Scratch

Jens · 2008-03-25 04:07:33

Recently I noticed an increasing disappearance of long loved, absolutely harmless Scratch projects, even ones which have been officially linked to in publications by MIT/the Scratch Team, like Scratch Pad in http://scratch.mit.edu/pages/info , because allegedly a certain number of community members flagged these projects as being inappropriate for whatever reasons.

I am very disturbed by this. If you link to a project on the website you never know if it is still there the next time you access that link.

Could it be that flagging other members projects might have become a popular abusive means to prevent these projects from being clicked, loved and favorited in the ever-increasing contest for front-page exposure?

I enjoy a fair contest, but I'm afraid that this kind of sharp competition discourages many creative members. I'd like there to be a mechanism that prevents projects from being automatically removed once a certain version of them has been approved by someone responsible. If this will be the Scratch Clubs, all the better. Let's make the Scratch website a reliable repository of interesting Scratch projects again, and let's focus more on collaboration than on competition!

Paddle2See · 2008-03-25 05:13:58

Once again, we see social evolution in action. The predators have found that coordinated hunting is more effective...

I fear that unless there are consequences to this behavior, it will continue.

adriangl · 2008-03-25 10:48:11

Even when andresmh, a ScratchR, Loved a project it got deleted. Andresmh's comment on the project was "interesting project" and yet it got deleted.

chalkmarrow · 2008-03-25 17:04:18

I agree that, if this is a trend, it is a serious one. It might help if Andres, etc.could grant "immunity" to certain projects.

fbboi999 · 2008-03-25 17:21:03

I second chalkmarrow's motion

Perhaps just set it up that anything that makes it to top anything or featured gets immunity, or maybe like... over 50 loveits/downloads or over say... 300 views?

dingdong · 2008-03-25 23:37:36

there are some stupid users on scratch, like any other website with user accounts, so they might decide to randomly get rid of a project

relyt12101 · 2008-03-26 15:28:06

This has just been happening too much lately.

torterra · 2008-03-26 16:16:48

*sigh* what is this war? I know people do it to get what they want, but thats as far as I can go without proof. I just hope it doesnt go to far, and yes whoever does this is an.... no I have to stay cool.... cool

andresmh · 2008-03-26 18:14:42

Thanks for posting this Jens. We'll look into it. I'm currently traveling but I passed the info to someone else in the Scratch Team.

andresmh · 2008-03-27 02:42:57

All projects automatically censored are reviewed and uncensored if it seems like they shouldn't have been censored. So while we do like the power of the community votes, we still exercise some centralized control :-)

There might be a few hours of downtime for those projects between the time they are automatically censored and the time they are reviewed.

I don't think any project linked from http://scratch.mit.edu/pages/info is censored. Maybe you saw it while it was being reviewed?

I agree we should have a way of giving immunity to some projects so they are not censorable anymore. We'll implement that as soon as we can but just be sure that autocensored projects are always reviewed.

Thanks everyone!

andresmh · 2008-03-27 03:36:47

One additional note. Flagging intentionally to harass another is also inappropriate, and accounts can be blocked if they are found doing this.

Jens · 2008-03-27 03:57:19

Thanks for looking into this, Andrés.

I'm glad to hear that it seems not to be the kind of problem I suspected.

The censored project I came across from http://scratch.mit.edu/pages/info was this one: http://xyxzer.bravehost.com/scratchpad/Use%20Online.html

In the meantime I found out that it might have been deleted by the user, because it is no longer in his/her project list on the MyStuff page. So the "censored" message might actually be misleading....

The censored project on your favorite list is: http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/emuexpert55441/545
although that one might have been truly inappropriate (I cannot remember watching it myself).

There's another censored project on mres's favorite list:
http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/serbal23/83484 (which I also cannot remember watching myself)

midnightleopard · 2008-03-30 14:22:56

My friend once flagged a totally harmless progect, that was on top loved. My little brother, now that he saw my friend do it, he thinks it's pkay. So when I showed him this progect, he said, thats so stupid, flag it! He now flags things all the time because he took in my friends bad influence.

JSO · 2008-03-30 15:42:11

If this is a new problem, I have a suggestion.

"scratch community moderators" - accounts selected by the scratch team that are able to mark a project as fully appropriate. At least the problem of flagging top loved projects might be removed. If this is "Scratch Clubs" - sorry for the suggestion wink

Scratch

archived forums

#1 2008-03-25 04:07:33

Flagging Wars?

#2 2008-03-25 05:13:58

Re: Flagging Wars?

#3 2008-03-25 10:48:11

Re: Flagging Wars?

#4 2008-03-25 17:04:18

Re: Flagging Wars?

#5 2008-03-25 17:21:03

Re: Flagging Wars?

#6 2008-03-25 23:37:36

Re: Flagging Wars?

#7 2008-03-26 15:28:06

Re: Flagging Wars?

#8 2008-03-26 16:16:48

Re: Flagging Wars?

#9 2008-03-26 18:14:42

Re: Flagging Wars?

#10 2008-03-27 02:42:57

Re: Flagging Wars?

#11 2008-03-27 03:36:47

Re: Flagging Wars?

#12 2008-03-27 03:57:19

Re: Flagging Wars?

#13 2008-03-30 14:22:56

Re: Flagging Wars?

#14 2008-03-30 15:42:11

Re: Flagging Wars?

Board footer