Hold on; what other link tags?
There are a few other link tags that use an API to generate links for specific websites. There's ones for Wikipedia, Scratch Wiki, Google, and Dictionary.com.
The tags, in respective order:
Isn't that very convenient?
It is, 100%. It allows for easy access for definitions, quick research projects, provides integrity with the Scratch Wiki, and is pretty seamless.

If you like it, why do you want to remove it?
It's the content of the sites. Wikipedia, oh Wikipedia. They allow all ages to join the site, yet not an ounce of content moderation. Impressive how no one has called them out for this. Wikipedia has had numerous examples of being banned simply because they refuse to censor the site. This is probably a good thing for Wikipedia's mission, but especially bad for Scratch, as a whole. Google search is not inherently as bad, but that still doesn't make it exempt. Double meanings happen, and you can search for one thing but get another. Take “battleship”. Let's say you need to find a gift for your friend, and Battleship, the old board game based around aquatic warfare, seems like a good fit. You google it, and you find nothing but Battleship, the 2012 movie based on the board game. This is not what we wanted. We wanted Battleship, but we got Battleship. That's not that bad. But, say, in a worse case, with Scratch friendly words, and not-friendly double meanings, we could be redirected to lord knows what. Dictionary.com is pretty much the same. It has all meanings of a word on the same page. Double meanings will be apparent. I don't think giving trolls these tools is a good idea.

Isn't this the same for the basic link tag?
It may be, but my opinion does not change. The link tag is on a case-by-case basis. And yes, the alternate tags could also be case-by-case, but it's easier for trolls to abuse the system by using special words that link to bad articles, and it's hard to filter those out when there's an open door for all of a site's content. We can filter specific links, but we can't always censor keywords.

What about the Scratch Wiki tag?
That tag is perfectly okay! I think it benefits Scratch and provides integrity to a much smaller scale, separate project that is run by the community, for the community.

So now you know my thoughts. Well, get on supporting (or not supporting. Or absolutely demolishing this post for mistakes and holes in my prose. I appreciate it either way).

Bump now that I am done the FP

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Besides, all th above mentioned tags can be used.

GlitchedThrough wrote:

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Besides, all th above mentioned tags can be used.

I am confused by your wording. Of course the tags can be used, and what ain't broke, we don't fix?

co0lcr34t10ns wrote:

GlitchedThrough wrote:

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Besides, all th above mentioned tags can be used.

I am confused by your wording. Of course the tags can be used, and what ain't broke, we don't fix?

@GlitchedThrough is suggesting that these tags have not caused many problems in the past, so as such the tags do not need to be removed.

co0lcr34t10ns wrote:

GlitchedThrough wrote:

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Besides, all th above mentioned tags can be used.

I am confused by your wording. Of course the tags can be used, and what ain't broke, we don't fix?

Correct. The tags work fine, cause no problems, and have plenty of potential use cases.

Za-Chary wrote:

co0lcr34t10ns wrote:

GlitchedThrough wrote:

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Besides, all th above mentioned tags can be used.

I am confused by your wording. Of course the tags can be used, and what ain't broke, we don't fix?

@GlitchedThrough is suggesting that these tags have not caused many problems in the past, so as such the tags do not need to be removed.

Thanks for the clarification. I disagree. In my opinion, the reason there is a lack of problems in the past with the tags is that no one noticed them. I however, saw the potential risk and wanted to put this out to prevent trolls who do their research.

co0lcr34t10ns wrote:

Thanks for the clarification. I disagree. In my opinion, the reason there is a lack of problems in the past with the tags is that no one noticed them. I however, saw the potential risk and wanted to put this out to prevent trolls who do their research.

The less we talk about them, the less they know…

Until then, I agree it makes sense to not do anything until it is clear that there is a problem.

Even still, if there was such a problem, can't trolls just spam links to these websites even without using the tags? I'm not convinced this would necessarily help the problem.

GlitchedThrough wrote:

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
Besides, all th above mentioned tags can be used.

I was going to support this but this is actually a good reason to not support

Za-Chary wrote:

The less we talk about them, the less they know…
Until then, I agree it makes sense to not do anything until it is clear that there is a problem.

Fair point, but I think awareness is never a bad thing.

Even still, if there was such a problem, can't trolls just spam links to these websites even without using the tags? I'm not convinced this would necessarily help the problem.

I disagree. Keywords cannot be banned out of context. Links can. If ST bans a link to a WP article about something off, but the title of that article isn't part of the problem, they can't just ban an ok word. With the tag, it's easier to slip by the filter.

This isn’t an issue I’ve seen, iN aLl My YeArS oF fOrUmInG. I agree it’s good to spread awareness (such as the joining scratch with no username censor bug), but we can’t prevent everything. Report it when you see it, these tags are useful. Besides, the keywords don’t change. Let’s say “Banana” is bad. [dict]banana[/dict] is the same thing as [url=dictionary.com/banana]banana[/url] - the censorship is the same for both.

han614698 wrote:

This isn’t an issue I’ve seen, iN aLl My YeArS oF fOrUmInG.

True, but being the first to point out something is never bad.

han614698 wrote:

I agree it’s good to spread awareness (such as the joining scratch with no username censor bug), but we can’t prevent everything.

Well, we can try. Do I have a too optimistic outlook on life? Yeah. My parents keep telling me that. Is that always a bad thing? Nah.

han614698 wrote:

Let’s say “Banana” is bad. [dict]banana[/dict] is the same thing as [url=dictionary.com/banana]banana[/url] - the censorship is the same for both.

You could censor dictionary.com/banana. You cannot censor the word Banana. That's my point.

co0lcr34t10ns wrote:

Isn't this the same for the basic link tag?
It may be, but my opinion does not change. The link tag is on a case-by-case basis. And yes, the alternate tags could also be case-by-case, but it's easier for trolls to abuse the system by using special words that link to bad articles, and it's hard to filter those out when there's an open door for all of a site's content. We can filter specific links, but we can't always censor keywords.
.

If the basic link tag is the same, why are the alternate links the only issues?
Actually, you can blacklist specific words. If the word “happy” was an offensive word and was blacklisted on all areas of the site, no one could type the link tag [dict]happy[/dict]. The alternate link tag is not the issue, the words are. If the words are filtered, links containing those words will be filtered too.

co0lcr34t10ns wrote:

If you like it, why do you want to remove it?
It's the content of the sites. Wikipedia, oh Wikipedia. They allow all ages to join the site, yet not an ounce of content moderation.

Fair point. Any content on Scratch that requires an explanation can be found on the Scratch Wiki or forum posts.

co0lcr34t10ns wrote:

Impressive how no one has called them out for this. Wikipedia has had numerous examples of being banned simply because they refuse to censor the site.

I agree with the idea of removing Wikipedia, however. Another point you should consider is the fact that no one has to be qualified in a certain subject to write on Wikipedia. That is why content can be extremely inaccurate. Once, someone told me that they read on Wikipedia that pigs can fly (which is scientifically proven to be impossible unless they are genetically modified or something).

co0lcr34t10ns wrote:

Google search is not inherently as bad, but that still doesn't make it exempt. Double meanings happen, and you can search for one thing but get another.

Yes, certain words have double meanings, some of which are inappropriate for Scratch. However, Google is a site which is not completely rendered for children (who make the majority of users on Scratch) and therefore contains content that is highly inappropriate for Scratch.

co0lcr34t10ns wrote:

I don't think giving trolls these tools is a good idea.

It isn't, but who can confirm that they won't resort to other methods? Shall we ban link tags altogether? Certainly not. They are highly useful, and you have agreed with this yourself.
Trolls will always exist, and will always attempt to find ways to bypass filters. We cannot ban the @, !, * and 0 symbols because a select few have chosen to use those symbols to attempt to bypass filters.
The few who bother to use alternate link tags probably don't seek out double meanings. And anyone who spends life causing issues for other people won't seek out words that have double meanings out of the many other ways to post inappropriate content on Scratch.

Additionally, who really uses these links? I know that some people don't because it can redirect them to other places and therefore cannot finish the original content they were viewing quickly.

How would all of these double meanings ever be found?

Also, trolls typically look for ways around the filter, they don’t care about linking to some swear words.

iiucandyfloss wrote:

Actually, you can blacklist specific words. If the word “happy” was an offensive word and was blacklisted on all areas of the site, no one could type the link tag [dict]happy[/dict]. The alternate link tag is not the issue, the words are. If the words are filtered, links containing those words will be filtered too.

Of course we can blacklist obvious words. But the ones with more innocent meanings PLUS the bad ones can't always be banned. With the eggplant emoji case, there was a good meaning for it, but no one was using it for that. In cases where the good meanings are commonly used instead of the other one, maybe banning the word isn't a bad idea.

iiucandyfloss wrote:

Fair point. Any content on Scratch that requires an explanation can be found on the Scratch Wiki or forum posts.

Ehhh, not ALL content. The stuff related to Scratch, yes. But some other discussion questions have to be outsourced, and that can lead to iffy places. We can nudge people away from potential bad sites with smaller gestures like this.
Yes, certain words have double meanings, some of which are inappropriate for Scratch. However, Google is a site which is not completely rendered for children (who make the majority of users on Scratch) and therefore contains content that is highly inappropriate for Scratch.

So why do we have any of these tags in the first place, if we know this?

iiucandyfloss wrote:

Additionally, who really uses these links? I know that some people don't because it can redirect them to other places and therefore cannot finish the original content they were viewing quickly.

Just because no one uses them doesn't mean there isn't a problem. Although there's a good point @Za-Chary brought up:

Za-Chary wrote:

The less we talk about them, the less they know…

Until then, I agree it makes sense to not do anything until it is clear that there is a problem.

It's kind of a balancing act, because letting people know it's a problem may cause it to become a problem. But knowing could mean that if it becomes a problem, having an already somewhat active topic means ST may get to it quicker. At least I think.

han614698 wrote:

How would all of these double meanings ever be found?

Also, trolls typically look for ways around the filter, they don’t care about linking to some swear words.

Trolls are smart, full stop.

co0lcr34t10ns wrote:

It's kind of a balancing act, because letting people know it's a problem may cause it to become a problem.

That's exactly the problem with this. That's why, for instance, content involving certain self-harm challenges are removed, even if that content is made to warn/discourage people from participating in these challenges. Spreading word about these sorts of issues unnecessarily spreads fear. Ironically, it also spreads the idea of potential abuse when this is what you are trying to prevent with your suggestion in the first place.

co0lcr34t10ns wrote:

But knowing could mean that if it becomes a problem, having an already somewhat active topic means ST may get to it quicker. At least I think.

But again, if it's not currently a problem, then there doesn't need to be an active topic about it. If you are suggesting that the Scratch Team should fix something that could be abused by trolls, Contact Us is often the right avenue for this, precisely to notify the Scratch Team about the potential problem without publicly displaying to users how to do it. It's why, for instance, one should not post security issues on the forums.

Za-Chary wrote:

It's why, for instance, one should not post security issues on the forums.

I've seen countless security issues on BaG and QaS. How come those are never taken down?

co0lcr34t10ns wrote:

Za-Chary wrote:

It's why, for instance, one should not post security issues on the forums.

I've seen countless security issues on BaG and QaS. How come those are never taken down?

Either we have different definitions of “security issues,” or nobody's reported them.

Za-Chary wrote:

co0lcr34t10ns wrote:

Za-Chary wrote:

It's why, for instance, one should not post security issues on the forums.

I've seen countless security issues on BaG and QaS. How come those are never taken down?

Either we have different definitions of “security issues,” or nobody's reported them.

Yeah, we probably have different definitions for them.