I think there is a lot to be said about how having a good co-author makes one's own work better; so I'd never single out recognition of one author here over the other as it's clear the combination of authors and styles worked better here as a test than either alone would have been.

You co-wrote Mutant Sudoku with Wei-Hwa Huang, so perhaps I should trust you when you say that. :P

I typo'd my greater-than (bottom) entry (should have been a xxxxxxxxxx before the last 2 digits). I'll take a manual override if they're still available :).

Edited by debmohanty at 2011-06-05 8:45 AM (since the answer key is partially revealed)

That one ended up being harder to decide on than Para's error. But you now have those points too.

Thanks! My puzzle for you ;).

Excellent stuff all around, as expected. Only thing that could've been better is if I was able to count to numbers above 3. :)

Message to mystery_boy

Please introduce yourself in the forum.

Message to cmd2do

Please fill-in your correct country and realname.

Thanks. Seems a bit odd to confuse those 2 digits, I know. But if you'd seen the handwriting you'd get it. Also got commented on it by judges during the WSC last year.

The possibility of having handwriting that can confuse those two was easy to accept. The issue of how plausible it is to have a wrong solution with a digit swap like that took a bit more thought. Not that we're accusing you of lying about the handwriting, but if anyone else submits the same solution...

More generally, shouldn't there be a consistent rule about mistyped solutions (those in the right box but which don't match the key)?

Everyone is essentially doing the test on trust since it would be easy enough to get a friend to help with a couple of puzzles, or maybe go to an internet cafe and view the PDF in advance from a different IP address (or even run a password cracker), so in principle I don't see anything wrong with allowing people to ask for typos to be corrected. If people want to cheat they can do so anyway after all, and it's usually pretty obvious if they do.

However in practice we all know it's faster to do the puzzle without entering the key so clearly getting the key correct and checking takes time, so isn't it unfair to penalise those who do take the time to check by awarding points to those who got it wrong? In general I'd have thought it would be better to require the key to be correct on the basis that typing it in accurately is "part of the test", however trivial a part.

If you do allow corrections, however, shouldn't they be applied consistently? E.g. allow a single digit only to be deleted/inserted/substituted if accompanied by a promise that it was a typing error not a puzzle mistake - that might be a reasonable rule for example. However some puzzle-based judgement as to how likely the person is to be lying (as is taking place here) is surely an awkward precedent to set. For full disclosure I had my single digit typing error rejected for correction, and I'm sure it was much harder to be sure of than those above, but I do think it's a reasonable question to ask generally. If it's done on "likelihood that player is lying", what is the threshold for that likelihood?

I'm always firmly in the middle of the results table and I really don't mind whether I personally get 4 points more or not, but wouldn't it be a good idea to have a consistent rule?

Sorry, perhaps I should have excluded the word "lying" entirely from my post. The issue of trust is actually not a factor in the decisions at all; in fact we are only looking at the answer. Something to note is that the manual override system is done by entering the person's wrong answer as an alternate correct answer, so this is why I bring up the idea of someone else giving the same answer. One person's typo, like perhaps in your case, could be another's mistake on the page.

Although I can't reveal details until after the test ends, your sample rule about "allow a single digit only to be deleted/inserted/substituted if accompanied by a promise that it was a typing error not a puzzle mistake" may result in the problems of the above paragraph for a particular puzzle in this test. There is a common wrong answer being submitted that is plausible as a typing mistake but also very likely to be an error on the page. If we follow this rule and accept one person's promise that this commonly mistaken digit was a typo, the manual override system forces us to credit every single person that made the error. Whether this is a problem with the system itself or not could be argued, although my opinion is that it's fine.

The rule that we are applying consistently is whether there is a sensible incorrect answer on the page that could result in someone giving the wrong answer being debated. If we find reasons to believe there isn't one, we typically give credit. If we can imagine a situation in which a minor mistake results in the answer we got, we don't give credit. This admittedly involves some subjective considerations, but mathgrant and I are being as thorough as we can in applying this principle. For example, if we get an answer with a wrong row or column entered, we'll both redo the puzzle part of the way to see what the implications of getting that particular row/column right are.

On the topic of checking when wrong answers can get credit, there is the point that the vast majority of incorrectly entered answers are not getting points, although the posts in this topic may give a different impression. So checking your answers is still important.

As a final note, I think the only 100% fair way to do manual overriding is to have none of it at all. But personally I think a sufficient level of fairness can be reached without having to resort to such an extreme, and I personally like LMI better for the occasional leniency.

Edited by MellowMelon 2011-06-05 10:46 PM

I understand. I've been on the other side and it takes a little thought to figure out where the mistake comes from and if there's another explanation for it. For some puzzle types it's much easier to figure out than for fillomino as there's no restrictions to the answer key content. Especially with the units digit implication there's more to look into.
I don't really think this manual override system should be questioned. I've been involved in it and the decisions are always made fairly. There's always the option to file for corrections in puzzle championships as well.

Thank you for an enjoyable test. I have made a silly mistake on my answer entry for Even-Odd Fillomino. On my last digit I had a small circle on my sheet to identify the cell, then I wrote the actual number in the box, but I've then misread that as I've entered my answer. The number that I submitted there doesn't appear in the last four columns at all. Please can you check my answer manually. I made a careless mistake in one of the other puzzles, but that was my fault - can't count!

Nice puzzles. Couldn't complete many coz I'm damn sleepy, but worth it :)

Re: puzzlemad
We have decided to give you credit for that puzzle. Glad you liked the test.

There are no competitors right now and it's past the final starting time, so Fillomino-Fillia is now over. Here are the full results (as soon as Deb gets around to telling the site the test is over a bit early). Congratulations to deu for topping the test with 148 points, finishing the test a whole 28 minutes early. motris, flooser, and uvo are next, all finishing with 11, 8, and 5 minutes to spare respectively.

Thank you everyone for competing; both mathgrant and I hope you all enjoyed the test and the puzzles we made for it.

Edited by MellowMelon 2011-06-06 5:42 AM

These puzzles are excellent. I never would have thought Fillomino could be so enjoyable. Well done to both authors :)
I am looking forward to doing the second Star puzzle, looks like it has an awesome logic!

Unfortunately I found the precision required to complete the final cells and get a correct solution key frustrating - not a reflection of the coolness of the puzzle solving process... I personally dropped two puzzles, and in both cases because I couldn't count up to 2 in the final cells of the puzzle. I can't claim they are typos - in my mind they are clear but minor mistakes. :S

I suppose this is just part of the nature of Fillomino puzzles. The application of the typo/mistake allocation has been eminently reasonable, so a nice job to the authors and Deb for administering the test.

Thank you M&M for F&F, one of the most beautiful puzzle sets here.

deu breezed in in awesome 91 minutes, but then, from time to time, he or motris or some others make test-solvers timings look ridiculous.

Congratulations!


In terms of numbers, this has highest number of participants in any 2011 LMI puzzle test. But unfortunately no Indians did particularly well. Both Rakesh and Rohan mentioned to me in privately that they were lured into the 20-pointer Star Fillomino, and lost 30+ minutes for that.

Palmer's detailed post-mortem post and 'guess-the-constructor' contest here

The score page has been modified to show a * prefixed to players names, if they chose to 'Not include their score is LMI Ratings'

At Deb's recommendation, I am posting a logical solution for the hard Star Fillomino at the end of the test. You can view it here. (also posted in the Solving Techniques forum)

Thanks for the detailed walkthrough. It is indeed a 'Star Battle' varia, than a Fillomino varia.
Some very beautiful logic there, and I can only recommend everyone to solve the Star Fillomino first, before looking at the document.

I certainly wasted most of my time on the one non-fillomino here (at least Melon's point about my score looking bad after 55 minutes was I'd taken 7 minutes to finish the classics and then 48 to knock off the two stars and the first sum with my second submission). I immediately knew how the 20 pointer would work (80 cells accounted for by the givens, with 20 stars to find), but really struggled to get the logic going my way. And even when I'd intuited the right things, I made an error or two so it took a second copy to finish it off. Certainly a high-variance puzzle.

Since Palmer mentioned about it, let me explain why the score page works the way it is.
Every puzzle has a perfect solution key, and it may have 0 or more alternate solution keys which authors decide to accept. When a player reports claims for a puzzle, authors validate the request and decide to either give credits or the other way. If they decide to give points, any other player who made same submission get points too. The other player could have made a typo or a genuinely solving mistake.

The question is why don't we just give points only to the player who claimed. After running the tests for close to 1 year, we realize that most of the players don't claim for points. We might see few claims in the forum, but authors spend lot of time verifying each and every wrong submission. So, we really can't go by who claimed and who didn't. If we are giving points to X for an imperfect submission, we must give points to Y & Z who also same submission mistake.

Like every system, this may be debatable. If their are strong objections against how this works or there are alternate solutions, let us know.