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Puzzletome
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Stretham
Forum Hardass
Joined: 15 Sep 2003
Posts: 25072
Location: Here, there, somewhere, everywhere
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 Posted: Wed Jan 24, 2024 6:14 am Post subject: Puzzle answers |
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I've copied the post below from the Art Gallery Annexe forum, as a wider discussion is required here.
| 3x7 wrote: | Maybe it is a good idea to specify what normalisation the answer checker applies.
This could have reduced lots of guesses in this puzzle.
My suggestion would be to eliminate everything except letters and digits and normalise to lowercase. In particular make spaces and quotes irrelevant. |
3x7 brings up a good point here, but answers on Puzzletome work differently from most other similar sites. We have the ability to allow multiple different answers to any one puzzle.
For instance, if the answer is "fireplace" we can explicitly also allow "fire place" or "fire-place". While this approach would rule out someone accidentally entering "fire pl-ace", it would also let us allow "grate" and "inglenook" with no problem. We feel this is a more powerful generic approach.
The problems with the "Terribly Wrong" answer were actually down to human error rather than our answer checker, for which I apologise. 
Stretham
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chantilly
Base dunghill villain
Joined: 16 Sep 2003
Posts: 600
Location: UK
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| Posted: Wed Jan 24, 2024 8:23 am Post subject: Re: Puzzle answers |
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| Stretham wrote: |
We have the ability to allow multiple different answers to any one puzzle.
For instance, if the answer is "fireplace" we can explicitly also allow "fire place" or "fire-place". While this approach would rule out someone accidentally entering "fire pl-ace", it would also let us allow "grate" and "inglenook" with no problem. We feel this is a more powerful generic approach. |
Whilst not quite as sophisticated, HTPO will also accept up to 4 different answers per puzzle. I usually find this is ample to cover any possible parsing variations. On the odd occasion where more than 4 plausible answers are likely, this can usually be fixed by having some sort of formatting instruction incorporated into the puzzle. ie. lettercount, (hyph) or (2 wds) in brackets etc.
| 3x7 wrote: |
This could have reduced lots of guesses in this puzzle. |
Thankfully, we are not penalised for having a high guess count. When my (eventually correct) answer for this puzzle was rejected, I proceeded to treat it as a cluephrase hence my high guess count (24). (They weren't 'guesses' as such, more attempts at answering what I thought might be a question).
This held us up for quite a while and whilst frustrating at the time, I think we all have to accept that mistakes can and do happen and we have to learn to live with them. You are forgiven Stretham haha  
Summing up, I don't see a problem with answer formatting here at PT. It's worked for over 20 years so why change things now!
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cae_prince
A most toad spotted traitor
Joined: 27 Sep 2007
Posts: 591
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| Posted: Wed Jan 24, 2024 2:04 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | Summing up, I don't see a problem with answer formatting here at PT. It's worked for over 20 years so why change things now! |
Just jumping on here to concur, as well.
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3x7
Leave thy vain bibble-babble
Joined: 04 May 2005
Posts: 724
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| Posted: Wed Jan 24, 2024 9:12 pm Post subject: Re: Puzzle answers |
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| Stretham wrote: |
The problems with the "Terribly Wrong" answer were actually down to human error rather than our answer checker, for which I apologise.??
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This can happen and is not related to the suggestion I made. So no need to apologise, Stretham.
But we can have both multiple answers as well as normalising the entries of puzzlers.
This is what most competitions implement, for instance to eliminate things like double spaces and other minor variations.
I am not in charge of the site and most of the time there is not a real issue.
But it can simplify matters and prevent some common mistakes.
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