The Sphinx's Lair

@βετѧΛєҫαγ I don't think we really need to worry about that. Especially considering the fact that it's a 2 year old question.

βετѧ Λєҫαγ

@dcfyj Oh okay, thanks

If you're that worried about it you can @ call one of the mods and they can look at it, but like I said, I don't think it's something we need to be concerned about.

1 hour later…

2:01 PM

@JonEricson Since you're here, could you look into this question? That particular user seems rather confused.

Jon Ericson

@dcfyj Yeah. I'll see what I can find.

Q: It is okay/right/fair/ethical to encourage others to downvote a specific puzzle?

Cool, thanks

Puzzling Meta

2:20 PM

There continues to be a lot of discussion about improving overall quality of puzzles on the site. Downvoting a puzzle is a way we can try to mark certain puzzles as low quality until something like a specific close reason comes around. I've been convinced by posts like this that if I care about...

discussion question-quality

GentlePurpleRain

@JonEricson You may want to look at this.

Jon Ericson

@GentlePurpleRain Thanks. I'll pop in over there.

5 hours later…

7:48 PM

I was hoping for more views on this puzzle ... :-/

Rosie F

8:13 PM

@Randal'Thor You got a view from me. Too bad for me that after I'd seen it, I had to go out, and by the time I'd got back two users had solved it! Nice work, working the 5 thematic elements in.

8:28 PM

@RosieF Thanks!

And re your meta comment: yes, I would hope for more "I think this question is low-quality because XYZ; what do you think?" rather than "this question is low-quality, everyone go and downvote it". But the former is still likely to bring downvotes to the question, much more so than doing nothing at all.

Rosie F

8:49 PM

Hm -- maybe.

I do this sort of thing in the main chatroom for another site. Not that there's a big quality problem there, but we have a question feed which posts all new questions into the chatroom. Occasionally someone will reply to the feed and say e.g. "Dupe?" or "Primarily opinion-based?", and then whoever's in the room might discuss the question and whether or not it should be closed.

ObviouslyJake

9:16 PM

See, in another chatroom i'm in. it's not liek that. it's mostly 'ew, Id_request' xD

IAmInPLS

9:38 PM

@Randal'Thor People were not ready for this. Wait a bit, they need to get accustomed to you again :p

10:07 PM

@ObviouslyJake You're not in the Screening Room by any chance?

ObviouslyJake

Nah

Has anyone looked at the css file for the puzzling main page? It's crazy

Nope, never have

It's huge, and finding font colors is nearly impossible

What do people think about this question? It's actually better (more general) than the question it's being closed as a duplicate of. Do you think it's worth sprucing up the question a bit and then mod-merging the answers from the older question over to this one?

Damn, just realised the second answer to the older one is specific to that particular Sudoku and not about solving strategies in general.

10:19 PM

Yeah, I actually downvoted that top answer when I first saw it.

Not because it was bad. It's amazing!

But it didn't answer the question. It didn't even try.

It's a great answer for "How do I solve a sudoku?" and a bad answer for "how do I solve this sudoku?"

I feel the questions peregrine rook linked were a lot more specific but then the answer being seeked is in that other question

@Deusovi Still a good answer, because "how do I solve this sudoku?" is just a special case of "How do I solve a sudoku?" :-)

I upvoted it.

Yes, but if it's asking only about the special case, then the answer should specifically pertain to that special case.

Not necessarily.

I wouldn't answer "What's the solution to this particular crossword clue?" with a set of general tips for solving crosswords.

Why would it be different for Sudoku?

10:23 PM

"How do I solve X?" - "Here's how to solve X, Y, Z, and every letter of the alphabet" is a really good answer. Overachieving, but what's wrong with that?

Sure, but "Here are several techniques, one of which will help you solve X" is not as good.

Still, it's a pity there's no way of merging individual answers from one question to another, rather than moving the whole answer chain, which wouldn't really work here.

It's not bad either

Like I said, I still think it's a fantastic answer. Just... on the wrong question.

Alconja

10:44 PM

@Randal'Thor - You won't take my high vote/low view ratio record that easily. :)

@Alconja I was talking about a couple of your puzzles in the SFF chatroom earlier :-) A couple of people mentioned some puzzle involving a newspaper and a creepy ending with a coma, and I couldn't work out what they were talking about at first.

That was a great puzzle

Alconja

:) that one got plenty of views though. I've got one with 66 +votes from only 652 views

Wow, that's quite something. Which one? (or don't you want to show it to anyone, to keep the views down?)

Alconja

you read my irrational mind :P

but i don't care that much: puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/33523/…

Just think it's a cool record to hold (small things amusing and all that)