Please read the whole post before bringing up problems for which a solution has already been made.

On Scratch, many users have inappropriate profile pictures that people immediately report. The problem is, you can still see them after you report them - so my suggestion is is that profile pictures that a user reports get replaced with the default Scratch user picture (credits to @bigpuppy for this idea) so the user (and the user ONLY) can't see it anymore. This would help a lot because I generally see many users with scary profile pictures that don't go away after I report them.

But of course, just like with projects and comments, which get hidden from everyone once reported or just reported too many times, the same should be with profile pictures. They should be automatically removed if a lot of people report them. The only downside of this is false-reporting, but the Scratch Team is consistently working on sharing falsely-reported projects, and they believe the current way is a good idea regardless of the false-reporting issues, so I don't see any downsides in implementing this the same way as well. Huge thanks to @IndianRuby718 for this last part!

I'm not blaming the moderators because they're too slow (they're actually very fast), but it's just that if a thing is reported, then a user probably finds it disturbing or unsettling, and they don't want to see it anymore.



Why didn't you just suggest a button that blocks profile pictures?
The Scratch Team has actually rejected suggestions to block *users*, and their reason is pretty straight-forward.

“This suggestion refers to an optional system that makes it so that you do not have to see comments that a particular user posts. This feature existed in Scratch 1.4, but the Scratch Team found that it buried the problem rather than solve it. Even if you block a user, that does not stop the user from harassing other Scratchers. If you are having a problem with a user, be sure to report that user with the Report button, or use Contact Us if the situation requires more explanation.” (source)

After reading this, I decided that blocking profile pictures wouldn't do more good than this.

This could lead to false reporting, so no support.
One of my replies to a post that said this:

"It wouldn't block the profile pictures for everyone - just for the user that reported it. Plus, the Scratch Team reviews every report so they'll just not do anything to the profile picture if it's not inappropriate. So the false-reporters are doing absolutely nothing at that point "

What if a profile picture is reported, and when the Scratch Team reviews it it's not inappropriate at all?

Another post reply:

“Well, here's my counter-argument. So a profile picture could say for a joke ”Thor is an evil god“.

But, even though that's not inappropriate, someone's dad could've been called Thor and maybe something happened to their dad which still disturbs them. In which case it's inappropriate for that one user but not for others.”

What if Scratchers find out that profile pictures get blocked when they get reported, and they just start reporting them for fun?

Well, the thing is, if you report a comment and you reload the page, you can't find it anymore which means that comments get hidden when they get reported and many Scratchers know this. But even after that, they don't report comments just because they dislike them. And as a continuation to the last section, if a moderator sees that a user reported a profile picture that is completely black with nothing on it, then they'll send an alert to a user since a black screen can obviously not affect anyone.

Worst case scenario (this means that only if false profile picture reports becomes a serious issue), the Scratch Team could make a time limit or alert system until the false reporting issues die away.

• If you feel like people can only get scared at a profile picture once, there are people who have psychological issues and I have encountered someone like that in this topic. (If you don't know what that means, people with psychological issues have problems in their brain, which is not their fault, but they can get affected by some scary things more than other people would. Not everyone has psychological issues, but some people might just feel uncomfortable by seeing spooky images)

• Please be constructive while replying to this suggestion, and don't just say “support” or “no support”. Explain why you like/dislike this suggestion and why you want it to be implemented or not – the Scratch Team looks at what the community thinks about suggestions and doesn't look at the amount of people who like one.

• Credits to @bigpuppy for provoking discussion and helping me improve this suggestion a lot.

• Credits to @–Explosion– for helping out with improving the OP!

• Credits to @R4356th for provoking thought on a particular subject!

This is a great idea, but there is one problem. All the false reporters would go around removing famous Scratcher's profile pictures.

MossW wrote:

This is a great idea, but there is one problem. All the false reporters would go around removing famous Scratcher's profile pictures.

It wouldn't block the profile pictures for everyone - just for the user that reported it. Plus, the Scratch Team reviews every report so they'll just not do anything to the profile picture if it's not inappropriate. So false-reporters are doing absolutely nothing at that point

-removed, I did not understand that it would only be for the people who reported it-

Removed; I miss-read the suggestion.

Peaceful_Dork wrote:

-snip-
But especially now, a lot of users are protesting against mass-false-reporting popular projects. I can imagine that if this were a feature, trolls would easily spam-report random people's pfps, and the community would be even more upset.

From what I see, only the false-reporter would be unable to see the pfp. Basically, they would be removing the pfp from their sight only, as the reporting system would think that they found the image disturbing. The pfp would only be removed it it violated the guidelines, but would remain hidden for the reporter.

Support. I do see how the moderators should find it useful-

Additionally, if a user reports a profile picture and the Scratch Team doesn't think it's inappropriate, it will remain hidden for the user who reported it since it could still be disturbing for them either way. If the Scratch Team does remove the profile picture though, then the “hidden” text will go away.

But I had a question- what if the user whose profile picture was reported changes the profile picture after the ST reviews it and does not think it is inappropriate?

Interesting idea, but this could lead to the removal of profile photos even if they ARE appropriate, in my opinion the current system works fine.

PizzaAddict4Life wrote:

Maybe at a certain threshold it would remove it. Because the profile pictures of famous scratchers again would fall victim to false reporting

--Explosion-- wrote:

Interesting idea, but this could lead to the removal of profile photos even if they ARE appropriate, in my opinion the current system works fine.

Unless I'm misinterpreting what you're saying, you should read this:

Nambaseking01 wrote:

It wouldn't block the profile pictures for everyone - just for the user that reported it. Plus, the Scratch Team reviews every report so they'll just not do anything to the profile picture if it's not inappropriate. So false-reporters are doing absolutely nothing at that point

OP: I think this is a pretty good idea, because I could definitely see this scenario happening. Perhaps instead of saying “Hidden,” it could just change to the default profile picture, though? Scratchers speak many different languages, so they may have to make a “Hidden” picture for each of these messages. The default profile picture has already been designed, and I think it fits this purpose pretty well.

I'm also interested to know your answer to R4356th's question. In addition to this, I do have one other worry: people using the “report” feature just so that the profile picture gets hidden for them, not because they think it breaks the Community Guidelines. Essentially, what if people realize that this happens, and then they start reporting profile pictures just because they don't like them and want them to be hidden for themselves? This may clog up the report queue.

oh! I misread that! Then yes, Support!

If the mass reporting craze hadn't happened, I would full-heartedly support this. I know trolls misusing new additions should not be my major concern, but I feel like, as many people have stated above, someone sooner or later would find it hilarious to take down some popular Scratcher's profile pictures for a bit until a moderator responds. But, I think that moderator response times are quite fast right now, so that is less of a concern. So, considering the risk of inappropriate images being shared as profile pictures, I'm sliding on the side of a support.

XCat wrote:

If the mass reporting craze hadn't happened, I would full-heartedly support this. I know trolls misusing new additions should not be my major concern, but I feel like, as many people have stated above, someone sooner or later would find it hilarious to take down some popular Scratcher's profile pictures for a bit until a moderator responds. But, I think that moderator response times are quite fast right now, so that is less of a concern. So, considering the risk of inappropriate images being shared as profile pictures, I'm sliding on the side of a support.

Unless I'm misinterpreting what you're saying, you should read this:

Nambaseking01 wrote:

It wouldn't block the profile pictures for everyone - just for the user that reported it. Plus, the Scratch Team reviews every report so they'll just not do anything to the profile picture if it's not inappropriate. So false-reporters are doing absolutely nothing at that point

bigpuppy wrote:

~Snip snap~

Sorry, I read that wrong Also, @Nambaseking01, you might want to emphasize that in the OP, maybe an "only for the user who reported them" would do the trick

bigpuppy wrote:

-Snip-

Oops, misread that. But that creates the concern that other Scratchers can still see a potentially inappropriate profile picture until it is checked by a moderator. A system like the one for reporting projects might lower the chance of many Scratchers stumbling upon an inappropriate profile picture..

I'll emphasize in the OP that by reporting a profile picture, it does not get removed for everyone, but only for the user that reported it in which case false reporting cannot happen. Thank you for recommending that!

R4356th wrote:

But I had a question- what if the user whose profile picture was reported changes the profile picture after the ST reviews it and does not think it is inappropriate?

Well, here's my counter-argument. So a profile picture could say for a joke “Thor is an evil god”.

But, even though that's not appropriate, someone's dad could've been called Thor and maybe something bad to happened to that dad. In which case it's inappropriate for that one user but not for others.

XCat wrote:

Oops, misread that. But that creates the concern that other Scratchers can still see a potentially inappropriate profile picture until it is checked by a moderator. A system like the one for reporting projects might lower the chance of many Scratchers stumbling upon an inappropriate profile picture..

Did you think before saying that? It gets reported, and then the pfp gets blocked for that one user, and then a moderator will see it either way.

bigpuppy wrote:

OP: I think this is a pretty good idea, because I could definitely see this scenario happening. Perhaps instead of saying “Hidden,” it could just change to the default profile picture, though? Scratchers speak many different languages, so they may have to make a “Hidden” picture for each of these messages. The default profile picture has already been designed, and I think it fits this purpose pretty well.

Great idea! I'll that to OP after giving credits to you.

bigpuppy wrote:

In addition to this, I do have one other worry: people using the “report” feature just so that the profile picture gets hidden for them, not because they think it breaks the Community Guidelines. Essentially, what if people realize that this happens, and then they start reporting profile pictures just because they don't like them and want them to be hidden for themselves? This may clog up the report queue.

Well, the thing is, comments get hidden if you report them and reload the page. So someone could also be reporting comments because they don't like them

Worst case scenario, the Scratch Team could make a system that only allows users to report pfps every one hour or so, but even this is worst-case scenario, which means it will happen when this really becomes an issue.

Nambaseking01 wrote:

MossW wrote:

This is a great idea, but there is one problem. All the false reporters would go around removing famous Scratcher's profile pictures.

It wouldn't block the profile pictures for everyone - just for the user that reported it. Plus, the Scratch Team reviews every report so they'll just not do anything to the profile picture if it's not inappropriate. So false-reporters are doing absolutely nothing at that point

Okay.

Actually, I'm writing a better solution to @bigpuppy's problem right now.

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