So, today, I was curious. I was having a normal day, until I realized, “Hey! Can you post your phone number for a username on Scratch?” I tested it, and it worked. I went to the join scratch thing, and I typed in “call (my phone number)” and it didn’t restrict it. And if I’m remembering right, the community guidelines says, “For safety reasons, don't give out any information that could be used for private communication - such as real last names, phone numbers, addresses, email addresses, links to social media sites or websites with unmoderated chat.” So, my suggestion is to ban these types of usernames. I don’t exactly know how it would be coded, but I think it would help prevent private communication, as the Community Guidelines said. Thank you!

It would be extremely difficult to differentiate from a normal number spammer and a phone number

Yellowsheep43 wrote:

It would be extremely difficult to differentiate from a normal number spammer and a phone number

You could just censor every number with 10-11 digits, like the current filter way for comments.

-
I do agree that for safety reasons, the phone number censor should be everywhere on the site, not just comments

b u m p i t y b u m p b u m p

Support! Why would you be allowed to do this?

dertermenter wrote:

You could just censor every number with 10-11 digits, like the current filter way for comments.

But then what if somebody wanted to make their username C00183441111?
Ok I realize that's probably not gonna be the case, but still. Someone's gonna want to make a username with lots of numbers.

And this can be workarounded with dashes, underscores, and such.

I was about to say support until i saw the above post, there's too many workarounds to this and as much I would want all phone number names to be banned I doubt they will

Hmm, true. I don't know how, but maybe the Scratch Team could also censor a lot of the workarounds?

Yellowsheep43 wrote:

But then what if somebody wanted to make their username C00183441111?

They could also do cs<phonenumberhere>

Yellowsheep43 wrote:

dertermenter wrote:

You could just censor every number with 10-11 digits, like the current filter way for comments.

But then what if somebody wanted to make their username C00183441111?
Ok I realize that's probably not gonna be the case, but still. Someone's gonna want to make a username with lots of numbers.

And this can be workarounded with dashes, underscores, and such.

Yeah, that’s a problem. I personally haven’t seen many phone numbers shared - not sure if this is worth it

dertermenter wrote:

Yellowsheep43 wrote:

dertermenter wrote:

You could just censor every number with 10-11 digits, like the current filter way for comments.

But then what if somebody wanted to make their username C00183441111?
Ok I realize that's probably not gonna be the case, but still. Someone's gonna want to make a username with lots of numbers.

And this can be workarounded with dashes, underscores, and such.

Yeah, that’s a problem. I personally haven’t seen many phone numbers shared - not sure if this is worth it

Yes, but as said in the community guidelines, no sharing personal info. Most people won't do this, but it's just for safety.

puppycutest wrote:

dertermenter wrote:

Yellowsheep43 wrote:

dertermenter wrote:

You could just censor every number with 10-11 digits, like the current filter way for comments.

But then what if somebody wanted to make their username C00183441111?
Ok I realize that's probably not gonna be the case, but still. Someone's gonna want to make a username with lots of numbers.

And this can be workarounded with dashes, underscores, and such.

Yeah, that’s a problem. I personally haven’t seen many phone numbers shared - not sure if this is worth it

Yes, but as said in the community guidelines, no sharing personal info. Most people won't do this, but it's just for safety.

I know, but shall we make this sacrifice for such a rare occurrence? But yes safety is important. I’m on the fence.

Yellowsheep43 wrote:

dertermenter wrote:

You could just censor every number with 10-11 digits, like the current filter way for comments.

But then what if somebody wanted to make their username C00183441111?

That's not even a valid phone number except for in South Africa, so that should probably still be allowed.

fdreerf wrote:

Yellowsheep43 wrote:

dertermenter wrote:

You could just censor every number with 10-11 digits, like the current filter way for comments.

But then what if somebody wanted to make their username C00183441111?

That's not even a valid phone number except for in South Africa, so that should probably still be allowed.

What about the south africans using Scratch?

dertermenter wrote:

Yellowsheep43 wrote:

It would be extremely difficult to differentiate from a normal number spammer and a phone number

You could just censor every number with 10-11 digits, like the current filter way for comments.

-
I do agree that for safety reasons, the phone number censor should be everywhere on the site, not just comments

Don't forget 7-digit numbers.

hiPeeps124816 wrote:

Don't forget 7-digit numbers.

You need a 3 digit area code, otherwise the number will not work if you're in the same area code, which is incredibly unlikely.

reallysoftuser wrote:

What about the south africans using Scratch?

The odds of two Scratchers being South African are around 3 in a million.

Support, this could be dangerous. Why are we allowed to do this anyway? I understand number spam is a thing, but what are the odds of number spam being an actual number?

fdreerf wrote:

hiPeeps124816 wrote:

Don't forget 7-digit numbers.

You need a 3 digit area code, otherwise the number will not work if you're in the same area code, which is incredibly unlikely.

reallysoftuser wrote:

What about the south africans using Scratch?

The odds of two Scratchers being South African are around 3 in a million.

Well, there's tens of millions of Scratch accounts, so there must be some south africans.

Yellowsheep43 wrote:

dertermenter wrote:

You could just censor every number with 10-11 digits, like the current filter way for comments.

But then what if somebody wanted to make their username C00183441111?
Ok I realize that's probably not gonna be the case, but still. Someone's gonna want to make a username with lots of numbers.

I have seen some cs accs w/ lots of numbers

No support. It would break the community guidelines. Proof is in this quote:

CGs wrote:

Keep personal info private.
For safety reasons, don't give out any information that could be used for private communication - such as real last names, phone numbers, addresses, email addresses, links to social media sites or websites with unmoderated chat.