Hey folks, first off, I would like to thank each and everyone of you that has welcomed and helped new users get started in the Scratch Community. You all rock for doing that!

Lately, though, there's been a good amount of guide/welcome topics popping up in this forum section. Although its understandable that they're created with the best intentions, its not what the New Scratchers forum is for. The New Scratchers forum is intended for new members to introduce themselves to the Community.

So, in general, please refrain from creating informational topics. There's already a good number of existing tutorial topics - as well as the Scratch Wiki. The same goes for welcome topics (such as “Welcome to Scratch”, or “Introduce Yourself Here”) as there is already a group welcoming topic serving that purpose. Although the thought is much appreciated, these types of topics will usually end up being closed for the purpose of keeping the forums organized. An exception to that would be if you've checked with the Scratch Team beforehand and have gotten their approval to create one.

That being said, there are still other ways you can welcome and help other users out. I've listed some of them below:

• Welcome new users by responding to their introduction topics or on the group welcoming topic. You can also say hi to them on their profile, if you'd like.
  
  
• Make a tutorial project and advertise it in the Show and Tell forum. When advertising it, you're welcome to mention in the topic title that the project is geared towards new users. (For example: "For New Scratchers: [project name]")
  
  
• Look for unanswered questions in the Help with Scripts forum or the Questions about Scatch forum.There's a pretty good chance that new users will have questions - and ask them in those two forums. It would be great if you could look there for unanswered questions and respond to them - I'm sure they'd appreciate the help!
  
  
• Become a Scratch Wiki Contributor.The Scratch Wiki contains lots of information about Scratch - as well as tutorial articles. Becoming a contributor allows you to make improvements to those articles, which can prove to be very useful for those that read it - especially if you're a seasoned scratcher that's got experience coding on Scratch.

I'd like to reiterate that your help is greatly appreciated, and not the other way around. If you've welcomed a new user and/or answered their questions, then understand that you've played a substantial role in helping them to get started in the Community. Please continue to do that - but remember that the forum guidelines still apply even if you're just trying to be helpful!

Thanks - and Scratch on!