XHTML Challenge is a freshly launched project by Valentin Agachi, which enables you to create challenges between two websites. The script will analyze the sites' XHTML markups and return a report for the visitors to vote. The signup process and overall workflow is very simple. Within a minute, I created a challenge between Best Web Gallery and CSS Remix (see the challenge).

I asked Valenin: "why did you create XHTML Challenge"?

I started this project because I wanted to have a place to check up sites quickly markup-wise. There's a lot of CSS galleries out there, but not many look under the hood at the code and check them out. I plan to add a few other facts regarding the code of the sites challenged.

The site is created using a homemade PHP framework. The facts about the sites challenged are analyzed in the background after submission, and periodically after that. The thumbnails of the sites are taken from a 3rd party provider.

Valentin Agachi, XHTML Challenge

My thoughts...

The concept is fun and creative, however, there are areas that I think it could improve:

• The voting system could be enchanced by Ajax. It is very annoying because the page reload every time I make a vote.
• The site is missing a commenting system. People like to comment, who doesn't?
• The vote count should be based on user's login, not cookie (and IP address I believe). This will prevent the same user from voting on the same challenge under different network or when the cookie is expired.

Check out some of the interesting challenges:

Mac OS X Leopard vs Window Vista

Del.icio.us vs. Digg

Facebook vs. Hi5

Barack Obama vs. Hillary Clinton

Firefox vs. Windows IE

Freelance Switch vs. Freelance Folder

Performancing vs. Problogger