Deletion should never be allowed once users have submitted solutions. However, we could introduce an "archived" status. This would apply to beta kata where the author chooses not to continue development, or to published kata that, for various reasons, are no longer maintainable or solvable. With this approach, kata can be removed from the public API while still preserving existing solutions and discussions for anyone who has a direct link.

I'm also not a big fan of user satisfaction to count on kata's that never get published.

I guess I personally don't see what the big deal is about just leaving draft kata as drafts? Why do you HAVE to delete them? If you make a duplicate kata on accident, it's no big deal, it just won't be approved. You can either wait for the downvotes to send it to retirement or turn it into a draft perpetually. I personally don't care if my solutions get deleted, but some people do. It's code that they wrote and submitted to the site, so I can see why they wouldn't want their solutions to be deleted permanently. Even when solutions are invalidated, they are still visible on the solutions page, and leaving kata as draft kata (or retired kata) really does no harm to anyone, so I don't see why deletion needs to be an option.

I understood the point of this submission is that inexperienced people tend to post duplicate katas and therefore there should be some threshold before someone is allowed to submit new katas. My response to that is:

1. Even experienced and well-intended people may accidentally submit duplicate katas
2. When that happens, well-intended people have no means of repairing their mistake other than putting the kata back to draft.

Often, in the kata development process, a kata is modified after the first solutions have been posted in such a way that those solutions no longer pass. Hence, the solutions are valueless. Why should they prevent a kata from being deleted? We should accept that solutions posted during the beta period of a kata don't have the same status as a solution posted after the kata has been approved. That's a known risk of solving beta katas. What is better, modifying the kata beyond recognition or simply deleting it? Why is it so much better to keep the kata in draft form rather than simply deleting it?

I understand that we want to encourage people to submit solutions to beta katas, but beta solutions shouldn't lock in the authors.

I've reverted the descriptions and test cases to the previous revision.

It's ok to put these back to draft. But I would not delete the description of these kata's. There have been people that solved these kata's and have been attempting it. At least, restore the description for these people. I also have published kata's that are rotting in oblivion, I just keep them published for whoever wants to solve them, even if these will never get approved.

• https://www.codewars.com/kata/64a69c04a43ce80024cfba36
• https://www.codewars.com/kata/6301e3c78cc8c9078beec77f
• https://www.codewars.com/kata/61ee182c724044001676552b
• https://www.codewars.com/kata/600cd68b4c9f5b000f4b34f2
• https://www.codewars.com/kata/5e49ea0e71736b00147ae0e8
• https://www.codewars.com/kata/572396e1ef9008275200070d
• https://www.codewars.com/kata/5706aa48fb30081ebb000c21
• https://www.codewars.com/kata/5598a22e4ecf66ef6c000018

When it comes to this one:

• https://www.codewars.com/kata/68e5776b2beec06026b11a05

And here is another "I don't understand the description" comment:

• https://www.codewars.com/kata/5856f3ecf37aec45e6000091/discuss/python#5b165de42ccc428efa0000cc

It's just been sitting there forever, thanks to a negative comment. I've completely rewritten the kata since then and the commenter's solution is no longer valid.

Note that I never self-assess the difficulty of my own katas:

• no clear objective criteria for assessing the difficulty
• inflation in the grading
• if I make a mistake, an issue is raised that cannot be addressed and remains forever.

If at least one person solved it, you cannot delete it anymore. Which kata we talking about?

Draft katas are also not very easy to find unless you have a direct link to them, I'm not sure who is pointing to draft katas as evidence that people are submitting duplicate katas.

But that's not the point what I was trying to make here?..

While I do agree there are problems with the beta process, the retirement process is documented here

"Unclear description" comments are not helpful unless they provide concrete suggestions for improvement or concrete criteria for being satifactory. I've spent hours and days trying to rework a description to try and satisfy someone who left a "I don't understand the description" comment, replied to the comment to ask if they are satified with the rework only to never heard back from them again (I'm talking about "power users" here.) Meanwhile the kata remains in beta forever. In my frustration, I wanted to delete the kata, but, for some reason, I'm not allowed.

This is the first time I hear of the beta retirement.

I have, myself, authored katas that turned out to be very similar to already existing ones. I those cases, as soon as was made aware, I unpushished them. But I don't have permission to DELETE them. They remain in the system forever so that others can point to them and say: See, people are submitting duplicate katas! Like you just did.

As a kata author, I greatly appreciate when someone else approves a translation of one of my katas, or updates the kata to comply with newer language versions or testing framework, as long as the kata is not distorted in any manner.

2 years on todo list -> 2 years deleted -> 2 years on todo list again -> Finally completed it :D