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#1: Kai-Uwe Zickerick (conzick) on Feb 25, 2011

Can follow your rating til here, absolutely!

Yes: this is a pleasant little image, though no real originality or artistic flair. In other words, average.

I would argue that a puzzle of slightly lesser quality, but with a really great story, should get a higher rating. Case in point: Sarah's "on the roof" series, plus her kitties saga. The image may be a 2, but the laughs bring it up to a 3.

Good idea...I'm guessing the way people rate puzzles is driving you nuts...what's making me crazy is the difficulty rating...I have a puzzle #12291 and I know it can be logically solved, yet it has a question mark and only a difficulty rating of only 2..doesn't make sense to me

I agree with Brian's use of white and a better image.

Travis's comments on difficulty rating is good. A solver's skill level might affect a rating. For example, Gator's puzzles are always great but they are more difficult for me, but I would rate the difficulty with the majority's rating.

Off the rating subject -- the best part of the "on the roof" series was when Kristen made her roof top puzzle. Her puzzle is great and her artistic ability is much better than mine. I like when someone makes a puzzle that is related to another. Bob's evolving life, now with Kate, is a good example.

nice one

i am getting more and more excited to see your "4" puzzle and especially your example of the elusive "5" (i cant wait to see what you come up with for that one haha)

Travis. You are absolutely right but lets table the difficulty ratings for now and focus on quality.

Did I make a perfect 3 here or are there better examples?

Examples of a 3 should also include Travis's 12062 " by the light..." and Aledge's 12190 "I'd rather be".
I would rate Brian's 12347 "Do you know him" (rated 2.75) and Ron's "Now I have pumpkin..." (2.5) as 3's -- Brian's fits the description well. Ron's image may not be as detailed but his creative title that resulted in an unexpected wonderful solution deserves a higher ranking. What does everyone think?

12190 is Aledge's Would I make a good Valentines Gift? is very cute and I think I would score the quality a 4. There's not alot of white space so the difficulty would score lower, but we're talking quality now.

The lol factor would definitely bring Ron's puzzle to a 3.

I loved Travis's by the light puzzle and would give it a 4.

Sorry, Aldege's I'd rather be is # 12189

I don't rate very many puzzles below 3, or above 4. For me, to be below a three there has to be a lack of detail (blocky, one-color shapes, for example), or some ambiguity in identification of the image: i.e. if I can't see what they say it is, I might give it a 2 or even a 1. However, for me, a really small (10x10 or smaller) that conveys really well, even if it is blocky/lacking in detail, will get a higher grade. If you use a 40x40 field or something, however, and there is a lack of detail and conveyance, that will lower your score from me.

Black and white images that convey really well will tend to get a higher grade from me, as well. Basically, for me, the number one factor leading to quality or lack thereof is conveyance of concept vs. size of puzzle.

My little pet peeve, though, is a logic puzzle that isn't logically solvable, so I typically don't even try to solve those with ?s unless they're relatively new. Sometimes you get someone who just doesn't notice the logical solution, and thus gives it a question mark, so I'll sometimes go through those just to check their solvability. I'm more likely to give a non-bolded ? a chance, and a red question mark--especially a bold red question mark--will see me fleeing for the hills.

I'm curious if anyone else has encountered puzzles deemed logically solvable that honestly weren't? It's happened a few times since I've been solving here, and I'm not sure why/how.

To me quality is related to the WOW factor and how fun was it to solve.
This is cute but no challenging to solve ... Definitely a three.

Agree with jota

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I agree with Travis....if they are logically solvable they should not have a question mark on them.

I agree with you, Cynthia, these puzzles are supposed to be logic and not a guessing game...I run from the ones with the bold ???.s also. I do not get any pleasure from guessing. If I have to work at the edge logic till I get the correct solution that is great (or interior logic).....but it has to be solvable by logic. When I see one by Gator I jump on it because I know it will be logically solvable, usually difficult and I know that I will get a lot of enjoyment out of it. There are other people's that I love to solve also...its just that Gator comes to mind at the moment.

I'm with you, Ailsa!

My usual quality rating is a four. This puzzle is a solid four for me. Four means that I can figure out what the image is, either by looking at it or by reading the comments, but preferably without needing the help of the comments to figure it out. I give a five for images that really wow me. Three is for images where I can't figure out what I am looking at, or sometimes for images that are all text, or maybe a really boring flag puzzle. One and two are for an image or description that make me wish the puzzle wasn't on the site but that there isn't a reason to actually delete from the site. If the process of solving a puzzle is fun or unpleasant, that nudges its rating up or down from there. Also a fun description, or if I learn something interesting from the description or the comments, that nudges the puzzle's quality rating upward.

My difficulty ratings are:
1) I would recommend this puzzle to someone who is new to solving PBN puzzles.
2) The puzzle takes some back-and-forth to solve, but with persistence and line logic, it is solvable.
3) Solving this took some work, but I figured it out on my own. Anything with blots or that takes other logic than line logic gets a minimum of 3.
4) I had to look at other people's hints to solve it.
5) This would be a puzzle where even with other people's hints I still can't solve it. But I only rate puzzles after I've solved them, so it works out that I never give a 5.

Sometimes sheer largeness adds to my rating of a puzzle's difficulty.

I thought I should add some context.

There always has been a bunch of controversy around the quality rating especially for small puzzles (like I usually make). Even an excellent image may only garner a 2.5 if it is small. My guess is that solvers conflate image quality and difficulty. "if the puzzle is easy, it is of low quality". This is, of course unfair to the little ones and their creators. There are many amazing small images that are easy to solve but don't have a pixel out of place.

In an attempt to be proactive, I created what I consider a classic Q1, Q2, and Q3 puzzle. The others are 12407 and 12408. I had planned to do a Q4 and Q5 but never got around to it. It is hard to just "make" a 4 or 5 because you really need some inspiration. The spark isn't always there on demand. I suppose I could go back in my archive and rename two of my old puzzles.

If I remember right, I once read something where Jan pointed out that harder puzzles are only solved by a small number of people who really like working through difficult logic, so the pool of people who rate them are also more experienced at solving PBN puzzles, while smaller puzzles are rated by a much wider audience, and this too can skew how puzzles' quality is rated, since different audiences are doing the rating.

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