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.
I've highlighted a section in bold that I can't follow.
Different regions of the world are different, and this introduces inequality, which is a pity, although if the inequality is granular it's also interesting (this may still be the case on a larger scale, possibly America has an edge for reptiles). I don't want any solution to introduce new inequalities, because if it does so people will just be even saltier.
I feel like we are just going over the same point again and again here. I
have introduced a new rule that will allow most Americans to be excused of one letter. We disagree over the fact that I've also modified the bonus, but there are good reasons for doing that.
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 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.
This challenge is deliberately experimenting with the concept of a faster structure. Does a time limit that is independent of other players' actions level the playing field? Looking back at previous challenges it seems to offer only two ways to compete: either criss-cross a continent visiting major zoos or visit smaller zoos closer to you almost every single weekend. Especially the first one requires large amounts of disposable time and income, things many people don't have. I hope that this challenge, with its more limited scope, will prove more accessible, but if it doesn't the worst that can have happened is that I will have enabled a different kind of demographic abnormality.
I freely admit that this is a possibility. It should be clear to anyone who has read the rules that this could have already been over if someone wanted it that badly. And honestly, if it happens that someone wins before most have even got started I will laugh, congraulate them, and give the rules a good tweak to slow them down next time.
As an aside, who are these
serious competitors? The only way for them to seriously prepare would be to organise their life such that at the point the challenge opened they were able to do the kind of blitz run that right now you are worried others may make. And somehow
that seems like more of a threat to the game.
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.
Luckily a (the) Z species has now been posted, so
@birdsandbats's age of torment is over.
Apart from some of
@Shorts' commendably more unusual offerings, we've never had a challenge that didn't require players to know the scientific names of the animals they are looking at. This challenge is imperfect in that if a species is un- or incorrectly signed people may miss it and may not count it, but that's been an issue with lots of the past challenges. I think that this challenge performs better in this regard, since after the English name the scientific name is the most likely information to be signed. It's more common than geographic range and conservation status.
If I had a list of 5,416 mammals that was sortable alphabetically by both genus and specific name I would share it here. But I don't and I'm not going to waste my time generating one. If anyone else has such a thing, feel free to share it. Or don't, and enjoy the small and temporary competitive edge that not doing so will grant you.
(As I and others have pointed out, having a play with some of the features of ZTL will get you pretty far. And yes, I am not blind to the fact that it will get Europeans further)
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.
Because the list has a maximum of 26 entries, and each zoo has a maximum of 7, I anticipate that the amount of bookkeeping that would need to be done on any one evening will be pretty small. (If someone is visiting multiple zoos on successive days this issue is not going to plague them for long). There
are decisions to be made, and those decisions
may have long term implications. I suggest the following, for all players:
Plan ahead a little (to the extent that this is fun for you)
Pay attention during your visit (to the extent that this is fun for you)
When recording species, consider whether getting the maximum score for today will cost you in the long run (to the extent that this is fun for you)
If at any point this challenge stops being fun, stop. Go outside, read a book or kiss someone (or do all three if you think they won't mind). You really don't have to aggressively maximise your points to time ratio for this to be an enjoyable way to add a little something to your zoo visiting*.
*but you can, if that's fun for you.
