I figure this is a better place to talk than in the thread. That should be used for updating.
Saying 'its more credible to have someone on record who signed up to begin with and then come back later to say "Finished, here's what happened." then someone who just appears and says "Done!"' is not the right mindset of a challenge owner. People don't come to this board and lie to try and get people to think they're something special. I've only seen this happen one time ever, and the person who did it was some 10 year old trying to get the respect of one of the challenge regulars. He did this by posting once an hour in the monotype thread saying "I beat it with so and so type now!" once an hour about 30 times. Challengers have no reason to deceive thread owners. It doesn't accomplish anything.
Because challengers have no reason to deceive, thread owners have no reason to be skeptical of someone completing a challenge before signing up. I know I completed a few solo challenges before I joined PC, and someone just as easily could have thought "hey, I'm going to see if I can beat the Elite Four without using any items." If it was something like the Scramble, where you have specific Pokemon you have to use with specific restrictions chosen by the community, I could see why you wouldn't believe someone had done it. But beating the elite four without items, as well as solos, monotypes, and MOST of the challenges on this board, are not things that really take months of thinking to come up with.
Saying 'its more credible to have someone on record who signed up to begin with and then come back later to say "Finished, here's what happened." then someone who just appears and says "Done!"' is not the right mindset of a challenge owner. People don't come to this board and lie to try and get people to think they're something special. I've only seen this happen one time ever, and the person who did it was some 10 year old trying to get the respect of one of the challenge regulars. He did this by posting once an hour in the monotype thread saying "I beat it with so and so type now!" once an hour about 30 times. Challengers have no reason to deceive thread owners. It doesn't accomplish anything.
Because challengers have no reason to deceive, thread owners have no reason to be skeptical of someone completing a challenge before signing up. I know I completed a few solo challenges before I joined PC, and someone just as easily could have thought "hey, I'm going to see if I can beat the Elite Four without using any items." If it was something like the Scramble, where you have specific Pokemon you have to use with specific restrictions chosen by the community, I could see why you wouldn't believe someone had done it. But beating the elite four without items, as well as solos, monotypes, and MOST of the challenges on this board, are not things that really take months of thinking to come up with.
