How does the Sandbox work? How do I use it?

Question

The Sandbox can be found here.

• Where is the sandbox?
• Why should I use the sandbox?
• How does the sandbox work?
• How should I review proposals?
• What should the format of sandbox posts be (title, tags, body)?

Answer 1

Where is the Sandbox?

The current Sandbox is located on this meta post. A list of all Sandboxes can be found on the original Sandbox post. Proposed questions should be posted as answers to the current Sandbox.

Why should I use the Sandbox?

You might be thinking, perhaps, why would you stage questions on the sandbox instead of posting them directly?

To answer this, let's see what could happen if you post it directly:

• If your question is incomplete, it will probably be quickly closed.
• If people think that some point of the question is unclear, they will complain about it in comments and down vote your question.
• You might edit your question and fix the problems pointed out by commenters, but some down votes will not get retracted.
• If your question has some point that is unclear or vague, some people may misunderstand it and post some bad answers, leading to unnecessary arguments, down votes and frustration.

The sandbox is intended to mitigate all those problems.

How does the Sandbox work?

1. You get an idea for a nice question for this site, but aren't sure of its format or structure.
2. You post an answer to the sandbox. Your answer to the sandbox should contain the question that you are proposing. It is ok if your question is still incomplete.
3. After you post it there, people will give suggestions to improve your question and point out potential problems.
4. You fix the problems, improving your question.
5. When people agree that it is good, they will up vote it here in the sandbox; you should wait until a sufficient number of people seem to support your proposed question via voting and commenting before posting it on the main site.
6. Now that you know that most of the problems are worked out, you post it in the main site. Furthermore, the sandbox allows you to suggest improvements for questions from other people too. Upvote other people's questions when you think that they are ready.

When you post your question on the main site, edit the post here. You should remove the body and tags of your question, leaving the title and a link to the question on the main site. Then delete the post, and add a link to your question on main to the list of graduated that is the accepted community wiki answer on the current Sandbox. Currently the list for graduated posts is this community wiki.

How should I review proposals?

You can contribute to the community by reviewing proposals to help them get ready for posting. Here is some advice to make your reviewing more productive and more helpful:

• Sort the sandbox by active. While the Sandbox is young this may not make a huge difference, but as it grows, you'll see more active posts instead of just well-received posts.
• Read the sandbox notes. For incomplete questions, the author should leave sandbox notes (see What should the format of Sandbox posts be?, below). Read these notes; if the author knows there's something to be done you don't need to tell them. Similarly, if you think the author has missed something, point it out.
• Go through the close-vote reasons. You want to make sure that the question, if posted in its current form, won't fall victim to a harsh close-voter. Check that it doesn't come under any of the close reasons (or close flag reasons, if you can't yet close-vote).
• Upvote complete proposals. You can also comment to indicate your approval. When a question gathers enough support it will be posted to the main site, so make sure you show when it's ready.

What should the format of sandbox posts be (title, tags, body)?

Questions do not have to come in an absolute format, but some general guidance makes it easier to use the Sandbox. In general, questions should include the title, tags and body. You can also use sandbox notes to show points about the question. Here's a general template:

# My Question Title
[tag:some-tag] [tag:other-descriptive-tag]

Here goes the body of your question, literally as you intend to post it on main.
Incomplete sections and notes intended only for the sandbox phase can be denoted
as follows: [**Sandbox note:** I still need to add test cases.]

-----

## Sandbox Questions

In this section at the end you can put a few general sentences/questions aimed at
reviewers in the sandbox, e.g. asking for specific feedback on parts of your question.
Any thoughts you have about the question should also go here for the community to give
you feedback on.

Answer 2

Answer Sandbox

For the most part, the guidance in the other post can also be applied to the answer sandbox. However, the format of posts in the Answer Sandbox should be slightly different.

# [Title of the question](link to question)

Here goes the body of your answer, literally as you intend to post it on main.
Incomplete sections and notes intended only for the sandbox phase can be denoted
as follows: [**Sandbox note:** I still need to add test cases.]

-----

## Sandbox Questions

In this section at the end you can put a few general sentences/questions aimed at
reviewers in the sandbox, e.g. asking for specific feedback on parts of your answer.
Any thoughts you have about the answer should also go here for the community to give
you feedback on.

Please see the formatting guide in the help center for further help with Markdown formatting.