Eng:Frequently Rejected Suggestions

Here is a list of frequently rejected suggestions.

Allowing free chats with cloud variables
Allowing “free” chatrooms (i.e. where users can type in whatever they want) - for now, they are not allowed because of the potential for bullying and swearing, and there is no good way to moderate them. If you want to make a chat program, you may make a “safe” chat, where users can only select from a few messages or make one using a whitelist (blacklists are not allowed).

Private messaging
When communication is public, people are more likely to be respectful because they know that everyone can see it. However, when posting PMs, people know that only the intended recipient can see it, so do not think as much before posting. Even if a “Flag PM” function is implemented, the Scratch Team currently does not have the resources to moderate it, because of the reason said before there would be a lot of inappropriate/disrespectful messages.

Disabling “See inside” (formerly locking downloads)
Several people want to be able to lock their projects so that they are read-only, and other people can not see the code to copy their scripts, sounds, or artwork. However, the motto of Scratch is "Imagine - Program - Share". By putting a project on the site, you give anyone who sees it the right to see your code, all data in it, and potentially copy it. Part of the whole goal of Scratch is remixing. If you do not wish to allow this, then you are welcome to publish the project on your own site.

Rating projects
While this would be a nice idea to see how good your project is, it has a major drawback. Often, when a user posts their first project, it is something fairly simple (for example, a modified pong game). If a user posts a simple project to start, and then gets a lot of low ratings because it isn't a very advanced project, then they will want to quit because they will think their code is bad. Also, fake rating is possible as Scratchers can spam low ratings.

Removing 60/120 Second rule, New Scratcher status, etc.
While all of these things may seem annoying, they are extremely effective shields against spam.

Removing the host restriction
The image host restriction is in place to prevent inappropriate images from being posted. The allowed hosts were selected because they do not allow the kind of images that would be used to troll the forums.

Allowing users to add their own image hosts
"We can't take the time to add everyone who has a personal website to the whitelist. Sorry - you'll have to use one of the approved hosts."

- Lightnin

Delete your comments on other peoples' projects
This is so that people can not post troll comments and then delete them, while you are not likely to troll people on your own projects, studios, or profile. On the forums, the solution to this is that you can only delete posts 24 hours after they have been posted, and deletes are not permanent.

3D Scratch
Scratch is a language that is designed to be as easy as possible for beginners to pick up. Adding 3D would make the language extremely complicated, and much more difficult for beginners to understand. There is a sister program to Scratch that contains 3D features, called Starlogo TNG. However, a different group has started developing a 3D version of Scratch that you can see at www.scratch3d.org. You can also try Alice, which is different from Scratch but has a bunch of stuff in common.

 boolean
There is way too much ambiguity to how this would work. Would it return true of the broadcast was fired at any point since the project was created, since the green flag was clicked, since something else was broadcasted, etc.? If you really want to do something like this, instead just make a variable and set it to 1 and use the equals block.

Game badges/achievements
This would harm Scratch's purpose, and people would determine their social worth on the site based on achievements in games, and some users would act as if they are more important than others merely because they have more game badges.

Changing your username
The software architecture isn't designed to handle it. It would also be very confusing to everybody if you did change your username.

Off-topic/misc. section on forums
One used to exist, but it was shut down due to a large amount of “flame wars” and difficulty moderating.

A 13+ version of the website
Scratch is designed for all ages, and dividing the community would not really help anybody.

Removing Add-Everything studios
They are not actually against the Community Guidelines, and although they may appear to waste space on the server, the impact they have is negligible.

Digital currency
Digital currency might be cool for some Scratchers but can cause problems such as competition and not focusing on Scratch's purpose. Scratch itself is not a game.

Removing the phone number censor
It's designed to protect privacy and prevent users from sharing potentially harmful information with each other.

TBGs
Scratch is a website for programming. Please use tbgforums.com instead.

Previous costume block
This block can be simply done, making such block unnecessary: switch costume to ((costume #) - [1])

Banning minor remixes
Remixes are allowed as long as at least something is changed, even if it's minor.