iiucandyfloss wrote:

1. That's because the project did not fit the criteria necessary for it to be marked as NFE (Not For Everyone).


2. It's quite unfair for someone's project to be taken away from Scratch search engines and become blacklisted from getting onto the front page just because someone else advertised their project. It's not the project creator's fault, so why are they getting punished for something that is happening through no fault of their own?

3. Imagine doing this for thousands of people. Advertising is done by many people on Scratch. The ST can't do this for everyone, in every case.
Also, what's wrong with advertising your own project? As long as it's allowed in the place it's being advertised in, the act is completely harmless and gains the user a bit of recognition.


4. Generally not allowed. Yes, it is usually not allowed, but sometimes it is, and we must consider rare circumstances too, within reasonable limits.
Yes, so it is unconstructive, but then again, randomly chatting on someone's project (preferably the person you're talking to's project) is unconstructive, (it's just a random conversation) but it's allowed and is not discouraged.
Not necessarily. A project must get a certain number of views, loves and attention in general, in a short amount of time, to be put on the top few rows of trending.
Yes, sometimes.

5. It's not always a violation of the CG.
Why? They can advertise too; if they choose not to advertise, they cannot complain about other people advertising and taking attention away from their projects, since it was their choice. Also, adverts tend to be ignored.
What is considered “heavily advertised”?
It is not the project creator's fault, as said earlier.
That destroys the point of the NFE rating. Projects must earn the rating, not receive it through no fault of their own.


6. Popularity is not inherently bad; this post [the OP] makes it seem so. It is mainly to deflect popularity that came from lawful or unlawful advertising, which is not necessary nor fair. There are projects that have earned popularity, the popularity coming from those who believed that the project deserved it and therefore shared it with others. And righteous advertising takes effort. It is not easy to find places where advertising is allowed, and make the advert look interesting at the same time.

1. OP was probably showing that heavily advertised projects aren’t marked as NFE right now. If they were already NFE’d, this suggestion would make no sense.

2. It’s possible to check if a project is advertised by its creator, by comparing IPs and usernames of the creator and advertiser.

3. Programming could solve the issue. I’m not an expert, but I bet there’s a script that would automate this.

4. CG aren’t the only rules on Scratch. The ToS exists as well. Heavy advertising could be considered “manipulating site statistics”, which is against the ToS.

5. See point above. If someone chooses to not break the Terms of Service, that’s their fault?

6. Popularity isn’t bad, but being fame-hungry is. This topic has been discussed on Scratch a million times, so I won’t write another 500 words essay about it like I did on some topics in the past.

there's no point, NFE just means you can't search the project up, links still work.

GamesReinvented wrote:

there's no point, NFE just means you can't search the project up, links still work.

An NFEd project can’t go on Trending or the Front Page. So this would prevent projects that got popular with unfair methods from getting even more popular

-YourLocalPhantom- wrote:

GamesReinvented wrote:

there's no point, NFE just means you can't search the project up, links still work.

An NFEd project can’t go on Trending or the Front Page. So this would prevent projects that got popular with unfair methods from getting even more popular

rarely people advertise already popular projects, it's usually projects with little to no views. Additionally, “heavily advertised” is most likely just another word for spam, so simply report the comments

how would the scratch team keep track of advertisements (and where they appear) to determine which projects are “heavily” advertised??

also,

iiucandyfloss wrote:

It's quite unfair for someone's project to be taken away from Scratch search engines and become blacklisted from getting onto the front page just because someone else advertised their project. It's not the project creator's fault, so why are they getting punished for something that is happening through no fault of their own?

qwertyy_the_artist wrote:

how would the scratch team keep track of advertisements (and where they appear) to determine which projects are “heavily” advertised??

scratch team would probably have a tool for browsing through peoples comments

No support because NFE Is for games that is scary for younger kids, such as games with guns, Downgrade being a example. It is not for heavily advertised games.

SANDVICHISGOOD wrote:

No support because NFE Is for games that is scary for younger kids, such as games with guns, Downgrade being a example. It is not for heavily advertised games.

NFE is not for scary games, scary games get taken down. NFE is used for edge cases, animated thumbnails, etc.

using NFE for stopping stuff from getting unfairly popular has precedent in Add everything studios getting NFEd (at least in theory, this hasn't been well enforced as of late.)

Support. This should generally prevent games getting onto the front page through dishonest means.

However, Scratch Team should only mark a project as NFE if the advertisement is directly reported to them.

(quotes aren't working for me; sorry for the shoddy post)

hot655 said: “However, Scratch Team should only mark a project as NFE if the advertisement is directly reported to them.”

I don't think ST would be actively hunting down projects that were heavily advertised anyway, so your statement is kinda redundant

A_Nyan_In_Space wrote:

No support, it's not against CG to advertise if not banned in the studio/profile/project but even if it is, you can report it. If the projects would be rated FE it should be FE.

If the project creator does not explicitly say that advertising is allowed, then advertising on that project or profile is not allowed.

Catscratcher07 wrote:

SANDVICHISGOOD wrote:

No support because NFE Is for games that is scary for younger kids, such as games with guns, Downgrade being a example. It is not for heavily advertised games.

NFE is not for scary games, scary games get taken down. NFE is used for edge cases, animated thumbnails, etc.

using NFE for stopping stuff from getting unfairly popular has precedent in Add everything studios getting NFEd (at least in theory, this hasn't been well enforced as of late.)

Oh. Sorry. Thank you for correcting me.

-YourLocalPhantom- wrote:

1. OP was probably showing that heavily advertised projects aren’t marked as NFE right now. If they were already NFE’d, this suggestion would make no sense.

2. It’s possible to check if a project is advertised by its creator, by comparing IPs and usernames of the creator and advertiser.

3. Programming could solve the issue. I’m not an expert, but I bet there’s a script that would automate this.

4. CG aren’t the only rules on Scratch. The ToS exists as well. Heavy advertising could be considered “manipulating site statistics”, which is against the ToS.

5. See point above. If someone chooses to not break the Terms of Service, that’s their fault?

6. Popularity isn’t bad, but being fame-hungry is. This topic has been discussed on Scratch a million times, so I won’t write another 500 words essay about it like I did on some topics in the past.

1. People advertise other people's projects, too! Friends' projects, for example- chatroom projects, shop projects, etc.

2. Advertising your own projects isn't always bad.

3. Please read jvvg's essay on how development is hard [in the case of developing Scratch]

4. Of course they are. And no, advertising is not manipulating site statistics; manipulating site statistics involve hacking; using coding to make sure that scratchers have to love/fave the project before being able to view it; over-using tags; etc. It's manipulating the site statistics if programming or bugs are being abused to change site statistics- not if users are perfectly within their rights to view projects, and like and fav them.

5. Read above point ^

6. Of course it is, but at the end of the day, advertising is allowed in some places, as is being fame-hungry.

iiucandyfloss wrote:

-YourLocalPhantom- wrote:

1. OP was probably showing that heavily advertised projects aren’t marked as NFE right now. If they were already NFE’d, this suggestion would make no sense.

2. It’s possible to check if a project is advertised by its creator, by comparing IPs and usernames of the creator and advertiser.

3. Programming could solve the issue. I’m not an expert, but I bet there’s a script that would automate this.

4. CG aren’t the only rules on Scratch. The ToS exists as well. Heavy advertising could be considered “manipulating site statistics”, which is against the ToS.

5. See point above. If someone chooses to not break the Terms of Service, that’s their fault?

6. Popularity isn’t bad, but being fame-hungry is. This topic has been discussed on Scratch a million times, so I won’t write another 500 words essay about it like I did on some topics in the past.

1. People advertise other people's projects, too! Friends' projects, for example- chatroom projects, shop projects, etc.

2. Advertising your own projects isn't always bad.

3. Please read jvvg's essay on how development is hard [in the case of developing Scratch]

4. Of course they are. And no, advertising is not manipulating site statistics; manipulating site statistics involve hacking; using coding to make sure that scratchers have to love/fave the project before being able to view it; over-using tags; etc. It's manipulating the site statistics if programming or bugs are being abused to change site statistics- not if users are perfectly within their rights to view projects, and like and fav them.

5. Read above point ^

6. Of course it is, but at the end of the day, advertising is allowed in some places, as is being fame-hungry.

1. is not relevant to -YourLocalPhantom-'s point 1, and

-yourLocalPhantom- wrote:

It’s possible to check if a project is advertised by its creator, by comparing IPs and usernames of the creator and advertiser.

2. again, irrelevant to the point under discussion, and 99% of advertisement is in places that it is not allowed.

3. any non-rules related suggestion requires programing, so using this as an argument against any suggestion is iffy, this essay should be used when people are impatient or are falsely claiming something would be easy to implement.

4. “manipulating site statistics” can refer to many things, the use of bots or excessive alt accounts to mass like projects/mass follow users being the main one. Although you are not necessarily wrong to dispute spam advertisements being deemed “manipulating site statistics.” That being said, spam advertising is considered a violation of the community guidelines. In specific, it is considered disrespectful.