44
votes
Tips for providing high-quality answers in popularity contests
Post quickly
Thanks to the Fastest Gun in the West Effect, answers posted soon after the question tend to get more upvotes than ones posted later. Moreover, the higher-voted your answer is, the more ...
- 141k
32
votes
Accepted
Should we blacklist [popularity-contest]s?
To come back to it after over a year. Should we end the popcon?
Keep it
Yes, keep it.
But why??
Is closing an off-topic question really that hard? If it's off-topic, it's off-topic. If it's a pop-...
- 39.4k
27
votes
Accepted
The state of the popularity contest tag
Keep It, but...
...we should definitely update e.g. the tag info. The recent discussions have not been unproductive, and I think we have better guidelines than ever before but at the moment they are ...
- 43.4k
26
votes
Tips for providing high-quality answers in popularity contests
Readability
Round here, we're all used to fiendishly obfuscated code-golf answers. While sacrificing readability is perfectly acceptable to squeeze one more byte out of a code-golf answer, it really ...
- 70.4k
24
votes
Tips for providing high-quality answers in popularity contests
Use pretty pictures
It sounds silly, but pictures are eye-catching. For example, many of the highest-voted answers to Calvin's Language Showcase Challenge feature images. However, don't include ...
- 24.4k
19
votes
Tips for providing high-quality answers in popularity contests
Something Different
Quite often the answers follow the same format/approach. Doing something which demonstrates thinking outside the square and attacks the question from a different angle will garner ...
- 12.1k
16
votes
The state of the popularity contest tag
Should the tag be split?
I think it's clear that the majority want to see popularity contests continue, but also the majority find problems with most challenges that are posted with this tag.
Is ...
14
votes
The state of the popularity contest tag
Keep it
There's nothing wrong specifically with popularity-contest (indeed it is a good scoring criteria for several popular kinds of challenges, such as image-processing). The main issue is that ...
- 11.1k
13
votes
Tips for providing high-quality answers in popularity contests
Explain your work
This tip is for the more complex popularity contests where your approach to the problem is important. It's one thing to have an answer that works wonders, but people are going to ...
- 61.3k
11
votes
Should we blacklist [popularity-contest]s?
A follow up to my last answer
This second answer is a bit of a write up of my thoughts after some discussion about my previous answer. Everything I said in the last answer I still believe is true, ...
Wheat WizardMod
- 92.7k
11
votes
Guidelines for posting and closing popularity contests
The current state is good for nobody
The rules as they apply to pop cons are bizarre. Whether they should be loosened or tightened, either would be better than this strange in-between.
All ...
- 141k
10
votes
Guidelines for posting and closing popularity contests
Let's not argue over semantics
Trying to interpret SE policy and the meaning of objectivity here feels like reading tea leaves. These rules were written for a different situation: questions that are ...
- 141k
9
votes
PopCons and Graphical Output
Popcons have needed to be popular
Note: This is simply my perspective on what has been happening, not what should be happening
We have a challenge writer, Helka Homba, who is quite popular in our ...
- 14.4k
9
votes
Accepted
Updating the [popularity-contest] tag info: suggestions
Notes:
If you find any grammar mistakes or formulations that are clumsy, feel free to directly edit. For other suggestions please use the comments.
Should certains points be linked to the relevant ...
- 43.4k
7
votes
5
votes
Tips for providing high-quality answers in popularity contests
Spread the common sense
Try to come up with some very simple and obvious basic ideas (the implementation isn't necessarily easy), where others aren't very sure about it really works, and they aren't ...
- 36.4k
5
votes
PopCons and Graphical Output
Explicit distinction between objective and subjective rules
First of all, I do agree with Nathan Merrill's post. I'd like to add following point:
When writing down the rules for the challenge, the ...
- 43.4k
5
votes
Guidelines for posting and closing popularity contests
Which challenges are on topic here?
First and foremost, the same rules apply to all challenges, whether they are popularity contests or not. These rules are outlined in our help center. They were ...
- 208k
4
votes
Please reopen Tweetable Mathematical Art
Firstly, welcome to the site! We're glad you're enjoying the posts here, and we encourage you to participate yourself!
However, Tweetable Mathematical Art is not going to be reopened. As impressive, ...
- 48.5k
4
votes
Guidelines for posting and closing popularity contests
Objectivity gets mixed up with other aspects
Several different factors affect whether a popularity contest is welcomed here, not just objectivity. Trying to discuss these factors all at once causes ...
3
votes
The state of the popularity contest tag
Keep It
Site traffic history for ppcg.se, by month:
With a few notable exceptions (for example We're no strangers to code golf, the blip in April 2012), nearly all questions with 50k+ views have ...
- 32.9k
3
votes
Please reopen Tweetable Mathematical Art
The lock in place is still correct
Tweetable mathematical art is a fun question with some great answers, but it's the only the best example of a category of questions that are bad for our site.
There ...
Wheat WizardMod
- 92.7k
3
votes
Should we blacklist [popularity-contest]s?
Keep it
I like PPCG because it inspires creative solutions I'd never have considered, usually using techniques I didn't know about (or wouldn't have thought of). In code-golf, more often than not ...
- 1,713
2
votes
Accepted
Solution to popularity contest
I do have posted and participated in a bunch of popularity contests and already discused their problems a lot, so I think I may adress some of the issues I've seen, what I agree on and what I do not ...
- 43.4k
2
votes
Why is this popularity contest given special treatment?
Close it!
A very short answer, but I don't think anything else is necessary.
There's nothing special about that question, and it should be closed due to the lack of an objective winning criterion.
...
- 45.6k
2
votes
Guidelines for posting and closing popularity contests
Despite their more subjective nature, popularity contents are not except from the site's rule of objectivity. All popularity contests still need a concrete, objective way to determine whether a ...
- 24.4k
2
votes
Tips for providing high-quality answers in popularity contests
Humor
Research has shown that the amount of humor in a post is positively correlated with the number of upvotes. Therefore, adding humor is a guaranteed method to get the popular vote.
- 17.4k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible