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Topic: What does "Easy" mean to you? (Read 1479 times) |
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SWF
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What does "Easy" mean to you?
« on: Mar 10th, 2003, 7:34pm » |
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After seeing many problems I consider fairly difficult in the Easy section, and some simple questions in the Hard section, I am wondering how everyone defines the difficulty levels of Easy, Medium, and Hard. I rank difficulty based on my estimate of how likely the population of forum readers would do. If I can't solve a problem, it wouldn't automatically go in the Hard section, and if I found one simple it wouldn't immediately be put under Easy. What follows is roughly how I categorize the riddles. How does everyone else define Easy/Medium/Hard riddles? Do you usually have a good idea of how difficult a problem is as soon as you read it?
EASY:
Many people with good high school level knowledge could solve within an hour or so. Perhaps some people can solve immediately. If too many people can figure it out immediately, maybe it doesn't qualify as a riddle. Remember, Williams main riddle page says these are supposed to be "hard core" riddles, not "fluff".
MEDIUM:
Twenty percent or more of the college trained readers can solve or make significant progress within an hour or so, but virtually nobody can solve immediately. Many people give up or cannot find the solution.
HARD:
Nobody is expected to figure out with less than an hour's work. Finding the solution or significant progress requires insight or quite a bit of work. The possiblity of progress should be there too, because nobody will attempt an obviously impossible task.
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aero_guy
Senior Riddler
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Re: What does "Easy" mean to you?
« Reply #1 on: Mar 11th, 2003, 9:45am » |
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Seems to me you are setting the difficulty level a lot higher than most of what I am seeing. Occasionally you get a harder problem in the easy section, but generally most of the stuff is one category less than you named it. I avoid the whole problem by posting to the "what am I" section, which I admit does contain a bit of fluff.
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william wu
wu::riddles Administrator
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Re: What does "Easy" mean to you?
« Reply #2 on: Mar 11th, 2003, 7:46pm » |
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My goal eventually is to have a dynamic difficulty rating system, where visitors can vote on both creative difficulty (nonlinear aha! factor) and analytic difficulty (cranking out many lines of equations). Also, riddles will be categorized according to their style (algorithmic, logic, what am i) rather than difficulty.
In the meantime though, this is how I've been trying to categorize things, although admittedly there are many holes and its all subjective anyways:
easy: solved with basic logical deductions
medium: small algorithm design, cunning observations
hard: harder algorithm design, nontrivial math required, really cunning observations
CS: Uses language that non-CS people would typically not know. Examples are NP-Completeness, arrays, pointers, anything pertaining to a specific computer language, linked lists, RAM, registers.
Putnam: Difficult problems worded as if they were from a math textbook, using math ideas most people have no clue about
I tend to rank algorithm design problems harder because I think they require more creativity. If I recall correctly, there aren't any algorithm design problems in the easy section.
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SWF
Uberpuzzler
Posts: 879
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Re: What does "Easy" mean to you?
« Reply #3 on: Mar 12th, 2003, 7:51pm » |
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Having the readers vote on difficulty and other characteristics sounds like a good idea. I think it would be nice to have a rating as to what percentage of the way a problem has been solved. That would be subjective based on voting, but would make it easier to find the unsolved prolems that have slipped through the cracks.
Since they are being recategorized, how about thinking of a way of dealing with duplicate topics. Asking moderator to search out and delete or merge them may be too much work. How about creating a separate catagory of duplicate threads. If 5 members vote that a certain thread is a duplicate maybe there is a way to make it be automatically moved to the duplicates category with a link to the orginal. I am getting a little tired of seeing "What is unusual about this paragraph" and a few others. Or maybe just call the new category "Dumpster" and have all irrelevant threads sent there based on votes.
Just a few suggestions for a productive and gratifying use of spring break. 
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| « Last Edit: Mar 12th, 2003, 8:03pm by SWF » |
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Icarus
wu::riddles Moderator
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Re: What does "Easy" mean to you?
« Reply #4 on: Mar 13th, 2003, 5:53pm » |
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I have to admit I'm getting tired of seeing newbies post to some of the weirdest places. And of the "coffin" riddle in particular. If you had a riddle like that and were looking for an answer, would you pass over the clearly labeled "What am I?" forum to post it in a thread of introductions? ?? ??
Unfortunately the "Vote it off" approach is too easily abused. At least some standard means is needed to appeal such a vote. Or some time limit after which votes expire if not enough people agree. Otherwise every thread is in danger of 5 idiots coming along over time and voting for a move just for the heck of it.
Another suggestion William could consider is creating a "math problems" forum for the strictly mathematical threads out there which are not even disguised at something else. (E.g. Nick H.'s threads - I like them myself but most people don't really get into them.) The Putnam forum picks up some of it (for those few who actually visit it), but most of these are not Putnam level material.
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wowbagger
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Re: What does "Easy" mean to you?
« Reply #5 on: Mar 14th, 2003, 3:36am » |
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on Mar 13th, 2003, 5:53pm, Icarus wrote:| Unfortunately the "Vote it off" approach is too easily abused. At least some standard means is needed to appeal such a vote. Or some time limit after which votes expire if not enough people agree. Otherwise every thread is in danger of 5 idiots coming along over time and voting for a move just for the heck of it. |
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The "time limit" is a good idea. However, the votes cast should rather decay instead of just expiring, I think.
Additionally, one could weight such votes according to rating, with zero weight for guests. Maybe this would prevent the "5 idiots scenario". 
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| « Last Edit: Mar 14th, 2003, 3:40am by wowbagger » |
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