E, I, I, E, I, I, O, H, W, ?

There's not specified time, and it applies to journeymen as well, as anyone who has seen and worked on the solution while in the queue. I'd say 80% of the time I do work out a puzzle while it's still in the queue; other people try not to work on it, but having people work on it does help weed out some solutionless puzzles, or verify that there is indeed a solution for puzzles that others thought were solutionless.

But in any event, if I've worked out the solution before, I'd leave a couple of hours. As mentioned, I had thought that puzzle had been up for a couple of hours, and I did post the solution under that impression, so that answers your last question.

In the particular case of this puzzle, in fact, I was curious if others would come up with a solution quickly, as I had wondered if it were really difficulty 5. Unfortunately due to my misreading of the time since posting, we did not find out.

But if I hadn't worked on the puzzle while it was in the queue, I would post a solution as soon as I came up with one.

Posted by Charlie on 2003-09-12 15:12:20