Reposts of answer-chaining challenges

Question

The reason that we don't allow reposts is because the same answers will be copied from the first challenge and the original can still be answered. But what about answer-chaining challenges? Those are inherently different if they were run multiple times. Imagine if the challenge Add a language to a polyglot started with LISP, it could have ended up being a completely different challenge. (that might not have been the best example). The point is, do you lot think it could be acceptable to repost such challenges, provided we don't spam them over and over? It would enable languages that at this point can no longer be reasonably inserted to compete, and could provide different kinds of challenges.

Answer 1

Yes, under specific circumstances:

I think that DJMcMayhem made some really good points as to why we don't like duplicates. I'll address the two he felt were still relevant to answer-chaining:

3. A challenge becomes less interesting when it's been done before. Even challenges around a theme become boring after being repeated too many times. (For example, flag challenges, "Print the alphabet in this pattern" challenges)
4. Taking credit for the creativity of another user who wrote the original challenge is not OK.

I believe that the following measures would solve both point 3 and 4:

1. Require that reposts be posted by the challenge author, or with their permission.

2. Require that a repost be posted at least 6 months after the original post, maximum 3 times.

Both measures would act as a natural limiter to ensure that reposts are high-quality. It doesn't eliminate the problem of low-quality reposts, but I think that the benefit outweighs the cost.

Answer 2

Yes, but the reposting of a challenge must be voted on

Instead of having a set time limit and max number of reposts, we could have a thread similar to the sandbox where there could be "repost requests", and in order for a challenge to get the thumbs up for reposting, it must reach a certain ratio of upvotes to downvotes. A request might look like this:

# [challenge](link/to/it)

<Citation of eligibility for the user wishing to repost>

<Any additional information>

Answer 3

This should not be allowed, but we could lower the threshold for these challenges to be considered a "duplicate".

The reason that we don't allow reposts is because the same answers will be copied from the first challenge and the original can still be answered.

That's certainly not the only reason. There are four reasons I can think of to not allow duplicate challenges.

1. Like you mentioned, answers from the first can be copied and posted on the new one,

2. The old challenge can usually still accept answers,

3. A challenge becomes less interesting when it's been done before. Even challenges around a theme become boring after being repeated too many times. (For example, flag challenges, "Print the alphabet in this pattern" challenges)

4. Taking credit for the creativity of another user who wrote the original challenge is not OK.

Now you are right, answer-chaining challenges address most of these points. 1 is moot because a tiny change in the first post could drastically change future answers. 2 is addressed somewhat, because lots of answer-chaining challenges have a deadline, or are impossibly hard to add a new answer to. (For example, 95 movie-quotes)

But that still leaves points 3 and 4. Reposting answer-chaining challenges is still taking credit for someone else's creative challenge idea, and still gets old if done too often.

So I think that we should not allow directly copying an old answer-chaining challenge, but I think it's perfectly reasonable to be slightly more lenient about what we consider to be a duplicate.

Answer 4

Please note that, even if this technically works, it actually lets you post dupes one after the other. That loophole should be eventually fixed. Any feedback for that instead of just downvotes is appreciated.

Yes, allow reposting, but:

• Make sure that you cannot solve the original challenge or any of its already existing reposts. If you can, there is no reason to repost, as solving at least one of them isn't impossible.
• Adding to the above bullet-point, if an answer is posted to a repost older than yours or the original challenge, and your challenge didn't have answers at the time the new answer was posted, your repost is subject to closing as a dupe of that repost. Please keep up with the spirit of answer-chaining. Answering such a repost is extremely discouraged, although there is no easy way of determining whether a newer answer to an older repost or the original challenge has been posted. The only way is to look through each older repost and see if an answer has been posted there later than the posting of the repost question. Note that if the question poster is the only answer poster, it still counts as a dupe.
• Credit the original author, not subsequent reposters, and link to the original challenge. Linking to the original challenge will add the repost to the original challenge's "Linked questions", thus marking the existence of your repost. If your repost is closed as a dupe, the link is subject to be removed, or replaced with a no-ad URL-shortened link (such as goo.gl or bit.ly), so as to not clutter the original question's "Linked" list.
• Self-contain the original challenge AS-IS, do not just give a link to the old challenge which might have been deleted, so that users without moderator privileges can still read the challenge's spec.
• If the original challenge has been closed, do not repost it yourself. Doing such a thing means your challenge will most probably be closed too, as the content is AS-IS.
• Follow the exact formatting described below.

Format as:

Title: <original title> (Repost <repost number>). Replace <original title> with the original post's title, and <repost number> with the number of your repost (first repost is 1, second is 2, etc.)

Content:

**Note that this is a repost of the original challenge linked [here](<link>).**

---
<original challenge>

Replace <link> with a link to the original challenge (not URL-shortened unless repost is closed) and <original challenge> with the contents of the last revision of the original challenge where no answer was accepted. The link must be in the form of /q/<id>, where <id> is the original question's ID.

Tags must be the same as in the original challenge. No added or removed tags please.