Scratch

recycle49 wrote:

Good idea, but i dont find it a big problem.

I thought you were angry cause they closed my topic?

Scratch is a kid's programming language, therefore the forums should be somewhat related to that. [/hypocrisy]
Try joining a debate club or something if you like arguing

Last edited by rufflebee (2010-10-25 20:44:14)

I just saw your project on this. I think arguement is discouraged because it can lead to direct personal insults and the like.

12three wrote:

cheddargirl wrote:

Is this because I closed your topic? 

You might as well close this one too.

Anyway, I'm not trying to be rude, but I think that argument shouldn't be discouraged as long as it is clean and nobody is attacking anyone else.

Yeah, but quite often friendly arguments end up as a fight.

rufflebee wrote:

12three wrote:

cheddargirl wrote:

Is this because I closed your topic? 

You might as well close this one too.

Anyway, I'm not trying to be rude, but I think that argument shouldn't be discouraged as long as it is clean and nobody is attacking anyone else.

Yeah, but quite often friendly arguments end up as a fight.

Hence the keep open CLEAN argument.

Hence the keep open CLEAN argument.

12three wrote:

rufflebee wrote:

12three wrote:

You might as well close this one too.

Anyway, I'm not trying to be rude, but I think that argument shouldn't be discouraged as long as it is clean and nobody is attacking anyone else.

Yeah, but quite often friendly arguments end up as a fight.

Hence the keep open CLEAN argument.

ANY argument can end up as a fight, no matter how "clean" it is.
Actually, I don't understand what you're saying.. So could you elaborate some more on it?

Last edited by rufflebee (2010-10-25 20:51:58)

12three wrote:

recycle49 wrote:

Good idea, but i dont find it a big problem.

I thought you were angry cause they closed my topic?

I am, but most arguments can cause bad responces, like projects protesting it and multible topics trying to pick sides. So i dont mind haveing them closed, because it will stop alot more flameing and other bad things. Trust me, im on both sides. That got me thinking, there should be a discussion part to work out arguments!! that would help.

If I may:

Lightnin wrote:

As many of you have noticed, the miscellaneous forum has been getting kind of rowdy lately. What with various arguments about religion and politics, it's sometimes hard to remember that this forum is part of the Scratch community.

This has been a big concern for the moderators and the Scratch Team. When the tone of a forum starts to get mean spirited, it starts taking a lot more work to keep an eye on. Believe it or not, mods and Scratch Team are a lot like the rest of you - we love Scratch and we like making projects and talking about cool Scratch related stuff. So it's a problem when mods and the Scratch Team have to spend a lot of their time dealing with flame wars, trolling, or other kinds of disrespectful posts in this forum. Most of our mods are volunteers who freely donate their time because they love Scratch. So it's not fair to ask them to spend so much of their time dealing with arguments that have nothing to do with Scratch.

(taken from here).

Arguments (especially ones involving religion or politics) that are hard to moderate has been one of the biggest issues with Miscellaneous (and one of the reason why Miscellaneous nearly got closed) - us mods would prefer to help out other Scratchers  with Scratch rather than continuously watch non-Scratch-related argument just to make sure it remains clean. Your topic was inching towards a religious argument, and I was inclined to close it before the argument becomes any bigger.

II'm not saying that debate over religion, politics, or society is bad - it's just that Miscellaneous is not a good place for it.

http://scratch.mit.edu/projects/12three/1375620

cheddargirl wrote:

If I may:

Lightnin wrote:

As many of you have noticed, the miscellaneous forum has been getting kind of rowdy lately. What with various arguments about religion and politics, it's sometimes hard to remember that this forum is part of the Scratch community.

This has been a big concern for the moderators and the Scratch Team. When the tone of a forum starts to get mean spirited, it starts taking a lot more work to keep an eye on. Believe it or not, mods and Scratch Team are a lot like the rest of you - we love Scratch and we like making projects and talking about cool Scratch related stuff. So it's a problem when mods and the Scratch Team have to spend a lot of their time dealing with flame wars, trolling, or other kinds of disrespectful posts in this forum. Most of our mods are volunteers who freely donate their time because they love Scratch. So it's not fair to ask them to spend so much of their time dealing with arguments that have nothing to do with Scratch.

(taken from here).

Arguments (especially ones involving religion or politics) that are hard to moderate has been one of the biggest issues with Miscellaneous (and one of the reason why Miscellaneous nearly got closed) - us mods would prefer to help out other Scratchers  with Scratch rather than continuously watch non-Scratch-related argument just to make sure it remains clean. Your topic was inching towards a religious argument, and I was inclined to close it before the argument becomes any bigger.

I'm not saying that debate over religion, politics, or society is bad - it's just that Miscellaneous is not a good place for it.

Nodear wrote:

... I understand but I think 12three is getting at how arguments can get to others peoples ideas and maybe get an understanding. Maybe if you can kinda "Moderate" the arguments so its not personal attacks yet still clean and the sharing of ideas we can all learn.    I actualy found 12three's post about the world interesting and would like to read more because I too have different views.

Well, as I said before: "us mods would prefer to help out other Scratchers with Scratch rather than continuously watch non-Scratch-related argument just to make sure it remains clean.". It takes up a lot of time just to moderate argument topics - back when arguments were still on the forums, it would take several hours of constant moderating to keep a topic clean to the point where it burned us out; it came up to the point where it didn't make much sense if the main goal of the moderators is to help with Scratch when they're spending so much time cleaning up debate threads, which is why topics likely to incite large arguments are usually not allowed on the "Miscellaneous" forum in the first place.

Like I've said, debate is not a bad thing - but Miscellaneous is not a good place for it. It can easily be taken elsewhere where it can be better monitored by those who have the energy and capability of maintaining a clean debate without having to worry about so many other issues at the same time.

Here's an idea: there are so many other forums out there who are dedicated purely for debating. Why not try Googling one for yourself if you're interested in such topics? 

Last edited by cheddargirl (2010-10-25 21:44:10)

ScratchReallyROCKS wrote:

I love myself a good argument. Not just pointless bickering.

EDIT: let me rephrase that. Although they may seem the same, bickering is definitely not the same as debating. They're both arguments of their own type, bit they are not at all the same. It seems like everyone who has disagreed to this idea has been horribly mistaken on that part. A debate is a way to express your side of an issue, by finding weak points in the statements of others on theirs. Bickering, on the other hand, has no good reason, and participants usually accuse each other and are disrespectul. I hope that helped.

You probably didn't see the thread which sparked this topic, (it was closed due to the fact that it was getting close to being a religious flame war).

The sad reality here is that debate topics on the Scratch Forums, even with the intent on not wanting to start bickering, often usually turns into bickering and flames very quickly (especially with "trigger" topics like religion and politics) - hence why they're usually closed so very quickly if it's determined if they are likely to turn into a bad argument very quickly.