Scratch

I'm one of those people. By the way, aren't you banned from here? You shouldn't be posting if you're supposed to be banned. That's against the rules.

I am dissapointed that the REligion topics have been labelled "problem topics" given that they managed to be some of the longest threads on Scratch and *didn't* become flamewars.

In fact, they provided an opportunity for Christians, Muslims, Jews and atheists to find common ground - as actually happened in the "Probably..." thread.

Will you also be banning religious projects?  Religious projects that specifically prosytelise?  How about discussion of those religious projects in the forums suitable for discussion of projects?

Ace-of-Spades wrote:

Okay about the Discussing the Guidelines in this thread: What if we don't know if the topic is flamebait and we wake up with a ban?

You explain to the Scratch Team. 

Mayhem wrote:

I am dissapointed that the REligion topics have been labelled "problem topics" given that they managed to be some of the longest threads on Scratch and *didn't* become flamewars.

In fact, they provided an opportunity for Christians, Muslims, Jews and atheists to find common ground - as actually happened in the "Probably..." thread.

Will you also be banning religious projects?  Religious projects that specifically prosytelise?  How about discussion of those religious projects in the forums suitable for discussion of projects?

*Sigh*

Give it up.

Last edited by 08jackt (2010-02-18 06:47:14)

Mayhem wrote:

Jonathanpb wrote:

Mayhem wrote:

I am dissapointed that the REligion topics have been labelled "problem topics" given that they managed to be some of the longest threads on Scratch and *didn't* become flamewars.

In fact, they provided an opportunity for Christians, Muslims, Jews and atheists to find common ground - as actually happened in the "Probably..." thread.

Will you also be banning religious projects?  Religious projects that specifically prosytelise?  How about discussion of those religious projects in the forums suitable for discussion of projects?

Oh, Mayhem, you're just disappointed that you can't complain about religion. 

Not at all, since if I wanted to complain about religion I could make a project doing so. 

It could sit right alongside the two religious projects I made.

And then, presumably, I could promote that project in the Show and Tell forum.

And my comments have never been complaining about religion, per se - they have been reactions to people posting that theirs is the only right religion, especially if they attack science to do so.

****

Hmm...  you know, those guidelines say nothing about science.  So I could go start a pro-evolution thread, or a pro-big-bang thread, on a purely scientific, not related to religion at all, basis.  And any arguments against evolution or the big bang would have to be presented in an equally scientific way, or fall foul of the no religion rules...

Now that's just sad.

You sir, fail at life and everything.

08jackt wrote:

Mayhem wrote:

Jonathanpb wrote:

Oh, Mayhem, you're just disappointed that you can't complain about religion. 

Not at all, since if I wanted to complain about religion I could make a project doing so. 

It could sit right alongside the two religious projects I made.

And then, presumably, I could promote that project in the Show and Tell forum.

And my comments have never been complaining about religion, per se - they have been reactions to people posting that theirs is the only right religion, especially if they attack science to do so.

****

Hmm...  you know, those guidelines say nothing about science.  So I could go start a pro-evolution thread, or a pro-big-bang thread, on a purely scientific, not related to religion at all, basis.  And any arguments against evolution or the big bang would have to be presented in an equally scientific way, or fall foul of the no religion rules...

Now that's just sad.

You sir, fail at life and everything.

08jack, stop insulting Mayhem. If you have nothing nice to say, don't say it. Those kind of comments are what got the Forum in trouble in the first place.

Mayhem, I would be glad to discuss science with you. 

Jonathanpb wrote:

I was trying to make a point. Honestly, it seems like you just want to argue about religion. 

If you're going to make a topic against evolution as a workaround for discussing religion, that'll probably get closed - it's still trying to get the same point.

Anyway, let's get back to the discussion about Miscellaneous, shall we? 

I was also making a point - that what one person posts as completely non-religious can still offend people religiously, as you can tell by the replies to my completely non-religious Evolution Explained project.

The point about projects was semi-serious, though.  Are we beholden to these "don't post it if somebody might find it offensive" rules when creating and sharing projects, when commenting on projects, or ONLY on the forums?  Is there about to be a huge cull of projects on the subjects of science, religion and polotics?

My personal idea on this:

I don't think that the Scratch team should close or prohibit the type of topics currently being discussed. For forum topics created specifically for the purpose of annoying or mistreating a member, then fair enough. But religious topics are not meant to harass a specific user. They are created for the purpose of discussion and evaluation of viewpoints. If a user doesn't agree with the ideals expressed in the thread (Which you can usually tell by the threads name), then simply don't open it. If the users don't read it then they can't be offended, so it's their own fault if they do so. Petitions for religious topics to be closed are usually because the user asking for closure doesn't like the ideas expressed (But moreso, the fact that they cannot disprove those ideas so want them removed). It is also interesting that the people petitioning for religious topics to be closed are the ones in major religions like Christianity, on their faith. I have personally never seen an atheist user petition for religious threads to be closed even if the ideas expressed in the thread are contrary to what they believe.
I don't think getting rid of the Miscellaneous forum fully would be beneficial either. As TheSaint said, people need a community. They also need a place to simply sit back and discuss other things. Removing the Miscellaneous forum would be like a school where you expect children to become friends simply by doing schoolwork. But that's not the case. People become friends on grounds of shared interests, viewpoints and talents. Removing the miscellaneous forum takes away any chance of discussing these, and the result would be the community declining.
Therefore, I think that rather than remove the threads in question, a better idea would be to remove the users who post the offensive comments. It would benefit the community more as a whole, because if you just remove the topics they're posting in then they can just move on to another.
Plus, everybody knows who the forum antagonists usually are. And no, it isn't Mayhem just because his viewpoint is different from yours. 

EDIT: Also, if moderating the forums can become troublesome at times, then simply nominate one of the more trustworthy, helpful and frequent forum posters who don't really make projects to help moderate this forum. There's plenty of them out there.

There, done. Sorry about the giant wall of text. I was simply expressing my views so this forum can continue to be a reasonable democratic place. 

Last edited by djm111 (2010-02-18 09:07:01)

Jonathanpb wrote:

Mayhem wrote:

Jonathanpb wrote:

Oh, Mayhem, you're just disappointed that you can't complain about religion. 

Not at all, since if I wanted to complain about religion I could make a project doing so. 

It could sit right alongside the two religious projects I made.

And then, presumably, I could promote that project in the Show and Tell forum.

And my comments have never been complaining about religion, per se - they have been reactions to people posting that theirs is the only right religion, especially if they attack science to do so.

****

Hmm...  you know, those guidelines say nothing about science.  So I could go start a pro-evolution thread, or a pro-big-bang thread, on a purely scientific, not related to religion at all, basis.  And any arguments against evolution or the big bang would have to be presented in an equally scientific way, or fall foul of the no religion rules...

If you're going to make a topic against evolution as a workaround for discussing religion, that'll probably get closed - it's still trying to get the same point.

I'm not so sure. If his Religion thread is allowed, so shall be everything else science. So as politics.

What's with all the Lunch and Recess stuff? xD

Lucario621 wrote:

djm111 wrote:

Removing the Miscellaneous forum would be like a school where you expect children to become friends simply by doing schoolwork. But that's not the case.

That is an interesting perspective! I love how you look at it that way!

But I somewhat disagree.

You're saying that you can't have school without lunch or recess. That is completely true.

But, you also can't have Lunch and Recess 24/7, right? That's what is pretty much happening here on scratch. The entire crowd is on Miscellaneous, with all of the other forums being less popular and visited. Which is why Miscellaneous needs to be CLOSED.

So instead, there's extra time after school to do whatever they want, outside of school - AKA outside of the scratch forums.

Whilst I understand what you're saying, to be frank, there isn't really much for users to do and post with on other parts of the forums. Yes, stuff like All About Scratch is useful for learning, but the larger majority of the forum knows all the basic Scratch stuff now, or doesn't use it in their projects. If you don't need to know something then what's the point in posting there?
Show And Tell is useful for advertising your projects, and is the 2nd most popular part of the forum last time I checked the statistics. However, I argue that it can be used as much as the Miscellaneous forum. If you go on the Show And Tell forum and find a link to a project, you comment to the person and give them feedback on the projects comments, rather than going back to the forum to post it there.
Also, Miscellaneous is a far more open forum, so far more different kinds of topics and posts can be found there.
I personally think that the forum should keep this place because it does give the users a place to socialise, form a community and help each other. Yes, this is Scratch, but the larger part of the site (Projects, galleries etc.) is still tailored towards using Scratch specifically. The project count shows people are still making the projects and using Scratch.
Every popular forum has a topic for general discussion, and there's a reason why.

Last edited by djm111 (2010-02-18 11:19:52)

Lucario621 wrote:

djm111 wrote:

Lucario621 wrote:

That is an interesting perspective! I love how you look at it that way!

But I somewhat disagree.

You're saying that you can't have school without lunch or recess. That is completely true.

But, you also can't have Lunch and Recess 24/7, right? That's what is pretty much happening here on scratch. The entire crowd is on Miscellaneous, with all of the other forums being less popular and visited. Which is why Miscellaneous needs to be CLOSED.

So instead, there's extra time after school to do whatever they want, outside of school - AKA outside of the scratch forums.

Whilst I understand what you're saying, to be frank, there isn't really much for users to do and post with on other parts of the forums.

You make it sound like you HAVE to post regularly to meet certain requirements or something 

No. If you read the full point, I'm actually saying that comparing the amount of posts in the Miscellaneous forum to the rest is an unfair indicator of the point you're trying to prove, because the Scratch website consists of a lot more than just the forums.

Mayhem wrote:

Lucario621 wrote:

Also, define a 'flame war'. Because IMO, I've seen it in your thread.

A flame war is when the thread devolves into nothing more than name calling, with neither side trying to present an argument, only abuse.  None of the religion threads did that.

I beg to differ.  Those threads exploded into flames many times.  The reason you don't see them in flames now is that the Forum Moderators and Scratch Team members tediously rooted through the topics and stamped the flames out.  Again and again.  That takes time and effort that takes away from time that could be spent addressing Scratch related issues.

As for what topics are going to be allowed or not allowed...it basically comes down to resources.  If there is a topic that is taking a lot of resources to insure that civility is maintained, then it is likely to be closed, particularly if it is not directly related to Scratch (the programming language). 

It is unfortunate that we have to limit the areas of discussion now.  However, we have limited resources and feel that we need to focus those on the primary objectives of these Forums, which is support for Scratch.   Thank you for your patience and understanding.