XWord Muggles Forum

TPS wrote: ↑Tue May 12, 2020 9:07 pm Holy crap - That one is obscure. That’s PGW level. I don’t even understand the solution with the grid and explanation.

Bob cruise director wrote: ↑Mon May 11, 2020 3:20 pm
Past experiences would indicate about 780 submissions to the WSJ with about 585 correct. Hopefully we will know soon

Al Sisti wrote: ↑Tue May 12, 2020 10:17 pm ...I think she died like two weeks after this puzzle, something like that.

Al Sisti wrote: ↑Tue May 12, 2020 10:17 pm ...I think she died like two weeks after this puzzle, something like that.

Joe Ross wrote: ↑Tue May 12, 2020 6:34 pm 20171215 WSJCC Mystery Woman.gif

TPS wrote: ↑Tue May 12, 2020 9:42 pm If you had told me the over/under on the number of people getting that right was 5 - I’d have taken the under. I mean I’ve never heard of the author or the books. It’s one time to do a meta about a song by one of the most popular bands of all time but it’s something different to do one about an author 99% of the population has never heard of.

BethA wrote: ↑Tue May 12, 2020 10:53 pm

Al Sisti wrote: ↑Tue May 12, 2020 10:17 pm ...I think she died like two weeks after this puzzle, something like that.

I couldn’t believe it was that soon! She died on Dec 29, same day as the infamous Pageant puzzle! (I’m hearing Twilight Zone music now).

BarbaraK wrote: ↑Tue May 12, 2020 10:16 pm

Bob cruise director wrote: ↑Mon May 11, 2020 3:20 pm
Past experiences would indicate about 780 submissions to the WSJ with about 585 correct. Hopefully we will know soon

Actual result: 802 submissions and 297 correct.

Amazingly close on your prediction of submissions but a bit overoptimistic about the success rate.

MattGaffney wrote: ↑Wed May 13, 2020 10:46 am Copying and pasting an e-mail I wrote to a solver who asked about my misuse of "row" in the clue at 55-D:

B-SIX is not great fill, but it was necessary in order to get BOW into the grid. But then I made the (critical, it turns out) error of referring to the left side of a bingo card as a "row" and not a "column," which is a very unfortunate mistake for me to make in a meta grid. As you and others noticed, it looks highly likely that it would be part of the meta, since a) it's cluing a somewhat strange and meta-suggestive entry (B-SIX), b) it's in the bottom-right corner, a common place for revealers, and c) the fact that there's an error in it (using "row" instead of "column") suggests even further that it's meta-related. Even the error itself seems like it could be meta-related, asking you to search rows and/or columns for a B-6 of some kind.

Unfortunately, none of this is true. It's just fill that I needed to use to make the meta work, and I accidentally used "row" there instead of "column" for the clue, and then it all looks meta-related even though it's not.

My apologies to solvers for this slip-up. I comb these metas looking for the tiniest errors since I know they can have larger-than-normal consequences in terms of wasted time and annoyance for solvers. This is one of the most unfortunate of these "small" errors that I've ever allowed to slip into a meta, and a reminder to me that I need to be extra-vigilant for issues like this in the future.

--Matt

Bob cruise director wrote: ↑Wed May 13, 2020 1:32 pm

MattGaffney wrote: ↑Wed May 13, 2020 10:46 am Copying and pasting an e-mail I wrote to a solver who asked about my misuse of "row" in the clue at 55-D:

(Matt G's post)

--Matt

Do you and/or Mike have a good idea how difficult a contest is when you publish it? Our data (we are nerd so we have a lot of data that we play with) shows both very hard and very easy metas. I was wondering if there was a "sweet spot" that you shoot for.

We also hope that you and Mike get some amusement out of our random wanderings here on the blog.