Rendangbike2 wrote:

fdreerf wrote:

What is there to not understand? The average age of a new Scratcher according to Scratch Statistics is 16.

I think it's 12

That's the mode. I believe he was giving the mean. That being said, the mode is a much more accurate representation of the average new Scratcher age if the Trending page is any indication.

Scratchperson1000000 wrote:

oh yeah! let's just randomly put the square root and fractions and algebra into scratch!

(sqrt () :: operators)
(() / () [+ v] () / () :: operators )
([x v] [+ v] [y v] :: operators)

we definitely don't care if it can be confusing!

NO SUPPORT
we can't just randomly put blocks that can be confusing. you cant rename

move (10) steps

to

scroll (10) pixels :: motion

or rename

stamp

to

giant mark :: pen

snip
no support, what if we renamed “if <> then” to “when <> is true” if new scratchers don't even know what true means in scratch

Im honestly annoyed by this. It unfairly assumes that new scratchers apparently don't have brains. Everyone started as a new scratcher, and your telling me this is confusing? Tell that to griffpatch. He was a new scratcher once, he probably experimented with this and figured it out. This just is a lame excuse to shut down a suggestion, by making the scratch team look like a bunch of fools who don't know what their doing. They'll never do this. Its just not realistic. They'll never rename blocks, as that would screw a lot of people using guides, they always take their time to add blocks that arent full of glitches and they will add those that are useful. You were a new scratcher once as well, and your stereotyping the exact thing that you once were.

There are some cases where something being confusing can be a real problem. For example:

Suggestion: Add a new category called “Obsolete” blocks. It will contain every block that used to be in Scratch, including the ones that don't do anything any more.

In this situation, the suggestion being confusing to New Scratchers is a valid concern.

I guess, but suggestions should be judged on how much they add rather than complexity, as squr and sin blocks are really confusing, but their functionality makes up for it.

Although I don't agree with this suggestion (I explained that before – Scratch is a programming language designed primarily for beginners so confusing features are a problem), I do think we should stop saying “New Scratchers” when talking about things like this. The New Scratcher status is not an indication of how well someone knows Scratch so “new users” would be a much better word.

imfh wrote:

There are some cases where something being confusing can be a real problem. For example:

Suggestion: Add a new category called “Obsolete” blocks. It will contain every block that used to be in Scratch, including the ones that don't do anything any more.

In this situation, the suggestion being confusing to New Scratchers is a valid concern.

True. Although sometimes it just depends on the implementation if something is a good idea or not: if this was an extension and didn't contain the no-op blocks it would be much less confusing.

Maximouse wrote:

Although I don't agree with this suggestion (I explained that before – Scratch is a programming language designed primarily for beginners so confusing features are a problem)

I think that “too confusing” can work as a reasoning if it's something which you'd likely be required to interact with or would take up a large part of the editor. I don't think that it can apply to block suggestions, because those are inherently avoidable. You can argue that a block or group of blocks would be too niche to get added, though.

I guess, that could work as if a main feature is too confusing, but for tiny things such as a sun effect, it can't be used as it is totally optional. You don't have to use a sun effect.

support, if people are saying “it too complicated”, it should be added as an extension.
but there is a difference between too complicated and too confusing.
instead of using it to justify no support, it should be encouraged to offer a more intuitive suggestion.

Woah, a signature! :: control

The Scratch Team has clearly stated that Scratch needs to be easy to understand for new users:

It should be easy to climb in and get started with Scratch - even for Scratchers who have no experience programming.

Because we have limited time and resources, new developments that make the program easier and more inviting for newcomers are a higher priority than adding advanced programming features.

In order to encourage a varied and diverse set of interactions, we explicitly include elements and features that are easy for kids to understand (low floor), but general enough to support diverse uses (wide walls).

Because Scratch is primarily designed for beginners, “it can be confusing” is often a good reason not to add a feature.

Maximouse wrote:

The Scratch Team has clearly stated that Scratch needs to be easy to understand for new users:

It should be easy to climb in and get started with Scratch - even for Scratchers who have no experience programming.

Because we have limited time and resources, new developments that make the program easier and more inviting for newcomers are a higher priority than adding advanced programming features.

In order to encourage a varied and diverse set of interactions, we explicitly include elements and features that are easy for kids to understand (low floor), but general enough to support diverse uses (wide walls).

Because Scratch is primarily designed for beginners, “it can be confusing” is often a good reason not to add a feature.

Exactly. It's a perfectly good reason to not add something. At the end of the day, Scratch is designed for the people you call “new scratchers.”

why not as extensions, even when i was a beginner i saw the extensions and stayed away until i knew enough about it

Woah, a signature! :: control

bsteichman wrote:

why not as extensions, even when i was a beginner i saw the extensions and stayed away until i knew enough about it

The Scratch Team usually doesn’t want to add things which are confusing even as extensions because it takes development resources away from other, easier to understand, additions. That’s beyond the point though since not all suggestions are for an extension.

Support! Scratch is definitely a platform that demonstrates “easy to learn, difficult to master.” Even if some blocks or variables may be seen as confusing to new people, that doesn't mean they can't learn it at all. I remember years ago learning what a sin(x) function did just by fooling around with it, before I even took a calculus class. I also managed to figure out “Run without screen refresh” and how clones worked with sprite-only variables. Complex topics, but easy to learn. And the way Scratch Team implements things into the editor is always so intuitive and sensible. No topic should be shamed for being too complicated, because everything will be. The whole point is to help them learn and grow as a creator, whether through tutorials or on the forums. Keep the floor low, but raise the ceiling!

bump

Letsgopitt wrote:

This is a suggestion for something to be added to the stickies, and to be discouraged in the Scratch community. I've been seeing threads in the Suggestions subforum with people no supporting because the suggestion, of implemented, could be confusing to New Scratchers. This does not make any sense because there are other things confusing to Scratchers and New Scratchers, yet everyone agrees that Scratch needs these things.
This is my example I've used on the forums recently: A New Scratcher tries to remix on of griffpatch's projects, and gets confused. Does this mean that griffpatch's projects, or perhaps even remixing should be removed from Scratch, as they have the capability to confuse someone inexperienced to the Scratch program? Of course not! Remixing is very important to Scratch, and simply because it could be confusing, that doesn't mean it has no place in the community. So please, stop saying this to justify a “no support” on a suggestion. Anything could be confusing, (just see the “Questions About Scratch” subforum!) so saying this should not be a viable drawback to a suggestion. It's almost like saying no support without justification– it doesn't offer any insight as to why. People should stop saying this and this should be added to the sticky.

EDIT: If you are confused, please see this post I made on page 4.

No support as per this.

when I receive [you followed me! v]
say [You're awesome!]

(:\) :: operators) // This is Smiley. He protects my siggies from kumquats while at the same time is smiling.

It' so ANNOYING that everything has to be about new scratchers, at this point they could delete all accounts over 1 month old

I don't get it. There literally were some suggestions that were rejected by the Scratch Team because they were “too confusing” to New Scratchers, such as 2D lists and 3D Scratch.

no support, saying this can be confusing to new scratchers

in reality, support. it gets really annoying when every single suggestion you make gets hit with that

exactly, by that logic: coding confuses new scratchers, so should we ban scratch?

(⌐⎔_⎔)//This is Jack, he's been fighting these evil kumquats since early 2023!


(((( •̀ᴗ•́) ( •̀ᴗ•́) ( •̀ᴗ•́) ( •̀ᴗ•́) ( •̀ᴗ•́) ( •̀ᴗ•́) ( •̀ᴗ•́) ( •̀ᴗ•́) ( •̀ᴗ•́) ( •̀ᴗ•́) ( •̀ᴗ•́) ( •̀ᴗ•́) ( •̀ᴗ•́) ( •̀ᴗ•́) ( •̀ᴗ•́) ( •̀ᴗ•́) ( •̀ᴗ•́) ( •̀ᴗ•́) ( •̀ᴗ•́) ( •̀ᴗ•́) ( •̀ᴗ•́))))  

Aren't you allowed to believe a feature could be confusing for New Scratchers if it is? Scratch has design goals to adhere to, like a low floor to new programmers. So if a feature is seems confusing for Scratchers, maybe it shouldn't be added.

Although to be fair, this doesn't apply for things that are inherently complex but are needed for certain projects