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It's been almost a year since the launch of Coding Challenges on Stack Overflow. We think it’s important to share this reflection with the rest of the network, and we also want to know if there is interest in bringing something like challenges to additional sites.

The company kicked off work on Challenges as a fun new way for users at all levels to learn new skills and test their abilities, on a wide range of topics. While some challenges have been more popular than others, we have seen consistent interest and participation from users. There have been 18 challenges so far, receiving a median of 58 entries per challenge. The Challenge Coder badge has been awarded to 382 users, meaning they have successfully completed, or “won”, at least one challenge. No one has yet won 10 challenges to earn the Challenge Hacker badge, but a few people are getting close with 5 or 6 successful challenges under their belts.

Recently we have been excited to showcase challenges that have been written by members of the Stack Overflow community (for which authors earn the Challenge Creator badge), including the current challenge which is open until May 13. We will continue highlighting interesting ideas that come from users. If you have a proposal for a challenge please post it in the Challenges Sandbox and a community manager may reach out to you to finalize the details and get it published so the community can give it a try.

Feedback

If you have participated in any challenges, which were your favorites and why? If you have not participated in challenges yet, what might make you want to give it a try?

We would also like to know if there are specific types of challenges that users want to see. Are there certain topics, modalities, or technologies that you would like to see a challenge on?

For users of sites other than Stack Overflow, could some version of challenges work on your site? The implementation could be different (especially if it's a non-technical site), but do you think your community would enjoy some friendly competition? What would make it successful, interesting, and fun?

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    At least personally, I don’t really care about challenges. I'd be much happier if development budget went to long standing feature requests. Commented yesterday
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    The best part about Challenges is that I don't have to do anything with them. I looked at the first one, concluded that it's definitely not for me, and haven't had to look at them since. As long as they aren't pushed in my face or give rep for noise or anything like that I'm happy with them. Commented yesterday
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    I like challenges. A small bright spot amidst the dark clouds of negativity that have overtaken stackoverflow in the last year or so. Commented yesterday
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    I do not like how challenges replaced discussions. Discussions were not perfect, but they were way better implemented than the "open ended" questions experiment we have now. Commented yesterday
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    My only thought about them is I'd love to know what Code Golf thinks about them, I feel it'd have been better for their community if challenges were just a spotlighted question from them Commented yesterday
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    Wait, there are ��Challenges” on Stack Overflow? Commented yesterday
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    @CPlus And that is saying a lot of just how badly "open-ended" questions were implemented... Commented 23 hours ago
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    If you have specific questions for the users of StackOverflow, we have a whole other site for that Commented 23 hours ago
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    @Sayse The general consensus was that it's apples and oranges. See "This won't kill activity on the Code Golf StackExchange site" in lyxal's answer to the original proposal, or some of the reactions in chat. Commented 14 hours ago

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I never even heard of Challenges.

The overriding theme on SO meta seems to be the lack of staff engagement.

Maybe you should focus on that instead?

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If you have not participated in challenges yet, what might make you want to give it a try?

I'm not going to participate in anything demanding a big investment in time. As a programmer, I really try to avoid spending all my free time doing programming when I already do that 5 days a week for a living. Plus I mostly browse SO while at work, and then I'll obviously have even less time for non-work activities.

Something that can be finished in a coffee/lunch break would be suitable. I won't touch anything that requires a lot of planning & design, then many thousands of LoC, no matter how fun it seems, because I simply don't have the time for it. What I've seen from these challenges, they have been way too complex and time-consuming. To the point where I'd normally go "ok I charge this much per hour"... I have no shortage of similar time-consuming real-world projects that I actually get paid for.

A format which encourages small solutions and a bit of quick fun would be more likely to appeal.

Other than that, something that involves actual interaction with other users would also be more interesting. If I have the urge to read tons of strange source code written by others, there's Github for that. So I'm not overly interested in other users' contributions, especially not if they are large and complex.

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    Exactly I work enough to not want to see any of this CRAP yes that is what it is CRAP. Commented 20 hours ago
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    I agree in general. However, the latest challenge was actually quite fun and probably doable in 30-90 minutes. Commented 17 hours ago
  • Agree that most of the challenges are far too time-consuming. I participated once, spent an hour or two. It was kinda a fun, however, the others I've seen so far would require me to spent even more time. I guess that's fine for people who wanna do this. I think your point could be addressed with daily(?) mini-challenges something like you find on codewars.com Commented 3 hours ago
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For users of sites other than Stack Overflow, could some version of challenges work on your site?

Many sites could do writing prompts or writing challenges for native and non-native speakers. E.g. Spanish.SE used to have translation golf. Writing.SE had topic challenges. There are probably more I'm unaware of.

There are many sites that already do things like this:

  • 65 Words gets you to write 65+ words daily in your target language (write in whatever language you want); Reddit's r/LanguageLearning has a Babylonian Chaos sticky, where you write in whatever language;
  • LangCorrect allows you to get corrections on your target-language writing;
  • Jianshu (a Chinese social media app) has a kind of streak feature, where you write 300+ characters per day, and you get badges for certain-length streaks (this is where I post nowadays); likewise for a host of subreddits like r/WriteStreakKorean where you submit your Korean writing;
  • Reddit's r/WritingPrompt gives you, well, writing prompts.
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    Arqade has a "screenshot of the week" competition, and a "monthly topic challenge" Commented yesterday
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For users of sites other than Stack Overflow, could some version of challenges work on your site? [...] What would make it successful, interesting, and fun?

I really don't think you can make them 'successful' on any other site than SO. SO is still, by far, the biggest site when it comes to activity. And even there, you have only a median of 58 entries per challenge.

I can't see the whole system working on another site, with lower activity, and offer a good 'return' on the time/effort that needs to be invested to keep something like Challenges running.

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    They'd do better if the aim of the challenges wasn't internal marketing. The company used to try to attract new users through the use of advertising, targeted keyword campaigns, etc. Commented 18 hours ago
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If you have participated in any challenges, which were your favorites and why? If you have not participated in challenges yet, what might make you want to give it a try?

I haven't participated in any challenges, nor do I really want to. Some of them might be kinda interesting, but I just don't really want to spend the time on them. Maybe if it was somehow more relevant (eg, giving you rep instead of just a badge), but even then I wouldn't be particularly interested. Also, I'm just not active on Stack Overflow at all.

We would also like to know if there are specific types of challenges that users want to see. Are there certain topics, modalities, or technologies that you would like to see a challenge on?

Assuming this is referring to SO challenges, not particularly.

For users of sites other than Stack Overflow, could some version of challenges work on your site? The implementation could be different (especially if it's a non-technical site), but do you think your community would enjoy some friendly competition? What would make it successful, interesting, and fun?

I feel like maybe the only other sites where Challenges might fit are Puzzling and Codegolf. Except... Challenges are basically there anyway. The questions that get asked there aren't really asking for the answer to a question, per se, but instead what the (optimised) solution to something is. That is to say, Challenges wouldn't really bring anything new. That's not to say that their respective communities wouldn't like it (they might very well want Challenges), but there's not much of a "point", for lack of a better word.

For non-technical sites, there may be something, but I struggle to see exactly what. I feel like Challenges just wouldn't fit for the majority of sites.

All that said... I don't really care about Challenges. I imagine most users would agree with me. Personally, I would much prefer if resources were allocated to long-standing feature requests instead.

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