I recently posted a question, and would like to know what is wrong about it, and how it could have been made better. This is not to get the question back, but rather so that I know what makes a good question here, so I can improve next time.
This is my question:
It was put on hold for being too broad.
Welcome to Programming Puzzles & Code Golf! I'm delighted that you've joined our community. Making a challenge is difficult and we have a lot of not-so-obvious guidelines about what makes them good and on-topic, but you've come to the right place for more detailed feedback!
In this case there are three aspects of your challenge that generally aren't well received by the community:
It's underhanded. Some time ago, we decided by community consensus to change our stance on challenges bearing this tag. Whereas at one point in the site's history they were welcome and typically well-received, we now consider them off-topic and unwelcome.
It's a popularity-contest. These challenges are still welcome but they're exceptionally difficult to do well. In fact, making a challenge a popularity contest is a common pitfall, particularly for newer users. For this reason we now consider them something to avoid when writing challenges. More often than not, popularity contests closed as "too broad."
The goal of the challenge is effectively to circumvent our standard loophole regarding fake random numbers.
I recommend posting challenges to the Sandbox before posting them to the main site. There they can get constructive feedback from the community in a reputation-free environment. I consider the Sandbox to be our single most valuable tool available for challenge authors.
Further, in addition to the part about popularity contests, the full list of things to avoid when writing challenges is worth a read.
