Well, I haven't even been a Tanganite for 686 days, 18 hours, and 41 minutes... but I have had a puzzle or two that I looked at without solving and then stumbled on again later for a 30-some day solve time. And I've seen other comments to that effect from others on some puzzles. But I do think that nearly 2 years has got to be an all-around record, not just a personal one for you. :)

Bet it still called you a freakin' genius, though... right?

I'm trying to finish up all the old puzzles. Since I have only been a tanganite for "about 1 year" and actually live a life beyond Tanga I still have a few to go. Down to just OWW's now. Looked at many of them but that's all I did in the beginning.

It's puzzles like this one that would prob come under this discussion:
http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/145-12-9-2006

After understanding Tanga puzzles and kinda sorta but not totally understanding some of the puzzle makers methods I attacked some of the ones I could only stare at when I first joined. The above puzzle was one of those. So I just went back to that one - just now. And solved it.

You solved this puzzle in 284 days, 20 hours, and 21 minutes and were the 540th Tanga member to solve it. You earned 3 points for solving this.

Here is how the puzzle creator explains how to solve this puzzle:
Answer
******
Solution

No solution provided yet, sorry.
(what's up with no solutions on some of these!!?!)

Either this was an aha moment or post and solve. But who cares!

Yes. It called me a "freaking genius!!" but I don't really believe that.

Not this time :P

Thats nice Arnott. Because as you know, the way some of us solve these puzzles is not the way the puzzlemaker intended it to go. Sometimes way different.

Thanks again.

j

[3] I was always amazed how Aaron was able to crank out puzzles like he did. If there were ever a Puzzle Hall of Fame, he needs to be the sole inaugural member. I hope he's able to appreciate the countless hours of enjoyment his puzzle movement has brought all of us.

(Unless he prefers to appreciate the countless hours of frustration he's brought us, his call!)

Wow...

I decided to go back in time to the beginning OWWs, which I apparently did way back when as well. I came across this beast, which no matter how many times I typed "Odobenidae" it wouldn't take...

http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/46-9-25-2006

You solved this puzzle in 812 days, 20 hours, and 13 minutes and were the 1864th Tanga member to solve it. You earned 3 points for solving this.

My personal record:

http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/82-10-30-2006

You solved this puzzle in 884 days, 16 hours, and 40 minutes and were the 693rd Tanga member to solve it.

[7] Very nice solve time. I recall when I first started these puzzles how much it would bother me if I couldn't solve a puzzle the night it came out. Could you imagine if a puzzle was out there that you actively were trying to solve over that many days? (I swear the "Loom" puzzle from one of the Puzzlethons 'felt' like it took that long to solve)

[8] Yeah, he didn't seem to have the problem of taking himself too seriously. The puzzles back then had a very different feel to them.

[Insert cranky old man voice] "These puzzles today are too straightforward, back in my day, we had to Google for two hours (uphill both ways) just to get to a starting point. We solved puzzles for 24 straight hours, and we liked it! And punctuation counted for something!"

RE cranky man [9]: Even as a relative newby, I actually agree with that sentiment. I land on some old puzzles through Surprise Me that are amazingly complex with little clue in the puzzle on what to do. My math skills get tested more. I've had to get out scissors. And I look at the comments and few people are complaining about it! The first solve is like 15 minutes in or something. People seemed to relish the challenge. As a puzzlemaker, I look at some of those and think, "Can you just imagine if someone tried to run a puzzle like this today? Folks would run them out of town!"

[11] Or, more likely, puzzles like that would never make it past today's moderators.

[12] Because today's moderators know that today's solvers won't tolerate them. Don't get me wrong, some of the old puzzles are definitely Saturday morning fodder (if that) by today's standards. But some of them are legitimate but tough solves that might still not make it past the moderators today because the moderators (rightly) want to make sure that people will enjoy solving them and what constitutes enjoyment now is different, or so it seems.

I miss the old style of puzzles.

Not sure what the fuss is about. As an original Day One user who sporadically returns to solve puzzles, I think I have the perspective/authority when I say that many of the recent OWW seem very Old School Tanga to me. Specifically (just going back a few weeks chronologically):
http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/6395-7-1-2010
http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/5946-6-29-2010
http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/6294-6-27-2010
http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/6238-6-25-2010
http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/6175-6-23-2010
http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/6002-6-22-2010
http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/6209-6-19-2010
http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/6115-6-15-2010

That's eight over two weeks.

ok, Dragontrainer, I just went to http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/3428-7-18-2008 and saw that it was unsolved. Thanks to all of the comments there, I got it, and received the following response:

You solved this puzzle in 713 days, 15 hours, and 45 minutes and were the 220th Tanga member to solve it. You earned 3 points for solving this.

I was apparently stumbling around with you in the dark back then.

I think there are a lot that I clicked on long ago and gave up on. As j15bell said, many that I could only stare at back then.

I ran into one that took me 200+ days but heck, I've only been around for 10 months.

Just got an 894 days today

oooh and a 909 days!

Hooray for Surprise Me!

[2][6] both still have me stumped. These were two of the first few puzzles that Suprise Me gave me and I still don't have a clue how to solve them.

My longest time is about 200 days. But due to puzzles like the ones listed earlier, I'm sure I'll eventually have much much longer solve times.

You know, dragontrainer, I need to thank you. Before this thread, I was terrified of getting a Surprise Me that either a) stumped me or b) was going to take longer than I had to work it. (Sometimes, I just want a 2 or 3 minute distraction from work). When I got one I couldn't solve, I tried to save a link to it so I could get it solved soon.

But now that this thread is here, I can abandon those puzzles knowing that when Surprise Me throws them back at me, I can always come here and share my new abysmal solve time. :)

Ahh! The freedom! :)

[23] yes, just let them mellow for a few years. Nothing so pleasant as the bouquet of a well aged puzzle!

I had some puzzles from the 'butter' days that I hadn't solved... then a few months ago I came across a couple in Surprise Me... But now I don't know how to check my time on those puzzles to see how long it took. I checked 'Completed Puzzles' but it only gives me the last 24 I solved. Any ideas of a way I can see all the puzzles I have solved? I'm sure I have a couple good long solve times!!!

[25] Uggh. I think you might have found a new "feature" (in programming speak, that's something that isn't working right! :). We used to be able to page through that. Just like we could page back on ALL of the leaderboards and the activity history. We used to have our number of solves and comments and purchases listed on our profile pages. I miss that stuff... Tanga, will it ever return?

[26] I'm so glad I could be so useful!! You know I thought there was a time when I could look at all the puzzles I had completed... but with my mind losing things now and then anyway... I figured that was just another thing lost.

Great now I'm trying to solve the puzzle the op linked and can't figure it out.
I know which chipmunk it is, but I can't figure out what the other 2 are suppose to be hinting to.

And now I get to the ones that everyone else posted. Grrrrrrr

Just saw this thread - and was quite humbled that [18] included one of mine that was (a preferred) non-traditional. I certainly was challenged when I first came to Tanga, and was about scared away cuz I had such trouble with the early ones. I'm not sure I'm any smarter today, but I am able to get those old one better via a variety of different, learned perspectives. And, when I create a puzzle I definitely try to use some new and unique aspect ... and hope it hasn't been done before (I can't remember them all!).

My favorite? http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/5213-8-8-2009 ;-)
I think this was more fun for me to make than for the whopping 95 so far to solve it.

[21] I topped that with a new personal best (worst?):
You solved this puzzle in 912 days, 4 hours, and 22 minutes
"Surprise Me" rocks!!

Just had a 836 days one, and still earned 3 points ... although shouldn't there be a correction for inflation over the past 2.29 years???

I've only been here a year but I finally got one that was marginally worth posting here:

http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/5860-6-19-2010

You solved this puzzle in 226 days, 16 hours, and 50 minutes and were the 337th Tanga member to solve it.

I think it might be one I willingly gave up on because of this thread. And now it's come back to me with "Surprise Me"! Sweet! :)

I tried http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/3428-7-18-2008 and with the help of my wife (switch the last two letters) received:

You solved this puzzle in 928 days, 4 hours, and 50 minutes and were the 238th Tanga member to solve it. You earned 3 points for solving this.

And then the part about Freakin' Genus!

I'm looking for one that's greater than 1000 days. I've heard that the message changes to Freakin' Idiot at that point :->

(28) Wolf, the first picture refers to the the part that supports the sails and the second one refers to the type of bluetooth phone. It's actually a very good one that comes to you after saying the words out loud. I still enjoy those the most.

OK, I found a really old one by Cyncat http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/2210-12-29-2007

You are a freaking genius!! You solved this puzzle.

You solved this puzzle in 1130 days, 21 hours, and 42 minutes and were the 711st Tanga member to solve it. You earned 3 points for solving this.

It took me 27,141 hours but I'm still a freaking genius!

I just got this with one of my own puzzles:

You solved this puzzle in 1090 days, 7 hours, and 59 minutes and were the 1003rd Tanga member to solve it.

There's one more "unsolved" of mine that's slightly older (1141 days), but I think I'll save that and let the count keep going up... LOL

[35] Man, that's cheating! The rest of us are legitimately stumped on ours! :P

I just spent an embarrassing amount of time on http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/44-9-23-2006
I've definitely learned some tricks since I first started like using paint to move pieces of the picture around. But after getting the correct letters, it wouldn't take "Buzz" or "Aldrin". Again, my wife had to come up with the solution.

You solved this puzzle in 1132 days, 21 hours, and 7 minutes and were the 1942nd Tanga member to solve it. You earned 3 points for solving this.

By "rest of us", yes, I was stumped when the puzzle was originally posted and didn't spend the time to keep with it until I got the answer but most of them, like this one, with a bunch more time can usually end up with a "freakin' genius".

[36] It's always possible he doesn't remember how to answer it. I've looked through the few puzzles I made from time to time and forget having made some of them.

[38] But as the author (and as a moderator!!), he can look at the solution anytime he wants to. :)

[39] If I believe the stories and remember some of the old ones I've come across, sometimes there wasn't a very intelligible "solution" to begin with! :)

Newer discussion thread with a solve time of 1169 days:

http://www.tanga.com/forum/blogs/new-puzzle-record

Thanks dragontrainer, I remembered there had been an old thread on this, but didn't realize it had been active so recently and didn't feel like looking for it at the time (I was kind of tired after spending 3+ years solving that other puzzle!)

I guess i'd throw this in on the "suggestion thread" elsewhere then based on what Arnott wrote in [15]...

As we all know we have the "Difficulty" stars at the bottom of the puzzle pages, right, so we can rank how we feel about the puzzles?

How about making a couple of "visible items" on the top header of the puzzle: (or in the thumbnail box)

User Rated Difficulty: {average # of stars from ratings by users}
Moderator Rated Difficulty: {star rating by person(s) who moderated the puzzle}

I'll be honest, i have MORE fun with the tougher ones than i do the easy one... So I guess I'd fall in a "newer arrival, older-aged member of tangite - old school mentality".. but then again, I grew up with stacks of GAMES magazines that I'd not throw away until i figured out EVERY puzzle in the magazine (or until the pages got so ripped to shreds that they were better used for animal bedding :) )

Even if the puzzle doesn't end up a featured one, it says. "our mods looked at this puzzle and we didn't feature it necessarily because it was "too hard" / "too easy"" as Sonjahi put down.in [13]. Too bad, that solvers just want the quickie solve anymore... what happened to the days of "the trip to the destination was half the fun of getting there?"

Thanks to Jebediehard and Arnott's posting of people's first puzzles, I found:

You solved this puzzle in 1225 days, 14 hours, and 44 minutes and were the 677th Tanga member to solve it.

http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/169-1-1-2007

Gosh, I was so excited about this recent solve time, but looking this thread over... it doesn't seem so impressive anymore.

I hit a nocca puzzle on surprise me and then went to their published puzzle list and saw a puzzle that looked familiar. Got frustrated all over again and then finally figured it out...

http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/6036-4-17-2010

You solved this puzzle in 583 days, 16 hours, and 53 minutes and were the 331st Tanga member to solve it. You earned 3 points for solving this.

[6] Why did you think "Odobenidae" was the answer? That's the puzzle that probably has my longest solve time on it. Must have clicked on it back when I first joined.

I just enjoyed solving the puzzle linked to in [7]. It's a little complicated, but not unsolvable. I like how the phrase that gives you the answer word has kind of extra little twist in it.

[46], I just went to that one and got this:

... 583 days, 19 hours, and 50 minutes and were the 332nd Tanga member to solve it. It took me nearly 3 hours longer than you. : )

[48] LOL! So we were both there at solve time and unable to solve and now, being the Tanga hotshots that we are now, were able to solve it. That's funny.

[48] Here we go....LOL

You solved this puzzle in 583 days, 20 hours, and 48 minutes and were the 333rd Tanga member to solve it. You earned 3 points

[50] Gah! What, were we ALL dumb-a**es that day? LOL

A new personal "worst" :
You solved this puzzle in 1384 days, 14 hours, and 55 minutes and were the 250th Tanga member to solve it. You earned 3 points for solving this.

http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/358-4-29-2007

[51] You must have been. I just went there and got this: "You solved this puzzle in 1 minute and 12 seconds and were the 339th Tanga member to solve it."

[53] This thread is where we come to brag about being slow. So... keep your fast times to yourself! :)