Sorry, I guess that is more of a request than a question. How about:

How does the Scratch Team define “spam”?

The newest Community Guidelines forbids people from posting “spamming” comments on people’s projects.

But the new Community Guidelines do not define “Spam”.

Can we agree that “spam” is a sort of made-up word (Thank you Monty Python) that usually means commercial email sent out in bulk? https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/spam

Or maybe the Scratch Team intentionally used the Trademarked name of a certain luncheon meat. How would they feel if the Scratch Cat showed up on little cans?


It would have been better to have explicitly stated that “commercial” and “off-topic” comments are not allowed instead of using the colloquial term “spam”. Otherwise they risk more confusion and misinterpretation by readers and the editors who restate policy posted by the Scratch Team.

Or do people think “spam” means anything that is an irritating, time-wasting nuisance? If so, are readers and editors going to classify this topic as “spam”?

Spam is the repeated posting of the same message. The intention of spamming is usually to attract attention, or be nefarious/annoying. The messages are unnecessary and not important.

Spam is generally a bunch of text that takes up a significant portion of a page or post for no reason. I would say it's limited to “repetitive” content, but someone could post the whole script to The Bee Movie and that would be considered spam. Spam can also be commercial (“DOWNLOAD FROM THIS LINK NOW!”) or non-commercial (“LOLOLOLOLOL”.)

This is almost certainly what the ST had in mind when they asked the public to “avoid spamming.”

In addition to the above answers, here's a Wiki article on spam.

TheAnomalousPseudo wrote:

In addition to the above answers, here's a Wiki article on spam.

Thanks for the link, I like to remind people that the Scratch Wiki is Not part of the Scratch Foundation and as near as I can tell does not have a member of the Scratch Team on their editorial team. It’s possible that their well meaning advice could be different from what the Scratch Team actually says. For example the Wikii editors have grouped Studio Invites in with advertising but the Scratch Team never states this.

I’m just saying that I’d rather see the Scratch Team use more precise language.

But I also use the Wiki all the time, so yes, the Wiki is a great resource.

10goto10 wrote:

TheAnomalousPseudo wrote:

In addition to the above answers, here's a Wiki article on spam.

Thanks for the link, I like to remind people that the Scratch Wiki is Not part of the Scratch Foundation and as near as I can tell does not have a member of the Scratch Team on their editorial team. It’s possible that their well meaning advice could be different from what the Scratch Team actually says. For example the Wikii editors have grouped Studio Invites in with advertising but the Scratch Team never states this.

I’m just saying that I’d rather see the Scratch Team use more precise language.

But I also use the Wiki all the time, so yes, the Wiki is a great resource.

How is spam not percise?

DarthVader4Life wrote:

10goto10 wrote:

TheAnomalousPseudo wrote:

In addition to the above answers, here's a Wiki article on spam.

Thanks for the link, I like to remind people that the Scratch Wiki is Not part of the Scratch Foundation and as near as I can tell does not have a member of the Scratch Team on their editorial team. It’s possible that their well meaning advice could be different from what the Scratch Team actually says. For example the Wikii editors have grouped Studio Invites in with advertising but the Scratch Team never states this.

I’m just saying that I’d rather see the Scratch Team use more precise language.

But I also use the Wiki all the time, so yes, the Wiki is a great resource.

How is spam not percise?

They want Scratch Team to instead of saying nO sPaM to say “no posting of repetetive content” for example. This person is refering to the CG

-Kryptonite- wrote:

DarthVader4Life wrote:

10goto10 wrote:

TheAnomalousPseudo wrote:

In addition to the above answers, here's a Wiki article on spam.

Thanks for the link, I like to remind people that the Scratch Wiki is Not part of the Scratch Foundation and as near as I can tell does not have a member of the Scratch Team on their editorial team. It’s possible that their well meaning advice could be different from what the Scratch Team actually says. For example the Wikii editors have grouped Studio Invites in with advertising but the Scratch Team never states this.

I’m just saying that I’d rather see the Scratch Team use more precise language.

But I also use the Wiki all the time, so yes, the Wiki is a great resource.

How is spam not precise?

They want Scratch Team to instead of saying nO sPaM to say “no posting of repetetive content” for example. This person is refering to the CG

The CG's are meant to be vague as to be able to make a generalization of what is and isn't allowed. Spam is a general concept. There are only two possible things to consider when the word spam is used. The meat, and the repetitive content. It wouldn't make sense for the ST to be talking about meat, so it's obvious that it's the latter.

DarthVader4Life wrote:

-Kryptonite- wrote:

DarthVader4Life wrote:

10goto10 wrote:

TheAnomalousPseudo wrote:

In addition to the above answers, here's a Wiki article on spam.

Thanks for the link, I like to remind people that the Scratch Wiki is Not part of the Scratch Foundation and as near as I can tell does not have a member of the Scratch Team on their editorial team. It’s possible that their well meaning advice could be different from what the Scratch Team actually says. For example the Wikii editors have grouped Studio Invites in with advertising but the Scratch Team never states this.

I’m just saying that I’d rather see the Scratch Team use more precise language.

But I also use the Wiki all the time, so yes, the Wiki is a great resource.

How is spam not precise?

They want Scratch Team to instead of saying nO sPaM to say “no posting of repetetive content” for example. This person is refering to the CG

The CG's are meant to be vague as to be able to make a generalization of what is and isn't allowed. Spam is a general concept. There are only two possible things to consider when the word spam is used. The meat, and the repetitive content. It wouldn't make sense for the ST to be talking about meat, so it's obvious that it's the latter.

Spam, out in the wild, seems to mean commercial bulk messages.

I see people using Spam in the Scratch community to mean “irritating, time-wasting, nuisance” like studio invites. So, yes, I think we should expect better precision of language from the Scratch Team.

10goto10 wrote:

DarthVader4Life wrote:

-Kryptonite- wrote:

DarthVader4Life wrote:

10goto10 wrote:

TheAnomalousPseudo wrote:

In addition to the above answers, here's a Wiki article on spam.

Thanks for the link, I like to remind people that the Scratch Wiki is Not part of the Scratch Foundation and as near as I can tell does not have a member of the Scratch Team on their editorial team. It’s possible that their well meaning advice could be different from what the Scratch Team actually says. For example the Wikii editors have grouped Studio Invites in with advertising but the Scratch Team never states this.

I’m just saying that I’d rather see the Scratch Team use more precise language.

But I also use the Wiki all the time, so yes, the Wiki is a great resource.

How is spam not precise?

They want Scratch Team to instead of saying nO sPaM to say “no posting of repetetive content” for example. This person is refering to the CG

The CG's are meant to be vague as to be able to make a generalization of what is and isn't allowed. Spam is a general concept. There are only two possible things to consider when the word spam is used. The meat, and the repetitive content. It wouldn't make sense for the ST to be talking about meat, so it's obvious that it's the latter.

Spam, out in the wild, seems to mean commercial bulk messages.

I see people using Spam in the Scratch community to mean “irritating, time-wasting, nuisance” like studio invites. So, yes, I think we should expect better precision of language from the Scratch Team.

That's a reason to not change it.

And seeing how this is really more a suggestion, I think I might report it to be moved.

Spam means saying something many times.

Xenopeltis_unicolor wrote:

Spam means saying something many times.

This has been posted already many times, please don't post unhelpful repeat answers.

I don't think spam is always defined as commercial bulk messages.

For example, according to Oxfords Learners Dictionary, spam is defined as the following:

spam verb
spam somebody/something to send the same message to large numbers of internet users who have not requested the information

• Some companies will keep spamming you until you change your email address.
  
• Some idiot has been spamming my blog with comments.
  

I think this definition defines pretty well what spam is defined as on Scratch, and the wiki article seems to answer some common questions about this

leahcimto wrote:

I don't think spam is always defined as commercial bulk messages.

For example, according to Oxfords Learners Dictionary, spam is defined as the following:

spam verb
spam somebody/something to send the same message to large numbers of internet users who have not requested the information

• Some companies will keep spamming you until you change your email address.
  
• Some idiot has been spamming my blog with comments.
  

I think this definition defines pretty well what spam is defined as on Scratch, and the wiki article seems to answer some common questions about this

But we can all agree that spamming revolves around sending repeated un-needed messages, as all the posts in this topic include it indirectly/directly

DarthVader4Life wrote:

…And seeing how this is really more a suggestion, I think I might report it to be moved.

Sure, go ahead. But then what is the suggestion?

”Scratch Team, I suggest you clarify your new Community Guidelines”. What do you mean when you use the colloquial word Spam?

Isn’t that more of a question (to the Scratch Team) than a suggestion?

But,

Even if the Scratch Team replies here, on this topic, whatever forum it is in, that they don’t mean luncheon mean (still on my list but low probability) or commercial bulk messages but rather they mean messages that are low quality, time-wasting, irritating, a nuisance, or otherwise off-topic then it will be defined by the Scratch Team and not editors being helpful. We will know then that these types of messages (whatever they chose) will be considered unacceptable by the Scratch Team.


The Scratch Team owns this. It’s their community guidelines.

10goto10 wrote:

TheAnomalousPseudo wrote:

In addition to the above answers, here's a Wiki article on spam.

Thanks for the link, I like to remind people that the Scratch Wiki is Not part of the Scratch Foundation and as near as I can tell does not have a member of the Scratch Team on their editorial team. It’s possible that their well meaning advice could be different from what the Scratch Team actually says. For example the Wikii editors have grouped Studio Invites in with advertising but the Scratch Team never states this.

I’m just saying that I’d rather see the Scratch Team use more precise language.

But I also use the Wiki all the time, so yes, the Wiki is a great resource.

Some scratch team members are on the wiki. Also the wiki is official because wiki.scratch.mit.edu redirects to the current url

10goto10 wrote:

Spam, out in the wild, seems to mean commercial bulk messages.

I see people using Spam in the Scratch community to mean “irritating, time-wasting, nuisance” like studio invites. So, yes, I think we should expect better precision of language from the Scratch Team.

In most cases, spam/spamming isn't exclusive to commercial bulk messages. I can imagine that definition being more prominent amongst older crowds who only really deal with spam in the sense of spammy emails or the like, but the commonly-shared definition of spam has come to include more than just that.

On the internet, spam has come to mean anything that's just repetitive or unnecessary in nature. Including spam emails. Repeating “LOL” 100 times is spam, and so is randomly pasting some long movie script or body of text into an unrelated forum thread. Spam can also come as sending a bunch of invite requests or other similar scenarios. This definition is pretty well-known, perhaps I'd go as far as to say it's almost common sense for a lot of people.

As DarthVader4Life added, I don't think the ST really has to go into depth as to what spam means. Although they could, it'd just make the section more wordy for what a lot of people (maybe not so much of the younger audience) understand as spam.

My claim that “spam” has come to mean more than just commercial spam is supported by at least the first three entries when searching “spam meaning” on Google:

• Although it may not always be accurate, Google's definition infobox at the top of the page includes “irrelevant or inappropriate messages sent on the internet to a large number of recipients” as its first definition.
  
• Merriam-Webster, the first result, has this as its first definition: "unsolicited usually commercial messages (such as emails, text messages, or Internet postings) sent to a large number of recipients or posted in a large number of places."
  
• The Wikipedia entry begins with the following: "Spamming is the use of messaging systems to send multiple unsolicited messages (spam) to large numbers of recipients for the purpose of commercial advertising, for the purpose of non-commercial proselytizing, for any prohibited purpose (especially the fraudulent purpose of phishing), or simply sending the same message over and over to the same user."

ninjaMAR wrote:

…
Some scratch team members are on the wiki. Also the wiki is official because wiki.scratch.mit.edu redirects to the current url

No, the the Scratch Wiki is not official and maybe this is something that the Scratch Foundation should address since by linking to it from their Scratch website they have given the appearance that it is something they sanction and its an official part of the Scratch Foundation, but its not.

from the Scratch Wiki wrote:

As Scratch grew, the Scratch Team had to devote more time to it; consequently, they did not have as much time to manage the Wiki. Therefore, they decided to hand control of the English Scratch Wiki over to the inter-language community.

It looks like the Wiki is doing an amazing job of taking quotes from the community and Scratch team and editing them and organizing them into something that can be used. But it’s really a no good situation when the Scratch Team uses a colloquial term in an official document and then leaves it up to the Scratch Wiki to provide clarity. If the editors can only find quotes from what Scratchers have said and not the Scratch Team then that’s what you find. This is why studio invitations are lumped with Advertising even though no Scratch Team member has said that.

Honestly this post of mine is off topic. The Wiki, even if it is unofficial, can be very useful. But in this case it could be helped by having a quote fed to it from the Scratch Team.

(Removed - Nevermind.)

Deleted