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        riddles >> suggestions, help, and FAQ >> Guess what - solutions please!
        
(Message started by: pizza on Feb 18^th, 2005, 2:32pm)

Title: Guess what - solutions please!
Post by pizza on Feb 18^th, 2005, 2:32pm

[Fabulous website!] :D
I did read the FAQ, but I'm still convinced that solutions should be more readily available. If losers don't want to solve the problem, they'll find the answer eventually. If people want to check their solution, they'll get to it anyway. The only difference is that both will be quite pissed off - and rightly so.
Also I would question the way you "hid" the hints. If you print the page you get them in black and white, which I found annoying. It would also not work for people with lesser browsers/systems (e.g. Lynx).
Ideally, for every problem I would have links to increasingly telling hints (until you get to the final solution) each in a separate page.

Cheers, :)
Pizza

Title: Re: Guess what - solutions please!
Post by Sir Col on Feb 18^th, 2005, 4:58pm

Are you volunteering to do all these things for the vast collection of puzzles already here: provide detailed solutions and structured hints?

If you pick up any decent mathematical problem book you will note that the problem:solution sections are in the ratio of about 1:4.

The whole point of the forum is to allow users to post their "solutions" and have them critically reviewed. If a visitor cannot be bothered spending time to share their learning experiences then I guess that they don't deserve to find a solution. But more importantly, shared "solutions" open the way for new insights and allow new lines of enquiry to be followed. That, I would argue, is where the real pleasure in problem solving comes from.

Title: Re: Guess what - solutions please!
Post by Icarus on Feb 18^th, 2005, 5:03pm

Every other puzzle site I have visited has "solutions" available, but the discussions on those sites never seem as interesting to me as the ones here are. I appreciate that WWu leaves it to us to discover things on our own. And since he hasn't bothered to update his riddles page in ages, most of the puzzles are put up by forum visitors, who do not have the luxury of setting up separate pages anyway.

I've never heard about the print problem before, but then, printing out pages seems to me to be a fairly rare thing to do. Sort of like the Dilbert cartoon wherein Dilbert tells his boss that he has create a multimedia, interactive web interface, and his boss replies "Print out a hard copy for me so I can look it over".::)

The point of hiding the hints and solutions is not to keep people from them, but simply to prevent them from accidently reading it while they are still trying to figure things out by themselves.

Title: Re: Guess what - solutions please!
Post by Pizza on Feb 19^th, 2005, 2:28am

on 02/18/05 at 16:58:09, Sir Col wrote:

Are you volunteering to do all these things for the vast collection of puzzles already here: provide detailed solutions and structured hints?

No.
However, if time is the problem, the webmaster should be honest and say so in the FAQ and possibly look for volunteers, not make us believe that it's a design decision.
Also note that by solution I mean the final solution (e.g. "black" or "56"). If you are curious about the full-blown thought process in the forum, nothing stops you from doing it. If you want a quick check that you got it right, there you have it without having to go through 4 different threads full of wrong solutions.
A possible compromise could be to put a link to the best-explaining post (not thread, post!), or in case of multiple approaches to the problem, multiple links.

on 02/18/05 at 16:58:09, Sir Col wrote:

If a visitor cannot be bothered spending time to share their learning experiences then I guess that they don't deserve to find a solution.

on 15/01/1941, Adolf Hitler wrote:

Universal education is the most corroding and disintegrating poison that liberalism has ever invented for its own destruction.

on 28/05/1933, Joseph Stalin wrote:

Education is a weapon whose effects depend on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.

Title: Re: Guess what - solutions please!
Post by Pizza on Feb 19^th, 2005, 2:44am

on 02/18/05 at 17:03:20, Icarus wrote:

his boss replies "Print out a hard copy for me so I can look it over".::)

Oh yeah, don't get me started on the poor humour that one has to go through before reading something interesting in the forum.

Title: Re: Guess what - solutions please!
Post by Barukh on Feb 19^th, 2005, 5:12am

Frankly speaking, I don't like the tone of this thread.

Although I represent here Sir Col's and Icarus's side, I would say that theoretically - Pizza is right. But practically, this is hardly possible taking into account how much this forum has grown in the last 2 years. IMHO this (and not any pedagogical considerations) is the main reason why this feature is not present. Maybe, when I get retired... ;D

Pizza, if I had the right to give you an advise, I would cite: "Ask not what this country can do for you but what you can do for this country" (JFK).

Title: Re: Guess what - solutions please!
Post by rmsgrey on Feb 19^th, 2005, 4:04pm

on 02/19/05 at 02:44:23, Pizza wrote:

Oh yeah, don't get me started on the poor humour that one has to go through before reading something interesting in the forum.

If you don't like the way things are done here, you have 4 options:

1) Offer to help fix it. (note that others may disagree with your proposed change)
2) Leave.
3) Complain about it and hope something gets done. (but if you don't feel strongly enough to want to work to fix it, why would anyone else?)
4) Accept it.

Title: Re: Guess what - solutions please!
Post by Pizza on Feb 19^th, 2005, 4:47pm

on 02/19/05 at 16:04:51, Sir Col wrote:

Are you volunteering to do all these things[...]?

on 02/19/05 at 16:04:51, Barukh wrote:

"Ask not what this country can do for you but what you can do for this country" (JFK)

on 02/19/05 at 16:04:51, rmsgrey wrote:

if you don't feel strongly enough to want to work to fix it, why would anyone else?

Silly me, I thought this was the suggestions forum.

Title: Re: Guess what - solutions please!
Post by Sir Col on Feb 20^th, 2005, 3:41am

Pizza, I apologise if you feel that I was attacking your suggestions; you're right, this is a suggestion section. However, I was only trying to re-iterate what has already been said in the number of other threads with the same suggestion; you're not the first and I'm sure that you won't be the last to make this suggestion.

My point about "not deserving a solution" was not personal, although after re-reading it I can see how it may appear so.

It was borne out of my experience as a mathematics teacher. You would not believe the number of times I get students coming to me the day that homework is due and say something like, "I understood it in class, but when I got home..." Mathematics can all too easily become one of the greatest spectator subjects!

One of the flashing banners at the top of the forum pages says: "Explaining how you arrived at an answer is more valuable than the answer itself." There is far more to be gained from following the thoughts of others as they battle towards a solution. Only following a single solution/method will not help your own conceptual development as much. I have personally learned so much from this forum, not from the answers, but the approaches towards the answers. I can't count the number of times I've thought to myself, "Cor! I would never have thought of doing it that way."

If you read through the threads you'll see how often someone takes the problem right to the brink of a solution, but can go no further. Someone else comes along and provides the missing link. Both benefit. The first person enjoys seeing their solution completed, whereas the second may never have been able to make such a fruitful start under their own steam.

Now are you telling me that a static page of solutions would provide as much instruction and learning as a dynamic forum? I was trying to make this point and argue that the most mutually beneficial learning experience involves give and take, and not just the latter.

Title: Re: Guess what - solutions please!
Post by rmsgrey on Feb 20^th, 2005, 9:25am

on 02/19/05 at 02:44:23, Pizza wrote:

Oh yeah, don't get me started on the poor humour that one has to go through before reading something interesting in the forum.

on 02/19/05 at 16:47:11, Pizza wrote:

Silly me, I thought this was the suggestions forum.

Well, your earlier comment was certainly phrased in the form of a suggestion. I don't see any obvious course of action to address it without annoying the existing population though.

An additional obstacle to compiling a list of answers is that a number of the problems are unsolved (for instance, the nature of "God's Algorithm" for solving Rubik's Cube).

And, while you're perfectly within your rights to make suggestions, the people who would have to do the work to implement your suggestion are perfectly within their rights to not do so. The fact that you're the person making the complaint suggests that you may well be the person who feels most strongly about the issue - so expecting people who feel less strongly about the issue to be more willing to do something about it than you are woud be verging on the hypocritical.

And there are sound pedagogical reasons for not providing easy answers - "Give a man an answer and he'll get one question right; teach him to solve problems, and he'll solve a lifetime's worth" (with apologies to Christian Aid)

Title: Re: Guess what - solutions please!
Post by Noke Lieu on Feb 20^th, 2005, 11:32pm

non illigitimes carborundum, pizza.
You make a fair point, but it's avoidable with a bit of human interaction- fiddly and tedious sure, but hey- going fix the problems a lot quicker.
Shrink the browser window so you can only see one post at a time. OR
After printing, fold the pages at each reply. Only unfold each reply after you're seriously stuck. I have to do this for en route to Sydney puzzling.

on When I lost compassion for him, Pizza wrote:

Oh yeah, don't get me started on the poor humour that one has to go through before reading something interesting in the forum.

Ooof, big fellah. That's low. There is a joke (maybe true? never saw the survey or results) that the average Briton would prefer to be considered bad in bed than unfunny.
But having lived over there for a LONG time, I can see the truth behind it.
Although I notice that you spelled humour *correctly*, thus suspect you're a brit too (or at least spent a long time with them, like i have). Thus am left with an uneasy feeling that you're stirring... Shame :'(

Title: Re: Guess what - solutions please!
Post by gniv on Mar 4^th, 2005, 12:23pm

In the beginning, I was also frustrated with the lack of readily available solutions. But then I realized that reading through the forum is more educational (and entertaining ;D ).

Anyway, I learned a lot from this site and here's my small contribution:

http://www.cs.duke.edu/~tavi/riddles/cs.html

It's an updated CS riddles page with new riddles from the forum, in the order in which they were posted. Hopefully, this will make it easier to update William's page.

Title: Re: Guess what - solutions please!
Post by Barukh on Mar 6^th, 2005, 3:52am

on 03/04/05 at 12:23:03, gniv wrote:

Anyway, I learned a lot from this site and here's my small contribution:

http://www.cs.duke.edu/~tavi/riddles/cs.html

It's an updated CS riddles page with new riddles from the forum, in the order in which they were posted. Hopefully, this will make it easier to update William's page.

Very nice! Thank a lot, gniv! :D