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This is the question in question (no pun intended)

It was put on hold is unclear. I do not understand what is unclear. I asked a flagger why it was unclear.

@Mego: 1) There is no objective winning condition, so it's unclear. 2) There is no requirement on what the program should do, so it's too broad. 3) Your edit should have been a comment.

1) "The more languages your program can run in, the higher your score"

2) It can do anything. That's the whole point.

3) You cannot put multiple mentions in a single comment. It would be redundant to do the same comment three times.

What does the program need to do? That's the unclear bit. If anything is allowed then 0 will probably trivially win, as someone just mentioned.

Meh. Its all for fun, and many very popular questions get those kinds of "duh" explanations. It will trivially win, but we can see all the solutions and find a non-trivial solution, and take a chuckle from that one.

EDIT 2: I have edited the question to close all loopholes. Please vote to reopen if you think I have done a good job of closing the loopholes.

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    \$\begingroup\$ In my opinion, "Unclear" was the wrong close reason. The question is clear to me, and it has a winning criterion. However, I will not vote to reopen because the question is too broad. "Do anything" is the definition of broad as far as this site is concerned. \$\endgroup\$
    – Rainbolt
    Dec 1, 2015 at 20:18
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    \$\begingroup\$ With respect to your edit: I would estimate that it's about 90% likely that if you repost rather than editing the existing question you will attract a lot of negative attention (i.e. downvotes) for deliberately trying to work around the way the site works. Sandbox the question, make sure it's going to get a good response, and then edit the existing one and use your rep from SE to go to the PPCG chat and politely ask for people to reverse their downvotes. \$\endgroup\$ Dec 5, 2015 at 22:43
  • \$\begingroup\$ @PeterTaylor I have done so. \$\endgroup\$ Dec 5, 2015 at 22:51

2 Answers 2

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It Can Do Anything!

While this is a great sentiment, it does leave the question without a meaningful objective. Every post will be one of its own, and it leaves loopholes open such as empty programs, which will be in hundreds of languages. Also, all challenges on PPCG require meaningful, objective criteria. This, as it stands, has one rule - use multiple languages.

My suggestions:

  • Make a objective. Don't make it just simple. That's annoying.
  • Make a restriction on language relationships - BF vs. ShadyAsF***, for example, are exactly the same code. You need a way to restrict stuff like this.
  • Use the sandbox.

Remember that people are coding to win. You need to make it difficult, not easy, of a challenge to do.


Edit:

As @flawr pointed out, this is a duplicate. If you take my advice, it won't. Yay!

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  • \$\begingroup\$ @FlagAsSpam Some will be trivial and some will not. I like seeing loopholes! \$\endgroup\$ Dec 1, 2015 at 20:43
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    \$\begingroup\$ @JamesLu Loopholes = bad. \$\endgroup\$ Dec 1, 2015 at 21:04
  • \$\begingroup\$ I'd like to point out that leaves loopholes open such as empty programs, which will be in hundreds of languages is specifically forbidden by the challenge rules. \$\endgroup\$
    – user42643
    Dec 2, 2015 at 17:31
  • \$\begingroup\$ @mınxomaτ You're absolutely correct - I used empty programs as an example of loopholes, but there are many in the land of loopholes that apply to this challenge. \$\endgroup\$ Dec 2, 2015 at 19:08
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    \$\begingroup\$ You could add the rule: "There has to be some output to the stdout" (That would disallow every single one of those programs such as 0, ; or space) \$\endgroup\$
    – Stefnotch
    Dec 3, 2015 at 16:53
  • \$\begingroup\$ @JamesLu ^ This is totally correct as well. \$\endgroup\$ Dec 3, 2015 at 19:00
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    \$\begingroup\$ @Stefnotch: There are plenty of languages (PHP and GolfScript are the first two that come to mind) where 0 is a valid program that outputs 0. \$\endgroup\$ Dec 15, 2015 at 17:32
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I cannot answer for the ones who closed your question, but here my observations:

If it can do anything you will get a lot of trivial answers that are not interesting. For the winning criterion you should probably have been more specific along the lines of "you get one point for each language you program runs in, the answer with the highest score wins".

Other than that I think it has been a duplicate of this challenge.

As you are new here, I recommend using the Sandbox and asking in the chat, and perhaps first participate in some more challenges in order to get an idea how it works here. The sandbox is obviously not only for new people, but for everyone who first wants to get feedback on a challenge/challenge idea, even if you are unsure whether it is a dupe or whether something is missing/unclear. It can really be a bit confusing at first as this site here does not really work like all the others Q&A stackexchange sites. But do not get discouraged!

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