I feel this is an upcoming problem. While it is getting more popular over the years, many kids still don't have email accounts so they can send inquiries about alerts, project removals, etc. I have also been presented with the problem that they couldn't use their parents or guardians account either to contact the Scratch Team.

We need to find a way to let others talk to the Scratch Team privately. I suggest the Scratch Team sets an option to let the person talk to them using a live chat system that can only be used for inquiries about alerts and bans. This system is only allowed to be started for 48 hours after the alert has been sent (to prevent spam), and is available while the person is blocked.

This way, the user can be contacted directly by the Scratch Team and get assistance directly. New messages will appear in the messages section in a new box called, “Private Messages from the Scratch Team”. The system will use the same whitelist and similar setup as the Comments Section. There can only be 1000 characters per message, and a wait time of 15 seconds between each message sent. Deleting messages cannot occur.

An e-mail is required to confirm the account on the Scratch website (otherwise, an account will not be able to comment or share projects); so if they did not have an e-mail, they likely signed up with permission from a trusted adult such as a parent or teacher. If they have an inquiry, they can just use the adult's e-mail as the contact.

cheddargirl wrote:

An e-mail is required to confirm the account on the Scratch website (otherwise, an account will not be able to comment or share projects); so if they did not have an e-mail, they likely signed up with permission from a trusted adult such as a parent or teacher. If they have an inquiry, they can just use the adult's e-mail as the contact.

However, I have also been presented with the problem that they couldn't use their parents account either to contact you guys. Is there a solution to that?

Semi-Support.

Kids can get their parents to send the email.
But then, if a kid does not have an email, doesn't use their parents email, it wont do any good to enter a fake email address.

DownsGameClub wrote:

cheddargirl wrote:

An e-mail is required to confirm the account on the Scratch website (otherwise, an account will not be able to comment or share projects); so if they did not have an e-mail, they likely signed up with permission from a trusted adult such as a parent or teacher. If they have an inquiry, they can just use the adult's e-mail as the contact.

However, I have also been presented with the problem that they couldn't use their parents account either to contact you guys. Is there a solution to that?

Ninja'ed

xD

*waits for inevitable ‘rejected by the stickies’ post.
I fully support. My cousin sister wishes to join Scratch, but she doesn't have her own email, and her parent's email us work related, so she can't contact the Scratch Team through that.

Why not use contact us and request a reply by alert?

DownsGameClub wrote:

cheddargirl wrote:

An e-mail is required to confirm the account on the Scratch website (otherwise, an account will not be able to comment or share projects); so if they did not have an e-mail, they likely signed up with permission from a trusted adult such as a parent or teacher. If they have an inquiry, they can just use the adult's e-mail as the contact.

However, I have also been presented with the problem that they couldn't use their parents account either to contact you guys. Is there a solution to that?

Why would they not be able to put the adult's e-mail in the reply? Unless the e-mail is defunct, then surely the adult would be able to respond on the child's behalf.

MegaApuTurkUltra wrote:

Why not use contact us and request a reply by alert?

I am pretty sure that hasn't happened before and probably won't happen.

cheddargirl wrote:

DownsGameClub wrote:

cheddargirl wrote:

An e-mail is required to confirm the account on the Scratch website (otherwise, an account will not be able to comment or share projects); so if they did not have an e-mail, they likely signed up with permission from a trusted adult such as a parent or teacher. If they have an inquiry, they can just use the adult's e-mail as the contact.

However, I have also been presented with the problem that they couldn't use their parents account either to contact you guys. Is there a solution to that?

Why would they not be able to put the adult's e-mail in the reply? Unless the e-mail is defunct, then surely the adult would be able to respond on the child's behalf.

The parents of the child will probably not understand the context unless the child explains it to him. Also, many emails that others use may be work-related like @Lythium explained, so that would probably not work out too well.

DownsGameClub wrote:

MegaApuTurkUltra wrote:

Why not use contact us and request a reply by alert?

I am pretty sure that hasn't happened before and probably won't happen.

cheddargirl wrote:

DownsGameClub wrote:

cheddargirl wrote:

An e-mail is required to confirm the account on the Scratch website (otherwise, an account will not be able to comment or share projects); so if they did not have an e-mail, they likely signed up with permission from a trusted adult such as a parent or teacher. If they have an inquiry, they can just use the adult's e-mail as the contact.

However, I have also been presented with the problem that they couldn't use their parents account either to contact you guys. Is there a solution to that?

Why would they not be able to put the adult's e-mail in the reply? Unless the e-mail is defunct, then surely the adult would be able to respond on the child's behalf.

The parents of the child will probably not understand the context unless the child explains it to him. Also, many emails that others use may be work-related like @Lythium explained, so that would probably not work out too well.

In cases of blocked users who appeal for a blocked account, we have seen the child use an adult's e-mail, and the adult will ask for context and ST member handling the appeal will explain it. I would imagine the process would be the same with explaining why an alert was sent to an account.

We have also seen work e-mails being used as the contact information, with the adult replying through that, so I'm not sure how using a work-related e-mail would be an issue here.

Bump.

DownsGameClub wrote:

MegaApuTurkUltra wrote:

Why not use contact us and request a reply by alert?

I am pretty sure that hasn't happened before and probably won't happen.

“hasn't happened before” - well, now it can happen!
“probably won't happen” - why?

Firedrake969 wrote:

DownsGameClub wrote:

MegaApuTurkUltra wrote:

Why not use contact us and request a reply by alert?

I am pretty sure that hasn't happened before and probably won't happen.

“hasn't happened before” - well, now it can happen!
“probably won't happen” - why?

Scratchers would assume that Alerts would most likely mean something bad, so wouldn't assume it would just be for messages. Also, that idea of sending messages via Alerts never came up to me until now.

No support. This would take too much time of the ST reading and replying to all of these comments. I'm sure

Some people would abuse it and spam

People would use it for small issues that would take the ST's time. If people e-mail, then the issue is probably pretty important.

Studio42 wrote:

No support. This would take too much time of the ST reading and replying to all of these comments. I'm sure

Some people would abuse it and spam

People would use it for small issues that would take the ST's time. If people e-mail, then the issue is probably pretty important.

I am also pretty sure that it already takes time for the Scratch Team to answer emails. Also, “abuse it and spam” is a bit ambiguous. Could you specify since I addressed this problem here-

DownsGameClub wrote:

… This system is only allowed to be started for 48 hours after the alert has been sent (to prevent spam), and is available while the person is blocked.
…

Firedrake969 wrote:

DownsGameClub wrote:

MegaApuTurkUltra wrote:

Why not use contact us and request a reply by alert?

I am pretty sure that hasn't happened before and probably won't happen.

“hasn't happened before” - well, now it can happen!
“probably won't happen” - why?

The ST's contacted my via alert for non-alert things before

MegaApuTurkUltra wrote:

Firedrake969 wrote:

DownsGameClub wrote:

MegaApuTurkUltra wrote:

Why not use contact us and request a reply by alert?

I am pretty sure that hasn't happened before and probably won't happen.

“hasn't happened before” - well, now it can happen!
“probably won't happen” - why?

The ST's contacted my via alert for non-alert things before

Still, I also find that is somewhat informal too. In my opinion, alerts should be used for alerting a user of something bad. Also, a message with a blue box rather than a regular message just seems a bit awkward.

I don't think the ST will implement something to make it ‘less awkward’.

Sigton

Semi support, both of my parents have work related emails, and I only got away with an account here because I have an email myself. But however I can see this easily being abused.

Lythium wrote:

*waits for inevitable ‘rejected by the stickies’ post.
I fully support. My cousin sister wishes to join Scratch, but she doesn't have her own email, and her parent's email us work related, so she can't contact the Scratch Team through that.

Your cousin's sister is probably your cousin too (unless it's a half-sister) so you don't have to say "cousin's sister". Just say cousin.