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I have mixed feelings about it, Orson.
In general I prefer to be unconditional with assistance. It's difficult to know the circumstances of the other person at a distance. And judgements can be very wrong.
Perhaps I could have worded my comments re MIT hunt in a friendlier manner, but I think it's right not to send the whole puzzle (though what other regulars do is their choice).

You might think that's a bit rich coming from me, when over the course of some weeks I probably give most of the answers to some puzzles. But usually that is in response to specific requests. And it's clear that the people asking for assistance have been considerably engaged in the solving process.

The number of pages this week enticed me to read through the posts. I agree sending a completed grid (whether using initiative or not) is wrong. However by the time plasmabot1 made his request (quite honestly) half the clues had been answered/strongly hinted at. I wonder if working as a small group they had queried 3 anwers each (presuming new names did not arouse suspicion) they could have all but a completed grid. The contributers on this site, myself included, tend to lean towards helpfulness...

My interest in the MIT Mystery Hunt was sufficiently piqued to watch some of the wrap-up session which was live streamed on YouTube yesterday (yes, quiet afternoon in the office...).

No specific mention of this puzzle but it appears 12 teams completed the entire challenge, which I assume means they must have got the final answer.

We'll probably never know whether that was by solving the puzzle or someone giving them the vital word - but if it was the former, then I'm very impressed.

Interesting orient fan, thanks.

I thought this was great, again, although some reservations about the grid, double unches and all. The last three letters in the top left corner took me some considerable time.

I thought the MIT involvement was a positive. May introduce some new fans to the listener, and I agree when you’ve got 100s of puzzles to solve in a short space of time, all means are fair. And fair play to the person chancing their arm asking for a full solution on the other site! They were seriously unimpressed on there.

Sorry for banging on about this, but...

"As it is we have to solve 40 sets of 20+ problems each..." was part of the high school students's request for the completed solution. Only belatedly did I realise that there is an inherent contradiction.

The student was instructed to "solve", but instead he thought he'd just ask for the answer. So he is a 'FAIL' because he hasn't read the instructions properly...

Hi meursault. Chambers def 3

Solve: to find an answer to.

Seems to me that’s what they were trying to do! As I say I think it’s good to shake things up a bit every now and again, but agree entirely with your general point - under normal circumstances there’s no value to anyone in giving someone a whole (or a substantial part of a) solution.

So if a student takes a phone into an exam without being discovered and answers the paper and gets a degree, then that is something to be applauded, because he's 'solved' the tripos. And because he's been a clever little brat and defrauded the system and got away with it...

There's further enlightening discussion on the other site, and a link to a message board which reveals more background. This is the gist:

Several of the members of the team are regular solvers of the Listener crossword. One of the team has previously set crosswords for the Listener and approached the editor in late spring 2017 to enquire about the possibility of running a thematic crossword for Hunt. They very graciously held a week open for us. We then had to devise a crossword which met the editors' stringent quality criteria, but would also pass our QC process (including testsolving). And there were also very tight timescales to meet.