Crossword Help Forum
Forum Rules

Malone, thanks for your help and support, I much appreciate it.

I had forgotten to mention duplicate threads in my reply to Spoffy, I introduced that policy in response to numerus complaints about the first page being occupied by duplicate threads. It came to a head when the first page had just 3 crosswords on it, no other crossword just a chance that Saturday.

If my 'one thread on the first page' policy upset some Forum Users, then so be it. I think is preferred by the majority of our Users.

Keenquizzer, the Rainbow Quiz seems to potter along quite nicely and I won't be interfering unnecessarily.

What I am trying to avoid is shopping lists of questions as soon as a new quiz appears, individual questions are fine.

It's trial and error, we'll see how it all works out.

I am prepared to accept that I may be alone in terms of my views, and I'm not going to argue with the points that have been made - except one.

I cannot let the 'cheating' issue pass without comment. I do not see how asking for help on individual clues in a school competition differs from asking for answers to a Listener puzzle, which is actively encouraged by the provision of a dedicated thread even before anyone asks for help. Not only is this a competition puzzle (as are many others for which help is liberally provided), but each puzzle is one leg of an annual challenge; so strongly do some solvers who complete the puzzles unaided feel about the resultant inequity that time has been spent looking into ways in which the integrity of the competition could be preserved for 'clean' solvers. I am aware of the argument that 'solvers who receive help don't send in their entries', but I know this to be false where the Listener is concerned.

There seems to be no consistency here; would the Listener threads be discontinued if a number of Listener solvers requested their removal?

Spoffy, the school competition was someone looking for all 20 answers in one puzzle!

Pace Spoffy, I think that now the @joebloggs type threads are restricted the site has become more welcoming. There used to be quite a few of them and it made the forum look cliquey and exclusive.

Either entering a competition with answers provided by someone else is cheating or it isn't.

If the reason for the question, as well as the question itself, is to be subjected to a propriety test, then the rules surrounding this need to be made clear, eg no clues from a competition puzzle prior to the closing date, and applied without fear or favour.

Spoffy
I am always willing to help and have actually given answers to the latest (schoolchild) who has been banned under 4 different usernames so far I am told. She has been rude to us in the past and always wants answers quickly because she is participating in an online game set by a school association.
She has had made more comebacks than Frank Sinatra !
Watch out for her next incarnation 😀

I do take your point, and I'm not in any way defending that particular individual. What I'm saying is that in this instance you have information about the background to the question which is influencing the assessment of whether an otherwise legitimate request is appropriate.

If you are providing help, say, to a Listener solver, you will not normally have that background. But what if in December you were tipped off that one of only two all-correct Listener solvers up to that point was struggling with that week's puzzle, was desperate to win the trophy, and was going to be asking for assistance on the forum. Would that influence your decision whether to provide help? If the answer is yes, then it would suggest that the crime is not the cheating but the being found out.

It's some time since I've seen a Rainbow Quiz, but I seem to remember that the rubric asked for online help sites (such as this) not to be used. Is this still the case?

Chris
The latest info is here http://www.rainbowcharitypuzzles.co.uk/puzzle.rtf