Or a puzzle can be more difficult than interesting, in which case someone who manages to solve it deserves credit. For instance puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/111996/… where the cipher itself isn't super-interesting and furthermore contains at least one mistake; the mistake makes the puzzle less worthy of admiration but the solution more.
@GarethMcCaughan requesting [faq] (and possibly [featured], to get attention, as it won't HMP by itself) for this. Rand wants this and this FAQ-ized :) if you may
The comment chain here seems entirely off-topic and conversational?
@bobble I've added faq to your post. I agree that something about mathematical puzzles should be faq-tagged but I'm not sure whether the specific one Rand allegedly wants it done to is the best; e.g., puzzling.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/6030/… is more recent. The "speculative" one seems like a question that deserves to be in a FAQ but that particular answer, though it's not wrong in any way, doesn't feel to me as if [... continues]
... it would necessarily actually clarify things much for a typical person asking the question.
@bobble Yes, it's conversational. No, it's not off topic. I can't see how PSE would be improved by either deleting those comments or moving them into their own tiny little chat.
@GarethMcCaughan (I guess Ill ping u cause ur the only one thats kinda here) Can you please do something with this comment thread? The rudeness and stubbornness of his behaviour is driving me crazy.
They're right in that way: the discussion would not be occurring without the active participation of multiple parties.
You've also said two things in that comment thread I disagree with: one, that "Gareth means that the answer shouldn't be -2, but lower" - he pretty surely means that he thinks it should be higher, because "to [his] mind, this answer is useful and answers something OP was asking", and two, that it would be useful to ask for downvoters to give their reasons.
(Rain) I don't think I will; I'd rather stay. After all, you're wasting your whole damn day. Stay inside and you might study harder; though that's in doubt since a snail would be smarter.
(Kid) You come down from the clouds like a Debbie Downer; keep your wife inside cause you just might drown 'er. You hit the ground but you don't make a splash; your life is less meaningful than literal trash.
(Sun) Remember me? Hope you haven't forgotten; Your color is gray because you're so rotten; Once you dissapear, I'll come from the rear; Let the kids play in white like cotton
(Rain) I keep the world alive - people pray for me; I've been around for centuries. Your life is short but your wit is shorter; I could buy your whole future for less than a quarter.
(Kid) You come and you go but you never commit, and you're just totally full of it. You ain't no hero - dreary days can tell - you're an absolute zero coming straight from hell.
(Ocean) Sun, do you forget? I'm the real mastermind here; Time to educate you this time my dear; Rain comes from me, simple science; Together we make a strong alliance; Get rid of the rain, you need to get rid of me; Is it possible? Not really...
(Rain) I may not be a hero like Mr. Stark, but the last time that I stayed y'all kids needed an Ark. You, though, dream of wasting your time; your friends will leave and you'll earn not a dime.
(Beach) Rain is good or evil, it's not our buisness; Though the ocean is a good blue like the sky on Christmas; The ocean causes erosion; But it sends our sand into graceful motion; Our frenemy, that is, the rain is just like this; Is it good or bad?; Thinking about it makes us mad
(Kid) Don't look down on my chances; I'm quite adept. My finances will be larger than you've ever kept. My dear sweetie pie, hate to break it to you honey, but it's just the truth that rain can't own money.
(Flowers) The rain is our friend, young child; The water he gives us is oh so mild; So shut up my dear; We have lives too right here; Your attitude is just so wild!
(Neighbor) Hey young child, keep talking that stuff; My wife just got electrocuted and it's rough; The rain got her; Her hair dryer cable went BRRRRRR; If the rain would come here I'd beat 'em up tough!
(Kid) Water's important (here's confirmation) - but what about irrigation? You think you're a hotshot but you're so clearly not. Give me a break so I can catch your train of thought; 'cause all the other water is what you forgot. You boast up to the sky like you belong up there; but the truth pulls you down from your seat in the air.
(Vegetables) Unfortunately, we to agree with the flowers; Keep talking that shit and your brain gets smaller; We need the rain; Though we know it gives you pain; Irrigation isn't that important because making it makes pollution
(Rain) You think you're so smart but you're just a little tyke; I've seen and survived even a lightning strike. Go back to the classroom and take a test; your roasts are wet and you're just a pest.
(Lightning) Mr Rain, sir, I hate you so much; When brewing up your storm it's as annoying as such; Even if I cease to exist, I won't even resist; Thunder is my shitty enemy because the noise destroys my aural faculty
(Kid) You act like I'm bad but you're just sad. Your logic is comic and your insults don't poke. Your roasts never started 'cause they went up in smoke. Your pitter patter's on a pity platter and I've rained harder on an empty bladder.
(Fish) The ocean loves us, we live in peace; You, young child, roasts the rain like you roast grease; Our alliance saves our beautiful reliance; The rain and our ocean will shut you to silence
@GarethMcCaughan I saw that you faqed up (if you'll pardon the vulgar pun) bobble's post and actually came here to ping you about faq-proposed; good thing I read up in the transcript before pinging :-)
For the maths close reason, this is not only the original post (where the close reason was first formulated) but also a clear explanation of exactly what distinguishes on-topic from off-topic wrt maths problems/puzzles. Your later meta post is more of a tweak to an existing policy, IMO only worth faqing if in combination with the original post that created the policy.
For the subjective close reason, I disagree about this answer: it explains not only that those questions are off-topic but why they're off-topic. It looks as though it was actually created as a FAQ-type post by one of the pro-tem mods, who simply omitted to add the faq tag.
(Rain) You think you're so wild but you're just a child; when you try to rile it speaks of no style. My elegance is royal but your speech is like soil; how do you hurt when your insults are dirt?
(Fire) Well I hate the rain, and that's that; I start a disaster and the rain makes me go splat; Who needs forests anyways; Burning those make up our days; We'll burn the forests like we burn up a rat!
@GarethMcCaughan FWIW, back in '17 I gathered a list here of FAQ-proposed posts, but nothing was ever done about it. Needs updating now, of course, but some of them could still be worth faqing up.
@Stevo Yeah, I typed all of what I wanted to type so that it could be together in a block and I wouldn't need to multi-ping Gareth among many unrelated messages from you guys.
(and then of course remembered another thing and did have to ping him again)
(Sun) Remember me? Hope you haven't forgotten; Your color is gray because you're so rotten; Once you dissapear, I'll come from the rear; Let the kids play in white like cotton
(Sun) What's all this dilly dally; You, Mr Rain, don't even sound like Elvis Priestly; So stop with those roasts; I'll roast you so hard you shan't boast; Your roasts are so bad they're trashy and shitty
And the al'Thor, never straying, still is staying, still is staying, on the random pic of Randal just above your chatroom here; and his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming ...
Found a X-Wing pattern using 1's on r29c48 and eliminated the 1's on r1c8, r3c8, r7c8, and r3c4. Lots of elimination but that was not helpful for me to crack it.
I think I am very close to solve the puzzle but there is one logic which stops me at the moment. Would be helpful if you could solve...
speaking of the c4, i want "also losing a hand" to be (-a,l)SO but that's probably not it since i can't find a synonym of "bind" or "extract" that contains SO
New musical Little Nightmares character: "Super small!" So, I like intervening beginning company of fiery mountain problem Open Systems Interconnection inside is long (45) I now hold the record for the worst surfaced CC ever
@Randal'Thor Yes, the meta post you linked was the first one about mathematical questions, and I agree that xnor's answer does a lovely job of explaining a key distinction. But there are something like six different meta questions on this topic, each of them contributing something; the last one (mine) is the one that actually states explicitly what the policy is. Maybe I should write yet another meta post whose goal is to integrate what all the others say for FAQ purposes ...
... but that feels just a little too much like xkcd.com/927 .
@Randal'Thor I didn't mean to imply that the answer literally doesn't answer the question. But I suspect that most people in the situation implied by the question aren't entirely clear in their minds about exactly what constitutes "these types of questions" (the first words of user20's answer), and the answer doesn't really help much with that.
@Randal'Thor Nice list! I agree that (1) we should have more tagged faq, (2) that list would be an excellent start to figuring out what, and (3) it could use some updating.
I am looking for 6 different country names
1 Take a country name and take out
a number
you will get another country name
2 Take a country name and take out
three numbers
you will get another country name
3 Take a country name and take out
several numbers (not necessarily different)
you will get ...
I said "something like six different meta questions on this topic". I had a look, and actually found sixteen. I am writing up a sort of "brief history of PSE's policy on mathematical questions" (that makes it sound a bit too grand; it's basically just a timeline of those meta questions with comments on each) which might be worth "faq-ing up", as Rand puts it.
It might begin with "The Picture of Dorian Gray" and an Aeolian harp, but continuing that list seems like it would be troublesome. — Gareth McCaughan ♦15 hours ago
@GarethMcCaughan Okay, I'm feeling incredibly dimwitted right now... With 5 upvotes on the comment already, 5 other people can clearly see what I can't. What am I missing here?? :)
In a contest there are 10 questions asked, which have to be marked as true (t) or false (f).
You get 1 point for a correct answer and 0 points for a wrong answer.
Joe, Jack, William, and Averell are answering the questions as follows:
name 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Joe t t t f t t f f t t
Jac...
I confirm Jafe's interpretation. (And the further joke is that the others all have names like "Phrygian" and "Mixolydian" which would make it pretty difficult finding plausible things to buy.)
It seems like PSE's policy on mathematical questions is kinda complicated
and has changed over time. What exactly is the policy, and what's the
history that led to it?
(There are already lots of Puzzling Meta questions on this topic. The
purpose of this one, or more precisely of the answer to it ...
@Randal'Thor I'm not trying to understand it clearly, I am trying to extract any useful meaning at all. They clearly direct a message at me and I would like the barest hint as to what it was.
@PuzzlingMeta @GarethMcCaughan I'd quibble and say this is more [support] than [discussion], but the way the tags are lets it get to Hot Meta Posts which will give it more attention thus I'll refrain.
This is an interesting puzzle which I've been racking my brain to solve for some time. I've found different variations of this puzzle but it does not seem like this one has been asked before. Here it goes:
I'm thinking of 3 different numbers from 1, 2, ..., 15. You know that the largest number is...
What letter replaces '?' in the stack? How do you arrive at it?
Found a X-Wing pattern using 1's on r29c48 and eliminated the 1's on r1c8, r3c8, r7c8, and r3c4. Lots of elimination but that was not helpful for me to crack it.
I think I am very close to solve the puzzle but there is one logic which stops me at the moment. Would be helpful if you could solve...
In a contest there are 10 questions asked, which have to be marked as true (t) or false (f).
You get 1 point for a correct answer and 0 points for a wrong answer.
Joe, Jack, William, and Averell are answering the questions as follows:
name 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Joe t t t f t t f f t t
Jac...
So what is the meaning of these pictures?
Try figure out the answer to this puzzle. The answer is 13 letters in total.
