As we can see, Scratch Team member @Za-Chary has already rejected a suggestion for this in the suggestion forums: https://scratch.mit.edu/discuss/topic/354903/?page=2#post-3596730

I will copy paste the relevant part of what he said here:

"Onto your specific suggestions:

Managers shall only be allowed to add projects and invite people, the authority to remove people/projects should be only given to the owner of the studio.

I disagree with this. There are plenty of studios in which the owner is inactive — in fact, maybe they are banned. As a result, removing people, projects, or editing the description would no longer be possible. The manager position is made to have similar responsibilities as the owner precisely for this reason — in case the owner falls inactive. Also, a manager wouldn't have much of a responsibility over a curator if this were the case."

This echoes many other's objections to this new update - what if the owner is inactive, the manager is made to have similar responsibility to the owner, etc. etc. So why did this happen if it was already rejected (and most people in the thread were against it as well, indicating that people who check the forums are against this update)?

Thanks!

Edit: Paddle2See also indicated that he was against this suggestion here: https://scratch.mit.edu/discuss/topic/354903/?page=4#post-3602895

He stated:

“I agree that there is a problem with studio abuse. It is, unfortunately, quite common. I'm not sure that the solution is to centralize all the powers with the studio owner though - they can do that now, if they choose, just by not promoting anybody to the manager position.

One of the goals we originally had for studios was to have them serve as a gathering place for sub-communities. We wanted them to be able to survive even if the original owner lost interest and became inactive. It would be great if any solutions that you develop could preserve that intent.”

Again, directly contradicting the intent and implementation of the new update.

I'm not sure when Za-Chary became a member of the Scratch team, it may have been after that.

Also he may have changed his opinion in the last 2 years. A lot has changed in Scratch over the last two years.

colinmacc wrote:

I'm not sure when Za-Chary became a member of the Scratch team, it may have been after that.

Also he may have changed his opinion in the last 2 years. A lot has changed in Scratch over the last two years.

He became a Scratch Team member May 10 2019 (source: https://scratch.mit.edu/discuss/topic/461896/?page=1#post-4643788) and he posted that June 19 2019.
I was also under the impression that once a suggestion was rejected, it would not be implemented. no matter when it was rejected…? Feel free to correct me if I am wrong though - it's possible there are once-rejected, now-implemented suggestions I am not aware of.

Long story short: two years ago we weren’t suffering from a pandemic - now were 1.5 years into a pandemic whose circumstances caused website activity exploded a couple thousand times over and isn’t going to be slowing down anytime soon, so we visited some past suggestions that you guys suggested (the fact you kinda super-hate it now kinda bewilders us!)

caramelize wrote:

I was also under the impression that once a suggestion was rejected, it would not be implemented. no matter when it was rejected…? Feel free to correct me if I am wrong though - it's possible there are once-rejected, now-implemented suggestions I am not aware of.

It depend on what it is. If it has a tendency to be bound to legal rules (ex: rejection of a live chat service) or goes against website core (ex: rejection of disabling remixes), then it’s a pretty hard reject. Otherwise it could be something soft - reject now but could potentially accept later if the circumstances call for it (ex. adding more advanced tools to paint editor, which is something we’re kinda soft rejecting now because adding stuff is a potential lag point, but this may change as technology changes).

What was really more ideal for studio management would have been the ability to track changes made to description/titles/avatars, but that heavily tied in with a moderation system which hadn’t been optimized for 3.0 yet as well as having to save those changes for moderator review later. Pandemic kinda fast-tracked certain things, sometimes in a direction we don’t want, but it is what it is. Kinda like the situation when we pushed changes to 3.0 much earlier than we wanted due to Flash being killed.

It's not worth hiding the fact that I was a Scratch Team member when I made that post (albeit a relatively new one). I think @cheddargirl makes a pretty good point. Another thing to note is that both I and @Paddle2See did not reject the suggestion. A suggestion is usually rejected if the last post was closed by a Scratch Team member who explains why it's rejected. I'm not seeing such a post here, so I suspect it was closed by request of the topic owner. At the time, I think it is likely that we were stating our personal opinions rather than reasons for rejection.

Being a Scratch Team member undoubtedly changed my view on several things regarding the website, some of which involves safety and moderation. As @colinmacc states, it's been 2 years, and a lot has changed since then — the pandemic being one of them, and strategies on how to effectively moderate a website being another one.

And just for fun… another example of a Scratch feature that was once rejected is profile pictures on the forums.

cheddargirl wrote:

Long story short: two years ago we weren’t suffering from a pandemic - now were 1.5 years into a pandemic whose circumstances caused website activity exploded a couple thousand times over and isn’t going to be slowing down anytime soon, so we visited some past suggestions that you guys suggested (the fact you kinda super-hate it now kinda bewilders us!)

People only tend to be vocal when they're not happy with something. It will be different set of users being vocal now than it was before!

Big decisions shouldn't really be based on the wishes of a vocal minority, without first taking into account the opinions of the silent majority.

Especially as the manager permission restrictions were not advertised before the update, which gave no-one a chance to prepare for it.

colinmacc wrote:

Big decisions shouldn't really be based on the wishes of a vocal minority, without first taking into account the opinions of the silent majority.

Kinda pretty hard to do that when don’t speak up on the Suggestions forums, eh?

That being said, this big decision was made due to internal and budget issues, and that kind of stuff can override wishes of a majority and even the ST, at times.

cheddargirl wrote:

Kinda pretty hard to do that when don’t speak up on the Suggestions forums, eh?

To be fair a lot of the suggestions forums are just about the 3.0 update. Though I may have misunderstood your post. Also not here to start an argument xD

cheddargirl wrote:

That being said, this big decision was made due to internal and budget issues, and that kind of stuff can override wishes of a majority and even the ST, at times.

Hi, umm… do you mind explaining how limiting a manager's ability to edit the description or thumbnail was made due to an internal storage/performance or budget issue?

Chiroyce wrote:

cheddargirl wrote:

That being said, this big decision was made due to internal and budget issues, and that kind of stuff can override wishes of a majority and even the ST, at times.

Hi, umm… do you mind explaining how limiting a manager's ability to edit the description or thumbnail was made due to an internal storage/performance or budget issue?

We noticed too many people changing the studio out every couple of hours at best, every minutes over several hours at worst. That’s an awful lot of changes the system needs to be saving.

cheddargirl wrote:

We noticed too many people changing the studio out every couple of hours at best, every minutes over several hours at worst. That’s an awful lot of changes the system needs to be saving.

Ok that does make sense.

There is at least one topic that asks for customizable permissions.
Maybe if that's too complex, people have asked for a new ‘co-owner’ role that would have the abilities of the old manager.
Plus if a co-owner role was implemented, maybe people would promote others to that less due to the difference in phrasing, thus leading to less stuff like description changes?
(and then the designers are going to have to figure out how to change the layout to not give people sensory overload/headaches D: )
Things are a mess right now :\

cheddargirl wrote:

Chiroyce wrote:

cheddargirl wrote:

That being said, this big decision was made due to internal and budget issues, and that kind of stuff can override wishes of a majority and even the ST, at times.

Hi, umm… do you mind explaining how limiting a manager's ability to edit the description or thumbnail was made due to an internal storage/performance or budget issue?

We noticed too many people changing the studio out every couple of hours at best, every minutes over several hours at worst. That’s an awful lot of changes the system needs to be saving.

Basic manager facilities I think is more important than a tiny bit of lag.

dertermenter wrote:

cheddargirl wrote:

Chiroyce wrote:

cheddargirl wrote:

That being said, this big decision was made due to internal and budget issues, and that kind of stuff can override wishes of a majority and even the ST, at times.

Hi, umm… do you mind explaining how limiting a manager's ability to edit the description or thumbnail was made due to an internal storage/performance or budget issue?

We noticed too many people changing the studio out every couple of hours at best, every minutes over several hours at worst. That’s an awful lot of changes the system needs to be saving.

Basic manager facilities I think is more important than a tiny bit of lag.

Believe me, this ain’t a tiny bit of lag considering the sheer number of studios involved. We had wanted more advanced functions for studio control, but at the end of the day, this just wasn’t gonna happen at the time with the resources we had.

cheddargirl wrote:

Chiroyce wrote:

cheddargirl wrote:

That being said, this big decision was made due to internal and budget issues, and that kind of stuff can override wishes of a majority and even the ST, at times.

Hi, umm… do you mind explaining how limiting a manager's ability to edit the description or thumbnail was made due to an internal storage/performance or budget issue?

We noticed too many people changing the studio out every couple of hours at best, every minutes over several hours at worst. That’s an awful lot of changes the system needs to be saving.

Are these server limitations also the reason why comment logs were removed from the Activity page in studios?

cheddargirl wrote:

dertermenter wrote:

cheddargirl wrote:

Chiroyce wrote:

cheddargirl wrote:

That being said, this big decision was made due to internal and budget issues, and that kind of stuff can override wishes of a majority and even the ST, at times.

Hi, umm… do you mind explaining how limiting a manager's ability to edit the description or thumbnail was made due to an internal storage/performance or budget issue?

We noticed too many people changing the studio out every couple of hours at best, every minutes over several hours at worst. That’s an awful lot of changes the system needs to be saving.

Basic manager facilities I think is more important than a tiny bit of lag.

Believe me, this ain’t a tiny bit of lag considering the sheer number of studios involved. We had wanted more advanced functions for studio control, but at the end of the day, this just wasn’t gonna happen at the time with the resources we had.

I would just recommend adding it back despite the lag. Maybe close comments more on projects that get a lot of views?

cheddargirl wrote:

dertermenter wrote:

cheddargirl wrote:

Chiroyce wrote:

cheddargirl wrote:

That being said, this big decision was made due to internal and budget issues, and that kind of stuff can override wishes of a majority and even the ST, at times.

Hi, umm… do you mind explaining how limiting a manager's ability to edit the description or thumbnail was made due to an internal storage/performance or budget issue?

We noticed too many people changing the studio out every couple of hours at best, every minutes over several hours at worst. That’s an awful lot of changes the system needs to be saving.

Basic manager facilities I think is more important than a tiny bit of lag.

Believe me, this ain’t a tiny bit of lag considering the sheer number of studios involved. We had wanted more advanced functions for studio control, but at the end of the day, this just wasn’t gonna happen at the time with the resources we had.

So this makes more sense to me than the “official” response of stopping studio raids. Thank you.

So what it boils down to is the problem is the managers of some studios are using the description as a chat facility, and that's what the restrictions are intended to stop. Which I quite agree with.

So as an alternative solution, and thinking outside the box a bit, how about allowing all managers to update the descriptions as before, but a maximum of one update per day or something?

numberblocks460 wrote:

Wow, Scratch Team are 2-year olds.

Please be respectful as the reason you could make that disrespectful post is because of the hard-working ST.

Queer_Royalty wrote:

dhuls wrote:

numberblocks460 wrote:

(removed by user - be nice)

Hmm, yes, very constructive and respectful /s

No, um, I think maybe this was why they said that:

caramelize wrote:

He became a Scratch Team member May 10 2019

and

colinmacc wrote:

lso he may have changed his opinion in the last 2 years. A lot has changed in Scratch over the last two years.

I doubt they meant it nicely, more explanation could be used.

dertermenter wrote:

I would just recommend adding it back despite the lag. Maybe close comments more on projects that get a lot of views?

I don't know, that doesn't seem like a good solution for this.

Edit (reasoning): This is just one more thing for the moderators to do. Something like colinmacc's suggestion sounds better for both the community and the moderators (check it out ST!):

colinmacc wrote:

So as an alternative solution, and thinking outside the box a bit, how about allowing all managers to update the descriptions as before, but a maximum of one update per day or something?

That, and the rest of your post, I agree with.

I also feel like the manager limit was getting at something by itself; setting a limit on how many managers there can be can help people realize how important the role is (if they have their perms back.) In an extreme case, having a 10 manager limit can make people go, “oh, I should pick people I really trust,” but I'd understand this might have a converse effect and create competition, but still…

Queer_Royalty wrote:

No, um, I think maybe this was why they said that… (two quotes)

Regardless of their reasoning, people shouldn't call others “dumb” or anything on this site. Let's stop talking about that now, though.

cheddargirl wrote:

We had wanted more advanced functions for studio control, but at the end of the day, this just wasn’t gonna happen at the time with the resources we had.

But does that mean we may get manager permissions back due to this?

cheddargirl wrote:

Otherwise it could be something soft - reject now but could potentially accept later if the circumstances call for it (ex. adding more advanced tools to paint editor, which is something we’re kinda soft rejecting now because adding stuff is a potential lag point, but this may change as technology changes).