Puzzle Description:

This is a Bongard Problem, in which one side follows a specific and simple rule that the other side does not. You have to find the rule. For clarification, the left 6 boxes have a [, ?, :, ;, - and . and the left side has a &, those two dots you can put above letters, !, =, * and _ Look at the spoilers in the comments for the answer.

#1: Joseph Newton (Shroomyjoe) on Aug 14, 2013 [SPOILER]

The solution to the puzzle:
[ ? | & ¨
: ; | ! =
- . | * _
The solution to the Bongard Problem:
The right side has punctuation marks that start with a vowel. Those on the left side start with a consonant. e.g.:
Left side: bracket, question mark, colon, semi-colon, dash/minus sign, full stop/period.
Right side: ampersand, umlaut, exclamation mark, equals sign, asterisk, underscore.

This is a forbidden type of logical puzzles in international puzzle standards (WPF), because it's not independent from languages.
Only an American can think, that all people are thinking in English... :)

Interesting double puzzle. I didn't recognize the ampersand at all, even after knowing what it is. I know it's hard to do in such a small space. The semi-colon might look better with the bottom red square moved one space left, so it bends? I couldn't figure out the Bongard problem at all--I had to see your spoilers!!!

It's hard to fit things in without the game requiring guessing or luck in finding the correct solution.

Interesting puzzle, Joe. I might have gotten the answer if I pondered a little longer. Fun.

I did not get the solution as I was thinking more abstractly about how they were used or their shapes. The solution presents a bit of a problem as on the right side the umlaut is also called a diaeresis and the asterisk a star. And on the left, I was taught the question mark as a "interrogation point" or an "interrogatory".

Thomas, while this instance is not language independent, I doubt that this *type* of puzzle is forbidden. There are plenty of Bongard problems (if not the majority) that rely on abstract properties of the objects rather than language-specific ones. The original ones made by Bongard and the ones made by Hofstadter are just some examples. eg: http://www.foundalis.com/res/p104.html Also, see the third point in this list of "invalid" Bongards: http://www.foundalis.com/res/invalBP.html

Also while "only" an American might think the world communicates in English (although I think you left out the English and many other English-speaking nationalities), it is not a peculiarly American trait. There are plenty of Russian and Chinese sites that make absolutely no concessions to any other language. And if you were to go to a puzzle site where French was the lingua franca I don't think you'd find anyone complaining (except possibly you) that the puzzlemakers assumed that the players speak French.

Joseph, I appreciate that you chose the solvability as a pbn over Bongard as this is a site for webpbn. The semi-colon as Linda suggested would definitely have made it a multiple-solution puzzle.

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