Scratch Rules

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This page documents the various concrete rules of Scratch. These are both things that are frowned upon and things that are punishable by the Scratch Team.

Community Guidelines

Main article: Community Guidelines

The Community Guidelines are the official rules for Scratch as written by the Scratch Team. They are summarized as follows:

Main Site

Spam

Main article: Spam

Spam is irrelevant material posted in comments or on the forums. It is bad to encourage spam. Spam posts should be reported. Common types of spam abuse smileys, _meow_, or are attempts to gain fame by posting links to one's own projects or posting advertisements.

Misusing the Report Feature

Reporting for no specific reason or something which follows the Community Guidelines is considered spam and is frowned upon, as it wastes the Scratch Team's time. If a user does it multiple times, they can receive consequences from the Scratch Team. ^{[citation needed]}

Flame Wars

Main article: Flame War

Flame wars are unnecessary and hurtful arguments between two or more Scratchers. Flame wars are absolutely not tolerated and can result in bans for the participants. Note that helpful and constructive arguing is allowed, as on the Scratch Forums, but ad hominem attacks are not allowed.

Drama

Drama is unnecessary and is discouraged by many Scratchers. Quitting in order to gain attention is considered drama, as is protesting the ban of another user. Personal problems such as depression and eating disorders do not belong on Scratch. Making multiple accounts and pretending to be new, tricking people into thinking they will receive tons of love-its, and any type of trick that could be hurtful to someone are also drama.

Religion and Politics

Religion and politics are allowed to be put into projects so long as they are not disrespectful.

“	It's fine to make a project sharing about your faith, as long as it meets the Scratch community guidelines. It's disrespectful to try to change other's beliefs about their faith, or say that your belief about faith is the only acceptable one.	”
– Lightnin, Scratch Team at MIT

“	For one thing - we think people should be able to express their political views in projects (respectfully, of course). It's an important part of how democracy works. Sometimes the discussions go bad and get disrespectful (and not just on Scratch - lots of places).	”
– Lightnin, Scratch Team at MIT

Always Give Credit

When using or getting inspired by another user's creation, you should always give credit. If you are remixing, there will automatically be a message underneath the project saying that it is remixed. However, it is typically assumed that you will give credit in the Notes and Credits as well. ^{[citation needed]}

Advertising Browser Extensions and Userscripts

“	We want to announce today that we’re shifting our policy related to browser extensions, userscripts, and other similar external software. We’ve decided that, for safety reasons, we are no longer going to allow these to be advertised on Scratch.	”
– ceebee, Scratch Team, Nov 30, 2017

This rule does not apply to Scratch Extensions. Scratchers can still use browser extensions or userscripts, but they cannot be referred to on the Scratch Website.

Discussion

These rules apply to the Discussion Forums.

Necroposting

Main article: Necropost

Bumping outdated, irrelevant, unwanted, or unnecessary topics is called necroposting and is frowned upon in the Scratch Community. Scratchers new to the forums will often unknowingly necropost. However, bumping up old topics to add new, relevant information, or to revive a discussion for a valid reason is not considered necroposting.

Off-topic Discussion

On the Scratch Forums it is frowned upon if a thread goes off-topic as it distracts people's attention from the main post. If a topic branches into another idea, it is encouraged to create a new topic rather than continue on the old one.

Duplicate Topics

It is considered bad form to intentionally post exactly the same topic twice. It is also encouraged to look for older topics about the same thing rather than to create a new topic and split up the discussion. Duplicate topics get closed by the Scratch Team.

Topics Not Allowed in the "Things I'm Reading and Playing" and "Things I'm Making and Creating" Forum Sections

• Topics focusing on negativity, such as "anti-X" and "media that you dislike". Topics like this have been closed.

“	The Reading and Playing forum is a place to discuss books, TV, movies, art, music, or video games that inspire you.	”
– Paddle2See, Scratch Team

• Topics about media that is too mature for young teenagers and children
• Topics about horror media if too scary for children, such as creepypasta
• Topics prone to flaming, such as religion and politics ^{[citation needed]}
• Text-based games, they should go to the TBGs forum site. ^{[citation needed]}
• Topics that are prone to spam, such as joke/meme topics ^{[citation needed]}

Naming Names

Users should not use other users' usernames in a negative way, for example, "Username did this thing to me." This is because such case attracts unwanted attention to the named user, which is not helpful to the problem. If a user does this their post may be edited by a Scratch Team member to remove the name. Where the name was a message along the lines of [username removed by mod] may appear. ^{[citation needed]} If a user is having problems with a particular user, they should report them.

Blockspam

Main article: spam

It is frowned upon to overuse the scratchblocks feature. Such overuse is called blockspamming. Often it can become annoying if it has nothing to do with the post. Even if the scratchblocks are used a bit like a Script Poem and the message of the post is conveyed through them, it can still be annoying. However, as long as it gets the message across, it is acceptable, at least from the Scratch Team's point of view.

Excessive Quoting

When a post does not snip away excessive quotes within quotes, a moderator will likely remove the excessive quotes and give the offending account an alert.

See Also

• Community Guidelines
• Ban
• Cyberbullying