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Yes, I think we agree.. The four-letter word was suggested from somebody else and I am not convinced by it.

I think we are both 'singing from the same hymn sheet' ... I wasn't aware of previous post (re 4 letters) ...

New poster here. I am obviously missing something. Lots of posts are talking about what they should send in to John Green. Surely people only look at this site after they have sent in their solution? If they have a long discussion here first, what on earth value do any annual statistics he compiles have? Or is there no ethical compass on this site at all?

I had completed all of the puzzle without getting any help at all. This is despite the fact that I do not know anything about pop music and did not even know that whether the song titles (or the title) had any significance. I used the messages from the first letters of unused words to get the final instructions so I did everything on my own without any input from others.

My only reason for posting was that I thought that there was a serious ambiguity in what to send to JG. There was a famous instance about 8 year ago when I the final step was so uncertain that I believe the majority of submissions were marked wrong even though the senders had done everything right up the final step. This was described, fairly I believe, as 'Guess What I am Thinking'. Actually I am going to do what I intended to do in the first place, before posting, come what may, and if it is marked wrong that is too bad.

You're obviously missing quite a lot, newbie321 -
Test solvers who try out Listener puzzles - do you think they won't submit a puzzle if they got it wrong when they tested it?
Solvers who invite others to contact them by email for a hint (we never get to see how revealing the hints are).
The network of Listener 'insiders' - I'm sure they're in touch with each other because there's a certain uniformity in the puzzle blogs they contribute to that suggests (to me, at least) a degree of collaboration, and they all achieve pretty good results in the stats (or they did when I was submitting entries - although that was quite some time ago). In fact a few years back a newbie like yourself managed to get an all-correct on his/her first year attempting The Listener (we know this because he/she openly admitted to being coached by members of the Answerbank community - and one of the 'coaches' is a current Listener setter).

I think there's something refreshing in the transparency of the discussions on this site, and they stop short of any definitive 'correct solution', Often the discussion is academic - personally, I can't see any solution to this puzzle other than the obvious.

I think you'll find a distinct bias in the ethical compass being employed elsewhere.

A fulsome and bizarre response. We’re cheating. So everyone is at it, what’s the problem? Thanks for setting me straight

So what are you doing here in the first place, newbie321? Have you used the site to 'cheat' in the past or has someone informed you of its existence?
And, yes - if it's OK for a select group of people to 'cheat' then it's OK for everyone.

“You’re obviously missing quite a lot” “What are you doing here in the first place?” Remarkably arrogant. I won’t respond now, in case I say something I regret. Goodnight

That first quote comes from your own first post, I was simply agreeing with you, newbie321.
Goodnight.

Better sleep on it before you answer my perfectly reasonable question.