Don’t Allow Scratch Team Members to Use Their Power as ST Members to Push Their Political Opinions

I thought of this suggestion reading this:

7.5 Scratchers and Scratch Team members should not post political views
According to the Community Guidelines, “Scratch welcomes people of all ages, races, ethnicities, religions, abilities, sexual orientations, and gender identities.” As long as someone's beliefs and statements are respectful and welcoming towards all groups of people, they are allowed to express them on the Scratch website. This includes Scratchers, as well as members of the Scratch Team.

I want to focus especially on the part about ST members. Now, I think they should be able to make projects and comments about their political opinions, but that is as far as it should go. They shouldn’t be able to feature projects or studios just because those studios or projects are about pushing a certain political opinion.

This shouldn’t be allowed for the Scratch Team to do because, although it may help to support a group or people, that isn’t Scratch’s place. It should simply allow people onto the site, not celebrate some more than others. If individual users want to celebrate these groups, that’s fine! I’m just saying that the Scratch Team shouldn’t have a intimate part in organizing and creating it.

Aren't scratch team members considered scratchers as well? they might not scratch often (or at all) but they have accounts on the website, which should mean that they're subject to the same rules as normal scratchers.

i probably missed the point but uhhhh

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Although i believe that they should celebrate most/all groups(that follow the guidelines, anyways), definitely not to the point that a month brings a completely different site(AFD aside)
That being said, its arguable that they’re pushing political opinions, as, during Black History Month, for example, it can help further education that a school might have on black history, and otherwise teach about black history.
That being said, during this case, they don’t seem to make as big a deal of black history as pride month, that is, during pride month its highly obvious it is while on Scratch, compared to Black History Month.
However, there are limitations as to how far this should be argued. For example, the phrase “All Lives Matter” should be continued as censored due to its origins.
That being said, it is arguable that their power is being used for their political opinion, due to the philosophy that they run by. However, that is also arguable in favor of this suggestion, due to many things they do being rooted within an arguably controversial political mindset. This is a double bladed sword, however, as it would be politically charged to argue against it.
But, for a truly unbiased look towards reports and featuring, then this suggestion would allow for a truly neutral decisions.
Why did i write formally

INSERT-USER_NAME wrote:

Aren't scratch team members considered scratchers as well? they might not scratch often (or at all) but they have accounts on the website, which should mean that they're subject to the same rules as normal scratchers.

I don’t see how this is relevant. I think that ST members should still be able to do all of those things that normal Scratchers can about political opinions, they just can’t push those ideas by using the powers they get by being ST members (such as getting the power to feature projects and studios).

GIitchInTheMatrix wrote:

That being said, its arguable that they’re pushing political opinions, as, during Black History Month, for example, it can help further education that a school might have on black history, and otherwise teach about black history.

I agree with this. I think that Black History Month is something that we should celebrate, since it is literally in the education system. I think that it’s good as long as it isn’t pushing things like CRT. I’m not really referring to BHM as much, but now that you mention it, the BHM studio says “the theme for 2023 is ‘Black Resistance,’ which acknowledges the various ways one can express resistance to oppression and advocate for equality and equity” which is pushing CRT a bit. I don’t think that this should necessarily be changed, but in general, the ST isn’t neutral on these things.

GIitchInTheMatrix wrote:

That being said, during this case, they don’t seem to make as big a deal of black history as pride month, that is, during pride month its highly obvious it is while on Scratch, compared to Black History Month.

I completely agree. I think that ST members can make their own studios about Pride Month and join them, but they just can’t feature them all over the site. The featured studios should stick to studios like this featured mountain climbing studio, or this studio about rain. Pride Month studios are a very different type of subject, something way more political and controversial, and something that the ST doesn’t need to promote. Even as a Christian, I would say this should apply to Christians studios as well. The ST should respect and allow Christians on this site, but shouldn’t celebrate Christianity above, say, Islam. I’m not specifically for or against any of these things, but it isn’t the ST’s job to PROMOTE religions and political ideas.

GIitchInTheMatrix wrote:

However, there are limitations as to how far this should be argued. For example, the phrase “All Lives Matter” should be continued as censored due to its origins.

I think that this is a different issue, but is worth bringing up.

GIitchInTheMatrix wrote:

That being said, it is arguable that their power is being used for their political opinion, due to the philosophy that they run by. However, that is also arguable in favor of this suggestion, due to many things they do being rooted within an arguably controversial political mindset. This is a double bladed sword, however, as it would be politically charged to argue against it.

I’m sort of confused about what you mean by this. I think that any political opinions shouldn’t be pushed, liberal or conservative.

GIitchInTheMatrix wrote:

But, for a truly unbiased look towards reports and featuring, then this suggestion would allow for a truly neutral decisions.

I think the ST should stay out of politics entirely. Like I said above, stick to featuring less political studios and projects.

Is equal rights political?

musicROCKS013 wrote:

GIitchInTheMatrix wrote:

That being said, its arguable that they’re pushing political opinions, as, during Black History Month, for example, it can help further education that a school might have on black history, and otherwise teach about black history.

I agree with this. I think that Black History Month is something that we should celebrate, since it is literally in the education system. I think that it’s good as long as it isn’t pushing things like CRT. I’m not really referring to BHM as much, but now that you mention it, the BHM studio says “the theme for 2023 is ‘Black Resistance,’ which acknowledges the various ways one can express resistance to oppression and advocate for equality and equity” which is pushing CRT a bit. I don’t think that this should necessarily be changed, but in general, the ST isn’t neutral on these things.

Is equal rights political?


I think scratch team should be able to have opinions.and be able to feature LGBTQ+ and BLM and BHM studios and projects.they’re not saying that anyone who doesn’t support that has to get off the site or that they’re bad people.

And I don’t think their team members can be neutral on theses things if they’re black or part of lgbtq+.they’ed probably think that their life matters or that they should be able to be supported(yeah this isn’t what you mean)

Ooooh boy politics
Time to sit down and watch the big kids fight

It just deleted everything I wrote so I’ll summarize |

Prince_Wolf1 wrote:

Is equal rights political?

No, the existence of them is. Some people believe that Systematic Racism (CRT) is very prominent, and others think it is nonexistent. The BHM studio implies that racism is still very prominent in America’s systems, which is a political opinion. The ST shouldn’t lean one way or the other in politics. It’s not their role.

Prince_Wolf1 wrote:

I think scratch team should be able to have opinions.and be able to feature LGBTQ+ and BLM and BHM studios and projects.they’re not saying that anyone who doesn’t support that has to get off the site or that they’re bad people.

It’s simply not their role. They can HAVE and POST political opinions, but using their power as ST members to push those political opinions isn’t something that they should do, no matter what opinions those may be.

Also, the ST is actually banning people with different political opinions than them, even if those opinions are articulated respectfully.

No one is denying them the right to have opinions on certain things. I am simply saying that they should set those opinions aside when they are deciding to feature a project.

musicROCKS013 wrote:

It just deleted everything I wrote so I’ll summarize |

I hate when that happens

Prince_Wolf1 wrote:

Is equal rights political?

musicROCKS013 wrote:

No, the existence of them is. Some people believe that Systematic Racism (CRT) is very prominent, and others think it is nonexistent. The BHM studio implies that racism is still very prominent in America’s systems, which is a political opinion. The ST shouldn’t lean one way or the other in politics. It’s not their role.

I think sometimes they should be able to.I don't think they should Make all users have the same political opinion and kick them off if they don't, but I think if it's a month celebrating/supporting a certain group they should be allowed to have studios supporting it.

I haven't seen them say anything about systematic racism though, and I don't think they should bring that up to much since it's not really what their going for (at least I don't think) with the BHM studios and projects.I think it's mostly just for making stuff about black history and what racism does/is more than saying stuff about that.

Prince_Wolf1 wrote:

I think scratch team should be able to have opinions.and be able to feature LGBTQ+ and BLM and BHM studios and projects.they’re not saying that anyone who doesn’t support that has to get off the site or that they’re bad people.

musicROCKS013 wrote:

It’s simply not their role. They can HAVE and POST political opinions, but using their power as ST members to push those political opinions isn’t something that they should do, no matter what opinions those may be.

Also, the ST is actually banning people with different political opinions than them, even if those opinions are articulated respectfully.

what does “respectfully” mean?saying “I don't agree with this and I think it's wrong but I don't hate the people and it's their choice” or “this is wrong and the people who do it are bad people.” or something similar?

musicROCKS013 wrote:

No one is denying them the right to have opinions on certain things. I am simply saying that they should set those opinions aside when they are deciding to feature a project.

I would think they already do and during Black History Months and Pride Month they just put stuff supporting those people, and aren't just doing it based on their opinion.

Prince_Wolf1 wrote:

I think sometimes they should be able to.I don't think they should Make all users have the same political opinion and kick them off if they don't, but I think if it's a month celebrating/supporting a certain group they should be allowed to have studios supporting it.

I think that you’re misunderstanding my suggestion. If my suggestions is accepted, ST members will still be able to

• Post projects about political views
  
• Make studios about political views
  
• Post comments about political views
  

The only thing they won’t be able to do is to use their status as an ST member to push ANY political view, no matter what it is.

Prince_Wolf1 wrote:

I would think they already do and during Black History Months and Pride Month they just put stuff supporting those people, and aren't just doing it based on their opinion.

Why else would they do it if they don’t feel strongly about it? I think that it’s fine that ST members make studios and projects supporting those things, it’s just when they feature them those studios are made much more popular and this can politicize Scratch.

musicROCKS013 wrote:

Prince_Wolf1 wrote:

I think sometimes they should be able to.I don't think they should Make all users have the same political opinion and kick them off if they don't, but I think if it's a month celebrating/supporting a certain group they should be allowed to have studios supporting it.

I think that you’re misunderstanding my suggestion. If my suggestions is accepted, ST members will still be able to

• Post projects about political views
  
• Make studios about political views
  
• Post comments about political views
  

The only thing they won’t be able to do is to use their status as an ST member to push ANY political view, no matter what it is.

Prince_Wolf1 wrote:

I would think they already do and during Black History Months and Pride Month they just put stuff supporting those people, and aren't just doing it based on their opinion.

Why else would they do it if they don’t feel strongly about it? I think that it’s fine that ST members make studios and projects supporting those things, it’s just when they feature them those studios are made much more popular and this can politicize Scratch.

I know they would still be able to do those things.but I don't think there have been to many issues with ST featuring studios like that.or projects.if there have been little problems or no problems with ST featuring those studios, supporting people and making them feel more welcome, why should they stop doing that during those months?

they might feel strongly about it, and it might be based a little bit on opinions.or it might be because they want to support their users, and in schools they already have stuff of black history month anyway.

musicROCKS013 wrote:

I think that ST members can make their own studios about Pride Month and join them, but they just can’t feature them all over the site.

I agree.

A very large amount of users had to left here after sharing their opinion on simpliest things. If users are not allowef to share opinion and criticize, the admins shouldn't post and spread theirs too. Otherwise is called hypocrisy. And besides, if here is for anyone aged between 8-16, it should be totally neutral, non-aligned and only serve as a platform for coding (which is the main purpose of the Scratch). Here is neither a news agency nor media platform; Scratch's main foundation reason is coding, not politics nor indoctrination (children between 8-16 can be easily indoctrinated). Let them learn about politics by themselves in the future, here is only and only for teaching them coding. Here should be a place where only coding related things are present, both by users and admins. I use Offline Editor since 2011 and I'm a member of the Online Community since 2016; and the featured section was never that far political ever before. I remember back in 2018-2019 etc. the featured and news section were like “Wiki Wednesday” “Scratch 3.0 Soon” “Studio: Sprite Editing” “Studio: Cloud Variables” “Studio: Functions and Blocks”. It was good old times indeed. But now when I look the main page, I mostly see partly or totally political featured studios or news, rather than updates or educative tutorials. Bring good old neutral and welcoming Scratch back again, please. This is not how Scratch was used to be.

I hate the fact that if you want to make a children's website “neutral” it somehow means you're an automatic supporter of the opposite thing.

I left scratch for a long time because how they oversimplified police brutality to youth, not only did adults try turning this into a one/dimensional issue but they also dehumanized people. That is a topic only for older kids to understand, and frankly, what the scratch team did felt incredibly deviant. They are inserting their own unsolicited opinions into kids as young as 7 or 8, who have very different upbringings, and could've easily been negatively affected by their statement (in general, this site should not be for very young people, it's not just the ST but older users making this a more mature site).

ST loves to boast about how “kids as young as 8 use this site”, but they are not making this a safe, fun, and innocent environment for youth. I can see how a parent views this bright colored website with a carton cat as a 100% child-friendly place, but they are wrong. There are many, many mature topics on this site, that any good parent or guardian wouldn't feel comfortable with exposing to their kids unwillingly.

In my opinion, if we are not going to keep the website 100% neutral, then it should be rebranded as a website for tweens and teens, and the targeted age should be aimed at 12 and up to accommodate this (as most kids are tweens or teens using this site).


Keep in mind I still believe the BHM and pride studios should stay if the site is aimed at adolescents. But theoretically, if we really wanted to make this a children's website, we'd eliminate all studios, projects, and comments that aren't about coding; and the site would be much heavily monitored

TL;DR the scratch team should stick to their original mission statement, which was coding!!

It's very unfortunate that the views of children can be shifted, but big Scratchers could theoretically do the same with their popular projects, right?

Support otherwise, they have been advocating their political views a lot recently. Scratch doesn't have to be politically agreeable to be a good platform!

Prince_Wolf1 wrote:

I know they would still be able to do those things.but I don't think there have been to many issues with ST featuring studios like that.or projects.if there have been little problems or no problems with ST featuring those studios, supporting people and making them feel more welcome, why should they stop doing that during those months?

I’m not talking specifically about those months. If they wanted to feature a political studio at any time, that shouldn’t be allowed. There haven’t been any problems because the opinions the ST is supporting are pretty widespread, and disagreeing with them can get you banned.

Prince_Wolf1 wrote:

they might feel strongly about it, and it might be based a little bit on opinions.or it might be because they want to support their users, and in schools they already have stuff of black history month anyway.

I am not against BHM studios at ALL. I think that BHM is an important thing and that we should acknowledge that racism did exist in this country. Like I said, it’s the idea of racism still existing that’s controversial. Some say that the government is still oppressing African Americans, and some say that it isn’t anymore. No matter the opinion the ST had on this, they shouldn’t really push it in their BHM studios. It’s not something inherently wrong with BHM, but a very slippery slope.

OrdProfScratch_57 wrote:

A very large amount of users had to left here after sharing their opinion on simpliest things. If users are not allowef to share opinion and criticize, the admins shouldn't post and spread theirs too. Otherwise is called hypocrisy.

I see where you’re coming from, but I really want to clarify. The ST will still be able to share political opinions. They will still be able to make studios featuring Pride Month or CRT if they want to. They simply won’t be able to use the power they have as ST to popularize any studios or projects with political leaning, no matter how it leans.

OrdProfScratch_57 wrote:

Here is neither a news agency nor media platform; Scratch's main foundation reason is coding, not politics nor indoctrination (children between 8-16 can be easily indoctrinated). Let them learn about politics by themselves in the future, here is only and only for teaching them coding. Here should be a place where only coding related things are present, both by users and admins.

Agreed. It’s simply not the ST’s role.

OrdProfScratch_57 wrote:

I remember back in 2018-2019 etc. the featured and news section were like “Wiki Wednesday” “Scratch 3.0 Soon” “Studio: Sprite Editing” “Studio: Cloud Variables” “Studio: Functions and Blocks”. It was good old times indeed. But now when I look the main page, I mostly see partly or totally political featured studios or news, rather than updates or educative tutorials.

There are still lots of studios like this. As you can see, right now there are featured studios about rain and mountain climbing. Those don’t have any political lean. That’s perfectly fine! Even the BHM studio doesn’t have a HUGE amount of political lean. It’s still something that the ST has been sneaking into the site, and I want to call it out and stop it before it gets too bad.

njtacogirl wrote:

I hate the fact that if you want to make a children's website “neutral” it somehow means you're an automatic supporter of the opposite thing.

Seriously.

njtacogirl wrote:

I left scratch for a long time because how they oversimplified police brutality to youth, not only did adults try turning this into a one/dimensional issue but they also dehumanized people. That is a topic only for older kids to understand, and frankly, what the scratch team did felt incredibly deviant.
They are inserting their own unsolicited opinions into kids as young as 7 or 8, who have very different upbringings, and could've easily been negatively affected by their statement (in general, this site should not be for very young people, it's not just the ST but older users making this a more mature site).

Yes. They are VERY pro BLM. I think a lot of people are, but they don’t actually know what it’s about, and think it’s just about fighting for equality (which it’s not).

njtacogirl wrote:

ST loves to boast about how “kids as young as 8 use this site”, but they are not making this a safe, fun, and innocent environment for youth. I can see how a parent views this bright colored website with a carton cat as a 100% child-friendly place, but they are wrong. There are many, many mature topics on this site, that any good parent or guardian wouldn't feel comfortable with exposing to their kids unwillingly.

They believe that they are making this site more welcoming by celebrating certain things, and it already is welcoming to those people without the ST celebrating those things. In the name of equality, the Scratch Team is using their power as ST to push their political opinion. I really like how you bring this up, because it states what I mean really well. We can allow politics ON Scratch, but there shouldn’t be an “official” Scratch political mindset. Scratch should let there be conservatives and liberals individually exist on their site, without supporting or undermining any side.

njtacogirl wrote:

In my opinion, if we are not going to keep the website 100% neutral, then it should be rebranded as a website for tweens and teens, and the targeted age should be aimed at 12 and up to accommodate this (as most kids are tweens or teens using this site).

Yes. It’s simply indoctrination and pushing an agenda.

njtacogirl wrote:

But theoretically, if we really wanted to make this a children's website, we'd eliminate all studios, projects, and comments that aren't about coding; and the site would be much heavily monitored.

ST members will be able to share their political opinions, but only as much as normal Scratchers can. Anything that the ST is able to do that normal Scratchers can’t do, they shouldn’t have a biased political opinion interfere while they are doing that. They need to ask, “Is this pushing a political opinions or ideas?”

ajskateboarder wrote:

It's very unfortunate that the views of children can be shifted, but big Scratchers could theoretically do the same with their popular projects, right?

Yes. ST members are already pretty popular because, well, they are ST members. So, if they make a project about a political opinion, it simply won’t be able to get on the front page as featured. That’s literally it. The ST won’t be able to feature political studios either. They can certainly make these studios, just not feature them. Big Scratchers could make a political project, but, not being an ST member, they couldn’t feature it. They can’t boost its popularity that way.

The Scratch Team works to promote Scratch and the values of the Scratch Foundation and will continue to do so.