By interaction, I mean providing more frequent updates, events, etc (and not Scratch Team members just responding to profile comments, forum posts, etc.). And on the Scratch website itself, not on Scratch's Twitter posts, Scratch Foundation and affiliate websites.

Currently, the Scratch Team does a pretty good job with providing community events, like Scratch Camp, Scratchtober, April Fools' Day, SDS', and more recently some more specific themes, like Pi Day, Activity Swap, and Scratch Year in Review. I'm not saying that this isn't enough; it's easy to understand how much time/resources thinking/creating these themes can be.

The Scratch Team also does a relatively good job with notifying about updates to the site (like studio updates, maintenance, etc.) via the Announcement forum. However, they never mentioned anything on-site about things such as changing colors of features to help low-vision people.

Another thing causing this lack of interactions seems to be the Scratch Video Updates (which ended in 2020). They were short videos that allowed the community to get in the know and see Scratch Team members. However, since that program seems to be gone (and I can understand why: not enough resources, time, etc.), it feels like there has been an increase in feeling that the Scratch Team is this small group of powerful rulers who rarely talk to their citizens. And this I think has led to a lot of toxicity against the Scratch Team, which is obviously not good.

My solution: either bring back the Video Updates (which, again, I can understand why they were removed) or create a weekly or monthly “blog” forum post giving just some general information about what's in the future for Scratch or some common FAQs to alleviate confusion or something similar that just gets the community more into the know about the site.

Hopefully, this could help the community be more understanding of things, interact more with the Scratch Team, and maybe get rid of the toxicity between the Scratch Team and Scratchers.

Thanks for reading this.

TL;DR: Create some sort of regular video/blog/other that gives frequent updates from the Scratch Team to the community. This can help Scratchers to maybe understand more about the site and potentially reduce the growing gap between the Scratch Team and the community.

So much support. 100%

You should also add that they should post something on suggestion topics when they’re considering the suggestion. Either way, support.

Gamer_Logan819 wrote:

You should also add that they should post something on suggestion topics when they’re considering the suggestion.

This could definitely be helpful in knowing when potential updates/additions are coming. However, I think they rarely have done this or will. Maybe they'll do it on this topic? lol

KangaCoder wrote:

The Scratch Team also does a relatively good job with notifying about updates to the site (like studio updates, maintenance, etc.) via the Announcement forum. However, they never mentioned anything on-site about things such as changing colors of features to help low-vision people.

While I find it likely that the Scratch Team will eventually release that high-contrast block color scheme, there is the possibility that they don't end up releasing it. I remember hearing about a different feature that actually got pretty close to being finished — and works — but was ultimately scrapped. If the Scratch Team made an announcement about that feature before it was finished, and then scrapped, a lot of Scratchers would be disappointed. That's likely why we don't hear announcements about new features until they're already out.

KangaCoder wrote:

Another thing causing this lack of interactions seems to be the Scratch Video Updates (which ended in 2020). They were short videos that allowed the community to get in the know and see Scratch Team members. However, since that program seems to be gone (and I can understand why: not enough resources, time, etc.), it feels like there has been an increase in feeling that the Scratch Team is this small group of powerful rulers who rarely talk to their citizens. And this I think has led to a lot of toxicity against the Scratch Team, which is obviously not good.

Two questions for this point:

(1) If the problem is that Scratch Team members aren't talking enough to the community, then why wouldn't responding to profile comments be enough? You stated earlier that it's not enough if Scratch Team members are “just responding to profile comments.”

(2) If you recognize that there are “not enough resources, time, etc.” for these updates, then how would the Scratch Team be able to bring these back despite not having these resources?

KangaCoder wrote:

or create a weekly or monthly “blog” forum post giving just some general information about what's in the future for Scratch

Again, this is difficult unless the Scratch Team knows with 100% certainty that a feature is getting added to Scratch.

KangaCoder wrote:

or some common FAQs to alleviate confusion

Confusion about what? What kinds of things would go in this FAQ?

KangaCoder wrote:

or something similar that just gets the community more into the know about the site.

What sort of information are you hoping for?

KangaCoder wrote:

Hopefully, this could help the community be more understanding of things, interact more with the Scratch Team, and maybe get rid of the toxicity between the Scratch Team and Scratchers.

Honestly I feel like responding to profile comments and maybe forum posts would help with this — and be easier — than updating a blog or creating videos. Note that most Scratch Team members don't respond to profile comments already. I could be wrong, but something that I feel a lot of Scratchers appreciated about me as a Scratch Team member is that I did respond to profile comments and forum posts. And that's really all I did to interact with the community. I don't feel like there's anything else I really did.

I feel like I understand what you state the problem is — and I totally agree that I would like the Scratch Team to interact with the community more — but I'm confused about your proposed solution.

Gamer_Logan819 wrote:

You should also add that they should post something on suggestion topics when they’re considering the suggestion.

I think @cheddargirl has a pretty good response to this:

cheddargirl wrote:

DrakeBot17 wrote:

I agree. I wish the scratch team at least acknowledged the idea by posting on the topic rather than staying silent.

The Suggestions forum rotates relevant ideas to a rate of roughly 1-2 pages full of ideas daily. Bumping 1-2 pages of threads with a comment of “we see this thread” and having nothing much more to say on it would kinda break the flow of the Suggestions forum and be a bit of a time waster on the ST's part. We want to read through suggestions, not spend a lot of time posting the equivalent of a “suggestion has been posted!” receipt. O.o

Kind of going to dissect Za-Chary's post from the bottom up:

Za-Chary wrote:

I feel like I understand what you state the problem is — and I totally agree that I would like the Scratch Team to interact with the community more — but I'm confused about your proposed solution.

I see what you mean, and I understand how it can be a bit confusing and contradictory.

Za-Chary wrote:

Honestly I feel like responding to profile comments and maybe forum posts would help with this — and be easier — than updating a blog or creating videos. Note that most Scratch Team members don't respond to profile comments already. I could be wrong, but something that I feel a lot of Scratchers appreciated about me as a Scratch Team member is that I did respond to profile comments and forum posts. And that's really all I did to interact with the community. I don't feel like there's anything else I really did.

I agree; it's a good feeling to have when you want a question answered directly by a Scratch Team member and they actually respond, but not many members actually do respond. So, this could be an alternative solution to this suggestion - maybe encourage Scratch Team members to respond to comments more frequently?

Za-Chary wrote:

KangaCoder wrote:

or something similar that just gets the community more into the know about the site.

What sort of information are you hoping for?

Possibly more information about bans, reporting, etc. Sure, we have stickies about it in the forum, but only a small fractions of users actually use the forums and not many people actually read the forums. And sure, we can link Scratchers to these stickies, but wouldn't it be more effective to have an easily accessible group of information created by the Scratch Team, instead of having to link every single user who has the same exact question to a page they'll likely forget about in a week?

Za-Chary wrote:

KangaCoder wrote:

or some common FAQs to alleviate confusion

Confusion about what? What kinds of things would go in this FAQ?

I guess the things in this FAQ would be similar to the stuff mentioned above.

Za-Chary wrote:

KangaCoder wrote:

or create a weekly or monthly “blog” forum post giving just some general information about what's in the future for Scratch

Again, this is difficult unless the Scratch Team knows with 100% certainty that a feature is getting added to Scratch.

By general information, it doesn't necessarily need to be a feature, maybe it could be like something asking for the community's feedback on a new event?

Za-Chary wrote:

(1) If the problem is that Scratch Team members aren't talking enough to the community, then why wouldn't responding to profile comments be enough? You stated earlier that it's not enough if Scratch Team members are “just responding to profile comments.”

(2) If you recognize that there are “not enough resources, time, etc.” for these updates, then how would the Scratch Team be able to bring these back despite not having these resources?

(1) Well, I guess I've revised this, as stated above.

(2) My thought process is that they ended those because of the lack of resources at the time, however, a good amount of time has passed since the end of the updates that maybe they could reconsider the idea.

Za-Chary wrote:

KangaCoder wrote:

However, they never mentioned anything on-site about things such as changing colors of features to help low-vision people.

While I find it likely that the Scratch Team will eventually release that high-contrast block color scheme, there is the possibility that they don't end up releasing it. I remember hearing about a different feature that actually got pretty close to being finished — and works — but was ultimately scrapped. If the Scratch Team made an announcement about that feature before it was finished, and then scrapped, a lot of Scratchers would be disappointed.

Fair point, however, some things, like the removal of the Create a Sprite from Webcam feature were never very publicly announced (I get that not many people used it, but again this shows a lack of communication).

Za-Chary wrote:

I remember hearing about a different feature that actually got pretty close to being finished — and works — but was ultimately scrapped.

I'm guessing it was color swatches? /offtopic

KangaCoder wrote:

Possibly more information about bans, reporting, etc. Sure, we have stickies about it in the forum, but only a small fractions of users actually use the forums and not many people actually read the forums. And sure, we can link Scratchers to these stickies, but wouldn't it be more effective to have an easily accessible group of information created by the Scratch Team, instead of having to link every single user who has the same exact question to a page they'll likely forget about in a week?

And specifically what about bans? Oftentimes the more that the Scratch Team reveals about how their ban process works, the easier it will be to abuse the system. So they can't reveal everything.

KangaCoder wrote:

Fair point, however, some things, like the removal of the Create a Sprite from Webcam feature were never very publicly announced (I get that not many people used it, but again this shows a lack of communication).

Yes it was: https://scratch.mit.edu/discuss/topic/513228/

Za-Chary wrote:

And specifically what about bans? Oftentimes the more that the Scratch Team reveals about how their ban process works, the easier it will be to abuse the system. So they can't reveal everything.

Obviously, I don't mean “let's tell everyone the exact way users can get unbanned”, but more like: “what can I do/can not do if I am banned”. This way, the amount of “UNBAN ME NOW OR I WILL HACK YOU” or “i'm going to create a new account to get around this ban” could be reduced.

Za-Chary wrote:

KangaCoder wrote:

Fair point, however, some things, like the removal of the Create a Sprite from Webcam feature were never very publicly announced (I get that not many people used it, but again this shows a lack of communication).

Yes it was: https://scratch.mit.edu/discuss/topic/513228/

"were never publicly announced". Sure, it was announced, but a very few number (less than 10,000) of users actually saw it since it wasn't front paged. Again, I know it wasn't a very popular feature, but they could've at least front paged it under News for a little bit.

KangaCoder wrote:

Sure, it was announced, but a very few number (less than 10,000) of users actually saw it since it wasn't front paged. Again, I know it wasn't a very popular feature, but they could've at least front paged it under News for a little bit.

Why? That would just cause more civil unrest than what is necessary. In some cases, not publicizing a feature removal would be better than a widespread announcement. This would certainly be different if the Scratch Team were planning on removing, say, the vector editor entirely — but the webcam feature, as you say, was not very popular and so in this specific case it makes sense to not announce its removal.

ajskateboarder wrote:

(#7)

Za-Chary wrote:

I remember hearing about a different feature that actually got pretty close to being finished — and works — but was ultimately scrapped.

I'm guessing it was color swatches? /offtopic

I thought that one wasn't scrapped, but just delayed an indeterminate amount of time. (Otherwise, the PR would probably be closed).

I read the above replies. I agree with @Za-Chary to an extent. Certainly it is unrealistic to assume that the Scratch Team has the time and resources to pull off this suggestion. Personally, my solution would be to hire more moderators, and that way, with the work being a bit easier, it might be a lot easier to get personal with the Scratchers while handling alerts/appeals/Contact Us and discussing the website. But that’s also unrealistic, because the Scratch Team probably doesn’t have the money to pay them all, or the time to train them to moderate the site.

I have another idea that could solve the impersonal issue, but I would rather make my own suggestion for it. I don’t want anyone to steal my idea. Do check back later.

EDIT: I was referring to this. But no, I think that your suggestion, in and of itself, cannot be fixed without completely fully the suggestion, and at that point you might want to make a new suggestion, kind of like a Ship of Theseus argument. It’s a nice idea in concept, but I don’t think it can realistically be implemented. Cool idea, though

Semi-support. More fun events by scratch team the better and it can be a lot more special and a lot more ideas would pop up in the minds of scratchers. And with the real fact that Scratchers can interact more with the Scratch Team in the style of events and projects.

But there is a big catch. The Scratch Team is busy with very important things and other stuff. So they can't bring the events and fun that much and if they do they have to make them very special. With the real fact that they have to balance fun events and other important things to do it would be a lot harder to bring the resources for each event plus the resources for the other things.

bump, and also…

The recent privacy policy banner announcement is kinda what I'm referring to in this suggestion. Instead of simply making an un-front-paged announcement in the forums, this is a much more effective way to communicate to the community about the update. This also lets users know that the Scratch Team is looking out for us and is giving us updates.

So, I think more types of these things, for updates to the site in general, could be beneficial (rather than shoving it in the Announcements forum).

KangaCoder wrote:

So, I think more types of these things, for updates to the site in general, could be beneficial (rather than shoving it in the Announcements forum).

Not to mention, many major updates aren't mentioned anywhere, and the Scratch Team lets the users just find it themselves, and it can cause confusion. A good example is the accessibility updates. It wasn't announced anywhere, and as a result, many users didn't know that it was for colorblindness – they just knew that it was an ugly new feature, and this caused a lot of controversy.

You could argue that users could just find out about it on QAS, but that is not an excuse. The forums are purposely hidden from the main site (that's the reason in TOLORS why the Discuss button was removed). Many users do not use QAS, and they will not be aware of the purpose of those updates.

Simply put, I think clarifying these updates will cause more users to understand. Of course, there will still be users who complain. But I find it necessary to explain the Scratch Team's point of view better.

serialnumber404 wrote:

So much support. 100%

Please state why, or that isn't helping the conversation at all.
—————————————
The ST is very involved with their community. More than any other websites, anyway. Think of all the events, how often they're active, and things like that! As for updates, they do, but they have limited resources (Again I find myself saying this…) and more important things to handle than adding things purely for entertainment.

Elijah999999 wrote:

The ST is very involved with their community. More than any other websites, anyway. Think of all the events, how often they're active, and things like that! As for updates, they do, but they have limited resources and more important things to handle than adding things purely for entertainment.

This isn't to add “things” for “entertainment”; it's to inform the community on things going on with the site. And comparing Scratch to other websites isn't valid, as other sites can be different in structure and organization compared to Scratch; rather, we should be looking at how the Scratch Team interacted with the community in the past and see if those things *like i mentioned in the original post* could be brought back, if it makes sense to at this time.

Also see the post #14 and #15; I'm not suggesting “new updates every week!!”, but more of “let's give a heads-up about XYZ that most people will be able to find out about”.

bump

Sliverus wrote:

A good example is the accessibility updates. It wasn't announced anywhere, and as a result, many users didn't know that it was for colorblindness – they just knew that it was an ugly new feature, and this caused a lot of controversy.

Well, this isn't implemented yet. For all we know, the Scratch Team may very well make an announcement explaining the reasoning behind the change.

Za-Chary wrote:

Sliverus wrote:

A good example is the accessibility updates. It wasn't announced anywhere, and as a result, many users didn't know that it was for colorblindness – they just knew that it was an ugly new feature, and this caused a lot of controversy.

Well, this isn't implemented yet. For all we know, the Scratch Team may very well make an announcement explaining the reasoning behind the change.

They started the process with changing remix button and new love/favorite icons, but not blocks yet. The simple changes of those wasn't publicly announced on the site and caused a lot of confusion and retaliation from users, especially posting in QaS.