History of the USS
Written by Austinato

Austinato & monkeytrooper's Leadership (2016-2018)
Austinato & Monkeytrooper's forum thread.
The United Shops of Scratch is a shop federation that was co-founded by Austinato and monkeytrooper on October 27, 2016. The two continued to run the federation together as the federation's population increased and decreased, notably reaching a peak of roughly 50 shops during the summer of 2017.

By the first half of 2018, the federation ran into problems with keeping its members active. Although there were a few attempts made by Austinato and fellow leadership, these changes didn't quite help the USS as intended. The two co-owners continued to run the federation together until October 1, 2018, when Austinato announced the beginning of his resignation process. For the next month, he made sure that the new leader of the USS was one that represented the interests of the population, and he also ensured that the transfer of power would be done smoothly. On November 2, the day after the second topic for the USS was created, Austinato finally resigned.

-XxX-MEOW-XxX-'s Leadership (2018-2019)
-XxX-MEOW-XxX- forum thread.
After winning the special October 2018 owner election held in response to Austinato's resignation, -XxX-MEOW-XxX- created a new topic for the USS. This was the first time that there was a transfer of ownership in the USS. monkeytrooper remained co-owner of the USS during this period.

-XxX-MEOW-XxX- proceeded to hold ownership of the USS until July 31, 2019, when ownership was transferred to NYCDOT.

-XxX-MEOW-XxX-‘s account has been deleted.

NYCDOT's Leadership (2019-2020)
NYCDOT forum thread.
NYCDOT owned the USS between July 2019 and August 2020. Although their tenure as owner was longer than their predecessor's, this topic only had five pages. Activity was minimal and only a small number of shops ever joined.

During this period, the primary owner of the USS was known as the CEO (that being NYCDOT.) monkeytrooper was listed as the COO and hellounicorns2 as the CPO.

GrahamSH and 78ch3's Leadership (2020-2021)
GrahamSH & 78ch3's forum thread..
GrahamSH owned the USS between August 2020 and January 2021. Although this topic had more pages than the previous one, this is the shortest period in USS leadership. 78ch3 is served as the outgoing Co-Owner (a position that was last seen during the first administration of the USS), PndaGmr978 as outgoing Head Moderator, and FloatingMuffins as outgoing Head of Relations. This was the first period in which monkeytrooper did not return to be second-in-charge of the USS.

On October 9, 2020, GrahamSH announced that the federation would be going into hibernation in response to its growing inactivity. It was not being shut down, but rather being put on hiatus. In the announcement post he posted on that day, he said that on January 2, 2021, “they” would reevaluate the situation.

During the USS's hibernation period, former co-owner Austinato returned to the site and begun engaging in discussion on the then-current USS thread. On January 9, 2021, he informally began the process of transferring leadership as a result of these conversations. 78ch3 was selected as the new leader of the USS, with Austinato stepping in to fill the federation's second-in-charge role (this time named President.)

Current (2021 to present)
78ch3 and Austinato's Leadership
78ch3 & Austinato's forum thread.
78ch3 and Austinato became the next leader and second-in-charge after GrahamSH decided to discontinue work on the USS. The team was joined by Head Moderator MClovers and Secretary p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-.

The newest topic of the USS was created by 78ch3 on January 15, 2021 (which also happened to be her birthday)

This new period of the USS was set to have simplified rules, roles, and processes to allow the USS to run smoothly. However, the main structure remains the same.

Within the first month, 78ch3 and Austinato's USS had gained 10 members and a new staff member, while another resigned due to inactivity. 78ch3 at the time hoped the USS can grow bigger and re-ignite an era of shops and federations to bring together existing forum veterans and boost interest in the Requests forum. Unfortunately, this did not seem to occur, despite the rapid growth. Shop activity decreased as less users populated the forums, while fewer users from the 2017 and 18 periods remained, when activity was remarkably high. Only a few forum veterans remain active today.

Around late September/Early October, Austinato's activity declined and they are no longer acting within the USS. Their position is reserved should they wish to return.

During the second half of 2022, the USS's activity decreased substantially, as shops became less common and interest in federations declined. Their purpose wasn't exactly clear, and it seemed to pose no benefits. Despite having clear advantages such as inter-shop order completion and collaboration, it saw little use. 78ch3 was already focused on their own shop and smaller federation, the SSRF. While other federations did pop up here and there, most of them saw little success or would close down. The USS fell in and out of inactive periods with 78ch3 and MisaPuding as the only active staff.

On December 22nd, 2022, 78ch3 purged 65% of the existing shops from 17 down to 6, far from its peak of around 28 shops. The dry period of 2022 and 2023 saw fewer shops with less members overall.

On July 10th, 2023, 78ch3 placed the USS into a period of hibernation. The federation continued running and accepting shops, but if interest in federation is not sufficient, then the USS will close for the foreseeable future and any attempts to revive it would be strongly discouraged until interest comes back.

Original history of the USS (2016-2018)
I: Start
Early Days
On October 13, 2016, The Shop Federation (TSF) closed. TSF was a large inspiration for the USS, structure, and concept-wise. The collapse and closure of TSF resulted in the creation of numerous smaller unions, some small and some large. The USS remained as a medium-sized union until around 2017, when the USS began gaining speedy momentum.

Austinato launched the idea of the USS, meeting with experienced shop member monkeytooper, and forming the USS (on this same topic) on October 27, 2016. The first member was Austinato's SmartShop, a smaller shop that closed within months and serves as the indirect predecessor to Austinato's Art Market. Two other founding shops, TacoCatProuductions' Magical Market and Perfection Graphics exist, with Perfection Graphics being removed in 2017 alongside SmartShop. These two shop's closures left TacoCatProuductions' shop as the remaining “founding shop.”

Failed Merger
Within weeks of the USS's founding, leader Austinato pushed for a merger with the Scratch Union (to retain the USS name), which was owned by Monkey_Legend, another TSF member. An hour of debating followed the announcement of an aimed merger, where talks resulted in the first partnership of USS history.

While the USS did not acquire or merge with the SU, the concept of shop-collaboration cooperation was later incorporated into the USS through the establishment of subsidiaries, which to this day, have not surpassed the count of five total. The USS also formed a new motto for partnerships which is only one sentence long; “if a shop begins to fail, the other will support the failing one.”

I: Slower Expansion
The USS continued to experience slow expansion up until March 2017, where the USS quickly gained members and subsidiaries, helping the USS reach its 50 shops and five subsidiary count.

II: Expansion
This section was left unfinished.

III: Reform
This section was left unfinished.

IV: Growth Maximum
The USS reached an eventful point in the month of June 2017. On June 2, the USS Base (an attempted statistics system) released its first findings. On June 15, the former watcher position was filled. On June 19, the limit of 50 shops and five subsidiaries was introduced, in which the 50 shop limit was met three days later.

A restructuring on July 17, 2017, resulted in the establishment of the President position, in which -Anvard- won on August 1, 2017. He took an oath and officially took his position the following day.

Austinato became inactive from around September 2017 to February 2018. He returned, starting the reconstruction and redesign of the USS on February 27, 2018.

V: Reform of 2018
When USS Main Owner Austinato returned from five-month inactivity, he enacted a large activity check and planned out the simplification of the USS, to allow it to work more easily and productively. The activity check ended on March 6, removing around 70% of shops and clearing many inactive users out of their positions. Two users, BGMead and -Anvard-, were exempted from the activity check, and since they hold important positions, have until March 14, 2018, to mark themselves as active.

Simplification began on March 7 and 8 when positions were re-aligned and re-focused. Subsidiaries were renamed to organizations. Applications were re-opened. On March 9, Austinato disbanded ISOOC, an inter-shop order completing program. He also later re-enacted USS BASE and scheduled an event in summer.

The USS Guidelines were created alongside the establishment of a special election from March 19 to March 26, 2018 (later postponed to the first week of April.) The vote resulted in a tie, and a tiebreaker was scheduled for April 25 to May 2, 2018. The acting President and VP won and secured a term until June/July 2018.

On July 11, Austinato founded a small group named the “Special Interests Group of the USS for Reform”, where a select group of people discussed programs that the USS can introduce to revive membership. On July 26, ideas set forward by the group were posted. Two days later, the studio was transformed into a workspace for those who are interested in the new programs.

On October 5, Austinato announced that they would be resigning from the co-founder/co-owner position. Austinato hosted a major vote, which would be deciding what would become of the USS in the future. Later, on October 15, the vote ended. Everybody who chose to vote voted that a new co-leader gets elected. On October 27, the vote ended.

This section will be finished as others provide information.

Our only requirement for shops is that they must be at least 1 week old, reasonably active and the person applying must be an authorised representative of the shop.. This means we will accept almost all shops from solo shops and specific-profession shops to mall-like establishments and everything shops.

Register your shop
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You are required to update your shop if important things change (banner, shop name, owner etc.) and must fill in all fields (except Other Info, which is optional), no shortcuts or exceptions. Please refrain from adding extra text, try to only use existing fields if you can. Keep your descriptions timeless - i.e. do not contain info that is certain to change such as size or professions you want to offer later. We would prefer not to have to update your shop info.


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78ch3's Everything Shop

78ch3's Everything Shop has everything you need for your project, forum and dark web internet needs! Our motto is “Your orders, our service”, and if there's staff for it, we'll get it done, all for free and shipped directly to you! (Or optionally, to a PO Box.) We're always accepting new staff and partners to expand our business, so come down to 78ch3's Everything Shop now! (like, right now, or Lenny will get to you)

♫♫ The Piano Shop ♫♫

At The Piano Shop, we provide you with quality musical services done by music-lover Scratchers.

The Nebulartsy Shop

With Nebulartsy Shop you will get high quality art at top speed! See our examples, you won't be disappointed.

The Clean Shop

We're a Clean and Neat Shop and We making make Neat and Clean Requsets.


Federation partners:

Currently, no open federation partners exist.

Shop owners can request perks from other shops. Perks here are offered by shops and are free of charge.

Perks:
78ch3's Everything Shop
Offering banners and BBCode for shops.

Le Form:

Username:
Name of your shop:
Perk you want to redeem:
Specific perk details (what you want from the perk):
Any other info?:

Register perk form:

Note: Perks must have a clear benefit to shops. Invalid perks include scripts, project assets and user thumbnails. Studio thumbnails are ok.

Username:
Shop name:
What are you offering?:
Describe in detail:
Any specific requirements?:
Any other info?:

Staff List
Current
Owner 78ch3 (since start)
President Austinato (since start)
Head moderator misaPuding (since Apr. 13, 2021; fifth overall)
Secretary Vacant

Moderator 1 Vacant
Moderator 2 dynamicsofscratch (Since Feb. 3rd, 2023; twelfth overall)
Moderator 3 Vacant
Moderator 4 Vacant

Previous
Former Moderator FloatingMuffins (Jan. 15-Feb. 13, 2021; first overall; succeeded by cs4233117)
Former Moderator 84375 (Feb. 24-Mar. 31, 2021; third overall; succeeded by misaPuding)
Former Secretary p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p-p- (Jan. 15-Apr. 9, 2021; succeeded by misaPuding)
Former Moderator PndaGmr978 (Jan. 30-Apr. 13, 2021; second overall; succeeded by kccuber)
Former Moderator misaPuding (Apr. 3-Apr. 13, 2021; fifth overall; user became Secretary; position succeeded by RSriram2010)
Former Moderator RSriram2010(Apr. 13-Jun. 4, 2021, seventh overall; succeeded by kitkatz6040)
Former Head Moderator MClovers(Start-Jul. 11 2021, fourth overall; succeeded by misaPuding. )
Former Secretary misaPuding (Apr. 13-Aug. 3 2021; fifth overall; user became Head Moderator; position succeeded by cs4233117)
Former Moderator cs4233117 (since Mar. 5, 2021; fourth overall; user became Secretary; successor pending)
Former moderator kccuber (since Apr. 13, 2021; sixth overall; succeeded by Purvitekriwal)
Former moderator kitkatz6040 (since Jun. 9, 2021; eighth overall, succeeded by dynamicsofscratch)
Former moderator SaitamaGTOPM(since Aug. 9, 2021; ninth overall, successor pending)
Former moderator DaBoi001 (Since Oct. 25, 2021; tenth overall, successor pending)
Former Moderator Purvitekriwal (Jan. 8th-Jul. 11 2023; eleventh overall, successor pending)
Former Secretary cs4233117 (Mar. 5, 2021-Jul. 11 2023; fourth overall, successor pending)



Applying
We are not currently accepting applications for becoming a moderator. Feel free to check again at a later date!
General Requirements

- 6 months on scratch/1 year recommended
- 3 projects minimum/4 projects recommended
- 100 forum posts minimum/500 posts recommended
- No bans
- Decent level of forum experience*

Form

Username:
Average activity x/10:
Forum experience x/10:
Work examples:
Why we should hire you:
Have you been banned or muted?:
Other information:

*By decent, we mean knowledge about shops and how they operate, experience with responding to questions and suggestions and helping out others on the forums. Being a member of the Forum Helpers, having a Scratch Wiki account and managing a shop that has been open for 4 or more months are perks you can mention.

Follow the Community Guidelines.
Like anyone else on this site, you are expected to follow the Community Guidelines. Keep things appropriate and respectful here!

Be active.
One of our only requests to our employees and shops is for our members to remain active. If you need to go inactive for a while, or leave, please let us know in advance. Letting us know beforehand helps make things such as the voting process run smoother.

Revised on February 23, 2021
1

For everyone:
Remain active!
Please follow this topic and add to the discussion whenever you consider doing so necessary. Please also participate in our votes whenever those occur! If you must be inactive (as an employee or as a shop owner) for a period of time, or if you would like to quit, please let us know so we can accommodate in things such as the voting process.

For shop owners:
Keep us updated!
If you would like us to update things such as your name/banner in our members list, please let us know! We'll update your shop's information as soon as possible!

For federation employees / moderators:
Do your job!
Simply put, please do your job when it is necessary! If you have any questions about your job, feel free to ask us!

Revised on February 23, 2021.
1

Staff Resources
Links
Timeline
Subscriptions

Application Responses
Shop - Yes
Shop - Ineligible
Shop - Forwarded/No
(DIY)

Reserved.

60 second rule!

Empty

If you need orders completed by other shops, simply post your shop name and a link to the order on your shop saying you need it added to the ISOC board or completed by another shop. Make sure to check here often, shop staff, there can always be something new!

ISOC board

Order was wiped for being too old and likely unneeded.
- - - - -

Key:
Yellow - Untaken, less than 1 week old.
Red - Untaken, over 1 week old.
Green - Taken and pending completion.

If you want to claim an order, list your shop name and the order number so that we can mark it. You are required to tell us when it is finished.

Reserved

Temporary storage
This is a temporary place to put shops before I add them to the members list, if I am busy. Technically, they are still members, but are not on the members page yet.

Empty for now.

Love the new thread!

I would like to remove Disorganized from the USS, due to the fact that it hasn't served much purpose, and the one time I did ask for something, I didn't get it, even though it was acknowledged.

andyman11 wrote:

I would like to remove Disorganized from the USS, due to the fact that it hasn't served much purpose, and the one time I did ask for something, I didn't get it, even though it was acknowledged.

That was the old USS. This is the new one, it's going to serve a much better purpose so please can you re-state it.

Staff application form:
- - - - -
Username: @PndaGmr978
Average activity x/10: at the moment 6/10 hopefully it will be 8/10 soon.
Forum experience x/10: 10/10 been here since 2017(???(maybe 2018))
Work examples: My work in the old USS. (You can surf through the early pages)
Why we should hire you: You should hire me because I'm a hard worker, I worked in the old USS before Graham put on Hiatus (and then I went on hiatus), I'm friendly, and I love working here!
Have you been banned or muted?: I don't think so… I honestly don't remember but I'm 79% sure no.
Other information: nope

Grammarly thinks my application form sounds informal… 4/5 informal, 3/5 friendly, 2/5 confident. (oof the last one)

MClovers wrote:

andyman11 wrote:

I would like to remove Disorganized from the USS, due to the fact that it hasn't served much purpose, and the one time I did ask for something, I didn't get it, even though it was acknowledged.

That was the old USS. This is the new one, it's going to serve a much better purpose so please can you re-state it.

Okay, fine.