Feature requests

[Ben Wilson]

As a bit of an extension to the 'most multitalented' and 'most multilingual' pages, can we have 'most [blank] by number of maxes' for the relevant 15 rounders?

[Charlie Reams]

'most [blank] by number of maxes' for the relevant 15 rounders?

I'm trying to work out what word you deleted here. Shit?

[Liam Tiernan]

If, for example I want to play Jojo, but he's already in a game it would be rude to issue a challenge.

Hmm, would it? I do this all the time.

I remember being politely reprimanded for doing this when I first started playing Apterous, so I just assumed it was an unwritten rule.

[Rhys Benjamin]

An "offer draw" feature might work, though, whereby a tied game can be curtailed by mutual agreement. I can see that being useful in the more esoteric variants when, as in this case, two players get stuck in a never-ending stream of tie-break conundrums.

That's actually a nice idea.

Anywhere near this!?

[Gavin Chipper]

I know this might sounds stupid, but when I click on "end round early", because the button is at the bottom of the box, I sometimes miss and lose the box from view and have to get it back again. So I was thinking maybe a bit of a border underneath it.

Also I think I've mentioned this before, but if you do maxes only in a numbers game, and you declare exactly it won't bother waiting for your solution if it deems the game to be impossible. This would make it useless on hyper.

[Nick Boldock]

Love the new per user ratings table. Excellent.

[Ben Wilson]

Given Prune now imitates the player's numbers pick, can it be arranged so that the players gets first pick in all numbers attack-style games against him/it?

[Ian Volante]

A chat limit/time-out in the chat window to restrict spamming.

[Charlie Reams]

A chat limit/time-out in the chat window to restrict spamming.

Seems like Mute would cover this adequately.

[Ian Volante]

A chat limit/time-out in the chat window to restrict spamming.

Seems like Mute would cover this adequately.

Aye, was just a special case yesterday of someone repeatedly doing it under different names, I was getting worn out by the three or four clicks in ten minutes or so that this entailed.

[Mark James]

There's a distinct lack of items received during rounds 5, 10 and 14 in standard variant. How about a special omelette item for using all six numbers when a simpler solution was possible? It could lead to some fun easy numbers game mess ups from item hunters. And liven up the kinds of numbers rounds where you have, say, a 6 and 100 and the solution is 600.

[Graeme Cole]

There's a distinct lack of items received during rounds 5, 10 and 14 in standard variant. How about a special omelette item for using all six numbers when a simpler solution was possible? It could lead to some fun easy numbers game mess ups from item hunters. And liven up the kinds of numbers rounds where you have, say, a 6 and 100 and the solution is 600.

Isn't it more likely that you'll end up getting the item by accident than on purpose?

What about:

A showboat: for maxing the round using more than one operation when only one operation was required.
A sigma: for solving a numbers game as exactly as possible using only addition.
A pie: the same, but for using only multiplication.
Maybe you could have something like an "omelette pie" for multiplying all six numbers together for the solution.

Sky-high solutions:
An oxygen mask: for having a number >= 1000 appear as an intermediate result in your working (unless immediately preceded by a multiplication and immediately followed by a division, because that'd be too easy ).
A spacesuit: the same, but for having a number >= 10000.

[Ben Hunter]

What about:

A showboat: for maxing the round using more than one operation when only one operation was required.
A sigma: for solving a numbers game as exactly as possible using only addition.
A pie: the same, but for using only multiplication.
Maybe you could have something like an "omelette pie" for multiplying all six numbers together for the solution.

Sky-high solutions:
An oxygen mask: for having a number >= 1000 appear as an intermediate result in your working (unless immediately preceded by a multiplication and immediately followed by a division, because that'd be too easy ).
A spacesuit: the same, but for having a number >= 10000.

These are great ideas.

[Gavin Chipper]

What about:

A showboat: for maxing the round using more than one operation when only one operation was required.
A sigma: for solving a numbers game as exactly as possible using only addition.
A pie: the same, but for using only multiplication.
Maybe you could have something like an "omelette pie" for multiplying all six numbers together for the solution.

Sky-high solutions:
An oxygen mask: for having a number >= 1000 appear as an intermediate result in your working (unless immediately preceded by a multiplication and immediately followed by a division, because that'd be too easy ).
A spacesuit: the same, but for having a number >= 10000.

These are great ideas.

Particularly the oxygen mask and spacesuit.

Edit - also I was thinking another exception to the oxygen mask could be if you add then immediately take away. For example, you need 996 from 995, 9 and 8. By doing 995+9-8 you reach 1004, but it could be done 995+(9-8).

Edit 2 - But also if, for example, you multiply by 75 and divide by 50, this could be seen as legitimate because you can't do 75/50 first.

Edit 3 - would it make sense to hand out the oxygen mask and spacesuit only for maxes? Otherwise people might mess about with silly solutions that give a worse answer just to get one.

[Andrew Feist]

Probably too in-jokey but: Change "end round early" to say "take a drink of water" (esp. on numbers games).

[Gavin Chipper]

Now that conundrums are graded for hardness, would it be a good idea to throw in all the remaining 9-letter words (that don't have anagrams or have some other reason for exclusion) for completeness? I'm assuming it hasn't already been done. I presume it wouldn't matter if there are more of a certain hardness because it can all be weighted accordingly.

Also, I still think the duel scoring should be based on the proportion of people you beat rather than absolute number.

[Ben Wilson]

Now that conundrums are graded for hardness, would it be a good idea to throw in all the remaining 9-letter words (that don't have anagrams or have some other reason for exclusion) for completeness? I'm assuming it hasn't already been done. I presume it wouldn't matter if there are more of a certain hardness because it can all be weighted accordingly.

Isn't this also known as 'Nasty'? Though I agree some sort of item award wouldn't go amiss for spotting a nasty-only conundrum. 'Piece of neutronium' perhaps.

[Gavin Chipper]

Now that conundrums are graded for hardness, would it be a good idea to throw in all the remaining 9-letter words (that don't have anagrams or have some other reason for exclusion) for completeness? I'm assuming it hasn't already been done. I presume it wouldn't matter if there are more of a certain hardness because it can all be weighted accordingly.

Isn't this also known as 'Nasty'? Though I agree some sort of item award wouldn't go amiss for spotting a nasty-only conundrum. 'Piece of neutronium' perhaps.

Is that what happens in the nasty variant then? OK.

[Jon Corby]

Probably too in-jokey but: Change "end round early" to say "take a drink of water" (esp. on numbers games).

Hahaha, that made me laugh, that's a really nice idea.

[Matt Morrison]

Now that conundrums are graded for hardness, would it be a good idea to throw in all the remaining 9-letter words (that don't have anagrams or have some other reason for exclusion) for completeness? I'm assuming it hasn't already been done. I presume it wouldn't matter if there are more of a certain hardness because it can all be weighted accordingly.

Isn't this also known as 'Nasty'? Though I agree some sort of item award wouldn't go amiss for spotting a nasty-only conundrum. 'Piece of neutronium' perhaps.

Is that what happens in the nasty variant then? OK.

Not quite. Nasty includes ALL 9-letter words, including plurals. You're asking for just the normally-valid-for-conundrum 9s, of which all the new ones that haven't been considered suitable as conundrums previously would be graded 10, yes?

[Gavin Chipper]

Not quite. Nasty includes ALL 9-letter words, including plurals. You're asking for just the normally-valid-for-conundrum 9s, of which all the new ones that haven't been considered suitable as conundrums previously would be graded 10, yes?

Yes. But I suppose given that they're all included in nasty anyway (as well as plurals) it's not as important because people can still come across them. But yes I still think that it would be good to have all the possible valid ones in the normal variant. We discussed the other day on Apterous about how it decides the hardness for a conundrum and I can't remember exactly how you specified it, but presumably if there are more of a particular hardness (say 10) then probabilities could be weighted so that a 10 is no more likely to come up than a 9 (if it wasn't going to before). (I don't know if it does anything like this now.)

[Charlie Reams]

Not quite. Nasty includes ALL 9-letter words, including plurals. You're asking for just the normally-valid-for-conundrum 9s, of which all the new ones that haven't been considered suitable as conundrums previously would be graded 10, yes?

Yes. But I suppose given that they're all included in nasty anyway (as well as plurals) it's not as important because people can still come across them. But yes I still think that it would be good to have all the possible valid ones in the normal variant. We discussed the other day on Apterous about how it decides the hardness for a conundrum and I can't remember exactly how you specified it, but presumably if there are more of a particular hardness (say 10) then probabilities could be weighted so that a 10 is no more likely to come up than a 9 (if it wasn't going to before). (I don't know if it does anything like this now.)

It would still affect a lot of other stuff, like Ascension and the Duel.

[Matt Morrison]

Not quite. Nasty includes ALL 9-letter words, including plurals. You're asking for just the normally-valid-for-conundrum 9s, of which all the new ones that haven't been considered suitable as conundrums previously would be graded 10, yes?

Yes. But I suppose given that they're all included in nasty anyway (as well as plurals) it's not as important because people can still come across them. But yes I still think that it would be good to have all the possible valid ones in the normal variant. We discussed the other day on Apterous about how it decides the hardness for a conundrum and I can't remember exactly how you specified it, but presumably if there are more of a particular hardness (say 10) then probabilities could be weighted so that a 10 is no more likely to come up than a 9 (if it wasn't going to before). (I don't know if it does anything like this now.)

It would still affect a lot of other stuff, like Ascension and the Duel.

Playing Devil's Advocate a bit here (is that the right term?) as I don't care too much but to take Ascension - that will never finish. There are people who will never finish it, me included. Surely then that doesn't mean the conundrum base can never change because Ascension would be affected? Won't ODE3 ones go in?

[Charlie Reams]

Playing Devil's Advocate a bit here (is that the right term?) as I don't care too much but to take Ascension - that will never finish. There are people who will never finish it, me included. Surely then that doesn't mean the conundrum base can never change because Ascension would be affected? Won't ODE3 ones go in?

There's a difference between adding 50 new ODE3 words and almost 9000 very obscure words, which would make Ascension nearly twice as long and (even more) boring since you have virtually no chance on nearly half of the answers.

[Matt Morrison]

Playing Devil's Advocate a bit here (is that the right term?) as I don't care too much but to take Ascension - that will never finish. There are people who will never finish it, me included. Surely then that doesn't mean the conundrum base can never change because Ascension would be affected? Won't ODE3 ones go in?

There's a difference between adding 50 new ODE3 words and almost 9000 very obscure words, which would make Ascension nearly twice as long and (even more) boring since you have virtually no chance on nearly half of the answers.

Totally agreed. So what happens to Ascension when you add the 50 from ODE3? Does it just get 50 longer automatically? What about people who have already completed the fucker?

[Michael Wallace]

So what happens to Ascension when you add the 50 from ODE3? Does it just get 50 longer automatically? What about people who have already completed the fucker?

They have to do it all again - serves them right for trying to get a head start when they knew ODE3 was coming.

[Charlie Reams]

Playing Devil's Advocate a bit here (is that the right term?) as I don't care too much but to take Ascension - that will never finish. There are people who will never finish it, me included. Surely then that doesn't mean the conundrum base can never change because Ascension would be affected? Won't ODE3 ones go in?

There's a difference between adding 50 new ODE3 words and almost 9000 very obscure words, which would make Ascension nearly twice as long and (even more) boring since you have virtually no chance on nearly half of the answers.

Totally agreed. So what happens to Ascension when you add the 50 from ODE3? Does it just get 50 longer automatically? What about people who have already completed the fucker?

Yep. Old ascensions won't be changed, but in-progress ones will get longer.

[Gavin Chipper]

How important is the Ascension in the scale of things?

[Matt Morrison]

How important is the Ascension in the scale of things?

My mum also loves saying "the" in front of things that don't have "the" in the title, it's both annoying and cute.

[Ryan Taylor]

How important is the Ascension in the scale of things?

My mum also loves saying "the" in front of things that don't have "the" in the title, it's both annoying and cute.

Like Handel's Messiah?

[Matt Morrison]

How important is the Ascension in the scale of things?

My mum also loves saying "the" in front of things that don't have "the" in the title, it's both annoying and cute.

Like Handel's Messiah?

It became a bit of an in-joke after she kept referring to Edge magazine as The Edge.

[Charlie Reams]

How important is the Ascension in the scale of things?

A bit important. More important than a bunch of conundrums that no one wants to do, anyway.

I wouldn't be averse to a "somewhat nasty" variant which did what you want.

[Liam Tiernan]

How important is the Ascension in the scale of things?

Third, after Easter and Christmas.

[Kai Laddiman]

How important is the Ascension in the scale of things?

A bit important. More important than a bunch of conundrums that no one wants to do, anyway.

I wouldn't be averse to a "somewhat nasty" variant which did what you want.

Wouldn't it just ruin the conundrums of the televised apterous Series finals? I'm sure Damo made a point about it a while back.

[Charlie Reams]

Wouldn't it just ruin the conundrums of the televised apterous Series finals? I'm sure Damo made a point about it a while back.

The objective of apterous is to help people get better, not to prop up a television show which relies on surveillance of its best contestants to make their tasks more difficult. And anyway, we've seen with ECLAMPSIA and more recent examples that people can get sub-1 second conundrums whether they've seen a word before or not.

[Gavin Chipper]

How important is the Ascension in the scale of things?

A bit important. More important than a bunch of conundrums that no one wants to do, anyway.

I wouldn't be averse to a "somewhat nasty" variant which did what you want.

OK. For even more completeness, perhaps it could include words that have an anagram, as long as the scramble is that anagram (since this can happen on the show).

[Charlie Reams]

How important is the Ascension in the scale of things?

A bit important. More important than a bunch of conundrums that no one wants to do, anyway.

I wouldn't be averse to a "somewhat nasty" variant which did what you want.

OK. For even more completeness, perhaps it could include words that have an anagram, as long as the scramble is that anagram (since this can happen on the show).

Yep, I've been meaning to do that for a while anyway. I did a trial run with the Duel and it generated a fewer than expected number of complaints.

[Jordan F]

I don't know if this has been brought up already, and I apologize if it has been, but in the scoresheets for Goatdown, is it possible to show what the needed letter was for Metamax, or what word would be the metamax word?

[Kai Laddiman]

I don't know if this has been brought up already, and I apologize if it has been, but in the scoresheets for Goatdown, is it possible to show what the needed letter was for Metamax, or what word would be the metamax word?

Yeh, I've thought about that too before. If you click on the number it links to the stemmer, but that only works for 9-letter metamaxes. It's a good idea.

[Charlie Reams]

I don't know if this has been brought up already, and I apologize if it has been, but in the scoresheets for Goatdown, is it possible to show what the needed letter was for Metamax, or what word would be the metamax word?

It would be nice. When Goatdown was first implemented we had a shortage of database space and I didn't want to store all the metamaxes, but I think these days it would be feasible.

[Adam Gillard]

The Hall of Spoons needs decorating. I sent a nomination to the e-mail address listed there a couple of months ago. I appreciate there may be more pressing matters to deal with, but you did say this:

"29th August. Welcome to our new game mode: Ascension. Ever wanted to play every single conundrum? Me neither, but now you can anyway. It's under the "More stuff..." tab. And who knows, there might even be a Spoon for the first person to the top."

I acknowledge the use of the word "might" there, but if you don't give a Spoon of Awesome to Giles I'll just assume that it's because he's not Kirk and therefore not important or awesome enough in your eyes (ooh, controversial).

[Miriam Nussbaum]

I don't know if this has been brought up already, and I apologize if it has been, but in the scoresheets for Goatdown, is it possible to show what the needed letter was for Metamax, or what word would be the metamax word?

It would be nice. When Goatdown was first implemented we had a shortage of database space and I didn't want to store all the metamaxes, but I think these days it would be feasible.

Or even a list of letters that would have given words of the metamax length (since the one letter they give as the metamax is always the most obscure, right? It would be nice to be told if there was a really easy metamax).

Can you reactive the spindlomatic? It's been ages since we've had any new DC guests and some of the dialogue is getting pretty old.

I agree. I actually submitted one several months ago, having found a link in an old thread, but that thread was so old that it's probably been longer than that since the page was checked.

[Lesley Hines]

I was thinking in Statland it would be nice if $login appeared in the lists, the way they do for the Duel? That way even if you're not in the top x for the page you can still see how you compare.

Just my little thought

[Ben Wilson]

Maybe time for a new bot?

[Andrew Feist]

Maybe time for a new bot?

When the word "Nugget" showed up consistently capitalized, I thought we _had_ a new bot.

[Charlie Reams]

I was thinking in Statland it would be nice if $login appeared in the lists, the way they do for the Duel? That way even if you're not in the top x for the page you can still see how you compare.

Just my little thought

It's a nice idea, has been discussed somewhere above (think it was the beginning of November) although I haven't really gotten anywhere with it.

Maybe time for a new bot?

Hmm, maybe.

[Jon Corby]

Maybe time for a new bot?

Hmm, maybe.

Lesley Hines didn't write this.

[Charlie Reams]

Maybe time for a new bot?

Hmm, maybe.

Lesley Hines didn't write this.

Shush Lesley.

[Nick Boldock]

I was thinking in Statland it would be nice if $login appeared in the lists, the way they do for the Duel? That way even if you're not in the top x for the page you can still see how you compare.

Just my little thought

It's a nice idea, has been discussed somewhere above (think it was the beginning of November) although I haven't really gotten anywhere with it.

Maybe time for a new bot?

Hmm, maybe.

It was me that asked for that and it is still #1 on my list of Things I Really Want Both In Real Life And Online.

[Nick Boldock]

Lesley Hines didn't write this.

Shush Lesley.

[Charlie Reams]

It was me that asked for that and it is still #1 on my list of Things I Really Want Both In Real Life And Online.

Well, when you put it like that...

[Lesley Hines]

Lesley Hines didn't write this.

Shush Lesley.

Awesome I did you know. Off to don my other alter ego.

[Nick Boldock]

It was me that asked for that and it is still #1 on my list of Things I Really Want Both In Real Life And Online.

Well, when you put it like that...

Ooh! Ooh! Now I'm almost excited!

[JimBentley]

The Hall of Spoons needs decorating.

News: There might well be a Spoon for the next person to beat Apterous Sponge in a 15-rounder (in English).

Paul Howe 103 - 93 Apterous Sponge - I think this was after Charlie's challenge, but if not

Jim Bentley 109 - 87 Apterous Sponge - hey, it's a 15-rounder and it's in English, although possibly not quite in the spirit of the challenge.

[James Hall]

Any chance of Junior conundrums having difficulty ratings (as their standard counterparts do)?

I'd also play a Junior ascension if there was one but I may be the only person who would...

[Charlie Reams]

Any chance of Junior conundrums having difficulty ratings (as their standard counterparts do)?

Unfortunately we don't have anywhere near enough data.

[Nick Boldock]

Any chance of Junior conundrums having difficulty ratings (as their standard counterparts do)?

I'd also play a Junior ascension if there was one but I may be the only person who would...

I'd play a Junior Ascension for what it's worth.

[Joseph Krol]

Any chance of Junior conundrums having difficulty ratings (as their standard counterparts do)?

Unfortunately we don't have anywhere near enough data.

I'll play lots of Junior Conundrum attacks if you want to collect some more data.

[Charlie Reams]

I'll play lots of Junior Conundrum attacks if you want to collect some more data.

It's a nice offer but at the last count we have 648,686 data for our normal conundrums and that's still not really enough.

[Joseph Krol]

I'll play lots of Junior Conundrum attacks if you want to collect some more data.

It's a nice offer but at the last count we have 648,686 data for our normal conundrums and that's still not really enough.

Just calculated that it would take me 173 days and 14hrs (ish) to get through a million conundrums(assuming 15sec per conundrum).