The Sphinx's Lair

Deusovi

12:04 AM

Just curious, why the name change?

Display name

yesterday, by Lukas Rotter

Mission failed. Identity leaked. Starts executing order 99

Deusovi

Ah, alright. :P

Rand al'Thor

@Deusovi He wants to learn our secrets. "Rotter" wasn't a very trust-inspiring name.

Deusovi

@Randal'Thor It is for people who like ciphers!

Rand al'Thor

Ah well, ciphers have never been my thing. I'm only #6 all-time answerer in that tag.

Len was the man for ciphers, back in the day.

@TheGreatEscaper Hey, nice profile pic!

Deusovi

12:12 AM

Ooh, cool.

TheGreatEscaper

Thanks!

(I don't quite understand this Rotter business, I'm assuming it's to do with some previous puzzles)

Rand al'Thor

@TheGreatEscaper The user @Displayname was called Lukas Rotter until recently, so we were just joking about why he switched his name.

TheGreatEscaper

Ahhh alright

Display name

Hey @Randal'Thor! Long time no see, buddy. Remember the barbeque in 2005? As a long-time friend of yours I hope you can help me out with a particular issue I'm having. I gambled away all my reputation and am close to being repless. Please give me 25,000 rep so I can help you with those juicy site statistics. I promise I'll pay it back!

Rand al'Thor

@Displayname I never went to a barbecue in 2005 :-P

Display name

12:41 AM

@Randal'Thor I have photo evidence. In retrospect, I'm not sure if you wanted to slice the lechon or me (approaching from the right, clearly indicated by the viewing directions of Paolo, Jalvon and you) with your sword.

Rand al'Thor

@Displayname :-O

I'm not that ugly :-P Maybe you're thinking of the other Rand al'Thor?

Display name

Are you saying I've spent the last 16 years trying to toady to a doppelgänger? Great.

Rand al'Thor

16 years since 2005? I'm saying you're a time traveller.

Display name

I didn't meet fake-rand the first time in 2005. The barbecue was just the most memorable encounter.

Rand al'Thor

12:58 AM

I was still in Emond's Field in 2000.

Mithrandir

9:37 AM

...Fake Rand? Not me this time :P

TheGreatEscaper

11:05 AM

If a puzzle is fully solved, but the all the answers are partial, do I just green tick the answers which together describe the entire solution?

Rubio

12:15 PM

hey @TheGreatEscaper welcome to Sphinx's Lair

My router took a major poop and quit. Just getting things back online properly with its replacement, what a pain...

TheGreatEscaper

Hiya @Rubio !

Rubio

Nice sentence puzzle, I enjoyed that. Couldn't work on it past where I got though cuz, well, no interwebs :)

I updated my answer to contain the full solution

Sphinx

0

Q: How am I older than my twin?

My twin and I constantly argue about who is the elder. He claims that just because he was born first, he is older than I am. I refute his claim and point at our birth certificates, which clearly show that I am older. We're both telling the truth, but how can this be?

logical-deduction

Puzzling — BOUNTY!

2

Q: echo $"Puzzling-Bash"_VERSION

> exe show introduction What puzzle does the below image describe? > exe scroll_down Sometimes the first place you look is not always the right one. But, sometimes it is. Sometimes it isn't. Sometimes it is. Sometimes you need to read between the lines. Sometimes you don't. Sometimes you do. >

cipher enigmatic-puzzle story

Rand al'Thor

@TheGreatEscaper You can't green-tick more than one answer. You'll just have to accept the one you feel is most worthy - maybe the person who did the most work, or the person who got the final piece, or whichever you want really.

TheGreatEscaper

12:28 PM

@Randal'Thor It's okay, Rubio updated his post

He gave credit to the others where credit was due, so I feel like it's okay to green tick it

Rand al'Thor

5

Q: How do we choose which answer to accept from a set of high quality answers?

I have recently posted a puzzle which was met with several excellent answers of roughly equivalent quality. This lead me to look for guidelines on how to choose which answer to accept. Should I favor earlier answers, more creative answers, simpler answers? I was surprised to find no information a...

discussion

2

Q: Which answer should I accept?

When I posted this puzzle, I made a stupid mistake resulting from not double checking my thinking. I did not notice this until one user posted an incomplete answer, which was only missing an answer for the part I had goofed up. I upvoted him, and said I would fix the puzzle later, at which point ...

discussion

Rubio

Oh. Yeah, that's kind of the ideal. The green tick goes to the best/most complete answer, by whatever criteria you feel appropriate. Hopefully it's the person who put in the most profitable effort and solved the most bits and pieces, though it isn't always.

(Where it isn't, a bounty is often given to the one whose answer didn't warrant the Accept but whose efforts should definitely be rewarded. though that doesn't happen as often as it ideally would, hehe)

So man, it's been dead dead dead today huh. I was offline for over 12 hours and missed, like, two puzzles and not a lot else.

Sumurai8

Greetings

Rand al'Thor

@Rubio Welcome to the weekend.

Hi @Sumurai8!

Sumurai8

12:43 PM

I might spend some time today on solving my own puzzle - both to know if I made any mistakes and if it is actually solveable how I intend it to be solvable.

TheGreatEscaper

Haha I must have picked a fairly quite time to turn up to stackexchange, huh?

Sumurai8

Shhhht. You are disturbing the sleeping fairies.

Sphinx

0

Q: What am I ..think fast?

Something thing comes in.. Something thing goes out.. Some people press me.. while others touch me.. I die every few days but don't worry you can bring back me to life or you can take care that I don't die.. You speak to me but I don't listen .. But when I speak a...

riddle

Rand al'Thor

@TheGreatEscaper Weekends are always pretty quiet.

But if you want to see how busy the whole of SE is even now, check this out: stackexchange.com/questions?tab=realtime

@Sphinx Dang, I didn't think fast enough.

Rubio

12:59 PM

Man

I got ninjaed too

Beastly Gerbil

@Rubio who's ninja ed? I don't know a ninja called edward :P

Sumurai8

Based on most clues, I came to the same conclusion. Couldn't think of a suitable response to the third clue.

Rubio

think Motorola flip phone vs iPhone

I find it interesting and a little amusing how they now market old style mobiles' size and simplicity as features for older folks. Big bold buttons so they can see them easily, and none of those extras they don't care about.

Sumurai8

Well, it works.

TheGreatEscaper

I usually use an ipad for anything non-phoney

It's a lot nicer to use anyway...

Beastly Gerbil

1:09 PM

I have a computer which converts to tablet, so I get the best of both worlds

Puzzling Meta

0

Q: Should we abolish tags that only describe the origin of a puzzle?

We have at least two tags (possibly more) which say nothing about the content of the puzzle but only describe what context it originated or was found in. iq-test - "For puzzles that have appeared in IQ tests", 38 questions. job-interview-question - "For puzzles that were asked at a job intervie...

discussion tags burninate-request

Sumurai8

During university I had an "old-style" phone. Because I really did not have any use for a smartphone. I only got a smartphone now that I finished. For anything at home I use a desktop computer. No laptop that overheats all the time, and no tablet that is too big to comfortably take with me, and is inferior to my desktop in any other way.

Santa should send me a new desktop computer though. Pweeeeeeeeeez :3

Beastly Gerbil

@Sumurai8 but....

Rand al'Thor

I think this question should be reopened. It's closed as "too broad", but three of the four answers are actually the same thing, just with slightly different explanations, and the fourth doesn't explain several of the lines.

Sumurai8

@BeastlyGerbil Pffffft. fine. I'll save up for it myself then.

TheGreatEscaper

1:20 PM

I'm not the biggest fan of riddles...

Even if those answers don't have the intended explanation for the Royal line, they still make sense

Rand al'Thor

But ... but ... riddles are awesome!

Beastly Gerbil

I like riddles if effort has been put into them. But I find way to often new users use them as ways to get quick rep, and you can see only a few minutes have been spent on them

Ankoganit

1:43 PM

@Randal'Thor Naw, some riddles are awesome.

@Randal'Thor voted to reopen.

Sumurai8

1:59 PM

Can someone slap me for being stupid?

Rand al'Thor

@Sumurai8 slap

@Ankoganit Of course.

Sumurai8

@Randal'Thor Ouch. That hurt O_o

Rand al'Thor

@Sumurai8 offers soothing ointment

Sumurai8

Thanks

TheGreatEscaper

Oof, I just finished watching a movie called the Lobster, it's quite depressing...

Wait @Sumurai8 what did you do?

Sumurai8

2:07 PM

I try to decode something using information I do not yet have. And thus scratch my head for a little while why it doesn't seem to work.

I also think I have made an error in the generation of my puzzle. So I have to double-check it :(

TheGreatEscaper

The dreaded double-check of an encryption?

Sumurai8

yes

I created an encode and decode function, and they worked for the few sample inputs I used. But there is something weird in the decode function... and I am not sure why it manages to decode it. It should not be able to.

TheGreatEscaper

I only code a little bit and whenever it does something it isn't supposed to do, I usually don't have the discipline to go through every line and see where it goes funny xD

Sumurai8

If I don't double check it, and it contains an error, no-one can decrypt it. Which... would be unfortunate.

It does not make for a fun puzzle.

Sumurai8

2:40 PM

Welp, figured out the problem

The sad part is that I now need to create the puzzle again when I am home

Mithrandir

Don't worry, we all make mistakes. Just ask @BeastlyGerbil how many mistakes I made in one of my recent puzzles :)

Just try to fix it to make it possible to solve when you can, and you're fine.

Beastly Gerbil

@Mithrandir don't get me started! :P

Sumurai8

Well, the puzzle is not yet posted :P Luckily

Beastly Gerbil

@Sumurai8 the best puzzles will take days to make, and will make mistakes which take days to fix. It's a sign of a good puzzle

Mithrandir

12

Q: The mysterious email on Mithrandir's Puzzlers Mail

Original inspiration from @BeastlyGerbil's puzzle - This is an opportunity. Can you take it? I have just received this email, from someone who Puzzlers Email couldn't give me any info on - it just says 'Unknown'. I took a picture with my camera - maybe you can figure out what on earth this guy...

cipher enigmatic-puzzle

Rand al'Thor

2:52 PM

@BeastlyGerbil And sometimes they take days to make and minutes to solve.

17

Q: Is humanity truly doomed?

The aliens have landed! You wake up one morning and find yourself in a room with familiar furniture but featureless white walls, strapped firmly to your own bed and hooked up to an array of dials and monitors that are clearly not of human origin. It seems as though your entire bedroom has been s...

story visual geography

Mithrandir

^^^Had lots and lots of mistakes

Eer, mine.

Rand al'Thor

@Mithrandir You need a few extra ^s in there now :-P

Mithrandir

@Randal'Thor There we go. :P

Why is Literature still only at 70%? Hurry up!

Beastly Gerbil

@Randal'Thor thats a really annoying feeling when all that hard work gets unravelled within seconds

Mithrandir

The puzzle about Lukas Rotter doesn't exist except as a real puzzle now, eh, @Displayname? :P

Rand al'Thor

2:55 PM

@Mithrandir It's made pretty good progress really. I wouldn't worry too much if it doesn't get many new committers over Christmas, as long as the rate goes up again in January.

Beastly Gerbil

Hopefully will be up by Spring

Display name

@Mithrandir ? I don't know of any puzzle about me except this one.

Beastly Gerbil

How quicky did people commit to puzzling?

Sumurai8

I hope the puzzle I am currently working on survives at least an hour. It's really hard to judge, really. I know the secrets of the thing I am working on. I just have to drop the right hints. Sometimes people pick up on hints really quickly.

Display name

@BeastlyGerbil Commitment start: 2013-09-04 16:23:56Z Private beta start: 2014-05-14 19:00:00Z Public beta start: 2014-05-27 21:28:39Z

= "it took a while"

Beastly Gerbil

3:01 PM

Well its a pretty popular site now...

Rand al'Thor

@Displayname Wow, so it was already in public beta before I even joined SE.

I knew it had been around for a while before I showed up, but then so had I on SFF.

Beastly Gerbil

I er, didn't even join a year ago...

I suppose I wouldn't have been able to, as I would have been under 13...

Shame I missed out on all those puzzles though :/

Sid

@Randal'Thor The riddle that you linked to reopen was closed due to low quality. Not due to too broad. Around the time of the sandbox

PSE does not have a low quality vote to close reason

And FWIW, it was penned by me when I knew nothing but horrible riddles..

Rand al'Thor

> closed as too broad by A E, Gamow, JonMark Perry, Deusovi♦ Aug 9 at 16:28

Not the now-deactivated sandbox close reason.

Sid

"Too broad" was a pseudo reason for low quality..

It was posted before the sandbox came into effect.

Beastly Gerbil

3:07 PM

To be honest there should be a 'extremely low-quality' VTC reason.

Rand al'Thor

@Sid Well, as you said, PSE doesn't have a close reason for "low quality". If you think it's low-quality, just downvote it.

Sumurai8

That reason does not tell the asker anything about what they should improve

Beastly Gerbil

Er put some more effort in?

Sumurai8

"extremely low quality" is either "too broad", "off-topic" or more likely "unclear what you are asking"

Ankoganit

@BeastlyGerbil Like what?

Make it boldface?

@BeastlyGerbil Like what?

:P

Beastly Gerbil

3:09 PM

Oh I just got that :P

Ankoganit

Is it just me or the "like what" message got posted twice?

Beastly Gerbil

No it did

Ankoganit

Weird

But I typed it only once

Beastly Gerbil

sometimes if connection is bad, then you might click enter twice and it registers as two different inputs

Rand al'Thor

8

A: Okay, the sandbox didn't work. We still have a quality problem; let's figure out how to address it

A custom close reason for 'bad' riddles/puzzles. Normally, the way to deal with 'bad' questions on Stack Exchange is simply to downvote them, while closing is reserved for questions which are off-topic, opinion-based, or otherwise inappropriate for the site. However, certain sites which have a c...

Ankoganit

3:12 PM

Hmm

That must be the reason

Connection is awfully bad here today

Beastly Gerbil

There you go then. I should be a detective...

:P

Sid

What's up with the blank profile pic? Display Name?

Display name

I wanted to see if a transparent profile image works.

Sumurai8

And now you broke the site?

And Earth

And physics

pffft. The things that get broken for science.

Ankoganit

@Sumurai8 test tubes?

Display name

3:22 PM

I should probably change it again.

Sumurai8

Hmpf. I just realized I should have the source of my puzzle online somewhere.

Rand al'Thor

@Displayname You may have trouble changing your username back without a mod to help.

Beastly Gerbil

Make it another puzzle :P

Ankoganit

@Displayname Notice how your and my profile pics fuse?

Display name

@Randal'Thor I was talking about the image

Rand al'Thor

3:24 PM

@Ankoganit As long as nobody lights that fuse ...

Ankoganit

@Randal'Thor :P

Rand al'Thor

Last puzzle for this topic challenge: puzzling.stackexchange.com/q/46599/5373

I hope it isn't too stupid.

Ankoganit

As if I have a giant 1x2 profile pic...

Beastly Gerbil

Jeez this has really creeped me out. What does it mean 'this is your first clue. The encoder'. Its like McComick has risen from the dead...

Sid

@Displayname Wait, you are Lukas Rotter?

Beastly Gerbil

3:29 PM

@Sid yes he is

Rand al'Thor

@BeastlyGerbil Could be a troll.

Does his answer make sense, apart from those last couple of lines?

Beastly Gerbil

I don't really understand what he is saying

Ankoganit

@BeastlyGerbil BTW how do we know Ricky was the encoder?

Beastly Gerbil

If the note was simply in latin, people would have picked up on that

@Ankoganit good point, from what I remember he struggled to write, and that was his handwriting - rather scrawled

Rand al'Thor

Time to post it on Latin Language SE! :-P

Beastly Gerbil

3:33 PM

He's wrong anyway, it doesn't mean anything in latin

Ankoganit

What about this theory: some crazy puzzler murdered Ricky and put some code in his pocket to show off his puzzling prowess, and years later joined PSE under the PSEudonym joseph querry.

Rand al'Thor

@BeastlyGerbil So it's nonsense? I'll VTD then.

@Ankoganit Rofl at PSEudonym :-D

Beastly Gerbil

@Ankoganit :P

@Randal'Thor how much rep do you need to VTD?

Rand al'Thor

@BeastlyGerbil Lots.

:-P

Serious answer: 20k.

Beastly Gerbil

Ah ok...

NEXT TARGET!!! :P

Rand al'Thor

3:36 PM

Which is unfortunate, since one of our 20k-ers has disappeared and another is a mod.

So I'm quite glad that Gareth got there.

Means we can share out the work of answer deletion a bit more.

Ankoganit

That reminds me, I need to get to rep-chasing again.

Beastly Gerbil

With the help of a controversial 500 bounty :P

Sid

@Randal'Thor No.1:Newfoundland?

Beastly Gerbil

I can only VTD questions once they have been closed for 2 days...

Rand al'Thor

@Sid Close ...

@BeastlyGerbil 10k powers are the best. You don't gain that much more at 20k.

Sphinx

3:40 PM

2

Q: Which countries are these, and who's the missing man?

Identify each country in the following list, and then work out what they all have in common. A little piece of Europe by a newly discovered island. An Arab state with power beyond its size. A former colony that waves a rifle proudly. A nation wracked by war, which sounds much like its neighbour...

pattern geography

Rand al'Thor

@Sphinx You dozy beast - it's already got 2 answers by the time you get round to posting a link!

Beastly Gerbil

ANd 15k is protect questions right?

Rand al'Thor

@BeastlyGerbil Yeah, I think so. 15k and 25k powers are both very meh.

Oct 11 at 11:56, by Gareth McCaughan

I now have the awesome power to PROTECT QUESTIONS. Fear me. Fear me, I say!

Beastly Gerbil

:P

Ankoganit

SPHINX would make a nice subject for a CCCC

I'd clue it as SPH in X, so that people are trolled by the 'in' and think of container-contained stuff

Beastly Gerbil

3:44 PM

Well we still got @Sconibulus's monster CCCC before hand...

Ankoganit

X would be unknown, so it's "SPH in unknown imaginary creature"

Now I must find a way to clue SPH

Rand al'Thor

The western hemisphere in a cross posts puzzles (6).

Ankoganit

@Randal'Thor western hemisphere?

Rand al'Thor

@Ankoganit Western (left) half of "sphere".

Beastly Gerbil

Oh clever

Ankoganit

3:45 PM

@Randal'Thor ooh, that's clever!

Rand al'Thor

:-D

Sid

@Randal'Thor So, the 1st clue does not contain "Q"?

Rand al'Thor

Dunno if it would meet @Deusovi's exacting standards for crossword clues though.

@Sid Who says?

Sid

Well, you have apparently omitted something...

Rand al'Thor

It's too early for me to start giving hints.

Sid

3:49 PM

Thanks to your puzzle, I see some interesting results in google..

Rand al'Thor

What sort of interesting?

Sid

This: dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2259842/… And this too: time.com/3825100/man-claims-new-country-europe

Ankoganit

Hmm, so the next topic challenge is animals?

Rand al'Thor

Yay!

Ankoganit

And if all goes well, wordplay is the next one!

Rand al'Thor

4:01 PM

I really like these tags like geography and animals which encourage us to create pretty much free-style puzzles with the only restriction being a particular surface theme.

Beastly Gerbil

Yeah, I might actually have a suggestion used! :P

Ankoganit

Hmm, if BG's suggestion is used, and his meta post is deleted, will he lose his Nice Answer badge?

Sid

I don't think that happens...

Ankoganit

Okay, yeah right

Rand al'Thor

@Ankoganit You don't lose badges, except tag badges or under special circumstances (e.g. if you cheated massively to get them in the first place, or if you only get them due to a bug).

Beastly Gerbil

4:04 PM

i got a necromancer badge too

Ankoganit

@Randal'Thor i see.

Mithrandir

@Displayname That's the one.

Sid

We don't have an animals tag... It's only in meta..

Ankoganit

@Sid Then we'll make one!

Rand al'Thor

4:19 PM

@Sid We do now :-)

puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/tagged/animals

Sumurai8

@BeastlyGerbil This question makes me hope people don't find me dead after I cycle home from work. I sometimes travel with rather cryptic A4 papers detailing some set-up for a puzzle. - Also I would not like to get murdered, but that's unrelated :P

Rand al'Thor

4:41 PM

I just posted a suggestion along these lines to the Fortnightly Topic Challenge thread. What do you think? — rand al'thor 9 secs ago

Display name

@Randal'Thor If it's valid, we should definitely make sure that every question in the list clearly links to the topic post in it's body, otherwise people who don't know about it have a disadvantage.

Beastly Gerbil

Er that is incredibly specific. I don't we'd get a range of puzzles for that

Rand al'Thor

OMFG, this puzzle is awesome.

@Displayname Yeah. I was imagining each puzzle to actually say in the body text that the hidden message is an Einstein quote.

@BeastlyGerbil Actually it's incredibly broad - have you any idea how many quotes have been attributed to Einstein on the internet? :-P

7

Q: Should we limit [quote] questions?

I'm tired and grumpy, but not sleepy. Probably not a good time to exercise mod powers. So, instead, I will have a bit of a whinge here, to see if anyone else agrees with me, or has suggestions on whether it needs fixing. Back in February, I whined on chat: I'm bored of "Did Einstein really s...

discussion scope questions quotes

Beastly Gerbil

Yes but I mean, people don't have much space to work with there. Most of the puzzles will be the same, a lengthy block with some hidden message with an einstein quote.

Rand al'Thor

I could change the limit to 1000 words if you reckon that'd be better.

Beastly Gerbil

4:48 PM

Its not the word limit. I think it would be better if you just did 'A steganographic puzzle involving an einstein quote'. People would have room to work with then

Rand al'Thor

@BeastlyGerbil I.e. remove the word limit altogether?

I mean, the only difference between that and my suggestion is the word limit, right?

Beastly Gerbil

Yeah, or better remove the story part

You've kind of given three tags - story, steganography and einstein. It would work better with just steganography and einstein. Otherwise its too specific, we want a variety of puzzle for the challenge

Rand al'Thor

Einstein isn't a tag, just a broad theme.

And I think part of the point of GPR's idea is to make a pretty specific challenge.

Beastly Gerbil

yeah but I imagine it would become a tag if the challenge went ahead

I'd say its too specific at the moment.

Rand al'Thor

Maybe I'll leave it as-is to be voted on, and then maybe delete it and re-post a broader version later if everyone else agrees with you.

After all, downvotes on this will tell us something useful, and don't hurt me in any way.

Beastly Gerbil

4:54 PM

Yeah thats a good thing about meta

Rand al'Thor

Same with that question about duplicate riddles. I'm glad the voting and consensus has been so clear, and not at all upset that my answer scores -8.

@BeastlyGerbil Also, don't forget that the original suggestion by GPR was even more specific!

One particular quote rather than just "any Einstein quote".

Beastly Gerbil

What was it?

Rand al'Thor

> Create a story of no more than 500 words containing the following quotation hidden steganographically, along with enough clues to locate it: "Problems are not stop signs, they are guidelines."

Beastly Gerbil

Oh ok, yeah way too specific

i mean people would know what to look for before even solving it

Rand al'Thor

I picked that suggestion because it was the least specific of the three in GPR's post.

And then made it even less specific.

Beastly Gerbil

5:35 PM

Posted the first wrap-up

incesterror21

Good morning! Anyone here?

Beastly Gerbil

Yep

Although its not morning for me :P

incesterror21

I see. So what's going on letely?

Beastly Gerbil

Not much. Its quiet over the weekends...

incesterror21

I think I just saw one of your questions

With 91 upvotes?

Beastly Gerbil

5:44 PM

Yeah, just posted a wrap-up for it

incesterror21

Impressive

How could you get so many votes.

Beastly Gerbil

Working on one for the sequel now...

incesterror21

Looking at the chat room I can hardly believe that there are actually more than 90 people active

Beastly Gerbil

(First Wrap-up)

Display name

Make a good puzzle, post it during the week and hope that it gets on the HNQ list :P

Beastly Gerbil

5:46 PM

Yeah :P I'm hoping SYW gets to 10k views too, think its still on HNQ

incesterror21

HNQ is what?

Rand al'Thor

@incesterror21 Most people never (or hardly ever) come to chat.

Display name

@incesterror21 stackexchange.com/questions?tab=hot

Beastly Gerbil

@incesterror21 its basically the best questions on SE in a liist

Display name

Also found on the right sidebar "Hot Network Questions"

Rand al'Thor

5:47 PM

This place (the Sphinx's Lair) used to be almost completely dead, for a year or more, even while the site was busy enough to graduate.

Until I came and brought it back to life :-D

incesterror21

Dead? You mean no active users?

Oh you are a life saver then!

Beastly Gerbil

This has actually been a pretty active weekend for Puzzling

incesterror21

Just noticed that you are also a mod because of your blue name. Is that correct?

Rand al'Thor

@incesterror21 Pretty much. I think the room literally auto-froze a few times due to nobody posting in it for a 2-week stretch.

@incesterror21 Yes, but not on Puzzling.

On Science Fiction & Fantasy.

incesterror21

I thought the mods are displayed as such only on their respective sites

Beastly Gerbil

5:49 PM

Not in chat

incesterror21

But it seems chat room is no mans land

Rand al'Thor

On main sites, yes. But mods on any site are mods in all of chat.

incesterror21

So in a chat room you have all the same mod tools

Beastly Gerbil

I find it interesting that SO and other top sites have so many mods, and that mods don't get replaced

Rand al'Thor

There are a few site-specific mod powers even in chat. For instance, I can't see the Puzzling mods' private room where they slag me off :-P

@BeastlyGerbil SO is on a different scale from any other site. I believe they have more questions than all the other 150 sites put together.

incesterror21

5:50 PM

Can't you change your name to Desuovi and get in there undercover?

Rand al'Thor

Possibly even more questions than all the other sites have questions and answers total.

@incesterror21 Nah, it's not that easy :-P

Beastly Gerbil

yeah I suppose. I mean a new question gets posted every two seconds there

incesterror21

I thought you might be able to do it since your name is blue already

Rand al'Thor

@incesterror21 I'm only a mod in chat as long as my chat parent user is on SFF.

If I changed it to Puzzling, I wouldn't be blue any more.

incesterror21

This is getting too complicated.

Beastly Gerbil

5:53 PM

:P

Parent user is like the site you are most important on

incesterror21

What if someone has their parent user on parenting.stackexchange?

Rand al'Thor

@BeastlyGerbil Not necessarily; you can set it to whatever you want.

Beastly Gerbil

Mine is Puzzling (mutters 'traitor Rand' under breath) :P

incesterror21

Or their parent's parent user on parenting.stackexchange

Rand al'Thor

My chat parent user was SFF even when I had 20k rep here and only a few k there.

Because SFF chat was way more active.

I've been a regular in Mos Eisley since I was a wet-behind-the-ears noob on SFF.

incesterror21

5:54 PM

"only a few k" - that is a lot IMO

Rand al'Thor

Well ...

:-)

incesterror21

It seems it's hard to get a lot of rep with puzzles

Rand al'Thor

It's all relative

If I post a few more messages ...

in succession

<------

Beastly Gerbil

@incesterror21 well you can't just post a couple of puzzles and expect to be on 5k rep. It takes a lot of posts and dedication...

Rand al'Thor

There, now you can see my total network-wide rep.

Beastly Gerbil

5:56 PM

@Randal'Thor I think

I'm

On

12.4k <-

Oh yes what a guess!

Rand al'Thor

But I still remember the days when I had just a few hundred rep on SFF and less than that everywhere else, and never dreamed of getting even as much as 1k.

incesterror21

So someone only good at writing or solving riddles would have a hard time to be a top user

Rand al'Thor

I've always been nice to new users, because I still remember what it was like to be one.

incesterror21

They want more the allrounder type here

Rand al'Thor

@incesterror21 Not necessarily.

Display name

5:57 PM

Gareth McCaughan

21.6k 1 54 106

riddle mathematics cipher wordplay logical-deduction word story

Beastly Gerbil

@incesterror21 no a lot of top users specialise in certain areas

incesterror21

@Randal'Thor Is it such an unsual thing if someone is being nice to new users or why are you mentioning it explicitly?

Rand al'Thor

in Mos Eisley, May 2 at 1:47, by Rand al'Thor

18 mins ago, by Rand al'Thor

Sep 8 '15 at 12:18, by rand al'thor

IME there are two ways of earning rep on SE: be better than everyone else at answering a particular kind of question (like @Slytherincess, @Thaddeus, @DarthMelkor), or just answer everything, often as soon as the question appears (like @Richard and maybe @DVK).

Display name

@incesterror21 It definitely is on StackOverflow, lol

Rand al'Thor

(Those specific people are all SFF-ers, but the same principle applies everywhere.)

Beastly Gerbil

5:59 PM

Yeah Gareth is a answer everything just after its posted

Rand al'Thor

1501

Q: Could we please be a bit nicer to new users?

There is a distinct decline in the level of civility on all the sites here. Some of this is due to new users coming in and posting spam and other nonsense, but the off-topic and downvote buttons are doing a pretty good job of keeping this under control. Unfortunately, a lot of this is coming ...

discussion etiquette new-users behavior

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