The Sphinx's Lair

user230888

11:06 AM

How do you add big question links like that with a picture ? Postung just the link doesn't makes the question link look like that.

Rand al'Thor

3:30 PM

@BeechwoodReview I just sent you an email with a list of a few of my favourite puzzles here.

GentlePurpleRain

3:46 PM

@tpk If you post the link by itself in a message, it gets turned into a "onebox" like that.

Maria Deleva

4:42 PM

It has been really quiet here today

Rosie F

4:59 PM

@MariaDeleva Yes, unusually quiet for a weekday afternoon (I'm in Britain).

Maria Deleva

I guess people are working hard :)

dcfyj

maybe they're waiting to chat about my upcoming part 3? :P haha yeah, right.

Maria Deleva

and how come nobody connected the dots on my crazy lady puzzle? :)

dcfyj

I have no idea what you're talking about.

Maria Deleva

6

Q: A strange crazy lady and her ramblings

I met a strange lady yesterday. She started talking to me and said the weirdest thing: "I have been boiling cats to get cows. Six cats for a cow, you know? But nothing happened." I was wondering what she expected at all, but remained silent. She continued with the non-sense: "Then...

dcfyj

5:07 PM

You changed your name to M D but you didn't?

Maria Deleva

Well, I guess the chat profile is separate

dcfyj

and the network profile from the look of it.

Maria Deleva

yes.

Rand al'Thor

@MariaDeleva Your chat profile is still parented to SO, where you still have the old username. But you can change your chat parent user to Puzzling very easily if you want to, and then you'll be M D here too.

Maria Deleva

Well, this morning I was wondering whether I should keep my profile at all.

I still haven't decided

Rand al'Thor

5:10 PM

Why? :-(

dcfyj

Why's that?

Maria Deleva

because of what happened yesterday - it was really hurtful to me

dcfyj

something happened? I must admit I'm clueless, I didn't get on the last couple days.

If you don't want to talk about it that's fine, it's not really my business, just curious.

Maria Deleva

This happened: puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/42746/…

That's why I actually changed my name here

dcfyj

Oh that... Yeah, I looked at that earlier this morning, I didn't realize who MD was at the time, but still thought that he's being a jerk.

Maria Deleva

5:16 PM

Perhaps I am too sensitive...

Rosie F

@MariaDeleva Don't worry about it. That question's been voted -16. So at least 16 people think he was a jerk. It'll get forgotten about.

dcfyj

He is being rather rude. Personally I would probably be annoyed, but would probably do nothing much more than that, but I can see how that can be quite hurtful.

Maria Deleva

That did make me feel a little better.

Rand al'Thor

@MariaDeleva :'( Please try not to let it get to you. I've enjoyed your puzzles here, and it would be a real shame to lose you.

9

Maria Deleva

Thanks. I appreciate it, really.

Sconibulus

5:19 PM

I'm... not certain why that was undeleted, to be honest

it's pretty rude, which is one of the delete reasons, right?

dcfyj

@Deusovi both deleted and undeleted the question, I would venture he'd be the best one to ask about that.

Rand al'Thor

4

Q: What makes a post a joke?

My carefully designed puzzle What is a Xilly word? with a tons of clues, historical as well as contemporary references, (and of course, red herrings) was removed at the moderator's discretion (what I am no way challenging at all: they are here to make these kind of decisions). The comment was: ...

discussion support status-completed

Sconibulus

@Randal'Thor yeah, that defends that it is a puzzle, which means it isn't off-topic... but off-topic is a reason to close more than delete. It's still really rude, which is a reason to delete, but not close.

Maria Deleva

Well, he claims it was not intended as such, although I don't think this is the case.

Anyway, I think the crazy lady is more interesting than this :)

Rand al'Thor

Who are you calling a crazy lady - Rosie F? :-P

dcfyj

5:29 PM

"...carrying essentially the same message..." sounds to me like he really wants to say something and is using a puzzle as the means. And a little earlier he says "...it was a humurous twist...not intended as a joke..." I don't think this is/was done in jest.

Lukas Rotter

Although I give him the benefit of the doubt that he wasn't trying to be rude, his choice of words make me feel like he's being sarcastic: "My carefully designed puzzle What is a Xilly word? with a tons of clues, historical as well as contemporary references, (and of course, red herrings)" I will judge as soon as the intended solution is posted.

Maria Deleva

No, not her :) My crazy lady :P

Rosie F

6

Q: A strange crazy lady and her ramblings

I met a strange lady yesterday. She started talking to me and said the weirdest thing: "I have been boiling cats to get cows. Six cats for a cow, you know? But nothing happened." I was wondering what she expected at all, but remained silent. She continued with the non-sense: "Then...

enigmatic-puzzle story history

Rand al'Thor

Yeah, I know - was just being silly :-)

Sconibulus

Oh, I thought for sure that one was solved

Maria Deleva

5:31 PM

I thought it would be solved faster as well :) I guess I was wrong

Let's just say that the last clue could be 6,5 6,6 or 7,6 depending on plural/singular :)

Rand al'Thor

@Maria So how many clues are there - seven in total, or is it eight?

Maria Deleva

7 in total

And they are all connected somehow. Question is: how?

dcfyj

They're all words :P

Maria Deleva

Hahah. If you look further - most of them could also be eaten (except for knives - nobody eats knives, lol). But so what? :)

Rand al'Thor

And are all the found clues so far correct? (except the sea snails one which hasn't really been nailed down)

Maria Deleva

5:41 PM

Yes, they are correct

so it is possible to work backwards - from the final solution to the sea snails

dcfyj

@MariaDeleva Gajeel would eat knives :P

Rand al'Thor

Cattle, crops, tea, peppercorns, ??, knives, salt.

Maybe the crazy lady is telling you to lay the table for dinner!

dcfyj

Maybe it's tea and crumpets?

Although I'll be honest and say I've little idea what a crumpet is.

Maria Deleva

@Randal'Thor :) maybe :) But then what is the history tag for?

dcfyj

This might be of interest to some, I know I'm glad.

Maria Deleva

5:47 PM

It makes me feel a little better.

I'd try to forget about it

Sconibulus

Bubble Conch?

Maria Deleva

Nope, not bubble conch.

The words in the clue are important :)

dcfyj

Diloma Arida?

Maria Deleva

No. You are missing something from the clue.

dcfyj

no idea, I just know it's a sea snail with 6 and 5 lol

Maria Deleva

5:56 PM

But perhaps at this point it could be easier to work backwards?

Because it would give you another way to reach the answer :)

dcfyj

I'd have to know the end goal for that :(

Sconibulus

Echoless makes me think Silent or something related to Narcissa/us/ism

dcfyj

And as I've determined over the last few months, I suck at solving

Gareth McCaughan

The clue looks as if (1) "swirls" should indicate an anagram and (2) "echoless", if it isn't just a source of letters for wordplay, might indicate e.g. that some repeated letters or sounds are to be removed. But I have so far failed to make it actually work.

Maria Deleva

Gareth you are on the right path

Gareth McCaughan

5:59 PM

None the less I suspect that it will in fact be easier to figure out what the connection is and then work back from that to guess what we're trying to do with the snails.

Beastly Gerbil

Hmm, okay I've run into a problem regarding my casino puzzle. One of my gif is 19MB, I can condense it at max down to 5MB and it's max 2MB on puzzling. I can't lose any frames in the gif. How can I fix this?

dcfyj

make two shorter gifs?

Beastly Gerbil

Wouldn't work

I'm going to try and video the gif playing - turn the video into a gif and see if it's less

Gareth McCaughan

or post the frames as individual images? (in which case they could be PNG or, depending, even JPEG, which would get you more compression as well as splitting things up)

dcfyj

@BeastlyGerbil I highly doubt it

Gareth McCaughan

6:01 PM

if a video will do then you could put it on YouTube or provide it in some video-specific format

in which case it'll be smaller because it can use inter-frame info

but also lower quality

Beastly Gerbil

@GarethMcCaughan, good idea, I'll keep that as plan B

Gareth McCaughan

gif -> video -> gif seems almost certain to make it worse rather than better

Beastly Gerbil

I'm not sure, the gif is composed of over a 100 high quality images, 1 high quality video might be less

dcfyj

@GarethMcCaughan interesting. Your image is kind of golden until it gets bigger, at which point it's purple and a completely different design.

Beastly Gerbil

And I can use online compressors as well

Will

6:05 PM

@dcfyj Possibly related to Why is my profile image different?

Maria Deleva

@dcfyj it happens sometimes - to have different gravatars at different places. It happened to me too. My bigger gravatar changed and because I liked this one, I took it and now it is a bit blurry

dcfyj

Probably

Maria Deleva

don't really know why this happens

Will

Also I'm not seeing that effect on Gareth's Gravatar

Beastly Gerbil

Thats why I have my own image :P

Will

6:07 PM

Your avatar scares me.

dcfyj

I got my own (which unbeknownst to me was actually from a puzzling answer) because I wanted a picture that I thought was more "me"

Beastly Gerbil

@Will, its actually just this image:

dcfyj

With a little photoplay

Maria Deleva

Well, I see it - in the messages section it is golden, and in the "who is in the room" section it is purple - the gravatar of Gareth.

Will

YES THAT SCARES ME.

Maria Deleva

6:08 PM

well, it looks cute

before all the photoshop :)

Will

One time I had a dream a horde of gerbils ambushed/surrounded and ate my pet hamster (I don't even have a pet hamster - but I want one) and woke up crying and gerbils have made me uncomfortable ever since.

Gareth McCaughan

I haven't done anything to make my gravatar behave in funny ways, and for me it's always a rather nasty yellow/green/brown colour, whatever size it is.

At some point I will probably make a new image but it's not exactly at the top of my list of priorities.

dcfyj

@GarethMcCaughan Do you mean in chat or period?

Will

It's unfortunate, since Rodentia is my favorite order.

Rand al'Thor

@GarethMcCaughan Yep, me too. I can't see purple anywhere.

This avatar bug is weird.

Gareth McCaughan

6:12 PM

@dcyfj hmm, I haven't actually checked non-chat; give me a moment

Maria Deleva

talking of dreams, I had a really strange one tonight. :) I dreamt that I was about to cut the hair of a lady (colored something between bright red and magenta) and she said: "I probably shouldn't cut my hair" I asked why and she answered "Pasta".

I guess I am as crazy as my crazy lady

Will

She has angel hair :)

Gareth McCaughan

huh. In some places outside chat I apparently have a different gravatar.

That's very strange.

Not that I have a very good handle on where they come from.

It doesn't seem to have anything to do with the size of it, though.

Maria Deleva

strangest thing is it becomes purple when it is bigger in chat

Rand al'Thor

@MariaDeleva She was probably a surrealist.

Gareth McCaughan

6:14 PM

I see the purple one on my question-answers and the snot-coloured one everywhere else.

Rand al'Thor

> How many surrealists does it take to change a light bulb?

> Fish.

2

dcfyj

@MariaDeleva It's the same one I see when I'm looking at his answers.

Gareth McCaughan

in chat, I can see it at three or four different sizes and none of them is purple

Will

same here

Gareth McCaughan

zooming in my web browser via ctrl+ and ctrl- doesn't change anything (but I wouldn't have expected it to)

Beastly Gerbil

6:15 PM

@Will, I kind of have to say your avatar scares me too, I mean a hamster pup? :P

Maria Deleva

here is what I see: imgur.com/oqYPBYY

Gareth McCaughan

gosh. Not for me.

dcfyj

@BeastlyGerbil Just look at its beady little eyes, staring at you, ready to comsume your soul at a moments notice

Beastly Gerbil

How on earth do you see that?

I just see the yellow when its enlarged

dcfyj

@MariaDeleva That's the same one I see when it's bigger in here and on @GarethMcCaughan's posts on main.

Beastly Gerbil

6:18 PM

'The Mystery of Gareth McCaughan' sounds like a good puzzle

Maria Deleva

Perhaps it could be location or cache based?

Who knows?

Will

@BeastlyGerbil Hamster young are called pups. It's a visual pun. :)

dcfyj

@BeastlyGerbil There you go @GarethMcCaughan you finally have something to make a puzzle with

Beastly Gerbil

Wow, you learn a new thing every day

dcfyj

@MariaDeleva I doubt it's location, as I recall you said you live in the UK, I'm in the US

Beastly Gerbil

6:19 PM

I'm UK and I don't see it

Maria Deleva

Nope, I am not in the UK, Rosie is. I am even farther than that from you - in Bulgaria

so it is cache

dcfyj

@MariaDeleva Oh sorry

Maria Deleva

No problem :)

Beastly Gerbil

Someone could pull of a great prank one day by simply changing their name and icon and then posting a puzzle

Damn I shouldn't have said that

Rand al'Thor

@BeastlyGerbil The rep score might give away their real identity though.

Lukas Rotter

6:22 PM

@BeastlyGerbil Or just look at their profile and recognise the puzzles immediately...

Rand al'Thor

Or at least, people would know it wasn't a new user.

Maria Deleva

:) If you remember the rep score of everyone

dcfyj

What if it happens to be someone that has the same rep?

Beastly Gerbil

If it was someone around 2-4k rep then no-one would really know

Rand al'Thor

True. It wouldn't work for me though :-P

Maria Deleva

6:23 PM

Nope, you are unique :)

dcfyj

@Randal'Thor f" is the only one that's even remotely close to you and he's 4k behind you

Beastly Gerbil

Nope, I believe you have now surpassed Gamow to become user with most rep on this site. Congratulations :P

Rand al'Thor

@BeastlyGerbil Not quite yet, but I will do tomorrow.

Lukas Rotter

Don't worry, Gamow will come back with even more Martins :P

dcfyj

Right, I forgot about Gamow, how much does he have anyhow?

Beastly Gerbil

6:25 PM

32k

dcfyj

So practically the same

Rand al'Thor

@dcfyj 32,228, last time I checked.

And I'm on 32,215 and repcapped for today.

dcfyj

so tomorrow then

Rand al'Thor

@LukasRotter Who knows whether he'll continue participating any more when he can't plagiarise and needs to rely on his imagination.

dcfyj

While a little harsh, quite true.

Maria Deleva

6:31 PM

I don't even know who Gamow is

Beastly Gerbil

I can't imagine that all of his rep came from plagiarism and sockpuppets

dcfyj

@MariaDeleva This guy

Wow, he had 202 questions and 191 answers? :S

Although @Randal'Thor has 108 questions and 390 answers :P

Maria Deleva

Wow

Beastly Gerbil

Well I still have a puzzle which has more upvotes than any of his answers or questions :P

Rand al'Thor

@BeastlyGerbil True. But remember that the rep which "came from" sockpuppets includes not only votes directly from the sockpuppets (if any) but also any rep from puzzles which the sock posted and he answered or the other way round.

Beastly Gerbil

6:34 PM

hmmm, clever

Rand al'Thor

@dcfyj And that doesn't even include the questions deleted due to plagiarism.

Beastly Gerbil

answering own puzzle without anyone knowing

Maria Deleva

Huh, that is no fun

Beastly Gerbil

Just looking for opinions, should I do a part 2 to 'This is it, This is the one, find your wife?' maybe 'This is it, This is the one, Save your wife?' I suppose we know where she is so the part 2 could be saving her

dcfyj

@BeastlyGerbil Pretty much ruins the fun of it. I like the challenge of making a solveable but difficult puzzle with which I can stump people with, although I haven't succeeded all that well on the stump part yet.

Beastly Gerbil

6:38 PM

really? Interesting

dcfyj

what is?

Beastly Gerbil

Your opinion

Maria Deleva

well, I don't think that a sequel could ruin it - it is a different puzzle

Just the same story

Beastly Gerbil

Thats what I think, I think I should, considering the puzzle isn't really complete

dcfyj

both of you should hover over the message, it's not directed at the last thing you said @BeastlyGerbil @MariaDeleva

Maria Deleva

6:39 PM

I would like it

Beastly Gerbil

Oh ok sorry @dcfyj

dcfyj

:P, I noticed you said something else before I had time to post, so I edited

Rand al'Thor

@BeastlyGerbil Except for this deleted one.

Beastly Gerbil

Wow that got deleted?

Maria Deleva

ah, I didn't know hovering over a message could show what it is a reply to

Beastly Gerbil

6:40 PM

Why?

dcfyj

@MariaDeleva yup, shows the whole chain of replies

Rand al'Thor

@BeastlyGerbil Plagiarism.

Beastly Gerbil

If that was plagiarised then it makes you wonder how many of his other puzzles are plagiarized without us knowing

dcfyj

I don't get why anyone would plagiarize a puzzle, if it's not on the site, and it's a good one. Post and cite it...

Beastly Gerbil

Yeah, he still would have got the upvotes

dcfyj

6:42 PM

Not like citing where it came from takes all that long

@BeastlyGerbil Perhaps not as many since it would be known that it wasn't an original

Maria Deleva

well, perhaps people are trying to look "clever"

dcfyj

@MariaDeleva And in my mind, thereby looking stupid if/when they get caught

Maria Deleva

true

Beastly Gerbil

Never try and claim someone else's work as you own. You'll get busted in the end

Maria Deleva

:)

Sconibulus

6:44 PM

If it's posted with a solution elsewhere, and you've changed it enough to render it unsearchable, I can kinda understand only partially crediting it until it gets answered

dcfyj

@BeastlyGerbil Thus why I said you should cite. If you look at my earliest questions I never claimed them as my own.

Rand al'Thor

@BeastlyGerbil Well, exactly. Worth going through them to check and maybe flagging some, IMO.

dcfyj

I also couldn't remember where they were from though

Rand al'Thor

@Sconibulus Re "changed it enough to render it unsearchable", see this meta post. On the other issue ... well, I'm going to post another meta post about that soon.

dcfyj

My first 3 question posts where puzzles I knew from high school. With the 4th being an answer From another puzzle that I built a puzzle around.

After that I started creating my own stuff. Mostly because I didn't want to have to deal with posting possible duplicates haha.

Maria Deleva

6:49 PM

all the puzzles I have posted, were my own creation. And, of course, some turned out to be bad and not very well thought - like my tribond. Although, I did find the answers interesting and revealing

I even flagged it myself to be closed :)

Beastly Gerbil

Think all mine are my own... can't really remember

dcfyj

You're getting amnesia in your old account age.

Beastly Gerbil

[Old man voice]I've been around here for 8 months, why back in my early months, puzzling was so much better. There were no such thing as sandboxes and we had completely different mods. Sorry I think I've got to go off now to have my nap.

Have to say I can't actually remember my first ever puzzles

Here it is. Not very good

Lukas Rotter

@BeastlyGerbil Incredible title :)

Rand al'Thor

@BeastlyGerbil 'told' would have been a cooler clue than 'bold'.

told/tolled

Beastly Gerbil

7:00 PM

@LukasRotter, I was so imaginative back then :P

Rand al'Thor

> The iron tongue of midnight hath told twelve.

Beastly Gerbil

@Randal'Thor, no one seemed to get the 'Bold as brass' thing. Please tell me someone has heard of that phrase?

Maria Deleva

And this is my first: puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/40846/…

Also a riddle.

Lukas Rotter

Just had an answer of mine that was posted Feb 4 accepted... I wonder if the OP really looked at the answers just now or he'd just forgotten to accept it.

Beastly Gerbil

I mean seriously, I hear that expression all the time. Here

@MariaDeleva, loved that riddle. My answer was well off though :P

Maria Deleva

7:02 PM

I haven't heard of this expression but I am not a native.

Sconibulus

I've heard the expression, but wouldn't get from bells to brass

Rand al'Thor

@BeastlyGerbil Yes, but bold -> brass -> bell is quite a leap.

Beastly Gerbil

bells are apparently made from brass

Maria Deleva

Well, I actually created it several months before I posted it here - intended it for some place else (at the time I didn't even know of PSE), and now I don't remember where.

Beastly Gerbil

Oh wait no they're not

Maria Deleva

7:05 PM

But it could be bold - as in loud?

So it is not so far off

Beastly Gerbil

Like I said i was a 'newbie' then

Rand al'Thor

@BeastlyGerbil I always used to get brass and bronze mixed up until I read Brandon Sanderson's Mistborn.

Beastly Gerbil

0

Q: Nothing beats a Daniels

It's been quiet for a while now, and you have been enjoying your well-earned holiday after multiple exhausting murder cases. Sightseeing, hiking and a few days just doing nothing at the beach is a great preparation for more weeks of crime-solving and criminal-hunting, which you'll undoubtedly be ...

rhyme story steganography geography

oooh

Rosie F

@BeastlyGerbil Yeah, well-known phrase. But I wouldn't have solved your riddle from your "bold" clue. Too much of a leap to make the connection from bold to brass and then from brass to the answer just from that clue.

dcfyj

Massive chunks of text like that are why I do usually look at those puzzles...

Sconibulus

7:06 PM

bronze is copper and tin, right? Brass is copper and... zinc maybe? It's much shinier

Beastly Gerbil

@Sconibulus, no idea :P

Maria Deleva

well, I didn't read it, but there are some capitalized words that should matter - trash, dump, dna

dcfyj

brass and Bronze, (yes brass is zinc)

Rand al'Thor

@Sconibulus All I know is that brass pairs up with zinc and bronze with copper (in each 'pair', one of them is an alloy of the other).

Beastly Gerbil

And all I know is that they are metals :P

Maria Deleva

7:10 PM

@BeastlyGerbil and both start with br

:D

Beastly Gerbil

Stick with the simple facts in life and that way your brain won't overheat :P

Sconibulus

Copper was Smoke, and Tin was Perception, so Bronze is probably burning-sense, while brass is Soothing? That'd make Zinc Rioting I think

Rand al'Thor

@Sconibulus Bronze ~ Seeker, copper ~ Smoker, brass ~ Soother, zinc ~ Rioter.

Sconibulus

I did it!

Beastly Gerbil

i love how we all assume whatever @Randal'Thor says is right :P

Rand al'Thor

7:13 PM

?

Maria Deleva

And I don't get the references

Beastly Gerbil

Me neither @MariaDeleva

Maria Deleva

at least I am not alone :)

Beastly Gerbil

Seeing as you guys are good at science, maybe you can help me with my homework:

Which is odd one out: Camel, snake, eagle, tapeworm

Something to do with animal groups in classification but can't work it out

Sconibulus

tapeworm is the only one that isn't 5 letters

Lukas Rotter

7:17 PM

Eagle because it's the only one that can fly/has wings? Lol. Pretty sure it's more complicated than that.

Sconibulus

but worms may be closer to mammals toxonomically

Maria Deleva

There are probably more than one ways to look at that. For one, the eagle could be the odd one out - for two reasons (starts with a vowel, and the only one that can fly)

Sconibulus

closer to reptiles/birds than mammals

Beastly Gerbil

Its more like along the lines of 'They are all mammals except...' but can't get this one

Sconibulus

actually, I'd got with tapeworm, because it's the only invertebrate

Beastly Gerbil

7:18 PM

@Sconibulus, bingo! Thanks

Sconibulus

I think all the vertebrates are related

Maria Deleva

that is another logic to pursue

if this were a puzzle here, it would have been closed as too broad

lol

Rand al'Thor

@BeastlyGerbil Tapeworm, definitely.

Camels, snakes, and eagles are all vertebrates, therefore in the same phylum (Chordata).

Whoops, ninja'd :-) @Sconibulus

Beastly Gerbil

Random question, is anyone following the Speculative Natural Science proposal? Seems interesting

Rand al'Thor

@BeastlyGerbil I'm putting all my effort into Literature atm.

All it needs is for people to upvote 6 more questions.

Beastly Gerbil

7:23 PM

Well I'm following and I can upvote 5, so 1 more

Rand al'Thor

@BeastlyGerbil Just as long as you choose 5 questions which score less than 10 at the moment :-)

Beastly Gerbil

150th follower :P

Lukas Rotter

I don't get why people upvote answers on area51 with >= 10 upvotes... Is it bad etiquette to not vote on answer with >= 10 and you should actually upvote the ones that in your opinion would be the best fit or do these people don't know about the system?

Rand al'Thor

Otherwise there's no point.

@LukasRotter Not knowing about the system would be my guess?

Sconibulus

I'm willing to vote for one that's exactly at 10

to counteract a potential downvote

Beastly Gerbil

7:26 PM

:P

Sconibulus

but I tend to only do that if there are <5 below 10 that I'd actually vote for

Rand al'Thor

If anyone upvotes one of the score-10 questions that I've already voted for, I will undo my vote and go and upvote one of the lower-scored ones instead.

(That's already happened once or twice.)

8

A: Fortnightly Topic Challenge #15: Stories

List of all questions published as part of the Fortnightly Topic Challenge #15: The princess arrived safely at the castle by M D The Sorns are Demanding Ransom: Can You Help? by RedstoneGeek Vizzini has captured Buttercup! by Sconibulus Megan & the numeric cipher (693264475 etc) by Rosie F Labr...

0

Q: Fortnightly Topic Challenge #16: Reverse Puzzling

This is the sixteenth installment of the Fortnightly Topic Challenge described here, with topics suggested and voted on here. This fortnight's topic is reverse-puzzling (suggested by GentlePurpleRain), and will span from the 19th of September to the 2nd of October. During this period, we will com...

discussion topic-challenge

The Topic Challenge is dead; long live the Topic Challenge.

Beastly Gerbil

Reverse Puzzling? Tricky one

Maria Deleva

now that would be an interesting challenge

Will

ooh I just thought of something I could use for reverse puzzling

Rand al'Thor

7:34 PM

reverse-puzzling and board-games were tied for votes here, so I made an executive decision and upvoted reverse-puzzling but not board-games.

Maria Deleva

I like this decision :)

Lukas Rotter

Is there a time when every new topic challenge is determined?

Maria Deleva

every other Monday or so

Lukas Rotter

I mean specific hours and minutes on that day.

Maria Deleva

I don't think so.

Beastly Gerbil

7:40 PM

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A: What should the subjects of our fortnightly topic challenges be?

I'd love to see a wordplay fortnightly challenge. We'd get some very clever puzzles for that. For instance this recent puzzle from @GentlePurpleRain, and this other recent puzzle from @Ankoganit

Deusovi

Hey!

Beastly Gerbil

Hi Deusovi

Deusovi

I've taken care of the "featured" retag and deletion of the answer to the topic challenge thread.

As for when it starts, it's really just "roughly two weeks after the previous one, whenever someone feels like starting it".

@MariaDeleva I'm sorry, I really shouldn't have undeleted it. The meta thread had several people supporting its undeletion, but it's mean-spirited enough to deserve deletion.

Puzzling Meta

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Q: Fortnightly Topic Challenge #16: Reverse Puzzling

This is the sixteenth installment of the Fortnightly Topic Challenge described here, with topics suggested and voted on here. This fortnight's topic is reverse-puzzling (suggested by hexomino), and will span from the 19th of September to the 2nd of October. During this period, we will compile the...

discussion featured topic-challenge

Maria Deleva

@Deusovi don't worry about it. And thanks for deleting in the first place.

Mithrandir

7:43 PM

@PuzzlingMeta That won't get many puzzles...

Maria Deleva

@Mithrandir why so pessimistic?

Mithrandir

@MariaDeleva Because that's a hard puzzle type.

Beastly Gerbil

I don't even know what reverse puzzling is

Mithrandir

Exactly.

Maria Deleva

@BeastlyGerbil there are several linked in the suggestion

dcfyj

7:46 PM

It's based off of notes that I never take when I'm solving a puzzle and therefore I wouldn't be able to make one...

Beastly Gerbil

Isn't it the one which is kinda like enigmatic-puzzle and you have to identify the type of puzzle?

Deusovi

Yeah, pretty much.

Maria Deleva

Well, I started making one, but will see whether I would post it - I am not sure how it would look like in the end

dcfyj

sort-of, but the goal isn't to solve the puzzle perse since the puzzle is figuring out what the puzzle is

Lukas Rotter

@Deusovi Can you please explain why you assume it is mean-spirited? Based on Matsmath's statement it was a "humorous twist [...] Was it intended to be a joke? No."

Rand al'Thor

7:48 PM

@Deusovi Thanks!

dcfyj

@LukasRotter To me that says, I'm not making a joke, but I am poking fun at someone

Which isn't very nice when you don't know them well

Rand al'Thor

@LukasRotter I'm assuming it to be UTC midnight - that makes things simpler, and means you can find qualifying posts just using SE's search facility.

Mithrandir

That's a cool idea:

7

A: What should the subjects of our fortnightly topic challenges be?

The original suggestion focuses on using a single tag as the "subject" of each fortnightly challenge, but I thought it might be interesting to try something a little different. So, I propose: Unconventional Tag Fusion By that I mean, the challenge would be to take two tags that are not usually ...

Rand al'Thor

@BeastlyGerbil Read the tag wiki and have a look at some existing questions in the tag?

Lukas Rotter

@dcfyj If it was actually made to make fun of something, then I don't think it was meant to make fun of the person, but the puzzle itself. I know that probably sounds like a weak excuse, but he never actively made fun of the OP. I don't see why it would be delete-worthy, no inappropriate language was used.

Mithrandir

7:52 PM

sigh Working on the puzzle that I can't seem to finish...

Deusovi

@LukasRotter Sure, it wasn't inappropriate language, but it was actively demeaning towards the user who asked the question.

dcfyj

@LukasRotter However, in this site's case, making fun of a puzzle (whether its in good jest or not doesn't matter) is making of of the OP, Each poster takes time to think the creation through.

2

In some way, making fun of the creation is making fun of the creator.

Lukas Rotter

@dcfyj Well, I guess I disagree with the site's policy then... Can you site the source of this rule? I can't find anything in the Be nice section. Does it fall under the category of "Harassment and bullying"? I don't see how, but ok.

Sconibulus

"Rudeness and belittling language are not okay?"

Deusovi

@LukasRotter That's not a rule of the site, and @dcfyj never said it was. But in this case, it's clear that the post was made to make fun of a specific user's puzzle (which they say they have put a lot of effort into, and I'm very inclined to believe that).

Mithrandir

7:59 PM

@LukasRotter It's common sense - if you make fun of something that someone spent a lot of time and effort into making, and they think that they did a good job, then you're making fun of them.

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