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Our poor /unicorn Sparkles got lost, and is stuck in a never ending loop of dashing and jumping.

While it may be fun to watch him run and to make him jump, he does need some help to find his way back home.

Once upon a Wint Bash morrow, while I pondered, full of sorrow
Over endless db rows recording stats of games galore —
While I tried, nearly succeeding, to prevent the mounds of cheating
Suddenly there came a vision, pinging on my chatroom door —
“What could that be,” I muttered, “blinking on my chatroom door —
   Only this and nothing more.”

And the silken, bright, and forlorn fur of our fave-rit unicorn
Thrilled me — filled me with a fantastic hope that I had not felt before;
And I thought: “Avast the fearing, soon there will be so much cheering,
When our hero, bold and mighty, shows distinction on the quizzing floor;
Will it be you, who can help our 'corn find its way to succor?
   Only this and nothing more.”

Can one of you help? At stake: the Defender of the Unicorn hat.

(If you are successful in your quest to save the /unicorn, please keep the answers to yourself until January 2, 2021 UTC, or risk the loss of your new Defender hat.)

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20
  • And if we do keep the answer to ourselves?
    – Ollie
    Commented Dec 23, 2020 at 18:52
  • 4
    My first instinct was to type https://stackexchange.com/unicorn, but that page only points to a panda.
    – Sebastian Simon
    Commented Dec 23, 2020 at 18:58
  • 3
    @user289905 winterbash2020.stackexchange.com/unicorn
    – Ollie
    Commented Dec 23, 2020 at 18:58
  • @Ollie Yes, I know now. 😉
    – Sebastian Simon
    Commented Dec 23, 2020 at 18:59
  • I feel that I am not worthy to defend the unicorn ~ sorry Sparkles
    – Professor Abronsius
    Commented Dec 23, 2020 at 19:26
  • 1
    Is it a bug that it gives you a penalty if you reload the page?
    – Ollie
    Commented Dec 23, 2020 at 20:18
  • Oh god. Save me from relaxing penalty music...
    – Ollie
    Commented Dec 23, 2020 at 20:21
  • 1
    @ollie if you only reload the page and get the music, that is a big. Music is only for those who try to evade the penalty.
    – Yaakov Ellis StaffMod
    Commented Dec 23, 2020 at 20:50
  • @YaakovEllis Really? I got two wrong and it started playing music. I was using the enter button, if it makes any difference... maybe two clicks by accident.
    – Ollie
    Commented Dec 23, 2020 at 20:51
  • 1
    @ollie enter button should be disabled when you are on penalty
    – Yaakov Ellis StaffMod
    Commented Dec 23, 2020 at 20:57
  • 1
    A certain question is... tricky, and I LOL'ed after realizing the answer, thanks for the challenge! :)
    – Meta Andrew T.
    Commented Dec 24, 2020 at 9:31
  • 1
    Is it intentional for a wrong answer to open a new tab? (Firefox 84.0 (64 bit), Linux Mint 20)
    – Zoe - Save the data dump
    Commented Dec 24, 2020 at 9:39
  • 3
    Also +1 for running server-side answer checks instead of hard-coding stuff in the JS file :p
    – Zoe - Save the data dump
    Commented Dec 24, 2020 at 9:42
  • I didn’t know there was music. 😄 I went back and submitted incorrect answers until I was redirected to YouTube and got a 10 hour version of epic sax guy + Rick roll. Are these the same videos from the redirects for /index.php and the like?
    – Sebastian Simon
    Commented Dec 24, 2020 at 13:34
  • 1
    @YaakovEllis I absolutely love the cheating consequences for Hat Dash ;)
    – Ollie
    Commented Dec 24, 2020 at 20:00

3 Answers 3

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13

Nice challenge! Since this is kind of an announcement, I hope it's OK to use this space for questions. I just completed the challenge, and I got a hat; the dropdown says I earned it on Meta Stack Exchange.

enter image description here

How is this site determined?

  • Is it only available on Meta Stack Exchange?
  • Does it go the site where you have the most hats?
  • Does it go to the site where you have the most reputation? I can rule that out by looking at other users who earned the hat.
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1
  • 13
    To keep things simpler on the implementation end (and more fair for those competing for most hats per site), the hat is only being awarded on MSE.
    – Yaakov Ellis StaffMod
    Commented Dec 23, 2020 at 20:21
7

Can we have some stats when the event is over? Like:

  • How many people completed the challenge and how many finally got the hat (those who tried it, but didn't have an account on MSE)?
  • Which was the hardest and which the easiest question?
  • What was the average response time?
  • How many wrong answers were for each question?
  • How many users stuck in one question and didn't manage to save the unicorn?
  • How many people got rickrolled when they tried to cheat?

and of course, whatever else you think is interesting.

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4
  • 1
    I am tracking the number of people who start the challenge, and the number who finish it. I am not tracking the difficulty of any specific question, or how long it is taking people. Happy to share afterwards the data that I have.
    – Yaakov Ellis StaffMod
    Commented Dec 24, 2020 at 8:50
  • @YaakovEllis I only got Rick-roll’d after I already got the hat, just to see what the “music” is that others were talking about. Do these attempts still appear in the statistics?
    – Sebastian Simon
    Commented Dec 24, 2020 at 13:38
  • 1
    Yes. Every Rick Roll is equally important (and it will count another start of the whole thing)
    – Yaakov Ellis StaffMod
    Commented Dec 24, 2020 at 14:10
  • To add on to "How many wrong answers were for each question?", I'd be interested in knowing how many people guessed the top wrong answers. I'm curious to know how many people made the same mistake as me for one of the questions.
    – Tot Zam
    Commented Dec 27, 2020 at 6:43
7

This was fun! I did experience one moment of weird behavior though:

After answering the first question, the second question opened in a new tab, while the first tab's submit button got stuck in a loading state. I was able to complete the challenge in the second tab, and eventually just closed the first tab. A new tab only opened after I answered the first question, and the other questions all properly loaded in the same tab.

I don't remember if I clicked or pressed enter for all the questions, and closed everything when I was done, so don't really have more details on how this bug can be reproed.

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1
  • 5
    New tab thing happened to me too
    – Ankit Sharma
    Commented Dec 29, 2020 at 15:18

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