Crossword Help Forum
Forum Rules

Ionacarr, at first I was trying to enter the letters in such a way that if you drew a line through them in the right order, you'd get a gentle wave throughout. But that soon falls down, so I would guess any way that they are in the correct order should be accepted.

Greetings all

I'm new to this site but have lurked for a while. I was moved to register by this particular thread. I too stopped AB contributions many moons ago having been dismayed by the many huge egos - sad because there are some sound ladies and gents who do chip in. What really peed me off was the desire to impress somebody that you dont know and will never meet, oh, and to boast about having finished the thing by 5 on a Friday. Personally I like to take my time and admire the scenery on the Listener journey.

Anyway, to the point of my post - when I encounter a puzzle with clashes in cells my practice is to enter the across answers in the bottom left hand side and the down in the top left. I find that this helps with finding missing answers. Obviously this doesn't fully fit the bill here but certainly helps

cheers

Johnny

sorry - top right for the downs!!

Thanks very much for all the feedback. The AB group really do believe that they are a friendly group who encourage new solvers. I think most of the feedback here contradicts that. I posted a symbolic interpretation of sum and colon, my post was removed. Another contributor named Cicero's slave, and his entry wasn't removed. There is an arbitrariness in the way they impose their own rules.

I'm sorry not to be able to assist with your questions at the moment, I don't usually start the puzzle until after the weekend.

What I have experienced on this site is that I can immediately see which comments are giving help on the puzzle and simply skip over them without reading the detail. So the puzzle is not 'spoiled' for me even though there are answers in plain view. Food for thought...

BC - Welcome to the forum! I have been contributing to the site for a few months now and have never once found any nasty comments or potential boasts about finishing it early. Many of us on this site are quite new to the Listener and have gained a great deal of confidence and encouragement from the more experienced contributors. This has meant that the puzzle has started to dominate my life (worryingly!). Luckily I can devote the time necessary to finish it most weeks - a big improvement from a while back when I was hardly making a a start. It is a site like this that can help new solvers make the transition from say the Times to this type of challenge. Long may this site and the Listener continue.

I'm sorry you feel that way. All the same, there are some people who were encouraged to start up the Listener over at AB. Myself included. I've even written a few puzzles since.

Both communities have their part to play. Both sides should accept that. I hope people on crossword solver continue having fun, and helping each other out.

The AB Friday-night finishers remind me of schooldays when some irritating brat (usually me!) always had to put their hand up first.

It amuses me when one of the clique later finds their solution to be incorrect - because of the, not always that subtle, ensuing discussion, then bemoans having sent in their entry too soon. 'PE' in Chambers doesn't include the appropriate phrase!

As for the appropriateness of posting heavy hints, well it is called the Answerbank after all.
I wonder - but really don't care - what the ultra-pious (you know who I mean) setters and solvers, who surely check these sites out, make of it all.

And the continual bleating about some long-forgotten Listener that was marked as wrong, every time a similar pitfall appears during the discussion .....

What I find particularly gross is this constant sneering at "the other site". It's just pathetic. People from both sites are guilty of that, but for the most part it's been fairly quiet in the last couple of years. And then suddenly in the last two weeks or so it's blown up.

Sneer all you like in private, but please, folks, let's allow both communities to approach the Listener in their own way without this constant bitter fighting.

I've been in internet communities in the past where there was a similar rival cliquishness. It's not pleasant. At least the last time it was over a teamplay-based video game, where there was some level of excuse for rival "gangs" to emerge. There is no such excuse over a crossword.

Jim,
In the space of 24 hours I've seen comments from 7 different individuals which are critical of the AB club. You must accept that this represents just a subset of the total number of people who have been put off by AB. I see from your comment this morning that you are becoming deeply unhappy with the situation. This is an encouraging sign. In order to change, one must first recognise that there is a need to change. Perhaps you will consider the manner in which you yourself replied to my initial comment on the removed 4332 thread.

And you were mistaken that the comment was simply a re-iteration of what I'd said before. For the first time I spoke of eternal recurrence of conflict. I urge you and your AB club to think about this, and how to avoid it.

As Jim360 seems to be referring to me, amongst others, as 'sneering', perhaps he would care to explain :
a) What purpose the Friday night 'I've finished' club serves, other than self-promotion (very un-English) - I suppose it gives an indication of the relative difficulty, but it's mostly about ego.
b) Why this supposedly self- regulating clique should have the benefit of threads on a site called The Answerbank.
c) Why they should be above criticism - it's a publicly-visible forum after all.
d) Why it is acceptable for subtle hints to be given on the AB threads, typically to help iron-out any lingering doubts - or, to put it another way, why a small number of people should determine just how subtle those hints have to be.

I note that both Listener 4332 AB threads have now been pulled, and can only guess that there have been some angry exchanges, which, of course, should never be tolerated. I would much prefer the reason to be the violation of the principle evinced by the name of the site, but doubt that's the case.
A certain pious person I have in mind must be laughing his socks off.