Eng:Report

Reporting is a feature on the Scratch Website which allows Scratchers to alert the Scratch Team when comments, forum posts, users or projects are inappropriate or spam. After content has been reported, it gets reviewed by a member of the Scratch Team. The Scratch Team encourages users not to respond to the inappropriate content.

Projects which have been reported become invisible to the user who reported them and show a page similar to the "Unshared project" page. Comments will also become invisible, and if enough reports are received, the comment will be deleted. Moderators can later restore a deleted comment.

Misusing the report feature, such as reporting for disagreement, is not allowed, and a scratcher will get banned for misusing the report feature too much.

Sometimes if the content is too serious, it will be sent to the law enforcement. Cheddargirl has said only 3 cases have ever needed to be sent to the law enforcement.

Reporting Users
To report a user, go to their user page, and click on the Report this User button below the What I've Been Doing section. You can then select whether you are reporting the username, icon, About Me, or What I'm Working On. One you have selected what you are reporting, you can either press Send to send the report to the Scratch Team or press Cancel to cancel the report.

When should a user be reported?

 * If his/her username is inappropriate
 * If he/she has an inappropriate icon or inappropriate text in the description fields
 * The "user" is impersonation of another user

Reporting Projects
To report a project, click on the "report this" link below it next to the Project Statistics, select a reason, and type what the prompt commands the user to do in a box. The Scratch Team will review the project. If many users report the same project, it is temporarily removed from the site. When one reports a project, it is not displayed for them; instead, a page resembling the "Unshared Project" page is displayed.

Pre-written reasons

 * Copied project (Asked to give URL of the original project)
 * No credit given (Asked to provide links which contain content not credited in the project)
 * Too violent or scary (Asked to tell why the project is violent or scary)
 * Inappropriate language (Asked to give where inappropriate language, or "swearing", occurs in the project)
 * Inappropriate music (Asked to provide name of the audio file with the inappropriate content)
 * Sharing personal contact information (Asked to give where personal info is given)
 * Other (Asked to tell the reason otherwise)

Reporting Comments
To report a comment, simply click the "Report" button in the top-right corner. One should always report spam and inappropriate comments. Reporting comments is the only time when reporting on the Scratch website where users can not give a reason why they are reporting the comment.

Reporting Forum Posts
This button is used to bring a post to a moderator's attention. However, unlike common misconception, it is not only for reporting inappropriate material; it can also be used to request common tasks which require moderator abilities, like thread renaming, closing, or moving.

Neither BBCode nor HTML parse in reports.

How the system works
When a post is reported, a message is sent to all the Community Moderators and members of the Scratch Team, who can process it. On Scratch 1.4 and in Scratch 2.0, if a post is reported four times by four different Scratcher accounts, it is automatically hidden and the user who posted it is temporarily banned for the remainder of one day, during which time the Scratch Team can look into the issue.

Once a report is processed, a moderator will "zap" it, removing it from the queue.

What it's for
The report button should be used for reporting in the case of:


 * Inappropriate content
 * Spam
 * Posts harassing other users
 * Flame wars
 * Duplicate thread (a thread posted twice)
 * Topic in the wrong forum
 * You wanting your topic to be renamed (if new scratcher) or closed (if topic made less than 24 hours ago)
 * You wanting your topic or post to be deleted
 * Topics that should be stickied
 * Language That Is Innapropriate
 * Anything else that needs a moderator's attention

In the Text Based Games Forums, the report button was also used in certain topics run by moderators, such as tokens.

Reporting for no specific reason is considered spam, and is frowned upon, as it wastes the moderators' and Scratch Team's time. If a user does it once, they will receive an alert. Doing this multiple times can result in a ban.

Reporting
To report a post, click on Report on the bottom right of a post. It links to a page with a comment box. Type the reason for reporting the post, then press "Submit" (or press  on your keyboard).

This page can also be accessed at:

Reporting Studios
To report a studio, one can simply click the "Report this studio" button beneath its thumbnail.

You can then select what you're reporting by selecting from Title, Description, or Thumbnail. You can press Send to send the report (if you've selected something), or click outside the report menu to cancel the report.