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There was recently a suggestion in chat that the length of the topic challenges should be shortened because activity peters out after a week.

I, too, have noticed this lack of activity in the second week of a challenge, especially in less popular challenges. Let's exclude , it was a little bit of an outlier in its popularity. I'm in favour of making the challenges shorter, perhaps down to 1 week.

What do you think? Shorter or not? What time should they run for?

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  • $\begingroup$ I would like to point out that I don't have the best luck getting a response on the Question Sandbox. I like having two weeks to think about my question and maybe get feedback before posting it, as trying to fit a challenge often leads me to bad questions. $\endgroup$ – DaaaahWhoosh Sep 8 '15 at 15:48
  • $\begingroup$ @DaaaahWhoosh Aye, the sandbox seems to have fallen out of use, really. $\endgroup$ – ArtOfCode Sep 8 '15 at 17:32
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The challenges are there, IMHO, for two reasons

  • varying the subjects, by suggesting themes, less asked questions might arise, and the most active users (who usually take part in the challenge) are "forced" to think outside their own issues.
  • fun.

Now having a shorter time for the challenge would have a consequence of a much faster turn around the themes. I can foresee a few consequences

  • Faster drying out of themes, or need to often repeat,
  • The required thoughts would either keep people very busy, thinking some new questions on a new themes every weeks, or they might get bored and users would participate less.

Either it looses some interest, or it takes precedence over the real purpose of the WB SE, which is to ask questions that you are facing when building your world.

So I'd say that every two weeks is fine. If on the second week there is less participation on the theme, it will leave more time for non-themed questions, and might allow people to ask a follow-up question and still be on the challenge.

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    $\begingroup$ I like every two weeks as well. We aren't in much of a hurry so why rush things? $\endgroup$ – James Sep 8 '15 at 16:11
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Even if we put down "usable" tags from about 500 on main site (guestimate), it would mean that feared "tag rotation" would happen about once a year.

My gut feeling tells me, that rotating tag challenge can be good thing - In meaning: "We did not talk that much about for over a year. Lets try if users can come up with good questions and answer.

Weekly challenge is to me long enough to come up with good questions and answers and also short enough to keep fun going on

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  • $\begingroup$ We currently have a grand total of 303 tags, some synonyms of others, some currently unused. $\endgroup$ – a CVn Sep 8 '15 at 20:19

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