This is a collective feature request about some features related to our usage of SE features (and the lack thereof).

FAQs related to creating and solving challenges

We CGCCers have built many different rules and guidelines over the years. I think it’d be nice to collect the information to somewhere easily accessible from Code Golf main page. (I excluded SE-specific and some obsolete-looking ones; please feel free to suggest any other meta post(s).)

• Loopholes that are forbidden by default, a.k.a. standard loopholes
• Default for Code Golf: Input/Output methods, a.k.a. standard I/O methods
• How to count bytes FAQ
  • In most languages, we just count the bytes of the source code, possibly in the preferred encoding (which can be a custom Single-Byte Character Set (SBCS) designed for that language). If it is impossible, we have some guidelines per language (e.g. Folders) in the linked article.
• Things to avoid when writing challenges and Things to consider when creating a challenge
  • These are guidelines (not rules) when creating challenges.

These are currently in the form of SE Meta Q&A, where the policy is decided by community votes (which can be confusing to new users). We can collect all the already well-received ones into a single article, so that it’s easier to understand.

Sandbox

We have used an awkward Sandbox so far to refine proposed challenges before posting to main site. As Adám suggested already, we could block a challenge from accepting answers until it gets a certain number of (up-)votes.

Bounties, and bounties with no deadline

We’ve been using the “bounty” feature of SE to pose a kind of “meta-challenge”, which is commonly awarded for:

• solving a very hard challenge, or solving a challenge in an unsuitable language
• outgolfing (or achieving a better score than) an existing (usually great) answer
• using a certain language to solve various challenges (usually for promotion)
• or any other kind of great achievement recognized by the community, e.g. finding an efficient algorithm or a generally applicable golfing strategy for a specific language

I want a way to better present these meta-challenges. Users should be able to post them, write comments on them, delete them (if poorly received by the community), claim them (once or multiple times). I don’t know how to translate the “awarding” to TopAnswers though, since IIRC we don’t have a notion of “reputation” right now.

Edit: Without the notion of user scores or “reputation”, I guess one way would be to make the awarded post “featured” for some period of time (e.g. one week), during which the post is pinned at the top of the list of posts, maybe with some highlighting. Also, the awarded post should have a permanent mark describing why it was awarded (in the scope of Code Golf, what the post achieved).

Chat rooms, chatroom events and bookmarked conversations

We’ve did some regular lessons about a certain programming language in the SE chat room, and we have an archive of previous lessons as bookmarked conversations. Can we do the same on TopAnswers (and possibly transfer the previous lessons to here)?