go

go

done

finished

Done

Done, 7 guesses.

Done, greens, no guesses

Done, no greens, 1 guess

start

Difficulty score 58.

done

done with greens

Done, greens, 1 guess

Tip for newcomers: If you want to make it to the very top of the Who's Hot list, pick a username that will come first alphabetically. The current persistent champ has a name beginning with a blank space. Try two blank spaces, or 3 or 4 or 5, or 100 just to be really safe. The race is on!

Maybe you could set up an online course in Gaming the Sudoku System, TallMike.

"Usernames With Punch" and "Real Secrets of the Ranking System" could be premium online content.

Sadly, it would probably get more visitors than drwho's pages.

Personally I would like to see a change in the way the Who's Hot list is managed. Specifically, rankings should reflect all the points earned by players over the past 2 weeks including points earned by solving old puzzles from the Archives. The list would then show who has been really hot! For example, a player might aim to complete one expert puzzle a day for 2 weeks. (I would be interested in doing that myself.) At the end of the two weeks, that player would either be the hottest, or close to the hottest, with a 2-week point total of at least 70. Compare that to the current highest Who's Hot point total of 19, calculated the "old" way, with more than 100 players sharing the honors. See the difference? Let's have a bit of real competition and make Who's Hot really mean something. I will consider writing to Dr_God about this, but only if there is support for the idea from other people on this board.

I think that's a good idea, TallMike. However, it might be a bit more complicated to keep track of the scoring for Who's Hot in that way. And it would work against those folks who have already used up the archive (or are working without access to it).

That's actually a great idea. I would prefer the Who's Hot list to show which noobs are advancing int he ranks, rather than merely who's showing up daily.

I have my own 'who's hot' list and I check daily to see if I'm catching up with them in the main scores. I have been as close as 60 behind one player then he moved forward and I fell back and now I am catching up again and am now only 55 behind.One day I hope to overtake :-), as I try to do one expert a day.

Thanks janetb50 for your comments. I am sure the scoring for Who's Hot is fully automated, and reprogramming it would be simple. Players who have used up the archive are honored in the Elite list, and those who are close to it are listed as Experts or Pros, and all those lists use total lifetime scores rather than focusing on the last 2 weeks. Newbies won't make the Newbies list until they score well over 300 points. My proposal would allow hot Newbies and most other hot players to be recognized immediately, which would encourage them individually and stimulate competition. The only players who will be disadvantaged in Who's Hot will be the free members because they cannot use the archives until they upgrade to paid memberships. Seems fair to me.

digondda, if I understand correctly, the personal list you maintain for competitive purposes uses lifetime scores. On the IronSudoku website, the term Who's Hot refers only to performance during the past two weeks, and so it may be a bit misleading for you to describe your list as a "who's hot" list. The change I have proposed in the website's Who's Hot list would recognize your catch-up efforts as "hot" recent performance. So, are you in favor of the proposed change?

Absolutely.

I'm often a little disappointed when I see how low down I am on the 'who's hot' list, when I know I've completed a lot of archive puzzles. I understand why now, I always thought all puzzles were included rather than just how many daily puzzles were compeleted within the last couple of weeks.

digondda, remember my comment from a couple of days ago: "I feel so betrayed that I think I will have to do another expert puzzle just to take my mind off it." It does help!

:-)

Did it, no green, one unlucky guess. Seems like almost an invariance principle: The more productive looking guess is usually wrong. The guess that leaves more cells unsettled is usually better. ...unless you WANT a wrong guess, for sake of establishing a better check point.

Your comment from a couple of days ago is still available by scrolling down just a little bit. We don't get a lot of traffic here.

SamanthaJoy, I was trying to offer digondda a light-hearted suggestion about how she could handle her disappointment about her low position on the "Who's Hot" list. From her emoticon reply, I think she appreciated it, but I am sorry if you felt I was being unnecessarily repetitive.

g/ng

go

done

Any more opinions for or against changing the Who's Hot rankings to reflect all the points earned by players over the past 2 weeks including points earned by solving old archive puzzles? Please see today's earlier postings for detailed explanation.

Blazed through that one. Single digit ranking, I

I'm thinking.