This page is for discussing the contents of the Mystery Picture/Rules page.
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On the value of pictures that require hints vs those that don't:
I know some people aren't happy with the use of pictures that require hints. My feeling is that if a picture is too obvious, someone will either guess it immediately (because it is obvious or they happen to know exactly where it is), or no one will, because no one will actually recognize the object in the picture. If someone guesses it immediately, it's (potentially?) not as interesting for other players, because they won't have a chance to guess. If no one does, hints are required anyway. If the hints are obvious, then again, it gives away the solution to someone very quickly, and there is no challenge in the puzzle. If hints require some thought, or are themselves part of a puzzle, then the picture is more challenging and (hopefully) more exciting to solve. (Many puzzles incorporate smaller puzzles that must be solved in order to reach the final goal, although sometimes the solutions can be guessed without solving the smaller puzzles first.) Using pictures that may require hints also gives people who may not recognize the object immediately a chance to play along too. For example, there was a picture a few weeks ago with a pacman shaped thing in a road. The object was recognized quickly, but the only people who had a chance at solving it were those who actually use that road, since no one else would ever come across it. Using hints that are themselves puzzles allows people to figure out the location, and what the object is, even without having seen it in person. (If you look at the hints for the lightwaves puzzle and the recycle bin puzzle, most of the hints actually incorporated the location of the object, or a reference to the location of the object, into the hint. Reading the hint in the right way revealed the location.)
Under the current rule revision, any picture could be identified very rapidly using the following algorithm:
1) Ask if the object is on or off campus
2) Subdivide the town (or campus) into halves.
3) Ask a yes or no question about whether it is in one particular half
4) Go to step 2 and repeat until the location of the object has been narrowed down.
(This procedure has been used in a number of puzzles already.)
What does everyone think?
Comment on Mystery Picture rules
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