Site Feedback

by

This page is where you can provide feedback relating to Fifteensquared or raise issues regarding the website itself.

Comments posted before 28/2/2022 can be found here.

This post is now closed. New comments can be posted here.

118 comments on “Site Feedback”

  1. I’m just learning to do the cryptics, is there any way of not displaying the answers until I’ve has a go with the explanation? Sort of like a spoiler option?

    Thanks for the site anyway – it’s a great resource while I try to figure it all out 🙂

    Thanks,
    Matthew

  2. Matthew

    While there is no doubt that 15² is the best site for cryptic crossword solvers, there is another site that does exactly what you say: Big Dave’s Crossword Blog. It deals primarily with the Daily Telegraph’s cryptic crosswords, which are not covered here (because covered there?), but on Mondays hosts ‘Rookie Corner’, where beginners get a chance to get published and on Saturdays, ‘Not The Saturday Prize Puzzle’ (NTSPP). Both of these, as well as all the Telegraph puzzles, are blogged with parsing given but the actual answer hidden and revealable.

  3. It would be great to have keep the excellent blogs but have separate comments sections for competent solvers, and beginners like me.
    I suppose that would be difficult but I thought I’d mention it.

    Roger

  4. Fifteensquared is a godsend for lovers of cryptics. I post often but sometimes I’ll make a mistake in spelling or grammar even though I try to proofread my comments before posting. Some sites have a time-limited edit function where you can change obvious errors after posting; will this be a possibility on 15-squared in the future?

  5. Tony @4
    I did look into this a few years ago. The only WordPress plugins I could find that provided a comment edit function required visitors to register with the site, and then login before posting a comment, in order for the plugin to work. For several reasons this is something I am reluctant to introduce.

  6. Gaufrid @5
    Thanks for the quick response, and yes, that would be more trouble than it’s worth.

  7. I can see a limited number of emojis can be entered as ASCII text. What is the reason for not allowing emojis to be entered as emojis? Is it simply the WordPress editor being used?

  9. I know there is a post from Gaufrid somewhere in this site with a table of allowable emoji translations, but I can never find it when I want to 🙁 (I reckon that one’ll work).

  12. Gaufrid@8 – what is the not so simple answer?! I ask because the native wordpress comment editor lets you enter emojis directly. I’m puzzled about what’s been gained with an editor that takes this functionality away. The native editor allows basic html markup too (bold, italics, links, lists, etc).

  13. pdp11 @12
    The site uses the standard (native) WordPress comment editor, with the addition of a plugin that provides a simple means of adding bold, italics and a link (without the need for knowledge of HTML).

  14. Gaufrid@13 – Before my previous comment, I tried it on my own blog and emojis worked. I too use the standard WP comment editor (without the toolbar plugin). Assuming the plugin isn’t misbehaving, it’s probably just a character set issue. For example, see here for one solution.

  15. pdp11 @14
    Thanks for the link. I have checked and the site is using the recommended character set.

  16. Gaufrid@15 – thanks for checking. Given that the standard comment editor allows emojis, is this something you have already investigated? I’m mindful of making suggestions you’ve ready tried and ruled out! When I did a quick search, apart from ensuring utf8mb4 is configured in WordPress and the database tables, there were other suggestions. Some that come to mind: does the issue occur with other themes? Does the issue occur with all plugins disabled? Are you using the latest versions of MySQL and WordPress and other plugins?

    Depending on your development setup (if you have a development environment), you could change to a default theme and disable all plugins. If the emojis appear, enable the plugins one at a time to find the culprit. There are probably other things to try too.

    Personally I like things to be WYSIWYG: software should work the way users expect it to. And currently, I can’t think of a place where emojis are not accepted, since they’re a part of daily life now for so many people. However, it all depends on your desire, capacity and time to get to the bottom of the issue. If you want me to help, I’m happy to try.

    Finally, in case it’s not clear, I want to express my gratitude to you for providing this site in the first place. You’re sparking a lot of joy 😉

  17. pdp11 @16
    I am happy to limit emojis, or rather emoticons, to those listed in the link on the FAQ page. I have a sandbox for experimentation but I don’t think I will be pursuing this issue. I think the site works well as it is and doesn’t need changing.

    I too prefer WYSIWYG, which is why this site had that as a comment editor plugin. However this had to be withdrawn because the plugin creator ceased to support it after a WordPress update.

  18. Gaufrid@17
    You’re probably aware that WordPress and probably some of the plugins you use are open source software. Many days, months and even years go into their development. There are many ways to contribute to this freely provided software and I’m sure you already do. One lesser known way is to find bugs, whether or not you’re concerned or affected by them. That way, the developers become aware of issues and, once fixed, all the users around the world benefit.

    So if you feel like contributing to this effort, it’s fairly easy to diagnose this particular issue, especially since you already have a sandbox. Disabling plugins is a matter of going into the WordPress Admin page (wp-admin):

    1. Select all plugins
    2. Set action to Deactivate
    3. Click Apply

    After that, enter a comment with an emoji and see if it appears. If it appears, enable the plugins one at at time, each time entering a new comment with an emoji to see how the plugin affects the comment. If none of this reveals the misbehaving plugin, change the theme. To do this:

    1. On the site’s home page, click Customise
    2. For Active Theme, click Change
    3. Select another theme. If you don’t have other themes installed, select “WordPress.org themes” and use one of those.

    It would be nice if users didn’t have to consult the FAQ (or post questions here) just to enter an emoji. So, if you ever have 30 minutes free, you can try the above. Let me know if you want me to elaborate on any of the above. As I said previously, I’m happy to help with the diagnosis or to engage with the developer once the issue is found.

  20. Looks like the offending comment has been removed from the Inquisitor blogpost, but what has the Ukrainian flag got to do with it?

  21. Herb @19
    Duly done.

    pdp11 @18
    Having been doing it for 13+ years, I know how to test WordPress and plugins (also my computing/programming experience goes back 50 years). The standard WordPress emoticons are being displayed correctly, ie a text emoticon is being converted to an image. It is not difficult for someone to remember the text emoticon, without referring to the FAQ page.

    I cannot now remember who it was, but someone mentioned that an emoji, copied from her mobile phone, didn’t appear. This is something that I cannot check in the sandbox because I don’t have a smart phone, though there may be websites that I could copy/paste the images from.

    Changing the current theme is not an option. I have spent money on it (along with the hosting costs etc) and very many hours customising it (with some help from another member of the team), before applying it to the live site. As I said @17 I am happy to maintain the status quo.

  22. Gaufrid this may be nothing but the email address of CrypticSue has appeared in the comments for yesterday , Guy puzzle in the FT.
    I did read once on GD that you should not put an email address because things search for them.

  23. Gaufrid @21 – understood.

    To clarify: the testing outline I provided was not for making any permanent changes. Deactivating the plugins and changing the theme were temporary changes to see if they are the cause of the issue. I should have stated that the test plan was testing the hypotheses that either the plugins or theme (or both) are causing the emojis not to appear in comments. The rest is working out which by a process of elimination.

    I now understand your indifference to this issue: you don’t have a smartphone. If you did, emojis would be a part of your everyday life. Even my technophobic sister can barely go a day without sending me messages with emojis in them! On a smartphone, there’s no need to copy/paste: entering emojis is as easy as typing words.

    FYI: for your computer, if you want emojis in your sandbox you can just copy/paste the emojis on this page. Emoticons, although they look like images, are Unicode characters just like the letters, numbers and other characters on this page. Another way of entering emojis, if you use Windows, is to press WIN + . (Windows logo key and FULL STOP key) and pick an emoji. See here.

    I just disabled plugins and changed the theme in my sandbox and it took five minutes. The irony is that we’ve spent more time discussing this than it would have taken to do some basic troubleshooting!

    ————————-
    This is a test of copy/paste of emojis on this page: ??
    This is a test of using some random Windows emojis: ????

  24. pdp 11 – I know you’re trying to be helpful and (as you see it) improve the site, but Gaufrid has said several times that he’s not interested in facilitating emojis! Maybe it’s time to talk about something else. 🙂

  25. sh@24 – despite appearances, I accepted Gaufrid stance when he expressed it. My first reply after that was a suggestion —if he had 30 minutes free and he wanted to contribute to the open source software community (which could potentially benefit many people around the world who use this software). That, I thought, was my last contribution on this topic. However, the reply had a misunderstanding and an uncertainty, which I replied to. And now I’m replying to your message. 🙂

  26. Gaufrid: I understand why the premature Maskarade blog was redacted, but I was wondering if, when it is reinstated next Saturday you will also reinstate the comments that had come in so far. I had made some comments from notes and then erased the notes! Thanks!

  27. Dr. WhatsOn @ 26

    The 22 comments already posted will be retained when the blog is republished next Saturday..

  29. I do wish the site would provide a glossary of cruciverbalist jargon. I have managed to work out most of the acronyms from context but came late to IT conventions so they may just be common internet usage. But I was defeated by some in the comments on today’s Vulcan Guardian crossword – TILT and WOT. And what is the JORUM Eileen is so fond of?

  30. Rev Marjorie

    I agree it would be a good idea to have such a glossary if Gaufrid could ever spare the time to add one to the site.

    TILT = Thing I Learnt Today
    Not sure about WOT, but possibly Word Of The (Day, WOTD). Certainly, you can find COTD = Clue Of The Day.

    Also, FOI/LOI = First/Last One In
    BIFD = Bunged In From Definition (which has led to to formation of the verb ‘to biff’ = to bung in from definition)

    A JORUM is a clue whose answer can be successfully derived from wordplay only, without ever having heard of the answer word, JORUM having been an example of the phenomenon for Eileen, many years ago (well, not that many, perhaps, from Eileen’s Methuselan perspective 🙂 ).

  31. Dear Tony

    Thanks for this – very helpful and filled quite a few gaps in my knowledge. Perhaps doing crosswords every day encourages the obsessive part of my nature but it is annoying when I can do the crossword but can’t understand the comments!

  32. PS I think Fifteensquared is a wonderful institution and it has greatly improved my quality of life since I discovered it.

  33. It’s a pity the software doesn’t have a “report” button. I guess this is the place to report things? I’ve used it before. Anyway, comment 11 on Inquisitor 1748 came back again, the same name. He seems very keen to make his point but it’s way off topic, to put it mildly.

  34. Herb@33. It’s not at all off topic, although the point could certainly have been made more politely.

    It’s referring to the display of the national flag of a party to a military conflict at the head of the post. If anything is off topic it’s that unnecessary and irrelevant display.

    I don’t think 15² is a place for political propaganda. The blogger is free to make his opinions known in places where the matter is an issue in point. Those views are nothing to do with the crossword and of no help whatsoever to those who come looking for enlightenment about it. I certainly don’t want his views shoved down my throat, whether or not there is anything “virtuous” about the Ukrainian state.

    Are bloggers also free to emblazon their posts with the flags of the Russian Federation or of the self-proclaimed independent republics of Donetsk and Luhansk if their personal opinion is that that is where virtue lies? Would it be ok to put up the swastikas which some of the Azov battalion members (now UAF assimilates) have tattooed on their bodies (according to the Guardian)?

  35. Interesting comments about glossaries. Personally I would prefer not to have one as it would appear to readers of the site to be an “official” set of abbreviations, and as such encourage even more use of them.

    I think that if a post or comment is only readable by people “in the know” then it is the post and the comment that needs fixing, not the glossary. The site needs to be as accessible as possible, not appear to newcomers as a private club with its own special language.

    This is my personal perspective of course, I am not speaking on behalf of fifteensquared here.

  36. PeeDee, that’s an interesting view from someone who, of course, has more standing here, as one of the bloggers, than I as an occasional commenter.

    It’s surely harder to guide commenters on desirable practices than the bloggers, who probably have firmly fixed in mind what the purpose of the posts is and how the objectives can best be achieved (such as avoiding jargon).

    Communities do inevitably develop their own in-language and newcomers do pick it up, eventually, especially if they not too shy to ask what something means.

    I certainly wouldn’t want to see comments here policed for jargon, but I wouldn’t expect to see the bloggers using it, tending as it would to suggest the site’s imprimatur for them. Perhaps you’re right that a site glossary would have a similar effect. It’s natural, though, for newcomers to a community to sometimes wish they had a ‘phase book’ to help them understand the ‘local lingo’.

    I can’t even imagine something like Eileen’s JORUM being in such a glossary, mind you, but once you’ve heard it explained by its coiner herself, with the appropriate links, it really is a lively and colourful way to pin down a phenomenon in a single word. In fact, come to think of it, it should really be put forward for inclusion in the big dictionaries!

  38. Hi Tony – you are right that communities build in various situations and start using private language and behaviours. I think this happens not through site policy but because people naturally behave this way. Even though such communities may intend to be inclusive, their very nature also makes them exclusive.

    I am reminded of community in the rural area where I lived for many years. There was a community group who formed, met regularly, represented the community, talked about the importance of community, spoke on local issues, visited each other coffee, held meetings and community events etc etc. In reality 90% of the people who lived in the area never went to any of these “community” events, and their views often didn’t seem to be very aligned with the people in community group. The community group were clearly well-meaning but in reality were mostly representing themselves. They didn’t set out to be a clique, it just happened by itself. So who was my local community? The group of people in the “community group” or the totality everyone who lived around me?

    Fifteen squared is a bit like this. There is a loyal core of people who comment most days, and speak in a language of LOIs and JORUMs (wtf is a JORUM anyway?). This wasn’t deliberate, it just happened by itself. Yet the majority of people who visit this site rarely leave comments. So who is my community here?

    My take is that I try and write write my blogs for everybody, not just the regular commenters. My “community” is everyone who visits this site for whatever reason. I try to write my blogs and my comments in a way that doesn’t require you to learn a new language to understand.

  39. DT – as far as I know there isn’t an official site policy about flags or other political symbolism in blogs. That is there by the bloggers own choice.

  40. Re my comment @38 – to my embarrassment I notice that I used an Internet slang abbreviation myself there in paragraph 3. Just shows how hard this is to avoid!

  41. Hi all,

    As some of you may know our regular administrator is indisposed at the moment and I have taken over admin for the foreseeable future.

    I’ve written to the blogger and asked him to remove the flag. As far as I’m concerned, this site should try to remain as non-political as possible.

  42. Peedee @38, 40

    Maybe worth noting a distinction between internet slang (as in “wtf* is a JORUM anyway?”) and crossword-specific slang. And, then again, novelties, of course:

    Initially jug of drink, but per Eileen, a clue like this? (5)

    * I’ll leave it to you to explain “wtf” for those who may still be in the dark about it 🙂

  43. kenmac@41, I, for one, was not aware that Gaufrid was indisposed and send my best wishes for a return to better health.

    Meanwhile, compliments for a wise proxy decision.

  44. [Hmm … there seems to be a lot of flexibility in choice of preposition these days, but I really would prefer to stick to compliments on. Apologies to anyone who found my use of “for” as annoying as I would have, if someone else had written it!]

  46. DT @37

    You will have noticed that two of your comments in relation to a recent blog have been deleted. At fifteensquared we do not tolerate any kind of abuse regardless of how mild.

    It’s also considered bad practice to post with multiple email addresses in order to hide one’s identity. Please try to remain genuine for the sake of all visitors to this site.

  47. NEW FEATURES

    I thought it might be interesting and useful to shed a bit of light light on some of the considerations regarding decisions to implement features on this site. The summary is: some desirable feature might be possible to implement, but is is not always desirable to do so.

    1) There is no such thing as a free lunch

    New features that bring only benefit and have no drawback exist only in people’s imagination

    Desirable aspects of a system are contradictory. Passengers want the airport to be safer, so you increase bag checks; they want departure to be swift and easy, so you decrease the bag checks. Each one of these appears a good idea on its own.

    One recurring issue is that it would be nice to give users more flexibility in formatting their comments: pictures, links, emojies, colours, fonts…etc. But we also want to give the site a consistent and pleasing look-and-feel. This involves limiting users adding arbitrary pictures, links, emojies, colours, fonts. We can’t have it both ways. And the more flexibility we give genuine and respectful users the more opportunity we give to opportunists, spammers and fraudsters to abuse it.

    2) A new feature is like an invasive species.

    The new feature may achieve the positive thing you intended, but it may also do some negative things that you did not foresee. Sometimes these are not easily foreseeable, but more often are overlooked or trivialized in the zeal to get the “good” feature implemented. The human brain’s natural conformation bias makes it much easier to see things as supporting one’s idea than as undermining it

    Like an invasive species, once introduced a new feature can be hard to get rid of. Often the problems do not manifest themselves immediately by which time other parts of the site have started to rely on it, archived blogs may become unreadable without it, once you have provided a service people do not take kindly to it being removed again.

    Remember that computer programs are not human. Computers have no personal values and are immune to common sense, good intentions, community feeling, political sensitivity etc. It makes no difference how well intentioned or mis-understood your idea was, the system will continue to ruthlessly enact it in a mindless manner, forever.

    3) Less is more

    More features and more information have to be a good thing, right?

    Every new feature makes the site bigger. The larger something is the less likely people are to read it.
    Big sites have big menus and sub-menus with dozens of items. More features make the site less easy to use, not more so.
    The use of desktop computers is dwindling. Mobile phones are here to stay. The bigger the site the harder to show it on a phone. Each new feature has to be tested twice, once for the big screen and once for the small screen.
    Big intimidating sites discourage newcomers. Regular users may love having more features, but nervous newcomers may go somewhere else.

    If there is a simple and concise way to achieve most of what we want then this is preferable to a more complex approach that achieves 100% of what we want.

    But I am a programming genuis! I can write this really difficult stuff for you!

    Thank you for your offer, but it will have to be maintained by more ordinary folk in their spare time. Simple is better.

    4) A new feature is not just for Christmas

    The person who wanted the new dog is often not the person who ends up having to look after it
    Work does not stop once the new feature has been added, it goes on for ever.
    All features become part of the ongoing testing and maintenance. A site twice as big means twice as much work.

    5) The straw that breaks the camel’s back

    But it is only a tiny addition! You will not even notice it!

    If this were true I could add straws one at a time to my handbag and carry a whole haystack in there.
    Big sprawling sites are made by adding small features one at a time. One can’t look back and pinpoint one feature and say “that’s the one that broke it”. Every one of them seemed to be a good idea at the time.

    6) Twitter, Facebook, Google does this, why can’t we?

    Twitter, Facebook, Google can afford to pay for services and have paid employees administering their sites
    Fifteensquared is mostly maintained by one volunteer, in his spare time
    Children get more pocket money than fifteensuared spends on maintaining this site

    7) Not doing something also takes effort

    New feature requests are welcome, but not implementing them also involves work
    Researching whether a feature is viable is still work for the administrator
    Explaining (over and over again!) why a feature wasn’t implemented is still work for the administrator
    There are many helpful comments that contribute to the new feature discussion, but there is still only one administrator to reply to them all
    And remember that because users are distributed around the world, the discussion can go on 24 hours per day

    And sometimes it just takes time for things to happen. Just because a feature has not been implemented now it does not mean that it will never happen.

    Thanks for taking the time to read this, and well done anyone actually made it to the end!

  48. PeeDee, very interesting reading your wise and carefully prepared, well-presented thoughts. (I did read it all to the end!).

    [I think it’s usually written ‘tl;dr’, abbreviating ‘too long; didn’t read’. Often this acronym is now used to preface a very short summary of the content of a full exposition, thought to be longer than some might have the time or patience for. It can come before or after the main piece, as I recall from my limited familiarity..

    It’s actually all explained in Merriam-Webster, including an example involving cryptic crosswords! (Not sure if it’s in any of the British dictionaries; that’s just the one that came up when I googled.)]

  49. Hi Tony – quite right about Miriam Webster and TL;DR, thanks for that. I like to use TLDR; myself because:

    1) I’m an ancient computer programmer who has been adding semicolons to the end of everything all my life. In C, C++, Java, Javascript, C# and other languages a semicolon is what you terminate a statement with. It pleases me to have a semicolon at the end, it makes me feel at home.

    2) I’m an ancient web developer who has been typing > (displays as the > symbol) & (an ampersand)   (a non-breaking white space) for so long that I can’t remember it ever being otherwise

    It pleases me immensely that there might be a whimsical character &tldr; that would display as “too long didn’t read”. One has to drop the ampersand to make it readable for non-web savvy people.

    TLDR; might not be in the dictionary, but I see a dictionary as a catalogue of the English language, not a prescriptive definition. The real-life English language is a living being, constantly changing, and gets used in all sorts of colourful ways that are not recorded the dictionary. I like to write English the living language, not English the dictionary. The important thing for me is not whether TDLR; is in/not in the dictionary, but that you immediately understood what I mean.

    PS – I’m actually writing as PeeDee here not Admin. I accidentally logged in with the wrong account. And if this goes on any further we should move to the General discussion page 🙂

  50. Peedee (as ‘Admin@49),

    “I like to write English the living language”

    Praps wat yu min iz, u lik tu maik stuf up?

    In line with current linguistic thinking, dictionaries describe, not prescribe, as you rightly suggest. However, what they try and describe is what most, or at least a significant number of people use. I think you’ve got a long wait before such a number of people joins you in writing “TLDR;”, not only because most people are not c-programmers or whatever, but also because it stands for ‘too long; didn’t read”, where the semi-colon has its usual function as a punctuation mark in English, not as a conventional symbol demarking the end of a line of computer code. I spent quite a few years writing BASIC commercially, btw, but I feel no urge to incrementally start each sentence of a piece of prose with numbers.

    You can test your power as an influencer by continuing to use your novel form of the sematic unit to see if it catches on, but given that a lot of English speakers wouldn’t know how to use a semi-colon in English punctuation anyway, I’d put my money on ‘tldr’ (no caps, no symbols) as the future on which common practice will converge, to the point where it becomes the headword in the dictionaries that have an entry for this usage. Only time will tell, though.

    Tl;dr: It’s definitely ‘tl;dr’ or ‘tldr’ (or either in caps) and definitely not ‘TLDR;’, whether in lower or upper case. (See what I did there?)

  51. Hi Tony, but despite all that I still think I can write how I like! You can write you like too. I don’t really care about influencing anyone. It’s not an act of rebellion. I just like writing that way!

    Update: I have removed TLDR from the New Features explanation, it distracts from the article more than it than enhances it. When Geoff gets back I will ask him to move all this TLDR discussion to the General Discussion page. It is interesting, but not really relevant to site feedback and I don’t want to clutter things up any more than I have done already.

  52. I’m glad to have been introduced to ‘jorum’, though I share doubts about its readiness for glossary status yet, and in upper case it looks misleadingly like an acronym. More of us ought perhaps to have been familiar with it anyway, given that OED includes a use in Oliver Twist. Btw, whilst Eileen did the type-assignment, I think it was Mariankaefer who did the explicit recoining: https://www.fifteensquared.net/2015/07/25/guardian-prize-26627-puck/#comment-282533 .

  53. Fein buy mi, Peedee, although earlier you were saying you prefer to avoid using terms the reader might not be familiar with, like TILT & co.

    Also, you’ll never be in a position to criticise a weak definition in a clue hereafter, since, by the same token, the setter is free to use the language as they see fit, irrespective (or even, as huge numbers now write — and I don’t think I’m over-exaggerating here — irregardless) of how solvers use it and expect it to be used..

  54. Tony @50. “(See what I did there?)” No, it was too long so I didn’t read it. 😉

  55. If you do a search on this site, are the comments searched too, or just the bloggers bit?
    Also, in FAQ it says at the bottom to email questions to the “admin address above”. I expect I’m being dim, but I couldn’t see one.

  56. Crossbar @55. The admin email address is in the FAQ “Can you link to my site/blog”.

    In my experience the search facility gives results from the blog only.

  57. Thanks sheffield hatter @56 That’s what I thought about the search. I was trying to find something I’d commented on a while ago, with no success.

    I obviously didn’t read the FAQs very thoroughly. I did a quick eye-scan for anything with the @ sign, and then did a “find in page” for it, and of course it wasn’t written in that format. Hey ho.

  58. Rev Marjorie@29, Peedee@35, I have just noticed the the site FAQ includes the meaning of a number of common acronyms and jargon used in comments under the heading What does this abbreviation mean?.

    The FAQ can be reached via the menu accessed via the ‘hamburger’ at top left of every page.

  59. Crossbar@55, 57, I think your experience shows that it might be a good idea to lead the FAQs with the question ‘How can I contact the administration at fifteensquared?’ (with, perhaps, instructions to use this Site Feedback page first, if appropriate). One to put on the to-do list after any more urgent items?

  62. shikasta @60
    I’ve updated the link but so far it hasn’t taken effect for me. I’m new to this admin lark, so I don’t know how long these changes take to filter through.

    Let me know how you get on.

  63. Kenmac, I don’t know the exact setup of 15², but usually, when you apply an update to a WordPress page (having edited the content and clicked on ‘Update’), it is effective immediately. I have just checked under the Links tab and you still have Times for the Times listed and linked to that blog.

  64. PeeDee @47 – nice manifesto 🙂

    I’m not sure whether it was a slip of the finger but you can already enter arbitrary links and emojis on this website. Perhaps the backend removes some links after checking them? As for emojis, here are (I hope) some arbitrary emojis: 🥁 🌞 🌷 🐶

    You may have seen my discussion with Gaufrid (best wishes to him) on emojis above. That was a request to fix entering emojis in the normal way rather than have users entering HTML codes. WordPress lets you do this out of the box. However, a bug has been introduced on this website which prevents users entering emojis in the way they would in, say, WhatsApp.

    Gaufrid did start diagnosing the issue by checking the database character set (it was correct). However, I think I might have subsequently put him off by giving the impression that the theme would have to be permanently changed (it doesn’t). He probably just needed to temporarily try another theme and/or find the plugin that was the culprit.

  65. Kenmac

    As Tony C said, the link still goes to the old livejournal site – it’s not a big deal, at least for the moment, since the old blog is still there with a message with a link to the new site clearly given. Best wishes to Gaufrid.

  66. @63 & @65
    Yeah! The update appears to have taken effect as far as the admin panels are concerned. It’s jut not propagating through to the actual site.

    I’m sure I must be missing something simple!

  67. pdp11 @47

    Yes, the WordPress back end does change the contents of what is written in a comment, so what you get displayed is not exactly the same as what was typed into the comment box.

    When I was helping Gaufrid move to the new WordPress theme a couple of years ago I spent a couple of weeks looking at how we could provide a better comment editor (emojis being just one consideration). In the end I gave up, as I could not find a way to achieve the various features we wanted using the current wordpress version, the theme and the well-supported plugins.

    I did find a few ways to get various sexy features working by hacking bits of the theme and making some changes to the wordpress code, but this is not the way we want to go. The main goal is to be able to use wordpress and its themes and plugins “out of the box” wherever we can.

    There are some style issues with arbitrary emojis too. A really colourful site with lots of emojis is not necessarily look that Gaufrid is after. Making emojis easier to use is not necessarily seen as an improvement,

  68. Lemming@52, thanks for pointing out that it was Mariankaefer who explicitly first used JORUM to mean a clue of that type, and pinpointing exactly where that happened. (I missed your comment at the time.) It must be said, Eileen has certainly embraced the usage.

    I suppose, in recognition, I should amend my clue to:

    Initially jug of drink, but per Mariankaefer, a clue like this? (5)

  70. Thanks for that. We are also running our site on WordPress, but we hacked it up quite a bit to make it look like the old Live Journal experience.
    So far, everything is good, but running your own web site is a lot of work compared to having a community group on a social media site.

  71. No Cyclops blog today ? I am not complaining , I know how much the bloggers do for us all. Is there a change of date for some reason or a technical glitch ??

  73. As I have mentioned on this site before, I take a feed from 15² posts in which I have an interest, using Feedly (website on pc, app on the phone).

    For some reason I find hard to fathom, just the other day, out of the blue, I received notice of this comment by Postmark, dated 9 February, 2022, which wasn’t even the most recent comment on that post. Can anyone explain?

  76. I never send it off and I will check next time in the magazine but I believe it is email entries only ?? Surely emails are not affected by Bank Holidays ?

  77. Roz, no, I think people (including our esteemed bloggers, I believe) have been sending in the inked grid since before emails were really much of a thing and continue to do so. The thing is, even emails need someone to open them and check the solutions.

  78. … although perhaps due to Covid they have, like the Graun, not been taking physical entries for a while? The point about opening and checking stands.

  79. I gave up sending in entries years ago.
    The Eye only accept email entries and that has been the case for a long time.
    No-one opens all the email entries – they simply pick from the bunch and then check the solve is correct.
    That’s what happens to the postal entries too – only the selected one was opened and checked.
    In fact this is probably fairer than the previous system (which was mentioned by Cyclops himself in the dim and distant past) where the pick was made from either the postal entries or the entries, alternating each time. He said it seemed fair because there were roughly the same number of entries in each bucket. I suspect a large number of people heard about that method, and sent in both.
    This came on top of hearing of more than one person who had won the £100 more than once.
    Plus my experience of the Independent Saturday crossword prize prizes – but that’s another story
    My reaction was, after religiously sending in attempts for decades and getting nothing, to stop sending entries.

  80. Fifteensquared has recently updated and become very difficult to access and to navigate.

    Is it possible to continue using the previous, user-friendly version?

  81. The Cloudflare Capcha is not so ornery today,
    but it’s not obvious how to navigate from the top page to the Guardian Quiptics.

    Is there a guide to the new site?

  82. Chris@81, at the very bottom of every page on 15², including this one, is a list of links to recent posts. The most recent Quiptic listed there as I write is Hectence 1,178. I’m not sure if there’s a way to select a list of all posts belonging to a particular category, but I suspect there might be. As for a “guide to the new site”, I’m not sure what you mean by “new site”, but the nearest thing to a guide I’m aware of is the FAQ, accessible from the ‘hamburger’ menu at top left. Hope this helps.

  87. Tony Collman@82 – on a mobile, scroll to the bottom and select “Categories” drop down. On a desktop site, it’s down the right hand margin.

  88. Sorry to bother you, kenmac, but we don’t have a Guardian blog yet today. There are 2 or 3 I need to check!

  90. I wish, whoever codes this site, that they would move the irritating “up arrow” icon which obscures the clues and solutions.

    Also, it would be really a wonderful gift, if the solvers adopted a standard formatting of their text.
    It appears to me, currently, that there is little or no editing of their entries to again, make it more understandable to readers of this site.
    Just two simple changes to improve the site 🙂

  91. James Williams @90. I know nothing about the coding of this site, but the “up arrow” appears (both on my phone and on my PC) in the far RH bottom corner, so the clues and commentary are reavealed as I scroll. It may help the people who do know about the coding if you could say what browser you are using, and what hardware, because that arrow really shouldn’t be in the way.

    I think the variation between bloggers is one of the charms of this site. If they all blogged the crosswords in exactly the same way, there would be no need for them to have their own identities; they could just be “a blogger”. And the “editing” of the blog is really done by the people who, like you and of course me, are reading it, so if something isn’t helpful or doesn’t make sense to you, just speak up.

    I am sure the bloggers are each, in their own way, being as helpful as they can be, and when there is something missing or not explained in a way that everyone can understand, the commenters below the line nearly always step in to help. Many people have commented what a helpful and friendly site this is; I’m sorry that you find it not as helpful as you would like.

  92. Hi James @90, thanks for your suggestions. I am one of the people who has coded this site. There are many things we consider when choosing whether or not to include or exclude features from the site.

    Re the “up arrow”: this is a standard feature that comes free with the default setup. It is intended to be a useful feature that provides a quick way to get back to the top of the page (in our case a quick way to see the clues again when you are down in a long list of comments). You find it irritating, some people like it. It would take work to get rid of it and then we just end up making a different set of people unhappy instead. So not an obvious win for the effort involved,

    Re the standard format for all blogs: being able to use ones creativity in writing a personal blog is a good feeling for the blogger involved, it creates a sense of ownership for the writer. Having to write to someone else’s proscribed format feels like being treated an employee, and a lowly one at that. The bloggers here are all volunteers, not unpaid employees. If we take away the creative aspect of writing a blog then we are likely to loose the bloggers too.

  93. Hi kenmac, as I’ve just mentioned in my comment @29 on today’s Philistine blog, that blog has not appeared on the Guardian page of 15². There might be other people who haven’t found it yet. Thanks.

  94. It would be useful to be able to post comments to placeholders. For example so far today’s cryptic is not visible on the app or the website, but Brigster commenting on yesterday’s Paul on the website has included a link to the pdf for today’s Brendan. I’ve put this in the General Discussion and referenced it in yesterday’s posts, but it should really be a comment on today’s placeholder by scchua.

  95. Crossbar,

    I understand the frustration but I imagine the reason it’s done like that is so that it doesn’t disintegrate into a vehicle for “meaningless” discussion that is ultimately going to be binned.

    Anyway, I’ve replied with a link to today’s PDF

  98. The Saturday FT puzzle ( ex prize ) now has the solutions published one week later in the paper.
    Would it be sensible to shift the blog to the following Saturday now ?
    Subject to Pete’s approval of course .

  100. Hi Kenmac

    It looks like the site has been hacked. A message came up “Now you can buy me a cup of coffee”, and then an icon of a mug of coffee appeared in the bottom LH corner. It appears to be a link, but I haven’t risked clicking on it.

    Regards – thanks for all your work

    Chris Evans (muffin)
    I’ve tried to Email you, but the address you gave a few weeks ago bounced

  103. Hi. I came on to ask about the “buymeacoffee” link. I see it is a fundraising thing. Is it genuine? We love fifteensquared and would support if it was genuine.

  104. Based on feedback, I’ve abandoned the “Buy Me a Coffee” widget at the bottom right of the screen and instead I’ve gone for a permanent link at the top left.

    Furthermore, I’ve changed the text to “Site Funding“.

    Clearly this site requires funding but I feel that any donations should be done on a purely voluntary basis. I don’t want anyone to feel pressurised into donating.

  106. “I’ve gone for a permanent link at the top left.”

    Looks like you missed. It’s now directly beneath the spam reduction notice, below. You have successfully re-labelled it “Site Funding”, however.

  107. kenmac @104, Tony @106 – on a responsive website platform such as this, the location of specific elements will change according to the browsing device. On my laptop the Site Funding link is indeed top left, on my phone it is down towards the bottom of the page. Similarly, when it was a floating widget it was on the bottom right of my laptop window and bottom left on my phone.

    By the way, I think the site funding option is a wonderful idea. Maybe most people don’t think about this, but websites stay running not purely through the generous efforts of volunteers but down to some regular payments of actual money. I’m not sure how the site was funded previously but it has crossed my mind that someone, somewhere was putting their hand in their pocket for us all. I’m personally happy to chip in when the virtual tin is rattled.

  109. Looking into it, I find that to support the site, I have to create an account with ‘Buy Me a Coffee’ and accept:

    “Don’t abuse other users’ personal information. When you use Buy Me a Coffee — and especially if you create a successful page — you may receive information about other users, including things like their names, email addresses, and postal addresses. This information is provided for the purpose of participating in Buy Me a Coffee: don’t use it for other purposes, and don’t abuse it.”

    I don’t wish to make the personal information mentioned available, even to people who have been politely asked not to abuse it.

    Is there another way to support the site. What about PayPal to Ken’s account?

    Also, if donations are being collected, I think there should be an accounting published periodically.

  110. Tony, I think those requirements are for setting up an account for yourself to receive donations. Making a payment to kenmac requires nothing but card details.

  113. The format of the blogs seems to have changed. Posts are now not numbered. The posters ‘name’ is followed by the date and time, followed by a box containing the post. The problem is that the convention of referring to a previous post by post number now makes little sense unless you want to scroll up to the first post and manually count them.
    This is on a laptop using firefox, but I’ve read of the same thing happening on iPhone and android.

  114. Tim C.

    Thanks for letting me know. There have been a couple of updates recently and I wonder if one of them is responsible. I will look into it later as a matter of urgency.

  115. Ken, if it’s any help the change happened between about 8 & 11 yesterday evening, if an update was run around that time.

  116. I have tried to contribute money to the site a couple of times. The process objects to my email address – paul (at) pdaniel (dot) co (dot) uk

  117. Might be a good idea to remove visible email addresses – on previous occasions people have found themselves deluged with spam 🙁

Comments are closed.