[SPACE FOR NEXT SLIDE] Ah, advertising. The practice of mass spamming their project links on people's projects in the hopes that even ONE person gets curious enough to click on it. It is a deceiving practice, tricking thousands of newer scratchers into unknowingly harassing people. I don't know if these needs to be really said again, but I am going to say it here. ADVERTISING IS HIGHLY DISRESPECTFUL AND RUDE AND IS A BANNABLE OFFENSE! You should NEVER just randomly advertise on someone's project, the only exception being if the project creator CLEARLY states that ads are allowed. You might not realize it at first, but advertising can effectively shun people for having popular projects. How would YOU feel if you worked WEEKS on a project to get it at the top of the explore page, just for people to just completely ignore your hard work and instead MOOCH off of your popularity? You'd feel ignored, scammed, and downright disrespected. That's how other people feel when you advertise on their popular projects. I don't want this rant to be JUST me going on and on, so I am going to answer some frequently used excuses these advertisers use to get away with this subtle form of bullying. 1ST: "I want people to see my projects, and this is the best way!" No. No it is not the best way. Tell me, why do you think studios exist? I have TESTED this, and you do in fact get a good number of views through adding your projects to studios. That's why popular projects are in a lot of studios (Also partially because people add them to studios without permission, but that's its own beast entirely). How else do all of these very simple projects get on the explore page? One thing is mostly in common, they are all in a scratch event studio. It is a much nicer way of getting people to see your stuff, as long as you put those projects in appropriate studios (Don't put games into an animation studio for example). Advertising may get you SOME views, but not nearly as much as studios. Then that makes you think you have to spam your ads, and then the issue just escalates from there. 2ND: "How else can new scratchers get into the community?" Entering contests, doing those scratch event studios (BEST WAY), doing MAPS, doing collabs, yeah you get the point. There are FAR better and less invasive ways of finding your spot in the scratch community. 3RD: "I saw the project I posted this under, and it was good!" DO YOU THINK THE CREATOR OF THE PROJECT CAN JUST KNOW THAT? For all THEY know, you just hopped on their project and advertised without even looking at their work. And even if you directly say you liked the project before advertising, you need to realize that advertising turns you into an unreliable narrator. Again, for all people know, your "appreciation" is just some copy and paste, or even worse an excuse. 4TH "I never knew it said no ads!" Have you ever heard of this thing called the INSTRUCTIONS and NOTES/CREDITS? If you actually took time to READ and see if it says no ads, you would probably save yourself from getting looked down upon. And this ties into another excuse "It doesn't SAY no ads!" Just because they never directly said if you could or could not use ads, it does not mean you just get a free pass. The only time you should ever advertise on a project is when it directly SAYS you can. Even then, it's still not recommended. 5TH (And the one I hate the most) Putting "Sorry for advertising" in any form on your ad The issue is, you are not sorry. You are not sorry in any possible way. Not even a little bit sorry. If you felt sorry for advertising on people's projects, you wouldn't do it. And like I said before, how can we trust that, that could just be some copy and paste you use to sound humble. 6TH "Nothing says I can't in community guidelines!" It IS against the guidelines! Yknow why? YOU ARE BULLYING SOMEONE! If someone puts "no ads" in their project desc and you advertise, they have EVERY right to report you. When you advertise on someone's popular projects without permission, you are basically saying "I don't care about your project, all I care about is the fact that it's popular so I can mooch off of you.". And no matter HOW you word your advertisement, that message isn't gonna change a bit. Overall, advertising is something that can give you more loss than gain. Most people who fall to advertising are new scratchers who are desperate to get seen. Advertising is something that may give you views, at the cost of hurting other people, the cost of essentially insulting people with popular projects. Don't do it. It isn't worth it.
