Scratch

We read a lot about how the Scratch forums are a friendly welcoming community for newcomers, and I can't quarrel with that assessment.  The forums have been friendly and welcoming to me even though there is a vast generation gap between me and most of the forum participants.  However, the statistics indicate that while the forums may be friendly and welcoming, they are not very inclusive.  The vast majority of Scratch users don't participate in the forums.  This should be something that the folks at MIT would want to work on because it means that an important resource is largely going to waste.

I will present some statistics first and follow the statistics up with some tentative conclusions.

The following data was gathered on the morning of 06/08/08 by performing Google searches on Scratch usernames with the following keywords:

site:http://scratch.mit.edu/forums username

The search was limited to posts for the past month, and all posts were included in the totals regardless of whether they were made by the user or the username was simply mentioned in a post made by someone else.

The following are 30-day total posts (or mentions) for the users who posted during the 24-hour period ending at 08:52 on 06/08/08.  The number in the first column is the total number of posts that included the username during the 30-day period.  The second column is the username.  The purpose of this list is simply to provide a snapshot of forum participation by username to serve as a baseline for analysis of the other data.  As you can see, the usernames are arranged in descending order by total number of posts during the 30-day period.

177 Bobby500
165 dingdong
164 Bluestribute
142 geckofreak
112 funkymonkey
096 Paddle2See
094 Cyclone103
083 siddthesquid
065 tms5
063 andresmh
050 Jens
047 Berryfeather
036 dbal
033 relyt12101
032 JSO
029 Sakani
028 Half-Wolf-Leader
027 Hoopla
025 bigB
019 torterra
018 adityasm9
014 Jacobo
008 Fireicedude
007 shadow_7283
006 ldugg6
004 ooogabooga
003 Gallade_X-treme
002 stopmotion
002 registeel
002 Ketchup13
001 qwertyu63
001 aleboy10
001 thepester

The following are 30-day total posts for the users who posted the ten most recent projects in the list of Newest Projects when I collected the data on the morning of 06/06/08.  This is the first of six lists that are featured on the Scratch home page on a daily basis.

000 Tommy564
028 Pineappleprincess
000 deadmeat90
000 nene-K
000 ElCapitanoFlapjack
000 cooladam
000 herodude12
000 bikerjack9
000 WaveGrovyleFlame64
000 svenni12

The following are 30-day total posts for the users whose projects were at the top of the list of Featured Projects on the morning of 06/06/08.

000 BATzerk
005 mrguy740
000 tigersrule101
000 Rurigok
000 billyedward
000 goch
000 Robotsrule
000 Jesscookie
000 robbie
000 Hard_Rock_Gaming

The following are 30-day total posts for the users whose projects were at the top of the list of Surprise Projects when I collected the data on the morning of 06/06/08.  Apparently this list changes often.

000 vietboidanny
000 jorca11
000 monkeypiefairy
000 Canni 000 jonkatt
000 nene-K
000 DREAMEATER
000 Emi-Emi
000 16finkes
000 Eggykitty
000 Tommy564

The following are 30-day total posts for the users whose projects were at the top of the list of Top Loved Lately Projects on the morning of 06/06/08.

006 Silverkey17
000 cougers
023 DaRossi
002 Shanesta
002 kuri
030 S65
002 Dolfus555
096 Paddle2See
005 Tanner-FBI Oldschooler2
122 archmage
001 archknight
002 Axeblade

The following are 30-day total posts for the users whose projects were on the list of Top Downloaded Projects on the morning of 06/06/08.

002 Dolfus555
000 robbie
023 DaRossi

The following are 30-day total posts for the users whose projects were at the top of the list of Top Viewed Projects on the morning of 06/06/08.

000 cougers
047 Berryfeather
000 AromaRageST
002 jay 000 fleetJ
000 jmgibson
000 Snoopy
002 Shanesta
000 peepod123
000 angelical
013 slobasso
000 Bloing_Gloing

One conclusion that can be reached very quickly by examining the baseline data in the first list above is that the distribution of users across the forums is very narrow.  Stated differently, an extremely small percentage of users post the vast majority of items on the forums.  Even without examining the other data, that fact in itself should be a warning signal that the forums are not very inclusive.

Data for a total of 55 usernames that appeared on one or more of the six lists (exclusive of the 24-hour baseline list) that are featured on the Scratch home page are provided above.  A few of the names appear on more than one list.

If I did the arithmetic correctly, even though these are obviously active Scratch users, 67-percent of these usernames were never mentioned in the forums during the past 30 days.  Although I'm not a statistician, I believe that one might conclude that for whatever reason, the forums have nothing to offer 67-percent of the active users of the Scratch website.  At least, those 67-percent of the active users don't recognize what the forums might have to offer and therefore don't frequent the forums.

In reality, I believe that the results are even more negative than the results shown above.  Although I haven't attempted to quantify the relationship, there is a strong relationship between the users who do frequent the forums and the names on the following lists:

Top Loved Lately
Top Downloaded
Top Viewed

This correlation results from the fact that many of the users who do frequent the forums actively promote their own projects on the forums, competing for high numbers in the Viewed, Downloaded, Comments, and LoveIt scores.  (There even seems to be some competition to see who can post the most items on the forums regardless of whether or not those items are meaningful.)  These scores seem to be a major motivating factor in forums participation by many users. This self-promotion induces others who frequent the forums to view, download, and click the Love It button on their friend's projects.  While there is nothing inherently wrong with users promoting their own projects, it does bias the data in these three lists.

If these three lists are eliminated from consideration in an attempt to get a random sampling of users, there are 30 usernames in the remaining three lists.  Twenty-eight (93-percent) of these usernames have not been mentioned in the forums in the past 30 days even though they are active users of the website.

Extrapolating this to the Scratch user population as a whole, one might conclude that the vast majority of the users don't consider the forums to be a valuable resource or at least they don't realize that the forums could be a valuable resource.  This is a very unfortunate circumstance which deserves some serious study by the folks at MIT.  The important questions are:

1.  What can be done to cause the forums to be a more useful resource to the vast majority of users, and
2.  What can be done to cause the vast majority of users to consider the forums to be a useful resource?

I have some ideas of my own as to why the vast majority of the Scratch users appear to shun the forums, but my ideas are based on opinion and are not based on scientific data.  So, for the time being, at least, I will keep these opinions to myself.

Perhaps it would be useful for the folks at MIT to get some of the other experts at the university involved to construct and administer a meaningful random survey among Scratch users to learn about their likes and dislikes regarding the forums.  Then they could take whatever corrective actions might be appropriate to cause everyone involved to get more benefit from the forums.

The forums could be an extremely valuable resource for all users, but at this point in time, this potentially valuable resource seems to be largely going to waste.