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Recently I suggested having a feed in The Nineteenth Byte for new answers to the Hello, World! challenge. It received some support (as you can tell from the stars), but it was suggested that it be discussed on Meta first.

I see advantages and disadvantages to having this feed, but I'll just state the biggest (in my eyes) of each here:

Advantage

  • People tend to post an answer to the Hello, World! challenge when revealing a new language. Having a feed would allow the more active members of the community who frequent chat to see these new languages quickly.

Disadvantage

  • It was pointed out that it could get annoying if too many answers were posted at once or in quick succession to the challenge as a large number of oneboxes would be posted into The Nineteenth Byte very quickly, possibly disrupting conversation.

There are definitely more pros and cons to this decision, but there's no need to put them all in this post. What does the community think of this?

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    \$\begingroup\$ My view is that feeds are easy to switch off, so finding out if it is annoying by trying it out seems practical \$\endgroup\$
    – trichoplax is on Codidact now
    Jan 23, 2018 at 19:43
  • \$\begingroup\$ Is there a way to add a feed for the answers of a question without having this feed initially post all existing answers to the chat room? This happened when adding a feed for the tips question to the Haskell chat room, though there it was easy to move the ~40 posts to trash. It might be a different story with the >700 answers of the Hello World challenge. \$\endgroup\$
    – Laikoni
    Jan 23, 2018 at 19:57
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Laikoni When I added the feed for the One OEIS after another answers, at around 290 answers, we didn't get 290 new messages pour in. Can you link to the messages being moved? \$\endgroup\$
    – caird coinheringaahin g Mod
    Jan 23, 2018 at 19:58
  • \$\begingroup\$ @cairdcoinheringaahing The feed started here, and a bit further down wizzwizz4 trashed 14 messages. So the feed did not post all old answers, but still some of them. \$\endgroup\$
    – Laikoni
    Jan 23, 2018 at 20:13
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Laikoni Huh, weird. Guess Feeds is just as buggy as the rest of chat. \$\endgroup\$
    – caird coinheringaahin g Mod
    Jan 23, 2018 at 20:15

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Yes, as an ordinary feed in TNB

We have feeds for quite a few things that aren't as important. I can't see answers to Hello, world! being posted more often than, e.g., the sandbox, so it'll hardly be annoying.

All of the other feeds in TNB are posted in chat, and there haven't been many issues with that. Using a ticker feed breaks consistency, and for very little gain (in my opinion).

The benefits of this are mostly the same as caird's answer. We already typically have a moderator active in the room, as well as a number of active ROs, so any particularly annoying posts can be deleted or moved.

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Maybe in Another Chatroom?

We should put the feed in either Esoteric Programming Languages, Language Development, or in an entirely new chatroom.

Pros for Esoteric Programming Languages:

  • Most new PPCG languages are esolangs, so the feed would be mostly relevant there.
  • This room is more active than the Language Development one.
  • Language Development seems to focus more on the actual design process, rather than showing off new, finished languages.

Pros for Language Development

  • Not all new PPCG languages are esolangs, and Language Development accepts discussion about esoteric and practical languages.
  • It would stop the chatroom from getting frozen, and promote useful discussions.

Pros for putting the feed in a new chatroom

  • The feed (and the discussion around it like golfing, tips, etc.) might be too much to put in one of the other chatrooms.
  • The discussion involved doesn't quite fit either of the other chatrooms: it's not about developing languages, it's not necessarily general talk about languages, and it's not for esolangs only.
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  • \$\begingroup\$ +1 for addressing advantages \$\endgroup\$
    – Poke
    Sep 19, 2019 at 15:36
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Yes, as a ticker feed

It's been a couple of years since I first proposed this, and since then, over 200 new answers have been posted to the Hello, World! challenge, most of them introducing new languages. Additionally, we now have this popular deadline-less bounty for new, interesting languages by Redwolf Programs. As it was 2 years ago, the Hello, World! challenge is the go-to place to introduce your language, and having some kind of feed would promote these languages even more.

Esolanging Fruit's answer has not aged well. Esolangs has been frozen for 703 days, and Language Development for close to 1000 days (960) at time of writing. Unfortunately, rooms aside from TNB often lose their activity quickly, and so feeds in these rooms would not achieve the intended goal of promoting new languages.

Feeds can be of 2 varieties:

  • Message feeds, which is what TNB currently has 6 3 of: TNB Feeds

  • Ticker feeds, which are messages that drop down from the top of the window:

    ticker

Ticker feeds are significantly less disruptive than message feeds. They only show in an easily clearable box, they don't take up space in the transcript, and they don't interrupt conversation anywhere near as much as message feeds.

Finally, as pointed out by trichoplax, this is very easy to test out and stop if it becomes annoying. Overall, this seems like something that has very little negative points, and multiple positive points, and, 3 years later, I still believe this would be a good idea

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