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[RobDixon]

Mike,

Thanks a lot for your replies.

I understand your point about the photo file name being a confirming clue. However that's the kind of thing a hoaxer could have created without much trouble.

I guess I'm suggesting that if the final site had something that only a puzzlemaker could have added it would have made the solution seem stronger. That could have meant a small Steinitz skull in one of the photos, or some well-disguised (i.e. not searchable) moretosee.com link.

I work as a writer and a software developer so I also understand the power of deadlines to cut your work short! Any larger story tie-in to the final blog post(s) would have needed to be planned and executed in advance, of course. The three-act story (Peter, PNM, puzzlers) is a really cool idea, and single blog post describing the second urn, and describing "urn mania" sweeping the puzzler world would have provided a good Act 2 to Act 3 transition.

You are very right about the need to find a solid rule about which clues were valid and which weren't. Some of us looked hard for that rule, and I was convinced the STRATEGY clues held the answer. (I n fact I did post about this once or twice on the main board). Some of the rules we tried were:

* Only clues that came from Steinitz himself are real clues. This seemed like it could be true, especially given "Keep track of where they came from." Of course in retrospect this was completely backwards; the Steinitz clues were the invalid ones.

* Anything that is given any kind of "red herring" reference is a red herring. It ruled out all of these:
- Mike's picture
- Marlene's gift & Guararapes (called red herrings by Peter)
- Mary QoS (since this clue was a red herring in the Treasure puzzle)
- Khepera & Hail England (since Xavier claimed the menu was planted)
- etc.

Except for Hail England, thisrule was almost correct!
Of course the red herring purse didn't fit this rule either.

By the way, was there a meta-clue that should have led us to the rule of "Only the PNM blog clues are valid"?

And, just to satisfy some curiosity, would anybody like to tell us the meaning of that most mysterious meta-clue: "Nessuno canta nella spazio?"...

[RobDixon]