Bring back Discuss

cul8er

PopularTDM wrote:
Maybe the reason the ST removed the discuss button was because they saw users getting bullied.

(citation needed)

cul8er

MathlyCat wrote:
Charles12310 wrote:
einangrun wrote:
cul8er wrote:
New Scratchers actually aren't usually younger users. Typically, they are early-teens.

Proof?
We don't need proof.

New Scratchers could be people at any age.

Maybe adults have been experts at coding but they probably haven't heard of this website and they probably want to try it.
You need proof to support an argument.

It'd be like me saying “Chickens are all used as food” and say I don't need proof because I don't see them anywhere else.

Several people have provided the relevant link to the statistics.

cul8er

DownsGameClub wrote:
Just a new argument- can Scratch function without a forum at all? I feel like most of us are treating the removal of the discuss button as a life or death situation, which, according to @Paddle2See, is clearly not going to happen at any point of Scratch.

Additionally, are there alternate forms of communication we can use? Of course it's not going to be all that easy, but is there a possibility of Scratch welcoming users, helping, or answering questions in a different way?

Sure, it's not life or death, but the forums are a valuable resource that we would be foolish to take the possibility of losing them lightly. Certainly more valuable than Tips. As for your second question, I think that studios and comments could be used for the purpose, but you have to ask yourself - why should (or indeed, would) the forums be removed? They are specifically designed to help people with questions, requests or ideas, which is something comments and studios are not. They also have an established and helpful community.

EH7meow

DownsGameClub wrote:
Additionally, are there alternate forms of communication we can use? Of course it's not going to be all that easy, but is there a possibility of Scratch welcoming users, helping, or answering questions in a different way?

Hi!

In regards to welcoming users, the Scratch Welcoming Committee has been around for almost 5 years. New Scratchers get a link to us when they join and we contain welcoming projects created by hundreds of different Scratchers that provide the newer users with a warm welcome. We also have over 180k comments on the studio, mostly new scratchers saying hello and asking some questions.

You can find out more on the wiki.

CarriageSTORIES

makethebrainhappy 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

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

They completely removed help! What’s the purpose of destroying one page just for some new-scratcher thing? I should never of wished for a page with tip cards. It should only be available to new scratchers. It can still be viewed by scratchers, but its place in the menu is replaced by “Forums”. After all, not many new scratchers view forums!

Last edited by CarriageSTORIES (July 28, 2017 10:58:22)

-Vuton-

CarriageSTORIES wrote:
makethebrainhappy 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

True which means that their isn't much to be done about the situation.
They completely removed help! What’s the purpose of destroying one page just for some new-scratcher thing? I should never of wished for a page with tip cards. It should only be available to new scratchers. It can still be viewed by scratchers, but its place in the menu is replaced by “Forums”. After all, not many new scratchers view forums!

Yeah, but help was replaced with Tips. And there is plenty to be done, the ST will probably eventually make a new way to access the forums that is easier for new scratchers!

Mr-Mathmatical

I don't really mind that the Discuss button is in the footer. If new scratchers needed advice, all they would have to do is ask one of the more experienced scratchers.

I can sort of see where the Scratch Team is coming from when they said it would overwhelm new scratchers. If you've ever made a game with a menu before, you want to make sure there are as little buttons as possible. Imagine starting off in a game, and every single feature was a button. How overwhelming would that be? You can see examples in popular games nowadays, one of them being Clash Royale. Tournaments and challenges are only unlocked when you are level 8, and clans used to be unlocked when you where level 3 or 4 (can't remember which). This was so players wouldn't lose interest as soon as they joined.

Only 0.08% of active scratchers clicked on the button. What's the point of even having it there? It's a bit like adding a “Worst projects of all time” button or a “Least followed scratchers ever” button. No one would click on them.

But I dunno, that's just my opinion. I do agree it should be called “Forums” if it came back, though

jji10

PopularTDM wrote:
Maybe the reason the ST removed the discuss button was because they saw users getting bullied.

Eh, speculation is the last thing we need.

PopularTDM

PopularTDM wrote:
Really? To me, the comments are a lot safer.

Comments are more like instant messaging, while the forums are more like mailing, but as a group.

In other words, sending messages on the forums would likely take more work than commenting, which makes spamming/other bad things less frequent on the forums.

As with suggestions for dropdowns, I just think that scaling down the text size a bit and sliding in a fifth link (like in the isOnline extension) would be a simple solution.
That makes sense!

DownsGameClub

PopularTDM wrote:
PopularTDM wrote:
Really? To me, the comments are a lot safer.
Comments are more like instant messaging, while the forums are more like mailing, but as a group.

In other words, sending messages on the forums would likely take more work than commenting, which makes spamming/other bad things less frequent on the forums.

As with suggestions for dropdowns, I just think that scaling down the text size a bit and sliding in a fifth link (like in the isOnline extension) would be a simple solution.

That makes sense!

But it's not going to make reading stuff any easier- I wasn't able to read anything well under 14 point font.

All of these are at 14 point font. I don't like how the font blends in with the rest of the text and the menu bar isn't a “header”.

(Note: Russian padding was edited)

Charles12310

DownsGameClub wrote:
PopularTDM wrote:
PopularTDM wrote:
Really? To me, the comments are a lot safer.
Comments are more like instant messaging, while the forums are more like mailing, but as a group.

In other words, sending messages on the forums would likely take more work than commenting, which makes spamming/other bad things less frequent on the forums.

As with suggestions for dropdowns, I just think that scaling down the text size a bit and sliding in a fifth link (like in the isOnline extension) would be a simple solution.
That makes sense!

But it's not going to make reading stuff any easier- I wasn't able to read anything well under 14 point font.

All of these are at 14 point font. I don't like how the font blends in with the rest of the text and the menu bar isn't a “header”.

(Note: Russian padding was edited)

Why is there 2 Create buttons?

njtacogirl

well, first of all, it could have been due to bullying and ppl making bunch of nonsense. :D

njtacogirl

I'm gonna have to unfollow the discussion thing, sense it's sending me a bunch messages :p

njtacogirl

*since I mean

-Vuton-

njtacogirl wrote:
I'm gonna have to unfollow the discussion thing, sense it's sending me a bunch messages :p

You just sent me a bunch of Random messages, next time just edit the post instead of correcting your mistake in another one…

Austinato

DownsGameClub wrote:
Austinato wrote:
As with suggestions for dropdowns, I just think that scaling down the text size a bit and sliding in a fifth link (like in the isOnline extension) would be a simple solution.
That makes sense!

But it's not going to make reading stuff any easier- I wasn't able to read anything well under 14 point font.

All of these are at 14 point font. I don't like how the font blends in with the rest of the text and the menu bar isn't a “header”.

(Note: Russian padding was edited)

With the first screenshot, there are two tabs with “Create.”

With the newer navigation bar (the one used only on the homepage and a few other pages), I think it's still good to scale down the text, to around 14 (as you said is a good size), and slide in one tab. On top of shrinking the font size, the search bar can also be slightly shortened.

If there is going to be a sixth tab on the same navigation bar, there are quite a few things that could be done, such as redesigning the right end of the navigation bar, possibly relocating messages elsewhere, and/or using a more cleaner-looking Scratch logo.

Darrman

I may no longer be particularly active on Scratch, but when I popped back in for the occasional checkup on my Scratch stuff, I thought the forums were deleted full stop. I eventually found my way back in by looking at some announcements, but who on earth would ever check the footer? I 100% wholeheartedly support this motion. Perhaps rename the button Forums to make it more obvious, but just restoring it will make me happy.

IgnaxioScratcher

The real tips are in fourms!

Plus, if you are advanced, you cant have help from ‘'Tips’' sector

-penandpaper-

IgnaxioScratcher wrote:
Plus, if you are advanced, you cant have help from ‘'Tips’' sector

Yup - I'm working on a whitelisted chat (among other things), and the HwS forum is the only place I can really go for tips.

muellly

carsracer wrote:
Maybe tips and about should be merged and that would leave space for discuss. Or shorten the search bar like the scratch team did a while back.

Maybe, although I do like the idea of there being a more drop down for tips and about more.

cul8er wrote:
-snip-
Sheep_maker wrote:
Charles12310 wrote:
Now New Scratchers don't know about the forums.
That could be a good thing; maybe forums aren't as effective or welcome for younger users
New Scratchers actually aren't usually younger users. Typically, they are early-teens. (Is this a word?)-snip-

New Scratchers come in all ages. Even if young users might not benefit from the forums that much it's not like young users are suffering from the discuss button being in the header.

Yakov5776 wrote:
I have a idea, in the mean time while we wait to see if the ST will add the Discuss button back, Maybe you can Try this:
Discuss Button Profile

That helps the people who know about the forums that are willing to download something.

zenin10 wrote:
I have a fix to the discuss button problem. First download isOnline of the Chrome Store: https://aremyfriends.online/get , then go to https://scratch.mit.edu/users/DiscussButton/ and click enable around the username, and the the discuss button will be back! Problem solved!

I'm using firefox… I don't see why I should download something off the chrome store. Also it does not solve the problem new users never finding out about the forums in the first place.

Smurphy13AWESOME wrote:
The absolute, simplest solution: Look up at the bar. See the empty blue space on either side? We could easily expand that. Simple as that!

That is a good idea, Scratch could change the font size and padding so everything fits on everybody's screen, removing the need for blue space to make the header fit on smaller screens.

PopularTDM wrote:
jromagnoli wrote:
VideoGamerCanInvent wrote:
PopularTDM wrote:
Maybe the reason the ST removed the discuss button was because they saw users getting bullied.
What exactly do you mean?
Yeah, the forums are generally a lot safer than the comments. If that was the reason, they should've removed commenting first.

Really? To me, the comments are a lot safer.

Comments are much harder to moderate than forums. You have to know the specific studio/project/profile the comments are on to see them, you have to learn about each places existence before you can see it, making it likely only a few Scratchers will see it if it is not popular (one, maybe two). New forum posts bump the topic up to the top of the page, adds a little thing to indicate there are new posts and the active forum users will see it and ST members who moderate the forums have a higher chance of seeing it even if it isn't reported.

J2t0n4 wrote:
I was just thinking, maybe there could be a dropdown menu called support or something like that that has help, discuss and tips underneath. Does anyone think this could help?

Something like that would be awesome. It would be great if the wiki could also be included in something like that.

DownsGameClub wrote:
-Vuton- wrote:
J2t0n4 wrote:
I was just thinking, maybe there could be a dropdown menu called support or something like that that has help, discuss and tips underneath. Does anyone think this could help?
Yeah, but It may look cluttered as there already is a drop-down on the right!
Not necessarily- YouTube has both a left and right dropdown menu by technical definition- it gives quite a bit of options if you ask me, so that may be a good choice.

Just a new argument- can Scratch function without a forum at all? I feel like most of us are treating the removal of the discuss button as a life or death situation, which, according to @Paddle2See, is clearly not going to happen at any point of Scratch.

Additionally, are there alternate forms of communication we can use? Of course it's not going to be all that easy, but is there a possibility of Scratch welcoming users, helping, or answering questions in a different way?

Scratch could function without a forum, but the forum enhances the experience for many users who know about them. The main things that Scratch needs to survive are bug reports that could be made on ST members profiles. However this will make things harder for the ST to keep tract of as users may not know where to say they encountered a bug and due to the character limit detailed explanations of what happened will rarely be made. Announcements are also important and could be made via featured projects. The rest of the forums Scratch can go on without. New Scratchers don't need to be welcomed even though it is nice and may encourage new users to stay on Scratch longer knowing about the nice community. There is also the Scratch welcoming comity. Help with scripts and Scratch can be asked on profiles however it most of the time take longer to get answers, or the question could be complete ignored by who they ask. Comments can advertise like the show and tell however these are likely to get reported as spam. The ST profiles will be filled with spam asking to be featured, they could share a project for requests however there is the problem of users not finding the project and the user who made the project hardly being able to use their messages anymore as it will be filled with feature requests. The entire forum really can be replicated by comments in studios, projects and profiles however it will make things difficult to find users interested in things in the AT such as Scratch modifications, make collaborations made by non popular Scratchers limited to their Scratch friends or interested people who somehow stumble across their profile, limit pictures to links and force all posts to be 500 characters or less and generally it will be harder to start communication with many others than it is to with the forums.

-Vuton- wrote:
-snip-
And there is plenty to be done, the ST will probably eventually make a new way to access the forums that is easier for new scratchers!

Eventually, could be 7 years, could be 2 days, there is no telling when the ST will take, if any, action.

Mr-Mathmatical wrote:
I don't really mind that the Discuss button is in the footer. If new scratchers needed advice, all they would have to do is ask one of the more experienced scratchers.

I can sort of see where the Scratch Team is coming from when they said it would overwhelm new scratchers. If you've ever made a game with a menu before, you want to make sure there are as little buttons as possible. Imagine starting off in a game, and every single feature was a button. How overwhelming would that be? You can see examples in popular games nowadays, one of them being Clash Royale. Tournaments and challenges are only unlocked when you are level 8, and clans used to be unlocked when you where level 3 or 4 (can't remember which). This was so players wouldn't lose interest as soon as they joined.

Only 0.08% of active scratchers clicked on the button. What's the point of even having it there? It's a bit like adding a “Worst projects of all time” button or a “Least followed scratchers ever” button. No one would click on them.

But I dunno, that's just my opinion. I do agree it should be called “Forums” if it came back, though

I would agree that having 7-8 button would be overwhelming for a new person, however not so much if there is a tutorial. However 5 buttons isn't to much. Also it is more of them removing the tutorial button, a useful but hardly used button due to many older users already know how to play, because only a few people joined every day and there was a very large base at the site who don't feel like they already know everything in it. While hardly any one clicks it, it is still very useful. (however the forums would be more of advanced tutorials after someone has moved past tips.)

DownsGameClub wrote:
PopularTDM wrote:
PopularTDM wrote:
Really? To me, the comments are a lot safer.
Comments are more like instant messaging, while the forums are more like mailing, but as a group.

In other words, sending messages on the forums would likely take more work than commenting, which makes spamming/other bad things less frequent on the forums.

As with suggestions for dropdowns, I just think that scaling down the text size a bit and sliding in a fifth link (like in the isOnline extension) would be a simple solution.
That makes sense!
But it's not going to make reading stuff any easier- I wasn't able to read anything well under 14 point font.

All of these are at 14 point font. I don't like how the font blends in with the rest of the text and the menu bar isn't a “header”.

(Note: Russian padding was edited)

Those search bars seem to be a reasonable size to me. They can reduce padding on buttons with longer words to keep the buttons clickable while lengthening the search bar.

-penandpaper- wrote:
IgnaxioScratcher wrote:
Plus, if you are advanced, you cant have help from ‘'Tips’' sector
Yup - I'm working on a whitelisted chat (among other things), and the HwS forum is the only place I can really go for tips.

Agreed. The forums can give you any tip you want, not just some random starter projects. To be honest I never really followed any beginer project tutorials. If the tutorials were a path with some grassy plains on the sides, I would have broken the gate to go past the grassy plains. There are surely other new Scratchers who found any thing they could find in tips more restricting than if they were just told what the blocks do. There are also new Scratchers who would want to make a first project that isn't listed in tips, so they can go to the forums for help!.. If they can find them…

Discuss Scratch