-adasba- wrote:

I think that you should still be notified if someone follows you, but if people know the follower number, it can cause lots of trouble. Removing it will leave the young kids on the website without an excuse to complain about followers, because they won't know how many they will have.

Lots of trouble? No, the knowledge does not inherently make lots of trouble. People want attention one way or another. The people are at fault, not the numbers.

If a kid is complaining about followers, do you delete followers? No… just teach the kid!

-adasba- wrote:

Alberknyis wrote:

People who cheat to get followers hardly gain popularity, or even many followers. So many people have copied griffpatches paper minecraft, but have you bothered to check them out? No, because you know which one's the original project.

And look, if people who don't get followers leave Scratch then imagine what happens when followers disappear completely :\

Several people have managed to get followers off of cheating. Sadly I cannot tell you them because of scratch's name and shame rules. If followers disappear completely, people will treat each other as equals. Also, scratchers will join the website after the changes are made, and won't have any idea followers ever existed!

That's a problem with the remix system, again, not the statistics… If it's not followers, it's love its. If it's not love its, it's favorites. If it's not favorites, then it's comments. If they're all visibly removed, then there's no motivation for anybody who likes to make awesome projects, except learning, which is a very rare motivation among people today, for example… I didn't join Scratch to learn, I was drawn in by the chance of getting a world known game. Obviously this didn't happen at first, and I almost quit, until I saw my brother Superdoggy's unshared 1s1s maze project, which was cool for me at that time, and I rejoined. And I have gotten many successful projects… of course now I want to learn, though! Considering a career in app design. Why would I make apps, though? To make money, gain popularity, spread the message of making 100% completely appropriate projects, and inspire others to start the cycle over again, perhaps they will see one of my future games, find Scratch, and start programming! Get feedback, etc etc…

Would this have happened if there were no stats? As I've mentioned, there was no 1.4 follower bar… however, there were other things. It was a very friendly and welcoming community, small, so it wasn't too hard to get featured or curated. It was one community. 2.0 is bigger, more advanced, and it tends to have a different system… studios hold tons of friend groups and such, really tough to get on the front page, and a vastly different interface with slightly more lax moderation, mainly due to so many people on it, but also due to some rule changes I think… anyway… the followers bar sets a goal for new users. Motivation. Sure, there are the people that copy projects, fake views, and get banned, have to appeal, and it's a long process, especially when the severity of the problem was high… without follower bars at all, there will not be as many of those people… not many of people, either. I certainly would consider quitting.

-adasba- wrote:

Some people think followers are fame, and that's what this is trying to solve. The fake removedbyScratchifierthing with usernameremovedbyScratchifier would've never happened if there was no follower bar. One of my friends wouldn't of been banned if it weren't for the follower bar. If you don't like F4F or advertising, you should support because both of them are linked to follower hunger.

Followers are fame, in a way. It's a base, and it teaches you how to properly get known when you move onto other social media, what I have been doing recently. Anyway…

About your friend, he should learn his lesson then. Because if not Scratch, he would just get banned by the next thing that had followers.

And for F4F, I don't mind. Advertising, I don't mind as long as it isn't automated spam or spam trying to draw away attention from somebody's project. Ask me to look at something by commenting on my profile with a unique message? Sure, I'll take a look! F4F? Sorry, I don't follow on request. In rare cases (and I mean really rare), if they are a good Scratcher I didn't know about… sure! I don't have a problem with somebody asking. Perhaps if they randomly spam it on every single profile… yeah, that's annoying. That's also what the delete button is for. But if it's somebody who loves your work and just wonders if you could possibly check out a project or two of theirs or F4F them, why shove it in their face and call them follower hungry? That's not very nice.

Scratchifier wrote:

-adasba- wrote:

I think that you should still be notified if someone follows you, but if people know the follower number, it can cause lots of trouble. Removing it will leave the young kids on the website without an excuse to complain about followers, because they won't know how many they will have.

Lots of trouble? No, the knowledge does not inherently make lots of trouble. People want attention one way or another. The people are at fault, not the numbers.

If a kid is complaining about followers, do you delete followers? No… just teach the kid!

-adasba- wrote:

Alberknyis wrote:

People who cheat to get followers hardly gain popularity, or even many followers. So many people have copied griffpatches paper minecraft, but have you bothered to check them out? No, because you know which one's the original project.

And look, if people who don't get followers leave Scratch then imagine what happens when followers disappear completely :\

Several people have managed to get followers off of cheating. Sadly I cannot tell you them because of scratch's name and shame rules. If followers disappear completely, people will treat each other as equals. Also, scratchers will join the website after the changes are made, and won't have any idea followers ever existed!

That's a problem with the remix system, again, not the statistics… If it's not followers, it's love its. If it's not love its, it's favorites. If it's not favorites, then it's comments. If they're all visibly removed, then there's no motivation for anybody who likes to make awesome projects, except learning, which is a very rare motivation among people today, for example… I didn't join Scratch to learn, I was drawn in by the chance of getting a world known game. Obviously this didn't happen at first, and I almost quit, until I saw my brother Superdoggy's unshared 1s1s maze project, which was cool for me at that time, and I rejoined. And I have gotten many successful projects… of course now I want to learn, though! Considering a career in app design. Why would I make apps, though? To make money, gain popularity, spread the message of making 100% completely appropriate projects, and inspire others to start the cycle over again, perhaps they will see one of my future games, find Scratch, and start programming! Get feedback, etc etc…

Would this have happened if there were no stats? As I've mentioned, there was no 1.4 follower bar… however, there were other things. It was a very friendly and welcoming community, small, so it wasn't too hard to get featured or curated. It was one community. 2.0 is bigger, more advanced, and it tends to have a different system… studios hold tons of friend groups and such, really tough to get on the front page, and a vastly different interface with slightly more lax moderation, mainly due to so many people on it, but also due to some rule changes I think… anyway… the followers bar sets a goal for new users. Motivation. Sure, there are the people that copy projects, fake views, and get banned, have to appeal, and it's a long process, especially when the severity of the problem was high… without follower bars at all, there will not be as many of those people… not many of people, either. I certainly would consider quitting.

-adasba- wrote:

Some people think followers are fame, and that's what this is trying to solve. The fake removedbyScratchifierthing with usernameremovedbyScratchifier would've never happened if there was no follower bar. One of my friends wouldn't of been banned if it weren't for the follower bar. If you don't like F4F or advertising, you should support because both of them are linked to follower hunger.

Followers are fame, in a way. It's a base, and it teaches you how to properly get known when you move onto other social media, what I have been doing recently. Anyway…

About your friend, he should learn his lesson then. Because if not Scratch, he would just get banned by the next thing that had followers.

And for F4F, I don't mind. Advertising, I don't mind as long as it isn't automated spam or spam trying to draw away attention from somebody's project. Ask me to look at something by commenting on my profile with a unique message? Sure, I'll take a look! F4F? Sorry, I don't follow on request. In rare cases (and I mean really rare), if they are a good Scratcher I didn't know about… sure! I don't have a problem with somebody asking. Perhaps if they randomly spam it on every single profile… yeah, that's annoying. That's also what the delete button is for. But if it's somebody who loves your work and just wonders if you could possibly check out a project or two of theirs or F4F them, why shove it in their face and call them follower hungry? That's not very nice.

I am talking about the people that complain and make projects and studios about them not getting the followers they deserve. Also, the follower bar being a goal for new scratchers is what sets off the follower hunger and jealousy.

So many quotes… Argh.

Okay. First off, water does not help. It's like… Putting a sharp pointy thing in a box. Putting it in a box ain't gonna make it blunt.

Several Scratchers cheated and became famous. Some worked hard and don't get the popularity they deserve. It happens. You know that Edison didn't actually invent the light bulb? 22 people already have done that before him, but do they get mentioned in a book? No. That's how life goes. No matter how much you change things, people are still going to do bad things to become known, and things are still going to work unfairly for some Scratchers.

If you want things to be 100% fair to everyone on the website you're gonna have to remove all possible ways of contacting each other. Which means no love its, no followers, no comments, no studios and no projects. Blank white screen. No one's going to go on Scratch like that.

Friends got banned because of the follower tab? That's not really a reason to go against it. If I steal money from the bank, do you think I would walk up to the place and blame whoever invented money?

stop [all v] ::stack

No support.
1. I'm pretty sure this has be requested.
2. This wouldn't change anything.

Theoretically, let's remove the follower bar and see what happens.
1. It's hard to see who you're following.
2. It wouldn't solve anything. There's a favorite and love-it button. Favorites become the new follows. And if we removed those…

adasba wrote:

There is a problem on scratch right now. Follower hunger. It is a problem and can cause good scratchers to leave because they spend lots of effort on projects and only get a few followers.

If all you care

adasba wrote:

This will make talented scratchers that want followers stay. There are young kids here, and they don't know that scratch isn't about fame and think copying projects and advertising are good. Then they get banned or blocked. I think making changes like this will help the community.

If you're on scratch for the follows, you have a problem.

Scratchifier wrote:

No support, still. Please do not make duplicate topics for the same suggestion.

Same.

Alberknyis wrote:

So many quotes… Argh.

Okay. First off, water does not help. It's like… Putting a sharp pointy thing in a box. Putting it in a box ain't gonna make it blunt.

Several Scratchers cheated and became famous. Some worked hard and don't get the popularity they deserve. It happens. You know that Edison didn't actually invent the light bulb? 22 people already have done that before him, but do they get mentioned in a book? No. That's how life goes. No matter how much you change things, people are still going to do bad things to become known, and things are still going to work unfairly for some Scratchers.

If you want things to be 100% fair to everyone on the website you're gonna have to remove all possible ways of contacting each other. Which means no love its, no followers, no comments, no studios and no projects. Blank white screen. No one's going to go on Scratch like that.

Friends got banned because of the follower tab? That's not really a reason to go against it. If I steal money from the bank, do you think I would walk up to the place and blame whoever invented money?

Exactly. If followers get removed, people'll use love-its instead - maybe make a project telling people to love it if they're following them, as a type of follow metre. It might not be exact (probably won't), but it'll give an idea. Popular people will still constantly get top loved, and call themself “famous” if they do; I think it's safe to say that, even if followers get removed, it's pretty obvious Griffpatch has more followers than me due to the enormous popularity of his projects. You could remove love its, but they're meant to say that you like a project. Remove comments? You can give helpful feedback on them. As you said, unless you remove ALL features, there'll still be “fame” and unfairness somewhere… but if you do, Scratch'll become a ghost town. Empty, and with good reason.

Prinseskat wrote:

Alberknyis wrote:

So many quotes… Argh.

Okay. First off, water does not help. It's like… Putting a sharp pointy thing in a box. Putting it in a box ain't gonna make it blunt.

Several Scratchers cheated and became famous. Some worked hard and don't get the popularity they deserve. It happens. You know that Edison didn't actually invent the light bulb? 22 people already have done that before him, but do they get mentioned in a book? No. That's how life goes. No matter how much you change things, people are still going to do bad things to become known, and things are still going to work unfairly for some Scratchers.

If you want things to be 100% fair to everyone on the website you're gonna have to remove all possible ways of contacting each other. Which means no love its, no followers, no comments, no studios and no projects. Blank white screen. No one's going to go on Scratch like that.

Friends got banned because of the follower tab? That's not really a reason to go against it. If I steal money from the bank, do you think I would walk up to the place and blame whoever invented money?

Exactly. If followers get removed, people'll use love-its instead - maybe make a project telling people to love it if they're following them, as a type of follow metre. It might not be exact (probably won't), but it'll give an idea. Popular people will still constantly get top loved, and call themself “famous” if they do; I think it's safe to say that, even if followers get removed, it's pretty obvious Griffpatch has more followers than me due to the enormous popularity of his projects. You could remove love its, but they're meant to say that you like a project. Remove comments? You can give helpful feedback on them. As you said, unless you remove ALL features, there'll still be “fame” and unfairness somewhere… but if you do, Scratch'll become a ghost town. Empty, and with good reason.

I agree with this. ^ It's not just followers people might want. Love-its, favourites, views, the list goes on. If we remove one thing, people will just act that way for something else instead, like love-its. And if people start being desperate for love-its, then wouldn't that be removed too?

Historically, my view has been in agreement with yours, but I need to add something on.

Deleting followers or something solely on the basis that kids are immature and don't know how to handle fame isn't a good idea, because how else will they learn to handle it? I say let them make mistakes, and suffer the consequences. It's how we become better people.

That being said, I still support things that make it explicitly clear that Scratch isn't about fame, such as removing follower count. However, it's important to get this idea across without imposing rules, so that people follow the standard because they understand it, not because they have to.

cheeseeater wrote:

I'm personally fed up of these ‘famous’ Scratchers, who consider themselves so because they have lots of followers. They ponce around, being ‘rebels’ and end up getting banned.

There's always going to be egoists in any system that rewards success. Don't worry about it, don't flame these people, because they are inexperienced children being inexperienced children.

This entire suggestion is based around the premise that if we take this follower bar away, then it will somehow change the way people are. I can't add much on to what's previously been said, but that is not the case. We need to keep doing what we're already doing - let people make mistakes, let people be stupid and mess up and be narcissistic because if we just arbitrarily ban things or remove features then nothing gets changed at all, just swept under the rug.

It's true that scratch is a site for kids to learn to program, but in being a site for kids we have the greater responsibility of teaching them how to conduct themselves in a community. yes, I totally agree that people are “follower hungry” and want to just get fame at the expense of learning, which is why it's our job to teach them otherwise.

Prinseskat wrote:

Alberknyis wrote:

Lemme snip this part off.

As you said, unless you remove ALL features, there'll still be “fame” and unfairness somewhere… but if you do, Scratch'll become a ghost town. Empty, and with good reason.

I know this is unrelated but I just have to say it.

This reminds me so much of the prisoner's dilemma but I have no idea how.

stop [all v] ::stack

Semi-Support, my thought from the first topic:

HOWING wrote:

adasba wrote:

Everyone knows about followers. They are people who appreciate your work. They can also be your friends. They can also be bad. Followers are ALMOST like drugs. You get followers, and you are addicted. Before, when they were called friends, people thought of them as their online friends. Now that they are followers, lots of scratchers think they mean fame. It has caused lots of problems, such as spam and advertising, copying projects with no credit, and supporting what seems to be “good”, such as stopping the AE war and F4F for followers. Many otherwise innocent scratchers have been banned or left due to their follower hunger.


I have a simple solution to this. Remove the “followers” tab completely. Still include the tab showing who you are following, so you can check the people who you are fans of, but remove the follower tab completely, and make it invisible to the F12 mode by not even having it in the code. Why will this work? The people who complain about it, advertise, copy projects, and do F4F won't do it anymore!

I kind of like removing the followers tab, but what will happen to the amazing scratchers? They have lots of amazing work, and I will most likely feel bad if the followers tab was removed. Also, some scratchers are follow accounts that follow other scratchers, and those other accounts that are not followed by the follow account ask them to follow them, and I had some follow accounts follow me, some people ask for follow for follows (F4Fs) to the follow account, my test account barely has any followers, it has like a tiny amount of followers. Followers are also not fame in my opinion. You also said that you should make it invisible to F12 mode, so your reason to this is that the people who complain about it, advertise, copy projects, and do F4F won't do it anymore. Hmm… Interesting…

My result: Semi-Support

Also, if the followers tab was removed, then scratchers will now rely on L4L! (Love for Love)

Alberknyis wrote:

So many quotes… Argh.

Okay. First off, water does not help. It's like… Putting a sharp pointy thing in a box. Putting it in a box ain't gonna make it blunt.

Several Scratchers cheated and became famous. Some worked hard and don't get the popularity they deserve. It happens. You know that Edison didn't actually invent the light bulb? 22 people already have done that before him, but do they get mentioned in a book? No. That's how life goes. No matter how much you change things, people are still going to do bad things to become known, and things are still going to work unfairly for some Scratchers.

If you want things to be 100% fair to everyone on the website you're gonna have to remove all possible ways of contacting each other. Which means no love its, no followers, no comments, no studios and no projects. Blank white screen. No one's going to go on Scratch like that.

Friends got banned because of the follower tab? That's not really a reason to go against it. If I steal money from the bank, do you think I would walk up to the place and blame whoever invented money?

I am not planning to make it 100% fair! Removing followers will remove most of the problems!! When new people join, they won't go for fame. This website is also for kids. Kids want followers, and won't listen to some random online person before they unknowingly get banned.

Wes64 wrote:

Historically, my view has been in agreement with yours, but I need to add something on.

Deleting followers or something solely on the basis that kids are immature and don't know how to handle fame isn't a good idea, because how else will they learn to handle it? I say let them make mistakes, and suffer the consequences. It's how we become better people.

That being said, I still support things that make it explicitly clear that Scratch isn't about fame, such as removing follower count. However, it's important to get this idea across without imposing rules, so that people follow the standard because they understand it, not because they have to.

cheeseeater wrote:

I'm personally fed up of these ‘famous’ Scratchers, who consider themselves so because they have lots of followers. They ponce around, being ‘rebels’ and end up getting banned.

There's always going to be egoists in any system that rewards success. Don't worry about it, don't flame these people, because they are inexperienced children being inexperienced children.

This entire suggestion is based around the premise that if we take this follower bar away, then it will somehow change the way people are. I can't add much on to what's previously been said, but that is not the case. We need to keep doing what we're already doing - let people make mistakes, let people be stupid and mess up and be narcissistic because if we just arbitrarily ban things or remove features then nothing gets changed at all, just swept under the rug.

It's true that scratch is a site for kids to learn to program, but in being a site for kids we have the greater responsibility of teaching them how to conduct themselves in a community. yes, I totally agree that people are “follower hungry” and want to just get fame at the expense of learning, which is why it's our job to teach them otherwise.

Kids don't listen. There are lots of kids as young as 7 with no knowledge of the internet. They only listen to parents and teachers.

-adasba- wrote:

Wes64 wrote:

It's true that scratch is a site for kids to learn to program, but in being a site for kids we have the greater responsibility of teaching them how to conduct themselves in a community. yes, I totally agree that people are “follower hungry” and want to just get fame at the expense of learning, which is why it's our job to teach them otherwise.

Kids don't listen. There are lots of kids as young as 7 with no knowledge of the internet. They only listen to parents and teachers.

We are teachers.

I don't know where you're getting this information from, but it sounds like bias.

Prinseskat wrote:

Alberknyis wrote:

So many quotes… Argh.

Okay. First off, water does not help. It's like… Putting a sharp pointy thing in a box. Putting it in a box ain't gonna make it blunt.

Several Scratchers cheated and became famous. Some worked hard and don't get the popularity they deserve. It happens. You know that Edison didn't actually invent the light bulb? 22 people already have done that before him, but do they get mentioned in a book? No. That's how life goes. No matter how much you change things, people are still going to do bad things to become known, and things are still going to work unfairly for some Scratchers.

If you want things to be 100% fair to everyone on the website you're gonna have to remove all possible ways of contacting each other. Which means no love its, no followers, no comments, no studios and no projects. Blank white screen. No one's going to go on Scratch like that.

Friends got banned because of the follower tab? That's not really a reason to go against it. If I steal money from the bank, do you think I would walk up to the place and blame whoever invented money?

Exactly. If followers get removed, people'll use love-its instead - maybe make a project telling people to love it if they're following them, as a type of follow metre. It might not be exact (probably won't), but it'll give an idea. Popular people will still constantly get top loved, and call themself “famous” if they do; I think it's safe to say that, even if followers get removed, it's pretty obvious Griffpatch has more followers than me due to the enormous popularity of his projects. You could remove love its, but they're meant to say that you like a project. Remove comments? You can give helpful feedback on them. As you said, unless you remove ALL features, there'll still be “fame” and unfairness somewhere… but if you do, Scratch'll become a ghost town. Empty, and with good reason.

I AM NOT A CONTROL FREAK THAT TRIES TO SOLVE EVERYTHING. The top-loved projects are at the bottom of the front page, and I think projects like that shouldn't be allowed. Love its are rarely complained about. Views as well. All fame-hungry people like followers. Remove them, and they will stop complaining. In fact, the ST deleted followers from the profile pages. They were obviously intending to prevent people from thinking scratch is about fame.

Wes64 wrote:

-adasba- wrote:

Wes64 wrote:

It's true that scratch is a site for kids to learn to program, but in being a site for kids we have the greater responsibility of teaching them how to conduct themselves in a community. yes, I totally agree that people are “follower hungry” and want to just get fame at the expense of learning, which is why it's our job to teach them otherwise.

Kids don't listen. There are lots of kids as young as 7 with no knowledge of the internet. They only listen to parents and teachers.

We are teachers.

I don't know where you're getting this information from, but it sounds like bias.

By teachers I mean school teachers. Also, kids are often told not to trust strangers on the internet. I got this information off of people on scratch and from school.

Still, no support.

-adasba- wrote:

Alberknyis wrote:

So many quotes… Argh.

Okay. First off, water does not help. It's like… Putting a sharp pointy thing in a box. Putting it in a box ain't gonna make it blunt.

Several Scratchers cheated and became famous. Some worked hard and don't get the popularity they deserve. It happens. You know that Edison didn't actually invent the light bulb? 22 people already have done that before him, but do they get mentioned in a book? No. That's how life goes. No matter how much you change things, people are still going to do bad things to become known, and things are still going to work unfairly for some Scratchers.

If you want things to be 100% fair to everyone on the website you're gonna have to remove all possible ways of contacting each other. Which means no love its, no followers, no comments, no studios and no projects. Blank white screen. No one's going to go on Scratch like that.

Friends got banned because of the follower tab? That's not really a reason to go against it. If I steal money from the bank, do you think I would walk up to the place and blame whoever invented money?

I am not planning to make it 100% fair! Removing followers will remove most of the problems!! When new people join, they won't go for fame. This website is also for kids. Kids want followers, and won't listen to some random online person before they unknowingly get banned.

If you remove followers, since followers are the main cause of the problem (not that it's all confirmed yet) most problems are gone, right?

Not necessarily. People will figure out how to make things worse with what they have.

stop [all v] ::stack

Alberknyis wrote:

-adasba- wrote:

Alberknyis wrote:

So many quotes… Argh.

Okay. First off, water does not help. It's like… Putting a sharp pointy thing in a box. Putting it in a box ain't gonna make it blunt.

Several Scratchers cheated and became famous. Some worked hard and don't get the popularity they deserve. It happens. You know that Edison didn't actually invent the light bulb? 22 people already have done that before him, but do they get mentioned in a book? No. That's how life goes. No matter how much you change things, people are still going to do bad things to become known, and things are still going to work unfairly for some Scratchers.

If you want things to be 100% fair to everyone on the website you're gonna have to remove all possible ways of contacting each other. Which means no love its, no followers, no comments, no studios and no projects. Blank white screen. No one's going to go on Scratch like that.

Friends got banned because of the follower tab? That's not really a reason to go against it. If I steal money from the bank, do you think I would walk up to the place and blame whoever invented money?

I am not planning to make it 100% fair! Removing followers will remove most of the problems!! When new people join, they won't go for fame. This website is also for kids. Kids want followers, and won't listen to some random online person before they unknowingly get banned.

If you remove followers, since followers are the main cause of the problem (not that it's all confirmed yet) most problems are gone, right?

Not necessarily. People will figure out how to make things worse with what they have.

My idea is that if the scratch team CLEARLY gets the message across (like putting a message in your message box that links to a page) about scratch not being about fame, then people will listen. The st removed the follower numbers before. There was an easy way to get around it. If they make projects and ask for people to love it them, then that isn't a problem unless they start crying and saying that they want more followers. If the ST gets that point across, people will stop doing it, and new scratchers who joined after the change won't know about followers unless there are protestors.

adasba wrote:

There is a problem on scratch right now. Follower hunger. It is a problem and can cause good scratchers to leave because they spend lots of effort on projects and only get a few followers.

That's not why people leave.

adasba wrote:

This will make talented scratchers that want followers stay.

Whoa, whoa. What? I thought you said that “follower hunger” is bad, and now you're saying that it's okay for talented people to have it but not anybody else?

adasba wrote:

2.0 destroyed everything. Switching to the old 1.4 system might help.

Switch back to what part of it? The whole system? That wouldn't accomplish anything.

Rex208 wrote:

adasba wrote:

There is a problem on scratch right now. Follower hunger. It is a problem and can cause good scratchers to leave because they spend lots of effort on projects and only get a few followers.

That's not why people leave.

adasba wrote:

This will make talented scratchers that want followers stay.

Whoa, whoa. What? I thought you said that “follower hunger” is bad, and now you're saying that it's okay for talented people to have it but not anybody else?

adasba wrote:

2.0 destroyed everything. Switching to the old 1.4 system might help.

Switch back to what part of it? The whole system? That wouldn't accomplish anything.

Don't bump old threads.