The use of lice combs - Page 2

Wacky · 2003-09-05, 23:09

Because of his reply to me, I am posting here a PM that I sent to nomadicus in response to his earlier posting.

Quote:

I don't see a question about the effect of a melting polar cap to be particularly inappropriate for the thread in which you posted it. It did not violate any of the restrictions which the author placed on the statement of the situation. Nor did it question their reasonableness.

Your question is quite unlike the discussion of the reach of the chain about a cow's neck when the author CLEARLY stated that his was a 2D problem and further specified that the chain was attached to the mouth (or nose, I cannot remember), but not the neck.

Maybeso · 2003-09-05, 23:22

Wackerbarth,

I was going to disagree with you about fragmentation, but if the puzzle and discussion areas can be on the same 'page' with a divider between then it's not an issue.

If they have to be separate subforums, then it might be nice to post a link in each puzzle thread to the related discussion topic as soon as its created.

Hmm, if the puzzle and the discussion threads are created at the same time, is there a way to merge them by date/time later? No, that would be confusing.

Of course, moving the whole puzzle thread is one way to emphasize the difference between an active puzzle and an active discussion loosely based on a long-solved-and-waiting-to-die puzzle. ;)

I've seen truncated topics labeled "Moved to hardware." You could do the same so people wouldn't think the puzzle had been deleted.

With these and other options, moving solved puzzles now seems a better way to provide 'history' for the discussion, and keeps the puzzle area cleaner than editing the title or putting a divider-post in the thread.

In future, I'm going to make it more obvious whether my posts are questions to the author, puzzle guesses, answers to posted questions, etc. I was going to use the subject field for this, but very few people use it, so I suspect few people read it.

2003-09-05, 23:22	#13
Maybeso Aug 2002 Portland, OR USA 2×137 Posts	Very few people use this field. How many read it? Wackerbarth, I was going to disagree with you about fragmentation, but if the puzzle and discussion areas can be on the same 'page' with a divider between then it's not an issue. If they have to be separate subforums, then it might be nice to post a link in each puzzle thread to the related discussion topic as soon as its created. Hmm, if the puzzle and the discussion threads are created at the same time, is there a way to merge them by date/time later? No, that would be confusing. Of course, moving the whole puzzle thread is one way to emphasize the difference between an active puzzle and an active discussion loosely based on a long-solved-and-waiting-to-die puzzle. ;) I've seen truncated topics labeled "Moved to hardware." You could do the same so people wouldn't think the puzzle had been deleted. With these and other options, moving solved puzzles now seems a better way to provide 'history' for the discussion, and keeps the puzzle area cleaner than editing the title or putting a divider-post in the thread. In future, I'm going to make it more obvious whether my posts are questions to the author, puzzle guesses, answers to posted questions, etc. I was going to use the subject field for this, but very few people use it, so I suspect few people read it.