Jack Douglas
What features are *vital* before opening codegolf.ta to the public[^1]?
Development will continue after going public so please don't suppose this question is meant to imply otherwise — but some things are easier to work on with a small beta community and are hard to change later (like the site name for example), and others might be easier with more input from more people.
Please post one answer per feature that is *vital* before going live.
[^1]: This question was inspired by "[To-do list before going public](/tex?q=379)" on TeX.ta
Top Answer
Adám
# "About" post (Complete!)
***→ We now have [such a page](https://topanswers.xyz/codegolf?q=711) — feel free to enhance it!***
A Wiki post explaining:
* "What is this site about?"
* "What are best practices here?"
* "What kind of questions are on topic?"
These are some of the questions that should be easy to get an answer for.
It can also link to other Wiki posts with more detail.
Some of the posts on SE to refer to (from [Bubbler's meta post here](https://topanswers.xyz/codegolf?q=617)):
* [Loopholes that are forbidden by default](https://codegolf.meta.stackexchange.com/q/1061/78410), a.k.a. **standard loopholes**
* [Default for Code Golf: Input/Output methods](https://codegolf.meta.stackexchange.com/q/2447/78410), a.k.a. **standard I/O methods**
* [How to count bytes FAQ](https://codegolf.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/10145/how-to-count-bytes-faq)
* [Things to avoid when writing challenges](https://codegolf.meta.stackexchange.com/q/8047/78410) and [Things to consider when creating a challenge](https://codegolf.meta.stackexchange.com/q/5582/78410)
Answer #2
Adám
# Customised #banner (Complete!)
## The "Questions" text
Should say "Latest" or "Active" or "Posts" or maybe even "Competitions".
## The empty div
There appears to already be a container for additional content in the #banner. I suggest the following, along the lines of what exists on SE:
>TopAnswers Code Golf hosts recreational programming competitions with objective scoring criteria. We do not answer general coding problems. [More…](https://topanswers.xyz/codegolf?q=711)
It could look something like this:
Answer #3
Adám
# Decide on initial set of tags (Complete!)
Besides for tags that indicate how a challenge is held (though the winning criterion is still mainly indicated by the question type),
* king-of-the-hill
* cops-and-robbers
* answer-chaining
how about we begin with (tweaked versions of) the tags from Code Golf Stack Exchange that have at least 100 posts there?
* string
* mathematics (international version of *math*/*maths*)
* number
* art (encompasses both ASCII and Unicode art)
* sequence
* kolmogorov-complexity
* array-manipulation
* arithmetic
* decision-problem
* number-theory (also covers *primes*, *factoring*, and *integer*)
* graphics (covers both *graphical-output* and *gui*)
* source-rules (*restricted-source* and *source-layout*)
* geometry
* random
* combinatorics
* game
* grid
* quine
* date-time (was *date*, but this combines a whole bunch of lesser-used related tags, including *calendar*)
* matrix
* parsing
* sorting
* number-representation (also includes e.g. roman-numerals)
* graph-theory
* image-processing
* optimization
* path-finding
* counting
* programming-language (replaces *interpreter*, covers all the specific language tags like *python* and *javascript*, and works for *polyglot* too)
I've removed the following otherwise popular tags:
* ~~restricted-source~~ (use *source-rules*)
* ~~source-layout~~ (use *source-rules*)
* ~~integer~~ (use *number-theory* or *number*)
* ~~primes~~ (use *number-theory*)
* ~~permutations~~ (no tag wiki — use *combinatorics*)
* ~~binary~~ (use *number-representation*)
* ~~base-conversion~~ (use *number-representation*)
Answer #4
Adám
# Replace "Ask" button text with "Post" (Complete!)
While {Tips} and some {Meta} posts can be questions, by far most post will be competitions.
Answer #5
Adám
# Do not assume "Code Golf" when creating a new post (Complete!)
This forces the author to take positive action in choosing challenge type, which at least carries a chance of making them realise that this isn't a Q&A community, and also is a subtle reminder to ensure a clear scoring criterion.
Answer #6
Adám
# Decide on initial set of challenge types (Complete!)
I suggest we begin with:
* *Code Golf*
* *Speed Challenge* (this combines *Fastest Algorithm* and *Fastest Code*, instead requiring the challenge poster to specify the exact rules)
* *Other Competition* (this replaces *Code Challenge* without encouraging people's posting home work tasks they find challenging…)
* *Least Operations* (this includes *Atomic Code Golf* and *Proof Golf*
It would be nice if each challenge page had a link to a Wiki post about that challenge type.
I suggest we explicitly omit:
* *Code Bowling* because making a good code-bowling challenge is difficult, since comments, no-ops and other means can be used to pad programs to an arbitrary length. In general, code-bowling challenges are not popular.
* *Popularity Contest* as these are exceedingly hard to get right, tend to get abused as a cop-out for not specifying an objective winning criterion, and could be considered unfair here on codegolf.ta because some users have more voting power than others.
* *King of the Hill*,\
*Cops and Robbers*, and\
*Answer Chaining*, because these should be tags in that whatever the challenge is, it will need to be one of the other categories, while these terms just describe the procedures of the challenge, like a type of tournament rules.