If you search for “propose projects to be featured”, there's a quite a few impersonators:


(ones slashed out are unrelated studios that popped up, the one with a question mark is one I'm unsure of because the title is in Japanese)
edit: the one with the blank thumbnail is an advertisement studio for one of their projects RELATED to the studio, but it still could be considered an impersonator because a lot of people in the comments section are proposing projects


This is a serious issue and the ST needs to find some way to prevent this from happening.

When I clicked on some of the studios, it sent me to the “page deleted” screen, so those studios might have been deleted, but they still show up at the top of the search bar.

There likely are several other studios like this, but they didn't show up in the search.

A potential solution to prevent users from mistaking a fake studio for the real one is putting some kind of special “seal of approval” on the studio page and thumbnail. Before someone mentions “But then someone could just edit the seal of approval image onto their studio thumbnail!” it'd be separate from the thumbnail, like this:


Obviously it wouldn't look EXACTLY like that, it was just a quick mock-up I made in FireAlpaca.
The “seal of approval” isn't just on the studio thumbnail, it goes slightly off of it. An add-on like this can't be created normally, so Scratchers won't be able to copy it onto their fake studios.

And, if this “seal of approval” was added, they could add it onto other official Scratch studios like the Welcoming Committee and the FPC Applications studios.

Does any one else remember the April Fools thing from a few years ago where they made pictures of snowflakes fall down on the one studio? Well, they could possibly add something similar to that on other official studios. Maybe they could have some little images of the Scratch mascots on the top banner of the studio. We know they can do falling images on studios, so it shouldn't be too hard to modify that code to add something related to the Scratch mascots to show it's official.

Or, they could just do a little symbol similar to what ST members have at the end of their usernames.


Is this a good solution idea? Should the ST try preventing these fake studios? Let me know in your responses : )



Edit: This is another potential design somebody proposed

bump because second page

BUMP

Support. I don't know which one is the real one.
edit: its the first one, so its rather easy to find, but still. very confusing

This isn't a suggestion, but rather an idea for a solution

Merriam Webster wrote:

1 c: to offer for consideration or as a hypothesis
// suggest a solution to a problem

lol what

garnetluvcookie wrote:

BUMP

If you're going to bump it, can you at least share your opinion? Be constructive, don't just meaninglessly bump somebody else's post.

Support. Even though the official Scratch studio should be first sometimes it isn't and could prevent confusion. It also seems easy to do.

BearSlothCoding wrote:

fdreerf wrote:

This isn't a suggestion, but rather an idea for a solution

Merriam Webster wrote:

1 c: to offer for consideration or as a hypothesis
// suggest a solution to a problem

lol what

It IS a suggestion. They lied to us.

I added that part before I wrote the full post, at first it was just pointing out the problem. Should I remove that part?

Support. Those fake studios confuse a lot of users, and there needs to be an official sign or something that can set the real one apart from the frauds.

MontyDoggo wrote:

Support. Those fake studios confuse a lot of users, and there needs to be an official sign or something that can set the real one apart from the frauds.

And, this solution could be applied to any other official studio.

Maybe there could even be a seal of approval on featured studios, and it stays there even after its featured to show the studio used to be featured? It could be like a trophy to show they did a good job.

Support. I've also seen studios where you can ‘propose your own project to be featured’ you post a link and the a curator will propose it in the real studio, this is BAD.

Most of them are deleted, which means at least the ST are taking action.

Support anyway, it could also be used for the SDS, translation studios and so. It would prevent people from making fakes, obviously.

--Explosion-- wrote:

Support. I've also seen studios where you can ‘propose your own project to be featured’ you post a link and the a curator will propose it in the real studio, this is BAD.

In my opinion those should be banned too. I heard one of those studios made 3 PEOPLE FEATURED. By cheating. Bruh moment.

Definitely support! People believe those studios are real and they get more followers. Oh, also here is a (somewhat better?) mockup that I made. Hovering over the checkmark would display the message:

Adding a Scratch logo near the thumbnail would be useful, but people will put the same logo inside their thumbnails to trick people. (I don’t know if they will believe tho)

(the checkmark is a random thing I found in Google Images)

HighFlyer222 wrote:

Adding a Scratch logo near the thumbnail would be useful, but people will put the same logo inside their thumbnails to trick people. (I don’t know if they will believe tho)

But the OP said the Scratch logo would be half on, half off the thumbnail. It is physically impossible to do this so it does help. With the checkmark however, you may be able to add that in the title, if you can find a similar emoji.

BearSlothCoding wrote:

HighFlyer222 wrote:

-snip-

But the OP said the Scratch logo would be half on, half off the thumbnail. It is physically impossible to do this so it does help. With the checkmark however, you may be able to add that in the title, if you can find a similar emoji.

You have a point. But only the real one will give the popup message on hover. But if this is still not enough, they could make a little “S” of Scratch logo instead of checkmark, that was just an idea.
-
The Scratch logo being half on half off on thumbnail:
I think this is still useful, and mine was just an idea, but if people see the fake thumbnail somewhere outside the search results (so there is only one thumbnail onscreen), they might not notice the difference. But this is still a cool idea, why not combine two of them and make the Scratch logo give the message on hover?

HighFlyer222 wrote:

Definitely support! People believe those studios are real and they get more followers. Oh, also here is a (somewhat better?) mockup that I made. Hovering over the checkmark would display the message:

Adding a Scratch logo near the thumbnail would be useful, but people will put the same logo inside their thumbnails to trick people. (I don’t know if they will believe tho)

(the checkmark is a random thing I found in Google Images)

I like that design, could I add it to the OP?

(Also, FYI, the random lines on my mockup weren’t part of the design. Because I didn’t want to screenshot the search menu again, I just cropped the first picture…)

But even if the ST is taking action, the studios still pop up. With this seal of approval, it’ll be easier for users to spot a copy and they could be taken down faster!

Ummm… I would support, but most of the fakes are banned.

M1mikyu wrote:

-snip-

I like that design, could I add it to the OP?

-snip-

Sure, why not!

(meta remarks removed by moderator - please use the Report button if you see something wrong with the topic)

Support. This seems like a huge problem.

Madcatofdoom wrote:

Ummm… I would support, but most of the fakes are banned.

This would help the fake studios be found faster, as people can automatically tell it’s fake due to not having the official studio logo.




And, if a feature like this was added, it could be used for other purposes! Such as:

-marking if a project or studio was featured at one point (it’s also easy for someone to say “OMG THIS WAS FEATURED!!! YAY! when it wasn’t)
-if a project is in a Scratch Design Studio
-important official Scratch Team announcement studios or projects
-to mark that a studio is a Scratch Design Studio

Among other things : )