Rätselportal <-> Sudokuportal

[Big Tiger]

... Like ... my first Sudoku creation is one that very much appeals to me (I made it after all, ha ha) and my longtime enjoyment of the classic "Logic Puzzle" where you have 12 clues and have to figure out who went shopping on what day and what they bought - BUT ... I learned quickly that it was not what the really dedicated Sudoku solvers were looking for.  They like a nice simple (albeit hidden/tricky) methodology, something more "elegant".

That puzzle (the Family Fun Center) is a perfect example of something that in my opinion would have been very well received one year ago with 10% of the puzzles we have now. When I decide which two or three puzzles I do in the evening, it's much more likely that I grab something with a familiar or simple ruleset. (That can still be hard puzzles). That doesn't mean, that this puzzle is not appealing to me, it's just less likely to be chosen and some days later it's so far down in the list, that I will forget about it. That's totally different if it's the only new puzzle of the day and remains on the frontpage in the "5 newest puzzles" list for a week.

Also I think it's more about if the few solvers enjoy it, instead of catering to the biggest audience. The "Logicals" you mention are a good example. There are not many solvers for these,  but they are very happy about every well-crafted Logical they get.

Thank you for the insight. :-)

[CHalb]

Is there any site or such that caters to ... I don't know, "previewing" puzzles?  Throwing it out to a group of profiles that try it out and give responses - which would then give me and other experimenters an idea of what grabs interest and doesn't?
...
So I'm wondering if there is a site/portal that functions almost like a curator process, so I could learn which of my offbeat ideas will gain an audience ("Battlefield") and which ones will get mostly passed over ("Virus Sudoku").  Or if that is a non-starter idea.

I don't know any specific site or forum for this purpose. But three thoughts about this:

1. Many of us gained over the years contact to many puzzle solvers and authors. I personally send almost each of my puzzles - especially the more complex ones - to one of my puzzle friends and ask if they can test it. But by this I do not get feedback before publishing from many people (max. two if the first one doesn't answer fast enough). Yet my experience - and own habit - with test solving is, that we do not only respond how many solutions the puzzle has. But in many cases we give a feedback to a lot of aspects of a puzzle.

2. You have experienced yourself a bit about this forum. Sometimes people ask here in new threads for test solvers without revealing the puzzle itself immediately. This may be shifted to ask explicitly for overall feedback.

3. I think the portal is a very good place to show a tested puzzle to many people and get feedback. Even if the puzzle maybe does not get a high rating in beauty: you can get diverse feedback and you never know, what it might trigger in other people. Many of my own puzzles ideas have been initiated by other portal puzzles (and sometimes by not reading or understanding the instructions properly   ).

[glum_hippo]

Only a very small percentage of people solving Sudokus becomes interested in solving other logical puzzles as well.

What is this claim based on? I am not questioning it but want to know how you reached this conclusion.

Diese Frage ist in der 'Flut' wahrscheinlich untergegangen (bzw im Wechsel zu Seite 3 der Diskussion )... ich frage nur aus Neugier, da die Behauptung mich überrascht hat.

[CHalb]

Nein ist sie nicht, aber ich brauchte etwas länger, um meine Antwort zu formulieren   :

This is mainly based on my experience and work in our national club Logic Masters Deutschland.

At our national German Sudoku Championships (DSM) still each year some new faces appear we haven’t met before. I almost always mention during my speeches at the DSM price giving ceremonies the diversity of logical puzzles, our club and the portal you know. My impression: Hardly anybody of the participants appears afterwards active in the portal. Of course they may and I can’t recognize everyone or they start using magazines. It’s just my average impression. At our national German Puzzle Championship (Logic Masters) the group of people stays much more constant over the years. The number of participants at the qualification for the annual DSM are always larger than for the Logic Masters.

In the context of our German Youth Sudoku Championships (DJSM) I observe the same. We‘ve had contact to around 30 schools in five years and I have been in three of them myself in order to take care of the school qualifications. When introducing the championship there I always mention that there is more about logic puzzles than Sudokus. I do not earn much interest with this topic.

I admit: I know some people, who started at DSM or DJSM and became even puzzle authors and club members. But these are something around three in number. And I haven’t checked, how many Sudokus and non-Sudokus have been solved by some of our new portal users.

Some similar impressions from another kind of source I got last year. We organized and held our DSM in the context of a town anniversary and the World Sudoku Championship (WSC) and the World Puzzle Championship (WPC) here in Germany. Before and during these events I gave around ten interviews to journalists of several radio stations, magazines and newspapers. Of course they are people who do a job and are not necessarily really interested in the topics they are writing and speaking about. I usually encountered even a massive ignorance about Sudoku variants, not to speak of other logical puzzles. But that is what I always start to do in this cases: Telling about and describing and writing down e.g. a slitherlink or showing my cell phone cover with a Tapa on it. And that is practically senseless. I do not receive really interest to what I’m speaking about. Some do not mention our club afterwards and most of them stick in their reporting to what seems easier and more profitable.

All in all my view is naturally narrowed. Maybe in other areas (books, escape rooms…) the relation and the development differs, but I don’t think so.

[glum_hippo]

Es überrascht mich trotzdem - aber das alles macht Sinn; ich zähle selber zu den wohl wenigen die über den Sudoku-Weg und Portalrätsel neue Rätselformen erlernt haben und kann nur aus meinen eigenen Empfindungen Schlüsse ziehen.

Danke für die Ausführung und für all die mühevolle Öffentlichkeitsarbeit. Ich könnte mir durchaus vorstellen, eventuell von Sudokaï die Nase voll zu haben, aber noch ist es nicht passiert! 

[pin7guin]

Mit den vielen neuen Autoren ist z.B. auch Florian "flooser" aus der Top 100 der Autoren verschwunden - er hatte 4 Rätsel zum Portal beigesteuert...
https://logic-masters.de/Raetselportal/B...me=flooser

[HaSe]

Mit den vielen neuen Autoren ist z.B. auch Florian "flooser" aus der Top 100 der Autoren verschwunden - er hatte 4 Rätsel zum Portal beigesteuert...
https://logic-masters.de/Raetselportal/B...me=flooser

Danke für den Hinweis. Habe festgestellt, dass ich alle vier Rätsel damals nicht bearbeitet habe. Habe sie mir nun Florian zu Ehren ausgedruckt, und werde sie lösen.

[ildiko]

Vielleicht wäre es mit kleinem Aufwand möglich, auch diese beiden Listen (im angemeldeten Zustand) auf "unendlich" zu stellen wie die Kommentar/gelöste Rätsel-Listen?

Bei der Gelegenheit:

Ein dickes Lob an das web"team". Vielen Dank für die Änderung an den Listen. Ich habe früher immer wieder aus den Kommentaren und den zuletzt gelösten Rätseln Anregungen gezogen, was ich als nächstes anpacke. Das ist jetzt wieder möglich.

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Das "Problem" mit der Sudokuflut habe ich für mich so gelöst, dass ich in meiner Excelliste in der Spalte Sudoku einfach selber die Sudokus markiere die ich nur noch mit Namen führe, die Rätsel selbst kopiere ich mir gar nicht mehr. Und neben den Sudokus, die ich auch weiter lösen werde (SVS forever!) suche ich ab und zu nach welchen, die mindestens 40 Löser hatten.

[Statistica]

Vielleicht wäre es mit kleinem Aufwand möglich, auch diese beiden Listen (im angemeldeten Zustand) auf "unendlich" zu stellen wie die Kommentar/gelöste Rätsel-Listen?

Welche Listen meinst Du?

[CHalb]

Ich denke, hier geht's um die beiden Listen der Rätselautoren und Rätsellöser in den Top 100. Ich hatte in letzter Zeit zweimal die Situation, die Schreibweise eines Autors nicht genau zu kennen. In den Top 100 taucht er aber mit nur drei Rätseln nicht auf. Auch deshalb finde ich die Idee gut.