The Importance of the First Hour After a Puzzle is Posted*

Katie! I just got done posting another ice cream puzzle, but I still need to make another one...one that includes cones for you, whatnauts (she wants chocolate), Mandy (pistachio), and Robbie who's getting a pizza cone whether he wants one or not.

Oh, yes! More food please...rum raisin ice cream sounds delicious!

Ardy, as you probably know by now, others have had disappearing puzzles as well. So at least it's not all in my head. It's kind of frustrating though. I posted this one first because I find that the first one posted has the least amount of solves (all other things being equal), but since I knew this one would get a lot of solves....or at least should have, I wanted to post it first to give the others a chance to do better than they otherwise would. Such is life.

Mandy, whatnauts wants chocolate and you want pistachio. My favorite is rum raisin and I see that I forgot to make one of them. I'll see what I can do about the problem.

Yup, I see ice cream cones - and mine's the pistachio, please Wendy :~) Thanks.

Wendy, I'm sorry about your solve rate here because of the problem. I thought these were ice cream cones when I first saw the puzzle. Thanks for the puzzle, Wendy. Hope this experience doesn't keep happening to you.

PJ, I was teasing you, silly lady. ;-)

Barb, stick with your first thought. PJ has lapses of memory loss. LOL
Yes, it's really odd what has happened. I am at a loss for why it happens. All three times it was close to an hour before the puzzles showed up again. And each time it was with a solve done by one or two people. It may have even happened to you without you ever noticing. The reason I noticed it all three times is because I like to watch the first hour to see which one gets the most solves and how quickly. Of course the super large puzzles take more than an hour before 'popularity' can be determined, but the small ones, with their initial solves, are a good indication of what people like. I've been keeping track lately of what happens after a few days of a puzzle being posted and there are surprising results. Some small ones that don't do well the first day, end up doing fine later on, and on the other hand, one that gets a lot of solves quickly (the first hour or so), doesn't necessarily do as well later. I scratch my head about why that happens. All I can think is that maybe one that doesn't do that well the first day was posted at a time when others posted better puzzles at the same time.

The first thing I thought of was ice cream cones but I like the golf balls idea too. Whatever, the puzzle was lots of fun, Wendy, thanks! :-)
Sorry to hear of your puzzling problems - how strange that they should disappear like that. Have not had that happen to me ... yet, fingers crossed.

Oh, well, I haven't seen ice cream cones for 6 months....
Wendy - I did like the design....
PJ

PJ, I had emailed Stefan about it the first or second time it happened and sent along screenshots to show him exactly what I was talking about. His reply was that he didn't see a problem. I was so frustrated at the time (after seeing his response), that I didn't even bother this time. Anyway, somehow it 'righted' itself. I know that the exact same thing has happened to Pat.

Yeah!!!! or YAY for JaneDoe! That's exactly what these are. :-)

And another YAY for Katie! PJ must not be familiar with ice cream cones since she lives in Norway where it's cold all the time.

This is a fun design Wendy! I'm going with ice cream cones...some of us here love food!

Golfballs? I see ice cream cones!

What a shocking experience. Have you gotten a reply from Jigidi yet? (There are all kinds of experiences within the computer world...)
Wendy - such a glorious and fine puzzle. The golf balls (?) looked so alive and bursting with energy, ready to 'take off'. Well, you have glued them to place, or I would have had a few balls to pick up...
PJ

Well, HOLY COW! It disappeared AGAIN from the Mosaics category (small size)...and then reappeared.