The solution I have implemented is exactly this; it takes into account the region a player is and adapts the requirements for them accordingly.
Not really - it's a one size fits all, in a case where one size does not fit all. What I meant was a different approach to solving the problem based on the region of the world they're located in. In the US, it is really difficult to find one letter, and reasonably challenging to find 2 or 3 more. So only excusing one letter still presents a fair level of challenge. You feel that Europe, particularly several regions within it, have no extreme difficulty in completing the alphabet - so instead, no letters are excused, but the same penalty that would occur after an excused letter in the US, would occur to any letter in Europe. And then similar adaptations where necessary for the rest of the world - it would require some amount of work, but it is fair in this way.
This isn't unequal at all. All players received the information about the challenge at the same time. I get that it feels bad because in the time between January 1st and me opening this challenge you visited several zoos, but that doesn't reflect on the rules or structure. It's not an annual challenge and so there was no reason for it to open on Jan 1st. I did think about waiting 'til spring when more people would be active, but chose not to for one reason: if this plays slow it will still be ongoing at that point, and if it plays fast then it will be done and in late spring another one can start (no prizes for guessing what that would be).
My point was that it was more unequal because of the timing, not because of the rules of the challenge. I failed to explain this as I had intended to, so my apologies for presenting that unfinished thought. What I meant was that based on the time of year this challenge was established, it is inconveniencing a lot of forum members who have other commitments, such as school or work that quickly pick up after the new year. This is certainly a factor for me and outside of one zoo visit soon I doubt I'll be able to pick up many more points for a significant period of time. I know many others who suffer the same problem. However, because you...
have adopted a structure that incentivises faster play. Time will tell to what extent that was necessary or advisable.
if other members who do not have such commitments will be able to outcompete a larger majority of the forum. As such, this is one reason why challenges until now have had a defined period of time. A way to alleviate this would be at the very least, announcing the challenge well in advance so that serious competitors may make plans, but more generally, a time boundary that is imposed by you, rather than the competitors as a whole, would level the playing field more.
It isn't a good idea for most parts of Europe. I am yet to come across a letter, or hear about one from another player, where there is a serious issue if you are playing in zoo-rich areas like the UK, Benelux, Germany or Czechia.
See my points above about regional variability in terms of you regulating the challenge. Zoo-rich as some of these areas may be, this is simply not the case on a global, or even a continental scale. That's why an adaptive approach is necessary.
That's not quite what I meant. You can look at a species and know if it's usable. Whether or not you should use it is more difficult...
Not unless you know the scientific name of each and every mammal you see. Some will know this better than others, but there is still a lot of work to be done if a zoo has inadequate signage. You have not given us a master list of mammals to reference, either. Some members will thus struggle to plan before a visit, too. For example,
@birdsandbats stated he can't determine a Z species in US zoos. I've seen a relatively common one in over 20, but there's no list he can search to determine what this might be.
Such intense micromanagement of lists, especially in quick succession, if visiting multiple zoos for multiples day, is really a problem that this challenge has. Other challenges allow retrospective listing, but the time constraints on this challenge make that impossible. People embarking on such journeys might not have time to figure out which species they should use; they're planning their next day of an otherwise fun visit, not fiddling with numbers. Timed record keeping is not enjoyable - it's not a struggle I'm likely to face but I assume others will.
That's why we either need to able to discuss this here or have some sort of database to search or something.
