Me (-MyNewAccount-) wrote:

ScratchCat wrote:

I am a “New Scratcher” - how do I create a studio?
To create a studio you will need to have “Scratcher” status. See here to learn more about what this means.

Okay, I can understand that. Next.

ScratchCat wrote:

I am a manager - why can’t I edit studio descriptions?
Only studio owners have the ability to edit studio descriptions. Over the years, we have heard from many of you that allowing managers to make major changes to studios has made it harder to manage and run a successful studio. This change is intended to give studio owners more creative control over their spaces.

That's the dumbest thing I've even heard. What does a manager does? He/She manages.
And look at the Cambridge Dictionary: (source)

What happens if an owner is no longer active in a studio?
If you are a curator or manager, you can still add projects to a studio, and everyone can continue conversations in the comments. If you would like to make changes to a studio description, title, or thumbnail, only the studio owner can do this. But, you are always welcome to create a new studio!

Yes, it's so easy to do. /s

ScratchCat wrote:

I want other managers to edit the description, what do I do?
Over the years, we have heard from many of you that allowing managers to make major changes to studios has made it harder to manage and run a successful studio. As a way to address this, studio owners will now be the only people allowed to edit studio descriptions, titles, and thumbnails, which will prevent others from changing or destroying the work you have done in your studios,such as managers defacing the studio description or using it as a space for chatting.

As I said before:

it's supposed that you add managers for that purpose. if you don't want people for doing that, then don't promote them.

ScratchCat wrote:

Why is there a limit on the number of managers to a studio?
This change is intended to address a few issues: it will reduce the number of spammy studios, encourage studio owners and managers to be more intentional when promoting curators, and further limit the amount of people who can make major changes to studios.

Well, that's understandable. /gen

ScratchCat wrote:

My studio already has more than 40 managers - what will happen to my studio? Will some managers be automatically removed?
Don’t worry, your studio is still there and so are all the managers! Studios that already have more than 40 managers will continue to have those managers. If you want to add new managers to that studio in the future, though, you will need to remove some of your existing managers until you are below the limit of 40. Once you are below that limit, you can promote a new curator to manager.

Okay, something that you did good. /gen

ScratchCat wrote:

Why is there a limit on the number of replies in a comment thread?
Limiting comment threads helps enhance site performance, and prevents long but still active threads from being buried where few people will see new activity. As Scratch continues to grow, it is important to us to continue exploring ways in which we can help keep Scratch running smoothly, safely, and quickly for everyone who uses it. It is our hope that these changes will help do just that! Once a comment thread has reached its limit, you are welcome to start a new thread to continue the conversation.

I never role-play but there is people that does. Setting a limit for this it's like setting a limit for people's feelings- you don't want to do that.

ScratchCat wrote:

Where can I provide suggestions or report bugs for studios?
If you would like to provide constructive ideas for the future of studios on Scratch, you are welcome to share them in the Suggestions forum section. If you found a bug or glitch with the new studio update, please share that with us in the Bugs and Glitches forum section.

I'm reposting this on Suggestions. Hopefully that will make effect.

LegoManiac04 wrote:

Yes, it is true. If you limit what people can do, it will slow or stop the abuse of their power. Yes, it happens that users promote users they don't trust. Users that abuse their manager status. As a manager of many studios, such as the LGBTQ+ one, and a manager who takes their role seriously, and is responsible with their powers, this is an absolute slap in the face. It is not fair for all of us to suffer these limitations, just because many users make the mistake of promoting people they don't trust.
For so long, Scratch has been more than a coding website. It has been a place where we can connect with others. And with Scratch's amazing Community Guidelines, and hard working moderators, Scratch has been one of the few safe-spaces for many. A great number of users come together in studios. They're easy to invite people too, they're easy to have fun in. But that fun is practically gone. Now being a manager is useless. You can invite, promote, and remove users. That's it. You can't make edits to descriptions, titles, or thumbnails.
I understand that you want to shift the focus of Scratch to being just a coding site, but understand that it is so much more for so many people. This studio update is hurting studios. It is hurting entire communities here on Scratch. Taking away what we have is not fair, and is not what we want. I understand that these decisions may have been made from a moderation standpoint, but now it's time to weigh your options. It's clear that no one is happy about this.
The comment limit has effectively killed Roleplay studios. Maybe you wanted that. But with the limitations managers have, you've also killed every single studio that has an inactive owner. We, the managers, can't do anything about that. And when you're a part of an extremely large and thriving studio, such as the LGBTQ+ studio, we're not going to pack up our bags and make a new studio.
You say you appreciate the community's feedback, but I'm not feeling very appreciated. Even before this update rolled out, users were sharing their opinions, as well as their constructive feedback on the reply and manager limit. Did you listen? No. Should I think you will listen now? At this point, I don't think so. So now I ask, what's more important to you, dear Scratch Team? The ease of moderating this site, as you no longer have to worry about managers abusing their powers, and having to moderate chat studios? Or, to encourage a happy and thriving community of diversity, where users can have fun and have different, functional, roles in studios?

Don't say that Scratch is harder to moderate because of increased site traffic. That makes this our fault. It's not. We shouldn't be the one's suffering just because some people misuse Scratch. I've always been on your side, especially with updates, but this, this I cannot stand for. You ask for the community's feedback, and yet we're almost never listened to. I'd like that to change, please.

dhuls wrote:

ScratchCat wrote:

I am a “New Scratcher” - how do I create a studio?
To create a studio you will need to have “Scratcher” status. See here to learn more about what this means.

Why did you add this limit?

ScratchCat wrote:

I am a manager - why can’t I edit studio descriptions?
Only studio owners have the ability to edit studio descriptions. Over the years, we have heard from many of you that allowing managers to make major changes to studios has made it harder to manage and run a successful studio. This change is intended to give studio owners more creative control over their spaces.

Promoting people to and demoting people from manager is IMO a bigger change than an edit to the studio description. Plus, You still didn't stop studio raids. Those will still happen.

ScratchCat wrote:

What happens if an owner is no longer active in a studio?
If you are a curator or manager, you can still add projects to a studio, and everyone can continue conversations in the comments. If you would like to make changes to a studio description, title, or thumbnail, only the studio owner can do this. But, you are always welcome to create a new studio!

IMO This is the poorest reasoning given in this post. “Create a new studio,” is not a good solution, because what if that studio owner gets banned/leaves Scratch. You'll have to keep moving studios and discussion about things will be hard.

ScratchCat wrote:

I want other managers to edit the description, what do I do?
Over the years, we have heard from many of you that allowing managers to make major changes to studios has made it harder to manage and run a successful studio. As a way to address this, studio owners will now be the only people allowed to edit studio descriptions, titles, and thumbnails, which will prevent others from changing or destroying the work you have done in your studios, such as managers defacing the studio description or using it as a space for chatting.

You missed a space
Again, another poor reasoning. This still doesn't solve the question. There should at least be an option for enabling this, but NO.

ScratchCat wrote:

Why is there a limit on the number of managers to a studio?
This change is intended to address a few issues: it will reduce the number of spammy studios, encourage studio owners and managers to be more intentional when promoting curators, and further limit the amount of people who can make major changes to studios.

Actually, this might increase the amount of “Invite Everyone” studios because people will make more to group them as one.
Also, this is extremely contradictory to limiting manager permissions because they can't make major changes (by your definition). Either choose 1 or the other.

ScratchCat wrote:

Why is there a limit on the number of replies in a comment thread?
Limiting comment threads helps enhance site performance, and prevents long but still active threads from being buried where few people will see new activity. As Scratch continues to grow, it is important to us to continue exploring ways in which we can help keep Scratch running smoothly, safely, and quickly for everyone who uses it. It is our hope that these changes will help do just that! Once a comment thread has reached its limit, you are welcome to start a new thread to continue the conversation.

There are other ways to reduce the lag without limiting replies like improving the API, but you (anonymously) closed that topic because of “speculation,” but what about the other threads with speculation?
IMO, this would've been a good update but the limits just ruin the experience for me. Whatever you do, DO NOT ADD REPLY LIMITS TO PROJECTS, PROFILES, AND FORUM THREADS

RIP Scratchr2 “good” studios
May 9, 2013 - July 6, 2021
You will be missed by everyone.

Imacreamoo wrote:

current support = 8. Please let me know if you agree. The more voices the better :)

Hey Scratch Team and anyone else who might read this. :wave:

This suggestion may come off as passive aggressive in places because I am not the best with tone. That is not the case. This is a post about why this update needs to be redrawn and how you can improve for the future.

I'm going to start with main reason I came to this forum for the first time, being the recent studio update.

I don't necessarily agree with any of it. There are some moves that don't apply to me (as someone who hasn't been a new scratcher) while others will affect how I interact with the scratch community.

I am a “New Scratcher” - how do I create a studio?
To create a studio you will need to have “Scratcher” status. See here to learn more about what this means.

I don't have many issues with this if I am honest. I don't think the change was necessary per say. I don't think it's dreadful because scratcher is an easily attainable role you can earn within two weeks.

I am a manager - why can’t I edit studio descriptions?
Only studio owners have the ability to edit studio descriptions. Over the years, we have heard from many of you that allowing managers to make major changes to studios has made it harder to manage and run a successful studio. This change is intended to give studio owners more creative control over their spaces.

See this is the change I have the largest issue with.

You (as the ST) keep repeating the point here that 'over the years we have heard from many of you that allowing managers to make major changes to studios has made it harder to manage and run a successful studio' This is in your ‘what if the owner is inactive’ section, in the original thread as well in the one above.

So, here is my simple rebuttal. Majority rules. MOST studios will not be raided. MOST scratchers had no issues with several users editing the studio. I would wager MOST ACTIVE studio's relied on having several scratchers editing that studio.
No news, is good news As someone relatively active in the studio scene, people I have worked with in creating these spaces, have had no issues with having several managers. I can assure you, that you have more scratchers asking for change now, then you did over the years

I'm also going to lay out the pro's and the con's of this update from a scratcher who has already been affected by this updates perspective.

Pro's

• Raids will no longer be able to affect studio's descriptions (number of managers, thumbnail etc… can still be edited)
  

• the owner will have control over the description
  

Cons!

• One person (who according to scratch statistics, is most likely to be 12!) must be active enough to edit a studio description when needed. This could be weekly, monthly, daily or hourly. Featured studios, scratch camps and large online community's (PoP for example!) Will ride on the back of one person. who is most likely to be 12
  

• Studios were the owner goes inactive must be reset to allow for updates to the description
  

• Raids still can't be fully stopped.
  

• It makes the role of manager useless! Most thumbnails are not changed often
  

I want other managers to edit the description, what do I do?
Over the years, we have heard from many of you that allowing managers to make major changes to studios has made it harder to manage and run a successful studio. As a way to address this, studio owners will now be the only people allowed to edit studio descriptions, titles, and thumbnails, which will prevent others from changing or destroying the work you have done in your studios,such as managers defacing the studio description or using it as a space for chatting.

This avoids the question scratch. The community right now doesn't care about why you've already told us why in the original explanation. What we want to know is how do we adapt to this. The fact you cannot provide us with an answer leaves one answer: This was not something you had thought about. That is a fundamental flaw and your answer to the question of how do we work around this a nice way of saying: Just get over it.

Why is there a limit on the number of managers to a studio?
This change is intended to address a few issues: it will reduce the number of spammy studios, encourage studio owners and managers to be more intentional when promoting curators, and further limit the amount of people who can make major changes to studios.

What major changes scratch? The thumbnail? Maybe the title? Why do we need to be more intentional? Younger kids still won't think ‘is this one of the 40 managers I want’ when they promote people. Older kids/teens will continue to think about who they promote. If they see a need for over 40 managers? They are right in that choice. You said it yourself. This is their space. Why are you trying to limit what they can do with their space.

This isn't going to stop the spam studios. The only type you've stopped is the let's get 100+ managers. Their is no curator limit. Spam studios like this will always exist. You're tackling one branch of this issue. Not the roots. If you plan on stopping spam studios can I suggest:

• Making it clear what counts as a spam studio in the community guidelines
  

• Allowing studios to be reported for being a spam studio? if this isn't already inputted
  

Why is there a limit on the number of replies in a comment thread?
Limiting comment threads helps enhance site performance, and prevents long but still active threads from being buried where few people will see new activity. As Scratch continues to grow, it is important to us to continue exploring ways in which we can help keep Scratch running smoothly, safely, and quickly for everyone who uses it. It is our hope that these changes will help do just that! Once a comment thread has reached its limit, you are welcome to start a new thread to continue the conversation.

This topic is filled with roleplayers discussing the issues they have seen with this update.

From an ex-Roleplayer. This will kill roleplayers.

However, I am no longer active in that community and have never had a thread larger than 25 messages out of it. I recommend you check that out if you have not yet. It's filled with both sides of the arguement.

I don't have much to say about the design. I don't really like it and have my magnification set on 80% but it isn't the end of the world.

So! Let's talk about HOW this can be avoided for the future (because if it isn't clear. I am against this update)

First off: Announce to the community before these updates go live.

Communication is key here. When making major updates which change major aspects of scratch, consult the community. I have not seen many people in agreement of the aspect of this. This whole update could have been avoided had the scratch community knew.

This means making news such as this easily accessible. Perhaps, add a banner (like you did when announcing 3.0) in areas that are being changed to alert scratchers beforehand. A minimum of 24 hours however I think a week would be the best time to let scratchers think the update settle and decide if they like it.

Second of all:
Ask yourself:

• Who will this update affect
  

• What positives AND negatives will this update bring
  

• When does this update need to be implemented
  

• Where will this update affect.
  

• Why are we adding this update.
  

Then rethink the update. come up with ways to fix the cons.

Third of all:
Listen to scratcher input.

Fourth:
Understand who is on scratch.

A majority of new scratchers are aged 11-13


Your not appealing to 8 year olds. If you want to draw in 11-13 year olds, you want to give us things to work with. We are creative and we like things to fiddle with. It the age they start learning responsibility and will want experience in being a studio manager. It's when they'll want to roleplay.

Scratchers like studio comments


It'll be something to keep track of how the stats change with the studio update. If they have a significant drop (which I predict they will ^^ due to RP's being inaccessible)

Thank you for reading till the end. This is a suggestion and my thoughts on the new update. Feel free to add on.

FireySky wrote:

A manager job is to manage the studio. Not just to invite, promote, and delete curators. But apparently the studio update doesn’t think so. In my opinion if the ST isn’t going to change anything back, maybe they could add one more thing. Co-Owners would have all the abilities as the owner except for deleting the studio. The Co-Owners would still contribute to the manager limit, because even I see a bit of sense in that. Any Owner or a Co-Owner would be able to promote a manager to a Co-Owner, and any Co-Owner could be turned back into a manager. If the owner of the studio was going to leave scratch, then they could promote a Co-Owner into the Owner, who has all the abilities as a Co-Owner, can delete the studio (hopefully they don’t do it) and appear at the top of the manager list as the Owner.
Sometimes you don’t know if you can trust some managers with the description but need them for adding people, and stuff like that. This would help that and also help the manager problem with the new update.

NebulaOfTheEarth wrote:

A successful studio needs more than one person to run properly. An active studio has updates in the description, changes and grows with its members.

If only the owner can change things, this is lost.

The pressure on one person to run a successful, active studio all by themselves is too much. Especially if they have to invite people by IRLs, and inviting managers is useless. If it is harder to run, then it is more likely that the owner may just give up and abandon the studio.

Interaction and collaboration are essential pieces of Scratch. If one person who owns a studio leaves Scratch, or is inactive, then a whole studio full of great ideas and people could be lost. The power should stay with the people, and not just one kid.

Please take my opinion and use it well - thank you for reading.

charliesunset wrote:

Hi, Scratch community! As many of you know, studios were updated to 3.0 today, bringing many new changes. One of the features that this update removed is managers’ ability to edit the title, thumbnail, and description of a studio. @ScratchCat provided reasoning for this in a forum post that can be found through this link:

ScratchCat wrote:
Over the years, we have heard from many of you that allowing managers to make major changes to studios has made it harder to manage and run a successful studio. As a way to address this, studio owners will now be the only people allowed to edit studio descriptions, titles, and thumbnails, which will prevent others from changing or destroying the work you have done in your studios. This change is intended to prevent misuse of the studio description field, such as managers defacing the studio description or using it as a space for chatting.

I understand that this can be beneficial to studios in some ways. However, I have noticed that the community is already dealing with the negative aftermath of this change. I’ve provided some examples below.

~ Scratch Writing Camp (“SWC”) is a popular triannual writing program hosted by Scratchers in which keeping track of points is essential. Along with the leader of each team, or “cabin”, a handful of co-leaders are appointed to help perform this vital task. Now that only studio owners can update the description specifically, this job is much harder, and one of the most important aspects of SWC has been hindered. Not having updated word counts may even lead SWC members to lose their motivation to write.

~ I curate a very popular support studio for the LGBTQ+ community. (You can find this studio through this link: https://scratch.mit.edu/studios/5842709. Its creator, @–Waterfall–, left a while ago, and their activity feed is blank. Since then, more active managers have taken control of the studio. However, now that their abilities to edit have been revoked, there is nobody active to edit the description, title, and thumbnail when needed. It will be hard to spread the word of announcements and new rules, the thumbnail will not be able to be changed for holidays, and the studio will generally feel less lively. Over the past year, the description has undergone a great deal of change. Now that it cannot even be changed by most of its managers, the studio feels less like what it was made to be: a constantly evolving and growing community.

As we can see, there are two sides to this conflict. Both sides have valid arguments. Ultimately, in my opinion, the way a studio functions is up to its creator. I’d like to propose an option for the owner of a studio to decide whether or not managers can alter its title, description, and thumbnail. This way, the studios will be able to adapt to the circumstances occurring within their communities. (For instance, if a Scratcher decided to create a studio that they wanted to have most of the control over, they could turn this option off. If they left Scratch at some point in time and wanted to transfer control to other managers, they could turn it on.)

Please, Scratch Team and community, consider this idea and think about how it could benefit the website.

Thank you for reading!
@charliesunset

Mydoggiedaisy wrote:

I'll admit- at first, I was debating about whether to put this in “Bugs and Glitches” or “Suggestions” because it was unclear to me whether this was intentional or not because it goes against everything the ST says they are and what Scratch is supposed to be, but I decided I would put it here.

Since the studio update that happened a few minutes ago, I started doing more research as to what it means and the whole thing seems unreasonable and targeting to New Scratchers while putting too much pressure on the studio creators. Let's be real here. Only the studio creator can edit the description. /Nobody/ else. Doesn't this seem a little extreme? For starters, Scratch should be a trust-based community, and promoting someone to a manager is supposed to be an honor and achievement because it's telling the person

I trust you. I trust that you'll make constructive edits, be helpful, etc.

Now that trust is gone, and it feels like you're trying to force us into a website where you're telling us to not trust anyone. Don't take risks. Life is about risks. No matter what, there's always going to be some people who will do bad things to anything - including studios! Life involves taking risks, so taking that part out is taking out a whole part of life and preventing our generation from learning what we need to do, how we can be able to trust people, and more.

One solution you could use to solve this problem that is helpful although not ideal is to give studio creators the power to pick a “co-creator,” someone who has the privileges of a creator, and give studio creators the ability to give certain managers or people the trust to make wise decisions with the studios and the ability to change the description. As of right now, you're putting the well-being of all studios on one person's hands and that's a ton of stress for anyone.

I also bet that the Scratch Team doesn't have to face this issue because they can go into whatever studio they want to do whatever they want to it, am I correct? I've heard they don't have a forum time limit, or a comment time limit, so why would they get studio limits? Why don't the Scratch Team put themselves into our shoes and see what it's like for a day?

Anyway, that's only one of the problems in this studio update, but one of the largest.

Another one is that it's almost as if you're targeting the New Scratchers and you pretty much lied to us. You told us that there would be a comment limit and manager limit but nothing else. You didn't tell us that New Scratchers wouldn't be able to create studios. You didn't tell us that they wouldn't be able to join studios. You kept that hidden away, and while I don't know your reasoning I have a few theories that you'd probably ban me for saying so I'll keep my mouth shut, just like you want and are forcing everyone to do.

Why did you shut us up before and why didn't you listen to us? What was your reasoning? I want a bigger explanation and not just for what in the world is happening to the studios.

In summary, I'm suggesting that you:
1) Give studio creators the power to pick a “co-creator,” someone who has the privileges of a creator, and give studio creators the ability to give certain managers or people the trust to make wise decisions with the studios and the ability to change the description.
2) Explain your reasoning behind not giving us full information, why you didn't listen to us, and more.

Thanks for hopefully reading this all.

samq64 wrote:

Wow! That's a long OP! I haven't even started reading it, but I'm going support anyway beacuse almost anything is better than the current studios.

I am NOT in favor of the new studios, and I'm not saying that they're better. But, you need to stop demanding the old studios. I know for a fact that begging will not get you anywhere. I play Halo, and I have seen that even though how many times Halo fans plead, or beg, or demand, they didn't have sprint removed, nor armor abilities, nor the horrible Gen2 armor.

So stop asking. Just stop. No matter what, they will NOT give the old studios back! That would mean re-writing tons of code! Have you had to re-write code for your project? It takes a while! It'll take even MORE time to re-write all the studios!

Instead of asking for the OLD studios, instead ask for NEW additions to the NEW studios. Much cleaner, less hate, more supply.