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This is a header in the beginning of a puzzle. It could contain valuable information.

I see that there is currently a massive retagging is going on (with all its side-effects) due to a recent community consensus on giving a unique tag [word-property] to certain questions. I am in favor of this idea, and supported the initiate with my upvotes here on meta.

However, I was amused to see that most of these questions have a special header. This header contains link to (1) a high-profile user profile (having a 3-digit ID, and quite a few points of rep.; but who was sadly not really active in the past year); and to (2) some predefined search results.

I was under the impression that the header was used to serve as a signpost for search-engines helping to categorize these puzzles. I am genuinely puzzled, that what purpose does it serve now?

Having decided that these puzzles receive a unique tag, I feel like the header is no longer necessary. The current re-tagging efforts could serve as an excellent opportunity to remove the headers thus improve the signal/noise ratio in the posts. We are all grateful for users adding value to this site, but a link to an inactive user-profile, and to some search-results hardly carries any valuable information. When was the last time you followed those links?

I am strongly in favor of removing these kind of headers, and to no longer encourage users to use them in the future.

This is my contribution to the recent discussion on the (failed) attempt of establishing some kind of guidelines regarding these puzzles. Thank you for your time reading my post. Happy problem solving!

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    $\begingroup$ Now that the tag was introduced, I agree that these can be removed. I think the reason why they are here anyway is because people wanted to link to the person they got the idea from, see this early Word puzzle for example. If I recall correctly, the standard header (and the yellow table) were introduced by Engineer Toast in this puzzle. Since he was the one who pretty much continued the series, everyone did it. $\endgroup$
    – user14478
    Sep 21, 2016 at 18:39
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    $\begingroup$ @LukasRotter Actually, the distinctive yellow header was introduced here by JLee, who originated this type of puzzle. $\endgroup$
    – GentlePurpleRain
    Sep 21, 2016 at 18:54
  • $\begingroup$ This seems loosely related to the question (probably already discussed) of having to follow links in order to understand the point of a puzzle in the first place. $\endgroup$
    – humn
    Sep 21, 2016 at 21:38
  • $\begingroup$ I agree that it seems out of place now. Perhaps if JLee were the first person on the planet to come up with this style of puzzle, it would warrant giving all the credit. $\endgroup$
    – Ian MacDonald
    Sep 22, 2016 at 13:23
  • $\begingroup$ I agree in this case, and separately I like this kind of information better as a footer (when it is needed) than a header $\endgroup$
    – Julian Rosen
    Oct 15, 2016 at 15:49

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