Here’s a post to revive the original discussion 2 years later…
So, I’m currently in the process of adding some high quality puzzles to OGS from a book written by a pro. The problem I have is accurately judging the difficulty. Therefore, in line with the original suggestion and subsequent agreements, I think it would be better to have: (a) coarser categories (e.g. elementary, easy, medium, hard, very hard) to give an initial rough guide to the difficulty and these can probably be set fairly reliably by the puzzle creator; and/or (b) automatic ranking of puzzles based on successful / unsuccessful solving of the puzzle and the user’s rank at the time of attempting the puzzle.
I agree with the other posters that this is an important change for the puzzle section because the current system of puzzle creators having to assign the difficulty of a puzzle from a list of ~ 40 ranks is clearly resulting in many problems with misleading difficulty settings.
I wonder, 2 years after the original post, if there is any progress or plans on this idea?
Many thanks 