bump
new title btw

I like the new title, fits the idea better

I support this even more now, I have made an experiment, created a filler, and because I have like 250 more followers now, it got much higher on trending than a much better game that I had made that took a week.

Darkstar177 wrote:

I support this even more now, I have made an experiment, created a filler, and because I have like 250 more followers now, it got much higher on trending than a much better game that I had made that took a week.

yeahh..

Support. It seems kind of unfair that the same famous Scratchers just publish a project and then it's on trending. I feel like the trending page should stay the same and a new page should be added that's like what the OP suggested and it also becomes the default page on Explore. But if the project has only one love or favorite or less then it can't be on the page, but the chances of a project with such low loves/favorites being on trending would be extremely rare, so I wouldn't see inappropriate projects being a problem at all.

This will help balance out our “popularity”. I know Scratch isn't about being popular, it's about having fun, but it may not be too fun if not much people are noticing your projects. I put work into my projects and they don't get much loves and favorites.

No no no no support at all, sorry. This would be too harmful to the community. Here's why. Please think about this.

LegoManiac04 wrote:

So Scratch is all about creativity, right? Not follows, favorites, or loves? Then why is 95% of the projects on Explore by famous people who have a lot of followers?

Because when you're famous, you have a large fanbase. The reason they follow you is because they enjoy your content and want to see more from you. So when you share something, people expect something good from the scratcher they like so they view and love the project, and the more famous the scratcher, the more likely he is to get on trending fast.
Well, a lot of famous people are sharing things as they're coming back to Scratch, and logically they get on trending. Same thing happens with youtube. Celebs get on trending all the time. Why would Scratch trending be different, then?

The issue is that many (not all though) of these projects are very short and have very little creativity in them.

I agree. There's a lot of platformers and Q&As and stuff, well, that's just what the community likes. That's just how it is. Any minecraft or floor gang post on reddit will instantly get you karma, it's the same thing as Scratch, but on a completely different platform that isn't related to Scratch or programming. It's just how the community works. We all fancy something and it becomes the things that will instant get you famous whether it's creative or not.

But, being famous, they know that it doesn't matter how little creativity they put into their projects, because they, no matter what, will end up high on Explore.

How do you know that? You can't assume that unless you are the people who made the projects that got on trending, or if they deliberately told you that they don't put creativity in their project. In fact, I haven't made a single platformer and never even get on the first page of explore.

And then there's the “unfamous” people that put a lot, and I mean a lot of creativity into their projects, and never see the light of the Explore page.

And then there's the unfamous people who put a lot of effort into their picture that they post on imgur or insta or any social media and who don't get recognised.

Yeah, I get fame is “all about luck”, but that doesn't make it fair that there are so many underrated
Scratchers out there that are constantly being drowned out by the famous ones…

How did the famous get famous in the first place? This isn't a rhetorical question, there is actually a reason why the famous people got famous in the first place. You don't just join Scratch and boom you're famous and now you're meta. There's exceptions of course but really… there's too few for it to be a strong argument.
I'm sorry to say this, but every site you go on that has attracted many people WILL have underrated people. Any online community. Whether it be Scratch, reddit, insta, imgur, deviantart, youtube, tiktok, minecraft, roblox, spotify, there's always underrated people. And that will always remain a fact. Why? Because if everyone is famous and has the same amount of followers…. then nobody is famous. And if nobody is famous, welp.
There's saddly nothing you can do about this except show your support for those creators. I know many people out there who are underrated and who deserve much more. I still follow them. Sorry… you just gotta show your support for them as much as you can.

My Suggestion is that we need to create a ratio system that will take one's followers into account when putting projects on Explore. The more followers, the harder it is to get on explore. The less followers, the easier.

No no no no no.
List of reasons why people become famous:

• They are known for being everywhere.
  
• Active in the community.
  
• Started a trend.
  
• Makes astounding projects.
  
• Does a lot of F4F and follow a lot of people.
  
• Other “famous” (again, that's vague) scratchers follow them.
  
• They simply have talent.
  
• A ton of luck.
  
• A shoutout from another person with a large enough audience that they get followers fast.
  

Imagine having 5K followers and 4K of them are just because you are super active in the community and you are very nice and you post a project like once every 3 months, but you're not that good at making projects. Then you actually make a good project because you struggle making projects that are good, but since you are famous, you can't get on explore even though you've spend genuine time trying to make your project good and so that a lot of people would notice it. And what about griffpatch, who makes astounding projects that deserve to be first on trending? What if he couldn't get on explore at all, in the end? And if once you are no longer underrated, other underrated people take the spot, then nobody is underrated. And that brings us to the point that I made one paragraph earlier: if nobody is underrated, then nobody is famous. And that means everyone is underrated. Paradoxical?

This will automatically knock down a lot of the famous Scratcher's projects, and bring up a lot of the unfamous's projects. Would this be fair to the famous Scratcher's though?

Lots of projects from famous scratchers are good. Is famous a certain follower count number? Or is it a top, like the top 500 are famous and so once you're in the top 500 you can no longer get on explore? Then other people would take over the top 500's. And once the people who used to be there get on trending again, the cycle will repeat and that agains brings us to the point I made about nobody being famous.

Of course. They already have thousands of followers, so there's still a lot of people that will see their projects.

Because half the time, they deserve those thousands of followers and views! Scratch: lots of the famous ones are clickbaity, lots of the famous ones are questionable, and a lot of the other famous one are genuinely talented. Same thing could be said with youtube. And also every other social media.
If you are famous, in some way it's because you deserve it. If you are underrated maybe you're not active enough or you aren't as active as the others.

That's why I think this is a very bad idea. There's too many scenarios and ifs and possibilities and factors that this would cause more harm than good to the community.
—

Unrelated to the suggestion, I'd like to add on to my post.

I think there is too much oppression against “famous” scratchers. It's not their fault that they're famous. The community just decided that they would be famous. And if you don't like that some people are famous, why do you follow famous scratchers if you don't like the fact that they are famous?

All in all, just leave Explore how it is. It's fine like this. The community is kinda the people who decide who will be on explore, indirectly.

This whole thing is a reply to NTB. :‪)

Because when you're famous, you have a large fanbase. The reason they follow you is because they enjoy your content and want to see more from you. So when you share something, people expect something good from the scratcher they like so they view and love the project, and the more famous the scratcher, the more likely he is to get on trending fast.
Well, a lot of famous people are sharing things as they're coming back to Scratch, and logically they get on trending. Same thing happens with youtube. Celebs get on trending all the time. Why would Scratch trending be different, then?

The large follower base is exactly why those projects shouldn't be on trending, they already have a large amount of support in:
•  Notifications to their followers
• Being on “what the community is ____ing” on the front page
• Notifications from people who loved and faved to people following said love and favers
• People checking their profile often

Are you arguing that the goals of Scratch are the same as YT? YT is to get money from advertising, so Google gets money off of content they already know people will like. Scratch, on the other hand is designed to foster creativity, help people grow their skills, and provide a platform for people to showcase their work. If the same people have their work showcased constantly, there won't be room for other people.

I agree. There's a lot of platformers and Q&As and stuff, well, that's just what the community likes. That's just how it is. Any minecraft or floor gang post on reddit will instantly get you karma, it's the same thing as Scratch, but on a completely different platform that isn't related to Scratch or programming. It's just how the community works. We all fancy something and it becomes the things that will instant get you famous whether it's creative or not.

3 out of 3 people so far don't enjoy the exposition of platformers and Q&As, seems unlikely that those are what the community actually likes. People are just more likely to view stuff by famous Scratchers, who make these types of projects because they're easy.
Similarly to YT, Reddit has completely different goals than Scratch.

How do you know that? You can't assume that unless you are the people who made the projects that got on trending, or if they deliberately told you that they don't put creativity in their project. In fact, I haven't made a single platformer and never even get on the first page of explore.

You just said the community doesn't care about creativity and non-creative stuff ends up on the Explore pages. Now you disagree?
“In fact, I haven't made a single platformer and never even get on the first page of explore.” Uh, that proves our point.

And then there's the unfamous people who put a lot of effort into their picture that they post on imgur or insta or any social media and who don't get recognised [sic].

Again, design goals of Insta vs. Scratch?

How did the famous get famous in the first place? This isn't a rhetorical question, there is actually a reason why the famous people got famous in the first place. You don't just join Scratch and boom you're famous and now you're meta. There's exceptions of course but really… there's too few for it to be a strong argument.
I'm sorry to say this, but every site you go on that has attracted many people WILL have underrated people. Any online community. Whether it be Scratch, reddit, insta, imgur, deviantart, youtube, tiktok, minecraft, roblox, spotify, there's always underrated people. And that will always remain a fact. Why? Because if everyone is famous and has the same amount of followers…. then nobody is famous. And if nobody is famous, welp.
There's saddly nothing you can do about this except show your support for those creators. I know many people out there who are underrated and who deserve much more. I still follow them. Sorry… you just gotta show your support for them as much as you can.

It's a “fact of nature”, now, that there will be underrated people, and we can't change the Explore algorithm to change that?
Non-famous does not imply underrated, so underrated people getting more attention doesn't mean everyone will be famous. Your whole thing is riddled with logical mis-steps like this…

No no no no no.
List of reasons why people become famous:
They are known for being everywhere.
Active in the community.
Started a trend.
Makes astounding projects.
Does a lot of F4F and follow a lot of people.
Other “famous” (again, that's vague) scratchers follow them.
They simply have talent.
A ton of luck.
A shoutout from another person with a large enough audience that they get followers fast.
Imagine having 5K followers and 4K of them are just because you are super active in the community and you are very nice and you post a project like once every 3 months, but you're not that good at making projects. Then you actually make a good project because you struggle making projects that are good, but since you are famous, you can't get on explore even though you've spend genuine time trying to make your project good and so that a lot of people would notice it. And what about griffpatch, who makes astounding projects that deserve to be first on trending? What if he couldn't get on explore at all, in the end? And if once you are no longer underrated, other underrated people take the spot, then nobody is underrated. And that brings us to the point that I made one paragraph earlier: if nobody is underrated, then nobody is famous. And that means everyone is underrated. Paradoxical?

Imagine having 4K followers because you're super nice? And you you feel like not being nice anymore, and you post a project, and it doesn't get on the Explore page? Well boohoo, the large, large majority of Scratchers deal with that without 5K followers notified when they post a project.
What about griffpatch? Do you seriously think everybody discovers his projects through explore?

Also, you really seem to think that you are either famous or underrated. (Hint: You're not. Some people suck at making projects and don't have any followers. It's actually the vast majority of the 45M accounts here.) There can be a (albeit a little simplified :p) community that consists of:
• Famous people, which includes the formerly underrated people
• Non-famous people, who don't make good projects.
I understand that this will never happen, but changing the Explore algorithm is a step towards reducing underrated people.

Lots of projects from famous scratchers are good. Is famous a certain follower count number? Or is it a top, like the top 500 are famous and so once you're in the top 500 you can no longer get on explore? Then other people would take over the top 500's. And once the people who used to be there get on trending again, the cycle will repeat and that agains brings us to the point I made about nobody being famous.

(Ok, just for the record, your point about nobody being famous is logically invalid, as shown in previous section.) Math has a wonderful tool called division. In some oversimplified equation:
How easy it is to get on trending = how trendy the project is/(how popular you are * magic coefficient of Explore optimization)
So, if you are famous, and make good projects, it's still possible to get trending.
Just if you're less famous, for a bit it will be slightly easier until you're more famous.

Because half the time, they deserve those thousands of followers and views! Scratch: lots of the famous ones are clickbaity, lots of the famous ones are questionable, and a lot of the other famous one are genuinely talented. Same thing could be said with youtube. And also every other social media.
If you are famous, in some way it's because you deserve it. If you are underrated maybe you're not active enough or you aren't as active as the others.

That's why I think this is a very bad idea. There's too many scenarios and ifs and possibilities and factors that this would cause more harm than good to the community.

Whether they deserve it or not, the point stands: they have plenty of people who look at their projects. (Refer to section 1 par. 1.)
{Insert second part of par. 1 here.}
I know plenty of active, underrated people who actually spend time on their projects. If this change was implemented, they could get on Explore and become more famous, then they'd have the same difficulty getting on as the other famous people.

Your argument has mainly consisted of:
• Famous people need Explore: They actually don't. I very rarely visit Explore, and I still get an obscene amount of popular projects recommended to me. And section 1 par. 1.
• That's just how things are! Even on other sites: Which have completely different goals (more often than not, advertising) than Scratch.
• If there are fewer underrated people, then everyone will be famous, making fame worthless: You were doing good except for the whole “If there are fewer underrated people, then everyone will be famous” thing.
• I like it the way it is: Totally relevant. Who specifically, do you want to know when they release projects? Follow them. Are you receiving too many notifications? Unfollow the people who's notifications you don't want. And you'll probably notice the famous person's projects anyway.

Nice try, though.
If you decide to respond, you might wanna do it on my profile, just in case the people here don't want swaths of words 3.5K strong. :‪P

1132262 wrote:

-snip-

100% agreed. I was going to say something like this but didn't want to type it out on my phone so I was going to wait until I went on my laptop, but then once I did there was this post that took the words out of my keyboard.

May I add something to this?

I respectfully disagree with much of NTB's argument, however, there are some parts that I agree with. The 5K followers example stood out to me, and so I'm going to bring up something that I mentioned earlier in this forum. I think that it would be faulty to look at the follower count for the reasons that NTB listed. I think that it would be better if the algorithm looked at the average of loves, favorites, and views than the followers.

BuMp

Bump

NOTE:
It looks like the ST actually put something like this in place- It appears that “rapidly loved” projects aren't making it onto, or at least high on, Explore, and I've noticed a lot less projects from popular Scratchers appearing there.
After hearing someone talking to a ST Member about this, I remembered this topic, and I remembered that I forgot to reply to NilsTheBest's post, so here we go.
—

Because when you're famous, you have a large fanbase. The reason they follow you is because they enjoy your content and want to see more from you. So when you share something, people expect something good from the scratcher they like so they view and love the project, and the more famous the scratcher, the more likely he is to get on trending fast.
Well, a lot of famous people are sharing things as they're coming back to Scratch, and logically they get on trending. Same thing happens with youtube. Celebs get on trending all the time. Why would Scratch trending be different, then?

This actually proves my point- If you “have a large fanbase”, why do you need to be on Trending?

Same thing happens with youtube. Celebs get on trending all the time. Why would Scratch trending be different, then?

Scratch isn't Youtube, so I don't see what one has to do with the other.

There's a lot of platformers and Q&As and stuff, well, that's just what the community likes. That's just how it is. Any minecraft or floor gang post on reddit will instantly get you karma, it's the same thing as Scratch, but on a completely different platform that isn't related to Scratch or programming. It's just how the community works. We all fancy something and it becomes the things that will instant get you famous whether it's creative or not.

Which, on a completely different note, is extremely ironic considering how many people are against “generic platformers”…
But, if the community likes it, they can find it. Just a quick search and ta-da, there you go. I suppose one could still say “but why should people have to go off to find it? If that's what the community likes, why should we display something they ”don't"? My argument against this is that, for one, they can still see these projects on the front page in many on the rows, two, a simple search won't hurt, plus you'll see many more projects related to your search, and three, it's good to see new things often. Not only is variation simply just good, but it'll give others new ideas too.

You can't assume that unless you are the people who made the projects that got on trending, or if they deliberately told you that they don't put creativity in their project. In fact, I haven't made a single platformer and never even get on the first page of explore.

Just look at Explore. You'll see projects that are very uncreative but yet still have a plethora of views, loves, and favs- Plus I never said that everyone doesn't put creativity into their projects.

And then there's the unfamous people who put a lot of effort into their picture that they post on imgur or insta or any social media and who don't get recognised.

Again, two completely different things, therefore I don't see what one has to do with the other.

Because if everyone is famous and has the same amount of followers…. then nobody is famous. And if nobody is famous, welp.

I'd love to hear why you think this is a bad thing.
If everyone is famous, then everyone isn't famous, therefore making fame basically nonexistent. Fame tbh is quite toxic, as it makes people that aren't famous feel unappreciated, and like no matter how hard they try, welp. This would give the unfamous an actual chance.

There's saddly nothing you can do about this except show your support for those creators. I know many people out there who are underrated and who deserve much more. I still follow them. Sorry… you just gotta show your support for them as much as you can.

And how can you show support to them if you don't even know they exist?

Imagine having 5K followers and 4K of them are just because you are super active in the community and you are very nice and you post a project like once every 3 months, but you're not that good at making projects. Then you actually make a good project because you struggle making projects that are good, but since you are famous, you can't get on explore even though you've spend genuine time trying to make your project good and so that a lot of people would notice it.

Interestingly enough, I completely fit into this scenario.
I get what you're trying to say, but you have to remember that there are other places where your project can still be seen. For example, I'm nowhere to be seen on Explore, but I've been sitting in Top Loved for a few days now. Plus, I'm not suggesting to completely remove famous people's chances of getting on Explore all together, just lowering their chances of being high on Explore.

And what about griffpatch, who makes astounding projects that deserve to be first on trending? What if he couldn't get on explore at all, in the end?

Considering how much attention his projects get before getting on Explore, he should be fine. But, he could technically still be able to get on Explore considering how much attention his projects would still get.

Lots of projects from famous scratchers are good. Is famous a certain follower count number? Or is it a top, like the top 500 are famous and so once you're in the top 500 you can no longer get on explore? Then other people would take over the top 500's.

Yes, many projects from famous Scratchers are good. And the number at which one is famous is debatable, but, like I said, this won't completely remove people's chances of getting on Explore.

And once the people who used to be there get on trending again, the cycle will repeat and that agains brings us to the point I made about nobody being famous.

And, if this said cycle repeats, what's wrong with that? If it constantly repeats, I don't see the issue…

Because half the time, they deserve those thousands of followers and views! Scratch: lots of the famous ones are clickbaity, lots of the famous ones are questionable, and a lot of the other famous one are genuinely talented. Same thing could be said with youtube. And also every other social media.
If you are famous, in some way it's because you deserve it.

You have the views, you have the followers, you have the fame. Yes, you earned it. Congrats. But, why do you need more?

If you are underrated maybe you're not active enough or you aren't as active as the others.

Ah yes, the age old issue- “You don't share projects frequently enough, but I want your projects to be ‘high quality’ and have a lot of time and effort put into them.”
Plus then explain why many famous Scratchers, such as Griffpatch, don't upload often and yet are still where they are?

And if you don't like that some people are famous, why do you follow famous scratchers if you don't like the fact that they are famous?

Because they make content that I like and I want to see more of. I couldn't care less about how many followers one has, all I care about is who they are as a person and/or the projects they make. I think you're seeing this more as an attack towards people that are famous, where I'm suggesting that we make it easier for underrated Scratchers to get their projects noticed, and less easier for Scratchers that a lot of people already know are are “famous” to have a harder time getting higher on Explore.
—

To expand a bit more on my suggestion, I don't intended to “make everyone famous”, or to hurt already famous Scratchers, but rather to bring recognition to projects that should be recognized.
Fame on Scratch can be seen in two ways: Having a lot of followers, or being constantly on the Explore page. The first is fine, no issues with that, but the same people constantly drowning out and pushing down other's projects? I don't think that's okay, especially since Scratch simply isn't about fame.

Support! There are so many unpopular Scratchers that never get noticed, even if they put in a lot of work.

Note to self: start making more projects.

I don't agree with the user's followers being taken into account. I wouldn't mind the explore page algorithm getting changed, I wouldn't mind finding underrated projects from time to time, but I think, if anything, the projects view count should be the factor.

I hate it when people think high followers=high views on projects/fame and that kind of thing. I also hate it when people say stuff like the OP is, about it taking from follower amount. The reason? Take me as an example. I have 117 followers. I shared a project, put it in no studios, no advertising, etc, and it got 17 views. A very large number of my followers are inactive, or follow me for a different reason to ‘they like and play` my projects. That’s not even taking F4F or Free Follow into account. A user can have very high numbers of followers and nobody looks at their projects!

On top of that, New Scratchers might stop saying ‘Please Follow Me!’ and they would start saying ‘Don’t Follow Me!' because with this algorithm, you turn followers into a bad thing. And then some scratchers might tell everyone to unfollow them so they can get on the Explore page. Maybe this is going too far though.

The reason I think that Views should be the factor is that people only Love/Favourite projects they enjoy if nobody enjoys the project, nobody would love/favourite it, and it would be on Explore forever, and the genuinely great and creative projects, which would get loved and favourited really quickly, would be got in seconds and nobody would look at them again.

I do agree with the Explore algorithm being changed though. At least so ‘Trending’ isn't the first page that comes up. I agree that the algorithm is unfair on underrated scratchers. I know Scratch isn't about fame, I don't care about it, really, but it's still nice to know that people are looking at my projects.

Bluebatstar wrote:

I don't agree with the user's followers being taken into account. I wouldn't mind the explore page algorithm getting changed, I wouldn't mind finding underrated projects from time to time, but I think, if anything, the projects view count should be the factor.

I hate it when people think high followers=high views on projects/fame and that kind of thing. I also hate it when people say stuff like the OP is, about it taking from follower amount. The reason? Take me as an example. I have 117 followers. I shared a project, put it in no studios, no advertising, etc, and it got 17 views. A very large number of my followers are inactive, or follow me for a different reason to ‘they like and play` my projects. That’s not even taking F4F or Free Follow into account. A user can have very high numbers of followers and nobody looks at their projects!

On top of that, New Scratchers might stop saying ‘Please Follow Me!’ and they would start saying ‘Don’t Follow Me!' because with this algorithm, you turn followers into a bad thing. And then some scratchers might tell everyone to unfollow them so they can get on the Explore page. Maybe this is going too far though.

The reason I think that Views should be the factor is that people only Love/Favourite projects they enjoy if nobody enjoys the project, nobody would love/favourite it, and it would be on Explore forever, and the genuinely great and creative projects, which would get loved and favourited really quickly, would be got in seconds and nobody would look at them again.

I do agree with the Explore algorithm being changed though. At least so ‘Trending’ isn't the first page that comes up. I agree that the algorithm is unfair on underrated scratchers. I know Scratch isn't about fame, I don't care about it, really, but it's still nice to know that people are looking at my projects.

Would “followers recently gained” be better? That would somewhat remedy the problem of inactive followers…

Semi-support. Because if you based it on how little followers, there would be a lot of pong projects on Explore, but I like the overall idea.

1132262 wrote:

Would “followers recently gained” be better? That would somewhat remedy the problem of inactive followers…

No. Followers would still be a bad thing.

I agree with this.
Right now the explore page is full of:
-anything related to famous scratchers (like fan art or “famous scratchers as”)
-anything by famous scratchers
-anything related to minecraft
Its getting boring cause i dont have minecraft it's always from the same scratchers, and i already know their stuff because i followed them.

And i would also like to see more quality scratchers that aren't always the same. This could give all those underrated people out there a chance to be known. Its not fun that i make something and it gets nothing more than 20 views and 2 loves.

1132262 wrote:

Bluebatstar wrote:

I don't agree with the user's followers being taken into account. I wouldn't mind the explore page algorithm getting changed, I wouldn't mind finding underrated projects from time to time, but I think, if anything, the projects view count should be the factor.

I hate it when people think high followers=high views on projects/fame and that kind of thing. I also hate it when people say stuff like the OP is, about it taking from follower amount. The reason? Take me as an example. I have 117 followers. I shared a project, put it in no studios, no advertising, etc, and it got 17 views. A very large number of my followers are inactive, or follow me for a different reason to ‘they like and play` my projects. That’s not even taking F4F or Free Follow into account. A user can have very high numbers of followers and nobody looks at their projects!

On top of that, New Scratchers might stop saying ‘Please Follow Me!’ and they would start saying ‘Don’t Follow Me!' because with this algorithm, you turn followers into a bad thing. And then some scratchers might tell everyone to unfollow them so they can get on the Explore page. Maybe this is going too far though.

The reason I think that Views should be the factor is that people only Love/Favourite projects they enjoy if nobody enjoys the project, nobody would love/favourite it, and it would be on Explore forever, and the genuinely great and creative projects, which would get loved and favourited really quickly, would be got in seconds and nobody would look at them again.

I do agree with the Explore algorithm being changed though. At least so ‘Trending’ isn't the first page that comes up. I agree that the algorithm is unfair on underrated scratchers. I know Scratch isn't about fame, I don't care about it, really, but it's still nice to know that people are looking at my projects.

Would “followers recently gained” be better? That would somewhat remedy the problem of inactive followers…

I didn't think of that, that's not a bad idea, but a lot of the problems I mentioned would still apply.

Personally, I think that Scratch is about fun, which includes fun to learn, and fun to be famous. Not for creativity or being original. I mean, it's good, but you don't need to do it and it's not like people will always be mad at it.