Comments on Category migration and the sandbox
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Category migration and the sandbox
This has probably been discussed before but I couldn't find any posts about it.
I think we should re-make the sandbox category in the following way:
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Votes in the sandbox category should not count towards user reputation. If users get intimidated to post sandbox proposals fearing down-votes, then that is bad for creativity. There should be no negative consequences for posting an on-topic post in the sandbox.
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It would be nice if there was some means for the author of the question (and them alone) to migrate a post from the Sandbox category to the main Challenges category. Migration needs to discard all comments but otherwise the post should be copied as-is.
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During "category migration" votes should probably be reset. If someone is posting an interesting proposal and then later publish it as a challenge, they do deserve the up-votes gained from the proposal. But in order to get rid of any down-votes, the easiest and fairest way would be to just reset the vote score. Hopefully those who up-voted the proposal will also visit and up-vote the live challenge.
A way for users to move posts between certain categories without moderator assistance seems like something that could be useful for other sites in the network too. There is for example a Worldbuilding site proposal which would benefit from having the very same sandbox mechanism as described here.
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Sandbox votes should give no reputation
I believe this is already the case, but for completeness:
I agree that neither upvotes nor downvotes on Sandbox posts should affect reputation.
Although I would encourage everyone to sandbox every challenge idea, I think the benefits of rewarding sandbox posts with reputation increases are outweighed by the disincentive to sandbox if reputation can decrease.
I also think that downvoting in the sandbox is important feedback that can avoid the final challenge being downvoted. Some people may be less inclined to downvote sandbox posts if this decreases reputation for the well meaning author, so the useful feedback is lost.
I wouldn't want to see only upvotes count towards reputation in the sandbox. In addition to being potentially confusing, this would be a one-way valve on reputation, allowing someone to post large numbers of sandbox posts knowing that they can only increase reputation, with no intention of ever posting them as final challenges.
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