(I can tell him how to solve it, but if it's anything homework-like he'll gain more from figuring it out himself and maybe I should just give him a hint.)
Here's the other question he's asked. Again, works OK as a puzzle but could easily be homework from early in a course on combinatorics or something, and again it feels much more like "please help me solve this thing someone's asking me to do" than like "here's a fun puzzle".
And if it's just that he's run across these things as puzzles, fair enough, by all means let's help him, but it would be better not to do someone's mathematics exercises.
Looking at both questions, it definitely looks like he "came across" existing puzzles and is asking for help to solve. Whether he "came across" them during course work is hard to tell... On the plus side, even if it is homework, in both examples it appears as though he is at least trying to solve/understand on his own, and is looking for actual assistance/clarification, rather than looking for someone to just do his work
yeah, that's the key distinction. Does he want help because he wants to understand, or does he want help because he wants someone else to do the work for him? (And: Is he going to be assessed on this?)
In which case, I think for the latest one I will post an answer that just says "Parity". (Well, with a few more words to explain why I'm not solving it outright for him :-).)
Of course there's always the possibility that some drive-by rep-farmer will come along and post an actual solution, though I have some hope that knowing how to solve that sort of problem anticorrelates with drive-by rep-farming.
aha, we have a "confession": http://puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/46238/is-it-possible-that-the-last-piece-the-ant-has-eaten-is-the-central-one#comment140076_46239 It is indeed homework.
Let's hope my super-brief hint is helpful but not too helpflu.
so, the CCCC. "French and co." Of course the "and co." might be something entirely separate from the "French". So what could "French" be doing here? It's the name of a language and a nationality. There's French polishing (a way of getting a very shiny surface on wood), frenching in cookery (splitting up meat and exposing a bone), French kissing. Dawn French. Percy French. Actually quite a lot of other people called French.
None of which seems super-helpful. The first bit could just indicate FRCO, which stands for "Fellow of the Royal College of Organists" but I can't think why organists would sound as if they have no high tea.
"sound like they have no high tea" -> "no IT" -> something kinda-luddite/Amish/old? (I don't find that plausible; just throwing ideas against the wall in case any stick.)
"French and co.", if it's a unit, could also be "FETC" which stands for various things none of which sounds no-high-tea-ish to me.
though some are explicitly technological and I suppose you could make it "know IT" but I think that would be too much of a stretch in multiple ways.
As a user who's spent most of my time over on stackoverflow, I'm very familiar with the concept of homework questions being asked on stack exchange sites. For a while there was a vicious commenting/downvote pattern going on, and ultimately [homework] questions were tagged as such, and users coul...
Heh.. re: my comment about getting votes on old posts the other day. I just got an accepted tick on an answer over on SO that is literally 3 years old. Guess it took a little while to validate my suggestion. :)
@Techidiot I confess I became somewhat less interested in that question when I saw the game-jam hint, because that makes it more likely that the question is basically "do you know the same video game trivia as me?".
though I'm still somewhat hopeful that it's better than that
(the story is nicely told and it would be a shame to see such polish wasted on something that turns out to be a pure guess-what-I'm-thinking question about something obscure)
Cor, someone downvoted my answer to the ant-in-a-cube puzzle. I wonder whether it's because they think it's bad to post something as an answer that doesn't actually have an answer to the question in it, or (exactly the opposite) because they think it's bad to give any help at all on someone's homework.
(Or because they just don't like me, but most of my answers don't get downvoted so it's probably not that.)
I guess I'll adjust my future behaviour in two opposite directions in the light of this feedback :-).
@LukasRotter I suppose. I also wanted something prominent that would be seen by other people before they came in and gave a complete answer.
Because I think the temptation could be large, and it would be better for everyone if it weren't indulged :-).
And, thinking in terms of incentives, if you come along and see this question and it has no answers you might well answer it before even reading the small-print rot13 comments; whereas if you see it already has an answer with a bunch of upvotes you'll probably at least look at that answer before posting yours.
(because in the former case you want to get in there and get the sweet, sweet rep before anyone else does, and how the heck has this easy question not been answered by now anyway?; and in the latter case your prospects are not so good and yours won't be the first answer in any case.)
While that makes perfect sense in a "strategic" point of view (i.e. it is homework and you don't want the OP to get the solution right away), I personally strictly go after some critera when up-/down-voting an answer, and your answer met the "Not an answer" one. If the OP was explicitly asking for hints in the question, I wouldn't have downvoted.
I try to follow this criteria in order to prevent as much hypocrisy/subjectivity as possible on my part. (although that doesn't always work, there are some downvotes from me I'm not exactly proud of :P)
Depends on what exactly you mean by image (not everyone defines it the same). But if it's "A puzzle that incorporates a visual component", it would certainly fit.
The fact that a URL is sometimes informally called a web address doesn't mean that "informal web" can mean "URL".
I mean, obviously it wasn't too difficult since both Sconibulus and Levieux (and maybe others) solved it, but I don't think it actually makes sense. Sorry!
Sid regredfully informs the one who has reached this far that he won't be able to accept your answer right now. Sid also wishes the site the best for its future as it is becoming increasingly likely that he wont be part of the site in the near future
@Sconibulus Nice! Deleted in less than 2 minutes by 6 spam flags. (I only recognized the name of one of the flaggers; I guess there are a lot of lurkers that know spam when they see it!).
One community wiki is probably enough, looking at your answer, the only particularly helpful thing I did I think is linking to a Conversation, rather than the full chat
Although, one of the benefits of community wiki is that ownership is basically revoked, so there's much less stigma for non-poster edits
@GentlePurpleRain So my call to arms was useless? :) Good to know
not exactly? I kinda just replaced the pre-image one stuff of mine with his
The explanations for clueset 2 didn't seem lovely enough to merge, and our decryption stuff was basically identical
I was initially going to mess with his and delete mine, but then I noticed that his wasn't actually a Community Wiki and thought that didn't seem right
Started making 'This is it. This is the one. Save your wife.'. Kind of realised I'd left the other on a bit of a cliffhanger. Got some good ideas though...
