Crossword Club – Suggestions time again

35 comments on “Crossword Club – Suggestions time again”

1. Peter I suspect your original list of suggestions will still stand without too much amendment. Could you remind us what they were or give us a link to reread them before commenting further.
   1. Memories > Times Crossword club will show you the past discussions – but new readers, please give us the ideas that occur to you without looking at a previous list.
2. I was renewed recently without any warning (and had to endure a week of non-service, but that isn’t my main grumble). I never intended not to renew, but I hate it when people charge my credit card unexpectedly. Can we get them to send an automated email a few days beforehand, advising that the renewal sub is about to be charged?
3. It would be nice to get a response other than the canned acknowledgement. I (and others) have been trying to find out why saved crosswords are blank, in other words how crosswords are saved with the “new scheme” (The old one was probably better as it created files you could see & move).
4. PDF format (as on the guardian site) would be nice
   1. The PDF option is available every time you send a puzzle to print … on a Mac that is.
5. Perhaps they could renew or replace the photo of Mark Goodliffe: He cerainly doesn’t look as though he’s enjoying himself!
   From memory, two years ago the lady winner’s photo (sorry, I forget her name) was on the site and stayed there even over the period when Peter B was the champion.
   If I may respond to other comments, the last time I was renewed I did receive a warning a week before the debit wnet on the card.
   I would ask that they check the quality of the pubished xwords before putting them on the site – recent examples of a clue missing, a whole xword missing come to mind.
   Regards,
   Adrian Cobb
6. Hello PB. My main comment is for the site to address the repeated 404 error that occurs during login. This is a chronic problem and clearly widespread. This should surely be dealt with. Secondly, when paying the subscription, the Times site has never failed to charge twice. They do refund, but this also seems like something that can be fixed. Regards.
7. I have no complaints about the technical setup of the site. The areas that do badly need attention are all service related:

   – the terrible, dire bulletin board and its censors, sorry, “moderators”
   – the total lack of feedback from questions asked via the bulletin board or direct via email
   – the still-too-frequent errors in putting up crosswords and solutions

8. I submit both Saturday and Sunday solutions faithfully (usually correct) then click the link to see the past week’s winners. Alas, few foreigners. I’d like to see more winners from off shore. They are nice prizes.
9. I’d like more keyboard shortcuts for navigating the puzzles: a way to change from across clues to down clues, for example. They needn’t get in the way of people who don’t use them.

   If anyone knows any already that’d be nice.

   Will Rogers

   1. Can’t give you any tips about the online cryptic completion, as I don’t use it, but you remind me of one irritation – the difference between the entry methods used for these puzzles and for Race the Clock.
10. Why do you leave out some of the solutions? Do you feel the ‘easy’ ones are beneath you?

    I speak as somebody who thinks they’ve had a good day if I manage to solve more than five of the clues. Sad to admit that in the two years or so that I’ve been trying, I’ve never completed an entire cryptic puzzle.
    I believe the technical word to describe me is ‘simpleton’, although I’m not sure if I’ve spelled that correctly……

    1. Hi there.

       It’s explained in the Summary section of “About this blog…”. There’s a link to this at the very top of this page.

    2. If you’ve been strugging on your own, two years without a complete puzzle is no cause for shame. If you read the blog each day, you should pick up enough information to stop two years turning into three. Reading a “how to solve” book or various internet advice will help, but must be accompanied by daily practice.
       1. Many thanks to you both for your kind words of advice and encouragement.

          I’ll get there one day!

          1. If it’s of any encouragement, this is I believe my third year in the club, and I’ve finally reached the point where I complete (virtually) every puzzle; not in times worth mentioning, God knows, but that’s the next bridge to cross. This blog has been very helpful, but slogging away daily is essential. Ganbatte, as we say in Japan; hang in there.

             As for problems with the club itself,
             1) When I signed up, it was with the explicit condition that renewal was automatic, and it has been, for me, anyway.
             2) I second the comments about the bulletin board. The questions we submit aren’t rhetorical, they’re requests for information. Somebody is there at the other end who could answer them; why don’t they?

11. Following the comments from Kevin, Aphis and one of the Anons and considering my own experience there is clearly a problem with renewals.

    As I understand it all members who pay the annual fee are supposed to be renewed automatically. I’ve never seen anything on the site to say that they will be notified in advance but from what Anon says this clearly can happen and I would agree it’s useful and courteous to do this.

    Anon seems to have been dealt with correctly. Kevin was charged twice. Aphis was renewed automatically but without advance warning and I was not renewed, forced to pay to get access (as it was my day to write the blog) and then charged twice. The previous year they demanded payment but payment on line was broken and it took me a week of phone calls to get my subscription back up and running.

    As the cliche goes, it’s not rocket science so what exactly IS the problem?

    1. My experience was the same as yours: Denied access at renewal time and asked to set up another payment, then debited again on the old authority. I was not amused.
12. I’d like to see buttons for the Listener (on Saturday) and Mephisto (on Sunday), rather than having to go to each of the crossword types in the drop down menu to do it. They have them for the Jumbo and even for Bank Holiday Jumbos on the days they appear.
13. Small but, for me, important: it would be good to have the clues in a serif font. Um … Times?
14. I was excommunicated for several months trying everything, ringing customer services etc. Finally got my sister to do it for me though she had difficulty. An irritated female will always get better treatment; whereas for a male it’s a sign of failure to get annoyed.
15. As last time you did this I think the stress must be on getting the site to work properly and reducing the extraordinary number of errors. Only once those changes are in place can one start looking at some of the niceties. I would think your original note brought up to date will do very well. The poor systems used at renewal should be highlighted – what they do is very bad commercial practice.
16. Absolutely right, Jimbo! Peter should ONLY send a list of the things that are going wrong systematically, with as much evidence as possible. I did try to tell him this on another website! DFM
    1. Sorry, but I can’t see the problem with sending a list of all the desired changes, with a clear statement about which are most important. A shorter list this time could give several false impressions – first that “once we’ve done everything on Biddlecombe’s list, we don’t need to do anything else”, second that “The list is shorter this time, so some of the stuff he was banging on about last time wasn’t important”, third and worst of all: “The list is shorter this time so the things he’s not mentioning now must have been fixed.”

       If it so happens that they can’t fix the registration hassles but can give us PDF versions of Mephistos and Listeners instead of grotty 2-page prints, that’s surely better than nothing.

17. No — it ISN’T better than nothing, Peter, for those who are still facing frustrations, and by including non-essentials you will dilute the essential message about the unreliability of the service and give the impression of being an IT nerd (which I know you are not!) who is trying to tell them what to do. If the service is as bad as you all say it is, you MUST focus on that alone and get it sorted once and for all. Get that one nailed — the pretty picture of Mark can wait. Someone else tell him, please! DFM
    1. Pretty pictures can certainly wait! I’m not an IT nerd, but I do have experience of working in software development. Different parts of a system may well be the responsibilities of different people, and it’s my guess that, for example, the people responsible for the content of the crossword club site are not responsible for the systems used for collecting subscriptions. If so, all they can do is pass the list to someone else, pleading for (more) action, and deal with the areas they have the authority and time to tackle.
       1. Peter, I don’t think it’s for you to try to work out who within The Times is responsible for what. Frankly as a user I don’t care – it’s all “The Times” as far as I’m concerned.

          The site is unreliable; the support service is awful; the quality control is non-existent; the renewal process is irritating to say the very least – and today they announce they’re going to start charging to read the news content. Unlike the crossword there is real competition in the news field and if they run that side as badly as they run the crossword site they will go broke.

          I believe you should major on those things and the bells and whistles should be portrayed exactly as that. Perhaps along the lines “we told you this 2 years ago – why has it not yet happened?”

18. Psychology, Peter my friend, psychology! I give up! No more words on this from me, except to say I still think you are wrong! You do what you feel you must do (unless someone else can persuade you otherwise). DFM
19. Just to pick up on Jimbo’s point about The Times charging for the on-line newspaper.

    When I read that today my first thought was that I trust there will be a separate website for the Crossword Club which members can access directly, independently of the main newspaper pages. ( I do not propose to pay $4 a week for the news.)

    It seems pretty basic, but given the general standard of the website it would not surprise me if it was overlooked.

20. Technical support on the website is dire. The service has been down twice this week and is down as I write (early Saturday morning). The helpdesk works 9 to 5 Monday to Friday so the site may well be down for the whole weekend.

    The problem is habitually put down to “circumstances beyond our control”. My suggestion that circumstances be brought under their control at some stage is generally, if understandably, ignored. I look forward to the sound of gunfire in Wapping as Murdoch is told that no-one can log onto his newly-chargeable website because of circumstances beyond the IT department’s control.

    Other than that, I would really like to see the crossword made available for the iPhone. They used to advertise the mobile crossword service with a picture of an iPhone but apparently this was a cruel deception and the picture was removed. The editorial person in charge of the crossword site told me in an email they did not know if it worked on an iPhone and suggested I give it a whirl. A lack of computer literacy and interest in technical matters is a poor qualification for running the site.

    On the whole, it seems to me that maintaining, improving and understanding the crossword club is a low priority even for the person for whom it is presumably a full-time job. Perhaps the best change you could lobby for is to have someone running the club who evinces even the slightest interest in doing so.

21. All I ask is that this site gives us whay we pay for – in other words they should address the down time issues before anything else. This morning there is yet another error page. I have not come across any other site – paid or otherwise – that is as unreliable as this one. As other posters have said, fancy graphics and the like are far, far less important than ensuring that this product is fit for purpose.
22. I have subscribed to the web site for a few months and find it the most unreliable site I have ever used. Many times (as it is this morning) it is not available at all. They have given up even replying to my complaints. They used to try to blame me for the way I was trying to access the site via ‘favorites’ but as this is the way I always access it there is no logic to this explanation.
    Quality control is also poor. On a number of occasions the wrong clues have been put up for the grid, for example clues from last week’s puzzle. Last Saturday 12 across clue was just left out.
    There are many better free sites. I have told them they have a world class product spoilt by a very poor website.
    Neil Hockings
23. This is my first year using the Times site, on the whole it’s not bad but the gripes, worst first, are:

    1) Listener and Mephisto puzzles, I have to do some serious fiddling to be able to do these.

    2) The ‘open everything in a new window’ thing. Utterly ridiculous as most people must be using tabbed browsers. I’ve almost got it under control with Opera, but even with this, if you want to open two archived puzzles at once it opens the second one in the same tab as the first one.

    3) Cookies, completely baffling, if I don’t clear the cookies from the log-in page after logging out I simply can’t log-in again.

    I can just about cope with 2 and 3 but for the price, 1 is completely unacceptable.

    sidey

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