Rätselportal <-> Sudokuportal

[Hausigel]

As a new user, I'll jump in and offer my suggestion for the 'problems'. Clearly, there are many more solvers than setters out there. It seems fair to assume that practically every setter is a solver. So, if there are too few people solving, that clearly suggests to me that the portal currently is much more attractive for setters than for solvers, and that the solution should be to improve it for solvers.

I have two practical suggestions:
1. Showcase an editorial selection of about 4 puzzles on the main page. These should be changed regularly, perhaps every week. If that is too much work, changing them each month would also make them worthwhile in my opinion. It should be puzzles in different styles that the editors think are good showcases of the quality puzzles found on the site.

2. Currently the only feedback available comes after solving a puzzle, which can take a lot of time. But in my opinion, it is possible to offer useful feedback even after a brief look at a puzzle. I suggest adding a 'thumbs up'/'thumbs down' rating on each puzzle that is available to all logged in users. Here, 'thumbs down' simply means 'I am not interested in this puzzle', it does not mean that the puzzle is 'bad'. But ultimately, a puzzle portal should sort out those puzzles that solvers find interesting. Then, I suggest showing a section called 'Interesting new puzzles', which shows those puzzles that do not yet have enough solves to get a rating, but which have the highest (thumbs up - thumbs down) difference. I believe this would drastically increase the chance that interesting puzzles get a fair review. Of course, many puzzles would simply receive a lot of 'thumbs down' and still no solutions. But at least, that can tell the author that their puzzles are not appealing to the puzzlers of this forum, which is a useful feedback.

My personal opinion:
1. In theory this may be a good idea to advertise puzzle styles other than just the current mainstream Sudoku variants, but I guess it is just too much work by far. I know I do not have nearly enough time for this, and I don't know anyone who does.
2. This does not sound appealing to me. There are already different forms of feedback available (e.g. the Favorites list and the Ignore list), and I am not convinced that a Thumbs up/down button would provide more useful feedback. Based on recent developments in the Portal, I would expect that many users would vote a puzzle up because they are friends with the author, many others would vote a puzzle down because they don't like Sudokus, and in the end all one gets is two large numbers with very little significance.