Sick as a Parrot on a Box

Author   topicaltimPosted on Categories Announcement
Blog will appear presently. edit: Proper blog for 24,534 is now posted above. I just wanted to vent at the continuing uselessness of the Crossword Club.

I solved the puzzle late last night before going to bed, so that I could come back and blog this morning without needing to solve first. I should, of course, have realised that for about the third time in a week I would have to go through the rigmarole of encountering various errors, to which the only solution appeared to be repeatedly purging my cookies and starting from scratch (I was on the verge of going out to buy a paper when the site bored of playing with me and let me log in). So I have also lost my saved puzzle, and will have to fill it in again. Obviously I won’t have forgotten the entire solution, but it’s yet another waste of my time.

More vexing is the fact that, as usual, my e-mails to the address given to report technical problems get no reply, or acknowledgement that they are ever read by a human being; and, also as usual, my comment to this effect on the laughable bulletin board fails to appear, as does any comment I ever post there.

Thank you. I feel better now.

14 comments on “Sick as a Parrot on a Box”

  1. I also struggled to get access for an hour or so this morning. Eventually decided to try a different browser – got in, but also got in immediately afterwards with the usual one.
    1. Peter, what became of your letter to the Times with suggested improvements?
      1. I got kind of bored of going through the same old stuff again to – I’ll get back onto it.
  2. Well ranted. Your experiences mirror my own. Today neither Firefox nor Explorer would work and one wastes so much time deleting cookies and all the rest of the nonsense. I know of no other site as bad as the Times. The Bulletin Board is just a sad joke.
  3. Its a disgrace…i wrote to the address suggested by the website fully a month ago and havent had a reply
    i think is is shocking service
    i wonder how many on line members there are?
    perhaps we should set our own up!
    1. Maestro,

      Good idea.
      The “print” function on the Mac allows one to make a .pdf.
      That could be distributed anyone.

  4. I have more joy using Google Chrome than anything else, including automated log-in. Very occasionally GC also doesn’t open the site, but on those occasions it just appears to be down to everyone. I have had comments posted, but not (as reported here before) if they include the word “apology”. I also didn’t have my Clue Challenge entry recognised for April. Pity, I thought it was good!
  5. It’s nice to know that I’m not the only one who has these problems. Constantly get 404 Error page and whilst I have received acknowledgement of my technical difficulties ( both autonmated and manual ) I have never managed to get a comment published on the bulletin board.
    1. > I have never managed to get a comment published on the bulletin board.
      Who is the admin for it?
      Anyone know?
      1. Peter B probably has the best idea of how it is currently being run (or not). If memory serves, I think the last time we had our own inquiry into it we got as far as establishing that the Crossword Club was being run by one person for whom the bulletin board was only one part of their job (and, one was left to speculate, very far from the most important part).

        I am unable to explain why my comments are never allowed on; although they’re invariably related to another piece of incompetence, I try to remain polite and constructive. And yet they don’t seem to have a blanket ban on robust comment, as the latest one published is:

        Alec McHoul wrote:
        The site is not working.
        Do you have excuses for being the worst internet site in the world?

        Work that one out.

        1. Now there’s curious. On the bulletin board that comes up for me, the most recent comment is April 29th and not from Alec McHoul. Perhaps they’ve just looked up the meaning of “robust”.
        2. More curious still. Alec McHoul is now there, message timed at 12.53 BST. It wasn’t there when I posted my previous comment. How does that work?
        3. I don’t know exactly how the crossword club site is organized – I just have contact with (at present) one of the people involved. My impression is that there are some individuals who understand the irritation of the site’s users, but that for whatever reason, there is not sufficient interest from senior management in doing what’s necessary to provide a better service. I may be wrong, but unless the people I’ve been in contact with are faking it, it’s the only explanation that makes sense to me.

          I’ve said several times that because the bulletin board is so badly managed (both in ‘censorship’ terms and the amount of information supplied there by the club), some proportion of their customers look here and in other unofficial places for more useful information than they get from the people they’re paying money to.

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