Scratch

It would be hard to control, though. 
It used to be worse in the past - users could be frontpaged more than once at the same time. That was changed, and it got better...

Just apply to be curator, tell others about your projects, and hope. 

The front page used to work great, but we've outgrown it. 

We're huge and very diverse now.
We could make the front page bigger and update faster- that would help some, but we will continue to outgrow it.

I believe we have to think differently about this.
What is the point of the front page, galleries or tags anyway? 
I think if we answer that, we can think of much better ways to do the same thing.


Here's some ideas I've thought of: (and refined with other scratchers)

1. Allow the varied interest in scratch to get together.  Make tag pages better- like mini front pages for any topic.  So in "Games", you see newly tagged "games", top tagged "games"...
For that to work, make tags more relevant, less spammy:
- Either have a large and growing team of tag moderators, or better:
- Tag voting, so scratchers decide what belongs in each tag page.
That would take the stress off the front page, because people could go to tag pages that interest them; find what they're looking for, or help vote to make their favorite tag pages better.  (discussed more here.)

2. Make it easy for people that want help and attention on 1 project now, to help others in the same boat.  So if I help you, you will see a link to the project I need help on, (like a little signature next to my comments), so you'll be more likely to help me.
This and a list of "projects that want help or attention now", would put people that need help together, so they can help each other. I think it's in the same spirit as "Newest Projects", but more focused.  (discussed more here.)

There's probably better ideas somewhere, lets go find and discuss, then beg the scratch team to implement them.     (thanks scratch team!)

Last edited by JTxt (2010-05-24 17:55:37)

helltank wrote:

What about common tags on the front page? For example, say the system recgonizes that you visited 100 projects with Pokemon as a tag. Therefore, it would put all the highly loved and viewed projects tagged with pokemon and put them on the front page

THey often have nothing to do with the project though...


And I kinda have a problem with the whole "front page for ALL scratchers!" thing. I just don't think that most people deserve it. A lot of front page projects don't deserve it. Even if you're not the best at programming or art, you could still add something to make it entertaining and decent quality.
For example, that pokemon battle project that was top viewed a few days ago. IMO that deserved front page because it had decent programming (full battle system, kinda), wasn't very messy and included some funny things.

Lightnin wrote:

What do you guys think?

Great!  I like the idea of "Sub-front pages" and interest driven approaches.
We could have sub front pages for every tag?
(or perhaps even tag combinations with faceted search generated tag pages.)
I think these mini communities would be less redundant and spammy than public galleries, they may be inactive or busy times, and more specific interests can be filled as needed.)

I think if we are able to make tags (or other category methods) more useful and not as easily abused, these ideas could work.

lightnin wrote:

The more you visit this space and comment and love the projects displayed in it, the more likely your projects would be to appear in it.  Once the different communities formed around each space, it's likely they would be "customized" based on who likes to hang out there.

Can a project be in more than one of these mini-communities?  like "mario", "racing", "game", "waffles"  if you "love it" is it promoted in eachof these equally?
I think we should get rid of the "Love it" because it is not specific, private, and we can do better.   

I think tags should be weighted, voted on by the community as they bookmark.

http://delicious.com I think is a good example of a good working folksonomy done this way.  I belive it works because "Votes" as to the relevance of tags to items are public... and are HELPING the user that added them, organize their bookmarks...  (See they have no "Love its" or galleries, and their tags are very useful.  Also they don't use VIEWS to determine popularity. They use bookmarks... that the community liked it enough to keep it for later in their bookmarks.)  (I wrote more in it here.)

Right now tags and loveits do not help the person that clicked them, and are not as public.


And I don't think it's always about becoming "popular" to the community as a whole,
I think the desire of most scratchers is to collaborate and get feedback from like-minded people. 
Game makers would like to hear from gamers. doll dress up makers, would like to hear from people that like doll dress up...
The front page (and "show and tell" forum) has sort-of filled this need in an inefficient way.

I think weighted/voted tags, and individual tag page sub-communities can do this better. 

That sounds like sort-of what you're thinking of too, right?


As far as cliques go, I think there would be less "games" vs "art" type arguments, or even "magna" vs "anime" because each would have their own place.  I don't see why one sub-community would attack another, yet.

Last edited by JTxt (2010-05-28 14:47:29)

I'm working on a proposal/mockup now.  We are currently making projects at a rate of 70,000 projects a month!  ...and within that time a few dozen are shown on the front page.  (excluding newest projects...  I think many of those are tests, not serious projects intended for eyes yet.)

More discussion please!  How would you fix how we categorize and promote projects.

Last edited by JTxt (2010-06-02 12:11:08)

joeylego,

Yes, and there are thousands like you.  This is a problem on many websites like this.
We have a ton of new content flowing in constantly, but no wonderfully working category and promotion tools.   (They're good, but we need better now, imho. (or imnsho?) ) 
The current system benefits the people that know the system, have time to promote their project, (post and bump on the show and tell forum, ask on front page projects, spam/post galleries...) and/or are already popular.

So there are many great undiscovered projects. 
People with similar interest can't find each other easily... so there's clashes like "not enough games/art on the front page"

So I'm hoping we will think of better ways.  Here is my attempt.  I know it's long.  I'm working on a mockup, but there are many little changes with huge consequences. ...and may require some newer technologies, like faceted search. 
It will take greater developer minds than mine to work out the details and figure out what's practical for scratch.  I'm hoping that a scratch team member would critique it further.  http://scratch.mit.edu/forums/viewtopic.php?id=33475

(Then I also think if people could easily request help/feedback and help similar minded people that need help now, there would would not need to be quite the need for "popularity". (a project on the front page.) http://scratch.mit.edu/forums/viewtopic.php?id=31593 )

Last edited by JTxt (2010-06-02 17:32:56)

These are some good ideas. curators are definitely not enough.

Here is my suggestion:

Newest Projects (signed in only)
Featured Projects
Projects Selected by [user]
My Friends' Latest Projects
Projects from Scratch Design Studio
Projects from Theme of the Week
Projects from Featured Galleries
What the Community is Loving
What the Community is Viewing
What the Community is Remixing
What the Community is Downloading

Also, there could be 5 projects in each row instead of 3.

The Theme of the Week would be sort of like the SDS, but it changes every week and it is other types.  Some Themes could be: Suggestions, Tutorials, Games, Animations.

It is like the same people everyday! The famous ones! I agree.