Scratch

kayybee wrote:

Note, Moderators can IP ban you, which disallows your whole network.

BTW, reported.

I'll just use another network

That topic was someone introducing themselves, and somehow turned to a discussion about pretzels and shoe boxes. It was beyond hope at the time of closing; I can't imagine why you would actually want it to remain open.

"Ruining everyone's day with their 'authority'"? That'd make sense if they just closed anything because they can. But they always have a reason first.

By the way, you won't garner much support around here making empty threats like that... just saying.

Paddle2See and hmnwilson summed it up pretty well, but I'd like to add a little more. The moderators here truly care about the community and are putting in their own time to better the forums. Being a moderator is hard work, and you can't imagine the dedication it takes. If you have ever seen cheddargirl and fullmoon dutifully managing the Misc forum or coolstuff helping in every single All About Scratch thread during the summer months, you'll know what I mean. This is nothing to say of the other mods, who are constantly online, helping out and working behind the scenes. It's really unfair of you to claim that they would arbitrarily close a thread - it's their job to keep threads on topic and prevent spam.

marioallstar wrote:

Paddle2See wrote:

Well, you're certainly entitled to your opinion.  However, there are rules and guidelines in the forums and it is one of the jobs of the Moderators to try and enforce them.  Sometimes that means shutting down active topics.   Our practice here is to try and keep the discussions focused on the declared subject and close them if they wander too far - or never had a declared subject to start with.  This keeps the forums better organized and distinguishes them from a chatroom.

I agree that scratch is not a chat room and you want to keep the forums organized but it seems to me that some moderators use their authority just because they can. I am not talking about all moderators but I think the scratch community should have a say in what they do and plus isn't scratch supposed to be fun an no seem like you are being pushed around by a moderator

Yes, Scratch is supposed to be fun!  But one person's fun can be annoying spam to somebody else.  It's difficult balancing the desires of many different people with different interests and backgrounds.

As for moderators over-stepping their powers...it's could happen.  Everybody is human and everybody makes mistakes.  If you think there is a continuing problem with a Moderator, you can always discuss it directly with the Scratch Team using the Contact Us form at the bottom of every page.

I'm interested in your proposal that the community should have more of a say in what Moderators do.  Do you have some specific rule changes that you would like to propose?

Oops, missed this...

marioallstar wrote:

sorry about this post just having a bad day ( I want to die) you can go ahead and close this topic.....bye and... live long and prosper (a mac is better than a)    (i am sad)

That's okay...it's good to question things from time to time.  It forces us to step back and examine what we are doing and make sure it still makes sense.  Thanks for bringing it up 

There was a voting system, we voted for mods every time there's an election.

We have a say, like you are doing right now.

Mods are just doing there job, and making it fair for everyone.

Just cause it's something you don't like, others may like it for the good.

If you don't like a mod and how they do their job, do what P2S said.

About your pretzel shoe box, how do you think if you were an adult. 'These kids are so silly; what am I doing on Scratch? I'll devote my time to earn money for Flash and code games for that, where there are no kids talking about putting pretzels in shoe boxes.'

You're not the king here, and it's not fair just to do what you want, especially when we know there are objectors. If you feel you want something changed, just contact the ST.

Last edited by kayybee (2011-03-03 22:45:16)

I never said anything that I don't like your opinions.

I said, if you want something to change, contact the ST.

Magnie wrote:

I'm interested in this "Scratcher's having a say in things" as well. I think we could have a separate category that we could post in if there was a topic that was closed that we want opened again and if we really think it should stay open then we can get a say whether it should stay open or not.

Sometimes I think that the Moderators sticky more things than should be needed, but the topics give useful information and I'll trust them. ( Though I liked it when topics rarely got stickied, and they'd have to be really helpful to get stickied and those topics have tons of information that's really useful and well explained. )

Though I'm afraid I agree with Fullmoon, that topic was a bit of nonsense, and would have done better in another forum. ( Non-Scratch related ) But that's just my opinion.

What other ideas do you have for this? I'm really interested on how you would work this out. ^.^

Topics are never stickied anymore O_o. Like, once every six months if you're lucky.

Magnie wrote:

I'm interested in this "Scratcher's having a say in things" as well. I think we could have a separate category that we could post in if there was a topic that was closed that we want opened again and if we really think it should stay open then we can get a say whether it should stay open or not.

You could actually hit the "report" button on a closed topic asking for it to be re-opened (the circumstances, of course, are different for each case. If a topic was closed because of the time limit, it could be reopened if there was something relevant to post. If it was closed for another reason, you would probably have to give a good reason as to why you feel it can be reopened).

Sometimes I think that the Moderators sticky more things than should be needed, but the topics give useful information and I'll trust them. ( Though I liked it when topics rarely got stickied, and they'd have to be really helpful to get stickied and those topics have tons of information that's really useful and well explained. )

We don't sticky topic anymore like what Chrischb said (the stickies were cluttering up the forum pages) - most of the topic that were formerly stickied were all condensed onto a list in a few threads, sort of like an index, and there should be pages where you can suggest topics to add to the list.

Though I'm afraid I agree with Fullmoon, that topic was a bit of nonsense, and would have done better in another forum. ( Non-Scratch related ) But that's just my opinion.

Indeed, that thread seemed to deviate from it's original point (a New Scratcher introducing one's self in the forums) into the point of being into a unorganized  chatroom (and as we all know, we have a no chatroom policy on the forums).

What other ideas do you have for this? I'm really interested on how you would work this out. ^.^

Actually, I think Scratchers seem to already have a huge platform to say things, everything from contacting the Scratch Team to the Suggestions forums and Suggestions page where ideas can be voted upon. I'm just wondering if more people actually know about these things and use it to their full potential.

The thing is that, it's not practical to say "yes" to everything (I remember a phrase from one of Aesop's Fables: When you try to please everyone, you end up pleasing no one). Each community has their own set of values, ideals, goals, and the administrators and moderators are usually expected to uphold them and follow through on upholding them; so when certain things come up that otherwise clash with the community's ideals and values there is certainly going to be conflict of some sort between those who may otherwise disagree on what the moderators or administrators are doing and those who do agree.

Keeping that in mind: certainly different views will cause a community to change over time and those values, ideals, and goals may change over time, but usually not without some serious thought and reasoning addressing those changes. Simply put, if one were going to disagree with something that the admins and moderators have put in place, one should think about the reasoning for that disagreement (and this goes for any online community in general).

marioallstar wrote:

I even remember one forum post in which a moderator thought that they should have the same amount of authority as members of the scratch team.

You know, I'd certainly like to see that remark. I'd never seen anything like that before. 

[off topic]Wow, that's is one loooooong post I made.  [/off topic]

Last edited by cheddargirl (2011-03-04 00:59:39)

cheddargirl wrote:

You could actually hit the "report" button on a closed topic asking for it to be re-opened (the circumstances, of course, are different for each case. If a topic was closed because of the time limit, it could be reopened if there was something relevant to post. If it was closed for another reason, you would probably have to give a good reason as to why you feel it can be reopened).

Yes, that is a great idea. ( Who knew Reports could be used for more than reporting things. ^.^ ) But if we post a topic about opening it up, we can discuss whether it would be worth opening it up again. For the reasons you posted, that would work for the report button, but if there was a different reason, maybe larger ( though I can't think of any at the moment ), that we might need to discuss it with more members of the community and see if it should be opened again.

We don't sticky topic anymore like what Chrischb said (the stickies were cluttering up the forum pages) - most of the topic that were formerly stickied were all condensed onto a list in a few threads, sort of like an index, and there should be pages where you can suggest topics to add to the list.

I was also referring to the ITopics ( if those count ), I don't ever really check the ITopic Index just because it's like opening another category of topics ( Like "Advanced Topics" ). That was my main concern about the Sticky Topics, cause putting a list of topics in a topic sometimes just gets confusing. I've only opened the ITopic Index once or twice since they've been created because I was really "desperate" to find what I was looking for. Though that's just my opinion.

Actually, I think Scratchers seem to already have a huge platform to say things, everything from contacting the Scratch Team to the Suggestions forums and Suggestions page where ideas can be voted upon. I'm just wondering if more people actually know about these things and use it to their full potential.

The thing is that, it's not practical to say "yes" to everything (I remember a phrase from one of Aesop's Fables: When you try to please everyone, you end up pleasing no one). Each community has their own set of values, ideals, goals, and the administrators and moderators are usually expected to uphold them and follow through on upholding them; so when certain things come up that otherwise clash with the community's ideals and values there is certainly going to be conflict of some sort between those who may otherwise disagree on what the moderators or administrators are doing and those who do agree.

Keeping that in mind: certainly different views will cause a community to change over time and those values, ideals, and goals may change over time, but usually not without some serious thought and reasoning addressing those changes. Simply put, if one were going to disagree with something that the admins and moderators have put in place, one should think about the reasoning for that disagreement (and this goes for any online community in general).

I completely agree.

The_Dancing_Donut wrote:

Okay, some moderators can sometimes be a bit, uh, over-the-top, and remove anything that is even a tiny bit off-topic, but generally, they've got the right idea...

Sometimes thread owners will be upset about the off-topic posting and will send a report to ask the moderators to remove it. Aside from that, most users usually likes to see thread space being wasted because of off-topic posting. How, then, is removing off-topic posts over-the-top? 

In any case: Sometimes the moderator will jump in to ask people to stop posting off topic, but other times the off-topic posts just get moved off to the Dustbin where it can be reviewed (ie. Has the person done it before and needs to be sent a message about not posting off topic? Was the off-topic posting deliberate and intended to cause the thread to get derailed? etc.)

cheddargirl wrote:

The_Dancing_Donut wrote:

Okay, some moderators can sometimes be a bit, uh, over-the-top, and remove anything that is even a tiny bit off-topic, but generally, they've got the right idea...

Sometimes thread owners will be upset about the off-topic posting and will send a report to ask the moderators to remove it. Aside from that, most users usually likes to see thread space being wasted because of off-topic posting. How, then, is removing off-topic posts over-the-top? 

In any case: Sometimes the moderator will jump in to ask people to stop posting off topic, but other times the off-topic posts just get moved off to the Dustbin where it can be reviewed (ie. Has the person done it before and needs to be sent a message about not posting off topic? Was the off-topic posting deliberate and intended to cause the thread to get derailed? etc.)

No, I get what you mean, but one or two slightly off-topic posts in a thread aren't really a problem... when mods should focus on commercial spam and trolling, they're removing unharmful posts.

Just saying.