Not to take sides here or anything but I agree with theAnswer. It's not like the older people are the only ones that can read a physics book. Granted they will probably understand it a little better having more experience, it is up to you to decide if you really want to learn more and actually try to solve it. As for the opinions on the Info Gathering challenges, I feel they are a waste of time personally.

have i mentioned how rediculous steganography challenges are?

That's just the point anybody can open a science book, and the answer will be there,
all you need to do is put in the values.

It's kinda like asking the phonenumber for some guy, all you need to do is get hold of the phonebook and take the time too look up the name.

Personnally i like science challenges a bit, because when i was school it's kinda fun to get something explained in class, think on how it would help for some challenge
and then get home and do it But i don't really believe they fit in this context

My 2 cents:
- Among the info gathering challs, "Historical years" is the one that should go Simply because it requires some knowledge of european history/culture that I don't know The other challs, can be solved with some Google/language skills. There's no need to remove them
- The science section can be changed to Maths, and only Maths challs should stay there Why? Because Maths is the only think I can remember And as most of us are computer-related, knowledge of Maths is enough

In addition. Why not put the scissors in the logic section?
Alot of those riddles are so popular that a simple google search can provide you with the anwser. Other ones are just copied from other sites and some of them are just google-info-gatherers in disguise.

How about deleting the Programming Section ?
I mean each problem can be found in "Introduction to algorithms" by T. Cormen for instance or similar books. Just pick up a random one of these course books, flick to the last pages of each chapter and you'll be presented with dozens of "algorithms"



Ok, but we still need some points to get rid of the crypto,java,js,flash and cracking sections
Some ideas to close the Forum are also welcome

..... Sarcasm is just one more service I offer.

Maybe get rid of some info gathering and some science, but not programming. True that you can pick up a book and solve some of them, but you can do the same for the first few cryptos. If we eliminate all challenges that can be solved by pikcing up a book we'll be left with half of the ones we have now. I havent solved any of the programming challenges yet. I think that if the challenge makes you think about something and learn a new programming language in order to solve it, even if you only need to know a little bit of the langauge, then it should stay. Once we've solved a challenge and move on the challenges seems worthless after awhile. But that's because we learn more. The first crypto for instance. Extremely easy. Basic. Not hard at all. But when I solved it, that was the first time that I realized how any form of encryption worked. It showed me some basics of cryptology. Just because a challenge can be solved easily, does not mean that it should be gotten rid of. We have to think of all the newbs who join every day that know nothing. We should be striving to teach them and ourselves more. By getting rid of challenges that potentially can do that, we're hurting future generations of tbs users. And I didnt know that the programming stuff could be found that easily. I figured that I would have to get a good programming tutorial and learn a good bit before solving. So, to solve those challenges, I would have probably done quite a bit of learning. Thats my two cents on the subject.

I think he was sarcastic when talking about deleting the programming section

Well the opinion from someone who has created a Science challenge:

For my challenge it started out as a personal problem - nothing to do with tbs. I am interested in anything that makes me think especially maths based problems. From memory I was browsing the web and looking at polyhedra and found that image of all polyhedra joined together. This created some mathematical interest and I started to look at the relationships of this formation. This led to me wishing to share something I personally found of interest and enjoyable to posting the challenge for everyone else to try.
I agree with BaRa that technically find a maths/science text book and find a question near the end to create a challenge would be easy for anyone to do but:

1. I can not believe that you will find anything similar to my challenge in books or the internet (not being ignorant but I truly believe it is original)
2. If the challenge is enjoyable and of interest then I see no problems sharing with the community.

As you can see I am biased - I truly enjoy these challenges and it is a shame we have so few - but I understand that many people don't like these types of challenges.
The question is - what is this site all about?
The answer for me is to host interesting and challenging problems that others will enjoy.

So for me Science should stay.

Forgot to say - personally I hate it when challs are deleted as many people have spent many hours trying to solve them - they should be put in another section - at least then the time spent is not completely wasted.

Can we get rid of the "email/pm the solution to ..." challenges?
Or change them to accept an answer online?

You never know if that person is still around, reading his messages or not.

I agree ^ 100%

------- Note from Inferno -------
This post is a perfect example of what I (and many others) like to call a classic "me too"-post.
Please, keep your posts constructive. A simple post of reading me too doesn't help a lot of people. Of course I understand that people want to emphasize certain posts, but trust me, I don't really want to spend my time reading similar posts. It doesn't add anything.

Thanks for understanding my humble opinion

P.S. Javey, this isn't personal, I'm just fed up with these kind of posts and yours was the last one I read.
------- /Note from Inferno -------