Talk:Survo puzzle

I know that nowadays the inspiring Survo Puzzle has already an established fan community in Germany (espacially among researchers) which creates and distributes new puzzles among interested people. Some people even keep in touch with some Finish aficionados to exchange ideas and solving algorithms. As far as I know Survo puzzles are regularly edited in the Finish (academic) media.

Tim von Eichstätt  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.227.204.24 (talk) 22:04, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

I do disagree that Survo puzzles are not notable. As I, know in Finland at least two magazines publish frequently Survo puzzles. One of them is Ilta-Sanomat, a newspaper which distribution is 700 000, which is much in Finland (which has 5 million inhabintants). The other journal is Yliopistolehti, the official journal of University of Helsinki. Survo puzzle has very wide use, the easiest of the puzzles could be used for pupils in primary schools for exercising mathematics by a way that could interest young people. And the other range of the puzzle leads to very demanding solutions.

With best regards Markku Verkasalo Helsinki, Finland 217.119.36.199 (talk) 07:59, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

As far as I can see Survo puzzle is one of the most interesting numerical puzzles ever created. Although almost all the published articles concerning Survo Puzzles are in finnish and are also collected (presumably for convinience) under the one webpage (www.survo.fi), there are also third-party published sources that can be considered reliab.

e.g. Mustonen, S. (2007a).Survo Crossings. CSCnews, 1/2007. CSC, Finnish IT center for science. http://www.csc.fi/english/csc/publications/cscnews/back_issues/cscnews1_2007 (in english)

Therefore I can see no reason for removing this article.

With best regards Jari Lipsanen —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.214.215.74 (talk) 09:29, 17 August 2009 (UTC)

The Survo puzzle is well established in Finland
I object the deletion of this page, and therefore I have removed the deletion tag.

The Survo puzzle is well established in Finland, and several newspapers and magazines have regularly published Survo Puzzles in Finland. These include at least Ilta-Sanomat (the second largest newspaper in Finland; 734 000 readers), Yliopisto-lehti (scientific magazine of the University of Helsinki; 48 000 readers), and Sydän-Hämeen Lehti (regional newspaper; 19 000 readers).

In case there is a need for more third-party sources and references, a few examples of articles related to Survo Puzzles in Finnish journals are (my translations of the Finnish titles):

Mustonen, Seppo (2006). Survo-ristikot (Survo puzzles). Solmu 3/2006, 22-23.

Mustonen, Seppo (2007). Survo Crossings. CSC News 1/2007, 30-32.

Somerpuro, Veikko (2006). Survo on täällä (Survo is here). Yliopisto 54(12), 44-45.

Korhonen, Hannu (2006). Uusi idea laskuharjoitteluun (A new idea for math exercises). Dimensio 70(2), 38.

Tuomela, Jukka (2007). Survo-ristikot ja polynomit (Survo puzzles and polynomials). Arkhimedes 2/2007, 17-21.

Moreover, although the basic idea of this marvelous numerical puzzle is quite simple, more advanced problems have inspired many persons to develop computerized solving algorithms. It is also a fact that the national entrance examination of the Finnish Universities in computer science included a topic on Survo puzzles in 2009. I wonder why such information and all recently added references were crudely neglected before nominating the page for deletion?

Repale (talk) 15:23, 17 August 2009 (UTC)


 * It doesn't really matter why; answering that question won't improve or save the article. What will make a difference is getting the sources into the article. Do we need translations, to determine which source verifies which fact(s), or do we already have access to them in English? -GTBacchus(talk) 23:57, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Added references
I finally had time to add some references to the article (as suggested in the AfD discussion). All but the article by Aitola were available online. I tried to use English sources if possible. I also restored the previously deleted sentence about the Survo-puzzles in the national entrance examination in computer science in Finland, and added reference to the exercise (which were published online after the examination day, but only in Finnish).
 * I added URLs to the references which were available online. Repale (talk) 07:54, 20 August 2009 (UTC)

It seems that the sections which are still without references in the article are extracted from the following sources: Can these be used as references? Repale (talk) 13:15, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Mustonen, S. On certain cross sum puzzles.
 * Mustonen, S. Enumeration of uniquely solvable open Survo puzzles.
 * Mustonen, S. On the swapping method.
 * Thanks for the improvements. I think they can be included in the article as citations or external links. If someone objects they will let you know. :) ChildofMidnight (talk) 16:45, 20 August 2009 (UTC)
 * OK. I also added the www-only citations. Repale (talk) 17:49, 30 August 2009 (UTC)