Two questions from rather a newcomer to this ...

[Fudi]

Hi. I noticed in my profile here that I am labeled a "Junior Member". Could somebody explain why that would be? (Obviously, it's not due to my age - 53). Also, it must be posted somewhere ... but I can't find it ... I'm curious as to how the number of points is awarded when puzzles are solved. Sometimes, my time is pretty good (for me, anyway - better than average ... sometimes even, I'm pretty sure, when I've solved "Fast" or "Very Fast", even) and the quote is categorized as "Difficult" (also, I'm curious, actually, as to how the level of difficulty is determined ... I guess that's 3 questions, for those keeping score) .... but I receive a sort of lowish score (like somewhere in the 100's), whereas sometimes, I solve pretty slowly, indeed, and receive a much higher score ... in the 200's or so ... could somebody explain to me what's up with this?

P.S. You fellow cryptogrammers seem really great and I wish I could invite you all over for brunch or something.

P.P.S. This should probably not be categorized as a whole new thread, I realize ... but I also couldn't quite figure out a good place to post a general question ... chalk all of this up to newbie cluelessness, please!

[Unattributed]

As I understand it, you become a "Member" when you've posted 30 times in the forums, and a "Senior Member" when you've posted at least 100 times in the forums.

For the scoring, you get more points for harder cryptos. The difficulty of a crypto is tied to its length. According to what other players have said, you get a maximum of 450 points for solving a short quote, a maximum of 300 points for solving a medium length quote, and a maximum of 150 points for solving a long quote.

[Queethebean]

I'm not a newbie, but I have had a question for as long as I have been on this site---thought I'd jump on here and finally ask! When I'm solving, I see the letters I use disappear from the "letter bank" below the puzzle. But then sometimes, and I believe it is when I add a wrong letter, ALL the letters seem to reappear. But then again, I'm not sure this happens every time. I just can't figure it out. I am guessing this has been addressed elsewhere, but I'm very curious.

[Fudi]

Thanks ...

Unattributed. I guess I'm on my way now to non-Junior-ness. 2 down, 28 to go? And Queen, yeah ... I've seen that and am curious too.

[Fudi]

Oh ... and well, also, I'm a little bummed that "Difficulty" here is only tied to puzzle length, if that's really so. That doesn't seem a reasonable measure at all to me. It seems to me that since %-of-time-solved is tracked, that that should be included in measuring "Difficulty". I get that that would mean that the Difficulty level of a particular puzzle would change as it gathered more statistical data. But that'd be okay with me. Puzzles could all start out as "Easy" ... and the number of times presented could appear during solving so players could see whether the Difficulty level currently had much data behind it ... and so, see if that level was meaningful or not.

Quote length being the primary basis for points awarded also seems silly to me. But silly's okay, I guess. I do love playing here.

But, then, what do I know ... I'm still of "Junior" status ... until I come up with 26 more posts, that is. I seem to be on a roll.

(I'll get you, Red Baron!)

[LLapp]

Fudi, welcome to the site! We're glad to have you. I'm up for a virtual brunch any day. Many players will attend if you serve chocolate, and Montyb will require a pizza.

Your questions touch on topics that I have seen addressed in various hidden places -- in forum comments buried within other topics, in quote comments that you might find by accident someday, and in chat posts that disappear after a few days. The best route to find answers is to check the FAQ tab or to use the Forum search function to find a key word (e.g., "scoring" or "difficulty"). Or just ask, as you have here; helping to orient new players is a nice way for the gang to connect.

Here's what I can offer....

History of the difficulty ratings:
It used to be that the three ratings (easy, average, difficult) were based solely on quote length, which resulted in lots of bad ratings -- many short quotes are actually easy to solve and many long quotes are very difficult. To address this problem, in March 2016, Stephen Ryder (the site administrator, a.k.a. Puzzle Baron himself) collected actual solve times and user feedback data on quotes, and he did a full reassignment of difficulty ratings based on all that data. The results were not perfect -- we still have quotes with wrong-seeming difficulty ratings -- but my experience is that most quote ratings are much more accurate than they used to be.

Here is the forum thread where Stephen announced the change, followed by us riffraff responding with polite appreciation, exceptions, and grumblings:

http://www.cryptograms.org/forum/showthread.php?t=817

How scoring works:
This is explained within various other-topic forum threads, but you have to dig for those posts. (It really should be covered in the site FAQs, since it is probably THE most frequently asked question on the site.)

Here's a concise summary that maradnu came up with in one of the forum threads:

Maximum points for Difficult: 450
Maximum points for Average: 300
Maximum points for Easy: 150

For every six seconds, or portion thereof, you lose one point from the maximum.

Note that, because of that "or portion thereof" part, you lose a point after the very first second. So the highest humanly possible scores are 449, 299 and 149.

Member status:
I agree with other explanations. I'll add that when you hit the Senior Member status, you get to change your title from "Senior Member" to anything you want.

And that's all I know. See you in the quote comments....

Lisa

[Unattributed]

Thanks for the clarification, LLapp.

[aerie]

quote:
" I'll add that when you hit the Senior Member status, you get to change your title from "Senior Member" to anything you want."

LLapp, where is the place a senior member goes to change their status title?

[LLapp]

How to change your user title

In the Forum screen:


Click on "Quick Links" --> Select "Edit Profile" --> Scroll to "Optional Information" --> First item is "Custom User Title" --> Type your new user title --> Click the tiny "Reset" box on the right --> Scroll to bottom & click "Save Changes."

[Fudi]

That's really helpful. Thanks, LLapp, for responding!!

[wvwoman]

Also, it must be posted somewhere ... but I can't find it ... I'm curious as to how the number of points is awarded when puzzles are solved. Sometimes, my time is pretty good (for me, anyway - better than average ... sometimes even, I'm pretty sure, when I've solved "Fast" or "Very Fast", even) and the quote is categorized as "Difficult" (also, I'm curious, actually, as to how the level of difficulty is determined ... I guess that's 3 questions, for those keeping score) .... but I receive a sort of lowish score (like somewhere in the 100's), whereas sometimes, I solve pretty slowly, indeed, and receive a much higher score ... in the 200's or so ... could somebody explain to me what's up with this?

admin made a change 2 years ago--here's the forum link to his announcement about the changes (be sure to read his second post on page 2: http://www.cryptograms.org/forum/showthread.php?t=817

[wvwoman]

Hi. I noticed in my profile here that I am labeled a "Junior Member". Could somebody explain why that would be? (Obviously, it's not due to my age - 53). Also, it must be posted somewhere ... but I can't find it ... I'm curious as to how the number of points is awarded when puzzles are solved. Sometimes, my time is pretty good (for me, anyway - better than average ... sometimes even, I'm pretty sure, when I've solved "Fast" or "Very Fast", even) and the quote is categorized as "Difficult" (also, I'm curious, actually, as to how the level of difficulty is determined ... I guess that's 3 questions, for those keeping score) .... but I receive a sort of lowish score (like somewhere in the 100's), whereas sometimes, I solve pretty slowly, indeed, and receive a much higher score ... in the 200's or so ... could somebody explain to me what's up with this?

i meant to add this to my first reply, but will blame my sluggish brain on a wicked sinus headache...
these two links might help you understand the "points system" (term used loosely!) better--they're the best i've come across since i started playing:

http://www.cryptograms.org/forum/showthread.php?t=765&highlight=points

http://www.cryptograms.org/forum/sho...ghlight=points (maradnu's grid chart, post #6, is awesome!)

[wvwoman]

well, ok...

i know i have a headache, but i'm not blind--when i posted my comments, a lot of the comments that are now there (before mine) were not there. did mine (or the others) get stuck in the ether somewhere for a while?!

[LLapp]

wvwoman - I could see the recent posts just fine, but I know there have been many times in the past when I don’t see any recent posts and then I post a comment, and then suddenly the other recent posts appear as well. I think it may have to do with the screen not updating for some reason.

Anyway I like how we both referred to the exact same forum thread and even the same comment by maradnu.

[montyb]

Did someone mention pizza?! I could swear I heard the word "pizza" mentioned!