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- "Announcements" redirects here. For announcements on the Scratch Wiki, see Scratch Wiki Home/News.
| Announcements | |
| Forum ID: | 5 |
| Amount of activity: | Low number of topics and a high number of replies. |
| Opened: | 2007 |
| Types of users who can post: | Only Scratch Team members can create new topics, but all users can reply to topics. |
| Brief description: | "Updates from the Scratch Team." |
| URL: | scratch:discuss/5 |
The Announcements forum is a forum in the Scratch Forums where updates from the Scratch Team can be found. It is the first forum on the forums page.
Contents
While the content of the announcements varies, they usually fall under these areas:
- A new release of Scratch
- Changes to the website
- Experimental tests
- Wanted feedback
- Downtime
- Scratch Video Updates
- Wiki Wednesdays
- A Scratch program (such as Scratch Week)
- Reminding users of the rules
Only the Scratch Team can create new topics, to prevent users who are not Scratch Team members from posting false information in a new announcement.
There is often a post in the Scratch News corresponding to a post in the Announcements forum, but not always.
Activity
The forum is comparatively less active than most other forums, as new topics are rarely created, primarily due to only Scratch Team members being able to create them. When new announcements are made, however, the forum is very active, because there is a link to the topic on the home page when a new announcement is made.
The announcements posted do not always lose activity over time. One of the topics was a place where users can apply to be curator, and another was where a user could submit holiday logos. While those threads were not continuously active, they amount for many of the forum's posts.
This forum is very vulnerable to spam, mostly posted by New Scratchers or Scratchers who have not used the forums before. The stickied Announcements Directory was especially vulnerable to spam as it was the only stickied thread open for posting by all users.[1] This was fixed after a new website-directory was created.[2] Notable examples are listed below.
After an announcement is made, the topic is typically closed by a moderator after a few days due to the massive amount of spam.
Post-Number Spam
Often users will rush to the forum to try to get the first post in a new topic. Some posts will just consist of "First post!" or "Xth post!" and are often considered spam, but they are not deleted by the Scratch Team and do not affect most topics.
If Scratchers see posts that only contain "First post!" or "Xth post!", it should be reported.[3] Some topics about new features will also have users suggesting new ideas in them, instead of in the Suggestions forum, and sometimes users will also post questions on topics, instead of in the Help with Scripts or Questions about Scratch forum.[4]
Blockspam
This forum is the most vulnerable to blockspam as Scratchers new to the forums frequently experiment with the block plugin and other BBCode features.[5]
A lot of users mostly find the Announcements forum via the Scratch News section on the Front Page. Users new to the forums who find these posts tend to make test posts, as rules on what can or cannot be posted there are not mentioned or linked to.
Besides the Scratch Team
Only four Scratchers have topics in the Announcements forums.
- joletole's topic was moved to Announcements when they announced that the Scratch Team changed any mention of "pi" to "3.14159265..." on Pi Day.
- ImagineIt posted in the Community Moderator Appreciation Day topic for 2011 in 2012, after which Paddle2See made a new topic, merged their post and the later ones on the first topic, and since posts are sorted by date, theirs became first. The posts have since been rearranged.
- blob8108's post explaining scratchblocks was moved to Announcements when the [scratchblocks] tag was released.[6]
- The user makethebrainhappy, along with their collaboration, the Services Planning Department, also had their Announcements Directory moved to the Announcements forum in June 2017.[7] makethebrainhappy also posted an announcement about the new domain of the wiki.[8]
Community Moderators also had the ability to create topics in the Annoucements forum.[9]
See Also
References
- ↑ makethebrainhappy. (2017-08-13). "It is the only thread in the Announcements thread which is open 24/7, 365 days a year." post:2777876
- ↑ makethebrainhappy. (2019-04-27). "I'm updating the directory through the automatic version now!" post:3524551
- ↑ cheddargirl. (2014-06-25). "Well, has anyone bothered to report it?" post:358795
- ↑ Nboo245. (2019-04-24). "Where do I go if I have a question for the Scratch Team?" post:3520844
- ↑ post:3494232
- ↑ blob8108. (2013-08-31). "New [scratchblocks] tag[title]" topic:14772
- ↑ makethebrainhappy. (2017-06-12). "The Announcements Directory[title]" topic:265784
- ↑ makethebrainhappy. (2018-02-17). "The New Scratch Wiki[title]" topic:292170
- ↑ topic:525153
