Have users do a captcha when reporting projects

J41n

Add captchas when reporting projects!

I was in the car with my dad, and I told him about mass reporting on Scratch. We talked for a bit before he said:

“Isn't there a captcha if you want to comment or report?”

So I'm here to suggest this. Mass reporting has been a big issue (from what I know). And they get people banned and projects that are cool and innovative get taken down for no reason.

Now I think Scratch warns your account If they find that there's nothing wrong with the project. And, I think they put a wait where if you report projects too fast they stop you from reporting for a bit.

But, If you have hundreds of bots it may be humans reporting projects I think the counter-measures put in place to stop this wont do much against it.

So if we are dealing with robots I think we should add simple captchas to stop them. From what I know this has worked very well with other websites getting botted.

Normal people can easily solve captchas but robots cant, so its not a issue/annoyance to the users trying to report projects. I mean, all it takes is one report from a user. No need to report 2 or 3 times. One and done.

I also had this idea where Scratches get easier captchas and New Scratchers get more difficult ones. (because who's going to make hundreds of bots Scratchers to just solve easier captchas. plus, it takes 2 weeks or less to become a Scratcher)

So Scratch Team, please add this!

AvidOsirianGuy

Semi-support, cause not all people like having to do a CAPTCHA.

coder2310

This could be great! WHY HAS NO ONE ELSE THOUGHT OF THIS!?

michaeljackson1365

I would definitely support, since many innocent projects are being taken down, but some of them get back online, and some people have even quit Scratch. So, captchas will work against bots and can slow groups of people made to intentionally report innocent projects.
My idea is to display a captcha if you're reporting over three times a minute.
The downside of captchas is bots can learn to beat simple ones, so you can hit the bots with harder ones when they beat them, and when they beat those hard ones even harder ones, but that will not apply for people because you can tell a person from a bot just by the behavior of their mouse. Eventually bots will not be able to beat the hardest of the captchas. Another one is not everyone likes having a captcha pop in their face
This is because bots move the cursor in a straight line, and if you spot wiggles and speed variations, that's a human.

It often takes more than two weeks to become a Scratcher, in August/September 2024 some new Scratchers went for ages without being promoted because the promotion system was broken.

Last edited by michaeljackson1365 (Feb. 15, 2025 20:01:28)

jvvg

Mass reporting has been a big issue (from what I know)

No it isn't

gdpr7314264727b19c01a53ed58b

J41n wrote:
So I'm here to suggest this. Mass reporting has been a big issue (from what I know). And they get people banned and projects that are cool and innovative get taken down for no reason.

Never was, actually.

There's a reputation system, and contrary to popular belief - The projects are reviewed by actual humans.

If it's taken for a reason they state, it is that reason. They aren't gonna have the time with their about 30~ employees (they are unable to hire more - Keep in mind a job has to have a wage, docking the wages of your employees won't be recieved well; this is a nonprofit organization. No matter how much money you have, you can't go hiring people left and right) and over a billion things on the site to upkeep and have reports monitored to tell you exactly what on earth your project has wrong.

I've been on here since circa 2019 and never had this happen to me once.

In the case the automatic takedown alert isn't followed up in a month, you could ask Contact-Us to review it (and if there's no response in 1 month, you can resend) - Do note that being rude in the message or just impatient [and spamming them with tickets] may lead to them just not responding for a bit. There's an order to it.

EDIT: whoops, accidentally removed the quote tag closure.

Last edited by gdpr7314264727b19c01a53ed58b (Feb. 15, 2025 20:27:35)

coder2310

Dang it people stop saying mass reporting isn't a big deal. It doesn't matter how much of an effect mass reporting has (and it has effected people), this feature has nothing but upsides and should be implemented.

jvvg

coder2310 wrote:
Dang it people stop saying mass reporting isn't a big deal. It doesn't matter how much of an effect mass reporting has (and it has effected people), this feature has nothing but upsides and should be implemented.

It has one major downside: it makes reporting harder, and that can discourage people from reporting projects that actually have something wrong with them.

235x

Light support, why not full support? Well umm, CAPTCHAs aren't exactly good, like at all.
Like just search up “captchas aren't secure” on YouTube and there several videos about how bots are solve captchas easily!
And if you use a chromium browser then you can easily use something like NopeCHA for example.
For just watch the first few minutes of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTsBP21-XpI

Elijah999999

I find reporting projects tedious enough already. In my opinion, taking down inappropriate projects should be higher priority than making it impossible to report innocent projects (which, I might add, is impossible). Discouraging people from reporting projects is a bad idea.

cake__5

Elijah999999 wrote:
I find reporting projects tedious enough already. In my opinion, taking down inappropriate projects should be higher priority than making it impossible to report innocent projects (which, I might add, is impossible). Discouraging people from reporting projects is a bad idea.

direct counterargument:

several other websites have captchas on commenting, does that discourage commentind?

discouraging people from reporting projects actually IS a good idea because 1. it stops (removed by moderator - please keep it polite) from also wasting the ST's time, as well as some innocent people who just wanted to have some fun with the filter (@dzje)s accounts. 2. it makes reporting more valuable so that maybe, just maybe, some people will stop reporting these innocent sprunki projects for no reason other than “its the fifteenth reupload this day and this reuploader has a slightly different opinion to mine on blah blah blah”. 3. i think discouraging anything that can cause harm to people (i.e. blocking, reporting, ignoring) needs to be at least slightly nudged-away discouraged, let alone full on captcha-protected.

so yes, this should be implemented soon.

also, unban (removed by moderator - please don't name names)

Last edited by Paddle2See (March 17, 2025 19:56:40)

jvvg

cake__5 wrote:
direct counterargument:

several other websites have captchas on commenting, does that discourage commentind?

Yes, it probably does. Though in those cases, that may be the intent.

cake__5 wrote:
discouraging people from reporting projects actually IS a good idea because 1. it stops miserable wastes of oxygen from also wasting the ST's time, as well as some innocent people who just wanted to have some fun with the filter (@dzje)s accounts.

Do you have any evidence to back up the idea that this is actually a common occurrence? Scratch Team sources, including the ones I quote in my essay, indicate that the vast majority of reports are correct.

cake__5 wrote:
2. it makes reporting more valuable so that maybe, just maybe, some people will stop reporting these innocent sprunki projects for no reason other than “its the fifteenth reupload this day and this reuploader has a slightly different opinion to mine on blah blah blah”.

Again, do you have any evidence that this is actually happening frequently? Remember that there are already a bunch of decoy report options such as “I don't like this project” that already defray a lot of reports for this sort of thing.

cake__5 wrote:
3. i think discouraging anything that can cause harm to people (i.e. blocking, reporting, ignoring) needs to be at least slightly nudged-away discouraged, let alone full on captcha-protected.

Not reporting something also causes harm to people, as it allows actual bad projects to stay up. Also, the actual “harm” that can result from reporting something that doesn't actually deserve to be reported is pretty minimal - in the worst case the project will be temporarily taken down and the creator banned for 90 minutes.

cake__5

jvvg wrote:
cake__5 wrote:
direct counterargument:

several other websites have captchas on commenting, does that discourage commentind?
Yes, it probably does. Though in those cases, that may be the intent.

i sure hope it is

jvvg wrote:
cake__5 wrote:
discouraging people from reporting projects actually IS a good idea because 1. it stops miserable wastes of oxygen from also wasting the ST's time, as well as some innocent people who just wanted to have some fun with the filter (@dzje)s accounts.
Do you have any evidence to back up the idea that this is actually a common occurrence? Scratch Team sources, including the ones I quote in my essay, indicate that the vast majority of reports are correct.

the point is, these reporters waste everyones resources. the innocent peoples accounts as well.

jvvg wrote:
cake__5 wrote:
2. it makes reporting more valuable so that maybe, just maybe, some people will stop reporting these innocent sprunki projects for no reason other than “its the fifteenth reupload this day and this reuploader has a slightly different opinion to mine on blah blah blah”.
Again, do you have any evidence that this is actually happening frequently? Remember that there are already a bunch of decoy report options such as “I don't like this project” that already defray a lot of reports for this sort of thing.

the entire example was a hyperbole, sprunki reuploads still should not be reported at least not in my opinion, and they happen like once every few days,

jvvg wrote:
cake__5 wrote:
3. i think discouraging anything that can cause harm to people (i.e. blocking, reporting, ignoring) needs to be at least slightly nudged-away discouraged, let alone full on captcha-protected.
Not reporting something also causes harm to people, as it allows actual bad projects to stay up. Also, the actual “harm” that can result from reporting something that doesn't actually deserve to be reported is pretty minimal - in the worst case the project will be temporarily taken down and the creator banned for 90 minutes.

sprunki with built-in warnings does not deserve any takedowns. people are being warned of its contents, so its ok. yes, innapropriate content like actual innapropriate not just fnaf should be taken down, so people determined to take down bad stuff can just click past the captcha.

J41n

Elijah999999 wrote:
I find reporting projects tedious enough already. In my opinion, taking down inappropriate projects should be higher priority than making it impossible to report innocent projects (which, I might add, is impossible). Discouraging people from reporting projects is a bad idea.

In my opinion, I don't think its very tedious to report projects.

All you do is press a couple of buttons and your done

Sometimes the options that the report button has doesn't have your reason for reporting the project. So you just write a quick comment.

J41n

jvvg wrote:
It has one major downside: it makes reporting harder, and that can discourage people from reporting projects that actually have something wrong with them.

How does answering captchas discourage people from reporting projects? Its not like clicking a traffic light, or clicking a checkbox is a tedious task. Some blog websites use captchas to comment (that's even more annoying.)

235x wrote:
Light support, why not full support? Well umm, CAPTCHAs aren't exactly good, like at all.
Like just search up “captchas aren't secure” on YouTube and there several videos about how bots are solve captchas easily!
And if you use a chromium browser then you can easily use something like NopeCHA for example.
For just watch the first few minutes of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTsBP21-XpI

Maybe Scratch could use reCAPTCHA v3 or “invisible captchas” (They seem secure, correct me if I'm wrong)

And for the extension “NopeCHA” maybe just have a screen where if they use the extension the website will default to that screen until the extension/add-on is removed.

Scratchtheguy1

Kind of okay.
Edit: @Jvvg is right.

Last edited by Scratchtheguy1 (Feb. 16, 2025 09:04:14)

coder2310

jvvg wrote:
coder2310 wrote:
Dang it people stop saying mass reporting isn't a big deal. It doesn't matter how much of an effect mass reporting has (and it has effected people), this feature has nothing but upsides and should be implemented.
It has one major downside: it makes reporting harder, and that can discourage people from reporting projects that actually have something wrong with them.

The downside is having to spend seven seconds answering two or three basic questions, oh no, so bad.

Last edited by coder2310 (Feb. 16, 2025 09:06:17)

gdpr7314264727b19c01a53ed58b

coder2310 wrote:
The downside is having to spend seven seconds answering two or three basic questions, oh no, so bad.

People these days literally have the attentionspans of a goldfish.
Every second saved counts because of that.

coder2310

Zydrolic wrote:
coder2310 wrote:
The downside is having to spend seven seconds answering two or three basic questions, oh no, so bad.
People these days literally have the attentionspans of a goldfish.
Every second saved counts because of that.

You already have to write down WHY your reporting projects, if people can do that they'll be fine with a few questions before hand.
This will reduce the amount of projects get mass reported, and speed up the banning of actually bad projects (what I mean by “speeding up” is that the ban list will be shorter). So honestly the whole ordeal is worth it.

Last edited by coder2310 (March 2, 2025 09:58:46)

gdpr7314264727b19c01a53ed58b

coder2310 wrote:
You already have to write down WHY your reporting projects, if people can do that they'll be fine with a few questions before hand.

You have me there. I can't counter that lol

This will reduce the amount of projects get mass reported, and speed up the banning of actually bad projects (what I mean by “speeding up” is that the ban list will be shorter). So honestly the whole ordeal is worth it.

Massreporting isn't an issue, it's just overproportioned.

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