Category migration and the sandbox

Some additional cosiderations on using the sandbox:

First, a migration mechanism might encourage good behaviour, for example by migration being only possible if the post has a minimal score, and/or after the post has been long enough in the sandbox to allow other users a chance to see it (of course the user could still manually copy the post, but easy migration is an incentive to follow the guidelines). On the other hand, it also could allow to encourage use of the sandbox, for example by giving a bonus on the score and/or the reputation (for example, migrated posts might start with one upvote).

posted 24 days ago

CC BY-SA 4.0

celtschk‭

1404 reputation 28 49 180 73

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.

posted 2 months ago

CC BY-SA 4.0

trichoplax‭

1050 reputation 83 17 132 472

Start afresh but keep history

When migrating to the Challenges category, there are several aspects of the post that could be included or discarded:

• Comments
• Edit history
• Votes

Comments

The comments during sandbox development are not relevant to the final challenge, and would be a distraction from the conversations that happen after posting the final challenge. Leaving these old conversations displayed below the challenge might also invite further discussion of how the challenge should be designed, which is likely to be too late to change by this point.

However, it may sometimes be useful to go back and view the discussion that occurred in the Sandbox. This could be out of interest, for people interested in the history of the particular challenge, or interested in learning about how challenges in general develop over time. This would also be useful if someone questions the design of a live challenge - rather than have a discussion someone can simply link to the relevant comment thread that already reached consensus with detailed reasons why.

For this reason, I would like the comments to be preserved, but to not be present on the final challenge.

Edit history

Similarly to comments, I think that the history of the Sandbox post is not relevant to the final challenge. In many cases the challenge design may have changed drastically during development. I would like to see only changes that happened since the point that the final challenge was posted, because these are the ones that are relevant to whether a change has unfairly invalidated an existing answer.

However, I would still like the history of the Sandbox post to be preserved. Similarly to comments, it can be both interesting and practically useful to be able to refer back to how things changed.

For this reason, I would like the edit history to be preserved, but to not be present on the final challenge.

Votes

Similarly to comments and edit history, I would like every new challenge to start with no votes (up or down), but to still have the votes preserved in the sandbox. This can be useful for anyone interested in how various challenges were initially received in the Sandbox. It is also an easy way to verify that a challenge idea was well received, and not posted as a final challenge too soon.

Copy rather than migrate

My thoughts on comments, edit history, and votes all point towards keeping the sandbox post around as a record. I like the idea of being able to post a new challenge from a Sandbox draft at the touch of a button, but this doesn't need to destroy the Sandbox draft.

I propose that we have a method for creating a new challenge from a Sandbox post, that leaves the Sandbox post intact as a record. As suggested in the question, this should only be available to the author, unlike migrations which might be available to several groups, such as curators and moderators.

The new challenge would include the following:

• Body
• Title
• Tags
• Licence

The new challenge would not include the following:

• Comments
• Edit history
• Votes

Some additional features that would be nice to have:

• A link to the new challenge automatically added to the Sandbox post (either at the top of the body or in a new comment thread with a title like "Now posted").
• A link to the Sandbox post automatically added to the new challenge (probably as a comment to avoid distracting from the body of the challenge, although possibly using some more general future feature for links to related posts).
• The Sandbox post automatically archived, so it is easily available to people looking for drafts of challenges that have since been posted, but does not distract people browsing the Sandbox to give feedback. This might be future work if a more general archiving feature is implemented for other communities. This would reduce the risk of an author accidentally creating a new challenge twice from the same Sandbox draft.

posted 2 months ago

CC BY-SA 4.0

2mo ago

trichoplax‭

1050 reputation 83 17 132 472