Why is the Scratch Community so toxic?

pqsgraham

I've noticed that recently the Scratch community has gotten increasingly toxic, be it bullying or insults or inappropriate projects, or even sarcasm and disrespect. Has this always been a problem? Thank you!

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sportfan999

It is toxic. I don't know why, maybe the political junk excitement going around?

look who's back!

pqsgraham

Yeah. When I was a New Scratcher way back in 2018, it wasn't so toxic. It was just a place to code and share your coding with the world. That being said, I wasn't noticed and I didn't know how to comment. Heck, I didn't even know how to follow somebody!

i have grown up. please ignore all of my posts from before 2022. they don't represent the way i am at all

ConfusedBiscuit

I joined back in 2019 and I will have to agree that the disrespect and arguing has unfourtanetly gone up.

It's most likely caused by the problems going on in the world such as racial movements, LGBT+ movements, etc. These are allowed to be discussed, but if you see someone being harmful, please report their comments.

i like pokemon a normal amount

Ihatr

It's just an outpost of the internet in general. The internet is full of

pqsgraham wrote:
bullying or insults or even sarcasm and disrespect

and it's just that the internet ways infected Scratch, causing all of this drama, and leading people to believe that the community is toxic

this is a link

Super_Scratch_Bros20

It's actually the world that is “toxic”. As long as passion exists, there will always be selfishness, greed, and overall immaturity.

SquirreIstar

I created an equation:

Less time at school or work = More time on the Internet = More interest in Scratch = More people on Scratch = More toxicity

Moved to @Alphysse

UnconstructivePoster

I think one factor may be that there are simply more people on Scratch now at any given time, especially with quarantine causing many people to stay at home and go online. Younger kids in particular may turn to Scratch as their go-to activity since it's an educational website that parents may trust them to use and they're less likely to have other forms of social media.

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pqsgraham

UnconstructivePoster wrote:
Younger kids, in particular, may turn to Scratch as their go-to activity since it's an educational website that parents may trust them to use

When you say “educational website” I feel like that's a pretty broad term. I'd say it's about 30/70 educational and non-educational, respectively. And when you say “younger kids,” I know that 80% of people on here are over the age of 10. I even came across a sixty-year-old Scratcher! Now that's just creepy.

i have grown up. please ignore all of my posts from before 2022. they don't represent the way i am at all

ComixMaker

pqsgraham wrote:
UnconstructivePoster wrote:
Younger kids, in particular, may turn to Scratch as their go-to activity since it's an educational website that parents may trust them to use

When you say “educational website” I feel like that's a pretty broad term. I'd say it's about 30/70 educational and non-educational, respectively. And when you say “younger kids,” I know that 80% of people on here are over the age of 10. I even came across a sixty-year-old Scratcher! Now that's just creepy.

Well, it is a site for learning how to code, anyone could learn something they want to. Maybe because of how much Scratch reinforces the fact that children (mostly eight-year olds) use this site to learn to code, I wished that they said it more like “anyone can learn how to code”.
Also, most older people are here because of the community, (odd how I use that argument in this forum of all forums) to push limits of projects, to teach others (I've seen a retired game dev teaching others tips on how to code) or just for the fun of it.
Like what @UnconstructivePoster said, most people use Scratch as their go-to activity site, to work on projects or socialize. I just felt a little offended when some people (not just you) think it's “creepy” that older people use this website.

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UnconstructivePoster

pqsgraham wrote:
UnconstructivePoster wrote:
Younger kids, in particular, may turn to Scratch as their go-to activity since it's an educational website that parents may trust them to use

When you say “educational website” I feel like that's a pretty broad term. I'd say it's about 30/70 educational and non-educational, respectively. And when you say “younger kids,” I know that 80% of people on here are over the age of 10. I even came across a sixty-year-old Scratcher! Now that's just creepy.

I'm referring more to Scratch's reputation. Yes, a lot of non-educational things happen on Scratch, but since Scratch is known primarily as a beginner's coding website aimed at all ages rather than as a social media platform, parents may feel more comfortable letting their kids use it than, for example, Twitter.

The fact that some users are older than Scratch's target audience of 8-16 doesn't mean that Scratch isn't a kid's website. It's true that many, if not most, users are more than 10 years old: let's take your figure of 80%. That also means a sizable proportion of Scratch's audience is less than 10 years old, and I think that proportion is likely increasing as a result of quarantine; even if only from 20% to 30%, that's still going to have its effects.

I'm on the older end of Scratch's target audience myself. I've never found it particularly creepy that older people use the site, since it's intended to help people learn to code.

Last edited by UnconstructivePoster (Dec. 3, 2020 16:26:49)

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Bookmarking some posts:
- explanation of cloud variable string encoding

Mr_PenguinAlex

pqsgraham wrote:
I even came across a sixty-year-old Scratcher! Now that's just creepy.

Age doesn't matter. If you are 60 years old on a website targeted for all ages, that doesn't mean you are suddenly there with the purpose of kidnapping children over the internet.

pqsgraham

Mr_PenguinAlex wrote:
pqsgraham wrote:
I even came across a sixty-year-old Scratcher! Now that's just creepy.
Age doesn't matter. If you are 60 years old on a website targeted for all ages, that doesn't mean you are suddenly there with the purpose of kidnapping children over the internet.

If you look at the CG, it states that Scratch is for ages 8-16. I'm saying that a sixty-year-old that is posting creepy stuff is not okay. In particular, I'm talking about (Removed by moderator-please don't name names). I feel like it's wrong for people on Scratch over 16 to be contacting children through a website. If you look at what happened with adults contacting children on Roblox, you'll feel like I do.

Last edited by Paddle2See (Today 11:57:09)

i have grown up. please ignore all of my posts from before 2022. they don't represent the way i am at all

fdreerf

pqsgraham wrote:
Mr_PenguinAlex wrote:
pqsgraham wrote:
I even came across a sixty-year-old Scratcher! Now that's just creepy.
Age doesn't matter. If you are 60 years old on a website targeted for all ages, that doesn't mean you are suddenly there with the purpose of kidnapping children over the internet.

If you look at the CG, it states that Scratch is for ages 8-16. I'm saying that a sixty-year-old that is posting creepy stuff is not okay. In particular, I'm talking about (Removed by moderator-please don't name names). I feel like it's wrong for people on Scratch over 16 to be contacting children through a website. If you look at what happened with adults contacting children on Roblox, you'll feel like I do.

Nowhere in the CGs does it say Scratch is solely for ages 8-16; in fact, it says that all ages are welcome. Scratch is targeted towards that age group, but that doesn't mean that once you turn 17 you should remove yourself from Scratch. Griffpatch is an adult, and there's nothing wrong with being around.

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ittybitmap

pqsgraham wrote:
Mr_PenguinAlex wrote:
pqsgraham wrote:
I even came across a sixty-year-old Scratcher! Now that's just creepy.
Age doesn't matter. If you are 60 years old on a website targeted for all ages, that doesn't mean you are suddenly there with the purpose of kidnapping children over the internet.

If you look at the CG, it states that Scratch is for ages 8-16. I'm saying that a sixty-year-old that is posting creepy stuff is not okay. In particular, I'm talking about (Removed by moderator-please don't name names). I feel like it's wrong for people on Scratch over 16 to be contacting children through a website. If you look at what happened with adults contacting children on Roblox, you'll feel like I do.

Last edited by Paddle2See (Today 11:57:09)

theres alot of adults on scratch and roblox, and both are stuck coding, drawing/modeling or making music

- ittybitmap

pqsgraham

fdreerf wrote:
pqsgraham wrote:
Mr_PenguinAlex wrote:
pqsgraham wrote:
I even came across a sixty-year-old Scratcher! Now that's just creepy.
Age doesn't matter. If you are 60 years old on a website targeted for all ages, that doesn't mean you are suddenly there with the purpose of kidnapping children over the internet.

If you look at the CG, it states that Scratch is for ages 8-16. I'm saying that a sixty-year-old that is posting creepy stuff is not okay. In particular, I'm talking about (Removed by moderator-please don't name names). I feel like it's wrong for people on Scratch over 16 to be contacting children through a website. If you look at what happened with adults contacting children on Roblox, you'll feel like I do.
Nowhere in the CGs does it say Scratch is solely for ages 8-16; in fact, it says that all ages are welcome. Scratch is targeted towards that age group, but that doesn't mean that once you turn 17 you should remove yourself from Scratch. Griffpatch is an adult, and there's nothing wrong with being around.

Yes, but ((Removed by moderator-please don't name names) was trying to tell kids to meet him. I don't remember where he said that, but I just remember he was talking about that. Please don't attack me, I don't want this to turn into another Anime in EVERY SCRATCH PROJECT discussion. Thanks.

Last edited by Paddle2See (Today, 12:31:14)

i have grown up. please ignore all of my posts from before 2022. they don't represent the way i am at all

oofer90

Scratch is targeted for all age groups(you could be 200 years old) so there has to be at least parents in scratch. Parents are much more serious than kids so they might be much more toxic. If someone is toxic they would be considered breaking the CG because one part of the Community Guidelines say be respectful

(offtopic)A 100 year old grandma got arrested for being over the age limit of 4-99 years old(offtopic)

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This is not pog D:< . I have to go back to school for 4 days and 1 online D:<

Hey if you see my siggy change its because of certain events that happens. 1. could be with down arrows and saying something like who cares? 2. Just a tutorial about something. 3.Something like this to note. 4. just something like a random image. 5. Motivational quote to get you feeling pumped and motivated. This depends on how I am feeling personally.6. Just a random thing.
Link to griffpatch account:https://scratch.mit.edu/users/griffpatch/

ittybitmap

oofer90 wrote:
(offtopic)A 100 year old grandma got arrested for being over the age limit of 4-99 years old(offtopic)

- ittybitmap

Mr_PenguinAlex

ittybitmap wrote:
oofer90 wrote:
(offtopic)A 100 year old grandma got arrested for being over the age limit of 4-99 years old(offtopic)

what on earth is that

pqsgraham

Mr_PenguinAlex wrote:
ittybitmap wrote:
oofer90 wrote:
(offtopic)A 100 year old grandma got arrested for being over the age limit of 4-99 years old(offtopic)
what on earth is that

i have grown up. please ignore all of my posts from before 2022. they don't represent the way i am at all

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