Community Guidelines

*"Guidelines" redirects here. For the editing guidelines on the Scratch Wiki, see Scratch Wiki:Guidelines.*
*Not to be confused with Terms of Use.*

The Community Guidelines.

The Scratch **Community Guidelines** (often abbreviated **CG** or **CGs**) are the official set of guidelines that tell Scratchers how to act appropriately on the Scratch Website. There are other etiquette rules that should be followed, but are not part of the Community Guidelines.

The Community Guidelines used to be called "Terms of Use". The name was changed because "Terms of Use" gave the impression of a long piece of "technical jargon."

## Information

The guidelines are summarized into six simple guidelines, as the Scratch Team is aware that many people dislike reading pieces of text.

### Guidelines

* **Be safe: keep personal and contact information private.** For safety reasons, don't give out any information that could be used for private communication, in person or online. This includes sharing real last names, phone numbers, addresses, hometowns, school names, email addresses, usernames or links to social media sites, video chatting applications, or websites with private chat functionality.
* **Give helpful feedback.** Everyone on Scratch is learning. When commenting on a project, remember to say something you like about it, offer suggestions, and be kind, not critical. Please keep comments respectful and avoid spamming or posting chain mail. We encourage you to try new things, experiment, and learn from others.
* **Embrace remix culture.** *Remixing is when you build upon someone else’s projects, code, ideas, images, or anything else they share on Scratch to make your own unique creation.* Remixing is a great way to collaborate and connect with other Scratchers. You are encouraged to use anything you find on Scratch in your own creations, as long as you provide credit to everyone whose work you used and make a meaningful change to it. And when you share something on Scratch, you are giving permission to all Scratchers to use your work in their creations, too.
* **Be honest.** It’s important to be honest and authentic when interacting with others on Scratch, and remember that there is a person behind every Scratch account. Spreading rumors, impersonating other Scratchers or celebrities, or pretending to be seriously ill is not respectful to the Scratch Community.
* **Help keep the site friendly.** It’s important to keep your creations and conversations friendly and appropriate for all ages. If you think something on Scratch is mean, insulting, too violent, or otherwise disruptive to the community, click “Report” to let us know about it. Please use the “Report” button rather than engaging in fights, spreading rumors about other people’s behavior, or otherwise responding to any inappropriate content. The Scratch Team will look at your report and take the appropriate action.

## Broken Rules

When a rule is broken by a Scratcher, the Scratcher receives an alert from the Scratch Team. After multiple messages, a user may be banned, or blocked temporarily, or (in case of a serious offense) even permanently. An account may even be deleted in very severe cases. The Community Guidelines also show up on the ban page.

If somebody else has broken a rule, such as being aggressive and mean towards a user, the Scratch Team has clearly stated that responding to it in the same kind of manner will also count as breaking the community guidelines, and both accounts may be alerted or banned. Additionally, threatening to report something is not considered respectful. Instead, Scratchers are encouraged to report the comment or project without responding.

## Location

The Community Guidelines can be accessed from the footer on the bottom of every page on the Scratch Website and the Scratch Wiki. It is the first link under "Community".

## See Also

* Scratch Rules
* Terms of Use

## External Links

* Community Guidelines on the Scratch Website

## References

1. ↑ Lightnin. (9/8/2011). "[O]ur Terms of Use have always been pretty brief, simple, and never had much jargon. Several people have pointed out that they seem more like Community Guidelines than Terms of Use. We agree - hence the change." ar-topic:71281
2. ↑ scratch:community guidelines
3. ↑ File:Banned-mainsite.png
4. ↑ andresmh. (8/10/2010). "Replying to disrespectful comments is not OK[title]" ar-topic:47509