Talk:Glossary of Sudoku

This is the Talk page for 'Sudoku terms and jargon'. It is divided into 2 areas: a top summary portion and a lower discussion portion.

Summary - Discussion Usage
The talk page is divided into 2 areas. The top area is intended as a consensus summary of the discussed issues. Maintain the summary as you would a Wikipedia page. It should give an clean, easy-to-read summary, structured around the main issues. In a sense, the summary is an abbreviated statement of relevant, general wiki policies as applied here.

The second area is for discussion where the standard talk conventions apply.

(This Usage section could be part of the lead paragraph. It was added so that Usage could be edited without editing the whole Talk page, which can be quite large.)

Consensus Summary
The topic provides a consensus summary of the discussed issues. Maintain the summary as you would a Wikipedia page. It should give an clean, easy-to-read summary, structured around the main issues. The summary is an applied policy statement.

The wikipedia edit policies are used instead of a voting scheme to establish the consensus summary. The summary should be kept at a summary level. Details and detailed rationale (justifications) should be left in the discussion threads. Since the summary reflects the consensus, edits to the summary do not need to be signed. If (extended) rationale is needed, use the discussion area, where arguments can be signed.

Due to anticipated volume, decisions regarding individual links or terms should not be enumerated in the summary, except possibly as a category of type of links to include/exclude.

Article Level of Detail and (Br.) Language
The article is list of terms, a glossary with brief descriptions. It should be written at a level of detail understandable by the general user. Refer technical details back to other articles.

Since the main Sudoku article is written with British usage, do the same here. E.g. use analysing style spelling, etc.

Item Format
(Currently) preferred format to listed items is Name (name translations)[n] - description... Aka: list of names

Where: Name is the most popular name, and name translation gives the english/japanese translation.

For the moment, japanese characters are not included.

Not a list of links
Links documenting term usage are provided as in-line numbered references (like [1]), but generally not listed in the References section. Only principle references are linked by name or cited in References. The selection of the links is governed by consensus generated here. This is a continuation of the practices used for Sudoku. See Talk:Sudoku for precedence detail.

Selection of Terms
Terms are selected based on: interest to others, use in other wikipedia articles. To discuss individual terms, use the Terms for Inclusion/Deletion section below.

Diagrams
There are diagram templates for the Template:Sudoku 9x9 grid and the Template:Sudoku 3x9 band, which can be used for illustration as needed. See Mathematics of Sudoku for more examples.

Discussion Topics
Discussion points should be added below. Summary content is maintained above.

Summary - Discussion Structure Rationale
Many talk pages suffer from the long term effect that there is no way to state the consensus. Any user can read the threads, archives and comments in the main article to build a personal POV as to the state of the discussion, but there is no agreed upon statement of the consensus. As the length of the discussion grows the clarity of the consensus dwindles. (Length can be either in time or text size). The Summary - Discussion breakdown is meant address this issue.

I don't expect a lot of discussion here (initially) but I want to showcase this approach for general consideration. Pointers to similar efforts would be appreciated. -- LarryLACa 21:24, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Links for inclusion/deletion
Can be addressed here. At the moment I am community of 1 and will edit the list freely except as debated here. -- LarryLACa 21:24, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

Terms for inclusion/deletion
Can be addressed here. At the moment I am community of 1 and will edit the list freely except as debated here. -- LarryLACa 21:26, 14 November 2005 (UTC)

I would like to add definitions of certain constraint types that I consider significant, as they have appeared in World Puzzle Championships and in a variety of well-regarded puzzle sites, including the popular youTube channel Cracking the Cryptic. They are: Thermometer Sudoku, Clone Sudoku, Sandwich Sudoku, and Extra Region Sudoku. I have drafted language for these inclusions, but so far it has been 'caught' by a filter because I'm citing blog entries that may not meet your standards of citation. Any suggestions on how to move forward would be appreciated! Glum Hippo (talk) 23:55, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

Active Sites
SudokuWiki – Very active site, with new content added consistently by its principal developer, Andrew Stuart.

Dormant Sites
Hodoku – This site, and its associated application (HoDoKu), remains one of the premier Sudoku implementations on the Internet. The online user guide for both the applications and Sudoku solving techniques are some of best available, commercial or Open_source. Unfortunately, the sole project participant, Bernhard Hobliger, seems to have experienced serious medical problems in the fall of 2013. His last post to the website was in December of 2013. The source code for the application HoDoKu is Open_source, written in Java, hosted at SourceForge, and builds with Apache_Subversion. Despite its age, it still runs readily on current MS Windows, Apple Macintosh and Linux platforms. The source code has been forked to GitHub several times. But, as of 2019, none of these GitHub projects seem to be active.

SudoCue.net – Technically, this site is somewhat active, with new content occasionally added by Ruud van der Werf.

Sudopedia – Has a very extensive list of solving techniques, terms, guides, software, websites links. This site was originally created by the owner of SudoCue.net and populated with the solving guide and glossary from his primary site SudoCue.net.

Glossary Links
Sudopedia

Sudocue,

Solving Techniques and Algorithms Links
SukokuWiki

Wikipedia

Sudopedia

Sudocue

Note: The Sudopedia site was originally set up by Ruud vd Werf, in 2011 with the TLD '.org'. The original domain name was taken over in 2017 by Bejo Mujur. As of 2019, this site appears to be a Clickbait site. Rather than leading to the original Wiki site, it presents random search results, based on the key word ‘Sudoku’.

"Completing the Square"
Completing the square is an algebraic technique with (AFAIK) no application to Sudoku. However, Tom Sheldon in Sudoku Genius, ISBN 0-452-28750-2, has a section on pp. xix-xx headed "Completing the Square", within a super-section "Expert Logic". He applies the term (perhaps intentionally punning on the algebraic term) to an example whose essentials i think i can capture:
 * In a 9x9, consider three blocks in the same row (or column) of blocks.

I confess to doing, within the WP articles, zero research on determining whether this technique is described by a different name. IMO, the existing Completing the square article deserves a ToP Dab pointing to an appropriate Sudoku article, e.g.:
 * 1) Two of the blocks feature a "pair" each.
 * 2) One number appears in both pairs.
 * 3) In each block, the cells making up its pair are in separate rows (or columns, respectively).
 * 4) The two rows (or columns) containing a block's pair are the same for both blocks.
 * 5) Therefore in the third block, the number that is common to the two pairs must lie in the row (or column) that the pairs do not lie in.
 * This is about the algebra technique; for the Sudoku technique, see Yatta-yatta-yadda.

But IMO it's probably not worth an article of its own, and i don't know where coverage of the Sudoku sense of "completing the square" would belong, so i'm not prepared to place the red-lk in the ToP Dab, in anticipation of someone describing of the technique in a way that is useful to beginners. Suggestions? --Jerzy•t 04:04, 9 March 2006 (UTC)

To Do
A list for anyone interested in helping

Sync with Sudoku
incorporate all terms/variants from main article --LarryLACa 20:33, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Sync with MAA Sudoku Variants
Lots of terms, clarifications not here (yet) -- LarryLACa 20:33, 18 November 2005 (UTC)

Sync with Player.co.uk Dictionary
More terms.. -- LarryLACa 22:51, 6 January 2006 (UTC) / --Lefton4ya (talk) 13:57, 27 May 2008 (UTC) [Revised link]

Sync with Sudopedia and SudoCue.net
More terms, solving techniques, variants - see discussion above to determine what/how to sync.

We don't "sync with" any old website
In order for terms to be listed here, they have to be used overall by people who create and solve Sudoku puzzles. A bunch of random terms from some website or another don't rise to the level of being accepted terms and jargon unless they are found and used in publications and so forth. DreamGuy (talk) 19:46, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Duplicate names
Based on my understanding "Box line reduction strategy" and "Intersection removal" are the same strategy, they are listed separately under this article. --Voidvector (talk) 10:39, 15 October 2008 (UTC)

External links modified
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Standard Format for Sudoku Images
If any editors add new Sudoku images, please go to Talk:Mathematics of Sudoku to see the suggested format). If comments please do not reply here. All comments on a standard format should be in the same Talk section.—LithiumFlash (talk) 13:09, 20 April 2017 (UTC)

Remote Pairs
My understanding of the phenomenon is that there is a parity condition. The simplest actual case is for four pairs, and I believe you can't reason simply for five pairs. Charles Matthews (talk) 07:18, 31 May 2020 (UTC)