatures are enabled only after 15 days instead no matter how many posts one has. We might change the limit to more or less days."

So you only have to be on for a certain amount of time! This will actually work better, because that's a lot of work and dedication. And anyway, the 50 post rule can be avoided by posting continuously and innocently.

You may be wondering, "How will I ever get a signature? 15 days is a long time!". Well, think about this: You'll have plenty of time to plan a good signature. Here are some ideas:

• One of your favorite quotes.
• A joke.
• A link to one of your projects (pictures help)
• A simple, nice signature.

But then it changed to 3 days in the Text-Based-Games! Perhaps the spammers are getting lazy.

-Chapter Twenty
-A very slight change to the front page-

This will be a very brief chapter.
The information is as follows:

On November 26, 2009, the bottom two categories in the front page changed.
They used to say:

Top Loved
Top Viewed

Now they say:

What the community is loving
What the community is viewing

It's a small but very good change. It's more accurate, and it shows that Scratch is a community!

-Chatper Twenty-One-
-New default icons-

All of us know that the default user picture is a picture of a smiling user. Well, that's gone - and now it's the Scratch Cat!

Yickpoo submitted it, and then andresmh made a thread in the Show and Tell to thank him. The change was made, and the Newest Members section of the front page allowed users to examine the icon.

It is unlikely that there will be any further changes, but maybe there will... the Scratch Cat is a good selection.

-Chapter Twenty-Two-
-1 Sprite 1 Script-

1-Sprite-1-Scripters are projects (usually games) that run with only one sprite and one script. It may not seem like much, but imagine making a scroller with those.

Scratchers started getting excited about them. Many would attempt them, producing many memorable games, simulations, and more.
Here are some links for you to try:

LINE
   An actual scroller, with very high quality and great gameplay.
Squared
   A platformer in which you roll a square around.
Sphered
   Inspired by Squared; you roll a sphere instead.
Contrast
   Guide an arrow around the screen and dodge the opposite color.

RHY3756547 earned himself many views after creating several 1-Sprite-1-Scripters (1S1S for short). They weren't just games; he made several other projects.

If you've tried out all of the links and want to make your own, go ahead.

-Chapter Twenty-Three-
-Splitting of the Inspiration and More forum-

Inspiration and More was a large, prosperous (a bit too much) forum. It would fill up with recent posts, creating the active squares on the left of threads for two pages.

Cheddargirl began a suggestion on splitting it a long time ago. It seemed that nothing would happen, but it did!

It was divided into four forums, which you can access in these links:
   Collaboration
   Requests
   Project Ideas
   Miscellaneous

The moderators and Scratch Team created the new forums and began moving all the important threads. Many were moved, and the forums began to feel like home again.

A Polls section is wanted, so maybe there will be a fifth forum.

-Chapter Twenty-Four-
-Problems in the Miscellaneous forum-

The forum was very popular, but there was a problem: it was the source of most flame wars. One thread about religion went on for over 90 pages, filled with flames that had to be edited out by the moderators.

Some users began a campaign asking for the removal of Miscellaneous, started by Lucario621. It begun successfully, but the Scratch Team had a better solution: Simply place some rules.

Lightnin posted, closed, and stickied a thread containing guidelines (here). Summarized, it says the following:

• Don't start threads with a strong likelihood of becoming sources of flames. The big ones to avoid are threads about religion, politics, conspiracies, and so on. Those get closed.
• Keep threads on topic. If one goes far off, do more than simply post an image containing the words "Thread Derailed!"; try and help get it back on track.
• Don't misquote users. How would you like it if someone used BBCode to "show" that you said something that you didn't? That power can be used very wrongly. Report posts like that.

• The Scratch Team and moderators have to clean up what you report; try and keep the forum clean so they won't have as much work.

It went into effect well, and all was peaceful.

-Chapter Twenty-Five-
-The revival of Scratch Wiki-

Although it was created in February 2009, it wasn't very active. It contained some articles, but most were just one of the following:

• Articles concerning users
• Disrespectful articles (such as describing a publicity stunt and history about it)
• Articles showing off projects

Threads posted in Miscellaneous revived the wiki, and many users registered. Unfortunately, more of the unwanted articles appeared, but administrator Lucario621 cleaned it up.

Eventually activity died down, but rose back up when a handful of users worked hard on the wiki. The number of articles doubled, and slowly it was taking shape...

Currently it contains four administrators (two inactive) and approximately 40 users.

-Chapter Twenty-Six-
-1,000,000 projects!-

After approximately three years of Scratching, 1,000,000 projects had been shared. It may not seem like a big deal, but the entire website was full of joy.

Facts about the 1,000,000th project were shared by coka. He/she posted the following:

"Scratch was founded on May 15, 2007, and on April 26, 2010 the Scratch Community had produced 1,000,000 projects. This means:

- The Scratch Community Produced 1,000,000 projects in:
153.857142... seven day weeks
1,077 twenty four hour days
25,848 hours
1,550,880 minutes
93,052,800 seconds
93,052,800,000 milliseconds

-That is an average of:
6,499.535783... projects per week
928.505106... projects per day
38.687712... projects per hour
0.644795... projects per minute
0.010746... projects per second
0.000010746... projects per millisecond

Wow! That's a lot of Scratching!"

Very good statistics!
....................................
The celebrations varied in type. One of the largest was a new Scratch Design Studio gallery, which was about the new milestone. Many Scratchers shared celebration projects, and many got frontpaged.

You may be wondering who shared the 1,000,000th project. After furious sharing and reuploading, WMH3com won the competition with this project.

-Chapter Twenty-Seven-
-Remix Images-

If you visit a project and click on the statistic that says "[number] remixes", you will find yourself at a very professional looking page that shows the web of remixes from your project.

A large brown dot with your username under it represents your project. All projects remixed directly from your project are separated from it as smaller orange dots, with blue lines connecting their dots to yours.

Remixes of those projects are separated from the ones previously mentioned with even smaller dots, connected by blue lines smaller than the previous ones. And on it goes... if the project has a long history of remixing, the image will take a w-h-i-l-e to load.

This was made into an announcement in the Announcements forum - you can view it here. You can thank RitaC for designing the feature if you really like it.

-Chapter Twenty-Eight-
-Community Moderators-

In May 2010, a new announcement appeared - an election was approaching! The winners would become Community Moderators, Scratchers who would look around, helping the Scratch Community and serving as role models.

Scratchers were allowed to run, but were asked to read this thread before running; only Scratchers who fell into some categories were allowed to run. The requirements were that:

• The user has been active on the website and forums for at least six months
• Is willing to moderate based on the Terms of Use and moderator guidelines
• Has a history of well interactions on the site, demonstrating kindness, patience, and helpfulness

Many users ran, but a few days later eight nominees were chosen:
(In no particular order)

• fullmoon
• Wolfie1996
• TheSaint
• Dazachi
• coolstuff
• illusionist
• juststickman
• demosthenes

Voting opened the next day, and lasted for a while longer. The votes were collected, and the results were out - coolstuff, Wolfie1996, illusionist, and Dazachi were elected. Their shift as moderators would begin on the 27th.

-Chapter Twenty-Nine-
-The Official Scratch Wiki-

As chapter twenty-five teaches, there is a wiki for Scratch. However, it is unused... because there is a new one!

After lengthy discussions with the Scratch Team, a new website was created to house the wiki. The new site would be official; the other site was not part of the Scratch domain and housed ads.

Several users helped to set it up; JSO and Lucario621 were the main editors prior to the wiki's release. There were other editors as well, and the wiki was getting ready for a release - and it was done!

The wiki was announced in the Announcements forum, showing a link that would allow users to request accounts (that was there to prevent vandalism). Many users joined, and the wiki grew in popularity; it even had a section on the front page advertising it.

More and more articles have been created, and the count had passed 200; lots more are to come, free and easily available to everyone.

-Chapter Thirty-
-Troll attacks-

It was a normal day on the Scratch Website. All was pleasant, until...

The terrible trolls arrived. They created accounts, hurried to the forums, and posted inappropriate images. More and more accounts arrived, and more and more bans were issued.

The accounts were being beaten in turn, but it wouldn't stop; their IP bans were being cheated.

The moderators discussed how to solve the problem. Eventually new rules were enforced; new users were given a rank of "New Scratcher", along with restrictions. They are:

• They have to wait 1000 seconds between posts (later changed to 600)
• They have image tags, url tags, and code boxes disabled
• They cannot edit their posts
• They cannot reply to threads in the Show and Tell forum
• They cannot create threads in the Advanced Topics, Collaboration, and Miscellaneous forums

The attacks stopped, and the situation improved.

-Chapter Thirty-One-
-The Experimental Viewer

On August 11 2010, a new piece of work was announced to the public: the [Experimental] Viewer! It allows users to view projects online as if they were downloaded. However, it is experimental, so it's still far from perfect. A forum thread here announced the viewer, asking for feedback and the like.

Among the many replies, the main issues expressed were that:

• The look was too flashy - users preferred the simpler and modest look of Scratch 1.4
• C blocks (see the Scratch Wiki if you're not sure what they are) don't widen when being dragged over block stacks
• Some blocks don't work
• You can't edit costumes and the like
• Blocks don't activate when clicked

However, the viewer was liked and is still (as of October 11) receiving feedback.

-Chapter Thirty-Two-
-Scratch Resources-

For those that don't know, Scratch Resources is an excellent site where you can download sprites, scripts, sounds, costumes - resources, for free! It has an excellent About page, better than something I could write - here it is:

Welcome to Scratch resources!

The goal of Scratch Resources is to extend the Sharing possibilities Scratch already supports. You are now able to share and download sprites, sounds, music, backgrounds, and scripts, next to just Scratch projects. All this sharing could turn every Scratch project into a collaborative project using elements from others all over the world. This was already possible on scratch.mit.edu by putting your music in a Scratch project but we think it is important to provide a different platform, fulfilling the needs of sharing Scratch 'resources'.

We also want to provide you a place where you can find tutorials on all aspects of Scratch from basic to advanced. Helping others is an essential part of Scratch but the current Scratch site does not (yet) support a place to share tutorials.

By sharing something on Scratch Resources, you offer it to the whole Scratch community for use in their projects. While giving credit is nice not everyone does so. And, since you're sharing sprite, sound and image files, no "based upon..." text will be displayed. Feel honored when people use your 'resources'. If the sprite you are uploading is not made by you (e.g.: you made a sprite with a sprite sheet split up into costumes) try to credit the original author in the resource notes.

When downloading something from Scratch resources, keep in mind people have put time and effort in the resource you are downloading. Just like with Scratch projects, always try to give credit: in the project notes, or in the project itself. Scratch on!

The Scratch Resources team

From what I know, JSO has been working on this for a long time. Eventually he was able to create the site - and by then he had received three dedicated team members: adriangl, ihavemac, and fg123. Together they approve all resources shared.

The best way to learn more is to view the site - it's got a lot!

-Chapter Thirty-Three-
-The second community moderator election-

After four months, it was time for the next election (they're scheduled to be hosted on a regular basis). The community was tense; many, many Scratchers wanted to run.

A somewhat unfortunate surprise arrived. It crashed many Scratchers' hopes. There were changes to the community moderator program, announced here.

The previous qualifications to be a community moderator are shown below (skip this list if you remember the twenty-eighth chapter):

-Has been active on the site for at least six months
-Is willing to moderate based on the Terms of Use and moderator guidelines
-Has a history of positive interactions on the site

They added two more (picture dripping blood):

-Will be age 14 or older during the month of the election
-Has their parents' permission

That sparked a rampage. Permission is one thing, but age is another. You can talk to your parents about it, but you can't change your age.

While the most common self-reported age of Scratchers is 14 (see here for more information), there are many others that are below that. Those users were mad.

After many protests for an explanation, the Scratch Team explained that they installed the age restriction because of what a moderator will have to face. Maturity is one thing, but having to face stuff such as pornography is another. They felt 14 was a good age, and so that's the number we have now.

Despite continuing protests, they refused to change the number and have stated firmly that they will not (it's included in the sticky of resolved suggestions, actually). No, not even dozens of votes in Scratch Suggestions would suffice.

But the election came all the same. The Scratch Team chose eight candidates as usual, and the election was hosted. The results were in: fullmoon and demosthenes were the new moderators!

Also, it was goodbye to illusionist and Dazachi. Although they were good moderators, they were below the age limit. There was a large protest; many users were fans, but it didn't work. They were replaced soon after the election.

And then everything calmed down again.

-Chapter Thirty-Four-
Newest Projects change

A small change, but a noteable one. Prior to this, the Newest Projects row showcased only the most three most recent projects, meaning that if a project was quickly followed by others it would be swept out of the way.

This update changed the row so that it picked random projects from the newest twenty (correct me if I'm wrong) and showcase three. This meant that while there is a chance of a project not showing up at all, overall projects are given a more equal chance of getting that extra bit of views the row provides.

-Chapter Thirty-Five-
Beta flash player

Projects viewed on the site are by default played with the Java Player, or always played with it if you are not logged in. With the release of the beta flash player, users were given a glimpse of what projects would be like in 2.0, as Scratch 2.0 is to be remade in Flash.

Users were invited to post bugs in Troubleshooting, where they demonstrated a knack at finding how to hinder the player. What with its deep changes, it's not a surprise. 

One noteable feature is the green flag in the player. When shift-clicked, it allows you to use turbo mode online! This saves you from having to download the project and enable it from there.

-Epilogue-

The story of Scratch currently ends after the controversial election. But the mods chosen were good, and the community soon calmed down.

EDIT: I don't really update this anymore by the way    A quick attempt of a summary of everything since:

-collab challenge
-third moderator elections
-collab camp
....................................

Last edited by Chrischb (2012-05-28 02:19:40)