cra-cra4music wrote:

how do you recommend for a project to get feautured????

Eldona1 wrote:

Hmmm Sratchteam it looks like almost nobody is liking the new “TIPS” button. Maybe you should just change back to the “old” way. This, in my opinion was Scratch's worst choice in the history of Scratch (as long as I've been here).

when I receive [New Scratch Update v]
change [Scratch Awesomeness v] by (1)

when I receive [No More Discuss Button v]
do [Puppy Dog Eyes v]
change [Scratch Awesomeness v] by (-1)

xboxguy175 wrote:

Did scratch birthday pass?

frodewin wrote:

I think the discussion forum is an important part of Scratch and helps networking Scratchers and the Scratch idea, so it should be supported and placed prominently at the page top, otherwise less people will lear about the forums and the forum, especially some of it's lesser accessed topics will try out. We already face a similar problem with the German Scratch Wiki btw.

The argument that there is not enough space in the menu bar should one that goes to the web designers, but should not be an argument in such an important change. The often quoted “Deutsch” (german) interface is not so badly crowded with long words as one might expect btw.

The statistics regarding use (I think it was only 0.8% of active Scratchers have looked at the forums in the past month) seem a bit misleading. It would be interesting, to compare it to the number of active Scratchers that have used the “About Scratch” button, my guess it is less people.

The confusion argument for new scratchers is the only valid one for me, but suggestions to add the forums link only for (not “new”) Scratchers seems to be a viable solution. I would not remove “tips” for Scratchers though, because I think removing an option that was always there can create a lot of confusion (this thread being a proof for that).

I generally find it impressing how many Scratchers are concerned with this change. Practically everybody in this thread was able to find the forum without the link, but they are all concerned with having the discuss button removed from the top menu is worsening the experience for future Scratchers. I hope the Scratch Team can embrace this constructive criticism from their user base and use it for future changes. As a hint: there have been many smart suggestions posted in the suggestions topic, while removing the discuss button was never suggested there.

when green flag clicked
forever
play sound [ Scratch is awesome!!!] until done
end

Tyler_Games wrote:

This's amazing news to know for our new scratchers who need a little help with learning.

when green flag clicked
forever
play sound [ Scratch is awesome!!!] until done
end

[/quote]
cool :cool:

frodewin wrote:

….

I generally find it impressing how many Scratchers are concerned with this change. Practically everybody in this thread was able to find the forum without the link, but they are all concerned with having the discuss button removed from the top menu is worsening the experience for future Scratchers. I hope the Scratch Team can embrace this constructive criticism from their user base and use it for future changes. As a hint: there have been many smart suggestions posted in the suggestions topic, while removing the discuss button was never suggested there.

PullJosh wrote:

Love the new tips page! Definitely going to be a helpful resource for new Scratchers.

That being said, I'm quite disappointed by the removal of the discuss link. Everyone here is obviously aware that the link in the footer is not going to get the same amount of attention as the one in the navigation bar, so there must be a reason for its removal.

If you have something wonderful up your sleeves, like a new and improved discussion system, and want to phase out the current one, I'm all for that. But if there isn't any grand scheme in place that requires the link to be removed, I'd urge you to take a step back and consider re-implementing it. The discussion forums have been a wonderful place for me, and they're how I met so many wonderful people. Just today, I've talked with numerous Scratchers about all sorts of great projects and work being done, and seeing everything that's going on in and around Scratch is fantastic. I would argue that the forums have made a massive positive difference in my life, and I would hate to see that opportunity taken away from others.

Obviously, the forums are a lot to manage. There will always be spam and unhelpful posts, which can be quite a lot of work to clean up. If the forums are being fazed out due to a lack of time or energy, I would be more than happy to help moderate. If taking some time out of my day to moderate the forums meant that new users could continue to discover all of the fantastic things going on through and beyond Scratch, I would consider that to be a really solid investment.

Of course, this is all speculation. Perhaps the ability to discuss on Scratch is not under attack, and something new and incredible is coming. But if the discussion forums are being removed because they're too much effort to maintain, I beg that you think again. There are a huge number of people (myself included) who would be willing to give of their time and energy to keep this fantastic part of the site. Please don't let it go.

Hopefully I'm not reading too much into this.

sooty2000 wrote:

dietbacon wrote:

Hey everyone,

We are always looking for ways to make Scratch easier to get started with. Today we’re excited to announce that we’ve added lots of new resources to a new section called Tips! .



On the new Tips page, you will find interactive tutorials that can help you start making a variety of projects. There are also printable Activity Cards with detailed instructions on how to build any of the projects you are interested in.




In addition to the inclusion of the new Tips page, the site navigation menu has also been updated. We replaced the “Help” button with a “Tips” button, which will lead you to the new Tips page mentioned above. We believe this will help newcomers discover and use our new Scratch activities. We have also removed the “Discuss” button from the navigation menu. We made this decision based on usage (how often it was clicked) and to give emphasis to the other menu options like “Create” and “Explore.” You can still access the Discussion Forums by clicking the link in the footer at the bottom of every page or by going to https://scratch.mit.edu/discuss/. These changes were made to help highlight project creation and get new users started on becoming full fledged Scratchers!

Scratch On!

- - - - -

FAQ:
Where is “Discuss” in the footer?
In the footer, under “Community”, you will see a link to “Discussion Forums”. You can also always access the forums with this url: https://scratch.mit.edu/discuss/

Can you make the search bar smaller to make room for discuss?
This decision was also made in part because the navigation menu is translated to many other languages, and in some of those languages there was just too much text to fit in the space.

The search bar is flexible in size based on the language you are in. While it may appear extra large in English, this is not always the case. For example, change your language to Deutsch and see what happens. And this is with one item removed from the nav bar - imagine what it was like when there were five items in the nav bar before.

I thinks it's great