Draft of the upcoming "Welcome to PPCG!" meta post.

ppcgwelcome.md

Welcome to Programming Puzzles and Code Golf Stack Exchange (PPCG), the free programming and code golf challenge site for users to post challenges, solve other members' challenges, and have friendly programming competitions.

Here is some information to help you use the site effectively.

• This site is for programming challenges and solutions and is not a traditional question-and-answer site or a forum. General programming questions are off-topic here. To post a challenge, use the Ask Question button after searching for existing similar challenges, to avoid repeating an earlier challenge, and after making sure it is on-topic. To post a solution to an existing challenge, add it as an answer post.
• All challenges must have a clear and unambiguous specification and an objective winning criterion. Review your challenge several times before posting. We also have a Sandbox for Proposed Challenges for you to use to get feedback on your challenges before you post them. Examples on how to write challenges can be found here: Things to Consider when Writing a Challenge.
• Solutions must show an attempt towards winning the challenge. Your answer should not be trivially easy to improve. Also, make sure your answer does not violate one of our Loopholes that are Forbidden by Default.
• The best solution to the challenge should be accepted after about a week by clicking the checkmark symbol to the left of the solution. New solutions can be added to the challenge at any point, even if you chose a winner.
• Reserve the answer button for actual solutions. You can edit your posts at any time to add more details to your challenge or to adjust your solution.
• Comment on challenges and solutions to provide feedback, but do not start discussions in the comments. At first you can only comment on your own challenges and their solutions, but after you have gained at least 50 reputation reputation points you can comment everywhere. There is also chat for more casual posts.
• Do not significantly change your challenge after posting it if there are solutions already. This causes confusion and invalidates the effort put into existing solutions.
• Reputation is gained from upvotes on challenges and solutions and lost from downvotes. Upvotes and downvotes normally indicate the quality of a challenge or solution. By default, solutions are sorted by the number of votes so that the most creative and popular ones appear first. Privileges are obtained by passing certain reputation thresholds.
• Posts should be formatted using Markdown syntax. This ensures that the posts are easy to read. Here the most important formatting styles used on this site:
• Format code blocks by indenting them with four spaces and inline code by using backticks, like `somecode()`. The {} button (shortcut: CTRL+K) will do this for you.
• Format program/function input and output as code blocks and function/method names, numerical quantities, and so forth as inline code.
• Format links like this: [example text](http://example.com).
• Quotes should be formatted using quotation blocks, starting with >.
• Format your solution like this:

##LanguageName, N bytes
    
    your code //Note the 4 spaces before this line.

Explanation (and optionally, ungolfed code)

• Write in proper English. This is a serious, international site for high quality content. Non-native English speakers are very welcome and your English doesn't have to be perfect, but posts should show some basic effort. This will make your post readable to most people and greatly improves the chance of getting good answers. The fact that all posts are editable also means that other users may correct your English for you if necessary.
• You may ping other users like this: @username. In comments, only the first username is pinged and only if that user previously commented on that same post. The post author is always notified. Notifications also work in chat if the user was in the room recently.
• Notify moderators about serious problems by flagging posts. To do this, use the flag link below each post.
• Please consider registering your account, if you have not already. Otherwise, you may create additional unregistered accounts with the same name and icon, and will not be able to edit your old posts or comment on them. You can ask a moderator to merge such accounts together.
• Questions about the site itself should be asked on Meta.PPCG, not on the main site. Here the restrictions are lower and you are free to start discussions as long they are about the site itself. We also have a FAQ where you can find answers to many common questions.

(In the interest of brevity, many significant details and other useful pieces of information were left out. If you still have questions, please ask in chat and we will be happy to help you.)