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 Lowering level of participation 
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Posted on: Sun Oct 28, 2012 4:55 pm




Posts: 275
Joined: Thu May 12, 2011 11:51 pm
Post Lowering level of participation
A little while ago there was a discussion on another thread about why more people may be leaving the site than coming. I have begun lowering my level of participation so I thought I would give voice as to why. My participation traditionally has been driven by my enthusiasm for calcudoku puzzles and for the competition that this site enables. I have achieved almost all competitive goals that I am capable of, however. So competitively it is all downward from here.

I reached this position sooner than I would have otherwise in the context of the introduction of killer sudoku puzzles. To maintain competitive position one needs to do all of them. For me that adds too much time and the killers give me less pleasure than the calcudokus.

I plan to continue to do many calcudokus and some killers. I plan to continue my number of consecutive days solving puzzles (currently 681) as long as convenient. I am not at all inclining toward leaving the site but am leaving the competition.


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Posted on: Sun Oct 28, 2012 5:02 pm




Posts: 3296
Joined: Thu May 12, 2011 11:58 pm
Post Re: Lowering level of participation
sjs34 wrote:
A little while ago there was a discussion on another thread about why more people may be leaving the site than coming.

During the past week or so the number has been slowly edging up again :-)
(must be the colder weather :-) )
sjs34 wrote:
I reached this position sooner than I would have otherwise in the context of the introduction of killer sudoku puzzles. To maintain competitive position one needs to do all of them. For me that adds too much time and the killers give me less pleasure than the calcudokus.

Yes, this goes back to the "too many puzzles" issue.
Starting November 1st, more puzzles will be cut (no difficult Killer on Mon/Tue/Wed/Sun, no easy Killer on Thu/Fri/Sat, no easy 6x6 on Wed/Thu,
no difficult 8x8 on Sun)

thanks for the feedback,

Patrick


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Posted on: Mon Oct 29, 2012 4:53 am




Posts: 428
Location: Canada
Joined: Fri May 13, 2011 2:43 am
Post Re: Lowering level of participation
I admit that I'm sort of leaving the competition too. Normally I am crazy about doing all the puzzles everyday. I even felt obligated. But last week, my family all got sick (except for me!) Hubby came down with pneumonia and the kids were all sick too... spent most of two days at the hospital as well... so I was crazy busy and couldn't do all the puzzles. That cured me I think. So it's not so hard now to just not do all the puzzles. Maybe one of these days when I have lots of time I'll try to get to the top of the 7-day rankings for fun, but I'll be skipping out on a lot of puzzles from now on. I'll still do at least all 4x4, 5x5, 6x6 and timed and then maybe if I feel like it I'll do some of the ones I enjoy more like 7x7 subtraction only. The bigger, harder puzzles is just a time issue. It used to be a challenge but since I have been solving all the puzzles everyday for such a long time, I'm quite aware that no matter how hard it is, it won't be too hard for me to find the solution.

I think picklepep will be glad to hear this. He'll pass me on the all time ranking eventually...


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Posted on: Mon Oct 29, 2012 6:07 am




Posts: 135
Joined: Tue Apr 24, 2012 7:47 pm
Post Re: Lowering level of participation
sneaklyfox wrote:
I admit that I'm sort of leaving the competition too. Normally I am crazy about doing all the puzzles everyday. I even felt obligated. But last week, my family all got sick (except for me!) Hubby came down with pneumonia and the kids were all sick too... spent most of two days at the hospital as well... so I was crazy busy and couldn't do all the puzzles. That cured me I think. So it's not so hard now to just not do all the puzzles. Maybe one of these days when I have lots of time I'll try to get to the top of the 7-day rankings for fun, but I'll be skipping out on a lot of puzzles from now on. I'll still do at least all 4x4, 5x5, 6x6 and timed and then maybe if I feel like it I'll do some of the ones I enjoy more like 7x7 subtraction only. The bigger, harder puzzles is just a time issue. It used to be a challenge but since I have been solving all the puzzles everyday for such a long time, I'm quite aware that no matter how hard it is, it won't be too hard for me to find the solution.

I think picklepep will be glad to hear this. He'll pass me on the all time ranking eventually...


Awwww. I'm sorry to hear that your husband came down with pneumonia, sneaklyfox. I hope that he and your kids feel much better soon.


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Posted on: Mon Oct 29, 2012 3:09 pm




Posts: 855
Joined: Fri May 13, 2011 6:51 pm
Post Re: Lowering level of participation
sneaklyfox wrote:
I admit that I'm sort of leaving the competition too. Normally I am crazy about doing all the puzzles everyday. I even felt obligated. But last week, my family all got sick (except for me!) Hubby came down with pneumonia and the kids were all sick too... spent most of two days at the hospital as well... so I was crazy busy and couldn't do all the puzzles. ...


It's practically impossible to do all puzzles under these circumstances (even being so fan as you are) ... I also hope your husband and kids recover very soon and you can happily return going quickly to your usual place in the "7-day".


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Posted on: Mon Oct 29, 2012 4:13 pm




Posts: 855
Joined: Fri May 13, 2011 6:51 pm
Post Re: Lowering level of participation
pnm wrote:
sjs34 wrote:
A little while ago there was a discussion on another thread about why more people may be leaving the site than coming.

During the past week or so the number has been slowly edging up again :-)
(must be the colder weather :-) )
sjs34 wrote:
I reached this position sooner than I would have otherwise in the context of the introduction of killer sudoku puzzles. To maintain competitive position one needs to do all of them. For me that adds too much time and the killers give me less pleasure than the calcudokus.

Yes, this goes back to the "too many puzzles" issue.
Starting November 1st, more puzzles will be cut (no difficult Killer on Mon/Tue/Wed/Sun, no easy Killer on Thu/Fri/Sat, no easy 6x6 on Wed/Thu,
no difficult 8x8 on Sun)

thanks for the feedback,

Patrick


It's very difficult to know the causes of the increase or the decrease in the number of puzzlers or to find the correlation with the difficulty or the number of puzzles. Actually there is a reasonably big group of puzzlers that do all everyday (fantastic players have joined "recently" the club from Italy and Japan for instance). I do not think it's really necessary to reduce the number of puzzles (those who like to do many are forced to find them in different sites while this site contains more advanced and specific puzzles, particularly the difficult killers are very new in the site and interesting). Perhaps, instead of reducing the number of puzzles (one recent case is the 5x5's on fridays and saturdays including the interesting neg numbers on fridays ... but where is the advantage if the 5x5's require in general little time?), to satisty everybody, you could reduce only the number of points but keeping all puzzles (even including more and more variated like a 13x13 or a 16x16), obviously several puzzles (or many if necessary) would not score points (you could clearly differentiate them, with colours, etc., and announce the total amount of points available each day, ... , in this way you could also "enable" or "disable" different puzzles from time to time modifying the "schedule").


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Posted on: Mon Oct 29, 2012 4:32 pm




Posts: 3296
Joined: Thu May 12, 2011 11:58 pm
Post Re: Lowering level of participation
clm wrote:
Perhaps, instead of reducing the number of puzzles (one recent case is the 5x5's on fridays and saturdays including the interesting neg numbers on fridays ... but where is the advantage if the 5x5's require in general little time?), to satisty everybody, you could reduce only the number of points but keeping all puzzles (even including more and more variated like a 13x13 or a 16x16), obviously several puzzles (or many if necessary) would not score points (you could clearly differentiate them, with colours, etc., and announce the total amount of points available each day, ... , in this way you could also "enable" or "disable" different puzzles from time to time modifying the "schedule").

I'll probably make it so you only score points for the 5 highest scoring puzzles in a day
(see the 't5' value at the top of the page..)

Patrick


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Posted on: Mon Oct 29, 2012 6:35 pm




Posts: 428
Location: Canada
Joined: Fri May 13, 2011 2:43 am
Post Re: Lowering level of participation
clm wrote:
sneaklyfox wrote:
I admit that I'm sort of leaving the competition too. Normally I am crazy about doing all the puzzles everyday. I even felt obligated. But last week, my family all got sick (except for me!) Hubby came down with pneumonia and the kids were all sick too... spent most of two days at the hospital as well... so I was crazy busy and couldn't do all the puzzles. ...


It's practically impossible to do all puzzles under these circumstances (even being so fan as you are) ... I also hope your husband and kids recover very soon and you can happily return going quickly to your usual place in the "7-day".


Hubby just finished taking the last antibiotic pill this morning and kid is back to school though there's some sniffles going around still. But thanks.

Actually, right now I am happier spending less time on calcudoku.org as I have more time for other things and other pursuits. Like sleep... [razz]


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Posted on: Mon Oct 29, 2012 6:42 pm




Posts: 931
Location: Ladysmith, BC, Canada
Joined: Fri May 13, 2011 1:37 am
Post Re: Lowering level of participation
Is that the 5 best that you yourself solve or the best the site has to offer......either way, I am not in favour of this method as I do like the reward of points when I actually do solve all the puzzles in a day which usually happens about once (sometimes twice) a week.......Also, on days when I am not feeling up to it, I do solve the easiest ones but on other days I like to have the possibility of solving more but be rewarded for my extra effort.


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Posted on: Thu Nov 01, 2012 4:22 pm




Posts: 176
Location: Canada
Joined: Thu Aug 04, 2011 7:40 pm
Post Re: Lowering level of participation
I also echo the sentiment of sneaklyfox.
"I admit that I'm sort of leaving the competition too. Normally I am crazy about doing all the puzzles everyday. I even felt obligated."

To sneaklyfox: I sure hope your family is doing fine again.

I was crazy in trying to grab my star and was successful many times each week. I did get great pleasure seeing the puzzle turn green! And even though 1st place in Canada was not in my grasp I was second many times.

I had great fun doing the calcudoku's. When the Killer's appeared I would rip off the easiest just for those few points but did not enjoy them. I could work out solving methodologies. I used to be a fanatic sudoku player before finding this site but when the dagger appeared that was it for me. I disliked seeing some with daggers and knowing I did not feel any fun in doing them plus of course the extra time commitment. Alas, c'est la vie.

Happy puzzling to all.


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