The featured section doesn't help, because, despite me wanting this suggestion, i've never suggested a project to be featured in my entire life. (Don't remove the featured or curated projects though, it's a long time goal for many scratchers.) So, I suggest:

An advertisement system.

So, here's how it would work. See the little blue bar at the top of the website? The search bar, messages box, My Stuff box, and profile configuration needs to be pushed to the right to make room for a new button: Advertise. So, basically, when that button is clicked, a page would open up that allows you to upload a file. Then, you would upload an image file. Then next comes a resizing and cropping, so that the image fits the empty space on the side of the screen. Finally, there will be an area to link (choose what project, studio, profile or post the ad is for. in order to prevent linking to external sites and essentially making REAL ads on the site, it should be a dropdown of your projects, studios, and forum posts) and name your ad. Then, the ad would go through moderation, so inappropriate content doesn't get through in the form of an image. If it is accepted, the ad will be added to the advertisement database, and it will have a chance to appear in the empty space on the side of every website page.

Spam filters obviously need to be in place (one upload for a certain period of time, such as a day)

Overall, we need an extra page to upload ads, so content can be featured more easily and more fairly.

No support for advertising on Scratch because I don't like advertising. But the people who make the online indicators for Scratchers could add this to their program to serve ads to Scratchers who want them.

walkcycle wrote:

No support for advertising on Scratch because I don't like advertising. But the people who make the online indicators for Scratchers could add this to their program to serve ads to Scratchers who want them.

It isn't the same thing as regular advertising, plus you don't have to click the ads. I don't see how an unobtrusive ad could be a con.

-1
Scratch strives to be ad-free.
I like it that way.

MathlyCat wrote:

-1
Scratch strives to be ad-free.
I like it that way.

Again, it's not really an ad and it's not obtrusive. At least a box on the front page that shows one of the “ads”, randomized everytime the page is loaded.

Also, this is unrelated, but why do people say -1 when they don't support? You can't remove supporters from the amount of people who supports. Sorry, but it's beginning to bother me.

Semi-support, would teach kids how to advertise properly and could bring fame to some projects, but people hate ads in general

No Support. We don't need ads to be popular.

No support, for reasons above.
It'd get annoying and I don't want to see ads everywhere. Why not just advertise your project in the Show And Tell forums?

Time to compile all of the new arguments given so far.

LionHeart70:
No support, for reasons above.
It'd get annoying and I don't want to see ads everywhere. Why not just advertise your project in the Show And Tell forums?

First of all, Show and Tell forums? You haven't read my original argument, when I said those didn't help. I'm assuming you just read “advertisments”.

Also, I don't see how it will be annoying. Look at Roblox. One, Roblox-related ad on the side of the page, is that too much to ask?

PrincessPanda_test_:
Semi-support, would teach kids how to advertise properly and could bring fame to some projects, but people hate ads in general

Yes, perfect analysis of my original point.

And people shouldn't hate ads if they're unobtrusive;it's not like a pop-up ad, nor is it for a non-scratch related project.

Charles12310:
No Support. We don't need ads to be popular.

I don't understand the argument you're making, could you elaborate?

sprands wrote:

LionHeart70:
No support, for reasons above.
It'd get annoying and I don't want to see ads everywhere. Why not just advertise your project in the Show And Tell forums?

First of all, Show and Tell forums? You haven't read my original argument, when I said those didn't help. I'm assuming you just read “advertisments”.

Also, I don't see how it will be annoying. Look at Roblox. One, Roblox-related ad on the side of the page, is that too much to ask?

Well, the Show And Tell forums are literally a designated place to advertise. You can also advertise by making one of your projects your featured project, or adding the link to it to your signature. People still look at those, and Scratch isn't about popularity anyway.
And how it'd be annoying is that Scratch is designed to be ad-free and everyone wants to keep it that way, I can see many complaints if ads suddenly appeared, it might even freak out a few users for a second because they think they have malware/adware
Also, Scratch isn't Roblox. There's no need to turn it into Roblox.
(sorry if this was offensive at all)

No support. They would be very distracting and unneeded. I doubt it would help people actually get views, and would quickly become a hated thing on the website. I'm sure many people would leave because of it.

Also, saying that getting featured doesn't help isn't true at all. Every single recent featured projects is close to or over 10000 views.

LionHeart70 wrote:

sprands wrote:

LionHeart70:
No support, for reasons above.
It'd get annoying and I don't want to see ads everywhere. Why not just advertise your project in the Show And Tell forums?

First of all, Show and Tell forums? You haven't read my original argument, when I said those didn't help. I'm assuming you just read “advertisments”.

Also, I don't see how it will be annoying. Look at Roblox. One, Roblox-related ad on the side of the page, is that too much to ask?

Well, the Show And Tell forums are literally a designated place to advertise. You can also advertise by making one of your projects your featured project, or adding the link to it to your signature. People still look at those, and Scratch isn't about popularity anyway.
And how it'd be annoying is that Scratch is designed to be ad-free and everyone wants to keep it that way, I can see many complaints if ads suddenly appeared, it might even freak out a few users for a second because they think they have malware/adware
Also, Scratch isn't Roblox. There's no need to turn it into Roblox.
(sorry if this was offensive at all)

I'm not turning Scratch into Roblox. I'm simply trying to help model this website like another good online community.

duckboycool wrote:

No support. They would be very distracting and unneeded. I doubt it would help people actually get views, and would quickly become a hated thing on the website. I'm sure many people would leave because of it.

Also, saying that getting featured doesn't help isn't true at all. Every single recent featured projects is close to or over 10000 views.

I don't understand how people would leave. Nobody is that stupid, to leave because of some minor ads.

The closest thing we have to the kind of advertisements you describe is signatures on the forums. I think that should be enough if one takes the time to become involved with the forums community.

Otherwise, I think that if you put your projects in the appropriate studios, use your signature, tags, and whatever other advertising options are available, with time you will eventually make it. It took me a couple years to really get anywhere, but once things start they will begin to snowball.

Deerleg wrote:

The closest thing we have to the kind of advertisements you describe is signatures on the forums. I think that should be enough if one takes the time to become involved with the forums community.

Otherwise, I think that if you put your projects in the appropriate studios, use your signature, tags, and whatever other advertising options are available, with time you will eventually make it. It took me a couple years to really get anywhere, but once things start they will begin to snowball.

Ok, let's face it, the forums and studios just don't help as good as REAL ADS.

We need these things to display to people. And when I say people, I mean most of the people on Scratch will have a chance to see the ad. These are meant to help people find the projects, so that they can get into the featured section and get more recognition. The ads are a chance to let every Scratcher see people's talent. Who knows, if this gets added, I might go on a page-refreshing spree to find some good projects. This will benefit everyone. Forums? Studios? Many people on Scratch won't see those.

sprands wrote:

LionHeart70 wrote:

sprands wrote:

LionHeart70:
No support, for reasons above.
It'd get annoying and I don't want to see ads everywhere. Why not just advertise your project in the Show And Tell forums?

First of all, Show and Tell forums? You haven't read my original argument, when I said those didn't help. I'm assuming you just read “advertisments”.

Also, I don't see how it will be annoying. Look at Roblox. One, Roblox-related ad on the side of the page, is that too much to ask?

Well, the Show And Tell forums are literally a designated place to advertise. You can also advertise by making one of your projects your featured project, or adding the link to it to your signature. People still look at those, and Scratch isn't about popularity anyway.
And how it'd be annoying is that Scratch is designed to be ad-free and everyone wants to keep it that way, I can see many complaints if ads suddenly appeared, it might even freak out a few users for a second because they think they have malware/adware
Also, Scratch isn't Roblox. There's no need to turn it into Roblox.
(sorry if this was offensive at all)

I'm not turning Scratch into Roblox. I'm simply trying to help model this website like another good online community.

But barely any sites have this function, and they work fine.

LionHeart70 wrote:

sprands wrote:

LionHeart70 wrote:

sprands wrote:

LionHeart70:
No support, for reasons above.
It'd get annoying and I don't want to see ads everywhere. Why not just advertise your project in the Show And Tell forums?

First of all, Show and Tell forums? You haven't read my original argument, when I said those didn't help. I'm assuming you just read “advertisments”.

Also, I don't see how it will be annoying. Look at Roblox. One, Roblox-related ad on the side of the page, is that too much to ask?

Well, the Show And Tell forums are literally a designated place to advertise. You can also advertise by making one of your projects your featured project, or adding the link to it to your signature. People still look at those, and Scratch isn't about popularity anyway.
And how it'd be annoying is that Scratch is designed to be ad-free and everyone wants to keep it that way, I can see many complaints if ads suddenly appeared, it might even freak out a few users for a second because they think they have malware/adware
Also, Scratch isn't Roblox. There's no need to turn it into Roblox.
(sorry if this was offensive at all)

I'm not turning Scratch into Roblox. I'm simply trying to help model this website like another good online community.

But barely any sites have this function, and they work fine.

Barely any other sites are online communities where people can make stuff and share it to others. You have nothing to compare this to.

sprands wrote:

Time to compile all of the new arguments given so far.

LionHeart70:
No support, for reasons above.
It'd get annoying and I don't want to see ads everywhere. Why not just advertise your project in the Show And Tell forums?

First of all, Show and Tell forums? You haven't read my original argument, when I said those didn't help. I'm assuming you just read “advertisments”.

Also, I don't see how it will be annoying. Look at Roblox. One, Roblox-related ad on the side of the page, is that too much to ask?

PrincessPanda_test_:
Semi-support, would teach kids how to advertise properly and could bring fame to some projects, but people hate ads in general

Yes, perfect analysis of my original point.

And people shouldn't hate ads if they're unobtrusive;it's not like a pop-up ad, nor is it for a non-scratch related project.

Charles12310:
No Support. We don't need ads to be popular.

I don't understand the argument you're making, could you elaborate?

Scratch's purpose was not so people could get popular right away. The purpose was for people to enjoy what users have experimented, and experiment stuff. We are not here to try to fight to #1 in the leaderboard. We can't just have ads appear and expect people to click on them right away when they first see it at the tip of their eyes. That is not how it works. Most people ignore ads these days.

sprands wrote:

-snip-

I'm not turning Scratch into Roblox. I'm simply trying to help model this website like another good online community.

No, just no. Roblox is not a good online community. There are copy and paste this messages spamming the comments, “scrolling ads” that are just click bait when you try to scroll them, Eevee is a censored word and the updates make everything worse. Scratch is not Roblox and I hope it doesn't become it. (unless it's the 2010 version before they removed the green dot, roblox was good then. I felt triggered with the bolded in your quote.)

With that out of the way I semi support the suggestion. Maybe just a row on the front page for the ads that changes randomly every time however to many places with adds will be annoying. This will help get a few new viewers to things however to many places with them will be problematic. Also there should be a 1 ad per user limit to prevent people from spamming, with people being able to change their ad as they please.

muellly wrote:

sprands wrote:

-snip-

I'm not turning Scratch into Roblox. I'm simply trying to help model this website like another good online community.

No, just no. Roblox is not a good online community. There are copy and paste this messages spamming the comments, “scrolling ads” that are just click bait when you try to scroll them, Eevee is a censored word and the updates make everything worse. Scratch is not Roblox and I hope it doesn't become it. (unless it's the 2010 version before they removed the green dot, roblox was good then. I felt triggered with the bolded in your quote.)

With that out of the way I semi support the suggestion. Maybe just a row on the front page for the ads that changes randomly every time however to many places with adds will be annoying. This will help get a few new viewers to things however to many places with them will be problematic. Also there should be a 1 ad per user limit to prevent people from spamming, with people being able to change their ad as they please.

I agree. ROBLOX is not a 100% safe community.