Stop Saying "x can be confusing to New Scratchers" to warrant a "No Support"

Letsgopitt

This is a suggestion for something to be added to the stickies, and to be discouraged in the Scratch community. I've been seeing threads in the Suggestions subforum with people no supporting because the suggestion, of implemented, could be confusing to New Scratchers. This does not make any sense because there are other things confusing to Scratchers and New Scratchers, yet everyone agrees that Scratch needs these things.
This is my example I've used on the forums recently: A New Scratcher tries to remix on of griffpatch's projects, and gets confused. Does this mean that griffpatch's projects, or perhaps even remixing should be removed from Scratch, as they have the capability to confuse someone inexperienced to the Scratch program? Of course not! Remixing is very important to Scratch, and simply because it could be confusing, that doesn't mean it has no place in the community. So please, stop saying this to justify a “no support” on a suggestion. Anything could be confusing, (just see the “Questions About Scratch” subforum!) so saying this should not be a viable drawback to a suggestion. It's almost like saying no support without justification– it doesn't offer any insight as to why. People should stop saying this and this should be added to the sticky.

EDIT: If you are confused, please see this post I made on page 4.

Last edited by Letsgopitt (Sept. 12, 2015 11:49:40)

Stop saying that something could potentially confuse a New Scratcher as justification of saying No Support!

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mathfreak231

there's a difference between “confusing at first but doesn't bother me” and “confusing because it uses a ton of jargon and i have to look every single word up on some programming wiki unrelated to Scratch”

for example, having an “else if” block is cool
but calling it “elif” is ridiculous

i'm not sure exactly how kids are using the “confusing” rule these days
but that's my opinion

i have grown as a person. and ive grown, literally. none of my posts from before 2022 represent me accurately.

rollercoasterfan

Duplicate.

when [chromometer altimeter v] = [5th length v] and [7th length v] with a [gap v] of (17) ::events hat
forge [chromometer v] altimeter until < (speed) = (velocity)> ::control cstart
	switch places with (759 v) altimeters with value of (speed) ::looks
	control [altimeter 1 v] at time (10):(17):(58) ::control
end
initialize sequence (24) so [object 3 v] moves to x (156) y (231) ::control
reveal [final answer v] and stop running this script ::events cap

Letsgopitt

rollercoasterfan wrote:
Duplicate.

This is actually not a duplicate. I'm not saying that this phrase is rude, I'm saying that it doesn't make sense to “no support” a suggestion because it “might be confusing.”

mathfreak231 wrote:
there's a difference between “confusing at first but doesn't bother me” and “confusing because it uses a ton of jargon and i have to look every single word up on some programming wiki unrelated to Scratch”

for example, having an “else if” block is cool
but calling it “elif” is ridiculous

i'm not sure exactly how kids are using the “confusing” rule these days
but that's my opinion

I feel that saying that something “might be confusing to New Scratchers” defense for “no support” doesn't make sense because it invalidates the suggestion without giving real evidence. Saying this also ignores whether or not Scratch needs that suggestion for the sake of accessibility. I know that Scratch is meant to be easy to learn, but that's also why we have the help buttons, questions subforum, and Scratch Wiki.

Stop saying that something could potentially confuse a New Scratcher as justification of saying No Support!

This is the B-est of B-sides.
Hope you had to wait in a long line.
We never even played this song live.
This is the B-est of B-sides.
-ʎɥsols

rollercoasterfan

Letsgopitt wrote:
rollercoasterfan wrote:
Duplicate.
This is actually not a duplicate. I'm not saying that this phrase is rude, I'm saying that it doesn't make sense to “no support” a suggestion because it “might be confusing.”
mathfreak231 wrote:
there's a difference between “confusing at first but doesn't bother me” and “confusing because it uses a ton of jargon and i have to look every single word up on some programming wiki unrelated to Scratch”

for example, having an “else if” block is cool
but calling it “elif” is ridiculous

i'm not sure exactly how kids are using the “confusing” rule these days
but that's my opinion
I feel that saying that something “might be confusing to New Scratchers” defense for “no support” doesn't make sense because it invalidates the suggestion without giving real evidence. Saying this also ignores whether or not Scratch needs that suggestion for the sake of accessibility. I know that Scratch is meant to be easy to learn, but that's also why we have the help buttons, questions subforum, and Scratch Wiki.

Oh. My bad.

when [chromometer altimeter v] = [5th length v] and [7th length v] with a [gap v] of (17) ::events hat
forge [chromometer v] altimeter until < (speed) = (velocity)> ::control cstart
	switch places with (759 v) altimeters with value of (speed) ::looks
	control [altimeter 1 v] at time (10):(17):(58) ::control
end
initialize sequence (24) so [object 3 v] moves to x (156) y (231) ::control
reveal [final answer v] and stop running this script ::events cap

DaSpudLord

No support. There is a huge difference between complex projects (ex griffpatch's projects) and a complex block/idea. To analyze why, let's compare an elementary-level novel and a really complicated word, such as discombobulate. (I'm sure at least half of the people reading this looked at the word and had no clue what it meant.) To an elementary student, both may seem complicated. The novel because it's got lots of words, but because it is an elementary-level novel, all of the words are going to be simple words that are easy to understand. This is just like a complex project on Scratch; it has a lot of blocks, but the blocks are easy to understand because they're worded in ways that are easy to understand and represent basic/necessary functions in programming. A big word, like discombobulate, would seem complicated because… well, it's a big, complicated word. Few, if any at all, elementary students would know what discombobulate means. Even after reading the definition, the word might still seem complicated. This is comparable to a complicated block, such as a split block or elseif/elif block. A new scratcher would not know what it does due to the block's complexity and, unlike a project, the scratcher cannot read the code to figure out what it does. Even after looking at the definition, it would still be hard to understand.

Last edited by DaSpudLord (July 18, 2015 15:42:43)

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Letsgopitt

DaSpudLord wrote:
No support. There is a huge difference between complex projects (ex griffpatch's projects) and a complex block/idea. To analyze why, let's compare an elementary-level novel and a really complicated word, such as discombobulate. (I'm sure at least half of the people reading this looked at the word and had no clue what it meant.) To an elementary student, both may seem complicated. The novel because it's got lots of words, but because it is an elementary-level novel, all of the words are going to be simple words that are easy to understand. This is just like a complex project on Scratch; it has a lot of blocks, but the blocks are easy to understand because they're worded in ways that are easy to understand and represent basic/necessary functions in programming. A big word, like discombobulate, would seem complicated because… well, it's a big, complicated word. Few, if any at all, elementary students would know what discombobulate means. Even after reading the definition, the word might still seem complicated. This is comparable to a complicated block, such as a split block or elseif/elif block. A new scratcher would not know what it does due to the block's complexity and, unlike a project, the scratcher cannot read the code to figure out what it does. Even after looking at the definition, it would still be hard to understand.

You are correct, but that's why we have the help buttons, the Questions subforum, and Scratch Wiki. People new to Scratch could be confused by concepts they've never seen before, and that makes sense. However, saying ideas should not be implemented for the sole reason of “they might be confusing” doesn't make sense. Not many New Scratchers are making complex mathematical projects or using big lists or even variables. These functions are still in Scratch, and the New Scratchers might be confused by them or not understand them. Those functions aren't being shoved in their face, and if they want, they can ignore them. But then again, if they use Scratch's resources and learn what that strange block means, that means Scratch is teaching them to be curious and be able to learn independently. If that's not a good thing for kids on Scratch learning to code, then I don't know what is.

Stop saying that something could potentially confuse a New Scratcher as justification of saying No Support!

This is the B-est of B-sides.
Hope you had to wait in a long line.
We never even played this song live.
This is the B-est of B-sides.
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VoltageGames

You're basically saying we should raise the low floor just because some people have a high ceiling?
(unnecessary gif removed by moderator - please don't spam)
(edit to clarify: every time we say 3D blocks or whatever are too complicated for new scratchers, we're keeping the low floor. If we let in a bunch of complicated blocks, we're raising the floor. If you use Griffpatch to justify this, you're squeezing our room with low floors and high ceilings to a small box with a floor very close to the ceiling.)

Last edited by Paddle2See (June 29, 2017 20:50:26)

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Letsgopitt

VoltageGames wrote:
You're basically saying we should raise the low floor just because some people have a high ceiling?

No. Some suggestions people have shot down by saying this weren't even blocks. I remember a thread suggesting intermediate level tutorials, since the Scratch Wiki only has getting started guides and really advanced things. Someone (I forget who) said that this could be confusing for New Scratchers. I responded saying that it isn't for New Scratchers, so that wouldn't matter. I don't think my suggestion would make Scratch any less accessible. I simply feel that saying “New Scratchers could be confused” doesn't really give much reason to “no support.” While I agree Scratch shouldn't become too complicated, having some more complicated functions could help teach New Scratchers. Anyone could be confused, but it doesn't make sense for something to not get put into Scratch for that sole reason.

Stop saying that something could potentially confuse a New Scratcher as justification of saying No Support!

This is the B-est of B-sides.
Hope you had to wait in a long line.
We never even played this song live.
This is the B-est of B-sides.
-ʎɥsols

TheMonsterOfTheDeep

I see where you're going with this - just because something *can* be confusing to those new to programming, it doesn't mean it isn't a legitimate suggestion, because we already have a lot of things that those newer to programming wouldn't understand.

I know, for one, that when I was new to Scratch, I had no idea what lists were, what the different string functions did, or what any of the fancy math things (including absolute value) did. Despite the fact that these functions aren't all that easy to understand, we have them because otherwise things would be very difficult.

And I agree that a suggestion shouldn't necessarily be rejected because it is complicated. However, some should; 3D, for example, is rejected because of how complicated it is.

Suggestions should be judged on an individual basis; if a suggestion is a little complicated but has a lot of merit (such as reporter custom blocks) than saying it is complicated isn't really a good enough reason to not support it. But some suggestions that are complicated and don't have too much use should be considered more carefully, because Scratch is an entry-level programming language.

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Paddle2See

TheMonsterOfTheDeep wrote:
I see where you're going with this - just because something *can* be confusing to those new to programming, it doesn't mean it isn't a legitimate suggestion, because we already have a lot of things that those newer to programming wouldn't understand.

I know, for one, that when I was new to Scratch, I had no idea what lists were, what the different string functions did, or what any of the fancy math things (including absolute value) did. Despite the fact that these functions aren't all that easy to understand, we have them because otherwise things would be very difficult.

And I agree that a suggestion shouldn't necessarily be rejected because it is complicated. However, some should; 3D, for example, is rejected because of how complicated it is.

Suggestions should be judged on an individual basis; if a suggestion is a little complicated but has a lot of merit (such as reporter custom blocks) than saying it is complicated isn't really a good enough reason to not support it. But some suggestions that are complicated and don't have too much use should be considered more carefully, because Scratch is an entry-level programming language.

This is a really nice summary of our design philosophy for Scratch! You can see more about it over here. So, yes, people should not reject a suggestion just because it can be “too confusing for beginners” but because it doesn't bring enough new functionality to justify the added complexity. Everything is a balancing act

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The_Scratch_Squad

Paddle2See wrote:
TheMonsterOfTheDeep wrote:
I see where you're going with this - just because something *can* be confusing to those new to programming, it doesn't mean it isn't a legitimate suggestion, because we already have a lot of things that those newer to programming wouldn't understand.

I know, for one, that when I was new to Scratch, I had no idea what lists were, what the different string functions did, or what any of the fancy math things (including absolute value) did. Despite the fact that these functions aren't all that easy to understand, we have them because otherwise things would be very difficult.

And I agree that a suggestion shouldn't necessarily be rejected because it is complicated. However, some should; 3D, for example, is rejected because of how complicated it is.

Suggestions should be judged on an individual basis; if a suggestion is a little complicated but has a lot of merit (such as reporter custom blocks) than saying it is complicated isn't really a good enough reason to not support it. But some suggestions that are complicated and don't have too much use should be considered more carefully, because Scratch is an entry-level programming language.
This is a really nice summary of our design philosophy for Scratch! You can see more about it over here. So, yes, people should not reject a suggestion just because it can be “too confusing for beginners” but because it doesn't bring enough new functionality to justify the added complexity. Everything is a balancing act

I see. So if you have something complex, then you need something just as useful…

Semi-Support. I still need to clarify the consequences. I would recommend just discouraging it.

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DaSpudLord

Paddle2See wrote:
TheMonsterOfTheDeep wrote:
I see where you're going with this - just because something *can* be confusing to those new to programming, it doesn't mean it isn't a legitimate suggestion, because we already have a lot of things that those newer to programming wouldn't understand.

I know, for one, that when I was new to Scratch, I had no idea what lists were, what the different string functions did, or what any of the fancy math things (including absolute value) did. Despite the fact that these functions aren't all that easy to understand, we have them because otherwise things would be very difficult.

And I agree that a suggestion shouldn't necessarily be rejected because it is complicated. However, some should; 3D, for example, is rejected because of how complicated it is.

Suggestions should be judged on an individual basis; if a suggestion is a little complicated but has a lot of merit (such as reporter custom blocks) than saying it is complicated isn't really a good enough reason to not support it. But some suggestions that are complicated and don't have too much use should be considered more carefully, because Scratch is an entry-level programming language.
This is a really nice summary of our design philosophy for Scratch! You can see more about it over here. So, yes, people should not reject a suggestion just because it can be “too confusing for beginners” but because it doesn't bring enough new functionality to justify the added complexity. Everything is a balancing act

I completely agree.

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Superandultra

No support, this rule could confuse new scratchers.

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iamunknown2

Superandultra wrote:
No support, this rule could confuse new scratchers.

Is that a joke?

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Letsgopitt

The_Scratch_Squad wrote:
Paddle2See wrote:
TheMonsterOfTheDeep wrote:
I see where you're going with this - just because something *can* be confusing to those new to programming, it doesn't mean it isn't a legitimate suggestion, because we already have a lot of things that those newer to programming wouldn't understand.

I know, for one, that when I was new to Scratch, I had no idea what lists were, what the different string functions did, or what any of the fancy math things (including absolute value) did. Despite the fact that these functions aren't all that easy to understand, we have them because otherwise things would be very difficult.

And I agree that a suggestion shouldn't necessarily be rejected because it is complicated. However, some should; 3D, for example, is rejected because of how complicated it is.

Suggestions should be judged on an individual basis; if a suggestion is a little complicated but has a lot of merit (such as reporter custom blocks) than saying it is complicated isn't really a good enough reason to not support it. But some suggestions that are complicated and don't have too much use should be considered more carefully, because Scratch is an entry-level programming language.
This is a really nice summary of our design philosophy for Scratch! You can see more about it over here. So, yes, people should not reject a suggestion just because it can be “too confusing for beginners” but because it doesn't bring enough new functionality to justify the added complexity. Everything is a balancing act
I see. So if you have something complex, then you need something just as useful…

Semi-Support. I still need to clarify the consequences. I would recommend just discouraging it.

Well, yeah, I wasn't thinking a punishment, but I was saying it should be regarded the same as saying “no support” without a reason– it's kind of baseless and doesn't provide justification. As for what Paddle2See said, I understand that somethingss are definitely too complicated for Scratch, but with all the resources available to Scratchers and New Scratchers (plus the internet!), Scratch would not be harmed if just a little bit of more complex programming concepts were added.

Stop saying that something could potentially confuse a New Scratcher as justification of saying No Support!

This is the B-est of B-sides.
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We never even played this song live.
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Cream_E_Cookie

DaSpudLord wrote:
No support. There is a huge difference between complex projects (ex griffpatch's projects) and a complex block/idea. To analyze why, let's compare an elementary-level novel and a really complicated word, such as discombobulate. (I'm sure at least half of the people reading this looked at the word and had no clue what it meant.) To an elementary student, both may seem complicated. The novel because it's got lots of words, but because it is an elementary-level novel, all of the words are going to be simple words that are easy to understand. This is just like a complex project on Scratch; it has a lot of blocks, but the blocks are easy to understand because they're worded in ways that are easy to understand and represent basic/necessary functions in programming. A big word, like discombobulate, would seem complicated because… well, it's a big, complicated word. Few, if any at all, elementary students would know what discombobulate means. Even after reading the definition, the word might still seem complicated. This is comparable to a complicated block, such as a split block or elseif/elif block. A new scratcher would not know what it does due to the block's complexity and, unlike a project, the scratcher cannot read the code to figure out what it does. Even after looking at the definition, it would still be hard to understand.

Letsgopitt

Cream_E_Cookie wrote:
DaSpudLord wrote:
No support. There is a huge difference between complex projects (ex griffpatch's projects) and a complex block/idea. To analyze why, let's compare an elementary-level novel and a really complicated word, such as discombobulate. (I'm sure at least half of the people reading this looked at the word and had no clue what it meant.) To an elementary student, both may seem complicated. The novel because it's got lots of words, but because it is an elementary-level novel, all of the words are going to be simple words that are easy to understand. This is just like a complex project on Scratch; it has a lot of blocks, but the blocks are easy to understand because they're worded in ways that are easy to understand and represent basic/necessary functions in programming. A big word, like discombobulate, would seem complicated because… well, it's a big, complicated word. Few, if any at all, elementary students would know what discombobulate means. Even after reading the definition, the word might still seem complicated. This is comparable to a complicated block, such as a split block or elseif/elif block. A new scratcher would not know what it does due to the block's complexity and, unlike a project, the scratcher cannot read the code to figure out what it does. Even after looking at the definition, it would still be hard to understand.

I understand what your getting at, but what do you see as being bad about teaching a new word to a student or teaching more programming concepts through Scratch?

Stop saying that something could potentially confuse a New Scratcher as justification of saying No Support!

This is the B-est of B-sides.
Hope you had to wait in a long line.
We never even played this song live.
This is the B-est of B-sides.
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IronBit_Studios

DaSpudLord wrote:
Paddle2See wrote:
TheMonsterOfTheDeep wrote:
I see where you're going with this - just because something *can* be confusing to those new to programming, it doesn't mean it isn't a legitimate suggestion, because we already have a lot of things that those newer to programming wouldn't understand.

I know, for one, that when I was new to Scratch, I had no idea what lists were, what the different string functions did, or what any of the fancy math things (including absolute value) did. Despite the fact that these functions aren't all that easy to understand, we have them because otherwise things would be very difficult.

And I agree that a suggestion shouldn't necessarily be rejected because it is complicated. However, some should; 3D, for example, is rejected because of how complicated it is.

Suggestions should be judged on an individual basis; if a suggestion is a little complicated but has a lot of merit (such as reporter custom blocks) than saying it is complicated isn't really a good enough reason to not support it. But some suggestions that are complicated and don't have too much use should be considered more carefully, because Scratch is an entry-level programming language.
This is a really nice summary of our design philosophy for Scratch! You can see more about it over here. So, yes, people should not reject a suggestion just because it can be “too confusing for beginners” but because it doesn't bring enough new functionality to justify the added complexity. Everything is a balancing act
I completely agree.

Letsgopitt

Bump

Stop saying that something could potentially confuse a New Scratcher as justification of saying No Support!

This is the B-est of B-sides.
Hope you had to wait in a long line.
We never even played this song live.
This is the B-est of B-sides.
-ʎɥsols

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