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Post any questions or comments regarding Contest: Show Off Your LaTeX Skillz [TeX.sx birthday] here. I'll add information to the original post if required.

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8 Answers

up vote 13 down vote

I suggest to change "LaTeX" to "TeX" so it's a catch-all for everything (TeX is the underlying language; LaTeX/plain-tex/Context are macropackages/"formats").

Also, it doesn't make much sense to differentiate between engines (XeTeX, LuaTeX, pdfTeX), but it would make sense to differentiate between formats. Especially since you seem to confuse the meaning when you list LaTeX before XeTeX etc.

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I chose "LaTeX" as an umbrella term to keep the question more attracting for relatively new users, as well in terms of participation as of reading. Every user who knows what TeX is knows what LaTeX is, while the opposite is not necessarily true. Furthermore, I'd assume "LaTeX" in the title will get more Google hits etc. than "TeX". I agree the differentiation isn't precise, but we're not classifying systems here, this is a contest with a title trying to be decently catchy. Finally, I personally mostly use LaTeX, so that's what I'm most interested in and nobody seemed to mind earlier. – doncherry Nov 11 '11 at 16:31
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This has been discussed earlier, so I will not go into a long argument. But I would like to point out that your argument "everyone who <emph>knows</emph> TeX knows what LaTeX is", does not imply that anyone who does not use LaTeX will feel motivated to write something to show off his/her <strong>LaTeX</strong> skills by showing a document written in plain TeX/eplain/ConTeXt or one of the other macro packages. (Other forums like the PracTeX journal also make the same mistake). Personally, had I not been active on this site for a while, I would not participate in a LaTeX contest. – Aditya Nov 11 '11 at 22:52
What if we go with Contest: Show Off Your typographic skillz (batteries included)? That way, we are being generic enough to broaden our audience and participants. Besides, since the entries will be peer-reviewed, we can check if the attempt complies with our rules. :) – Paulo Cereda Nov 12 '11 at 11:09
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How about this: "Show Off Your Skillz in TeX & Friends" (and similarly anywhere in the body text), and later on specify "All common formats (LaTeX, Plain TeX, ConTeXt) and engines (pdf(La)TeX, Xe(La)TeX, Lua(La)TeX) are allowed."? Any others that would need to be included? Is it necessary to include the "(La)" parts? – doncherry Nov 12 '11 at 14:38
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@doncherry: I think that what you just wrote would be fine. I would leave off the (La) parts since pdflatex is the pdftex engine with the LaTeX format. (Incidentally, I agree that it's important to be format-neutral so I support the rewrite.) – Andrew Stacey Nov 12 '11 at 18:55
@everybody: Done. – doncherry Nov 12 '11 at 20:45
up vote 7 down vote

Can we have an update once in a while about the current number of submissions? I am really curious already. If so, where would it be posted?

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I've added a "Current number of submissions" to the question near the top along with instructions for incrementing it if someone posts a new answer. – Alan Munn Nov 14 '11 at 3:58
up vote 5 down vote

I just found that the character limit is 30000- is this worth mentioning in the original question? Or could it be raised? :)

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I'm excited for your submission :)! I doubt the limit can be raised, but you could put your code on a site like pastebin.com. In general, I don't expect this limit to affect a lot of users, but I might be mistaken just because I don't usually use this many characters on four pages ;). – doncherry Nov 12 '11 at 22:20
@doncherry Thanks for your response :) If it's acceptable to post the code externally, then I will do so. – cmhughes Nov 12 '11 at 22:24
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I don't think we want to limit your creativity by a number of characters, so go ahead, just make sure it's easily accessible for everybody, and perhaps include some exemplary samples in the post itself since most people won't read through >30k characters. Also keep in mind the "a more-or-less everyday document"-part of the task -- I'm not sure if this applies to 30k char magic. – doncherry Nov 12 '11 at 22:29
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@doncherry Will do :) Thanks again. I promise it is only 4 pages :) – cmhughes Nov 12 '11 at 22:38
up vote 5 down vote

Does the submission have to be a document, or is it also OK to post a nice (and I mean really really nice!) macro?

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Wouldn't you also have an example of the macro in use? Then it would be a document. – Andrew Stacey Nov 15 '11 at 7:46
OK. I'll post the macro (although the document showing the usage is boring). – Aditya Nov 15 '11 at 17:28
Aditya, I've just posted my ConTeXt little thing, but I'm very excited to see yours:). – mbork Nov 17 '11 at 21:00
@mbork, I look forward to seeing your entry as well. – Aditya Nov 18 '11 at 6:31
Thanks-but my experience in ConTeXt is incomparable with yours. (Still, I find my entry a very simple, but nice thing anyway;).) – mbork Nov 18 '11 at 7:44
up vote 5 down vote

I propose that the question be unlocked. Voting is long over, the current votes don't reflect the result of the contest anyway, but the answerers could still get some appreciation through votes and badges (not rep though as it is CW). It's pretty clear that this question usually wouldn't be allowed on tex.sx, so I don't think we need the lock for that reason.

I still haven't heard anything about the prizes, sorry about that.

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You should probably post this as a new post on meta. Not everyone will scroll down this far to see what's changed on this one! – Andrew Stacey May 27 '12 at 21:00
@AndrewStacey: I was hoping people would click on the date to get to the latest change in this question, but if this doesn't get more attention in the next few days, I'll follow your advice. – doncherry May 27 '12 at 21:09
I didn't know that feature ... learn something new every day. – Andrew Stacey May 27 '12 at 21:59
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Done: question unlocked – Joseph Wright♦ May 31 '12 at 12:58
up vote 3 down vote

Does this mean I can submit as many documents/answers as I want? And also, does it imply there are no categories (like academic paper, cookbook, etc.)?

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I suggest limiting the number of answers per user to 3. – doncherry Nov 12 '11 at 14:39
I hadn't really thought about categories, didn't think they would be necessary. I have no idea how many submissions to expect. It might be pretty difficult to predict categories without limiting users' ideas. What we could do is introduce two categories: academic and other. Then again, I'd really like to keep the contest simple and voting procedures clear. – doncherry Nov 12 '11 at 14:41
Ok, I see. Academic and other seems fair enough. This way people can show some more 'spartan', but very nice layout vs. fancy, colorful, funny, original stuff. – Count Zero Nov 12 '11 at 14:50
@everybody: Done. – doncherry Nov 12 '11 at 20:45
up vote 2 down vote

How about using the submissions for a general showcase of the typesetting capabilities of (La)TeX and its community akin to the TikZ examples on http://texample.net/tikz? Perhaps even on that site.

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I suggest you raise this question again once we know what the submissions are like. I have no idea what to expect. At any rate, I like the idea of keeping the examples on this very site in order to attract more LaTeX users. Note that there's already tex.stackexchange.com/questions/1319/…. – doncherry Nov 16 '11 at 16:38
Well, it seems obvious for me that we are aiming at a "showcase" thing here. There is one on the TUG web page (it is a bit old, but nice anyway), maybe the submissions could be added there? – mbork Nov 17 '11 at 21:02
up vote 2 down vote

I'm not sure how I feel about edits to submissions that happened after the deadline. I'm aware they are mostly typo-like corrections, but if we allow these kinds of edits, where do we draw the line? If you submit an application, you can't change typos afterwards, either. Thus, I'm strongly tempted to rollback these edits, just because there had been one week for everybody to fix all flaws, and any left over just belong to the submission.

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But the question in the main site already provides the answer; you said: "Please lock the question on Nov. 18, 14:00h UTC and undelete the answers. Rollback any edits to the contributions after this deadline." – Gonzalo Medina Nov 18 '11 at 23:23
Good point. I should listen to myself more often. I'm glad I made it official beforehand. – doncherry Nov 19 '11 at 18:18

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