Scratch

On Scratch, our community guidelines are described in the Community Guidelines. (They're short and don't contain a lot of boring legal stuff.) This post describes what the Scratch Team does when an account is used to do something that's not ok for Scratch.

What's considered inappropriate for the Scratch website?

Stuff that falls outside of the guidelines described in the Community Guidelines. For example: commercial spam, excessive violence, stuff that's too mature for a kids site, comments that ask for or give out personal contact info like phone numbers or email, projects attacking other Scratchers, projects with music that's not rated "Clean", and anything that's just mean or unfriendly. 



What happens when an account gets blocked / banned?

When an account on Scratch is blocked, the Scratch website shows the owner of the account a page with the reason for the block. The page also has a contact us form they can use to ask to be unblocked. We need to talk to the owner before unblocking their account to make sure they understand the Community Guidelines.  It may be tempting for them to just use a different account. That's a bad idea, as it can result in their other accounts being blocked or deleted, and extends the length of time that the original account will be blocked.



Once the owner of the account contacts us, we can talk about unblocking. This is where it's important for the owner of the account to be honest. If they say they were hacked, but the information on our server says otherwise, it becomes harder to trust them. People who are honest and admit what they've done are much more likely to be unblocked.



We tend to get a lot of emails from Scratchers with banned accounts saying "My mean older brother did it!" After you hear this enough times, it starts to sound more and more like "My dog ate my homework." If your older brother is stealing your login, please get help from the adults in charge of the computer! Unless they contact us to explain what happened, the owner of the account will be held responsible. So please choose a strong password, with upper and lower case letters, and keep it safe.

Last edited by Lightnin (2011-09-07 15:50:31)