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I've noticed the close queue lately having a lot of questions in it regarding trailhead challenges. Specifically, the LWC Superbadge.

It's gotten to the point where I think we've seen questions on all 12 steps of this superbadge, multiple times over, and just in the past month or so.

There are several other meta questions that cover our general approach to trailhead questions:

and the sentiment I gather from those is:

  • Answering with complete, end-to-end solutions is not good
  • We are comfortable with explaining how/why a certain thing works, but not with providing a solution to the challenge
  • Having mostly working solutions cheapens the value of the challenge

The part I'm struggling with currently is that a lot of these new trailhead questions I'm seeing are providing substantial parts of the code (to varying degrees of correctness/completeness) in the question itself.

Part of that is indeed what we look for in questions here (show us what you've tried so far), but it also leaves a searchable record for Challenge X/Step X. Simply having the question in a state where we'd allow it to remain unclosed would seem to violate the spirit of the trailhead challenge.

My question is

what do we do with these questions that themselves provide (what I think is) a large portion of the solution?

  • My gut feeling is that we should flag these for deletion as having large chunks of a challenge causes harm
  • We could, alternatively, remove trailhead references from the question title to try to make it less searchable (not nearly as much work or as subjective as trying to edit the body of the question itself) or make the title generic (like "LWC Trailhead issue")
  • Encourage people to just vote to close with a message like I'm voting to close this question because the best resource for Challenge questions is [Trailhead Help](https://trailhead.salesforce.com/help) where there is a community focused on Challenges and the ability to open a case with Salesforce for technical issues

update:

There hasn't been any push-back on the deletion proposal, so I'd say it looks like we're getting a consensus on flagging superbadge questions (and specifically superbadge questions) for deletion.

We can do that though flagging as low-quality, or flagging for one of our benevolent mods to handle.

Here's the comment template I'll start using: I'm voting to delete this question because Superbadges are meant as a test of proficiency. Getting help defeats the purpose of the test, and having public records of potential issues and solutions hurts the Salesforce community as a whole. If you think there's a technical issue with the superbadge, please go through [Trailhead Help](https://trailhead.salesforce.com/help).

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  • I feel "This does not pass the Trailhead Challenge" is off-topic, and I see the community voting a lot of those questions closed. I've so far refrained from modhammering all but the most egregious. I'd like to hear more from the community about whether these questions are currently being handled in a way people are comfortable with or if more overt intervention is called for. Thank you for opening this discussion!
    – David Reed Mod
    Commented Jul 10, 2020 at 14:55

3 Answers 3

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My take on this is: The superbadges are a means of measurement of proficiency. If you cannot complete a challenge, in most circumstances, I believe this means that you are not ready and that you should go and research how to finish your task.

I accept that in some circumstances the measurement system itself is causing the problems due to it's rigidity, but again... if you are in an exam and you have a problem with a question (for example its wording), you don't ask your fellow students to help - you ask the moderator.

My main concern is that with all the answers on sfse, it's going to be really easy to finish it - and I kind of want it to be hard. I put 15-18 hours in, why shouldn't everyone else?

Final thought - it's an exam, not a tutorial, and we should treat it as such.

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    It's sounding like we're building a consensus on flagging for deletion then (unless I'm not reading this correctly).
    – Derek F
    Commented Jul 13, 2020 at 0:37
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    No, that's pretty much exactly right - in almost all situations, I favour deletion.
    – Caspar Harmer
    Commented Jul 13, 2020 at 0:53
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    I've taken the initial step of proactively deleting the vast majority of the LWC Superbadge questions that have already been voted closed by the community (this essentially just shortcuts the 30-day timespan when the system would clean them out).
    – David Reed Mod
    Commented Jul 13, 2020 at 15:08
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    One SFSE answer by a dev evangelist, René, on a 'Known Issue' with the LWC Badge spared me a lot of time banging my head against the wall. I'm all in favor except for those cases where the answer makes apparent it's a current issue with validation and offers help without touching implementation: in the case in context it was an issue about using single quotes instead of double quotes (or vice versa) all over the code. This doesn't change my implementation, its just a nuisance. Salesforce is not transparent about current 'issues' with badges;
    – Christian Szandor Knapp
    Commented Jul 15, 2020 at 17:22
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I agree with Caspar Harmer's answer completely. The Super Badge is not an LWC tutorial and instead, it is an assessment/exam. I fear that posting questions and answers will make it easier for the new candidates to go through the SuperBadge. Also, it might guide them in the wrong direction as challenge is improved.

The official guidance from the Salesforce Trailhead is to reach out to Trailhead Help for any clarification or concern

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    The same thing has happened with Aura superbadge and today if you want to retake the challenge, you can finish it in 30 minutes because the working code is available everywhere. I agree with deletion.
    – sanket kumar
    Commented Jul 13, 2020 at 3:57
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Let's revise our Help Center based on what seems to be an emerging consensus here. (I know new users don't read it, but it's important to have a single statement of our community's standards and expectations).

The current phrasing reads

We don’t allow complete solutions to Trailhead challenges. Questions about specific problems encountered in completing Trailhead modules are welcome, but please do not provide complete solutions or details to challenges that would impede others from effectively demonstrating their own independent work.

I suggest we rephrase to

Questions about how to pass Trailhead challenges are not on topic, because these challenges are intended to be independent demonstrations of your abilities. Trailhead Help can provide assistance for situations where Trailhead does not appear to be functioning correctly.

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    I'd agree with that as we are not here to help people avoid doing the necessary work to get the trailhead badges. I find it hard to understand why people want to devalue the qualifications they are working towards.
    – Dave Humm
    Commented Jul 13, 2020 at 15:37
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    I'd like to mention that although the LWC superbadge (and others) are not tutorials, I don't think it means that SE shouldn't be the place for learning if someone is in the midst of attempting one. If a question around a superbadge doesn't breach the "large chunks of code" rule then they could (and should) be used as means of teaching. I'm also of the opinion that where folk have managed to pass the challenge validator (where it's clearly not working 100%) then the posts, and answers add real value and are a vast lot more useful than some of the alternatives.
    – Todd Halfpenny
    Commented Jul 15, 2020 at 15:34
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    I agree that there is some nuance here, @ToddHalfpenny. My sense is that if someone is attempting to build code responsive to a superbadge and the code does not work, that a question about that code that respects the rule you mention is on topic. I don't personally feel, however, that "I can't figure out what the challenge checker is looking for" is on topic or something we can effectively serve without providing more solution than we're comfortable with. It sounds like you're interested in pushing on that latter category?
    – David Reed Mod
    Commented Jul 15, 2020 at 15:42
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    I guess I'm trying to vote for keeping the middle ground as well as the "I have working code, why doesn't it pass". where an answer (+ Q) does not devalue the badge, or any other task, but still provides a good launchpad for folk to gain knowledge. For example, if someone is trying to complete a superbadge and gets stuck because they're unaware that a lightning-card has an action slot then SE is a good as place as any to learn, even if it means giving away a clue as to that's what this particular superbadge is looking for. There are many ways to skin the cat, by only a few(one) that gets a ✔️
    – Todd Halfpenny
    Commented Jul 15, 2020 at 17:32
  • But maybe I've missed what "on topic" is... and I'm happy to be corrected. I'm def coming at this from a "frustrated user" POV, where stackexchange is an invaluable gateway to knowledge and insight.
    – Todd Halfpenny
    Commented Jul 15, 2020 at 17:35
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    I definitely hear you, @ToddHalfpenny, and I'm sympathetic to that suggestion. What I don't see though is a way for us to pragmatically support that kind of question without having either questions or answers that disclose substantively complete solutions to the challenge. Certainly open to hearing thoughts.
    – David Reed Mod
    Commented Jul 15, 2020 at 19:05
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    How do we even customize this content? I didn't realize we could.
    – Adrian Larson Mod
    Commented Jul 15, 2020 at 19:39
  • @AdrianLarson Most of it we can't without a Stack Exchange Community Team person doing it for us, but the on-topic page is fully editable.
    – David Reed Mod
    Commented Jul 15, 2020 at 19:58
  • Looks like the "on topic page" didn't yet get updated?
    – Phil W
    Commented Oct 19, 2020 at 14:30
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    @PhilW I see the update in place - it's at the bottom of the page. Is there somewhere else I missed?
    – David Reed Mod
    Commented Oct 19, 2020 at 15:34
  • @DavidReed my bad - I skimmed it too quickly and missed it in the list. Cheers.
    – Phil W
    Commented Oct 19, 2020 at 16:15

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