I have an idea about the WAIs...

What if the host were allowed to give warmer / cooler hints every once in a while? Like, no more than 1/10 clues.

Yeah, I agree there needs to be some change. I remember on the Mt. Vernon Trail thread, somebody got so close to the answer, but I had to answer No. Ninety or so questions later , nobody had gotten even close and they were getting further and further away.

I understood where sherlockx was coming from when he started the WAIs and implemented rigid rules. It is fun to watch people follow red herrings and travel merrily down the garden path IN THE WRONG DIRECTION. But at this stage of the game, people have gotten tired of the torture and the semantics, because the contests are no longer fun, or as fun as they once were.

In recognition of this, some of us have resorted at times to being a little more conversational, but I don't think any of us have gone so far as to say "You're on the right track" or "You're getting warm". That would definitely help on the complex rounds.

An interesting thought which I will consider prof.
I think one of the problems is that the guessers fail to ask some of the really basic questions and hope to jump in and win with an inspired guess.

Yeah, that's always a problem. And it's only after being a host that people really realize how futile the inspired guesses are. Yet even those of us who know this continue to do it. I think it's something in the human brain. We're programmed to feel more confident than we have a right to be.

A current example is that in Druid's egg challenge no one has asked if the "What" is an object i.e composed of atoms or molecules.

The thing is though, some of the players are new and haven't participated in the WAI rounds where the regulars have slooooollllyyyy begun to internalize your definition of object.

edit - Another possibility is to allow the guest to post this image(Red Herring)

against any of the answers at their absolute discretion

I'm not sure exactly how that would work, but any of us at any time can ask if anyone has come remotely close to the answer. Trouble is, none of us want to waste our turn asking.

[PinkWorld]

I'm not sure exactly how that would work, but any of us at any time can ask if anyone has come remotely close to the answer. Trouble is, none of us want to waste our turn asking.

*hates the 4 posts in between rule

I'm not sure exactly how that would work, but any of us at any time can ask if anyone has come remotely close to the answer. Trouble is, none of us want to waste our turn asking.

I volunteer to ask, if prodded I love guessing, but I'd actually hate to win 'What am I', as I can't guarantee being online enough at the moment to be able to be an effective host.

I'm with PinkW, I'd like you to bring the four posts rule down to three.

[emmilina]

The Druid's Egg challenge

To help spur things along, the 4 post rule has been relaxed to a 2 post rule

[Leandhart]

The Druid's Egg challenge

To help spur things along, the 4 post rule has been relaxed to a 2 post rule

Good change 4 post is quite long specially during slow times

[Semi-hex]

It looks like it takes me way longer than it should to cut and paste, add my name and repost. Shy was less than a minute and true was three when I started. I'll just let it pass me from now on, unless I hit right at my name.

I feel bad for ruining the game.

[GrendelRex]

Just put your own name and submit it . . . then go back in edit mode and do what you need to with cut/paste.

[Semi-hex]

Just put your own name and submit it . . . then go back in edit mode and do what you need to with cut/paste.

I thought we weren't allowed to edit for some reason.

[radietaip]

I thought we weren't allowed to edit for some reason.

No, we cannot delete a post but can edit it later.

12. You may not delete a post in the Chain Gang thread for any reason at all without asking the host first. Players who delete a post without asking the host will be out of the game for 5 rounds. Editing a post is fine because it makes no difference to the posting order, so feel free to add or delete comments, format your list of names or remove content you didn't intend for people to see. If you accidentally double-posted (mobile devices sometimes do that), don't worry about it: the 2nd post will just be ignored.

[Semi-hex]

I thought we weren't allowed to edit for some reason.

No, we cannot delete a post but can edit it later.

12. You may not delete a post in the Chain Gang thread for any reason at all without asking the host first. Players who delete a post without asking the host will be out of the game for 5 rounds. Editing a post is fine because it makes no difference to the posting order, so feel free to add or delete comments, format your list of names or remove content you didn't intend for people to see. If you accidentally double-posted (mobile devices sometimes do that), don't worry about it: the 2nd post will just be ignored.

I was able to do this a game ago and it worked just fine. Thank you.

[avoran]

I've switched to mobilism.me because someone said there are less site problems

Except I just realized it logs me out* every time I follow a link to mobilism.org (e.g. on the Welcome to the Contests Section page). Just tested the reverse and that's also true.

If the two sites are supposed to be interchangeable, it shouldn't work that way.

For the time being I'm going back to org, it's just a nuisance.

edit:

I'm no techie, but can your server be set up to automatically re-route a request for an .org page to the equivalent .me page if the person is logged in on .me, and vice versa?

Ungainly manual fix for users: if this happens to you, you can work around it manually by replacing .me with .org (or vice versa) in your browser's address bar

* OK, strictly speaking you're not logged out of whatever version of the site you were originally using. You can go "back" to the page you were on and you'll show up as logged in, everything's fine. But if you go ahead and use the links on the page you followed a link to, you'll see that you're not logged in there. You can tell because e.g. you can't access personal messages, your settings are gone (in my case it's obvious because the new page is in Mobilism 2.0 and I use classic) and the cookies that keep track of which pages you've viewed are going to get screwed up (because you're working with 2 different sets).

[avoran]

I just posted a link to my previous post in the new domain thread in the Announcements section - it's really not a question for the Contests staff

[mobilitic]

i work mostly in .me, but keep a tab open with the .org login option for the times when i follow someone elses link (which i always open in a new tab) and it's .org. so from time to time i am logged at the same time on both .me and .org also i noticed that in the case of a post number the link given is always .org.

I use Chrome, and I use a plugin called Requestly to sort out the problem for me. It's very simple to use and will automatically replace the string forum.mobilism.org with mobilism.me whenever it comes up. I'm sure there is something similar for firefox etc.