The Sphinx's Lair

feelinferrety

9:00 PM

I think votes should count exponentially

Sid

Beastly is like 5 hours behind me and sleeping. Come on, kid! :P

feelinferrety

That would be an interesting recalculation

@Sid Where is BG?

Mithrandir

@feelinferrety I think GB

Sid

England, according to his profile

humn

@feelinferrety , votes certainly do tail off per subsequent view exponentially.

feelinferrety

9:01 PM

That'd be nighttime, then

Sid

It would be only 10 or something.

feelinferrety

@humn The real issue being, I believe, that scoring at a flat rate, you can get only a couple of upvotes and a series of downvotes but still come out ahead.

A question could have a negative score and still award the poster points

Sid

Do the votes count views by the same user multiple times?

Mithrandir

-75

A: Is there an idiom available, that is exactly opposite to "Cake walk" or "Child's play"?

Adulting or Adult's Work Adulting (v): to do grown up things and hold responsibilities such as, a 9-5 job, a mortgage/rent, a car payment, or anything else that makes one think of grown ups. Used in a sentence: Jane is adulting quite well today as she is on time for work promptly at 8am ...

@Sid yes, after a little while

humn

I happen to like the imbalance between positive and negative weights. A puzzle that someone, anyone, likes is worth something

feelinferrety

9:06 PM

@humn True, but then you are catering to the individual, not to the community, which is the goal here

@Mithrandir That's... impressive

humn

I have a very social-safety-net view of community.

Mithrandir

@rub puzzling.stackexchange.com/users/40776/atlantafalcons puzzling.stackexchange.com/users/40769/emmy-awards

Mike Q

This (or anywhere on SE) isn't the place to talk trash about specific users

Mithrandir

^

humn

! enough said, thank you for deleting (Mithrandir?)

Mithrandir

9:11 PM

(yes)

feelinferrety

I personally do not intend to "talk trash". Most of us here are aware that we get problem users from time to time. When they do not listen and instead continue with their activities that reflect poorly on the community while still getting positive net rep, it is frustrating.

humn

This system's imperfect fairness is one reason I try to champion more tolerance than seems acceptable at Meta.

feelinferrety

I do not believe noting a trend and analyzing the outcome is particularly troublesome.

Sid

Well, there is not much we can do to curb that either.

Mithrandir

But that doesn't mean that you should point fingers at a user and say their contributions are mostly bad.

Sid

9:14 PM

It is basically how the rep system works.

Mike Q

True, there are certainly problem users. But if a user's questions and/or answers are so consistently and obviously low-quality, then what's the point of discussing it in specifics? Going into chat without the user's permission and saying stuff like "Gee, I wish user X would stop posting such garbage answers" isn't helpful and goes against the spirit of "Be Nice". (I am not accusing anyone of this behavior. Just pointing out that we should avoid it.)

feelinferrety

@Mithrandir I stated only what data confirms.

Mithrandir

@feelinferrety some things don't need to be stated.

See also meta.stackexchange.com/questions/293213/…

humn

One reason I learned SEDataExplorer was to see upvote counts without downs being subtracted.

Mike Q

Right. The principle of "Be Nice" suggests that we should generally give the benefit of the doubt, and assume that a user with regularly low-quality questions/answers will improve over time.

Sid

9:17 PM

@humn you can see that with >1k rep I think.

humn

Mainly for other sites that I wanted to explore.

feelinferrety

I also did not name names. AFAIK, it is a recurring behavior pattern, and I only use it as an example to support my opinion that exponential scoring may be better suited to reflect the true feeling of the community, which your very own (quite specific) example also supports.

Mithrandir

@MikeQ and even if they don't, the moderators have tools to deal with it. There's no need to drag a user through the mud no matter how much you think they deserve it.

Mike Q

@feelinferrety Exponential scoring? What do you mean?

humn

It really has been and still is interesting to adjust to a place where nothing is secret, or even ever really deleted.

ffao

9:20 PM

the moderators don't have tools to deal with it; the only tool that would deal with it would be for downvotes to hurt more

Mithrandir

@ffao Yes. You can get suspended for low quality contributions.

ffao

which is what I guess ferret is arguing for (actually, a series of downvotes to hurt more, not necessarily a single one)

I doubt mods will actually ever suspend a user for low quality contributions

sure, you can give me a few examples here and there, but as a general case, nah

Mithrandir

Low quality questions over time is one of the standard suspension reasons, along with Abusive to others and sock puppet voting.

humn

At SE in general?

Mithrandir

Yes.

feelinferrety

9:23 PM

@MikeQ That more votes give more weight. That a couple mindless upvotes don't overshadow a more general/popular opinion that "hey this question sucks"

Mike Q

Upvotes aren't a form of currency. They're just abstract and fuzzy reflections of popularity.

Or, at least, in small numbers

humn

My best defense against votes of disapproval (as well as approval!) is to reduce view count by using unpopular tags

feelinferrety

I don't have the rep to see the breakdown of the votes as they currently stand on the question Mith linked above, but a user helpfully did the math at an earlier snapshot time in the comments

Mike Q

In theory, a low-quality question/answer won't get enough upvotes to grant the user the rights that are granted via very high-reputation. So if a bad question/answer gets a few upvotes it doesn't "deserve" (which may be a subjective ruling), then I don't see the harm done.

as4s4hetic

@feelinferrety It's currently at +16, -91, so the user did end up losing rep

feelinferrety

9:28 PM

@MikeQ Serial posters can amass plenty regardless of actual overall quality with the current system.

Mithrandir

@as4s4hetic don't forget the +15 from the accept

as4s4hetic

@Mithrandir still, 16x10+15<91x2

feelinferrety

(16*10)-(91*2)+15 = -7

Which is head-scratchingly high for SUCH a high negative count

For a post with over 100 votes which are < 15% positive, it seems that netting only -7 points is rather absurd

humn

Here, indirectly related, is a gem of a comment:

Mike Q

I think that as long as a "bad" question/answer isn't harmful or offensive or spam, then it's not worth losing sleep over it. Anyone is free to downvote it.

feelinferrety

9:39 PM

@humn That's lovely. Sauce?

humn

"Sauce"? Sorry, don't know what that means . . .

Mike Q

@humn What is the source (which sounds like the word "sauce")

Deusovi

"Source".

feelinferrety

Usually means "source?" or "context?"

humn

haaa, thunks!

feelinferrety

9:41 PM

I always thought of it as the sauce on top. Something can be good, but the sauce just takes it over the top.

"The cherry on a X sundae" so to speak

Deusovi

I'm pretty sure it comes from "source" (as pronounced in British English), but that's an interesting way of looking at it.

Mike Q

It comes from "source" (sauce needed)

humn

(hehehehehehee)

Rubio

@MikeQ this was actually discussed previously, and done to some extent. See puzzling.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5658/…

humn

@humn : That comment is from a Puzzling puzzle, redacted in the interests of discretion

Mike Q

9:44 PM

@Rubio I thought as such.

Rubio

And here where it was done - puzzling.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/5306/…

ffao

it was actually tried on the main site too, but closed

eg puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/30553/…

Mike Q

So on one hand, the puzzle I have in mind is not as broad as those examples. But on the other hand, since I was going to outsource it to the general public, it wouldn't have one single answer. Anyway, I'll end up either doing it myself (eventually), or passing it on to someone else who wants to try it.

humn

As for puzzles that haven't even been answered after an entire half week, as a nonsequitor, I'm pretty sure about the system behind this one but have only a weak guess for just one of the lines:

6

Q: Move parts of me to change me. What am I?

Move three of me west, and you get something that can hold text on a computer, or something that turns. Move one of me west, and one of me south-east, and you get something that can hold text on paper, or something that prevents turning, at least if you are picky. Move one of me west, and you ge...

"something that can hold text on a computer, or something that turns" could be DISC (fits but has very few letters), or FOLDER (a stretch)

... anyone else happen to have any guesses for the words for that or other lines?

(....also computer "disc" is almost always spelled "disk" nowadays...)

Mike Q

@humn I looked at it and gave up. The nature of moving a number of parts in different directions... I don't know what that could mean.

feelinferrety

9:53 PM

What the shit? I wrote riddles?!

humn

The moving parts is the aspect I'm pretty sure of, and am willing to spill if anyone is interested.

feelinferrety

Whoever just upvoted me -- that was totally undeserved D:

Oh COME ON guys

humn

@feelinferrety , suspect puppetry! Both by the writer and voter. Clearly at most one could have been the actual you.

feelinferrety

Those things are awful. They're just doing it to spite me now.

Mike Q

@humn I tried starting at "you get something you may want to avoid eating, unless you want to become me."

feelinferrety

9:58 PM

Quick, where's that SEDE script that shows you who voted?

humn

@feelinferrety , Are you requestion for downvotes for the comunity's sake (heh heh)? If so:

8

A: Riddles whose answer is "the moon"

My language won't be nearly as pretty, but here goes... In reference to the "dark side" of the moon I am humbled by your flattery, As you gaze only upon my best side. I shall return your gaze and follow you As you venture forth into the dark. Werewolves! I grow and shrink and...

feelinferrety

Man, whatever. Just know that if y'all go too far with it, you won't be able to call on me for close votes anymore.

humn

@MikeQ , what did you come up with? "killed" and "chilled" fit once with another of my guesses "killer" for another line

feelinferrety

About that puzzle, I don't get the cardinal direction movements. East/west is clear enough, but throwing south in there? What???

Argh I gotta run

humn

I took the lack of north and south is a major clue.

feelinferrety

10:00 PM

I'll be back to deal with you later

Mike Q

@humn Another reason I'm not answering: The user has no prior questions or answers. So I won't make the gamble that the puzzle is guaranteed to have a sensible solution.

feelinferrety

@humn North- and south- are in there, though

humn

@feelinferrety , Good, don't make us hunt you down.

@feelinferrety , that's what go me going: all compass points except N and S

... like a honeycomb, at a certain angle ...

Spill and spell:

          Q  W [E] R  T [Y] U  I  O  P
          [A] S  D  F  G  H  J  K  L
            Z  X  C  V [B] N [M]

Mike Q

What's the significance of the bracketed letters?

humn

they spell MAYBE, which is what I think about this interpretation

I think the riddle spells a word on the keyboard.

Then by changing some letters in the directions mentioned, different words are spelled.

Mike Q

10:06 PM

What do you eat to become a keyboard?

humn

One guess I had was that you eat something cold to become "CHILLED"

which is a keyboard tranformation of KILLED and KILLER, but ithad the wrong number of letters and the directions didn't work either

Mike Q

If the puzzle involves re-positioning keys on a keyboard, then I don't see how you can get double letters

humn

right, i gave up on that lead but the approach felt right

and, who knows, there might be some latitude on doubling, or reordering at least, letters

Seems like a solid basis for a puzzle anyway. Lots of clue potential, in that Northwest from a letter means it isn't on the top row for instance.

There have been other keyboard-as-gameboard riddles here. With widely different receptions. (searching)

Wen1now

I am in agreeal with you

Mike Q

Confession: If I don't know where to start with a puzzle, or if it's not particularly interesting to me, then I generally won't spend the time to solve it.

humn

10:18 PM

No problem, and riddles are far from my specialty, but this one's mechanical component caught my attention.

@Wen1now , nice positive entrance! (but with who? about what?)

Mike Q

Right, it definitely grabbed my attention. But it doesn't look like a puzzle that I plausibly could solve; by the time I waste my afternoon trying to figure it out, someone else will have solved it

humn

^ That's how most riddles make me feel. I love the creativity behind them and their multiple answers, though.

Here's a keyboard puzzle I really liked but got clobbered:

-6

Q: What is the snake trying to tell us?

My friend's pet snake told this below message to us... What is the message it is trying to tell us? What is the pattern? PL,MKOIJNBHUYGVCFTRDXZSEWAQ

pattern lateral-thinking

... even though an answer got slobbered:

30

A: What is the snake trying to tell us?

Well, the pattern is but I'm not a Parselmouth, so I don't understand the message.

And here's one that was appreciated all around:

18

Q: My memory was erased by some external force. Where did I travel?

The higher-ups (my peers) in our company drop f-bombs all the time, so I'd had enough of them and decided to go on an journey, escaping the current situation. First, I headed south-east, and the first place I stopped at was full of surprises. I continued on south-east, then decided to go east se...

riddle wordplay trivia

Mike Q

Looks like the author actually put effort into that one. Still, zero chance I would have been able to solve it.

Wen1now

I just agree with most people

Mike Q

@Wen1now No you don't :)

humn

10:29 PM

^really, @Wen1now, do you agree with that?

Wen1now

Luckily for me, I said most people so that's probably fine

humn

Good out.

Perhaps the only reason you agree with most people is because most are so agreeable.

Wen1now

23 mins ago, by Mike Q

If the puzzle involves re-positioning keys on a keyboard, then I don't see how you can get double letters

23 mins ago, by humn

right, i gave up on that lead but the approach felt right

^You guys were of the same opinion anyway

humn

I agree that we agreed!

Mike Q

Well, unless I have some sudden spark of inspiration, I don't expect to spend time on that question

humn

10:33 PM

Thanks anyway for giving me an excuse to lay it out in more detail here.

Deusovi

@humn Well, it asks for a message, and there doesn't seem to be much of a message there. I imagine that, combined with its simplicity (and ostensibly low effort) is why it got the downvotes that it did.

Mike Q

@Deusovi The up/downvote distribution on that one is kinda amusing. Clearly low effort, but nonetheless kind of a cool question.

humn

Yeah, it could've been presented much better, but I'm always baffled by how so many solutions get so much more approval than the puzzles that motivated them.

Mike Q

Why is that baffling?

Low-effort puzzles don't necessarily get low-effort solutions.

Deusovi

Yeah, a lot of people go above and beyond in their solutions. (I know I certainly try to explain things as thoroughly as I can.)

(That being said, I don't think that answer should be at +30. It's not an awful answer or anything, but that seems disproportionate.)

humn

10:38 PM

@Deusovi , you've inspired my solutions, too, Deusovi, but to me any puzzle that produces a good solution is worth rewarding, regardless, just for doing that much if nothing else.

Mike Q

@Deusovi Upvotes represent popularity, not quality.

One of my recent answers got a pretty high number of upvotes, and all I had to do was two google searches. The only effort required was typing up an answer.

Deusovi

Puzzles can present good solutions. But if a puzzle is low-effort, then the good solution is often due to the answerer rather than the asker.

humn

Truly so. I'm rewarding the puzzle more than the asker, and only because it produced a good solution.

Mike Q

@Deusovi Yes, that's much more accurate than how I said it :P

Deusovi

Speaking of good answers, that just reminded me of something I'd been meaning to do. c:

humn

10:43 PM

Do tell! (... last thing about the last thing, though, I do tend to personify puzzles and sometimes feel sorry for their circumstances ...)

Mike Q

Wait a hot darn moment, I thought probability questions were usually a no-no and/or "not puzzly enough" for PSE.

Deusovi

Probability questions, like all math questions, are fine as long as they produce an unexpected result, are more than routine calculation, and rely on some insight.

Mike Q

It looks like pure math, and almost everyone got the same answer

humn

And one user got the same answer in separate posts.

Deusovi

The "natural" answer is a 3. At first glance, you'd expect it to be the same thing as rolling a 3-sided die with just the numbers 2, 4, and 6. But it actually isn't.

humn

10:47 PM

Though, most solvers got the wrong answer at first, and one correct answer was computerized.

Deusovi

I got the "natural" but wrong answer, as did several people who actually posted an answer.

Mike Q

Except for humn's second answer. That's maybe in mystical humn-language instead of math language.

humn

Even the poser got the wrong answer at first.

Wen1now

humn's solution was pure genius

Deusovi

@Wen1now And the second, even more so!

@MikeQ It seems natural to me. (Except for the Lisp, which I understand only bits and pieces of.)

Mike Q

10:50 PM

@Deusovi I meant "Except" as in "doesn't look like pure math" (it was meant to follow my previous message)

Deusovi

Ah, alright.

Wen1now

Oh, that is nice. +1 from me

humn

Deusovi, you should have seen the first version of the Lisp code. Less than half the code and completely unpostable.

Mike Q

I'm still surprised that my not-actually-a-deduction-puzzle grid deduction puzzle wasn't angrily downvoted by anyone/everyone who attempted it

Wen1now

Which one?

Deusovi

10:53 PM

Oh right, the LITS/Sudoku with multiple solutions?

13

Q: Tetromino Sudoku

An entry in Fortnightly Topic Challenge #32: Grid Deduction Hybrids The grid below, when filled in, forms a valid Sudoku grid. It can also be filled in like a LITS (nuruomino) puzzle without the 1x4 tetrominos. The two objectives of this puzzle are: Fill in the numbers in the grid. Identify...

sudoku grid-deduction polyomino

Wen1now

(getting ready to -1 this)

Mike Q

Yes, apparently the only solutions were via brute force.

Wen1now

^If it's not uniquely solvable, brute force must be used

Anyways, that reminds me, I need to finish my puzzle

Mike Q

I mean, I thought it was uniquely solvable when I had designed it

Wen1now

Fair enough, ambiguities always end up coming out of nowhere

humn

10:55 PM

Great design, @Mike Q, and this time I'm surprised the solution didn't get more votes.

Mike Q

Yes. Please downvote my puzzle (because I can't) and upvote the solution (because I already did) >_<

ffao

what

thanks for the bounty, Deus, if only for calling my attention to the existence of humn's second answer

that's awesome

Deusovi

that's exactly what it was for!

humn

Awww, @Deusovi, thank you for the bounty on the dice! Now I'll definitely add to the second solution the "discussion' section intended for the first solution, and probably ask Gamow to move the checkmark too.

Deusovi

I didn't think the first answer could be improved upon, but it was - and by the same solver, too!

Wen1now

11:00 PM

^

Deusovi

@humn And thank you for the jaw-droppingly simple solution! We had been discussing that puzzle in here for a while, and I couldn't figure out why exactly the 3 answer was wrong. Your solution both showed why it was wrong and showed why 1½ was right in a wonderfully intuitive way.

Mike Q

Great explanation(s), I still don't understand, but I'm impressed anyway

humn

Surprised me as much as anyone when the 4 subcases added up to all the throws.

1½ still seems like a ridiculously small result. But I have an explanation mostly written out, as the 1-length sequences are terminated by 1s, 3s and 5s even more often than by 2s and 4s.

@MikeQ , I'll try to make them clearer. They were originally written up on little sleep.

Mike Q

@humn If the smart folks here understand it, then it's probably clear enough

Rubio

If I understand it, it's definitely clear enough ... and I do.

humn

11:07 PM

I stand by my earlier comment: "Many solutions, too, only make sense to the solver and the puzzle's poser, until comments help point out how much was incorrectly assumed to have been clear. "

Gareth McCaughan

@humn Why do you think lateral-thinking fails my does-it-help-searching criterion? Seems to me it passes that just fine.

humn

@GarethMcCaughan , I was guessing that people don't search for lateral-thinking puzzles and that the tag mostly serves as part of the puzzle statement.

@humn , to go on and on... one particular puzzle had a solution that got checkmarked instantly with congratulations from the poser, and I couldn't make heads or tails of the write-up without solving the puzzle from scratch myself.

It makes perfect sense now:

8

A: A Letter: Moriarty is dead

The reason is Explanation

Gareth McCaughan

I don't have a very good idea of what people do and don't search for (are there statistics on that squirrelled away somewhere?) but I can easily imagine wanting to find a puzzle, remembering that it was a lateral-thinking sort of puzzle, and using the tag. I don't think I ever have done that myself, but I don't do a great deal of searching for puzzles in the first place and I'm not very fond of lateral-thinking puzzles.

humn

How about tags for answers? Such as wrap-up or collaborative . . .

. . . in an imaginary world . . .

Gareth McCaughan

Might be nice to have but I don't imagine it will ever be supported.

Deusovi

11:17 PM

Unfortunately, we don't have much control over the internals of SE.

humn

. . . just a fantasy . . . it would make no sense for most of SE

For finding most things on this site I use internet searchers anyway. For one thing, they find comments. For another, they allow misspellings.

Mike Q

Internet searchers, like the googler

humn

yupper, not things that search for missing internets

Mike Q

Google search: "how to use google"

Oh my goodness that is actually a thing

humn

^ did you get auto-completion after the first two letters? Might be one of the most frequent queries.

Mike Q

11:29 PM

No. By the way, I think my favorite answer is possibly my worst one

humn

Hahahahaaaa, @Mike Q, I didn't remember who gave that great answer, but it certainly reflects a patience with solutions that, if applied to puzzle construction, could help complete your meta-haiku.

You could construct puzzles while the car wash is being built.

. . . back to the ortho-"flog" course (a reverse "golf" course puzzle being landscaped) for me . . .

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