Here's my very worst ... the infamous "Battlefields" hypercross:

http://www.tanga.com/crossword_puzzles/648-2-3-...

I took a beating on this one:

http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/2711-4-28-2008

(fun idea CW)

I think my most reviled was Ernestine - which to be honest was placed as the 24th puzzle in a puzzlethon - and people only had one hour to solve it (after solving puzzles for 24 hours straight - for those who haven't been involved in a puzzlehton). And it is a pretty tough one...

and it was my first published one...

so glad this was addressed. newbie here to tanga and noticed a little flaming here and there and have not understood it yet.

let's see. . . . . . .

tanga member creates puzzle.
tanga members play puzzle.
certain members can't solve puzzle so they bash it.
thus advertising their own incompetence.

where did these yahoos learn their manners?

guess I'll have to start trying my hand at puzzles and they can feed off me. if they think you guys are bad I should get banned very, very soon.

I enjoy Tanga very much. So I'll just stay cool and not sing a sad song.

Oh Oh...
Remember the last time we all had this discussion?
http://tanga.com/forum/blogs/1406-Top_Ten_Compl...
And what it turned into? Ha Ha!
http://tanga.com/forum/blogs/1408-Contest_Worst...

[5] I really think this is a different discussion altogether. This is where we get to point out our own missteps.

I thought it might be fun (and even instructional) to say "hey, this one didn't work and I got reamed for it." My aforementioned Battlefield HC was rightly ripped. I learned a lot from that experience.

This was the puzzle...
http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/2388-2-3-2008

And this was the comment...
http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/2388-2-3-2008?comm...

Ouch!
I've learned a lot since then.

The fourth item pictured in this puzzle, http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/3798-8-30-2008, was actually the inspiration for the puzzle. But, as several solvers pointed out, I used the wrong name for it. It was bad enough that I'd used the wrong term for more than 50 years. But to put it in a puzzle -- aargh! (Oddly enough, I'd used that incorrect term in my image search and found plenty of examples of the item!)

Let us not forget spamwise's open letter to disgruntled puzzlers...
http://tanga.com/forum/blogs/1369-Open_letter_t...

Feel free to post this link in any threads where people are flaming...

[8] I've always used the same term--and I loved that puzzle!

I have several puzzles I wish I could take back or do over, but this one annoyed many:

http://tanga.com/puzzles/2217-12-30-2007

It even made some people run to the bathroom!

Here is the puzzle I think was my worst because I actually thought the words to Bonjovi's song was the answer to my puzzle, when I started reading the comments I realized I had been singing it wrong all my life :). Comments were quite humorous though.

http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/3223-6-3-2008

I actually still like this puzzle, however I took the most negative hits on this one:

http://www.tanga.com/crossword_puzzles/940-7-16...

With over 275 published puzzles, I've got a lot of turds to pick from here. Here's just a few from the last 6 months of published puzzles:

http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/763-9-8-2008
http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/871-4-24-2008
http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/890-5-27-2008
http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/902-4-18-2008
http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/1040-7-12-2008

Most of those were created a long time ago and hung out in the queue for a while. But here are two fairly recently-created flops:

http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/2408-9-1-2008
http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/3420-9-23-2008

Oh well. I'm still learning as I go, and I think I get it right more often than I get it wrong... LOL

oh yes [13] I remember http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/902-4-18-2008 well...
"You solved this puzzle in 8 hours, 45 minutes and 30 seconds and were the 16th Tanga member to solve it. You earned 3 points for solving this."
:P

[13], [14] i can top that. :)

You are a freaking genius!! You solved this puzzle.
You solved this puzzle in 15 hours, 41 minutes and 21 seconds and were the 104th Tanga member to solve it. You earned 10 points for solving this.

for http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/871-4-24-2008.

[14] [15] Snicker... Check this out:

You solved this puzzle in 83 days, 15 hours, and 20 minutes and were the 95th Tanga member to solve it. You earned 0 points for solving this.

(um...I didn't solve this I clicked on the solution)

I am so LOL right now!

[15] I think the point was that it took her over 8 hours to solve it, and she was still only the 16th solver.

... and only got 3 points for the effort, to boot.

Oh me too! me too!
I have them all beat
http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/2202-1-8-2008
Errors in set up, errors in the method, inconsistent clues, a vague key term, and then a completely unrecognizable hexidecimal answer...Mods were created to prevent this from ever happening again.
Every puzzle since then has been more and more fun.
As far as the "hecklers" that complain about a puzzle, I just see them as new. It usually is the newer folks that complain before trying again.

[18] Wow ... if we were to give a prize for negative feedback, Steph would be being introduced by Ryan Seacrest right now.

[18] Oh, wow... you win. I had forgotten about that one... I think I blocked it out, like a traumatic event in my life.

It seems we're fixated on the negative around here. We ought to have a thread about our *best* puzzles. Puzzlemakers can nominate their best and then, as members of the Academy, cast their votes.

Anyway, here's my worst, I think. This was before we could delete our puzzles and instead had to overwrite them. I was planning on doing just that when it got published. A facepalm moment.

Shameful image recognition on this one: http://www.tanga.com/crossword_puzzles/599-1-22...

And not only that, but SPORTS image recognition!

[19] Every comment was deserved. I learned from that one for sure. [21] AS far as our own best? Hmmm...new thread?

Another that made me slink away sheepishly...
http://www.tanga.com/crossword_puzzles/555-6-15...

I think I can rightly claim the award for most guessable answers. It's really aggravating when I put so much work into making an answer come out only to have someone say "No clue how to solve, just guessed it." Though always my fault for over-hinting. I guess it makes some people happy just to be able to solve, but I *like* it when people struggle with my puzzles!:
Bluh!
Phooey!
Curses!
Darnit!
Dagnabbit!
$%#^%^@!!!

You'd have thought I would have learned after the first couple. Maybe I have now. I changed a couple backgrounds recently including my detective one which had Mike HAMmer in the background.

This one didn't get too many complaints, but I'm ashamed of all the blatant baseball errors. (Even though they didn't affect the solution.):
It still seems like stealing to me. :(

Here's a new submission to the list .... http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/3858-10-4-2008.

And I promise that I didn't do the puzzle that way on purpose just to bump this thread.

If i see a puzzle that there are obvious errors in, of course I am going to call out the puzzlemaker. This includes using images to represent something that it has no business in representing, or misspellings in the puzzle or the answer. Something that any proofread should pick up on. This does seem to be a more common occurrence around here lately for some reason.

well, let's not forget the contest....

http://tanga.com/forum/blogs/1408-Contest_Worst...

;-)

So, I looked back through my collection of puzzles, and I have what I consider a top three:

#3 — http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/244-2-8-2007
I think the idea behind it was decent, but the wrap wasn't a strong enough clue to get people to...well, make things wrap. And it was an awful lot of work trying to slide letters around in that grid.

#2 — http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/388-5-14-2007
Even with some beta-testing on this one, I don't think anyone liked my clue for "en." It was a hard word to clue, and my attempt at making it easier drove a lot of people in the wrong direction.

#1 — http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/192-1-20-2007
Even _without_ the fact that I screwed this one up horribly and had Xs and numbers in the wrong spot, this is simply a "look up the obscure facts" fest. I could have _sworn_ that I made up this puzzle and decided not to submit it, except that it showed up anyway. And not only did it show up, but in the middle of a puzzlethon. Yikes!

Dishonorable Mention — http://www.tanga.com/puzzles/549-3-25-2008
It still annoys me that the word "Mandelbrot" fits the Xs and Os in this puzzle, and that the Xs then anagram to "Lemon" or "Melon." That part was unintentional, but the overall puzzle was a pretty dirty trick, regardless. I'm not sure I agree with comment 15 there (it's the most elementary thing to do) but this one had an overdose of red herring to it. The only puzzle I made with more red herring, I think, would be one that featured a boy wanting to go home through a maze populated with dingbats. Some text asked "Which path will help Sammy get home again?" The maze was unsolvable, and the answer (to the puzzle) was "NONE." The mods wisely rejected this one.

[29] Amazing I had decided to not solve any of those :>

[31] I think you missed this line in the thread description:

"Suggested ground rule: you can only nominate your own puzzles."