Why is Winter Bash 2020 participation so high?

Question

It may be the eye of the beholder, but Winter Bash 2020 seems to be much more popular than years before. Some evidence for this can be found in SEDE; I've tried to display the progress of some values x days after Winter Bash started.

For example, the score of the Hat List question:

or the number of answers to the Show Off Your Hats topic:

or even the number of questions about Winter Bash:

I know during last year's Winter Bash many users were really fed up with the Code of Conduct changes and the company removing diamonds, which might explain the low score of the Hat List question, but 2019 wasn't a special year for the other two metrics, and they have grown enormously in 2020. But perhaps I'm looking at the wrong figures?

I'm not sure if the number of earned hats will tell us anything; that could be very much dependent on how easy they are to earn and my gut feeling says most hats are earned by users who don't even actively participate in Winter Bash and perhaps even ignore it altogether (just like most of the network's traffic is from anonymous users visiting the sites from a search engine).

So, what's the story behind the success of Winter Bash 2020? Is the pandemic causing everybody to stay at home, with more time on their hands to participate? Is this year's hat selection offered by the company much better than years before? Or is everybody enjoying Hat Dash or the other Unicorn challenge a lot?

Answer 1

Like most of the things in 2020, we can just blame it on the corona pandemic.

But first, let's talk about last year, 2019:

1. Code of conduct controversy

2. Moderator removal and resignation

3. Recycled Winter Bash

So participation was in decline due to all the backlash and lack of enthusiasm.

Now if we talk about 2020:

1. Spare time on hand: Work from home and lockdowns.

2. Better Winter Bash than last year: new hats, hat dash, etc.

It's been a hectic year for so many reasons, so maybe people are looking for such fun events they can participate in without risking their health, so they opted in.

Answer 2

As the product manager for Stack Exchange, I also did some internal analysis to gauge the popularity of Winter Bash in 2020 vs. the last two years.

I approached it a bit differently -- instead of looking at Meta posts/participation, I looked at some server-side events. We only had data going back to 2018, so we were able to analyze 2018, 2019 and 2020.

TL;DR: In 2019, there was a significant drop in Winter Bash participation relative to 2018. In 2020, there was a big bump relative to 2019, but no statistically significant differences between 2018 and 2020. My interpretation is that the community issues in 2019, coupled with the fact that the hats and triggers were recycled, led to decreased participation that year.

Awareness

I defined awareness as people who visited any Stack Exchange site and then opened up the Winter Bash inbox that shows which hats you've earned. (Clicking the Snowflake icon opens the inbox.) Site visits are sampled at 1%.

Year	Visited site	Opened WB inbox	% opened inbox
2018	70,211	3,850	5.5%
2019	81,774	2,315	2.8%
2020	64,285	5,105	7.9%

• In 2019, awareness dropped by 48% compared to 2018.
• In 2020, awareness increased by 181% compared to 2019. There was no statistically significant difference between 2018 and 2020.

Participation

I defined participation as people who opened up the Winter Bash inbox and then proceeded to wear a hat.

Year	Opened WB inbox	Wore hat	% wore hat
2018	258,017	59,444	23.0%
2019	151,410	24,139	15.9%
2020	380,401	76,140	20.0%

• In 2019, participation dropped by 31% compared to 2018.
• In 2020, participation increased by 26% compared to 2019. There was no statistically significant difference between 2018 and 2020.

Aversion

I defined aversion as people who opened up the Winter Bash inbox and then opted out by clicking "No hats for me, please."

Year	Opened WB inbox	Opted out	% opted out
2018	258,017	8,386	3.3%
2019	151,410	7,620	5.0%
2020	380,401	10,290	2.7%

• In 2019, aversion increased by 55% compared to 2018.
• In 2020, aversion decreased by 46% compared to 2019. There was no statistically significant difference between 2018 and 2020.

Answer 3

Personally speaking:

1. I missed out last year.
2. It’s not been a great year for many people, so taking part in some enjoyment makes me feel good.
3. It’s nice to bond with people in trying to find the secret hats and the secrets behind them.

This year, for me, hasn’t been much different in terms of Winter Bash, but I imagine people simply want to have a little fun.

The questions I’ve seen about Winter Bash have been from users who haven’t really noticed it before - I wonder whether there’s been any different ways of promoting it this year that have increased the engagement.

Answer 4

The question is worded cleverly, the OP asks why participation is so high on Winter Bash 2020.

In fact, high participation does not necessarily mean 2020's hat chase was more popular than ever. If we take a look at the following Hat List posts, which I'll use to measure consumer satisfaction, we'll see the score for this year's Winter Bash Hat List is currently in 5th place, narrowly pipped by 2017 but well short of 2014, 2015, and 2016 scores. The latter with its impressive positive score of 613, 75 bookmarks, and 16k views is unrivalled.

Hatlist	Views	Bookmarked	Total score	Upvotes	Downvotes
2020 Winter Bash 2020 hat list 👒 🎩	8k	46	214	216	2
2019 ❄️ Winter Bash 2019 Hat list ❄️	5k	19	77	103	26
2018 Winter Bash 2018 Hat list	9k	50	203	209	6
2017 Winter Bash 2017 Hats	10k	44	221	225	4
2016 Winter Bash 2016 - All Hats	16k	75	613	627	14
2015 Winter Bash 2015 Secret Hats	12k	57	365	377	12
2014 Winter Bash 2014 Secret Hats	10k	54	343	348	5
2013 I have a Secret Hat	4k	4	92	100	8
2012 What do you think of Winter Bash?	4k	2	164	181	17
2011 Holiday 2011 Hat Dash: The Hattening	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

Judging by the scores and the number bookmarks, participation in this year's event has seen an upward trend compared to that of 2019 and 2018, which must mean a considerable number of users enjoyed the challenge of collecting as many hats as possible. And it's not over yet, we may well see a last minute sprint before 2020 Winter Bash ends on January 4.

Answer 5

Concerning the number of questions about winter bash:

Year	Questions	Questions tagged bug	Questions not tagged bug
2020	96	48	48
2019	47	19	28
2018	53	14	39
2017	55	14	41

So you see the number of questions concerning winter bash have increased, but the majority of the increase is because there are many more bugs this time ;).

The number of answers to Show your Hat Off may have been greater this time because there is was a bounty by @Tinkeringbell on it. And you know, we have the This is Fine hat so...

---

Not saying winter bash isn't more popular this year, its just that some of your metrics may have been influenced by other factors as well :)

Answer 6

Here's another set of stats

Questions Tagged	Questions	Closed	Answers
winter-bash-2020	105	9	266
winter-bash-2019	47	5	236
winter-bash-2018	53 (51*)	10	568 (276*)
winter-bash-2017	55	12	211
winter-bash-2016	102	28	144
winter-bash-2015	85	27	150
winter-bash-2014	110	24	257
winter-bash-2013	154	30	312
winter-bash-2012	113	36	263

_{* Excluding the two posts: Announcing Our Amazing 2018 Stuff-A-Way! and New swag for Stack Overflow's 10th birthday: wear-ables or desk-ables? with their 252 and 40 answers respectively.}

A special mention goes to 2018 when a staggering 292 answers were submitted in two heart-warming competitions but completely unrelated to holiday knitting, leaping unicorns and hats and is therefore not indicative of Winter Bash participation.

If participation is measured in number of answers posted, then 2020 wins the bronze medal with its 266 answers behind the 2018 and 2013 editions when 276 and 312 answers were submitted. However, the first prize for the highest number of questions posted during Winter Bash goes to 2013 for its 154 questions albeit 30 questions have been closed for being off-topic or duplicates.

Hat tip to Paulo.Almeida who created the query number of answers per tag

Answer 7

Here are my thoughts,:

Being at home and having more spare time on my hands definitely contributes, when you're sitting at your computer working from home, and you decide to just click over to SE to earn hats and chat about them with other users. I also really enjoyed Yaakov Ellis's invitation for us to pentest Sparkles the unicorn, and the quiz.

I also think the chance to have a good bit of fun at the end of a trying year is very appealing. It's also completely transformed my view on hats. I may have one custom-made.