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Recently a question of mine was put on hold for being too broad: Longest $Scramble Sentence$?

Or if you prefer have this in the one window:

Before we begin, allow me to define what I call a Scramble Sentence,

A Scramble Sentence is a grammatically correct sentence, where at least 1 other permutation, of the letters in the sentence, exists that it makes a different sentence with a different meaning.

Let's define a quick restriction though, just to make sure it isn't too easy, NO WORDS CAN BE REUSED!

The aim of this question is to find the longest possible sentence which fits all of the above conditions!

Note: Punctuation doesn't count as part of the sentence (you don't have to scramble commas and such)

Additional restrictions:
* No listing out words
* No quotation marks

It was supposed to be a fun and interesting question so that users can "compete" to find the longest sentence that can be rescrambled into a completely different sentence.

But my question for you guys, is how should I make that puzzle less broad, and limit the possible answers. I hope to learn from these suggestions and to improve my puzzle creating skills for the future!

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    $\begingroup$ This isn't a meta question... This is a question about creating a puzzle that obviously isn't fully defined yet. It isn't specific to the Puzzling SITE. $\endgroup$
    – warspyking
    Commented Sep 9, 2015 at 20:14
  • $\begingroup$ I'd add in 'no proper nouns'. $\endgroup$
    – Bailey M
    Commented Sep 9, 2015 at 21:04
  • $\begingroup$ Each letter of the alphabet can only be used once. $\endgroup$
    – Gordon K
    Commented Sep 9, 2015 at 22:02
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    $\begingroup$ I think this question itself might be too broad - there are an unlimited number of ways to limit the scope of the question. This might sound like a silly request, but could you possibly limit the scope of possible answers to this question by, as a suggestion, specifying exactly what it is you want this puzzle to be/how you'd like it to work? $\endgroup$
    – user20
    Commented Sep 10, 2015 at 1:53
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    $\begingroup$ @warspyking A question about how this question can be made less broad then? $\endgroup$
    – Rohcana
    Commented Sep 10, 2015 at 6:18

1 Answer 1

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This question can be made less broad with any of the following conditions:

  • only names of cities may be used
  • you may only use the letter 'b'
  • limit your answer to no more than two words
  • words may not scramble into words previously used
  • words may only scramble to words beginning with x
  • both sentences must mention pears
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    $\begingroup$ +1, these certainly limit possible answers and would make me far more interested in seeing solutions. $\endgroup$
    – Roland
    Commented Sep 10, 2015 at 0:51
  • $\begingroup$ Is sreap a word? If not, do both sentences have to mention exactly pears? $\endgroup$
    – bb216b3acfd8f72cbc8f899d4d6963
    Commented Dec 24, 2016 at 0:13

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