Suggestions: vote system and search engine

[Kevan]

Excellent work, jnz. I've added a link from the main Rubicon page, and I'll look at changing the warehouse submission page to include a puzzle type field, when I can find time to deal with the other outstanding bugs. If there are any other fields it'd be useful to add at that point (even if they're ignored by the game itself), let me know.

And if I might send a suggestion the other way... A thumbnail of each level might make search results more intriguing, given that they're all stored as simple ASCII art - just printing the machine source in a very, very tiny fixed-width font might be enough.

[jf]

Some solution titles have the puzzle name in them, and some don't. jnz has hyperlinked names found in the titles, which is really nice. If this name was also carried in a separate field, you could find it even if it was missing from the title, and you could search on it, "Show me all solutions for this puzzle".

And this may be getting complicated, but you could use such a metadata tag to link a series of puzzles together. For a solution, it could be the name of the puzzle that the solution refers to. For a puzzle, it could be used to refer to the next puzzle in a series.

[Kevan]

The warehouse now has a "level type" field, which is stored as an extra asterisked line in each data file (and also gets displayed in the applet when a level is loaded in).

[jnz]

I've updated the search engine to import the new Type field.  I'll have to wait for some more entries to appear in the warehouse before I know if it is working.

I'd also like to second jf's suggestion of a separate field for solutions to hold the level code of the puzzle that they are solving.

[Bucky]

About the "Level Type" field in the Warehouse,
Could it have an option that is just "Puzzle"?  I don't feel qualified to judge the difficulty of my own puzzles.

[lienne]

About the "Level Type" field in the Warehouse,
Could it have an option that is just "Puzzle"?  I don't feel qualified to judge the difficulty of my own puzzles.

Same here.

[Bucky]

The search engine has a problem where it tries to link to nonexistent levels in the names of other levels (levels linked to this way include "decimal" and "lavapit".

Also, the search engine should have an option to vote "Puzzle-Impossible".  There are a few cases where this is appropriate, such as kogyvod.

[jnz]

The search engine has a problem where it tries to link to nonexistent levels in the names of other levels (levels linked to this way include "decimal" and "lavapit".

Also, the search engine should have an option to vote "Puzzle-Impossible".  There are a few cases where this is appropriate, such as kogyvod.

The linking is done by just looking for anything that looks like a level name (7 letters, alternating consonants and vowels).  I don't know how to fix it without a whole bunch of database hits.  I thought the occasional false positive was worth dealing with for the convenience of having the level links.

Can we just use "Other" for kogyvod and similar things?  The more options you add the harder it is for people to pick the right one.  I'd rather not have a bunch of categories that are only going to be used for a couple of things.

[Rene]

The search engine has a problem where it tries to link to nonexistent levels in the names of other levels (levels linked to this way include "decimal" and "lavapit".

Also, the search engine should have an option to vote "Puzzle-Impossible".  There are a few cases where this is appropriate, such as kogyvod.

The linking is done by just looking for anything that looks like a level name (7 letters, alternating consonants and vowels).  I don't know how to fix it without a whole bunch of database hits.  I thought the occasional false positive was worth dealing with for the convenience of having the level links.

Can we just use "Other" for kogyvod and similar things?  The more options you add the harder it is for people to pick the right one.  I'd rather not have a bunch of categories that are only going to be used for a couple of things.

When Kevan adds the possibility to enter the puzzle name that you design is a solution to, then you don't need to parse the title anymore, and this issue disappears. The puzzle name could even be derived automically if the applet remembers which level was loaded. Of course, you should have the possibility to change it, to make it possible to store impartial solutions.

I have another request for the search/voting function. After voting, it would be good if it would go back to the search you were in. You now have the possibility to go to a new search, but in order to go back to the same search, you have to click "back" on the browser two times, and then the view is not updated with your vote.

[jf]

Do you store the count of votes for a particular level? It would be nice to see that count, if not in the query output, then perhaps on the vote page (so those interested can go find it) just to gauge the accuracy of the difficulty listed, based on how many votes went into it.

[Rene]

Another improvement could be to ask the submitter of a solution also to give a vote for the difficulty of the puzzle. That would get more people to vote. I now hardly go into the voting page to vote for a puzzle.

[jnz]

I have another request for the search/voting function. After voting, it would be good if it would go back to the search you were in. You now have the possibility to go to a new search, but in order to go back to the same search, you have to click "back" on the browser two times, and then the view is not updated with your vote.

Ok, I think I've gotten this working.

Do you store the count of votes for a particular level? It would be nice to see that count, if not in the query output, then perhaps on the vote page (so those interested can go find it) just to gauge the accuracy of the difficulty listed, based on how many votes went into it.

I do store this number, and now it is displayed on the voting page.  There are hardly any votes in the database.  We need some kind of promotional campaign. 

Another improvement could be to ask the submitter of a solution also to give a vote for the difficulty of the puzzle. That would get more people to vote. I now hardly go into the voting page to vote for a puzzle.

This is fine by me but I'm not sure how it will work technically.  I only poll for updates once a day.  If you submitted a solution before I did the latest update I wouldn't have any place for you to vote yet.

[Kevan]

The warehouse storage page now has a field called "follows or solves", so that the user can say which level a solution is solving, or which puzzle another puzzle follows on from - this gets written to "Follows:" in the data files, and I'll write a less basic input interface at some point.

[Kevan]

I'm less sure about letting people submit unrated puzzles, though - it seems a lot healthier to have one automatic vote put into jnz's warehouse system, even if it's a guess and turns out to be voted in another direction by other players.

[jnz]

The warehouse storage page now has a field called "follows or solves", so that the user can say which level a solution is solving, or which puzzle another puzzle follows on from - this gets written to "Follows:" in the data files, and I'll write a less basic input interface at some point.

Ok, support for the Follows field has been added to the search engine.  For existing levels I've done some automated guessing, but there are still some gaps.  I'm currently allowing people to modify the field through the voting page.  I don't know if that's a good idea to have permanently but for now it will at least let people fill in the data for the existing levels.