Honey Talkz! | What are timeouts? (An educational GWDFI Essay)

Instructions

Greetings, guys, gals, non-binary pals, and all the beans in between! Welcome to my very first Scratch essay! Today's writing is about GWDFI, specifically information about its timeouts and countdown. First of all, what are timeouts? And what is the countdown? Well, timeouts are when the studio comments on GWDFI close. The average length of a timeout is usually about an hour (60 minutes), then the studio comments will reopen. However, there was once a 24+ hour timeout. This happened due to drama and other issues on June 19th, 2024. I am pretty sure that was the only timeout longer than an hour, though I'm not sure. The countdown helps managers to determine when timeouts should be. The countdown typically starts at 10 after the previous timeout, though not in some cases (ex: the countdown was in the negatives before the timeout). Whenever there is a comment that breaks the GWDFI rules, 1 is subtracted from the countdown. Once the countdown reaches 0, the studio comments will be closed for an hour. The countdown is located in the description of the main GWDFI studio. When the comments are closed for some minutes due to certain issues, such as mass reports going around, this does not count as a timeout. Also, trolls do not contribute to the countdown, although they may cause the studio comments to be closed for a bit if they get out of hand. Am I allowed to bypass the timeout? Creating new studios for the sole purpose of bypassing GWDFI timeouts is heavily discouraged, and possibly against the rules(?). One should also not spam the host about the timeout. It is also discouraged that one retreats to other chatrooms during a timeout, as that defeats the purpose of the timeouts, although it can't exactly be controlled whether one does that or not. It also is not officially stated to be against the rules. This doesn't mean that you should do it, though. More information about timeouts/the countdown: • If the comments open a bit late after a timeout, that is okay, as the managers have lives outside of Scratch and may not be able to open the comments immediately. As mentioned previously, please do not spam the host about reopening GWDFI comments. • Timeouts shouldn't be seen entirely as a bad thing. They are used as a means to enforce the rules, and can also be used as an opportunity to take a break from GWDFI. Here is a list of things that you could do during a timeout: • It is encouraged that you report any comments in GWDFI that break the rules to the host, so that they can ensure the countdown is accurate. • Please check out this list of what comments remove numbers from the countdown!