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

Comments posted before 24/8/17 can be found here.

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

100 comments on “Site Feedback”

  1. A friend and I regularly visit the site to help us with the weekly Guardian quiptics (we are still learning the art) and have found it frustrating that one cannot see the answer explained for one clue alone. Instead, it is inevitable that we catch sight of another clue and spoil part of the fun! We wonder whether a system similar to the one used the website reddit (see link) could be introduced so that visitors can view each explanation one at a time?

    Regards,
    Tom

  2. Hi Tom
    I’ve had a look at your link and it would appear that it is indicating a means, on the reddit site, of avoiding a spoiler by making text only visible when hovering over a substitute word or phrase. I can think of a way that this could be done here but it would involve far more work for the bloggers, who spend enough of their free time preparing a post as it is.

    Also, it would mean that anyone who wishes to see all of the solutions and parsings would have to hover over each clue in turn which would be rather time consuming. I would imagine that users of mobile devices could also have difficulties with concealed text.

    If you only wish to see a single solution, the easiest way is probably to access the Quiptic on the Guardian website then select the clue and use the ‘reveal this’ option.

  3. Hi, I’m new to this website which I found accidentally! I’m loving it but am wondering if there is somewhere I can find an explanation for some of the abbreviations/terminology used. Specifically: LOI, FOI (last ? in, 1st ? in)? BIFD, &lit, surface.
    Many thanks,
    Sheila

  4. Hi Sheila
    Welcome to 15². The abbreviations:
    L/FIO – last/first one in
    BIFD – bunged in from definition
    &lit – a clue where the whole clue provides both the wordplay and the definition (it’s short for ‘and literally’), instead of the two components being separate.
    surface – how well a clue reads in its non-cryptic sense. Is it grammatically correct? Does it make sense. Does it almost tell a story? Is it a sentence that someone might write?

    You haven’t asked about Nina but that is explained on the FAQ page. If there is anything else you are unsure about please don’t hesitate to ask.

  6. Apparently 8-4 does not = 4 as far as the CAPTCHA is concerned so my post has not been accepted. What’s going on?

  7. Peter
    In my long experience, every aspect of IT has a glitch from time to time and the Captcha plugin is no exception. From time to time it does not recognise a valid entry for some unknown reason (that may not even be due to the plugin itself). In view of the amount of spam that the Captcha has prevented, I am reluctant to dispense with it. There are alternative plugins available but these usually involve having to try and read distorted letters, or select multiple matching images, which is why I went for the arithmetic option.

    If the problem occurs again, I suggest using the circular arrows option to change the presented sum.

  8. Gaufrid
    Thanks for the reply. I managed to get in yesterday by rewriting the post and getting a different sum which worked fine. The same problem occurred today and this time I solved it using the method you suggest.
    I wasn’t suggesting that the CAPTCHA be discontinued. I’m sure it performs a useful service.
    Thanks again.

  12. chas
    A blog of this puzzle has not yet been published. I have emailed the scheduled blogger and a post should appear later in the day.

  14. Hi Gaufrid,

    The cryptic in the weekend i is usually an old Phi puzzle from about 4.5 years ago however I can’t seem to find the blog for today’s. The odd thing is that if I Google one of the clues (“Peat bog pushing out core of other bog”) then it shows a link to Independent puzzle 8314 on 7th June 2013, however if I click on the link it gives me “Error 404 – Not Found” and if I search the site for 8314 or 8,314, or look via the calendar, then nothing shows up. Any ideas what’s going on, please?

    Many thanks,

    Q

  15. Hi Querulous
    The Saturday i cryptic is a prize puzzle and it would be unfair if the full solution is available to those who know of Fifteensquared’s existence or find the site via a search engine. I have therefore been asked to make the original Indy blog unavailable whilst the i puzzle is ‘live’. I will be reinstating the blog on the closing date for entries.

  16. I post as “kevin” (note no capital). I suppose that means I try to keep a low profile. However I notice that there is someone who posts as “Kevin”. Is this a suitably different username? I’m not entirely sure who registered first and I ask the moderators of this forum about that. But I think the one who registered later should change there name to avoid confusipion, If I am the one who registered later, I can choose a new name

    I welcome a post from “Kevin” who knows how to use capitals.

  17. kevin
    A quick search through the comments indicates that there are at least four people with the name Kevin who have posted comments here but only two who use only their forename.

    The only people who need to register/login, and hence need a unique ID, are those who write the posts. Anyone can add a comment without the need to register with the site (this can be changed but I would prefer to keep the site ‘open’). This does mean that two or more people can be using the same name which is why I suggest a pseudonym or some other means of obtaining a unique identity (eg including a surname or the initial letter of it).

  18. Gaufrid

    I have just had some difficulty submitting a comment to my blog of this Monday’s Rufus. I note that a couple of people have had difficulty recently with comments inexplicably consigned to spam. Is that what happened here? There is an added wrinkle in this case: my first effort was rejected because the captcha refused to believe that seven fives are thirty-five. When I refreshed to get a new captcha, the message disappeared without trace. I have reposted.

  19. PeterO
    Yes, your original comment did get intercepted by the spam filter, but I cannot see why. And also yes, the Captcha plugin does occasionally have a gremlin, again for a reason unknown to me. If this problem becomes persistent I will look for another Captcha plugin. I chose the arithmetic one because I don’t like the distorted text that you have to copy or where you have to select from a series of pictures.

  20. Hi Gaufrid
    The last couple of days I’ve found the site much slower to respond than it used to be, and very much slower than other sites I visit. It can take in excess of 10 seconds for something to happen after a click. Do you know about this, and if other users have experienced this problem?

  22. Hi muffin
    Yes, I am aware of the long page loading times which started on Monday and were particularly bad late yesterday evening. The delays are even worse behind the scenes in the WordPress Dashboard (where I spend a lot of time) and, as the problem now appears to be ongoing, I will shortly be contacting the hosting company to try to ascertain the cause and to get the problem resolved.

  25. Gaufrid, a friend used to use a captcha on his blog which asked you to copy a disguised word. Sometimes the captcha word would be uncannily apt for the post, which was a bonus. Seems appropriate for a word-based blog, too (though there could be associated problems I’m not aware of).

  26. Tony
    I, and others, abhor the distorted word Captchas which often cannot be read easily, and I’m not keen on the ones that require you to select from a series of pictures, which is why I chose the arithmetic one. It generates less eyestrain for those of us who are getting on in years.

  27. Hmm.. that last comment went up, but was still in the comment box when I came back to the page. Another glitch? (Android 4.3 on Samsung)

  28. Gaufrid,

    (Posted last before seeing yours)

    Ah! I sympathise, though being short-sighted means close up seeing is easy for me, while it’s the ears that are failing with age — please don’t introduce an audio capture, whatecer you do!)

  30. Gaufrid

    I just wanted to alert you that I have changed the email address that I wish you to have on record against my name Alan B on the forum.

    I first used the new address in post 87 on the Guardian Rufus puzzle on 18/12/2017.  This post also has it.

    Alan B

     

  31. Gaufrid

    It’s me again, but on a different matter.

    I have just typed a comment on the Guardian Brummie thread today, but on posting it I got an ‘incorrect Captcha’ message and then found that my message had been wiped out.  Perhaps this is a known problem with the new comment editor.  I might for the time being revert to my previous practice of typing in Notepad and then pasting my comment into the form.

    My Captcha value was actually correct, by the way, and the fact that it was rejected doesn’t bother me because I can type in another one, but deletion of my message is something else!

     

  32. Alan B

    That is odd. One of the things I specifically checked when testing the new comment editor in my sandbox, prior to installing it on the live site, was the behaviour after an incorrect Captcha entry. Hitting the browser back button returned me to the post and my test comment was still there. I’ve just tried again on the live site with the same result.

    There has been the occasional comment that a correct Captcha entry has not been recognised but I don’t remember anyone saying that their comment had been lost when they returned to the post after receiving the false error notification. I can only assume that the Captcha plugin behaves differently when it decides that a correct Captcha entry is incorrect than it does when there is a genuine error.

    Unfortunately this is not something I can easily replicate, short of posting hundreds of comments in the sandbox until one of them is falsely identified as having an incorrect Captcha entry, so if/when it happens to you again please make a note of the exact wording on the error notification page, and the page URL, and let me know what they are. I can then compare them with the genuine error notification page to see if there is any variance.

  33. Gaufrid

    I’ve just tried to send you a message with a deliberately incorrect Captcha, and the same thing happened.  It has never happened before.

    I have just refreshed this page and find again that my comment disappeared.  This also never happened before.

    I don’t know enough to know where the problem lies – at your end or mine.  I’m inclined to suspect Firefox, although I use the up-to-date version (57.0.2) for my PC.

    Thanks anyway for your assistance and your response.

     

  34. Gaufrid @32, me @33

    I have checked the relevant option settings in my browser, and they seem to be as they should be, and I have also searched for a common problem of that nature, but without success.  I still don’t exonerate Firefox, though!

    I don’t expect you to go to any lengths to try and fix this.  I may discover a possible cause later, and from your side I would only expect any further action if other contributors report similar difficulties to mine.

     

  35. Alan B

    Your latest comment (edit @33) has prompted me to delve further. The lost comment text depends on which browser is being used. The comment text is retained in IE11 and Chrome but lost in Edge and Firefox.

    Everything in the comment editor will always be lost if the page is refreshed, no matter which browser. If I want to refresh the page to see if any new comments have arrived since I started typing my comment I simply select all, copy or cut and then paste when the page has reloaded.

  36. Gaufrid @35

    Thank you for that further information, which I found of great interest.  I use Chrome on my Android tablet and Firefox on my Windows laptop.  It seems all is explained now.

    Here comes another Captcha, which I hope I get right.

     

  38. Tony @37

    Thanks for the feedback. I cannot explain why you received those error messages (it could be due to the software updates that have been installed recently if you loaded the page a while ago) but so long as you now have access again all is well.

  39. Cheers, Gaufrid. I loaded the page only a couple of days ago, so not connected, I think. More likely the Firefox, which isn’t that stable on my phone. There was no problem accessing the page anyway.

    Didn’t notice any difference when commenting on Paul’s Prize, btw, so seamless as far as I’m concerned. Still miss the preview, though (I know, I know).

    Have a good Christmas.
    Tony

  40. I don’t need spectacles in order to read but the lettering on this site is so small it becomes a strain after a while.  I don’t know of any other website which has such small letters. May I humbly suggest this website has a little makeover for 2018 and increases the font size by one or two points? Apart from that niggle, long may this excellent website continue!

    (I’m not the same Tony as in other messages here!)

  41. Tony @40

    This is the first time in 11 years that someone has complained about the font size used on this site. As jetdoc has suggested in the IQ Review post, if you are using a pc or laptop, hold down the Ctrl key and press the + key (you can do this more than once until you get a font size that you find acceptable). You can return to where you were when you started by holding down the CTRL key and pressing the – key (the same number of times that you pressed the + key).

    Alternatively, open your browser’s Tools menu and set the zoom level to, say, 125% (or whatever gives you the font size that you would prefer).

  42. Hello,
    I’m new to this site. It’s so useful and always fun to wonder and chuckle at the clues we couldn’t get yesterday! So thank you for all the hard work.
    Regards the i puzzle 2162 by Morph:
    22a: If the directions L and R are added we get LIPS OF ACTOR = ‘thespian speaking parts’.
    Hope this helps
    Rob ?

  43. Gaufrid @38. I am also getting these messages occasionally. I can’t explain exactly when it happens yet, but if I can the it down I’ll let you know when it happens. It doesn’t actually cause a problem because I can see all pages after dismissing the messages.

  44. Charles @43

    Thanks for the feedback. What browser were you using when you received the error messages? Tony thinks it might be a Firefox issue, I’ve certainly never experienced this problem using IE11 or Chrome.

  47. Gaufrid @44

    I’m still getting them all the time. It’s usually (always?) when I re-open a tab on Firefox when I’ve come back to the browser from another app. They come in twos: the first says “403 Forbidden” and the second something about not having permission to add content, I think. They don’t interfere with my reading or commenting on the blogs. I don’t think I have to dismiss them; they just flash up on the screen then disappear (which makes it hard to document them in detail).

  48. lurkio
    “The loss of the “Preview” facility doesn’t help either. Surely this is a “built-in” in your package Gaufrid? (I know you mentioned some problem about this when you changed over. Perhaps I could help with some research if you’ve no time as I do have some experience in this area)”

    Comment preview is not a ‘built-in’ feature of WordPress, it was provided by a third-party plugin. The plugin was very old and no longer supported so its coding did not comply with current standards, the result being many error messages in the log files.

    Also, it no longer worked correctly. It was supposed to put all of the comment through the WordPress filters and then display it as it would appear when posted on the site. However, in reality it displayed caracters that were supsequently rendered as a ? when the comment was posted.

    I spent a lot of time trying to find a more recent, and still supported, plugin but to no avail so I decided that the only sensible option was to install a WYSIWYG comment editor, which should provide a similar result to the former comment preview display (only more reliable).

  49. Just to test non-Roman characters: Greek and Russian alphabets:

    ?????????????????????????

    ????????????????????????????????

     

  51. Ok Gaufrid. Obviously my offer of help isn’t necessary.

    I actually hadn’t noticed just how WYSIWYG the comment editor and having played with it I promise not to make any more typos in future.

    I must pay more attention! 🙂

  52. Gaufrid @48. I can reproduce this problem. It occurs in my Android phone and tablet. To reproduce it I leave a page open in the browser for maybe a day or two, without visiting it again. Then when I open that tab again I get the 403 error. It’s not causing a problem, just an annoyance. The last time this happened was at about 6:45 UK time this morning. If there is anything I can do to help resolve it let me know.

  53. I normally comment on 225 using my phone, so I have to handwrite the HTML. I’ve just used a laptop to comment on Dutch’s latest (Indy 9775), and, from force of habit, used my own HTML to italicize instead of the ‘I’ button, but it just came out as normal script. Is that because I’m on the desktop version, or is there something else?

  54. Tony @53

    Since the introduction of the WYSIWYG comment editor for the desktop view a couple of months ago, any formatting needs to be done by selecting the relevant text and then clicking on the appropriate button.

    The comment editor for the mobile view remains unchanged and any required formatting is done by using HTML tags.

  57. Hi muffin

    Thanks for the heads-up. I would have spotted it because I check all new comments at least once a hour, but the email you generated meant that I was able to delete the spam a little more quickly than might otherwise have been the case.

  58. Three times this year I have been sent to the corner by the Captchameister and told to try harder.  All three times I am absolutely certain my answers were correct, but of course I can’t prove it because the page has disappeared by the time I see the rejection message.

    I vaguely recall another contributor reporting the same thing.  Is there an explanation?

  59. Alan B @58

    There have been other reports of a similar nature so your vague recollection is correct. Unfortunately I have been unable to determine the cause of these occasional glitches and so have not been able eradicate them. There is an alternative Captcha plugin that I could switch to, but there is no guarantee that this one would be any more reliable (most/all software seems to have gremlins from time to time) and the ability to reload the Captcha with a different sum would be lost.

    However, if the current Captcha plugin is proving to be too problematic then I will make the swap.

  60. Gaufrid @59

    Thanks for your prompt reply.  Sorry this acknowledgement is not as prompt.

    I’m not pushing for a change to the Captcha software.  My habit now is to compose a comment in Windows Notepad and then paste it into the web form.  The error happened (of course) when I had only a short comment to write and I typed it into the form.  As I use Firefox as my preferred browser, I need to keep to my habit as just described.

    I am astonished that the Captcha can be error-prone.  I can guess how it has been implemented, and I think another method should have been used!

  61. Hello,

    I’ve been looking for a solution to Cryptic crossword No 27373 set by Arachne (Guardian) but there doesn’t appear to be one, or at the very last I can’t find it.  Are you able to help by providing the solution please?

  63. Hi Gaufrid

    Is there a problem with tiday’s Guardian blog (Brendan, March 26th)?

    I ask because there are a couple that I can’t parse!

  64. Please put me out of my misery. Has this weekend’s prize FT puzzle by Mudd already been published quite recently?

  67. Thank you for this website. I’m getting better at cryptic crosswords and fifteensquared is contributing to that improvement. Love your motto ?

  68. The ? in my previous post was a smiley from my phone – I should have realised the field doesn’t accept rich text – D’oh! 😉

  69. @Nevera

    I am curious as to how you finally produced your smiley and for a furthrr explanation of your reference to “rich text”. I have sometimes found it impossible to use special characters here.

  70. I think date of publication would ideally be part of the header for every post, especially if it could be used to define searches. Would this be too dufficult to implement? Or is it there anyway, invisible only to me?

  72. Tony @70

    The date is in the header when in desktop view (I have no control over what appears in the mobile view). If you want to access a post published on a specific day, just click on the relevant date in the calendar when in desktop view.

  73. @Tony
    My 1st failed smiley was direct from my phone’s emoticon selection, and showed as a smiley until I posted it. 2nd one was composed using three symbols ; – and ) and turned into a _wink_ smiley when I posted it. By _rich text_ I mean fonts, italics, bold format, etc. in WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) form – i.e. the editor shows you them already formatted

  79. As of yesterday, the site no longer remembers my name and email on iPad. I now need to re-enter these every post. (Not the only one, since Eileen also mentioned this issue.) Is this caused by an iOS update and is there a work around?

  80. Hovis @79

    Thanks for drawing my attention to this issue. There was an automatic WordPress update early yesterday morning and this has caused the problem. Previously, your name and email address were saved in a cookie on your pc/tablet etc and then automatically loaded when you came to comment again.

    Recent legislation regarding privacy requires that you now have to opt in to having this data stored on your machine and WordPress has been updated to reflect this. What I didn’t know until today, after investigating your issue, is that I needed to manually invoke the ‘opt in’ option, which I have now done.

    I would have thought that the default should have been that the ‘opt in’ display was the default, with its removal being done manually if required. This would have prevented the inconvenience. If you opt in the cookie will remain on your machine for a period of one year.

  83. Gaufrid

    i just wanted to report that when posting two comments today, the first on yesterday’s Tramp blog and the second on Wednesday’s Inquisitor, they each took more than one attempt.  The first took three attempts and the second took two attempts.  The failures were the same: an indication that the browser was busy on the Internet followed by a refresh of the page – without my comment and without any error indication.

    This is such a rare occurrence that I thought it worth reporting.  These instances were at two different locations using two different browsers, although that fact is probably irrelevant,

    i’m not requesting or expecting any action – I’m assuming that there was some temporary problem nearer your end of the connection than mine, and whatever it was I’m optimistic it will mend itself soon if it hasn’t already.

  84. Alan B

    Thanks for the feedback. I saw you mention a third attempt and a short while later WhiteKing said one of his comments hadn’t appeared.

    Because it was not working correctly and so causing people aggravation, three months ago I disabled the Captcha plugin and installed an alternative that was supposed to detect spambots and the like and so avoid the need for a Captcha. It works well but appears to have far more false positives than the Akismet spam filter, particularly if the server is running slower than normal.

    When I checked, I could find one of your comments in the plugin’s history log but there is no way of marking it as not-spam and so having it published. There are so many entries in the log every hour that it would be impossible for me to check each one to see if it is a false positive, even if there was a publish option.

    I have therefore stopped the new plugin from checking comments and will rely solely on the Akismet spam filter unless the amount of spam gets too great. Akismet does have the occasional false positive, but not as many as the recently installed plugin seems to have, and at least I can approve a comment if it has intercepted one incorrectly.

    My apologies for the inconvenience this issue has caused.

  85. Gaufrid @84

    I couldn’t ask for a better response – thank you.  It seems you have to tread a fine line between allowing and overruling the automated decisions made by clever but not infinitely clever software.  I don’t envy you!  Thanks again.

  87. What day does Cyclops (Private Eye) get blogged? I’ve only started doing it recently and discovered even more recently that it’s blogged here. The due date for the latest was yesrerday, so I was hoping to see a post for it today.

  88. Tony @87

    The blog will appear early Monday morning. The scheduled day was set before I became involved with the site, and so I don’t know why it was chosen, but perhaps the closing date for entries has been brought forward since then.

     

  90. Keep looking for Inquisitor 1560 because there was one clue I just couldn’t solve. The 2nd in the 3rd quarter if I remember correctly.

  91. NNI @90

    The Inquisitor blogs are published on the closing date for entries. The post for 1560 will therefore be available shortly after midnight tonight.

  92. Unfortunately the blog for last month’s Guardian Genius doesn’t display properly on my phone, with some columns on the rhs off the page, even in landscaoe, and not scrollable.

  93. Tony @92

    Thanks for letting me know. I have had a look at the post and the HTML but have not been able to find any of the usual causes of this problem. I will investigate further.

  94. Good morning 225. I think I am being incredibly dim, but I cannot find out how to sign up to Fifteen Squared. There must be somewhere, as I tried on the Log In button, which requires a password. I have not found out how to give you a password. I am not competent enough to be a blogger, but I would like to be able to comment. Even though I am commenting now! A double shout for the holiday, so help me. Mayday, mayday. Thank you

  95. Mehitabella @94

    There is no need to register or sign in to 15² in order to post a comment. Just scroll down to the bottom of the page, add your preferred username and a valid email address in the appropriate boxes then type and submit your comment, just as you did to post the above.

  97. HoYoku @96

    It is possible for me to reverse the order of comments but only globally and not for specific posts/pages. For blog posts I think it is most logical for the comments to appear with the oldest one first and I know that others prefer this.

  99. muffin @98

    Our aim is to have blogs posted by mid-afternoon. If the scheduled blogger hasn’t turned up by then I will post an analysis of the clues.

  100. Thanks Gaufrid. The site registered a “Duplicate post”, which puzzled me, but scrolling up I found I had said “Thanks Gaufrid” @23!

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