Rätselportal <-> Sudokuportal

[SF2L]

I have started using the instrument of the feedback which so far I hadn't used extensively.
some time ago I read that somebody remarked that most of the quality rating were 4 or 5 stars.
Recently I have been a bit more critical, and started awarding 1 star(not nice at all) for example to easy classic sudokus which do not add anything to the thrill of the portal, or to variants repeated n+1 times.
Having said that,some of the new variants or hybrids are too complicated and really boring, while others are very beautiful creations indeed and well worth solving.The problem is that with so much "noise" sometimes they very quickly end up in page 2 or 3 and at that stage they disappear. .

[maria]

I strongly recommend not setting any publishing limits or installing any other kind of restrictions until the purpose of the Puzzle Portal itself and of such restrictions has been properly defined (or at least agreed upon). Any kind of restriction can only be a means to an end, and we must first clarify what that end should be. I could think of various objectives:

* to encourage new puzzle friends to solve puzzles;
* to encourage new puzzle friends to create puzzles;
* to gather feedback on existing puzzles;
* to provide puzzle material (as a pastime) for established members of the puzzle community;
* to publish puzzle series not suitable for contests;
* to publish leftovers from past events;
* to collect/exchange ideas for future events, regarding both creation and solving;
* to advertise membership in our (or any other) puzzle community.
There may be more, of course.

I daresay objectives were never actually defined when the Puzzle Portal was created, simply because there was no need. In the old days, puzzle floods were not a concern. The nature of the Puzzle Portal was self-evident; it served several of the above purposes, and at the time I don't think there were any conflicting interests.

That appears to have changed, as a - more or less natural - result of the growth of the puzzle community. Since growth was generally desired (not just for the Puzzle Portal, but for Logic Masters and its community as such), it is not a priori something to complain about. However, the increase in puzzle publication has led us to a point where the above goals can no longer coexist without conflict.

If we are about to devise restrictions of some sort to the use of the Puzzle Porital, I suggest that we prioritise its goals first. I am under the impression that the conflict mainly lies between the second and the third item on the list. And some of the contributions in this thread suggest that the priority should lie on the third item, but I am far from sure that this is a universal view.)

Settings limits quickly might chase away some aspiring authors, and as long as the goals of the Puzzle Portal are just vague ideas, it is not clear to me whether the benefits will really outweigh the drawbacks. And maybe there are other options as well, like restructuring the Puzzle Portal without imposing any actual restrictions on the users.

I totally agree with this! Thank you for clarifying so many goals of the puzzle portal that I had in my mind during discussions inside the board. 
For me, the highest goal is to encourage new (mainly Sudoku) puzzlers to discover all the standard puzzle types we have, not only Sudokus. That includes the first two goals, but also the idea to learn from each other and evolve new puzzle types.

In order to achieve our goals, I thought about achievements or badges inside the puzzle portal. For example, a user may become a badge to his user profile, if he solves ten different puzzle types. I am sure, we could define plenty of such achievements. BUT, we have a one-man webteam! So, that is absolutely not realizable in near future.

For sure, we will discuss the whole topic on our general assembly.

[Rotstein]

I'm one of the new users so maybe I shouldn't have a say in it, but I think the best way to solve this is to make a new list inside the puzzles lists. I mean, separate the puzzles from new creators to the ones who are in the portal for a long time (e.g. if you click in sudoku it will appear the puzzles from new creators in one side and in the other side the ones from long-time members), and then add some kind of voting/rating to this puzzles (and maybe to the users as well) so they can get shifted to the list with long-time members (maybe this voting should be for long-time members only, so they can decide what puzzles and creators should get more attention). I'm also in favour of monthly limits like other people pointed out. Although people can create other accounts to publish, I don't think the majority will do this, I think we have to have a little trust in people. Giving myself as a example, as soon as I was aware of this thread I started to publishing once or twice a week, and I think if everyone was aware of that they will also control themselves in order to have a better community.

[marcmees]

Personally, the recent flood of (mainly) sudokus and puzzles brings me mixed emotions.

Many players that seem active on the Cracking The Cryptic platform have found their way to the German portal; those new authors are posting their puzzles here and there is really interesting stuff inbetween.
Personally, I have a lot of fun with all those new creations, and my list of possible types to include in SVS has grown severe in the last couple of months.

But this development also has a side effect.
Up until the end of 2019, on average one puzzle per day was posted. At the moment that number has risen to 7 or 8 and seems to rise still. And in my opinion, the portal simply can't handle such an amount of new puzzles.

I see many puzzles that have been posted are hardly solved, unthough they are attractive, and probably very good. But they just are not found since they go up in the mass. And that is a pity; every puzzle deserves appropriate attention. Some authors are starting to wonder why their puzzle is solved only a limited times after a certain time, and some players are starting to write comments about the current puzzle flood too. So I think I am not the only one with those mixed emotions.

So far, the portal is an open space. It doesn't matter if you are a member of LMGermany or not, every one can solve and post what he/she likes: the type of puzzle, the difficulty and the number of puzzles. There are no restrictions, rules or regulations.

I think it is in the interest of the portal, the authors and the solvers if there would be guidelines; and then mainly guidelines about numbers of puzzles posted. In total and per author. Although I don't exactly know what those guidelines could be; several things are possible. So far, they were not necessary, but things have obviously changed.

I would really like to read how others see this. Solvers and authors. I hope we can have a constructive discussion about this that is in the best interest of all.

Best regards, Richard

[marcmees]

It's definitely a challenge to distinguish the puzzles worth solving from the mass of new entries on the logic-masters site. Hybrid sudoku's such as thermo - anti knight- renban - little killer - snakes will get less attention compared with the one-rule puzzles like SVS (thanks Richard). Keep it simple. Nevertheless have the new authors added a couple of very interesting, challenging concepts. How to combine the best of 2 worlds is beyond my logic. If solvers consequently add encouraging comments to those puzzles worth solving - A tag which shows how many "likes" a puzzle got may help potential solvers to make a selection. Many thanks to all authors.

[glum_hippo]

Ich weiss nicht, ob es vielleicht besser wäre ein neues Thema zu erstellen, aber: mit dem grossen Flut neuer Nutzer hat sich ein Trend entwickelt, der mich ein bißchen stört. Auf einer Rätselseite wird einem neuen Nutzer vorgeworfen, dass er/sie ein fake Konto benutzt, um das Rating zu erhöhen. Offenbar nur auf der Basis von Mutmaßungen? Oder habe ich etwas verpasst? Und Leute meckern in den einzelnen Rätsel-Diskussionen mehrmals über die allgemeine Qualität der Rätsel. Man versetze sich doch bitte in die Lage dieser Neuankömmlinge, bevor man sich in dieser Art und Weise auslässt.

Die Seite heisst 'Logic MASTERS', aber das hat offenbar nicht ausreichend dazu geführt, dass Amateure abgeschreckt werden. Vielleicht sollte man die Seite auf 'Only MASTERS' umbenennen. Was mir klar scheint, ist dass ein signifikanter Anteil der länger bestehenden Nutzer einfach keine Lust haben, mit so vielen neuen Leuten umzugehen. Mag sein, dass ich hier falsch liege, aber in dem Fall sollten wir uns viel besser bemühen, diesen Eindruck nicht zu erwecken.

EDIT: Ich bin selber auch noch nicht sehr lange hier, aber die Idee von Rotstein oben gefällt mir ansatzweise gut, und ich selber würde etwas ähnliches begrüssen... es bedarf jedoch einiges an Gegrübel.

[ildiko]

Auf einer Rätselseite wird einem neuen Nutzer vorgeworfen, dass er/sie ein fake Konto benutzt, um das Rating zu erhöhen. Offenbar nur auf der Basis von Mutmaßungen? Oder habe ich etwas verpasst?

3VF. Es ist ein 5-Sterne-Rätsel. Es wurde laut Zeitstempel um 17:36 Uhr am 14. Juli akiviert und eine Minute später das erste Mal gelöst. Das lässt natürlich einen Verdacht aufkommen. Mir persönlich egal. Vielleicht war es ja auch schon Stunden vorher einmal aktiviert, dann deaktiviert und neu aktiviert.

Offtopic: Ich mag deine Signatur.

[uvo]

Könnte ein Testlöser gewesen sein. Vergleiche zum Beispiel mal mit diesem hier:

https://logic-masters.de/Raetselportal/R...?id=0000VP

[glum_hippo]

Könnte ein Testlöser gewesen sein. Vergleiche zum Beispiel mal mit diesem hier:

https://logic-masters.de/Raetselportal/R...?id=0000VP

Danke für dieses Beispiel! Und genau das war auch mein erster Gedanke. Aber ob's ein Testlöser oder der Erlenkönig war ist mir weniger wichtig als die durch solche Vorwürfe erzeugte Atmosphäre. Vielleicht bin ich da allerdings ein bißchen zu sensibel.

[Greg]

Auf einer Rätselseite wird einem neuen Nutzer vorgeworfen, dass er/sie ein fake Konto benutzt, um das Rating zu erhöhen. Offenbar nur auf der Basis von Mutmaßungen? Oder habe ich etwas verpasst?

So i'm the person who accused the puzzle maker of creating a fake account. My reasoning was the solver only solved their puzzles, within a minute of being posted. And also that the puzzle itself wasn't actually solvable (had multiple solutions) and so the fact it was being solved was misleading.

However I do now completely see your point regarding test solving etc. and that I did very quickly jump to the conclusion which could easily have been wrong.

Also as Glum_Hippo wrote, it very easily causes an unwelcome atmosphere. At the time I wrote it, for me it was just a passing comment, but now I reread it I can see that it comes off as being very accusatory and creating a hostile environment for a new puzzle creator.

For that I apologise unreservedly, and will delete the comment and I hope I haven't caused too much of a nuisance to the forum!