MAN - Ultra Rare?

[djtlg]

Why does the word MAN scored as ultra rare, worth six points? Seems to me it should be common and worth three points.

What is the critera for deciding how common a word is anyway?

Trevor

[admin]

Whoops - that's a bug in the database which has now been fixed. (There were two instances of MAN - one with the common usage, and another with an ultra-specialized definition. The latter's difficulty rating was being counted instead of the more common one.) Games currently in play will continue to score MAN as a 6-pointer, but as those are gradually retired the newer games (i.e. any created after today) will register it with the proper 3-point score.

Difficulty ratings come from weightings that determine commonality of word usage across all publicly-accessible texts in Project Gutenburg and other sources. Its not an exact science, as there are some words that are used "rarely" but are still fairly well-known, but for the purposes of this game its worked pretty well so far.

I do have some ideas on refining this system with a future upgrade that will base "commonality" not on everyday usage, but actual word-usage on this site. So if the word "AWA", for example, which is currently Ultra Rare and worth 6 points, is played often by users who have memorized the SOWPODS valid 3-letter-word list, it will eventually be whittled down to either Rare or Wide status, depending on how often its played on the site. (This won't be happening for a long time, however... it would require recoding almost all aspects of the site, and there are other more pressing priorities at the moment).

Thanks!

[OpenYourMind]

that last reply about "man" was posted in april, but just the other day my roommate had the same experience with "man".

i don't know how often games are retired here, but is it likely that a pre-april game would still be in play?