This image was made by ZZ9PluralZAlpha
Discuss was the button on the header of Scratch that led to the forums. However due to resent updates and the small number of people who clicked it, it was moved to the footer. If a new Scratcher needs help with something, has a question, wants to show off a project, sees a glitch, or needs an idea they will not know where to look. This will lead to some more spam on the featured/ other famous projects. Discuss should be brought back (possibly as forums) to the header or there should be some other non-obscure way to find the forums.

Here is a good way to do this that WolfCat67 wrote.

WolfCat67 wrote:

I know how to make everyone happy.
Bring back the Discuss bar on the top page, but don't remove Tips! Instead, make the search bar a little smaller to make room. (After all, the search bar is HUGE and just seems to be so big to take up the remaining space you've got there.) Discuss could either be before tips or after tips.
This would work, and would probably satisfy a lot of people. After all, it takes a long time to find the forums anyway when you first start Scratch unless you actually try clicking everything, but putting it in the footer is an even worse idea, because trust me, nobody looks there, except for people trying to link to the CG or Terms of Use in the forums or people trying to find citations for the Scratch Wiki

They also made a good argument about why the discuss button should be put back.

WolfCat67 wrote:

Dear Scratch Team,


Please, just consider bringing “Discuss” back. I used Inspect Element, fixed it in three seconds (with the link and everything), and took the screenshot. It shouldn't be difficult at all to just add the link inside of the page. Especially considering the fact that it would take up the same amount of space as it used to in the old header, as “Tips” has the same amount of characters as “Help”. Even in other languages, I highly doubt it would be that big of an issue.

Now, about the argument that the Discuss link being removed encourages Create and Explore, as well as becoming a better Scratcher, that's strictly not true. After all, the place was already pretty obscure (now becoming even more obscure), so of course it did not deter a lot of people from creating projects or checking out others. However, even if they did go to the forums, it'd be extremely helpful to anyone needing help. What's better: A page full of tips for Scratchers, or asking for help and getting exact specific answers to help them out from experienced Scratchers? That second place is what the forums can be for almost anyone. You can also advertise, making your projects more popular, ask basic questions, and get ideas for projects.

And no, don't just think “well they can check out the footer”, because that's just not something people do. Trust me, the forums were quite obscure before due to the “Discuss” name not being specific (if it were to come back, just name it “forums”), but now that they're in the footer, nobody will view it except the people who were already here. Nobody new will be trying to join. Believe me, NOBODY checks the footer except for people looking for the wiki, wiki editors checking for references, or people just linking to the Terms of Use or Community Guidelines, which is a small amount of people relative to the vast amount of people on the Scratch website.

And about the reasoning that “It doesn't get enough clicks”, removing it doesn't seem to solve any problems here. You're just taking something that was obscure… And making it more obscure? Why would that be a good idea?

Please consider this entire thing. Thanks.

Anyway since this is about few people using the forums I'm going to put a supporter count here. Supporters: 108

Counters to the Scratch team's reasoning.
1. It wasn't getting many clicks.
This is because discuss was an obscure option that helped Scratchers a lot when they clicked it. Now it will get even less clicks.
2.It's now in the footer.
The problem was that it was obscure, making it more obscure won't help anything.
3.The scroll bar gets small in some languages such as german.
What about when it there was 5 buttons? How is now different. Also you could put another, bigger, search bar in explore because there you are exploring Scratch.
Also stickfiregames has a possible solution to the scroll bar being to small

stickfiregames wrote:

If they don't want the buttons to take up too much space they could always merge About into Tips, since it's nearly useless once you've joined Scratch. Better still, show About if you're logged out or Tips if you're logged in.

And DatOneLefty has another solution for what to do to make the search bar bigger.

DatOneLefty wrote:

i had the idea of making the search bar a button that when clicked, will hide navbar elements and show the search bar, bam. more room

4.Removed it to emphasize other options.
Those options were already well known, discuss was not and it will not help if you make it even more obscure to find. Also discussion is an extension to tips once you already use all it can give you.
5. Only 0.08% of active Scratchers viewed the forums last month
Are those all active Scratchers or active Scratchers that know the forums exist. I feel that it is a bit unfair to include people in a statistic if they do not even know what the statistic is about in the first place.
6.It might overwhelm new Scratchers
How? Maybe posting in the wrong forum however the forum Scratchers will kindly tell them where it belongs. In the long run it greatly helps New Scratchers learn about Scratch and coding as they can ask whatever they want instead of relying on the tips and the FAQ and not knowing what to do if the answer isn't there. Also can't we add a little guide to the forums on a Scratcher's first visit to help them feel less overwhelmed about the forums? There is a topic suggesting this here.

makethebrainhappy has another solution to this problem here
1a3c5e7g9i has an other possible solution to this problem here
There is a studio here trying to get the discuss button back.
Auroura_Wolf complied a list of important concepts.
zuwel made a chorme extention for the users who want the button back, however it still does not solve the problem of new users never learning about in the first place so don't use it for support against this suggestion.

Here's my support. *Gives Support* And here's a re-post of what I put on the Announcements forum.

I know how to make everyone happy.
Bring back the Discuss bar on the top page, but don't remove Tips! Instead, make the search bar a little smaller to make room. (After all, the search bar is HUGE and just seems to be so big to take up the remaining space you've got there.) Discuss could either be before tips or after tips.
This would work, and would probably satisfy a lot of people. After all, it takes a long time to find the forums anyway when you first start Scratch unless you actually try clicking everything, but putting it in the footer is an even worse idea, because trust me, nobody looks there, except for people trying to link to the CG or Terms of Use in the forums or people trying to find citations for the Scratch Wiki

Also, renaming Discuss to Forums was my idea a long time ago in another suggestion

I'll add what you said in the announcements forum into the front post.

HOLD ON! I just re-read it, and they didn't just remove Discuss. They removed Discuss and Help! I knew there were once five options. But guess what the real annoyance here is?

They said that Help was removed to make room for tips, but apparently, Discuss was removed just to emphasize “Create” and “Explore” and because it “wasn't getting the clicks”.

0_0

I support.
#bring_it_back

WolfCat67 wrote:

HOLD ON! I just re-read it, and they didn't just remove Discuss. They removed Discuss and Help! I knew there were once five options. But guess what the real annoyance here is?

They said that Help was removed to make room for tips, but apparently, Discuss was removed just to emphasize “Create” and “Explore” and because it “wasn't getting the clicks”.

0_0

True which means that their isn't much to be done about the situation.

WolfCat67 wrote:

HOLD ON! I just re-read it, and they didn't just remove Discuss. They removed Discuss and Help! I knew there were once five options. But guess what the real annoyance here is?

They said that Help was removed to make room for tips, but apparently, Discuss was removed just to emphasize “Create” and “Explore” and because it “wasn't getting the clicks”.

0_0

Tips is the updated version of help. However discuss was removed because people wouldn't click an obscure titled option so they made it more obscure.

Support. When was this change made? I just noticed it.

muellly wrote:

WolfCat67 wrote:

HOLD ON! I just re-read it, and they didn't just remove Discuss. They removed Discuss and Help! I knew there were once five options. But guess what the real annoyance here is?

They said that Help was removed to make room for tips, but apparently, Discuss was removed just to emphasize “Create” and “Explore” and because it “wasn't getting the clicks”.

0_0

Tips is the updated version of help. However discuss was removed because people wouldn't click an obscure titled option so they made it more obscure.

Again, I agree.

muellly wrote:

WolfCat67 wrote:

HOLD ON! I just re-read it, and they didn't just remove Discuss. They removed Discuss and Help! I knew there were once five options. But guess what the real annoyance here is?

They said that Help was removed to make room for tips, but apparently, Discuss was removed just to emphasize “Create” and “Explore” and because it “wasn't getting the clicks”.

0_0

Tips is the updated version of help. However discuss was removed because people wouldn't click an obscure titled option so they made it more obscure.

Which makes less sense. Apparently it's also been removed to emphasize Create and Explore to help people become better Scratchers, when in reality the forums is one of the things that can seriously improve your skills just with a bit of help from Help with Scripts. So there goes that reasoning, literally the only good reasoning they had for removing Discuss. So…
Therefore, they don't have any more good reasoning, just that “it wasn't getting the clicks”, but making it more obscure isn't going to be helping that.

beepcat wrote:

Support. When was this change made? I just noticed it.

It seems to have been made literally half an hour ago as far as I can tell.
That's when I got on.

beepcat wrote:

Support. When was this change made? I just noticed it.

about 40 minutes ago.

yzyzyz wrote:

beepcat wrote:

Support. When was this change made? I just noticed it.

about 40 minutes ago.

Clearly if you make a change and there's already tons of outcry after forty minutes, you've made a mistake

I wish I could say I give 200% support.
Seems like this'd be a temporary change for now, but they might change it later. WolfCat67's suggestion is definitely what I'm going for. I mean, 5 tabs is what I'm used to and I don't think it'd make much of a difference, just change “help” to “tips”, no need to remove “discuss”

WolfCat67 wrote:

muellly wrote:

WolfCat67 wrote:

HOLD ON! I just re-read it, and they didn't just remove Discuss. They removed Discuss and Help! I knew there were once five options. But guess what the real annoyance here is?

They said that Help was removed to make room for tips, but apparently, Discuss was removed just to emphasize “Create” and “Explore” and because it “wasn't getting the clicks”.

0_0

Tips is the updated version of help. However discuss was removed because people wouldn't click an obscure titled option so they made it more obscure.

Which makes less sense. Apparently it's also been removed to emphasize Create and Explore to help people become better Scratchers, when in reality the forums is one of the things that can seriously improve your skills just with a bit of help from Help with Scripts. So there goes that reasoning, literally the only good reasoning they had for removing Discuss. So…
Therefore, they don't have any more good reasoning, just that “it wasn't getting the clicks”, but making it more obscure isn't going to be helping that.

I know. Create helps people with trail and error, and it was already the most used tab (I think, I also count working on projects as this) however it's not going to help if you spend 5 days, pulling your hair out trying to fix something when you have just asked for help on the forums on day 1. Also I don't see how explore helps anyone except for looking for inspiration or trying to make a project slimular to one you find there.

I was wondering how I didn't notice this. It was done under an hour ago.

Support, this is a very useful link to have, and removing it won't help the forums get more publicity.

I will support, as the forums are a great way for people to get together and talk about things. It also helps people find help with projects. without the discuss tab, we might for get about it.

yzyzyz wrote:

create|explore|forums|tips|about

I like the idea of discuss being changed to forums to make the option less obscure, however I'm happy as long as the option is back.

duckboycool wrote:

I was wondering how I didn't notice this. It was done under an hour ago.

Support, this is a very useful link to have, and removing it won't help the forums get more publicity.

Very true. I wish the ST would promote the forums instead of hiding them.

LionHeart70 wrote:

I wish I could say I give 200% support.
Seems like this'd be a temporary change for now, but they might change it later. WolfCat67's suggestion is definitely what I'm going for. I mean, 5 tabs is what I'm used to and I don't think it'd make much of a difference, just change “help” to “tips”, no need to remove “discuss”

I know, there is no reason to remove discuss. However to me the removal of discuss appears to be here to stay, unless we do something about it.

TheNormalGuy3D wrote:

I will support, as the forums are a great way for people to get together and talk about things. It also helps people find help with projects. without the discuss tab, we might for get about it.

It's more of Scratchers never finding it than forgetting about it. Also it's annoying to locate the way things are now.

muellly wrote:

LionHeart70 wrote:

I wish I could say I give 200% support.
Seems like this'd be a temporary change for now, but they might change it later. WolfCat67's suggestion is definitely what I'm going for. I mean, 5 tabs is what I'm used to and I don't think it'd make much of a difference, just change “help” to “tips”, no need to remove “discuss”

I know, there is no reason to remove discuss. However to me the removal of discuss appears to be here to stay, unless we do something about it.

and we are currently doing something about it…