Edited now that the site has graduated: How do you feel about holding a Mathematica mini-contest? It seems to me that this is a great fit to our community’s overall “we find plenty of ways to do stuff” spirit, and it could help publicize our site in an effective manner.
I'd be willing to step up and help organize it if there is a general agreement that this is desirable, by opening more specific discussion threads to define the contest, liaise with SE staff on mini-contest policy as well as technical and financial details, and more generally anything to help get this happening.
Below is my original post:
After reading StackExchange blog's latest post, I wondered: are contests something that we could organize on Mathematica? Or is our audience and formation too specialized (or too technical) for this kind of format?
On the one hand, I could see how we might take advantage of, say, Mathematica 9’s launch to promote the site and help it grow. On the other hand, most people come here with specific questions and encouraging them to think of new questions that didn't arise spontaneously from their work or leisure might just not work. Sites that have held such contests in the past had wide, non-technical audiences (gaming and Apple).
