When to post another hint?

[+313JTG]

I've released a new puzzle cache recently and all of my past ones have been found within the first two days. However, today is the third day it's been published and nobody has been to solve it yet. I haven't gotten any emails with questions yet, but I feel that people might need one more hint.

 

So to make a long story short, how many days after a cache is published should you wait to post another hint? This is assuming nobody has solved/found it.

[+BCandMsKitty]

I've released a new puzzle cache recently and all of my past ones have been found within the first two days. However, today is the third day it's been published and nobody has been to solve it yet. I haven't gotten any emails with questions yet, but I feel that people might need one more hint.

 

So to make a long story short, how many days after a cache is published should you wait to post another hint? This is assuming nobody has solved/found it.

 

It's really up to you. Give folks a chance, if it's tricky.

 

Were your other caches that were found within 2 days puzzles too?

Around here, puzzles can go for weeks without any activity. Many cachers want easy and park and grab.

Are you using Geochecker on your cache page? As owner of the listing you can see how many checks have been made. If you're not getting many folks even checking, giving more hints won't do much for you.

Edited February 9, 2013 by BC & MsKitty

[+GeoKat28]

I've released a new puzzle cache recently and all of my past ones have been found within the first two days. However, today is the third day it's been published and nobody has been to solve it yet. I haven't gotten any emails with questions yet, but I feel that people might need one more hint.

 

So to make a long story short, how many days after a cache is published should you wait to post another hint? This is assuming nobody has solved/found it.

 

Being the CO of a puzzle that went 16 months before a FTF was claimed, my advice is "decide now" how long you want to wait if you do decide to give additional hints / clues. The longer my puzzle went unsolved, and the more folks (worldwide) that I knew were working on it, the more I felt I had backed myself into a corner about giving hints.

 

Folks were posting about the *torture* they were putting themselves through working on it, and I wanted to help them, BUT ... I felt it might be unfair to those that were new to it to just throw things out there that might give them a "quick solve". Postings to the page were about 50/50 (those wanting hints vs. those telling me "no hints, we want to work it out ourselves").

 

You could bridge the dilemma by perhaps giving a new clue on each one week or one month anniversary of publication. Just my 2¢

Edited February 10, 2013 by GeoKat28