Components
My suggestion is related to Task Requests
Proposal
After having a few task requests before, I thought of a simple system that could help users and mods work easier with task requests. My idea is to have a Start Date - End Date for task requests, when the user is creating his task request he will be prompted to add a Start Date and End Date for his request.
Once the Task Request will be posted, it will show a small Timer near it, that will check if the current date is equal with the Start date, once those 2 dates are equal the Timer will start a countdown to the end date, this way all the users will know exactly how much time left they have to finish their contributions.
Posts that are posted after the countdown ended will get a small red sign that will let mods know this was posted after the countdown ended, and needs to be treated with caution.
Another nice thing for the system above could be a Close Task Request button for the creator of the task that will let him close the task request. Once clicked the Task Request timer will drop to let's say 3 hours to allow people that started working on a contribution finish it, and the contribution closes after those 3 hours left.
At the end of each Task Request the site could have a stats tab that could show the total number of contributions on that Repository and the number of accepted ones, and a small tab below that could show all the contributions accepted with @user - link or Top 3 / Top 5 most appreciated contributions.
Mockups / Examples
Here is how I imagined the system.
This is an image with the Start/End date form on the right side.
Here's how the countdown timer would look on the side of the request.
Stats bar at the end of the contribution
As for the Close Task Request I am not sure where to be placed probably in the drop down menu where you can edit the post.
Benefits
Better coordination between the Contributors, Mods and the PO that makes the request, having a way to close a Task Request and still give those that started a small time to finish and post, showing the time left on a post to all contributors, and the stats that let you know the total number of contributions will show you how popular the Task Request is and if it shows you the Top3/Top5 contributions, other can make an idea themselves on which style to take or which path to chose in their contribution.
Posted on Utopian.io - Rewarding Open Source Contributors