I'll also sign off for the night. Good bye.

@dcfyj Yes, this is probably a good idea. Renaming is reversible; burninating isn't.

And goodnight both :-)

GPR changed joke to humor

here it is

And synonymised humour :-D

Interesting that Beastly Gerbil's meta post about joke/humour got 9 upvotes, but the answers (change it or nuke it) got 2 and 1 votes respectively. Does that mean that the other 6 people who thought it was a good question desire a different outcome?

Probably just means that lots of people who upvoted the question haven't seen the answers yet.

Or maybe they don't really care what the exact outcome is...

I didn't upvote neither the question, nor the answers - but I can't really say what should happen with that tag - never used it, probably never will. And today is the first I heard of it.

I can second that, but some research shows its pop up sometimes, and when it does its a nuisance

Well, I am a new user here, so I can't really say "burninate it" - not sure I am qualified enough for that :) hehe

although as a new user here, I can vouch that it is easy to misinterpret how a tag should be used even after reading its description - I am still unsure when to use lateral thinking and logical deduction, for example :)

@MariaDeleva Logical deduction is when the problem is exactly what it seems to be and you just have to use logic to solve it. Lateral thinking is when something isn't what it seems to be and there's some trick or unexpected interpretation of something in the problem.

Well, still - lateral thinking should still be logical - you can't just say "yada yada" :) So the line is very thin for me :)

@MariaDeleva But lateral thinking is meant to be 'outside the box'. With logic puzzles, it's very clear what the problem is and you just have to apply yourself to it.

For me those two puzzle types are almost opposite :-)

'lateral thinking' is almost... 'find the ambiguity and exploit it'

I know they are supposed to be opposite. But I guess my logic is not really a standard one - I have found myself failing at easy logical questions because I simply see a different type of logic in the question :) Anyway, if I am unsure for a particular puzzle, I can always ask :D

The one that bugs me is word-problem.

> A mathematical puzzle that's stated in words, usually in terms of a story or a situation that dresses the problem up.

Huh? So this tag is for puzzles that are both mathematics and story or situation?

Because that's sure as hell not what it sounds like from the tag name.

That tag sounds like the theoretic math problems we had at school: If A has 5 apples and gives 2 to B, but eats 3, how much would he own?

That, of course, is a very simple example :)

and if it were a lateral thinking problem, the question becomes 5- 'how many apples did A give to B, and then eat'

But, but, on a site that's full of riddles and wordplay and lateral thinking as well as logic and maths puzzles, how on earth is it some of the maths puzzles that get called "word problems"?

wouldn't this be logical deduction? @Sconibulus If it were lateral thinking, we could say he ate the 2 apples that were in B (or some other apples he additionally acquired), and still owns some, or even more than in the beginning?

eh, maybe, depends exactly how the question is worded

Or perhaps he gave 2 pears to B, as it doesn't say A gave B apples. And then eats 3 lollipops

as it is, lateral thinking sounds to me as possibly "too broad".

Many lateral thinking questions are indeed too broad.

Actually, the most likely lateral thinking answer to that question would be "Well, whatever he owned before, minus a few apples"

because "how much does he own" could be seen to be encompassing everything ever, not just fruits on his person

Which is why many of them have to include impressive lists of caveats.

Here's one with a few caveats to eliminate unwanted answers.

And it includes both logical deduction and lateral thinking :D

And another one with an even more impressive list.

Which should be reopened, btw: with that many caveats, I'm pretty sure it ain't too broad any more and most of the answers are invalid.

What is the exact definition of story? "A puzzle that is dressed up as a story or a longer description of a situation." - If you ask me, this would fit for so many puzzles, depending how you define "longer". So as long as there is some kind of story involed, it counts. (and will flood the topic challenge). From the latest 15 questions that don't have the tag already I'd say the ones that would fit are:

1, 2, 3, 4. (Almost 33% !)

@LukasRotter Yeah, exactly. That's why I thought it was a bad idea for a topic challenge, but oh well.

Somehow, the 2nd and the 3rd sound like a story to me, while the 1st and the 4th - more like a situation or something.

Not only is the tag inconsistently used, but also pretty much every possible puzzle could be turned into a story puzzle if you really wanted to, simply by adding some flavour text around it.

@Randal'Thor Well, they didn't tag it as story, so I guess it's fine for now :P

should you use literature when doing something that references literature for flavor, but not mechanics?

@Sconibulus Got an example of the kind of thing you're thinking of?

e.g. My Hobbit question was definitely literature, because knowing the book was required to solve it, but would a cryptogram handed to MacBeth by Duncan qualify?

if the only reason for doing that was because it was a fun reference to the basic style of the puzzle

Meh. I wouldn't say so, but others might use the tag differently from how I do.

The tag description says "A puzzle that is primarily built around a well-known book, novel, drama, poem, or a well-known author" (emphasis mine).

hmm...

actually, screw it, it's in the star list, everyone already knows.

I'm working on that Princess Bride puzzle

Oh, nice!

since no knowledge of the book/movie is required to solve it, but you might not otherwise recognize the flavor, and therefor, many of the word choices, should I use the tag?

Once you're done, I'll share a link over on SFF so all the Princess Bride fans there can come and see it.

It'll probably be tomorrow morning, I think I'm like 80% done, but I want to doublecheck my ciphering before posting

@Sconibulus UTC morning?

probably before 10:00 AM EDT, so early afternoon UTC?

working on it primarily at work while testing's happening

what was the name of that Sea with the Shrieking Eels? Can't find it right now

@Sconibulus Thanks. Yes, that's 02:00 PM UTC. Just wanted to see when to camp for your new puzzle :P

@Sconibulus It's not named in the film. Dunno about the book.

probably why the internet isn't helping me much

I think I have a copy I can check at home

If you can find a higher-res version of this map, there might be a name somewhere.

Does anyone have an explanation for why the "Puzzles Etc." room is basically dead suddenly even though it has almost 3x more messages than this room? O_o

@Sconibulus you mean the sharks? There weren't any eels in the book, there might've been in the movie though

Also, there's really only one body of water, but it's called the Florin Channel or Channel of Guilder based on where you live, and there is a cove next to the deadly cliff where that scene took place

@LukasRotter This was always the 'official' Main Room for PSE, but it's been mostly dead since the Great Puzzling War of Nov-Dec 2014. A bunch of people set up Puzzles Etc some months ago and that was a hive of activity for a while, but now things have shifted back to here again.

Might be partly my fault, and other old hands like AE, who I think pinged me in here. We've always been used to this being the main PSE chatroom, so we naturally come here instead of Puzzles Etc.

@Randal'Thor Thanks. It's very impressive to post 3x the messages of the official chat room that was created over 2(?) years ago in a few months :P

@LukasRotter Well, this room was almost completely dead, other than the occasional brief flurry of activity, from mid-Dec 2014 up until about 10 days ago.

And yeah, the Puzzles Etc guys were very busy for a while. Some of them seem to have drifted away now though (Khale Kitha, question_asker, etc.)

@Randal'Thor So basically until your suspension expired, lol :P

:32152199 Yeah, pretty much. When I came back, I went first to the Riddle Sandbox room (because the most urgent thing I wanted to talk about was that damn sandbox) and then here (because it always was the main PSE chatroom, and also someone pinged me here). First chatting to Deusovi and a few others, and then people just kept coming.

You can see in the transcript how busy it was the day before my suspension expired.

Admittedly the days on either side of that were slightly busier, but still.

I'm hoping the current business of this room is a new upward trend rather than just another blip in the graph of inactivity.

@Randal'Thor I hope so too. (said the user that literally just joined 2 days ago)

Why isn't my link working ;(

@LukasRotter I've had a look, but didn't spend too long on it (especially since I've already repcapped for the day).