Crossword Help Forum
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I used to have a work colleague who would cheerfully say "I've filled in a couple of clues in your [Guardian] crossword", immediately taking away any satisfaction I might get from completing it. As someone who generally struggles with, but eventually does complete, these Listener puzzles, I do sometimes need to come here for hints or nudges which is all I want. It's a shame that such requests are very often met with explicit answers. I find S_Pugh's hints to be at about the right level (for me). Why post 19 had to contain 5 spoilers that no-one had requested is beyond me - surely it could have been more circumspect whilst still begging the same questions? There is a difference between 'help' and 'answers'.

Simond9x, generally I agree with your point but this site often seem to offer more help than hints as the days pass. Generally I err on the side of offering hints (when I can!) rather than help.

This puzzle seemed quite hard, even by Listener standards so as frustration seemed to be mounting I decided to offer help - which some people appreciated and others probably found annoying. Perhaps if it happens again I shall preface my post with 'spoiler alert'. After all is said and done, it is only a puzzle and the prizes are hardly glittering, I don't actually submit any more and I suspect others don't either.

Hi planks, maybe that's the answer. Unfortunately there is nowhere else to go just for hints (well, not that I know of) but I do appreciate that some on this forum do want explicit answers to help them progress. I literally squint when I come on here looking to see if there is a hint for a clue I'm stuck on - I speed over the posts looking for the clue number but often, inadvertently, see spoilers.

Maybe if people could head their posts *** SPOILER ALERT *** when being explicit, it would help others avoid accidentally seeing the content of those posts. That way everyone would be happy (I think).

Meursault takes the fundamentalist view that this is a help forum, and people don’t need to come here if they don’t want to, and don’t need to read the threads in detail. I disagree with that. It’s not possible to skim through a thread without seeing more information than one might want, particularly when clue answers are given away in capital letters. By his logic he would have no problem with me posting a full solution, with all clues spelt out, at 7pm on a Friday night. People don’t have to look, right? Nevertheless, I think the vast majority would consider that unacceptable, and that his argument is specious. His position is a reaction to having been badly treated, as I understand it, on the Answerbank some years ago, where any form of hint is frowned upon. And he does seem to regard this forum as his personal fiefdom, so you will need plenty of ink in your well if you wish to cross swords with him. Perhaps there should be two threads. One for hints, another for help. Explicit clue answers should only be given on the latter. I don’t ever look here until I’ve finished, but I recognise not all solvers are at the same stage of development.

keepatit - as one of the people who type solutions in capitals I think I should reply to your post.

It's part of a system I've devised for giving answers - I put anything that goes into the grid in caps and use lowercase for wordplay and any excluded letters. Even when I haven't thought it necessary to give the wordplay, as in this instance, I still use caps for entries (I'm not too worried about spoilers on a crossword answer forum).

I would hate to see this forum descend to the level of the answerbank, as far as giving help is concerned. I was a regular contributor to that thread myself many years ago when a degree of help was offered by most people using it (I see that the best help they can offer nowadays is to direct people to this site).

My solution to the spoiler problem would be to start an early thread clearly labelled LISTENER FRIDAY CLUB HINTS ONLY. I get the puzzle in The Times on the Saturday - I'll happily limit my contributions to a SATURDAY LISTENER thread if I'm stuck, or if (as in this case) I feel the puzzle is unfair. There is no thematic justification whatsoever for the hurdles the setter has erected against those trying to solve this puzzle.

This was a hard one so no surprise to see the number of comments in this thread when I logged in today. I am not sure I have the second representation. I have a 10 letter theme. One representation is 3, 6 letters on 2 different rows. My uncertain one is 1, 6, 1 contiguous letters symmetrically placed in three columns - including part of the theme word. Is this correct?

Drxx, thanks for an interesting reply. I note that you’re “not too worried about spoilers on a crossword answer forum”. And that seems to me the crux of it. Last time I looked, this was called the Crossword Help Forum, not the Answer Forum. They are not the same thing. Spoilers are so called for a reason. They spoil some people’s enjoyment.

There are plenty of people who come here wanting hints, who are not well served by the Answerbank, for the reasons you outline, but who do not want explicit answers thrown in their face without even asking for them. I had hoped this forum might find a mechanism to satisfy that constituency. Maybe the fundamentalist wing on here will see to it that they do not get it. It matters not to me, since I never ask for help here, I only give it, but objectively that would seem to me a shame.

I also use capital letters for answers for exactly the same reasons drxx has given.

I often get the impression that the harder a puzzle is, the less willing people are to give help. And as this is one of the most difficult, the help given here has particularly annoyed some people.

At the end of the day, the only people who can rule what is acceptable are those who own and run this site.

smithsax, your second representation sounds wrong. Look up the theme word in Wikipedia and look for the two representations in the first sentence. Ignore brackets, and consider letters as digits for the second one

Why post 19 had to contain 5 spoilers that no-one had requested is beyond me - surely it could have been more circumspect whilst still begging the same questions? There is a difference between 'help' and 'answers'.

That post was typical of Meursault who, in spite of numerous complaints and warnings from the moderator, thinks he is entitled to post answers that no one has asked for in the guise of 'help'. From his earlier whining in this thread, he apparently is surprised that others do not share his attitude.