Alan
2003-03-13 12:20:40 |
Unsolved problem order
I was looking at the list of unsolved problems and noticed that they are in no particular arranged order(at least none i noticed). I think that it probably would be good if they were orderd by the following crudentials.
1.Difficulty 5 has highest value in list
2.Comments the more the better
3. Score |
fwaff
2003-03-13 22:14:27 |
Re: Unsolved problem order
I agree that an ordering is sensible, but believe it is better for those with the least comments to be at the top to encourage discussion on them. Also the unsolved problems with the most comments already appear on the 'Most Commented On' list and often re-appear on the 'New Comments' list, so why should they receive further promotion?
Now that a couple of problems appear every day I often miss some of them when they are the 'Latest Problem' and the only way I see them is by looking at the 'New Comments' and 'Unsolved Problems' - this is also true of problems posted at the weekend as I'm generally a 'lunchtime at work' floobler. I think that one use of the unsolved list is to give recent problems a good airing and thus a fair chance of being discussed and solved, so why not enhance this benefit by putting them at the top of the list?
As an additional suggestion, how about not posting the formal solution to a problem until there is at least one Solution comment? Rather than posting solutions by default after a few days.
As an example, I think that Charlie's chess problem missed out (or rather we missed out on it) because it only spent a short time as 'Latest' during which no comments were posted, so nobody saw it on the 'New Comments' list. As a result the solution was posted before anybody actually solved it. |
Charlie
2003-03-14 03:30:53 |
Re: Unsolved problem order
Is what fwaff refers to actually the result of the recent problem list being too easy to miss? It does appear below the random problem on the home page, so you can actually catch up by scrolling below the random problem from the past. Maybe a couple of these could be moved above the random problem so they'd be more easily seen. And being only a couple, they wouldn't prevent the random problem from being seen. |
fwaff
2003-03-14 04:14:03 |
Re: Unsolved problem order
Thanks Charlie, I never noticed that list before - on the homepage screen I see the Recent one, usually see at least the top of the Oldie (depending on the length of the Recent problem) and have never thought to scroll down further to see what's beyond. Doh!
I'm off to hang my head in shame now! |
levik
2003-03-14 10:10:37 |
Re: Unsolved problem order
I am currently thinking of adding a "digest" page, where you will be able to see the problems for the last X days.
The problems would be shown in the same way as the "Latest" and "Oldie" are on the front page: just the body + the comment count. You would have to go to the actual problem's page to read the comments though.
The X would be "changable", probably from a pull down - from one day to seven, ten and fifteen, I'm thinking, and default to the number of days since your last visit, or 2 whichever is greater.
Comments? |
TomM
2003-03-14 15:16:35 |
Re: Unsolved problem order
The pull-down, changeable last X days seems like a lot of work. Try it with a standard 3 or 4 days first: we'd be talking about 6 to 8 puzzles on that digest page; more could become troublesome |
