Scratch

Suggestions....

bananaman114 wrote:

Ya, Suggestions. But I feel that is unfair too.

Maybe they could bring back the old "Surprise Projects" catergory?

That's still there, but it's hidden.

Go to friends latest projects, click "show more", then look at the top. You should see "surprise". Click that. 

Last edited by agscratcher (2011-01-28 16:54:03)

Well, also they do that because those people actually make the best games.

J0j2 wrote:

Well, also they do that because those people actually make the best games.

I disagree because some are animations that just have somebody say hi then they fall of a cliff. And some are games that you just walk a straight line and you win, or just title screens for new games and series.

This has been suggested thousands of times in the past. Such is the reason for "featured projects" as well as the "curator" slot, and New Projects is often a good way to find interesting projects. However, I should mention that the front page actually does tend to showcase some of the better projects on this website: take a look at a lot of the stuff that ends up in "new projects" and it's not exactly, uh, front page material.

People do tend to have a lot of beef with the front page, though, and it's resulted in some of my favourite suggestions of all time: FaveTags and this lovely suggestion. I just hope one or the other are implemented - the latter is probably quite a bit easier.

People don't choose to be famous. Others just like them and unless you spam, it's not your fault. Sometimes being famous is also a burden :p

It used to be worse, one time I had it so that only my projects were in the top lists. I think they know its an issue and are doing all they can, this is why they put in the currator section.

lucari0 wrote:

... Such as one curator for games, one for animations, on for simulations, etc.

This is a good suggestion, but I feel it might get the front page a bit cluttered.

lucari0 wrote:

I also think that there should be a part of the front page where the scratchers nominate unknown scratchers to be in a possible part called "Featured Scratchers" where scratch can see unknown people that should get more views. And maybe the front page should have five slots instead of just a mere 3.

Featured Scratchers puts more emphasis on the Scratcher than the project; the project is what should actually have attention drawn to, not the Scratcher.

MoreGamesNow wrote:

Also bear in mind that the scratchers who are famous put in a lot of time to become so.  Most of them are active on the forums, and consistently churn out good projects.  You get out what you put in, and the most famous scratchers (not necessarily the best, but the most famous) are the ones that have spent a LOT of time building connections and friendships and also building their reputations as good scratchers.

That's exactly true! In the summer I got two front-paged projects out - I was active on the forums and they were two very good projects, if I may say so myself. But I tried hard to earn that title. I don't know where people are getting the idea that famous people are only getting their projects on the front page because they're famous: I've gotten a few lesser-quality projects out since then and they haven't made the front page at all (nor gotten anywhere close), proving that popularity is absolutely not the only factor.

Last edited by coolstuff (2011-01-31 19:53:58)

MoreGamesNow wrote:

Hey coolstuff, what do you think of this theory:

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Here's a story:

I once decided to make a formula to measure a project's popularity.  Upon applying this formula to all of his projects, I discovered that my most popular game was actually not one of my two projects that made the front page, but a third, and that three not-curated projects were right up there in popularity with my two curated ones.  In addition, all five of these "super projects" were uploaded in the summer.
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And here's my theory:

Scratchers spend more time on the Scratch home-page during the summer since most of us have homework during non-summer days, and most of us have more free time to spend online.
Furthermore this free time allows thousands of avid scratchers to spend more time looking for great projects.

Therefore: in the summer, unknown scratcher's projects have a greater chance to rise to the top
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A very interesting theory! This appears to support it. Flattening out the growth curve, it appears that there are spikes in comments around the summertime. Excellent observations!