Challenge Forums V1.0.0

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Make every answer genuinely independent.​

Members respond first. Other answers stay protected. No copying. No accidental spoilers. No pretending to participate after revealing the answers.

SelamT Challenge adds a complete, native Challenge forum and thread type to XenForo 2.3.

It is built for questions and activities where every member should think independently before reading what other participants have written.

Create Excel challenges, programming exercises, case studies, educational assignments, interview questions, predictions, brainstorming activities or any other question where the first response should belong entirely to the participant.

The add-on keeps XenForo’s familiar forum experience while adding a controlled answer-and-reveal workflow, permanent participation auditing and focused discussions below individual responses.

Answer first. Reveal later.​

While a Challenge is open, the written content of other responses remains protected. This includes:

• Response text
• BB code content
• Inline images
• Attachments

Members can still see how many people have participated, but they cannot read the protected content until one of the following happens:

1. They submit a response that meets the configured requirements.
2. They deliberately choose I want to view the responses.
3. They belong to a group with permission to view protected Challenge responses.
4. The Challenge owner or an authorized moderator changes the Challenge phase.

Permanent anti-copy protection​

Choosing to view the responses is a permanent and auditable decision.

Once a normal member reveals the responses, they can no longer submit a main Challenge response. This prevents the member from reading other answers, copying an idea and then appearing as an independent participant.

The restriction is enforced at multiple levels:

• The main reply editor is removed.
• Normal reply permission checks reject the response.
• The final reply service checks the rule again before saving.
• Concurrent reveal and reply requests are serialized at the database level.

The member receives a clear explanation:

“You cannot reply because you chose to view the responses.”

They may still join the discussion through comments below individual responses, but they cannot submit a late independent answer.

A clear record of participation​

Challenge owners and authorized staff can see:

• Who submitted an independent response
• Who chose to reveal the responses
• When each reveal decision was made

For large communities, reveal records open in a paginated overlay instead of filling the thread with hundreds of names.

Eligible user groups may receive permission to hide their identity from the public reveal list. Their action is still retained, and authorized administrators or moderators can continue to inspect the complete audit record.

Three Challenge phases​

Open
Independent participation is active and protected responses remain hidden from members who have not participated or revealed them.

Revealed
Responses become available according to the Challenge workflow and discussion can continue openly.

Closed
Normal participation is closed while authorized staff retain the tools required to manage the thread.

Challenge management is placed inside XenForo’s native thread tools menu, keeping the interface clean and familiar.

Stop empty or fake answers​

Prevent members from unlocking the responses with content such as “thanks”, “I don’t know” or a single punctuation mark.

Configure:

• Minimum visible character count
• Minimum word count
• Global default requirements
• Per-forum requirement overrides
• A separate permission to bypass minimum requirements

Quoted content is not treated as an original answer when the response requirements are evaluated.

Discuss individual responses without quoting them​

Once a member can view the responses, they can comment directly below a specific response.

Comments:

• Appear directly below their parent response
• Use XenForo’s familiar rich-text editor
• Support attachments and pasted images
• Generate alerts for the relevant member
• Can be reported
• Support edit history
• Support approval and unapproval
• Support soft and permanent deletion
• Integrate with XenForo inline moderation
• Use a single-level structure to keep discussions readable

Comments are deliberately separate from Challenge participation:

• A comment does not count as a Challenge response.
• A comment does not unlock protected responses.
• Minimum Challenge response requirements do not apply to comments.
• Comments do not create infinitely nested conversation trees.

Built as a native XenForo content experience​

SelamT Challenge is not an isolated page or an external quiz script.

Challenges remain normal XenForo threads, so they can participate naturally in:

• Forum and node lists
• New-post and thread-list widgets
• What’s new
• Search results
• Watch and alert workflows
• Standard moderation workflows

The Challenge forum and thread handlers provide a native trophy Font Awesome icon wherever XenForo displays content-type icons. Components that normally display member avatars continue to follow XenForo’s standard design.

The system uses XenForo routes, entities, services, permissions, phrases, editors, attachments, reports, alerts, approval queues and moderation conventions.

No solution or answer-voting baggage​

Challenge participation is not presented as a support question looking for one accepted solution.

The Question thread foundation is used where it benefits XenForo compatibility, but solution selection, answer voting and downvoting are disabled for Challenge threads. The focus stays on participation and discussion.

Granular participant permissions​

• View protected Challenge responses
• Hide own identity from the public reveal list
• Post comments below Challenge responses
• Edit own Challenge comments
• Delete own Challenge comments
• Post Challenge comments without approval

Separate moderator permissions​

• Bypass minimum response requirements
• View complete reveal audit details
• Edit submitted Challenge responses
• Delete submitted Challenge responses
• Edit any Challenge comment
• Delete any Challenge comment
• Approve or unapprove Challenge comments
• View Challenge comment edit history

Participant and moderator permissions appear in separate XenForo permission sections for cleaner administration.

Designed for real communities​

Ideal for:

• Excel and formula challenges
• Programming problems
• Educational assignments
• Case studies
• Interview and assessment questions
• Brainstorming exercises
• Reasoning and logic questions
• Predictions and community challenges
• Peer-learning activities

Language support​

• English master phrases
• Included Turkish translations
• 87 matched English and Turkish phrase keys
• No hard-coded public interface text

Requirements​

• XenForo 2.3.12 or newer
• A PHP and database version supported by the installed XenForo release

Installation​

1. Upload the release ZIP through Admin control panel → Add-ons → Install/upgrade from archive.
2. Create or edit a forum and select Challenge as its forum type.
3. Configure the global minimum response requirements.
4. Optionally override those requirements for individual Challenge forums.
5. Review the SelamT Challenge participant permissions.
6. Review the separate SelamT Challenge moderation permissions.

Feature summary​

• Native Challenge forum type
• Native Challenge thread type
• Trophy Font Awesome type icon
• Open, revealed and closed phases
• Protected response text, BB code, images and attachments
• Visible participation counts while content remains protected
• Permanent “view responses” decision
• Dated reveal audit records
• Paginated reveal-user overlay
• Optional public reveal identity privacy
• Complete staff audit visibility
• Multi-layer anti-copy reply protection
• Transaction-safe reveal/reply race protection
• Minimum visible-character requirement
• Minimum word requirement
• Global requirements and per-forum overrides
• Separate minimum-requirement bypass permission
• Submitted-response edit and delete controls
• Single-level comments below responses
• Rich-text comment editor
• Comment attachments and pasted images
• Comment alerts
• Comment reporting
• Comment edit history
• Comment approval queue
• Comment soft and permanent deletion
• Comment inline moderation
• Separate participant and moderator permission groups
• Native thread-tools management entry
• Search, What’s new and widget integration through normal XenForo threads
• Solution selection and answer voting disabled
• English and Turkish phrases included

Create challenges where every answer starts with the member—not with the answers already on the screen.​