I thnk that you should be able to add photos if you're a Scratcher without having to use an image posting site. This is very annoying, pointless and inconvient for the poster. I can't think of any good reason why Scratchers can't just copy and paste images in the fourms. Before someone says “But new Scratchers would just troll the forums NO SUPPORT!!” this feature would not be available to New Scratchers.

No support, they're there for a reason, scratch's discussion forum text box is used with html and so all the proceeding images must be posted within HTML to keep the system working.

No support. It might allow inappropriate images.

Ziggy741 wrote:

No support. It might allow inappropriate images.

In this case it's just like if you see an inappropriate project. Report it. Also maybe Scratch could ban certain sites if they feel the need to.

Part of the reason why they don't do this is the forum format. See, Scratch runs on something called, “BBCode”, and the forum engine isn't designed for images. In fact, forums are actually made for text, not for images. Therefore, you need a link to see a file. But how? That is where the links come in.

…

Sorry, but no support. The forums aren't designed to run this way.

no no no support
it's to prevent inappropriate images from being posted

@inappropriate images:
What? There is absolutely nothing stopping people from posting inappropriate images on the approved image hosts. Adding this would merely make it more convenient to post images in the forums, and I guess also make it more convenient to post inappropriate images - but it's like no-supporting additional drawing tools on the grounds that inappropriate images could be more easily created.

If I remember correctly, the *actual* reason Scratch doesn't have a feature like this is because they do not want to have to store all the images that people upload, because that is a lot of storage space.

I would guess that Scratch, as a part of MIT, is only given some allotted amount of space, and images simply take up so much space that they don't want to store them due to the potential to run into issues with storing other things, like really big projects, which are more important to the goal of Scratch than forum images.

Can everyone please stop jumping on the “it's easy to abuse!!!” bandwagon? That it literally the worst reason to reject a suggestion concerning user content. Yes, anything that facilitates or expands the scope of user content will inevitably have some method of abuse - but the Scratch website has rules and is moderated for this very reason.

Anything bad you could do with this new suggestion can already be done. In fact, it is already possible to upload inappropriate images to the Scratch website itself by storing them in a project! That doesn't mean it is allowed, and in fact it is rather rare to see inappropriate images on Scratch despite the incredibly large potential for abuse (literally, anybody can make an account in a few seconds).

If you are going to no support a suggestion, base your reasons on parts of the suggestion that would actually cause problems that do not already exist. The potential for abuse already exists on the Scratch website, and no supporting a suggestion on that basis is unhelpful. At the very least try to suggest ideas for reducing the potential of abuse in an idea instead of outright stating that it is a bad idea because of the potential for abuse.

There are in fact real problems with this suggestion, just as there are with every suggestion. Those problems need to be discussed, and immediately failing to enter the discussion through a blatant and lazy dismissal for nothing more than “abuse!!” completely destroys the purpose of the suggestions forum. Suggestions need to be discussed if there is any chance of getting them into their optimal state, and rejection based on a ubiquitously problem is completely nonsensical, because in that scenario, every suggestion is ignored offhand without any real thought or reason.

At this point, it seems that the only reason people even say this is either because they cannot think of a better reason or because they want other people to agree with them. It's incredibly easy to gain agreement for your idea simply by saying something that cannot be denied - other people will see you are right and may even post their own “no support, easy to abuse” as a response. Abuse, being a feature of basically any suggestion, will always be something that can be exploited as a negative factor in that suggestion. The person claiming abuse is by default correct, because there is no way to claim “easy to abuse” and be wrong. But this is the wrong attitude - there are many problems with every suggestion, including things like “well, other things are more important.” But these things are not valid reasons to reject a suggestion!

The suggestions forum is meant to be a place to develop ideas for the improvement of Scratch, even if those ideas are never actually seriously considered by the Scratch Team. Sometimes they happen to spur development of things like userstyles, userscripts, mods, and other user-created content, by those people that actually seriously want some feature. But in general, the main purpose is to consider what ideas might be good for Scratch, and to discuss and work out all the design flaws of those ideas so that, in a future where the Scratch Team does want to implement those ideas, they will not have to work out these problems themselves - they will see that the users have done so already, and have done so in a way that will satisfy them - after all, the users know what they want best.

This leads, of course, to the final point - isn't abuse a topic that should be worked out? The answer is generally yes - if a suggestion is complicated enough that abuse needs to be tackled. However, the vast majority of suggestions are not complex enough that abuse needs to be tackled on its own - normally it is just a standard thing that comes with the suggestion. In fact, most suggestions will not actually change the potential for abuse that already exists. There are some suggestions, like custom images as profile backgrounds, where inappropriate content is very relevant, as profile background images take up a large amount of screen space and could be used as basically shock sites. Abuse is a very relevant issue for a “go to website” block, as many websites are dangerous. But most suggestions are not like this - most suggestions could only be abused to the extent that the website already can be, just like this suggestion here.

Abuse here is not a problem - the increase in potential for abuse is ~0%. If you have a logically constructed, rational argument to oppose this view, please post it - but you have to provide a reasonable example of how abuse would increase if you are going to use it to no-support a topic.

And, as has recently been discussed in the suggestions forum - do not simply no-support it - try to discuss how the abuse could be reduced.

Thank you.

TheMonsterOfTheDeep wrote:

Can everyone please stop jumping on the “it's easy to abuse!!!” bandwagon? That it literally the worst reason to reject a suggestion concerning user content. Yes, anything that facilitates or expands the scope of user content will inevitably have some method of abuse - but the Scratch website has rules and is moderated for this very reason.

Anything bad you could do with this new suggestion can already be done. In fact, it is already possible to upload inappropriate images to the Scratch website itself by storing them in a project! That doesn't mean it is allowed, and in fact it is rather rare to see inappropriate images on Scratch despite the incredibly large potential for abuse (literally, anybody can make an account in a few seconds).

If you are going to no support a suggestion, base your reasons on parts of the suggestion that would actually cause problems that do not already exist. The potential for abuse already exists on the Scratch website, and no supporting a suggestion on that basis is unhelpful. At the very least try to suggest ideas for reducing the potential of abuse in an idea instead of outright stating that it is a bad idea because of the potential for abuse.

Immediately failing to enter the discussion through a blatant and lazy dismissal for nothing more than “abuse!!” completely destroys the purpose of the suggestions forum. Suggestions need to be discussed if there is any chance of getting them into their optimal state, and rejection based on a ubiquitously problem is completely nonsensical, because in that scenario, every suggestion is ignored offhand without any real thought or reason.

At this point, it seems that the only reason people even say this is either because they cannot think of a better reason or because they want other people to agree with them. It's incredibly easy to gain agreement for your idea simply by saying something that cannot be denied - other people will see you are right and may even post their own “no support, easy to abuse” as a response. Abuse, being a feature of basically any suggestion, will always be something that can be exploited as a negative factor in that suggestion. The person claiming abuse is by default correct, because there is no way to claim “easy to abuse” and be wrong. But this is the wrong attitude - there are many problems with every suggestion, including things like “well, other things are more important.” But these things are not valid reasons to reject a suggestion!

The suggestions forum is meant to be a place to develop ideas for the improvement of Scratch, even if those ideas are never actually seriously considered by the Scratch Team. Sometimes they happen to spur development of things like userstyles, userscripts, mods, and other user-created content, by those people that actually seriously want some feature. But in general, the main purpose is to consider what ideas might be good for Scratch, and to discuss and work out all the design flaws of those ideas so that, in a future where the Scratch Team does want to implement those ideas, they will not have to work out these problems themselves - they will see that the users have done so already, and have done so in a way that will satisfy them - after all, the users know what they want best.

This leads, of course, to the final point - isn't abuse a topic that should be worked out? The answer is generally yes - if a suggestion is complicated enough that abuse needs to be tackled. However, the vast majority of suggestions are not complex enough that abuse needs to be tackled on its own - normally it is just a standard thing that comes with the suggestion. In fact, most suggestions will not actually change the potential for abuse that already exists. There are some suggestions, like custom images as profile backgrounds, where inappropriate content is very relevant, as profile background images take up a large amount of screen space and could be used as basically shock sites. Abuse is a very relevant issue for a “go to website” block, as many websites are dangerous. But most suggestions are not like this - most suggestions could only be abused to the extent that the website already can be, just like this suggestion here.

Abuse here is not a problem - the increase in potential for abuse is ~0%. If you have a logically constructed, rational argument to oppose this view, please post it - but you have to provide a reasonable example of how abuse would increase if you are going to use it to no-support a topic.

And, as has recently been discussed in the suggestions forum - do not simply no-support it - try to discuss how the abuse could be reduced.

Thank you.

+1

TheMonsterOfTheDeep wrote:

@inappropriate images:
What? There is absolutely nothing stopping people from posting inappropriate images on the approved image hosts. Adding this would merely make it more convenient to post images in the forums,it's like no-supporting additional drawing tools on the grounds that inappropriate images could be more easily created.

I am still keeping my reasons for not supporting. The forums just doesn't work that way, and Scratch just can't handle uploading images directly too.

No support, we do not want the forums to crash.

PrincessPanda_test_ wrote:

No support, we do not want the forums to crash.

Scratch could prevent the forums from crashing by putting an image size restriction.

some people wrote:

No support. It might allow inappropriate images.

For those who say this, try to find the good things about a suggestion, and what makes it great. If there are problems, give ideas on how to fix them. Please don't simply walk away if it isn't perfect, because it's the job of the people who view the suggestion to help improve it.

Support, using an image host is annoying and can expose you to all sorts of innapropriate ads.

Techno-CAT wrote:

some people wrote:

No support. It might allow inappropriate images.

Support, using an image host is annoying and can expose you to all sorts of inappropriate ads.

So true.

Techno-CAT wrote:

some people wrote:

No support. It might allow inappropriate images.

For those who say this, try to find the good things about a suggestion, and what makes it great. If there are problems, give ideas on how to fix them. Please don't simply walk away if it isn't perfect, because it's the job of the people who view the suggestion to help improve it.

Exactly.

Bump.

Cubeupload is simple; it takes seconds to upload the image, then seconds more to add it to a post. I recommend just doing that

Sigton

Support, only if it is possible to do.

I support to paste images, as long as it won't crash the HTML or anything like that.

Ziggy741 wrote:

No support. It might allow inappropriate images.

If someone does that, just report the post. It's a really simple solution. Plus, it's not like you can't already put inappropiate images on the whitelists. Just don't put it on Scratch.

(the no support spam is killer and dis-heartening)

In reality I don't think you understand that we need image hosts because:

1. Our files and data has to be compressed into a link format somehow. That itself is a time sucker and Scratch making their own is pretty bad.
2. I feel like @MonsterOfTheDeep addresses the rest quite adeptly.

Bump