Scratch

On the front page, the first day I visited this site, I noticed that the top loved and top viewed and top downloaded tend to be the same, or by the same or similar users -- and usually base around being featured. For example, on Monday (the sixteenth), the top loved recently were:

1. NO SMOKING OR DRINKING
2. Legend of Zelda, Reign of Darkness Beta
3. Jumpn'run_game (improved)

and the top viewed lately were:

1. Wilderness Survival
2. NO SMOKING OR DRINKING
3. Star Fox

Notice how NO SMOKING OR DRINKING is on both lists. This is because they advertise it in the forums, and a few people look at it, all at around the same time. This gets it on the top viewed lately list. Then, more people look at it, and love it, getting it on both lists. Then they get even more views and love-its for being on both lists, getting them up to the top a bit more. Then, eventually they get near the front of the 'top viewed of all time' list. This makes it nearly impossible to be replaced as it only gets more and more views for being on 'top viewed'.

What point is this? It only really makes the top viewed projects get more views, and the projects and users that actually need a few views get hardly any views because most users are too busy viewing already-too-viewed projects.

The featured projects usually turn up on the top viewed. This is an exception to the fact that many not-very-viewed projects can turn into more viewed ones. But with the growing amount of projects on the Scratch website, surprise projects can hardly help views go up; with every project the likeliness of it being surprise is less and less. Most users even ignore them. And the newest projects can only be up on the front page for a minute, IF they're lucky. And administrators can only feature projects that they've seen, which means that unless they find it on surprise projects, which as I noted is less likely to become your project, it can't be featured.

This takes your chances of getting on the top loved list way down. And, what if you've just made a 300-script project, which is excellently amazingly awesome, and it hardly gets a single view because all of the top viewed and top loved and top downloaded are getting all of the attention, only getting more and more famous.

Although Scratch is meant for fun, not fame. it still can be a bit discouraging when your best project has been up for five, ten, fifteen, thirty, sixty days without even getting ten comments. It makes you want to give up on life. It's like offering people chocolate you've put hours of effort into making and nobody takes it. Your time and effort it put to, namely, absolutely no use. And your generosity is used for nothing.

This may be why so many people are quitting Scratch: Nobody looks at their projects, which is not a very good thing to happen.

Another thing I've noticed is that most people on the front page use the forums. The following are the projects on the front page, excluding featured, new, and surprise projects as of the time I wrote this:

TOP DOWNLOADED RECENTLY

1. Taxi by DaRossi (uses the forums)
2. How to Scroll by Cougers (doesn't use them)
3. Pokemon™ Game Boy Advance by Bluestribute (uses the forums)

TOP LOVED RECENTLY

1. NO SMOKING OR DRINKING by soccerislifeissoccer (doesn't use them, but was sort of promoted by a related project who gave credit to this who used the forums)
2. Legend of Zelda, Reign of Darkness by Geckofreak (uses the forums)
3. Jumpn' Run game (improved) by 123AndyCandy321 (doesn't use the forums)

TOP VIEWED RECENTLY

1. Wilderness Survival by Bluestribute (uses the forums)
2. NO SMOKING OR DRINKING by soccerislifeissoccer (see note above)
3. Star Fox by Bosox397 (sometimes does, but also spams a lot)

As you can see, about 3/4 of the top downloaded or top viewed projects have some relation to the forums. Only about 1/100ths of them use the forums. The rest, who don't use the forums, never get recognized and therefore never really get many views, which also reduces their chances of getting featured or on top viewed due to the small amount of users who actually use the forums. After a week or so of using the forums, you start to become either a recognized user or a hated, but recognized user. In either case, people still recognize your name and start using their projects.

What happens is that they advertise a project on the forums, and then ten or so forum users might look at it at relatively the same time, and if they make a big deal of it or it has a large, truthful meaning then it might get more views from a few more forum members. This helps it get onto the front page, which then allows all non-forum users to look at it, too: using the forums can really get your project much more viewed, which gives an unfair advantage to all forum users. What if somebody's parent's won't let them use the forums because it's too dangerous? What if they simply aren't interested in the forums? The list goes on.

More information on forum usage can be found at Dick Baldwin (dbal)'s thread called 'A very valuable resource largely going to waste'.

If you have read all of this I must say, you really can make a commitment, I've spent about half an hour on this post! Honestly, do you find I'm droning on and on about pretty much the same thing? Tell me, please. Thanks for reading this far, but the main purpose of this thread has yet to come.

But what can we do about this? How can we fix the problem that well-known scratchers only get more attention, so that the lesser-known scratchers hardly get any? A least viewed or least loved channel may seem appropriate, but that would generally only match up to the newest projects. I have absolutely no ideas as to what can be done about this.

That being said, had you read this far, could you please, please, please post your ideas as alternatives to top, top, top? Perhaps a least viewed, downloaded, and loved channel for projects that have been up for at least ten days? Please post your ideas on this topic...

By the way, this is, without a doubt my longest post ever.

Last edited by coolstuff (2008-06-16 15:48:14)