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I've noticed this happening a few times: A challenge that is very similar to an existing code golf challenge is posted as a popularity contest, or the other way around. There seems to be very little consensus as to what to do in this situation.

Answers from a code golf challenge typically cannot be posted to a popularity contest (and vice versa). On the other hand, the challenges are very close and sometimes almost exact duplicates except for the winning criterion.

What should we do about these?

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Isn't this just a special case of this question? \$\endgroup\$
    – Martin Ender
    Aug 12, 2014 at 7:47
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    \$\begingroup\$ @MartinBüttner As noted in the question, "Answers from a code golf challenge typically cannot be posted to a popularity contest (and vice versa)," which is typically the rule used to decide duplicateness (and is answered as such in that linked question). However, this doesn't seem to always be the rule being employed in practice, especially with code golf / popularity contest. It's just that there is very little agreement about what to do with these types of questions. \$\endgroup\$
    – Doorknob
    Aug 12, 2014 at 11:24
  • \$\begingroup\$ If it's a popularity contest regarding code/implementation and not output, then a golfed solution always seems like a valid answer to me. \$\endgroup\$
    – Martin Ender
    Aug 12, 2014 at 11:25
  • \$\begingroup\$ @MartinBüttner Exactly, and by the same token, this means a golf version of a popularity contest isn't a dupe. But the rule doesn't appear to be actually applied consistently. \$\endgroup\$
    – Doorknob
    Aug 12, 2014 at 11:26

2 Answers 2

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The only reason pop-con even exists is because some people couldn't think of a good winning criterion for some of their questions. If a challenge works as a code-golf, it shouldn't be posted as a pop-con.

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    \$\begingroup\$ I think pop-cons work very well on certain types of questions, but I'm giving you +1 for saying that they shouldn't be used if there's a better alternative. \$\endgroup\$
    – Martin Ender
    Aug 12, 2014 at 7:46
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    \$\begingroup\$ I don't see why some questions couldn't work better as a pop-con even if it could also technically work as a code-golf. \$\endgroup\$
    – overactor
    Aug 26, 2014 at 12:58
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Conceptually, I would say that a mostly disjoint set of answers makes the questions suitably distinct, even if that distinction lies in a single word or tag.

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