The Sphinx's Lair

1:08 AM

@Randal'Thor I've committed. I like this idea.

@TheBitByte Great! If you know anywhere to advertise the proposal, that'd be great too - we need all the committers we can get if it's going to succeed.

@TheBitByte Are you sure you've committed? There are still the same number of committers as a few hours ago, and your profile says 0 commitments.

TheBitByte

1:35 AM

@Randal'Thor I've committed now.

By the way, the name it asked me to input, can I change it later on or not?

@Randal'Thor I'm doing an "ad" on meta.scifi, and looking for an appropriate title that doesn't get the post to be closed as soon as I post it. :D

Any ideas?

@Randal'Thor Done! meta.scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/10190/…

humn

6:31 AM

Really trying to keep from posting this, under puzzle-identification. World's smallest example of ___what type?____ puzzle:

(the world might never know...)

humn

6:53 AM

(hint: it isn't enigmatic-puzzle because the smallest example of that is: _______ )

Rand al'Thor

12:24 PM

@TheBitByte That's really strange: your profile now says you've committed, but you don't show up on the list of committers. Perhaps a bug?

@TheBitByte I already posted a Community Promotion Ad there though :-) (and on Worldbuilding and M&TV)

Lukas Rotter

12:58 PM

How does a proposal reach 100%? I always thought that happens when it has 200 users commited, but there are some proposals over 200 that are still in the commitment phase.

Rand al'Thor

@LukasRotter It needs to have 200 committed users, 100 committed users with >200 rep on some SE site, and also to have a sufficiently high commitment score.

Though in the case of Literature, the main problem is to get that 200: its progress so far on those three statistics is 27%, 51%, 100%, because nearly all the people who've committed are serious SE-ers.

Also, close votes for this?

user189275

Can the mods delete this: puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/41559/… ? I asked this while I was half-dozing. Also, anyone has any ideas in

user189275

4

Q: A gate presents a riddle with keys yielding a riddle with ease!

Upon entering the labyrinth, the hero, you, was greeted by a gate. The gate was still until your approach, and then it stirred. "You must tell me the answer to my riddle for which I gives three clues, each with a key to the clue. Putting all the clues together will give you another riddle and...

riddle

user189275

Ranking the ancestors might mean order the words alphabetically. I like movies more than books might mean reverse alphabetical order. But even then, it's hopeless when taking nth letter from beginning / end the trying all caesars.

user189275

@RosieF: Is your profile picture a puzzle ?

Rosie F

1:12 PM

@ArkaKarmakar Only if you want to make it one! It's a magic square, personalised to me. OK, here's a puzzle: find all the ways to group the 16 entries into 4 magic groups, where a magic group is 4 entries which sum to the magic total.

user189275

3 12 0 ? (7 ? 1 ?; I can't read it clearly)

user189275

Oh sorry, my stupidity. It's 7, because it's magical

user189275

I am finding about 15.

user189275

May be less, because I may add wrongly.

user189275

But obviously 10+, because 10 is already given :P

user189275

1:16 PM

8 10 4 0

user189275

-3 14 11 0

user189275

7 13 4 0

user189275

10 9 3 0

user189275

11 12 -1 0

user189275

2 8 12 0

user189275

1:17 PM

11 14 -3 0

user189275

12 9 1 0

user189275

14 8 -3 3

user189275

10 12 -3 3

user189275

10 12 -2 2

user189275

14 8 -2 2

user189275

1:18 PM

7 13 3 -1

user189275

@RosieF: How many magic squares can be made more ? I made around 3 more, from these, but not more.

Rosie F

1:32 PM

@ArkaKarmakar Yes it is a 7 in the top right corner. (Well, actually it's an r flipped from right to left.)

@ArkaKarmakar If you don't put any limits on the difference between the smallest and largest values in the magic square, then even if you only allow integers, there are infinitely many.

Rand al'Thor

@ArkaKarmakar If you want the mods to delete it, you should probably raise a custom mod flag (and they might refuse, since it's been upvoted and received upvoted answers, which indicates that at least some people found it interesting/useful.)

@ArkaKarmakar I just had a go at it.

user189275

@Randal'Thor: The tile face is same as pyramid stone, the edit history says so. My intution says that the dictionary word ranking idea is not fruitful. Alconja's working on it.

Rand al'Thor

2:08 PM

To any 10k-ers around (@Gareth @Alconja ?), I found some more delete-vote-worthy puzzles: one, two, three, four.

user189275

@Randal'Thor: You can't delete ?

Rand al'Thor

@ArkaKarmakar I can vote to delete, but it needs at least 3 people to get rid of them.

Unless a mod steps in, of course.

user189275

@Randal'Thor: Oh ! Any ideas about hte "Pyramid stone" or "Tile face" ? What is the key ? Not vignere or playfair, I suppose, because no X, which should be.

Rand al'Thor

I wonder if it could simply be SQUARE, if pyramids were built of square blocks and tiles tend to have square faces.

user189275

@Randal'Thor: But what the heck is keys ?

Rand al'Thor

2:38 PM

@ArkaKarmakar Did you just delete your earliest post here? puzzling.stackexchange.com/review/first-posts/24557

user189275

@Randal'Thor: No, I didn't delete it, and I don't think it isn't stupid so it isn't ought to be deleted. But why ?

Rand al'Thor

@ArkaKarmakar See above link. I just got a review (not an audit) for your supposed "first post" on PSE back in August. That happens when what was your second or third post becomes your first post due to deletion of an earlier post.

:32526448 Same reason. Your first post must have had a positive score when it was deleted.

user189275

@Randal'Thor: Now I know. The question was probably deleted by moderators, so it became my first post.

Rand al'Thor

Exactly!

user189275

@Randal'Thor: Since the site is community run, can't the high rep users change the random question promoting system ? Ridiculous questions are filling up most of the homepages, and most of the riddles are just joke like "I am four letter long. Who I am ? Guess, guess, guess and guess until your randomly guess what I'm thinking".

Rand al'Thor

2:50 PM

@ArkaKarmakar What do you mean?

The Hot Network Questions?

Or just which questions get upvoted?

In either case, no.

user189275

@Randal'Thor: No, what you see, when you open Puzzling SE. There should be strict rules on ciphers and riddles, as these are the topics with worst and best questions.

Rand al'Thor

@ArkaKarmakar You might like to contribute to this meta thread on what to do about riddle quality then. As for ciphers, we already have this much-quoted meta post.

user189275

@Randal'Thor: How HNQ's are selected ? Randomly ? Then by whom ? Bot ?

Rand al'Thor

56

A: How do the "arbitrary hotness points" work on the new Stack Exchange home page?

Basically what's documented here: What formula should be used to determine "hot" questions? We have a few tweaks: Succeeding questions from the same site are penalized by increasing amounts. So, the first question from SO in the list gets multiplied by 1.0, the second by 0.98, the third ...

Ankoganit

@Randal'Thor So many answers to a puzzle means it is "hot"? That's ridiculous, because IMO that means it's a bad question!

user189275

3:01 PM

@A.Mirabeau: When the next labryca is going to be posted ?

user189275

Does a question gets a notice on the main page even if a comment is added ? That's ridiculous !

Rand al'Thor

@Ankoganit Well, not every SE site is like Puzzling. On actual Q&A sites, having several different answers might mean that a question should get more attention so that the voting on the answers can decide which is best.

Sid

ANyone seen this? puzzling.stackexchange.com/questions/43088/…

Rand al'Thor

But yes, essentially the HNQ system is really bad and often promotes exactly the wrong kinds of questions.

@ArkaKarmakar No.

user189275

@Ankoganit: math.stackexchange.com/questions/733754/… i

user189275

3:05 PM

This is a very good counterexample.

Rand al'Thor

@ArkaKarmakar Maths SE clearly has an unusual policy on list questions. If I saw a question like that on any of my sites, I'd instantly VTC it as too broad.

user189275

@Randal'Thor: Well, the "Key" puzzle, that you posted a answer recently, got a bump as modified by Alconja. The only change made was Alconja

Rand al'Thor

Free flags:

user189275

's comment, so I think that it happens occasionaly

Rand al'Thor

0

A: Crack the Code #4

I NEED TO FIND A SOFTWARE ASK A QUESTION AND WANT ANSWER THAT IS THE TABLE QUESTION ANSWER 0X1000 0XD7AE 0X72EA 0XB8F2 0X2A8D 0X7478 0XFFFF 0X0000 0xFFFE 0X52AA

@ArkaKarmakar No, Alconja posted an answer which he then deleted. (Probably by accident, as the text of the answer was the same as his comment.)

Ankoganit

3:09 PM

:32526747 You mean when you use up all the 12 flags?

user189275

@Ankoganit: Exactly.

Rand al'Thor

@Ankoganit "all of the 12 flags"??

Oh, you mean if you don't have many helpful flags yet and so you only have a small allowance?

That allowance is per day. So if you flag too many posts in one day, you have to wait until the next day to flag more. That's all it means.

And the more helpful flags you get, the more new flags you can raise per day.

Sid

Is shooting a game or a sport?

Ankoganit

@Randal'Thor Wow, didn't know that!!

@Sid Wait, there is a difference?

Sid

Technically Yes, although they are used interchangeably

user189275

3:14 PM

@Sid: Making a new puzzle ?

Ankoganit

“There are only three sports: bullfighting, motor racing, and mountaineering; all the rest are merely games.”~ Ernest Hemingway

I don't quite agree though

Anyway, so according to him Shooting counts as a game.

Sid

@ArkaKarmakar Nope, no time for that now, too busy... I was just looking at a puzzle posted on the site... I feel like it is shooting(reverse puzzling) or maybe I have been watching too much olympics...

Or wait, it maybe something historical...

A. Mirabeau

3:37 PM

@ArkaKarmakar Tonight...

Ankoganit

@A.Mirabeau Oooooh!

@A.Mirabeau Wait, it's already night here :O

Rand al'Thor

3:57 PM

@TheBitByte You still need to verify your email address in order to show up as a real committer: meta.stackexchange.com/a/284922/278659

TheBitByte

4:15 PM

@Randal'Thor How do I verify it?

Rand al'Thor

@TheBitByte There should (?) be a link on your profile, visible only to you, which says "send email verification to [your email address]".

TheBitByte

@Randal'Thor Done!

Do I wait until 200 committers?

Rand al'Thor

4:32 PM

@TheBitByte We need 200 committers before we can start actually asking and answering questions there.

But it's OK if half of those 200 come from outside SE. Anyone can register at Area 51 and commit to a proposal even if they've never been to SE before. So off-site promotion can help too.

A. Mirabeau

@Ankoganit Tonight, Pacific Standard Time. D'oh for you.

Sid

4:54 PM

@Randal'Thor What is Area 51??

Rand al'Thor

@Sid The place where new Stack Exchange sites are created.

area51.stackexchange.com

There's a current proposal for a Literature SE, which I and some other book fans are very eager to see succeed. But it needs more people to commit to it (which is basically a matter of pressing a button and confirming your interest) before it can actually get turned into a site.

Sid

5:22 PM

Okay, thanks ..

Gareth McCaughan

7:14 PM

Note that "committing" does actually involve promising to be active and ask/answer questions once the thing opens. (I don't know whether any sort of attempt to enforce that promise is made. I guess not.)

TheBitByte

7:34 PM

In need of puzzle inspiration. Willing to pay (in upvotes) :D

Rand al'Thor

8:13 PM

@GarethMcCaughan I can't see how that promise could possibly be enforced. And surely anyone who's interested in the proposal will be interested enough to post at least a few questions or answers?

Gareth McCaughan

8:27 PM

It would certainly be difficult to impose any sort of sanctions on people who break the promise. But e.g. the progression from the "got enough commitments" stage (whatever it's called) to the next stage might be made to depend on the committers actually keeping their commitment.

Rand al'Thor

But I think the "got enough commitments" stage is beta, i.e. when the site actually opens to questions and answers and becomes a real site. AFAIK, the only way it can fail in that stage is if it simply doesn't get enough posts/participation. So it sort of depends on people keeping their commitment, but the people who post during private beta don't have to be among those who committed in Area 51.

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