This is a game.
The game has rounds.
The object of each round is to figure out its rules.
The game has players.
Anyone who posts in this thread is a player.
The game has an objective.
The object of the game is to win more rounds than other players.
Edit:
I'm not actually answering questions in my replies, I'm scoring posts. All scoring is done by code so (at least for now and the foreseeable rounds) it doesn't require any interpretation from me. I run details of the post through basic code and generate the score. An example rule for a round might be: you get one point for every word starting with 'y' in your post. (The rule for Round 1 is more basic than that.)
The code is fixed for every round. The code follows some rules and those are what you have to guess. You have lots of inputs and lots of outputs and you have my word that the rules are solvable. You can post whatever input you want to see the output for. If you guess what rule(s) the scoring follows, you win the round and then the next round starts.
I generally don't engage with posts other than to give the score. You have to get your clues through the scores for the posts.
The game doesn't accumulate your score for posts, only how many rounds you've won.
The key to the game is twofold. The first is being able to figure out the patterns in scoring. The second (and equally as important part) is posting in such a manner that the scores are informative. Without the second part, the first part can be like finding the needle in the haystack.
Putting that into practice, the rule for scoring in round 1 is quite simple but to find it, you need to think about posting in a way that generates useful information. For example, one of the posts has a score of 7. A good idea might be to break up or modify the post and see what parts of the post score and what don't. Remove parts of the post you think are related to the scoring and post them. Did they get the same score? Try post it in two halves. Do the scores add up to 7 again? Etc. Once you've enough good information, the rule should jump out at you (or someone observing).
It's okay to post as many times as you need to to generate more information (within reason / so long as the mods don't care).
On a side note (can't edit OP any more), I'll add one more "game-level" rule which is that rounds time out after a week, at which point I'll explain the rule(s) and move onto the next round.
In any case, all will become clear as we go along. From here on I will just be mindlessly scoring posts again until someone gets the rule or the round times out.
Just to emphasise again that while the rules for rounds might get more challenging, they will never become unfair. My goal in designing the rules is for you to say "aha" when you see the answer rather than "wtf". It's important you trust me on this, which I hope you will after a few rounds.
Anyways, thanks for playing and I hope you enjoy the game!
Round 1 ...
