Welcome to our collaboration!

This is a collaboration for a project that can guide forum helpers on Scratch! The project we are going to make will identify problems in forum helpers and how to fix them. Help with the project would be appreciated.

What we’re looking for in collaborators:

• Users who have experience helping in constructive forums
  
• Users who can offer help in finding and fixing issues in forum helpers
  
• Users who can stick with a collaboration until it is complete
  

Current collaborators:

• Prime689
  
• Sliverus / Super_Scratch_Bros20
  
• VioletCalico
  
• Han614698
  

So if you’re interested, feel free to ask about it!

I’ll clarify what I mean when I have the time. I have class. But here’s my outline for what I had put down in my project so far:

1. Aren’t as constructive as they can be 2. Assume they know what a topic means when it’s unclear 3. Grade applications hastily 4. Aren’t involved in actually helping TFH improve 5. Just repeat things they hear on QAS 6. Don’t handle foruming mistakes correctly 7, Jokes on the forums aren’t handled well 8. Have logical fallacies

EDIT: Cool, I’m back. I’ll explain my points in slightly more detail so you get what I mean.

1. Helpfulness: From some things I’ve tested on my alts (namely @xXNambaseWahspTVXx), users are not afraid to quite blatantly say that an idea is “horrible”, a design “looks awful”, “looks like it could easily be recreated”, etc. Users need to be more polite to users. If you think an idea is bad, why not give them ideas to edify the suggestion and help the user?
   
2. Accuracy: I notice when a topic is really vague, people always say “I think you mean *gives possible explanation*? If that’s the case, then I support.” They assume what the topic means instead of asking for clarification, and it can oftentimes confuse the OP. It’s a good idea to ask for clarification.
   
3. Patience: When Sliverus applied for TFP, he got rejected for “being unconstructive” but no one explained why he was unconstructive. Eventually the graders told me they had no idea what they were talking about. Try to give reasons why you feel a certain way when grading applicants. Offer suggestions to improve, too. And above all else, realize that this will affect other users, and it’s not something to lightly shrug off.
   
4. Activity: Users complain way too much about how TFH is full of drama, but a fair number of them don’t do anything about it. They sit back and complain about how no one’s helping the situation…instead of helping the situation. It’s ironic. If you want TFH to improve, then you need to help make it improve.
   
5. Calmness: Mentioning drama can oftentimes escalate the drama. It’s best to not mention it at all, and try not to start it. So just follow regular principles that would hew to the Community Guidelines, such as being respectful.
   
6. Originality: Users seem to just repeat things they hear on QAS. They don’t put too much thought into it. Some questions have very straightforward answers that simply haven’t been officially announced. (I’ll go into more details on this experiment later. It’s classified for right now.) Even if you don’t know the exact answer, it’s perfectly fine to speculate as long as you don’t pass it off as the official answer.
   
7. Kindness: People make mistakes on the forums. Perhaps they spam, necropost, repeat points, etc. But when users do so, no one tries to sympathize with them. My suggested method would be that users would comment on their profile kindly pointing out what they did wrong, and giving friendly constructive feedback. Don’t put it bluntly. I’ve seen that it offends many users.
   
8. Relevance: Some posts have jokes in them. That’s ok. One of my favorite posts is a post that says “no kissy kiss, no stabby stab, themz the rules.” That’s ok. It’s explaining that mushy romance and gory violence are not ok. However, some users just like to reply to posts by saying, “Oh okay. By the way, this reminds me of (tells a funny joke). Hilarious! But yeah, yeah you’re right. That post isn’t adding anything to the discussion. They clearly only made the post for it to be a joke. The joke needs to actually contribute to the discussion, like @Za-Chary’s post.
   
9. Infallibility: People use way too many logical fallacies. People attack users’ messages based off writing style or even profile picture. People mess up transitivity arguments. People use circular reasoning. Perhaps they’ll use a red herring fallacy to mention a worse issue and divert from the issue at hand. This is especially frequent in Suggestions. It is not valid reasoning. Users need to be careful to avoid particular logical fallacies that we’ll mention in the project.
   

Of course, the project should likely go into more detail. I just gave brief summaries so you’ll understand my points. Do you agree or have anything to add?

Hey, I’d be interested!

han614698 wrote:

Hey, I’d be interested!

Cool! I’ll talk to Prime and see if we’re in agreement.

May I join? I’ve already given you a few of my ideas.

I would like thank everyone for this opportunity to improve my grammar and writing, and overall my skill of communicating with people, which is a superficial need in life. Scratch is definitely helpful and resourceful in many ways; must I admit greatly. Without further ado –

I would be interested in helping SSB20 out as rewording the containing paragraphs so the overall point would be more succinct and accurate. We should also invest our time into making this guide a lot more detailed, florid and teeming with information. I think writing a message is an art, and we could express our feelings, in real life and through social media. This is such a wonderful opportunity to invest our time in sharpening our writing skills and overall grammar, while at least giving multiple messages to an audience with varying experience with writing experience.

That being said, we should have great vocabulary and grammar since the point that we have respectable and proper writing experience, would be much more conspicuous. Still, we must retain our composure when we argue, as since this plays a major role in our arguments. For example, when some people couldn't properly argue to counter one's argument, they use an Ad Hominem, Straw Man or a Red Herring fallacy. I would summarize what they mean by diving them into sections;

1. Ad hominem
   An ad hominem argument is one that attacks the other arguer(s), rather than assessing the argument itself. This often would be against the Community Guidelines since it would be disrespectful. Needless to say, it would start heated arguments which would yield fruitless to both sides. Ad hominem means “to the man” in Latin.
   
   Example:
   John: I think school bathrooms should be cleaned more frequently.
   Garrett: Why do I have to listen to you? You couldn't even tie your shoes!
   
   
   
2. Straw Man
   A Straw Man argument is one that exaggerates one's argument for the sole reason of making it easier to win over the arguer. This, of course, doesn't in any way evaluates the argument itself, so this shouldn't be used if one wants to have a productive and constructive debate.
   
   Example:
   Donald: You should walk more rather than watching TV every Saturday.
   Alex: So I'm going on a marathon, huh?
   
   
   
3. Red Herring
   A Red Herring argument avoids the main point of the argument by saying something unrelated and, sometimes intentionally, misleading.
   
   Example:
   Mark: Can I go to the movies?
   Mark's father: Why don't you ask your mom?
   

(There are much more fallacies, but I couldn't name all of them.)
==
I'm not the best forumer, but at least I could at least make a contribution which changes how we think and see Scratch and The Forum Helpers. At least I could change Scratch for the better. At least I can be helpful to users who needs help on their projects and the latter. I may not have as much recognition as I thought I might have, but I should help people for the good of it only. At least we could improve The Forum Helpers through collaboration.

The overall point of this post and project is that I want to change how users think – constructiveness, finding fallacies when arguing, kindness. This project should not be limited for TFH members, but to people participating in discourse abroad the Scratch forums. This would be an amazing way to change how familiar forumers and all Scratch users think alike. I wish some people would be interested in being involved in this project.

Remember to treat others as you want to be treated and engage in friendly discourse, whatever it might be or the ultimate outcome. If you want to remove the splinter from someone's eyes, remove the plank from your eye first. If you want judge other people for their wrongdoing, you must be aware of your same wrongdoing.

- Prime689

Hey, I’ll share my thoughts.

It is very hard to be excellent writer, not even some of the best forumers have achieved that title. Persuasive writing revolves around three main principles; belief, understanding, and communication.

Belief is easy to explain, you should believe in what you are writing. When you aren’t arguing with a belief that what you are saying is correct, you cannot convince others of your beliefs. For example, if someone is arguing and trying to persuade an Atheist that Christianity is the truth, if he does not belief it himself, that will not convince. This carries over to the forums. Believe in what you write.

Understanding, understand the topic and the points of others. When debating, don’t simply skim through posts, read them and understand the points they are making. Take the time to address all of the parts of their statement with counter statements, if possible.

Communication, the ability to put your thoughts into words, one of the fundamentals for forumers. This involves making word choices that best fit the subject, and making things easy to understand, and in a good format. Look over the writing before you post it. If your post doesn’t make sense to you, the likelihood of it making sense to others is slim to none.

As a new TFH manager, I recognize that being constructive isn’t the only thing important for being considered a good, or even great, forumer. There are many more factors of importance that go into it, and I’d like to give some things not already mentioned.

1. Word Choice
   It is very important to recognize that the person you are talking to, or maybe even arguing with, may be a child. Scratch was made for ages 8-16, which means that a great deal of people are below 13. This is especially the case in QAS. If you don’t know how old a user is, just assume that they aren’t a teen, so don’t try and confuse them and show off your amazing vocabulary, try to make your post more simple, so it makes sense.
   
   
2. Learning
   Learn from the best. There are many good forumers that would be willing to help you with your posts and writing, and improve them. Truly, people want to help you. Ask for feedback, get some feedback from people with all sorts of opinions on your writing. If anyone is being disrespectful, use the report button, but the majority of people will try and help you to improve.
   
   
3. Elaboration
   It can be unclear what people mean when they post sometimes, so to avoid that, make sure you elaborate as much as possible. Why don’t you support this suggestion? What makes this a good idea? Think about queries users may have after reading your post, and answer them before they are asked.
   
   
4. Acknowledgement
   Acknowledge that users take the time to ask questions, make posts, and write suggestions. When I am posting a reply to a suggestion for the first time, I like to thank the user for taking the time to make that suggestion before I even get into the post. It’s a simple one sentence addition to your post, and it makes a difference, since many users may feel that you are simply attacking their suggestion right away when you start your post with “this is not a good suggestion” or a sentence of the sort.
   

Now, let’s talking about the format of a post. Each post should have a key idea, belief, or claim, and evidence to back that up. Let’s see what posts for QAS and Suggestions should look like.

In QAS, when answering a question, you want to first do research on the subject. Look at topics similar to this one, and look at what users said. Then, compose an answer based on the facts, linking pages and quoting posts if necessary. Evidence is the key to giving a sufficient response.

In Suggestions, first, read the suggest very carefully, make sure you understand what it is. If you don’t know what the user means, ask for clarification, do not just assume that they mean something. Think about the suggestion, and decide whether you having anything useful to contribute to the discussion. If so, use evidence to support your claims, being careful to avoid logical fallacies along the way. Make your post easy to understand.

That’s all I will contribute right now, I may make more posts in the future. If you have any questions, feel free to message me, and I will answer them as best I can.

Thank you for reading,
VioletCalico

Prime689 wrote:

-snip-

I’m so glad we’re doing this. I think we should really help out users who are clearly struggling to use the forums. We’re not doing this in pity. We’re doing this as friends. We want to be people who users can look up to. We all need to be role models, and so we all need this sort of advice.

By the way, I am very glad you mentioned fallacies. I had never heard the Straw Man one before. I think those fallacies you mentioned are extremely common on the forums, and they must be avoided. I want to point out a few more notable mentions:

1. Circular Reasoning
   Circular reasoning is a fallacy in which a statement backs itself up with its own statement. This, of course, is not given proper proof and it leaves the original statement undefined. This is an extremely common fallacy that I’ve seen used many times on the forums.
   
   Example:
   Mexico is my favorite country because it is the best country.
   
   
2. Affirming the Consequent
   Affirming the consequent is a fallacy where someone says the conclusion is true, therefore the hypothesis is true. However, that is not necessarily the case. Oftentimes, the conclusion can be caused by other means than the hypothesis, so assuming that the hypothesis is true due to the conclusion -—is a fallacy.
   
   Example:
   If the Big Bang occurred, then the universe exists.
   The universe exists.
   Therefore, the Big Bang occurred.
   
   
3. Denying the Antecedent
   People can also tend to assume that if the hypothesis in a statement is not true, then the conclusion is not true. That is not necessarily true either. The conclusion can still be true under a different hypothesis. Therefore, this is a fallacy.
   
   Example:
   If you win a football game, you will be happy.
   You did not win a football game.
   Therefore, you are not happy.
   
   
4. Post Hoc
   Post hoc fallacies occur when an event comes before a second event, and people assume that the first event caused the second event. But that isn’t necessarily true. Events can come before other events and can be unrelated. Therefore, this is a fallacy.
   
   Example:
   A boy from Texas bought an XBOX,
   That boy also killed multiple people at a school.
   Therefore, video games are what caused the boy to commit murder.
   
   
5. Equivocation
   Equivocation is a fallacy when people confuse homonyms of words that makes the whole argument based off of confused premises. The words are actually unrelated in definition, and therefore makes the reasoning false.
   
   Example:
   Man (humanity) is more intelligent than animals.
   A boy is not a man (adult male).
   Therefore, boys are not more intelligent than animals.
   
   
6. Hasty Generalization
   Hasty generalization is when a conclusion is made based off of too little examples of inductive reasoning. Basically, it’s when someone tries to make an assumption based off of very few examples, and it makes the assumption false.
   
   Example:
   Abraham Lincoln was killed.
   Archduke Francis Ferdinand was killed.
   Pierre Laporte was killed.
   Therefore, all politically-involved people get killed.
   
   

There are some more examples that could be worth adding to the project, I especially think circular reasoning and hasty generalization would be good at the minimum. It seems like we have a large amount of feedback on how to improve the forums. Should we keep collecting data, or should we get started with discussing the actual project? I honestly don’t mind either way.

I agree with all points. I've talked a lot about #1 and #7, and a little bit about #4 in TFH, back when people were talking about- well, the list. I think something you should make sure to do, especially in Suggestions, is actually consider someone's idea. Tell them all the cons, but make sure not to focus too much on the cons. Sometimes the pros outweigh the cons. But it'll be easier to see it if you talk about both the pros AND the cons. I see a lot of people focus only on the cons, when there are some very good pros.

han614698 wrote:

Hey, I’d be interested!

I talked to Prime and he’s fine with it, and so am I. I’m glad to have you here. But I want to ask a favor: Don’t share it in TFH. This is a collaboration and I want to distinguish it from official TFH content that people must participate in. I am sure that’s what would happen.

Sliverus wrote:

han614698 wrote:

Hey, I’d be interested!

I talked to Prime and he’s fine with it, and so am I. I’m glad to have you here. But I want to ask a favor: Don’t share it in TFH. This is a collaboration and I want to distinguish it from official TFH content that people must participate in. I am sure that’s what would happen.

Alright. When I noticed it wasn’t mentioned in TFH, I thought maybe some people were being purposely left out. Also, I found this via the recent changes in the wiki because I read every single change made to the wiki.

han614698 wrote:

Alright. When I noticed it wasn’t mentioned in TFH, I thought maybe some people were being purposely left out.

Yeah, that’s also part of it. I feel like if a lot of people know about it, a lot of people will want to join, and TFH will kind of start to take control and treat it as official TFH content when it’s really just supposed to be a collaboration among a few great forum helpers sharing ideas. Make sense?

Sliverus wrote:

han614698 wrote:

Alright. When I noticed it wasn’t mentioned in TFH, I thought maybe some people were being purposely left out.

Yeah, that’s also part of it. I feel like if a lot of people know about it, a lot of people will want to join, and TFH will kind of start to take control and treat it as official TFH content when it’s really just supposed to be a collaboration among a few great forum helpers sharing ideas. Make sense?

Yes. I feel that people may start to say that only managers should be part of an official product, although a collab is supposed to be an equal part my all members (besides the owners or whatever).

Ok, now onto the actual production itself. Who’s going to make this project?

Sliverus wrote:

Ok, now onto the actual production itself. Who’s going to make this project?

You, I’d say. You had the idea, you’re the most competent.

VioletCalico wrote:

Sliverus wrote:

Ok, now onto the actual production itself. Who’s going to make this project?

You, I’d say. You had the idea, you’re the most competent.

Thanks, but two things:

1. It wasn’t actually my idea. Prime is the one who asked me if I wanted to do a collab.
   
2. I can’t make decent-quality projects on my iPad.
   

Sliverus wrote:

VioletCalico wrote:

Sliverus wrote:

Ok, now onto the actual production itself. Who’s going to make this project?

You, I’d say. You had the idea, you’re the most competent.

Thanks, but two things:

1. It wasn’t actually my idea. Prime is the one who asked me if I wanted to do a collab.
   
2. I can’t make decent-quality projects on my iPad.
   

Then Prime.

VioletCalico wrote:

Then Prime.

I don’t want to sign him up for it if he doesn’t want to. Let’s ask him instead.

Sliverus wrote:

VioletCalico wrote:

Then Prime.

I don’t want to sign him up for it if he doesn’t want to. Let’s ask him instead.

Ok, good point.

Sounds interesting. Can I participate? The points previously mentioned cover a lot, but here’s some ideas:

1. Effort
   At times, you may feel pressured to reach a certain post count. For example, you may be trying to get 500 posts for The Forum Helpers. This can make it tempting to create lots of posts, but be sure to put effort into them. Don’t provide overly short or incomplete answers. Quality is more important than quantity, and the quality of your posts is what most people (and studios like The Forum Helpers) will be focusing on.
   
   
2. Length
   Long posts are often good and can help explain your view in more depth, but your main focus should be helping the user and getting your point across. It’s better to make a short, clear post than a long, confusing, and convoluted one. When making a long post, be careful not to repeat points that you’ve already stated.
   
   There’s no fixed number for how long posts should be, as it can vary from situation to situation. Make your post as long (or short) as you deem necessary. In general though, it’s best to make your posts at least 10 words long, preferably longer.
   
   
3. Scratch Wiki
   The Scratch Wiki can be a very useful tool when making a forum post, especially when answering a user’s question. But keep in mind that while linking to a Scratch Wiki article can be helpful, you should provide at least some information in your own words (got idea from a comment by SSB20).
   

I’ll add more suggestions later if I can think of some, and I’ll improve the grammar. I might add a segment about paragraph breaking.