I realize that I have been rude in some of my past posts. I will try to be less angry in this post. Sorry if some of the things I said were taken badly. Scratch On. And now…

My friend and I were discussing Scratch today. I figured I would share some of the stuff we thought about. Mostly, it was a reaction to several things that had happened to me and others that I saw. To sum it up, though, we made our version of the Scratch motto on what 2.0 was like.

Imagine (within boundaries)
Program (with limitations)
Share (or get banned if it goes against us)
Disclaimer: This was a joke of ours based on our discussion.

Scratch is something in which people are creative. They create stuff, and try to explore. But, especially with cloud data, Scratch seems very locked down. I know chatrooms are not allowed. But it seems if something can get around a limitation set, it must be removed.

For instance, I made a private chatroom. Only my friend and I (along with the Scratch Team) could get in. But Lightnin basically made the threat “Take it down or get removed from the beta and old site.” (He did not use those exact words, but it was its basic meaning.)

Then, I noticed encoders people had made were getting taken down. Why? It is perfectly reasonable for someone to explore it. It is also very useful for, I don't know, highscores with the username of who did it. There are only two reasons why: One, it is a loophole, and Scratch's rules must be obeyed down to the last detail, including not getting around limitations. Two, nobody can see it in the log without decoding it, in which it gets around that. But it is the only way to do it. Allow creativity.

It's crazy. This seems way too locked down. I really don't know, but I think something has to change. Anybody agree? Let's hope this is just temporary…

Better yet, just open-source everything. That way, people can freely make their own 2.0s and cloud servers and stuff.

bobbybeetest wrote:

Better yet, just open-source everything. That way, people can freely make their own 2.0s and cloud servers and stuff.

on that note they probably will, once 2.0 is fully out
why give out source code that will shortly by outdated anyways?

Though I agree that it is rather restricted, I think the Scratch Team is right in this case.

The Scratch Team + Moderators make up not more than 30 people. The Scratch Community has way over 3 million projects. It's really hard to moderate each one, and when you make projects where people could post anything (rude thoughts, adult language, etc.), it becomes practically impossible to keep the rest of the community safe.

Hardmath123 wrote:

The Scratch Team + Moderators make up not more than 30 people.

In terms of the people actually moderating projects, we have way fewer.
We have:
Paddle2See
Cheddargirl
Lightnin
and I think that's about it. The rest of the ST is just development and the CMs only do forums.

jvvg wrote:

Hardmath123 wrote:

The Scratch Team + Moderators make up not more than 30 people.

In terms of the people actually moderating projects, we have way fewer.
We have:
Paddle2See
Cheddargirl
Lightnin
and I think that's about it. The rest of the ST is just development and the CMs only do forums.

Actually, the CMs can do stuff on the main site, too.

cheddargirl wrote:

jvvg wrote:

Hardmath123 wrote:

The Scratch Team + Moderators make up not more than 30 people.

In terms of the people actually moderating projects, we have way fewer.
We have:
Paddle2See
Cheddargirl
Lightnin
and I think that's about it. The rest of the ST is just development and the CMs only do forums.

Actually, the CMs can do stuff on the main site, too.

Oh, they have new abilities on 2.0?
I seem to recall that on 1.X they can only delete comments (by flagging them) and community censor projects.

I agree with the main fact being stated a lot…

“There are only __ people that can moderate projects, the rest only do forums/ don't do that.”

I have come up with a super-original and super-cool suggestion - more moderators!

As well - there is that button that says “Report as Inappropriate.” If someone does something like uses an encoder to make a chatroom, report it.

tlangster wrote:

I have come up with a super-original and super-cool suggestion - more moderators!

Lightnin specifically said that the solution can not involve large amount of mods (source). The more moderators there are, the harder it is to manage everything, make sure they are all modding correctly, and keep track of what each one is doing.

tlangster wrote:

As well - there is that button that says “Report as Inappropriate.” If someone does something like uses an encoder to make a chatroom, report it.

Lightnin has already said that, and we all agree. However, it can still take a while for reports to be processed.

I understand where you are coming from, but I still believe you are overreacting. You know that the Scratch Team has the best interests of the community - as a whole - in mind. Any completely kosher project, be it limited to specific people, or an encoding system not intended for chat, could easily be remixed by a third party and abused to make a chat project, which is currently against the rules. Also, chat projects may become permissible in the future if and when a more efficient method of moderation becomes available.

LiquidMetal wrote:

I understand where you are coming from, but I still believe you are overreacting. You know that the Scratch Team has the best interests of the community - as a whole - in mind. Any completely kosher project, be it limited to specific people, or an encoding system not intended for chat, could easily be remixed by a third party and abused to make a chat project, which is currently against the rules. Also, chat projects may become permissible in the future if and when a more efficient method of moderation becomes available.

*Sigh. Alright, close this up.

Hey dude, no way.

tlangster wrote:

Program (with limitations)

Then move on to another programming language.

tlangster wrote:

LiquidMetal wrote:

I understand where you are coming from, but I still believe you are overreacting. You know that the Scratch Team has the best interests of the community - as a whole - in mind. Any completely kosher project, be it limited to specific people, or an encoding system not intended for chat, could easily be remixed by a third party and abused to make a chat project, which is currently against the rules. Also, chat projects may become permissible in the future if and when a more efficient method of moderation becomes available.

*Sigh. Alright, close this up.

OK, closing.

And remember - cloud variables for some things is better than no cloud variables!