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1:34 AM
Just read the guide on making cryptic clues, here's an attempt at one:

Soda and dog toy is great (9)
 
1 hour later…
3:20 AM
@bobble this is definitely a thing, it's just not called that
3:32 AM
0
Q: Flee the Bandits, part 2

Ichthys KingYou've just gotten off the train and are headed to meet up with your friend, who was stopped by some drunken bandits. As you get to the square, you get a text informing that your friend has an urgent task to do at the train station, and so still has to get past the bandits. There are about four b...

 
1 hour later…
4:36 AM
gladys's next intended destination has been cancelled, due to complete lack of coming up with a puzzle for it, by me (to paraphrase jake peralta)
so the next episode has been pushed up instead... it's a thermo sudoku
0
Q: Mercury in Centigrade

JafeThis is part 55 of the puzzle series Around the World in Many Days. Each part is solvable on its own. Dear Puzzling, This is a non-consecutive thermo sudoku. Fill the grid so that each row, column and 3x3 contains the digits 1–9 once each. Cells sharing an edge may not contain consecutive digits...

 
9 hours later…
1:46 PM
@ApexPolenta Anyone know what this is? I've been betting on "great" being the def simply because it has more synonyms but I haven't gotten anywhere with it
2:03 PM
@ApexPolenta I reckon this is FANTASTIC (great) from FANTA (soda) + STIC (dog toy i.e. STICK) and it's very close to being a clue that follows the rules, except you need a way to lose the 'K' from STIC(K) or imply a 'soundalike' to use this, e.g. "I've heard soda and dog toy is great (9)" Good attempt though :)
2:25 PM
I was wondering if stic was a brand of dog toy that I hadn't heard of (don't have a dog, so it wouldn't be all that surprising) but all I found were glue sticks and pens
probably don't want your dog gnawing on a glue stick
 
1 hour later…
3:49 PM
You could also do something like "Soda and dog toy loses monarch - it's great" (or something similar). Here, "monarch" is a King, which can be abbreviated as K, so the word STICK loses K, becoming STIC.
(I know the surface reading of that one sucks; it's just an example to illustrate how it works.)
4:10 PM
Oct 15, 2022 at 11:49, by Jafe
got the wrong end of the stic there
4:50 PM
0
Q: 2013 MIT Aquarium Hunt #1

JusolinThe puzzle is Alter Rival from 2013 Aquarium Hunt. Every article or post I found tells me it is a fairly easy puzzle. The answer of the puzzle: What I tried: I noticed the capitalized letters at first, but connecting them seemed to make no sense. Then I looked back to the title. I tried to alte...

1
Q: An Irregular Colombian Sudoku

Bernardo Recamán SantosSolve the Irregular Sudoku below (by Xavier Castillo), where the usual rules apply. The dots outside the board on top indicate how many cells in the corresponding column or row of that board contain precisely the same digit as is to be found in the same cell of the solved Sudoku on the left.

5:35 PM
@Stiv Surely the only thing wrong is the enumeration. "Soda and dog toy is great. (10)"
(other orangeades are available)
 
2 hours later…
PDT
PDT
7:50 PM
Can someone explain why this is happening, I have been downvoted on many occasions even though I have either had the right answer for a post or had no obvious flaws in my puzzles?
8:41 PM
@PDT I haven't downvoted, but after reviewing a few of your most-recent questions, my best guess is that some people just don't care for them. We have seen a lot of "Who am I"-type riddles on this site, and unless they're especially clever or very well-written, they are not likely to get many votes (or, indeed will get some downvotes). I don't think there's anything wrong, per se, with your questions; they just don't seem like they are extremely high quality.
(Some seem to rely on a bit of a "fugde factor" to get from the question to the solution (e.g. changing the spelling of a word, or jumping from one meaning to another without it being clued in any way.)
This is all just my own opinion, so take it with a grain of salt. Others might have different views.
In the end, people vote on how they "feel" about a puzzle; it's not uncommon to get a couple of downvotes. If you're getting a whole lot, then you need to look at what you're doing wrong, but 1 or 2 is fairly par for the course.
 
2 hours later…
PDT
PDT
10:20 PM
I would get suspicious if it was just the puzzles it’s just that a lot of my posts including correct answers to posts have gotten downvotes like today my post for rand Al thors answer got 2 downvotes even though the op confirmed that I got the right answer…
*wouldn’t
10:35 PM
2
Q: An unusually tricky Galaxy

MatthewBackground I love Simon Tatham's Puzzles, especially for killing the odd few minutes. One of the available puzzles is Galaxies, based on Tentai Show. I can usually solve these in anywhere from 30 seconds to a few minutes, but I stumbled upon one that has had me scratching my head for (off and on)...

 
1 hour later…
11:54 PM
Yep that's it, and thanks for the tip :)
I'll give it another go soon

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