Zro716 wrote:

helloandgoodbye9 wrote:

Zro716 wrote:

helloandgoodbye9 wrote:

@Zro716, after reading your (long)explanations, all Im getting is that they take attention away from good projects. But that is just opinion. Please say some facts.

Fact: As of now, there are 500+ favorites on each of the projects displayed in the OP. Tell me that's not something to be concerned about for any reason I have stated before.
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/73323410/
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/73323344/
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/73323222/
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/73323136/
https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/73323022/

Wow, they made a popular project that lots of people like. But since we want to be popular, lets ban it.
Only fact so far.

• 500 favorites
  

If you don't like it, ignore it. All the rest of your “arguments” don't make since for my reasons above.

And this is why we can't have nice, intelligent discussions…

I'm still waiting for a fact proving it is bad. I just can not see your point. Perhaps proof that many people are stopping favoriting? Also, I reread my comment and saw that it was a little harsh. Sorry about that.

Problem is, like someone said, the trend is spreading.
It is going to offend some scratchers if you do that.
So……. No support.

helloandgoodbye9 wrote:

I'm still waiting for a fact proving it is bad. I just can not see your point. Perhaps proof that many people are stopping favoriting?

I've made several points proving it is bad. If you simply didn't understand what I have said before, allow me to reiterate everything in fresh words. I need to articulate everything I know so that we understand the whole problem.

First reason: The projects are self-contradictory. They basically say “favorite this if you don't favorite projects”. You should know just how annoying it is to find comments on YouTube using “like this if you agree”, especially where they (sarcastically) denounce such behavior. This apparent contradiction forms the basis for my other reasons, as you will see.

Second reason: Using five projects, not one, just to say “I don't usually favorite projects” is loathsome. That low of effort per project, irrespective of the creativity involved in arranging said projects, seems like anyone can do it for whatever reason and earn X times as many loves/favorites as one project would get. That is really cheap, don't you think?

Third reason: The one true purpose of these projects is really to take up space on the favorites row. Referring back to the last reason, I argue this because there are five projects involved, not one, and five is enough to fill up the favorites row “window” completely. If the message were genuine, there shouldn't be more than one project thumbnail needed to say this.

Fourth reason: Because real estate (webpage space) is dedicated to these projects on hundreds of users' profiles, this leads to two effects: 1) A decreased chance of favoriting other projects (the user's behavioral constraint implied by the “I don't favorite” projects), and 2) An increased chance of more users stumbling across and favoriting those projects. Part of the nature of the favorites row, besides keeping tabs on projects you like and want to view again, is to advertise indefinitely; as long as the “I don't favorite” projects remain in the favorites row, they advertise to more users, who then favorite them either for humor or to actually follow what they say. The more users that join the trend, the greater synergistic effect it has on favoriting, which isn't a positive effect, as I'll explain in the next reason.

Fifth reason: The 500+ favorites on those projects pretty much show how important favoriting is, despite the message it brings against favoriting. 500+ favorites means 500+ people are refusing to favorite projects, or at least favoriting to a much lower frequency. Assuming it guarantees each and every one of them from favoriting any other projects, that means the best/most popular projects will receive 500+ less favorites on average. That is a lot of non-participation in the grand scheme of things on Scratch. It probably isn't obvious to notice because not everyone favorites things, even when they don't endorse “I don't (usually) favorite” projects. It's also difficult to tell whether these projects hold a serious meaning, which I'll explain next.

Sixth reason: These projects cannot be taken seriously no matter how you look at it. The contradiction implied in the projects downplays the honesty of the message. You can't seriously favorite several projects that clearly/collectively say you don't favorite projects. If you usually don't favorite projects, either don't favorite those or just say so on your profile.

The fact that these projects exist suggests one of their purposes is possibly for humor. After all I have deduced, it's the only logical explanation for them. I'd like to take a moment to reflect Poe's law:

Wikipedia wrote:

Poe's law is an Internet adage which states that, without a clear indicator of the author's intent, parodies of extreme views will be mistaken by some readers or viewers for sincere expressions of the parodied views.

While I'm stretching it a little to group these “I don't favorite” projects as extreme, my point is we don't know if these projects are serious or not. As some may find, the kind of humor these projects carry appears harmless - but only if it is just taken as humor. When taken seriously, the projects present a danger to favoriting (i.e. 4th and 5th reasons). Even though one can never be sure if humor is to blame, it still has an adverse effect on the frequency of favoriting in the community (albeit among those who have favorited those projects).

Conclusion: These projects could be used genuinely, humorously, or neither, we don't really know. All we know is that they do have some influence on favoriting, which could be barely noticeable if you just take it at face value. Instead of sending a serious message in just one project, the message is spread across five projects (using only their thumbnails) that take up the entirety of the favorites row of a user, which is odd given the context of the message (“I don't usually favorite projects”) and scam-like due to the multiplicity of attention received for a single message (and literally nothing else aught noting in those projects).

Therefore, we must do something to discourage these types of projects. At the very most, take down the projects, but don't punish or ban the user.

Thank you. Here are my responses.

First reason: The projects are self-contradictory. They basically say “favorite this if you don't favorite projects”. You should know just how annoying it is to find comments on YouTube using “like this if you agree”, especially where they (sarcastically) denounce such behavior. This apparent contradiction forms the basis for my other reasons, as you will see.

It could discourage people from asking the person to favorite, therefor making less spam.

Second reason: Using five projects, not one, just to say “I don't usually favorite projects” is loathsome. That low of effort per project, irrespective of the creativity involved in arranging said projects, seems like anyone can do it for whatever reason and earn X times as many loves/favorites as one project would get. That is really cheap, don't you think?

This is saying that is is not creative. This is an opinion, though. In my opinion, I find some nice ones that have had effort into them. Also, it has to be five because…

Third reason: The one true purpose of these projects is really to take up space on the favorites row. Referring back to the last reason, I argue this because there are five projects involved, not one, and five is enough to fill up the favorites row “window” completely. If the message were genuine, there shouldn't be more than one project thumbnail needed to say this.

It would be veryhard to read then, wouldn't it?

Fourth reason: Because real estate (webpage space) is dedicated to these projects on hundreds of users' profiles, this leads to two effects: 1) A decreased chance of favoriting other projects (the user's behavioral constraint implied by the “I don't favorite” projects), and 2) An increased chance of more users stumbling across and favoriting those projects. Part of the nature of the favorites row, besides keeping tabs on projects you like and want to view again, is to advertise indefinitely; as long as the “I don't favorite” projects remain in the favorites row, they advertise to more users, who then favorite them either for humor or to actually follow what they say. The more users that join the trend, the greater synergistic effect it has on favoriting, which isn't a positive effect, as I'll explain in the next reason.

So the project is popular. I dont get this one.

Fifth reason: The 500+ favorites on those projects pretty much show how important favoriting is, despite the message it brings against favoriting. 500+ favorites means 500+ people are refusing to favorite projects, or at least favoriting to a much lower frequency. Assuming it guarantees each and every one of them from favoriting any other projects, that means the best/most popular projects will receive 500+ less favorites on average. That is a lot of non-participation in the grand scheme of things on Scratch. It probably isn't obvious to notice because not everyone favorites things, even when they don't endorse “I don't (usually) favorite” projects. It's also difficult to tell whether these projects hold a serious meaning, which I'll explain next.

I highly doubt that griffpatch projects are going to lose 500 or even 50 favorites because of this. But I do understand your point here. Lest just say your number of 500 is correct. In fact, Im going to raise your number to 1000. That means that 0.0000889890074549% of scratchers will no longer favorite. That number was if 1000 scratches no longer favorite.

Sixth reason: These projects cannot be taken seriously no matter how you look at it. The contradiction implied in the projects downplays the honesty of the message. You can't seriously favorite several projects that clearly/collectively say you don't favorite projects. If you usually don't favorite projects, either don't favorite those or just say so on your profile.

That is up to the favorites to decide. Perhaps it does work for them.

The fact that these projects exist suggests one of their purposes is possibly for humor. After all I have deduced, it's the only logical explanation for them. I'd like to take a moment to reflect Poe's law:

It can be both. To some, its funny, and to others, it works.

Conclusion: These projects could be used genuinely, humorously, or neither, we don't really know. All we know is that they do have some influence on favoriting, which could be barely noticeable if you just take it at face value. Instead of sending a serious message in just one project, the message is spread across five projects (using only their thumbnails) that take up the entirety of the favorites row of a user, which is odd given the context of the message (“I don't usually favorite projects”) and scam-like due to the multiplicity of attention received for a single message (and literally nothing else aught noting in those projects).

Besides the fact that the could have spend hours on the art. It is not all just about the coding.
I understand this one better. Thank you for explaining.

helloandgoodbye9 wrote:

So the project is popular. I dont get this one.

Not just popular, but passively trending. It's always receiving new attention based on the attention it already has. It's a recursive effect that increases the number of users that favorite much less often (if at all anymore).

I highly doubt that griffpatch projects are going to lose 500 or even 50 favorites because of this. But I do understand your point here. Lest just say your number of 500 is correct. In fact, Im going to raise your number to 1000. That means that 0.0000889890074549% of scratchers will no longer favorite. That number was if 1000 scratches no longer favorite.

He hasn't “lost” favorites - that would imply people unfavorited his work. He's just not receiving the full potential of favorites from users because they bar themselves with the “I don't usually favorite” projects. Same goes with everyone else.

I'm not sure if your calculation is even meaningful. There are over ten million accounts now, but most are inactive. When I referred to the community, I meant the “active” minority, so I was estimating around a much smaller number, in the tens of thousands (but this is still a farfetched estimate depending on what is “active”). Let''s say that in the last month, 20,000 users were active at some point (ignoring sign-up). 500 out of 20,000 users is 1 in 40, or about 2.5% of active users refusing to favorite projects. It's a relatively small percentage that reflects the average loss of favorites in a perfect world where everyone favorites the same project. Since this is not a perfect world, that is, not everyone who can favorite does, this percentage is likely much bigger. Therefore, we can deduce that it is cutting out a good chunk (~5-10%) of potential favorites out of any project.

That is up to the favorites to decide. Perhaps it does work for them.

I would ask them if they are serious about it. Then I would show them this topic.

Besides the fact that the could have spend hours on the art. It is not all just about the coding.

No, definitely not “hours”, and most definitely not a “fact”, not in this case. I don't even think it should be called art, because it's just text. I reckon it took five minutes tops, most of it spent just finding a good-looking font.

I'm not sure if your calculation is even meaningful. There are over ten million accounts now, but most are inactive. When I referred to the community, I meant the “active” minority, so I was estimating around a much smaller number, in the tens of thousands (but this is still a farfetched estimate depending on what is “active”). Let''s say that in the last month, 20,000 users were active at some point (ignoring sign-up). 500 out of 20,000 users is 1 in 40, or about 2.5% of active users refusing to favorite projects. It's a relatively small percentage that reflects the average loss of favorites in a perfect world where everyone favorites the same project. Since this is not a perfect world, that is, not everyone who can favorite does, this percentage is likely much bigger. Therefore, we can deduce that it is cutting out a good chunk (~5-10%) of potential favorites out of any project.

Found the proper amount. It is 200000. (https://scratch.mit.edu/statistics/) So, 0.005%. Still not too much.

No, definitely not “hours”, and most definitely not a “fact”, not in this case. I don't even think it should be called art, because it's just text. I reckon it took five minutes tops, most of it spent just finding a good-looking font.

That's a little insulting. Again, What about the original idea? Backgrounds? Making the text fit?
I was a little off with my number, but still, it is less that 1%.

Actually, I have seen TONS of these projects! Not just one! Each one receiving, lets say 400 favorites (on average.) There is probably 3 to 10 projects on scratch that do this. 500*3=1500 500*10=5000 now, if i'm right, 0.0075 to .025 percent of scratchers don't favorite! humor or not, this rounds to a ton of favorites! It just doesn't seem OK for a scratch environment! (yes, that is a TON) While it may not affect you drastically, in the long term, it might!

Bump!

People are entitled to their opinion; you can't just ban their projects for expressing opinions. Sorry if you think statistics show that it's bad. But honestly you're contradicting yourself too often: you want fame to new scratchers, which you prove through favorites, yet what if these people are newer scratchers?

It's fine, and doesn't matter at all.
No support.

P.S. their* no “there”. If its directed personally to someone or something it's “their”, while a place or destination is “there”

MathlyCat wrote:

People are entitled to their opinion; you can't just ban their projects for expressing opinions. Sorry if you think statistics show that it's bad. But honestly you're contradicting yourself too often: you want fame to new scratchers, which you prove through favorites, yet what if these people are newer scratchers?

It's fine, and doesn't matter at all.
No support.

P.S. their* no “there”. If its directed personally to someone or something it's “their”, while a place or destination is “there”

So, your saying that my facts do not show a negative impact from these projects? Or, that it would be bad to ban them?

theory_ wrote:

MathlyCat wrote:

People are entitled to their opinion; you can't just ban their projects for expressing opinions. Sorry if you think statistics show that it's bad. But honestly you're contradicting yourself too often: you want fame to new scratchers, which you prove through favorites, yet what if these people are newer scratchers?

It's fine, and doesn't matter at all.
No support.

P.S. their* no “there”. If its directed personally to someone or something it's “their”, while a place or destination is “there”

So, your saying that my facts do not show a negative impact from these projects? Or, that it would be bad to ban them?

Your post creates the paradox (i think) which you stated. That's got me confused and definitely not supporting this.

MathlyCat wrote:

theory_ wrote:

MathlyCat wrote:

People are entitled to their opinion; you can't just ban their projects for expressing opinions. Sorry if you think statistics show that it's bad. But honestly you're contradicting yourself too often: you want fame to new scratchers, which you prove through favorites, yet what if these people are newer scratchers?

It's fine, and doesn't matter at all.
No support.

P.S. their* no “there”. If its directed personally to someone or something it's “their”, while a place or destination is “there”

So, your saying that my facts do not show a negative impact from these projects? Or, that it would be bad to ban them?

Your post creates the paradox (i think) which you stated. That's got me confused and definitely not supporting this.

May you please explain more? What paradox do you mean?

These projects should be banned! It's just text! It took two seconds to make

“low effort” is no reason to remove a project, I made this in about five minutes, should it be banned?

and causes big problems!

I think you're making a problem when there isn't any. It's a project that says “e proje” in big letters. So what?

As I mentioned before, the message contains a “don't usually”, not a “never”. If it was “I never favorite projects” then there would really be irony in the statement. As it is, there isn't a problem.

Also, just because people don't favorite projects doesn't mean they don't love projects - and most people view loving, rather than favoriting, as the true symbol of a project's popularity. So maybe all these 500 people are saying that favoriting isn't really important, it's loving that makes all the difference.

(Although that's really not the best take on favoriting, it's an understandable one.)

Deerleg wrote:

As I mentioned before, the message contains a “don't usually”, not a “never”. If it was “I never favorite projects” then there would really be irony in the statement. As it is, there isn't a problem.

Also, just because people don't favorite projects doesn't mean they don't love projects - and most people view loving, rather than favoriting, as the true symbol of a project's popularity. So maybe all these 500 people are saying that favoriting isn't really important, it's loving that makes all the difference.

(Although that's really not the best take on favoriting, it's an understandable one.)

I understand your point! However, these are the points that I think make my argument stand strong. Favoriting makes projects get more popular, so the more you get the more you get! However these anti favoring projects will only be more popular, so it's best to stop it now.

scratchisthebest wrote:

These projects should be banned! It's just text! It took two seconds to make

“low effort” is no reason to remove a project, I made this in about five minutes, should it be banned?

and causes big problems!

I think you're making a problem when there isn't any. It's a project that says “e proje” in big letters. So what?

Sorry I didn't get back to you sooner. I'm not saying we should ban them because they are popular and fast to make, I'm saying these are a problem, and, to the makers, it wouldn't be like a 2 hour project is being taken off the site.

So how else are they a problem again?
Would it be bad if put in my About Me that I don't favorite projects? Same reasoning - nothing's different besides the medium.

Firedrake969 wrote:

So how else are they a problem again?

They just seem very offset from other projects. They stand out to make a mockery of favoriting. Basically what I'm saying is when a user favorites these projects, they don't favorite anymore. It doesn't matter if the message is "I don't usually favorite projects", because whoever favorited them would not want to favorite another project to interrupt the sentence. For that matter, I assume this is for humor, but I really don't know for certain. Because one could actually be serious about not favoriting projects, or play along and try not to favorite projects, the effect is still the same: less favorites for everybody.

That is why they are a problem.

Would it be bad if put in my About Me that I don't favorite projects? Same reasoning - nothing's different besides the medium.

I think this would be a much better, more serious solution than favoriting several projects that spark such controversy. Plus, the user can be a lot more specific about why they don't favorite projects, something that favoriting five projects lacks.

I actually think that favoriting those projects is more effective to let people know, since if they want to know what projects you favorite, it's more effective than seeing an empty favorites row and (possibly, not necessarily) reading the About Me.

Deciding to stop favoriting is the primary reasoning, based on what you just wrote. Wouldn't making a project about not favoriting and making it your featured project, or writing about it in your About Me, or something similar be just as detrimental to “favorites for everybody”?

Do people really need a reason to stop favoriting? Nope. I don't, actually… idk why, but I just stopped favoriting a while ago and never bothered to favorite anything else. No reason, but that doesn't mean I'll favorite things.

You're absolutely right that not everyone needs a reason to stop favoriting. But just remember, there is a materialistic factor to consider. People tend to keep messages they like on the profile for long periods of time, including projects with messages on them. To put it in perspective, if I favorited those five projects only, so that my entire favorites just had the message “I don't usually favorite projects”, I would try not to favorite anything else to preserve that message, even if I wanted to favorite something really badly. Because favoriting something else would just ruin the coherence of the message, I would have to unfavorite them or hang my head in shame when someone points out the silliness of the message. So until I decide to start favoriting things normally again, I will keep just those five projects in my favorites row. And until then, the chance I favorite something drops to almost zero.

It is a silly situation that users put themselves through. That's why I don't find it as serious or necessary as simpler methods, like just stating “I don't favorite projects often” in your About Me and get it over with.