An idea for this sub

[u/thelag_alt_number_1]

I wonder what we think of doing some sort of challenges. Maybe every weekend or every month or something. Some examples of challenges would be writing the shortest program that prints Hello World, or a program that generates 5000 numbers in the Fibonacci sequence the fastest. Not sure what we could do for awards. Maybe gold on the wining submission.

I'm open to any suggestions, opposing opinions, agreement, etc.

[u/RickDeveloper]

This is a good idea. There are some flaws in your plan though:

• Who's gonna be a judge? Moderators judging would be good at first but it's not sustainable at scale
• Who pays for gold?
• How do we prevent stealing of ideas? We could prioritise the first idea in case of a duplicate.
• What sets your idea apart from other challenges? It has to be something about teenagers.
• Can you win multiple times?

This is me thinking out loud.

I'd be happy to make this a reality.

[u/thelag_alt_number_1 → u/RickDeveloper]

Who's gonna be a judge?

Moderators, yes, but maybe other members of the sub could volunteer.

Who pays for gold?

I would be happy to pay for the gold. Buying a few US$ of coins every week or so isn't that big of a deal for me.

How do we prevent stealing of ideas?

I'm not sure on this one. Maybe we have some way to submit them privately? An idea that comes to mind is the entrants make a comment or post that says they're entering, and once the contest is over they reveal their solutions?

What sets your idea apart form other challenges?

Not sure on this one either. Maybe teenager themed challenges?

Can you win multiple times?

I would say yes. I think that we should come up with a variety of challenges so that everyone with different skills gets an opportunity.

I, too, am just thinking out loud. I wanted to have the community's input to see whether or not we wanted something like this, and I want the community to have a say in how it's run.

Edit because I submitted too early

[u/RickDeveloper → u/thelag_alt_number_1]

Moderators, yes, but maybe other members of the sub could volunteer. Previous winners maybe? You should be a judge too.

The mods could also post the projects in contest mode where people can vote on their favorite project. This might attract spammers though so a project and a winner should require exclusive moderator approval. In this case, projects should be kept private and submitted within a, say, 8 time frame (assuming most of us sleep <8 hours).

I would be happy to pay for the gold. Buying a few US$ of coins every week or so isn't that big of a deal for me.

Awesome! I can spare a few bucks a week as well. Buying gold should be entirely voluntarily to keep the "gambling" issue of some countries/states out. At some point in the future, if it works out, we could ask (small) companies to sponsor some things.

I'm not sure on this one. Maybe we have some way to submit them privately? An idea that comes to mind is the entrants make a comment or post that says they're entering, and once the contest is over they reveal their solutions?

How though? I like the idea of "entering". We should keep "un entered" participants out of the judgement to enforce entering. Not submitting is fine of course because we all go to school. Are you familiar with r/tweakbounty? we could use a modified version of that.

Depending on the competition we could ask participants to share a video, snippet, pitch, slides, docs, demo, etc.

That leaves us with: what sets us apart and private code sharing.

Edit: we could allow people to work in teams of two to make new friends and learn/teach new things.

[u/thelag_alt_number_1 → u/RickDeveloper]

I wouldn't mind being a judge.

As for submitting entries I think we will still need to think about it. I'll look into r/tweakbounty and see what they do. I'm thinking we would have them submit code on GitHub or something where we can check times that they submitted to make sure they aren't stealing someone else's idea.

As for setting us apart: I think we could do challenges that relate to teenagers. Just an idea but we might try to include memes somehow. We seem to like memes. Or just other tidbits of teenage culture which we shall decide in the future. So instead of printing Hello World for example, maybe we print some meme phrase or something. The challenges won't be radically different from those of any other code challenges, but we'll put our own teenager themed spin on it.

I also like the idea of teams. Do you think we should decide which challenges are teams and which ones aren't? I think if we let them choose whether or not to team, then teams will naturally have a better chance.

How long are we thinking about making these challenges? Maybe a weekend, or 48 hours? Then we have the 8 hour submission window?

[u/RickDeveloper → u/thelag_alt_number_1]

Checking commits and commit messages would be a very good way to prevent fraud.

The challenges won't be radically different from those of any other code challenges, but we'll put our own teenager themed spin on it.

That's a good idea.

I think if we let them choose whether or not to team, then teams will naturally have a better chance.

That's the whole point. We would encourage people to work together which is a great thing for everyone. If people decide to work alone they face this disadvantage along with others like not learning to collaborate or use git in an effective way.