The title explains it all

They are technically allowed AFAIK, but your project may get NFE'd (not for everyone). It means it will not show in searches.

they are technically disallowed as per the terms of services “no modified editors” clause, but in practice are allowed (with the exception of hacked blocks that have effects that break the rules in of themselves). Projects for the sole purpose of showing off hacked blocks will get NFE'd.

They are allowed, although projects advertising them may get NFE'd.

If they weren't allowed, the ST would likely just remove them from the VM (Scratch engine).

Also, there are some in there that are for backwards-compatibility with old projects made in 1.x and 2.0- such as the

set pen shade to ()

block, which has been replaced with the

set pen [ v] to () :: pen

Edit: ninja'd

Catscratcher07 wrote:

they are technically disallowed as per the terms of services “no modified editors” clause, but in practice are allowed (with the exception of hacked blocks that have effects that break the rules in of themselves). Projects for the sole purpose of showing off hacked blocks will get NFE'd.

It's not a modified version of the editor if it's in the editor?

Besides, that part of ToU also mentions Section 5.3 of ToU, which says where to go to download Scratch 1.4- meaning that anyone using the 2.0 or 3.0 editors is also violating this clause…

BigNate469 wrote:

(#5)
Besides, that part of ToU also mentions Section 5.3 of ToU, which says where to go to download Scratch 1.4- meaning that anyone using the 2.0 or 3.0 editors is also violating this clause…

The terms of use hasn't been updated since 2016… which is still weird because 2.0 was released around 2013, but maybe as an online editor only, but idk

BigNate469 wrote:

<snip>
Besides, that part of ToU also mentions Section 5.3 of ToU, which says where to go to download Scratch 1.4- meaning that anyone using the 2.0 or 3.0 editors is also violating this clause…

No - look at the first part of 4.4

4.4 You may only submit user-generated projects that were created with (1) the Scratch website editor or (2) an unmodified copy of the Scratch editor compiled from the source code described in Section 5.3. You may not upload any projects that were created, by you or by anyone else, with a modified version of the Scratch editor.

The Scratch website editor is version 3.0 - and was also version 2.0 at one time. Scratch is intended to be upward compatible so projects created with older official versions of Scratch are still okay to upload.

Paddle2See wrote:

BigNate469 wrote:

<snip>
Besides, that part of ToU also mentions Section 5.3 of ToU, which says where to go to download Scratch 1.4- meaning that anyone using the 2.0 or 3.0 editors is also violating this clause…

No - look at the first part of 4.4

4.4 You may only submit user-generated projects that were created with (1) the Scratch website editor or (2) an unmodified copy of the Scratch editor compiled from the source code described in Section 5.3. You may not upload any projects that were created, by you or by anyone else, with a modified version of the Scratch editor.

The Scratch website editor is version 3.0 - and was also version 2.0 at one time. Scratch is intended to be upward compatible so projects created with older official versions of Scratch are still okay to upload.

But the offline ones from 2.0 and 3.0 are still in violation.

I think it’s pretty clear what the intent is of section 4.4. The Scratch team only wants projects in their projects database that can be created starting with a blank project and only using an editor that we accessed through the Scratch website.

A Scratch admin once said this about hacked blocks (it’s old, maybe there is something more recent) https://scratch.mit.edu/discuss/topic/1810/?page=1#post-11347

The main concern I have about this technique is that if we have a ‘public code repository’ - which is one way of seeing the Scratch website - it's important that code is legible, makes sense, and corresponds accurately to what the project actually does. If hacking the JSON makes projects that don't behave how their scripts indicate they'd behave, or which can't be re-created with the normal editor, then I think it's potentially really confusing for anyone viewing the code.

I believe that this applies to deprecated blocks as well as hacked blocks.

And finally, does “Scratch website editor” mean the editor you access through the website? Do we access the offline versions of 2.0 and 3.0 through the Scratch website? Maybe you only have to access them once through the Scratch website — but that counts. No one is violating the Terms of Use by using the offline versions of 2.0 or 3.0 that they got from the Scratch Website

10goto10 wrote:

~snip~

And finally, does “Scratch website editor” mean the editor you access through the website? Do we access the offline versions of 2.0 and 3.0 through the Scratch website? Maybe you only have to access them once through the Scratch website — but that counts. No one is violating the Terms of Use by using the offline versions of 2.0 or 3.0 that they got from the Scratch Website

From a literal standpoint, uploading anything made with something other than the online editor or the 1.4 offline editor (or an unmodified copy made with its source code) is a volition of ToU section 4.4, but actual precedent allows the use of newer offline editors and turbowarp, precedent takes precedence over a literal interpretation of ToU.

The same is true for hacked blocks, actual precedent is that they're allowed (assuming the hacked block in question doesn't do something against the rules), but projects for the purpose of showing off hacked blocks are NFE'd.

10goto10 wrote:

~snip~

A Scratch admin once said this about hacked blocks (it’s old, maybe there is something more recent) https://scratch.mit.edu/discuss/topic/1810/?page=1#post-11347

The main concern I have about this technique is that if we have a ‘public code repository’ - which is one way of seeing the Scratch website - it's important that code is legible, makes sense, and corresponds accurately to what the project actually does. If hacking the JSON makes projects that don't behave how their scripts indicate they'd behave, or which can't be re-created with the normal editor, then I think it's potentially really confusing for anyone viewing the code.

This quote has never been enforced.

Catscratcher07 wrote:

From a literal standpoint, uploading anything made with something other than the online editor or the 1.4 offline editor (or an unmodified copy made with its source code) is a volition of ToU section 4.4

The point that I was making was their term “website editor” covers both online and offline editors because they are all accessed via the Scratch website. There is nothing in that section that refers to an “online editor”. This is only important because people have mentioned your interpretation as providing some kind of loophole.

Catscratcher07 wrote:

10goto10 wrote:

~snip~

A Scratch admin once said this about hacked blocks ….

This quote has never been enforced.

Recently in another post someone pointed out the difference in what is allowed and what the moderators have the time and resources to address. The reason that I added this quote was to explain why the Scratch Team is asking us to be responsible and not abuse the public code repository. There is a difference between “getting into some kind of trouble” and agreeing to treat this freely provided resource with respect.

10goto10 wrote:

Catscratcher07 wrote:

From a literal standpoint, uploading anything made with something other than the online editor or the 1.4 offline editor (or an unmodified copy made with its source code) is a volition of ToU section 4.4

The point that I was making was their term “website editor” covers both online and offline editors because they are all accessed via the Scratch website. There is nothing in that section that refers to an “online editor”. This is only important because people have mentioned your interpretation as providing some kind of loophole.

If website editor refers to any editor obtained through the website, then why mention the 1.4 offline editor separately?

Catscratcher07 wrote:

From a literal standpoint, uploading anything made with something other than the online editor or the 1.4 offline editor (or an unmodified copy made with its source code) is a volition of ToU section 4.4

The offline editor is built from website source code, essentially making it a “Scratch website editor”.. Scratch should really try to find a good time to update this clause

“Hacked block” is a rather old term by the way. To be safe, I would just avoid them, it's not like they have much functionality anyways

Catscratcher07 wrote:

If website editor refers to any editor obtained through the website, then why mention the 1.4 offline editor separately?

The sentence in the Terms of Use is

4.4 You may only submit user-generated projects that were created with (1) the Scratch website editor or (2) an unmodified copy of the Scratch editor compiled from the source code described in Section 5.3

There are several things about option 2) that make it different from a Scratch website editor. First, you or someone acquired the source code from a location that you have to dig out of the FAQ. Then you or someone must compile it without making any changes to the source code.

They don’t say why they include this limitation but I believe it goes along with this statement from back when they release the source code for Scratch 1.2.1 (https://web.archive.org/web/20081231082205/http://info.scratch.mit.edu/Source_Code) and I’m sorry it is so long

About the Scratch Source Code
Product vs. Research

Scratch is two things at once: an educational software product and a research project.

The Scratch product is designed to serve the needs of a specific target audience: youth and others who wish to learn and use programming for creative expression. Like any software product, Scratch will evolve over time, with a strong focus on stability and serving the needs of its core audience.

As a research project, Scratch explores ways to use visual programming and user interface design to make programming easier for non-experts. There are dozens of possible directions for future Scratch research, such as modifying the software to run on mobile devices, adding new data types and data structures to the programming language, and applying Scratch scripting ideas to other application domains. Research projects are different from products: they evolve quickly, explore new territory, and may never be as polished, stable, or well-documented as a product. Research projects move faster and farther when they are not held back by product concerns.

…

The purpose of these restrictions is to avoid confusion in the Scratch user community between the official version of Scratch (supported by the Lifelong Kindergarten group) and experimental variations. We are happy the share our source code, but we want to protect the Scratch brand and our user community.

There is a lot more on that page but I felt I was quoting too much. But it looks like that sentence you mention in the ToU is there to separate the research activities from the Scratch product and general community.

For what it's worth, in one of my projects I used a hacked block to make a list of colors to use with the pen extension.
I made it very clear in the description that the block was hacked and credited the person I got it from.
That project, was my project that got featured.
So yeah. As long as you don't use them maliciously I'm preeeeeeeetty sure they're allowed.*

* An important part of Scratch projects is remixability, so if you use ANY FORM of hack I would HIGHLY RECOMMEND to explain how to remix it as simply as you can.

Fun_Cupcake_i81 wrote:

… So yeah. As long as you don't use them maliciously I'm preeeeeeeetty sure they're allowed.*

From your experience I think it might be better to say that hacked blocks are unmoderated.

However, If a person wants to honor their promise to comply with the Terms of Use, then they are not allowed. Of course it’s up to the Scratch Team to decide what parts of the ToU they are actually going to enforce.

It would be nice if the Scratch Team would give us a little more clarity on this question.

yes