A New Round of Challenges

As an experimental part of the site, Challenges have been through a lot of changes over the last month. They’ve had rules added and removed, they’ve crashed, they’ve gotten stuck. Overall, they’ve had a rough life so far.

But, despite all of that, so many of you have made such fantastic progress on your Challenges. Some of the comment threads are super active and so many tips are being exchanged among the the players. It’s been so cool to watch, and I’ve done my best to keep them up and running despite being duct taped together as an experiment.

One month in, it’s quite clear what works and what doesn’t. I’ve gone into hiding these last few days to sit down and (hopefully) solve the issues with the Challenges system once and for all. And I’m happy (and relieved!) to say that I just pushed those fixes live!

Here’s what’s new with Challenges:

• The idea of “rounds” has been organized a lot more. Rounds still have the requirement of 3 or more players, but instead of being rolling or beginning when the previous round has ended, Rounds now begin each Monday. On Monday the system will check for any Round that has 3 or more players and will kick it off. This means no more waiting months (or even a YEAR!) before you can participate in a Challenge!
• Each Challenge now has a Challenge page and a Round page. The Challenge page highlights all of the important info about the Challenge and helps you get to your Round page. Your Round page is where you get to update your progress and chat with your team. Consider it your home within the Challenge.
• The Wall of Fame (pending a much better name) is new! Each Challenge page has a Wall of Fame that spotlights all of the members who’ve completed that Challenge. All the cool kids want to be on the Wall of Fame.
• Coming soon: A more organized commenting system.

There are a lot of other crazy bits behind the scenes to power this seemingly simple update, but I’m pretty confident the new system will hold up in a much more graceful fashion from here on out!

So go on and check out the new Challenges! What do you think of the new system?