What started as a childish cult to obtain as many projects as possible, has now extended to projects with the goal of getting as many remixes, love-its, favorites, and/or studios as possible - bear in mind the “remix” projects are not by any means worthy of remixing. This cancerous sport is doing so well it has managed to get one “spam” project over 30 remixes, and soon might be on the front page. There are too many to report in one remix tree without flooding the moderators (which might result in warnings because of “excessive reporting”).

ST, it's time you step up your game and do something about these games before they corrupt all aspects of Scratch.

EDIT: Here's my best idea for the job, quoted from a post in this topic:

I wrote:

I think a walk-through of the website would greatly benefit everyone, especially newcomers. Rather than cramming tons of new rules in the CGs, make the first thing they do after joining is to check out important features of the website - like where to make projects, studios, where to ask questions (and note the importance of stickies)… it doesn't have to all be in one go obviously, but it does have to introduce the most critical things about the Scratch website.

EDIT 2 (7/19): Ok maybe I was overreacting a little taking over Scratch because so far I have yet to see those kinds of things make it to the front page, excluding the recently shared. Here are my updated thoughts on the subject.

As I browse aspects of Scratch I am frequently finding users taking part in activities that people like me may find frivolous, deviant, or unwarranted. Activities such as those that passionately focus on following. What these users don't realize that I do is that their actions are encouraging more to indulge in distractions from the root purpose of Scratch - to learn programming skills. Some may disagree saying you can do both, and that is fine; however, I am calling for attention to the users whose learning experience is replaced by excessive activity on the social side of Scratch.

Again and again we are reminded that “Scratch is not meant for fame” but the words are so vaguely explained that its meaning is unclear to many. I want everyone to read this clarification carefully: “Scratch is intended to provide a comfortable learning experience to people of all ages, and any services herein the bounds of Scratch may be used for enhancing connections between users. However, it is not intended to be used for gaining popularity through actions that may be disapproved of by an authority.”

The main reason we want kids to give up trying to follow everyone, curate all the studios, add all the projects, etc. is we want them to expand their horizons and become more responsible. But without an incentive, kids will continue to dictate their own fun in ways that many of us will frown upon. Some may call for swift punishment of those who misuse our services, some may prefer granting special privileges to the best behaved users, some will side against any opposition to frivolous activities, and some will remain neutral. The time has come to decide the fate of these games, and it's resting on the ST's discretion to make the verdict.

I see your point and completely agree. The stuff like “Follow Everyone” accounts are fine but annoying when there are a few of them, but when the numbers grow, something needs to be done. Perhaps they should set up a new rule like “Use Scratch for programming, not playing games with accounts”?

For now, though the best thing to do would be to not try and stop them, but ignore them and hope they go away with time. That doesn't seem to be happening any time soon, so let's hope the ST will intervene.

ChocolatePi wrote:

For now, though the best thing to do would be to not try and stop them, but ignore them and hope they go away with time.

That's exactly what we've been doing but it has only made things worse.

Zro716 wrote:

ChocolatePi wrote:

For now, though the best thing to do would be to not try and stop them, but ignore them and hope they go away with time.

That's exactly what we've been doing but it has only made things worse.

Well, let's see if it dies down. If not, let's let the ST intervene if it gets worse enough and we have another “war” over it.

TheHockeyist wrote:

Zro716 wrote:

ChocolatePi wrote:

For now, though the best thing to do would be to not try and stop them, but ignore them and hope they go away with time.

That's exactly what we've been doing but it has only made things worse.

Well, let's see if it dies down. If not, let's let the ST intervene if it gets worse enough and we have another “war” over it.

Personally, I think if the older Scratchers want to act “mature”, they wouldn't make such a fuss about it, trying to start “wars”, and trying to reason with younger kids and just bring the topic up to the ST like zro is doing now.

Remixes, loves, and faves from the same IP shouldn't count as more than one, in my opinion. That's how it was in 1.4 and it worked pretty well in stopping cheaters from getting front paged..!

I agree…
Most of them, if not all, really have a goal of “getting famous,” which is a reasonable goal, just the way they are trying to achieve is pretty much cheating.

I don't see a question in the op, so I'm not sure if this is the right category (maybe suggestions?).

That aside, full support for doing something about this. Thx for bringing it up.

Dreamo wrote:

I don't see a question in the op, so I'm not sure if this is the right category (maybe suggestions?).

That aside, full support for doing something about this. Thx for bringing it up.

This forum is just for general posts about Scratch, I think.

ChocolatePi wrote:

Dreamo wrote:

I don't see a question in the op, so I'm not sure if this is the right category (maybe suggestions?).

That aside, full support for doing something about this. Thx for bringing it up.

This forum is just for general posts about Scratch, I think.

That must be why this forum is labeled “Questions about Scratch”

Dreamo wrote:

ChocolatePi wrote:

Dreamo wrote:

I don't see a question in the op, so I'm not sure if this is the right category (maybe suggestions?).

That aside, full support for doing something about this. Thx for bringing it up.

This forum is just for general posts about Scratch, I think.

That must be why this forum is labeled “Questions about Scratch”

ಠ_ಠ

Just read the Community Guidelines and community games don't seem to break any guideline.

All the community games; all the favourites, loves, views, remixes, followers and following competitions sound serious and the ST do almost nothing because it doesn't break the guidelines. It could break the Terms of Use, but I haven't read that for ages.

CatsUnited wrote:

Just read the Community Guidelines and community games don't seem to break any guideline.

All the community games; all the favourites, loves, views, remixes, followers and following competitions sound serious and the ST do almost nothing because it doesn't break the guidelines. It could break the Terms of Use, but I haven't read that for ages.

You don't seem to get that these things are disrupting the community.

Dreamo wrote:

I don't see a question in the op, so I'm not sure if this is the right category (maybe suggestions?).

Questions About Scratch doubles as the Rants About Scratch forum.

VoltageGames wrote:

Dreamo wrote:

I don't see a question in the op, so I'm not sure if this is the right category (maybe suggestions?).

Questions About Scratch doubles as the Rants About Scratch forum.

Yeah…

CatsUnited wrote:

Just read the Community Guidelines and community games don't seem to break any guideline.

All the community games; all the favourites, loves, views, remixes, followers and following competitions sound serious and the ST do almost nothing because it doesn't break the guidelines. It could break the Terms of Use, but I haven't read that for ages.

But it disrupts the community…

ChocolatePi wrote:

I see your point and completely agree. The stuff like “Follow Everyone” accounts are fine but annoying when there are a few of them, but when the numbers grow, something needs to be done. Perhaps they should set up a new rule like “Use Scratch for programming, not playing games with accounts”?

For now, though the best thing to do would be to not try and stop them, but ignore them and hope they go away with time. That doesn't seem to be happening any time soon, so let's hope the ST will intervene.

Yup.

CatsUnited wrote:

Just read the Community Guidelines and community games don't seem to break any guideline.

All the community games; all the favourites, loves, views, remixes, followers and following competitions sound serious and the ST do almost nothing because it doesn't break the guidelines. It could break the Terms of Use, but I haven't read that for ages.

There's nothing in the ToU that says that this behaviour breaks the guidelines, but I would like something to be done about this problem before it escalates.

Zro716 wrote:

What started as a childish cult to obtain as many projects as possible, has now extended to projects with the goal of getting as many remixes, love-its, favorites, and/or studios as possible - bear in mind the “remix” projects are not by any means worthy of remixing. This cancerous sport is doing so well it has managed to get one “spam” project over 30 remixes, and soon might be on the front page. There are too many to report in one remix tree without flooding the moderators (which might result in warnings because of “excessive reporting”).

ST, it's time you step up your game and do something about these games before they corrupt all aspects of Scratch.

I think it's a universal rule that if there is a number associated with something, somebody will try and maximize it. Thus, we end up with people trying to get the most projects in a studio, the most studios in an account, etc. We have taken some actions in the past to try to demotivate this kind of activity by making some of the numbers less obvious or removing them entirely (forum post count, number of projects in a studio, number of followers, etc.) I would say we have had a certain amount of success with these measures - but it hasn't stopped all the games by any means.

What further measures are you suggesting? Keep in mind that we want to avoid any large increases in the moderation team's work load.

Paddle2See wrote:

What further measures are you suggesting? Keep in mind that we want to avoid any large increases in the moderation team's work load.

Mainly, don't get rid of the numbers, because that won't do justice. The issue is that they exist because there is no explicit rule against it.

ChocolatePi wrote:

CatsUnited wrote:

Just read the Community Guidelines and community games don't seem to break any guideline.

All the community games; all the favourites, loves, views, remixes, followers and following competitions sound serious and the ST do almost nothing because it doesn't break the guidelines. It could break the Terms of Use, but I haven't read that for ages.

You don't seem to get that these things are disrupting the community.

I do. I've seen it a lot in featured projects, which I don't even view anymore.

Zro716 wrote:

Paddle2See wrote:

What further measures are you suggesting? Keep in mind that we want to avoid any large increases in the moderation team's work load.

Mainly, don't get rid of the numbers, because that won't do justice. The issue is that they exist because there is no explicit rule against it.

How would such a rule look? And would it be enforceable?