The community guidelines. They do help with scratch, but they miss in a few major spots, and that's where things start to get a little… vague.

Scratch's Policies.
We all know Scratch has policies in place for its bans, mutes, and censorships. However, there is no place on the website I know of that tell about these important features protecting Scratch. The closest I can find is the community guidelines. These said guidelines would be much more helpful if they told what would happen if you broke them. This improvement is the least important, or at least in my opinion.

What Is and Is Not Allowed.
The community guidelines themselves? Take a look at them. They say nothing about what content is inappropriate for Scratch other than personal information. NOTHING. I suggest that the guidelines should say something like this, in at least one section:

Some content, such as INSERT LIST OF WHATEVER IS NOT ALLOWED ON SCRATCH HERE are not appropriate for Scratch. Try to avoid these themes in your comments, projects, and studios.

Note that I do not even know exactly what would be on that list, in general or at all. Take a second look at the community guidelines. Do you see anything alike or even close to this? No? That's what I thought. This feature would clear up a lot of confusion. I don't even know if smoking related themes in a plot or anything rated PG is allowed. Scratch's rules could be super strict, and we don't know it! This improvement is very important, and I am extremely passionate about it.

Okay. Woof. I'm tired just from writing that. Two? paragraphs of madness, at your service. In all seriousness though, this is an extremely important topic, even if my attempts at writing well failed.

Stay fresh!

The Community Guidelines are intentionally vague so they could range virtually everything in a few categories.

Prime689 wrote:

The Community Guidelines are intentionally vague so they could range virtually everything in a few categories.

Yes, well, most categories are fine. It's just that I don't even know if anything that's rated PG (or sometimes C8 in my homeland of Canada) is even allowed!

Tealseagull wrote:

Prime689 wrote:

The Community Guidelines are intentionally vague so they could range virtually everything in a few categories.

Yes, well, most categories are fine. It's just that I don't even know if anything that's rated PG (or sometimes C8 in my homeland of Canada) is even allowed!

That's right. So we will maintain the original.

Prime689 wrote:

Tealseagull wrote:

Prime689 wrote:

The Community Guidelines are intentionally vague so they could range virtually everything in a few categories.

Yes, well, most categories are fine. It's just that I don't even know if anything that's rated PG (or sometimes C8 in my homeland of Canada) is even allowed!

That's right. So we will maintain the original.

NOT what I meant, but never mind that. You just go on not knowing anything.

If there was a whole list about what topics you can't discuss wouldn't people just be exposed to those topics?

And if you accidentally type one of those topics, for the first time a mute isn't that long.

Tealseagull wrote:

Prime689 wrote:

Tealseagull wrote:

Prime689 wrote:

The Community Guidelines are intentionally vague so they could range virtually everything in a few categories.

Yes, well, most categories are fine. It's just that I don't even know if anything that's rated PG (or sometimes C8 in my homeland of Canada) is even allowed!

That's right. So we will maintain the original.

NOT what I meant, but never mind that. You just go on not knowing anything.

Actually they know a lot. And I'm guessing that you've never heard of the Terms of Use and the Privacy Policy?

DarthVader4Life wrote:

Tealseagull wrote:

Prime689 wrote:

Tealseagull wrote:

Prime689 wrote:

The Community Guidelines are intentionally vague so they could range virtually everything in a few categories.

Yes, well, most categories are fine. It's just that I don't even know if anything that's rated PG (or sometimes C8 in my homeland of Canada) is even allowed!

That's right. So we will maintain the original.

NOT what I meant, but never mind that. You just go on not knowing anything.

Actually they know a lot. And I'm guessing that you've never heard of the Terms of Use and the Privacy Policy?

I have also encountered a post supporting my statement from Za-Chary, a Scratch Team member. But let's see if he's going to answer this suggestion for my confirmation since I have lost the post.

Prime689 wrote:

The Community Guidelines are intentionally vague so they could range virtually everything in a few categories.

I can confirm and endorse this statement. Another benefit of the Community Guidelines being vague is that they're short. Nobody wants to read a long list of rules when they first join the website.

Tealseagull wrote:

Yes, well, most categories are fine. It's just that I don't even know if anything that's rated PG (or sometimes C8 in my homeland of Canada) is even allowed!

PG is usually okay, I think. Smoking is a little iffy. I can say with certainty that encouraging smoking is not okay. It's these iffy topics that I usually encourage people to stay away from, just to be safe.

Nevertheless, the alert system we have helps mitigate the issues of vague Community Guidelines. If someone breaks the Community Guidelines in a certain way, we send a notification asking them not to do that again. That should clear things up.

Support! Definitely things like whether talking about PG-13 topics is okay or not should definitely be included! You shouldn't have to be told that something is not allowed directly- tell them in the guidelines in the first place! So no one needs to see harmful content!

Tealseagull wrote:

Prime689 wrote:

Tealseagull wrote:

Prime689 wrote:

The Community Guidelines are intentionally vague so they could range virtually everything in a few categories.

Yes, well, most categories are fine. It's just that I don't even know if anything that's rated PG (or sometimes C8 in my homeland of Canada) is even allowed!

That's right. So we will maintain the original.

NOT what I meant, but never mind that. You just go on not knowing anything.

It's called improving on a suggestion. Sure, you can have your suggestion set in stone, but this addition makes it way better.