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Recently, the challenge rate on PPCG has dropped. I haven't looked through the numbers all the way back, but we once had 9.9 questions per day.

The number of questions per day is of course not the best measure since we want good question, not bad ones, and 90 % of everything is crap.

There are a lot of users attempting to post challenges, and a many are downvoted (/not upvoted), closed and sometimes deleted. I agree with most of those votes, and there are definitely a lot of bad challenges.

However, I believe that we would get more good questions if more of the top users decided to write more questions. Writing questions is admittedly something very different from answering, and it requires another type of creativity. But, I believe most answerers would be able to write good/great/popular questions, and we would all benefit from those.

Do we want to actively encourage this? If so, how can we encourage more users to post (good) questions?

This is similar to (or even a dupe of) this question, but the other one is three years old, and things change (we are graduated, and there are more active users).

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  • \$\begingroup\$ "if more of the top users decided to write more questions [...] I believe most answerers would be able to write good/great/popular questions". If top users don't post challenges, I would guess that it is first and foremost because they simply are not interested in posting challenges, not because they can't. \$\endgroup\$
    – Fatalize
    Oct 30, 2017 at 9:22
  • \$\begingroup\$ I think so too. But to be honest, I think that's slightly selfish... It's good for everyone if we have more, interesting challenges. I think it would be good idea if they either post a challenge themselves, or bring it up in chat (not as a mini challenge) / or write a very rough draft in the sandbox with a note "up for grabs". \$\endgroup\$
    – Stewie Griffin
    Oct 30, 2017 at 9:51
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    \$\begingroup\$ Re rough drafts up for grabs: see codegolf.meta.stackexchange.com/q/1475/194 \$\endgroup\$
    – Peter Taylor
    Oct 30, 2017 at 10:43
  • \$\begingroup\$ Similar to Peter's post is the Secret Santa Sandbox -- codegolf.meta.stackexchange.com/q/7804/42963 \$\endgroup\$
    – AdmBorkBork
    Oct 30, 2017 at 12:33
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    \$\begingroup\$ I feel like the reason the rate has dropped is that many challenges have already been asked, so ideas that may come to mind would not always be original. \$\endgroup\$
    – Erik the Outgolfer
    Oct 30, 2017 at 13:09
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    \$\begingroup\$ I agree, it's getting harder to come up with original ideas. But it's better if 50 people try to come up with original ideas, instead of 10. \$\endgroup\$
    – Stewie Griffin
    Oct 30, 2017 at 15:46
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    \$\begingroup\$ One important thing would be to make it easier to brainstorm challenge ideas (sort of like a pre-sandbox). Is there a chatroom for this? If not, why not? \$\endgroup\$
    – Esolanging Fruit
    Nov 3, 2017 at 3:15
  • \$\begingroup\$ and @EriktheOutgolfer when newer users make legitimate challenges, they are often marked as duplicate even when they are only slightly similar \$\endgroup\$
    – RaviRavioli
    Nov 4, 2017 at 20:30
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    \$\begingroup\$ @Challenger5 generally, the main chat works pretty well for that. (The Nineteenth Byte). It's generally active enough for some people to give you a quick "yeah, tha'ts a dupe" or "no, looks cool though". \$\endgroup\$
    – Riker
    Nov 6, 2017 at 16:00
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    \$\begingroup\$ @Riker Maybe that's true (although that's not generally been my experience). But if we get enough of this discussion we might still consider moving it to a separate room. \$\endgroup\$
    – Esolanging Fruit
    Nov 6, 2017 at 19:53
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    \$\begingroup\$ If only bounties could be given to questions... I guess asking that from SE would be too much, as it's a feature that probably no other site would beneffit from \$\endgroup\$
    – Luis Mendo
    Nov 8, 2017 at 19:46
  • \$\begingroup\$ @LuisMendo See also Why can't “bounties” be awarded to a question? from Physics.SE Meta, which points to Bounty-like facility for rewarding excellent questions on Meta.SE. \$\endgroup\$
    – Jeffrey Bosboom
    Nov 13, 2017 at 7:56

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