Organization How would you like our levels to be categorized?

Categories can never be objective?
Ok, so tell me what IS objective here?

Oh. and hey, why are we even discussing this? Let's just move everything to Mekorama.net, as Richardfu wants to do....and categorize everything by subjective difficulty only....and never find the kind of levels we like, nor be able to avoid the kind of levels we hate, because that site is going to be too deep to wade through with 1000's of cards in the EASY category (For example)

For that matter… Why does the site even exist for levels anyway? How many levels are on Mekorama.net that are not here on this site? Wow, look how many levels you've already missed! And without categories to help narrow down the ability to search for levels, how are you going to determine what you have and what you don't?

Yes, @richardfu, let's just follow your example…
And abandon this discussion completely...

all in favor?
Let's vote...

For those still interested in discussion… See below.

And again, Ricardfu, you totally miss the point of an analogy. I already explained how you draw the line...by using the hardware store analogy.

The hardware store analogy is the explanation for how a hierarchy works, and why tags are important...in drawing the line, and in accounting for other "bits of everything".

But, you are totally focused on the fact that it was a "hardware store", which tells me you are incapable of thinking outside the box or seeing the big picture. And you don't appear willing to open your mind, or to learn something new, from someone who happens to have a degree in library science, and who graduated with 4.0 honors.

Please recuse yourself from this discussion, as you appear to be the one here who is determined to delay, or even undermine, this project, for reasons unknown...likely because everything is either too complex for you or you don't want to do the work involved in evaluating 2000+ levels

BTW, my rating of levels is NOT relevant to this project.. I always give a constructive reason why. The rating system is SUBJECTIVE because it relies on OPINIONS, not measureablefacts. Opinions vary by person and people are entitled to their opinion, whether you agree with that opinion or not, no matter how stupid you think that opinion might be.

 

By actually using your brain...
How do you determine the focus of a book? A movie? A game?

Percentages are irrelevant… and it's also extremely nitpicky.... and you can't use percentages as criteria because you can't measure it in each and every level.

So, show me this 25/25/25/25 level, I'll tell you its focus...it will be obvious.
Everything has a focus…
Even an encyclopedia.

Please be willing to open your mind and learn from someone who not only happens to have a degree, has studied the science of, and created, wooden puzzles for over 30 years ...and who has been on this planet quite a few more decades than most people here.

 

Can someone clear up for me who would be sorting the levels into whatever groups we eventually decide on? There has been talk of the uploader doing it personally as they upload the levels and talk of the moderaters doing it.


I understand that someone (probably mods) will have to sort the existing levels, but the task to sort incoming levels could become quite unwieldy for just 2 or 3 mods as the site becomes more popular. There are millions of people who have downloaded this game and this site could be flooded at anytime with their custom levels.


However, if it is the uploader's responsibility, the categorization will have to be simple enough for anyone to immediately comprehend or we risk losing control really quickly.


I don’t doubt the merits of having a hyper-specific level categorization, but people of all ages, backgrounds, intellectual abilities, and languages are already uploading on the site, each with their own perspective on what “Gauntlet” or “Puzzle” might mean. I’m not saying we need to limit the categories to only those that 12 year old non-English speakers can understand, but neither should we create categories that only educated, 66 year old, English speaking women can understand. I may not have a degree in “Library Science”, but I do have a degree in Mechanical Engineering and a lot of experience in setting up databases, and even I have problems understanding some of the categories proposed so far (not a knock on anyone btw).


Having said all that, I think I have changed my original position. Especially now that I understand that the tags and categories will be separate. I believe difficulty is the easiest category type to understand and would be the most readily adopted by new users. I think tags are great for things like “Puzzle” or “Ball”. In fact, those two are the most popular tags on the site already, not counting Easy, Medium, and Hard. I also think the tag cloud would benefit greatly if there were a way to tag levels on the upload screen rather than being a separate action on an entirely separate screen.


TLDR: We need categories that are easily understood by people of all backgrounds. I believe those categories are based on difficulty level. Tags work best to describe type of play involved i.e. ball, puzzle, path, or R bot (red) only.

 

@sawdust

Who will do the sorting?
The moderators will be the one to categorize and tag the levels. If we let the uploaders do it, it would, indeed, be chaos. At the moment, there are only 2 active moderators (Who are on opposite sides of the planet about everything) and the admin. Additional moderators can always be added as needed. ( see below for a possible way to choose new ones)

One possibility however, is to require that each uploader choose the top level, or focus, of their level at the time of uploading. (no deeper, or we'll never find it to work it) This will help us out considerably, as we can go through the new additions to any particular top level, and fine-sort/tag them further into the subcategory hierarchy. If they are clueless, they can just throw it into OTHER...that will likely be the choice of 50% or more of the uploaders...So we will check that one more often.

And, I suppose, we can ask uploaders to choose what the difficulty level is ..as per THEIR perception. (The moderators will change that difficulty level ONLY if we get a significant number of reports from others that the difficulty rating appears to be way off the mark). There should be a disclaimer as well, that "difficulty ratings are the opinion of the creators, and not a consensus of the players, or the mekoramaforum.com moderators"

How to avoid further Chaos:
Every top level category will have a posted definition. I've already posted a rudimentary set above.
Every subcategory will have a posted definition. I've already posted rudimentary descriptions above, as well.

As yet, all the naming is tentative, including mine. This is something we need to work on.
I have also seen some interesting categories and subcategories that I feel should be incorporated into the main list. (I will try to get to that this weekend, adding in all the new names/ideas and we can work on it on the new list.) The definitions for everything need to be worked out a little better, and hopefully this group of readers can help.

What may happen, visually, to the website:
As yet, I have no idea what @NeoCHI has in mind, nor what the site is capable of, however:
My vision is that the hierarchy tree will be a simple sidebar of links (including the subcategories, perhaps as dropdown?) to each categorical section's own page, where are the levels will be displayed in the same visual fashion as it is on the main LEVELS page. (it may also be an added CATEGORIES tab across the top, like the site is already set up, and that would be good as well)

At the top of each category or subcategory page, the definition for that category or subcategory will be posted for all to read. This way people will know if this is the page they are really looking for, after all. Or not. Or it will let them know that there's some new adventures to try in a category or subcategory that may be out of their usual comfort zone. This will also aid new, and existing, moderators in sorting levels.

Finding new moderators:
It may also be a good idea, at the end of the definition section for each page, to also ask people to report any level that they feel does not belong in that category, and ask them to give a recommendation at the time of the report. People who make good reports, may get tapped to be an additional moderator for sorting levels, since they will have already proven themselves to have not only an eye for sorting, but a heart for caring about the overall integrity of the system.

Searching and tags:
People are free to search by tags, if they prefer. (Uploaders should not add any tags... I've seen some really strange ones). All top-level category levels will be listed as tags, as well, just to cover all bases for "secondary focus", as @richardfu appears to have missed that in our private discussions over the last few weeks (I think, I mentioned it above, here as well, in my 2nd post?) I envision that each search box within the category, should already "pre-contain" the keyword for that category page or subcategory, to help the user out…(But that could be a little strange? I'm not exactly sure how the database/search works within the framework of whatever software is behind this website.)

I hope that answers some questions, and clarifies a bit of what is in my head. Being in my head can be a very scary place to be, and I understand that… Because I've lived in here for a long, long time.

 

At the risk of sending some people into an utter conniption fit, I would like to share with you some of the ways people have been classifying puzzles throughout history.

While these classification systems describe "mechanical puzzles", you need to be able to think outside the box, to relate these ideas to "digital puzzles", for the simple reason that the Mekorama levels can be created in the real world in 3D... If a set of physical blocks existed in toy stores ( @Martin Magni Hint! Hint!) The weird bugs and mid-air motion can't...yet...but over all, many traditional mechanical puzzles can be designed from the Mekorama block set...and already have been. (some of you creators could get some new ideas, too. I was very happy to see a burr puzzle recently, I knew it was possible, I'm glad someone finally did it.)

Rather than choose an existing puzzle classification system from these lists, (which would have some people up in arms), my hope is that you will use these websites to help us decide what top level categories we want to use, ( since we do have bugs, mid-air things, and zappers) and perhaps give us some ideas for good names that the majority of players will understand.

So, for those interested in pursuing this further, or just for your own education, here are some good links:

http://www.robspuzzlepage.com/classif2.htm
(comparison of 5 puzzle classification systems, including the author's version)

http://puzzlemuseum.com/class/pzcla2006a.htm
(details of Hamley's classification system)

http://www.puzzlemuseum.com/class/pzcla99a.htm
(Details of the Hoffman system)

http://www.puzzlemuseum.com/class/pzcla01.htm
(contains links to more in-depth puzzle classification issues, there is a lot of good information on this site)

http://www.cleverwood.com/mechanical_puzzle_classification.htm
http://agpc.org/mechanical-puzzle-classification/
(Both contain descriptions regarding the Slocum system, which is currently the most widely used system)

 

The way I rate levels on solvability is totally irrelevant to this discussion about sorting levels, and is only being mentioned to further cloud and delay the issue at hand, as well as to discredit me for anything that doesn't agree with your own ideas.

And you want reasons for my opinions? How ludicrous is that statement? Opinions do not require reasons, that's why they are called "Opinions"

My reasons and explanations for how I wish to see the categorization project proceed, however, have been posted throughout this entire thread. But, unfortunately, you don't appear to be able to follow those reasons or explanations or analogies, or can't see them for what they are...just like you were unable to follow similar ones, or even see the Big Picture of the impact that categorizing 10,000 levels will have, in our private discussion over the last couple of weeks.

I don't know if it's a cultural issue, or a language barrier, or....?

Now, let's stop delaying and discuss how we are going to do this.

We still don't have any feedback from @NeoCHI regarding how ANY METHOD will be presented on the website, or what his ideas were for how to sort things. We need this information as soon as possible.

 

@Sunny Sunset @richardfu Please, please stop bickering everywhere. You're the moderators and faces of the forum.

I lost interest in contributing to this discussion after seeing your "discussion" (which mostly reads as a guide to master suppression techniques). After reading your comments I don't think this subject will be resolved as long as it's only the two of you as moderators. Either you bring additional people onboard so you will get a majority decision or either one of you steps down.

No way of sorting will in rather short time be worse than a suboptimal one.

 

I agree!
We brought this into the public so that we could get some feedback from people other than us...and unfortunately, it's still us...still getting nowhere. ;(

 

Do you have a link?
I see only
;(

Edited, because what I typed diappeared......bracket/ IMG /bracket

 

Please stop nitpicking semantics and discuss the SOLUTION instead of continuing to be part of the current PROBLEM.

 

Uh, no... I'm not even getting the bracketed word this time.
What is the link?

 

Thanks! Got it!

Focus is easy.
Top level = Pure "Puzzle". (Requires observation, brain power, and a bit of trial & error to solve)

Subcategory = Sequential movement. (Moves are dependent on previously made moves)

There was a proposed category of "combination" that I didn't really like, but it may be a good one after all for this sort of thing