What is common in these 3 graphs : Close to 55% of the players participated in just 1 or 2 tests, and didn't participate again. It will be interesting to understand if we should do something about it.

I see there are at least 392 active member (who participated on at least 4 test), and there are 171 very active member (10+ tests).
In my opinion these numbers are really respectable.

Congratulation.

Well, I think the biggest factor regarding participation rates is online solving ability. My guess is a lot of the single occurrence puzzle players are from the Screen Test (only paperless Puzzle test), and a lot of the lower occurrence Sudoku players are specifically from the tests that had online solving option. Not everyone has a printer.

There are certainly lot of players who participated only in the Screen Test, but it is not that high.

I'm breaking up the 304 number of players who played just one test. Here is the break up by the "Only Test"
(This is to be read as, for example, 11 players participated in Twist, and didn't participate in any other puzzle test)

Similar break up for Sudoku tests as well.




So, my 55% number is certainly not correct. We can ignore Screen Test and April Sudoku test. We can also ignore the two "Best of" tests since they were the last tests of the year.

#of Paper Solvers / #of Online Solvers in Sudoku tests

Well I think we can consider some of the participants in the 2 Best of tests as newcomers who might stay on. :) I personally feel its due to the tough difficulty mainly, as I think that most of the 1-test participants are Indians(correct me if I'm wrong.) Considering the difficulty of the National Finals, LMI tests are way more difficult. I don't really know an apt solution to that though. Probably request the authors to do some easy puzzles for an added first-timer version.

The numbers suggest so. Here is the break up of 1-test participants (sudoku or puzzle) by countries.

Serbia's 7 might be mostly due to the last two Championship tests. They may continue participating now. Lets hope so. For India at least, based on some friends' reactions, I think its because they come, give the test, get a zero score or something just a bit more, see the rest of the scores and get discouraged. Maybe we should have a stat for everyone's first puzzle/sudoku tests up to show them that a lot of the top players started off bad too :P

I would be interested in a stat like this: "Amongst those who have submitted more than 100 answers, who are the ones with highest % of correct answer submissions" for puzzle tests, and for sudoku tests. Probably, we can exclude tests like Screen test here.

Not sure if Screen Test should have been excluded. ByronosaurusRex has the most correct submission percentage and interestingly, he was the only player to have all puzzles correct in ST2.

Gotroch!

Also, surprisingly, Serkan appears only in least % for both together.

Btw, just wanted to know what is my %s?

EDIT:Graphs are re-created.

Edited by Rohan Rao 2011-12-30 10:50 AM

Something wrong with the numbers. I'll paste the correct numbers later.

It need not be wrong if Serkan has <75 submissions in any one of puzzle/sudoku.

Is it too much to ask about my %s too then?

Edited by prasanna16391 2011-12-29 10:16 PM

Graphs are uploaded again.

You could be leading the right side table next year if you continue like this

I doubt I'd notice them all. I mean I missed one of them while solving and only found out when I realised my answer key was wrong (all my deductions had been correct, it just lead to a problem at the end in a rule I hadn't been using to finish off the puzzle). I also still have a few puzzles I haven't managed to solve (yet).

hehe luckily I've almost never got something I solved as wrong in either the Nationals or the WCs. I guess its more to do with online submissions, without a printer it can get pretty confusing

Thanks Deb... those numbers are quite interesting.
Could we have an India list also with a lesser number constraint.

I wouldn't worry about people participating once or twice and going away. First of all, there are lots of fun things you can do on this site that aren't participating in the timed tests -- like grabbing puzzle sets to go and do at leisure. My kids like the easier puzzles from the sets, but they'd hate the stress and perceived lack of success of the timed tests. You might want to consider whether you have regular visitors who aren't participating in the timed tests.

But also, the tests are really *very difficult*. I'm a pretty experienced puzzler and, with the exception of the Screen Test (which played to my strengths), I'm consistently coming about 3/4 of the way down the field. Lots of people would find that discouraging and go find an easier site. But that's actually the unique thing about this site so you wouldn't want to get rid of it.

You might want to think about occasionally having a set of easier puzzles for novices/kids. Or not; there's plenty of other stuff out there.

2nd most incorrect submission percentage... yay?
I remembered rushing my assignment and miscalculating the time I have left to play Puzzle Hybrids and ended up missing it.
Was a shame because Bram's puzzles are really good. Kudos to the Perfect Dozen - you're truly a fan of puzzles!

I didn't add any filters. Just took top 10 submissions from India, and sorted by the %age correctness.