6 ms·

A plagiarism scandal is unfolding in the crossword puzzle world

111 points by k4jh 11y ago

programd 11y ago
Crosswords ara a beautiful example of a rich data set which can be sliced and diced in many interesting statistical ways. I wonder if a data visualization wizard out there can come up with some high impact graphics to illustrate the problems uncovered in this story. Maybe a job for the terrific New York Times data visualization team? Given that it appears that the NYT was plagiarized that would be some poetic justice indeed.
n0us 11y ago
> 'made him a “multimillionaire.”' Certainly an interesting way to make money. I wonder exactly how he managed to do this.
- cfcef 11y ago
  I wonder about the legal aspects. The reuse in one set of cases may be legal, but what about the others? If nothing else, you would think that the NYT or USA Today would have a clause in their contracts that puzzles are guaranteed new and unique...
Ftuuky 11y ago
I love reading about scandals like this one or the tennis online betting one. Data scientists are going to ruin so many schemes and frauds.
hanoz 11y ago
Can't see anyone getting away with this in the world of British cryptic crosswords somehow. Any repetition within living memory would surely be met by an en masse raised eyebrow.
wpietri 11y ago
The New Yorker just had a great story about cheating in Bridge, with a similar theme of digital technology suddenly making it much easier to detect and expose shenanigans that would have otherwise gone unnoticed: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/03/07/the-cheating-problem-in-professional-bridge http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/03/07/the-cheating-pr...
halo 11y ago
It has been drilled into us that plagiarism is theft and therefore bad, but there is nothing more natural in the world than taking others work and building on it or sharing it. Ownership of thoughts and ideas is a modern invention, and harmless "plagiarism" has been going on since the dawn of time. Not every sentence, idea, story or indeed puzzle should need to have a wholly original formulation, and it's not hard to see how stringent citations might stifle creativity or distract from the ideas being presented. In particular, I wonder to what degree this sort of plagiarism causes any real harm, repeating others clever ideas from years ago in a way that can only be discovered by data mining. Are the puzzles less fun knowing they have shared elements with ones from years ago?
- forrestthewoods 11y ago
  Plagiarism is wildly overrated. I remember in middle/high school writing research papers for English class. I spent more time trying to NOT plagiarize than I spent on any other aspect of the paper. Which doubly absurd when you consider that there is literally not a single original thought a 14 year old is capable of having with respect to the War of 1812. When the entirety of my knowledge on a subject is based on a half dozen sources how the hell can I not plagiarize. In that instance I say plagiarize away! Focus on idea sharing. On how to explain complex ideas to your classmates. On how to build consistent abstractions or arguments. On literally anything other than how to rewrite the three sentences so it says the same thing as those three sentences but with different words so you don't get kicked out of school.
  - jmduke 11y ago
    This sounds like a failure of your teacher/grader, not like a failure of the idea of plagiarism, though? > Focus on idea sharing. On how to explain complex ideas to your classmates. On how to build consistent abstractions or arguments. 100% agreed! And I think most cogent interpretations of plagiarism would say that if you're able to do those things then you're not plagiarising, you're building off of other sources (providing that you cite them correctly). (It's entirely possible that I've been lucky, and that my teachers/professors took unusually rational stances when it came to this kind of thing. But it feels like you're presenting a false dichotomy.)
WalterBright 11y ago
The older I get, the more nebulous the concept that someone can own an idea.
Kiro 11y ago
I don't understand the problem with "shoddy" crosswords. It's edited by the same person so what's the big deal? Are you not allowed to repeat a crossword?
- ubernostrum 11y ago
  I've occasionally used daily-crossword sites as a way to relax and keep my mind working when I need to take a break from code, and the repetitiveness is one of the big drawbacks. Crossword puzzles have a certain vocabulary of words which are rare in conversational English but appear with high frequency in puzzles (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crosswordese https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crosswordese -- how many times have you used 'olio' or 'etui' in conversation?), and poor/mass-produced crosswords take this to an extreme, which in turn takes both the challenge and the fun out of the puzzle. Also, if you do enough puzzles you will end up noticing ones which are more subtly repetitive, and again there's less fun in re-solving one you've already "done".
  - jordanpg 11y ago
    Non-repetitiveness is precisely what makes a crossword good. If you are seeing a lot of repetitiveness, you are doing the wrong puzzles.
jordanpg 11y ago
Longtime NYT solver here. The most interesting thing about this to me is that it belies the common impression that many have that the NYT crossword is "elitist". I mean, how can it be "elitist" if it's routinely copied by USA Today?? I think people try it, find it to be impossible to penetrate on the first try, see a couple of clues about 1930's opera or NYC-specific stuff and then punt. However, like many other things in life, there is a learning curve to basic competency. There is a common, shared vocabulary among professional crossword constructors that provides a foundation for even the most difficult puzzles. The point is that you can still finish the puzzle even without knowing anything about 1930's opera by knowing something else nearby and some intelligent guesses. Among most solvers, the quality of a puzzle is proportional to how fun it is to solve and that is closely related to non-repetition of the theme. Good puzzles minimize this and solvers take it for granted that every puzzle will be genuinely new. The best case is a theme that is never before seen, something completely original. The problem with plagiarism in this case is easier to understand if it's seen through the lens of an inveterate solver. It's a betrayal of this unspoken (but still very casual) ethic of originality. See almost any post from: http://rexwordpuzzle.blogspot.com/ http://rexwordpuzzle.blogspot.com/ for an example of typical daily thoughts along these lines.
- fenomas 11y ago
  > impression that many have that the NYT crossword is "elitist" If that's the case, I imagine it's partly due to it not being widely known that the difficulty of the puzzles follows a set schedule[1]. People pick up a Saturday puzzle, very reasonably suppose that future puzzles will be similar, and write off the whole business. [1] Easiest on Monday, ramping up to hardest on Saturday, with Sunday somewhere in the middle, for anyone else unaware.
- bbanyc 11y ago
  The NYT crossword has a steep difficulty curve increasing over each week. It took me a few years of regular solving before I could consistently finish a Saturday puzzle. If people are only seeing the NYT puzzles on weekends, no wonder they think it's elitist. Try a Monday puzzle! (Also, the obscure 1930's opera references have been on the decline since Will Shortz took over for the late Eugene T. Maleska. Maleska was an admitted elitist who filled the puzzles with high culture, while Shortz prefers misleading wordplay. You see a 5-letter clue, "Pentagonal part of a diamond", and it takes a while for the baseball reference to click - but once it does, PLATE is the obvious answer.) I've looked at the USA Today crossword a few times, but found the quality relatively poor. Lots of dull clues and obscure three-letter words to make the fill fit together. No wonder he got away with plagiarism for so long, the people who'd notice wouldn't bother sticking around long enough to find anything wrong.

111 points by k4jh 11y ago

Crosswords ara a beautiful example of a rich data set which can be sliced and diced in many interesting statistical ways. I wonder if a data visualization wizard out there can come up with some high impact graphics to illustrate the problems uncovered in this story. Maybe a job for the terrific New York Times data visualization team? Given that it appears that the NYT was plagiarized that would be some poetic justice indeed.

n0us 11y ago

> 'made him a “multimillionaire.”' Certainly an interesting way to make money. I wonder exactly how he managed to do this.

cfcef 11y ago
I wonder about the legal aspects. The reuse in one set of cases may be legal, but what about the others? If nothing else, you would think that the NYT or USA Today would have a clause in their contracts that puzzles are guaranteed new and unique...

Ftuuky 11y ago

I love reading about scandals like this one or the tennis online betting one. Data scientists are going to ruin so many schemes and frauds.

hanoz 11y ago

Can't see anyone getting away with this in the world of British cryptic crosswords somehow. Any repetition within living memory would surely be met by an en masse raised eyebrow.

wpietri 11y ago

The New Yorker just had a great story about cheating in Bridge, with a similar theme of digital technology suddenly making it much easier to detect and expose shenanigans that would have otherwise gone unnoticed: http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/03/07/the-cheating-problem-in-professional-bridge http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/03/07/the-cheating-pr...

halo 11y ago

It has been drilled into us that plagiarism is theft and therefore bad, but there is nothing more natural in the world than taking others work and building on it or sharing it. Ownership of thoughts and ideas is a modern invention, and harmless "plagiarism" has been going on since the dawn of time. Not every sentence, idea, story or indeed puzzle should need to have a wholly original formulation, and it's not hard to see how stringent citations might stifle creativity or distract from the ideas being presented. In particular, I wonder to what degree this sort of plagiarism causes any real harm, repeating others clever ideas from years ago in a way that can only be discovered by data mining. Are the puzzles less fun knowing they have shared elements with ones from years ago?

forrestthewoods 11y ago
Plagiarism is wildly overrated. I remember in middle/high school writing research papers for English class. I spent more time trying to NOT plagiarize than I spent on any other aspect of the paper. Which doubly absurd when you consider that there is literally not a single original thought a 14 year old is capable of having with respect to the War of 1812. When the entirety of my knowledge on a subject is based on a half dozen sources how the hell can I not plagiarize. In that instance I say plagiarize away! Focus on idea sharing. On how to explain complex ideas to your classmates. On how to build consistent abstractions or arguments. On literally anything other than how to rewrite the three sentences so it says the same thing as those three sentences but with different words so you don't get kicked out of school.
- jmduke 11y ago
  This sounds like a failure of your teacher/grader, not like a failure of the idea of plagiarism, though? > Focus on idea sharing. On how to explain complex ideas to your classmates. On how to build consistent abstractions or arguments. 100% agreed! And I think most cogent interpretations of plagiarism would say that if you're able to do those things then you're not plagiarising, you're building off of other sources (providing that you cite them correctly). (It's entirely possible that I've been lucky, and that my teachers/professors took unusually rational stances when it came to this kind of thing. But it feels like you're presenting a false dichotomy.)

WalterBright 11y ago

The older I get, the more nebulous the concept that someone can own an idea.

Kiro 11y ago

I don't understand the problem with "shoddy" crosswords. It's edited by the same person so what's the big deal? Are you not allowed to repeat a crossword?

ubernostrum 11y ago
I've occasionally used daily-crossword sites as a way to relax and keep my mind working when I need to take a break from code, and the repetitiveness is one of the big drawbacks. Crossword puzzles have a certain vocabulary of words which are rare in conversational English but appear with high frequency in puzzles (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crosswordese https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crosswordese -- how many times have you used 'olio' or 'etui' in conversation?), and poor/mass-produced crosswords take this to an extreme, which in turn takes both the challenge and the fun out of the puzzle. Also, if you do enough puzzles you will end up noticing ones which are more subtly repetitive, and again there's less fun in re-solving one you've already "done".
- jordanpg 11y ago
  Non-repetitiveness is precisely what makes a crossword good. If you are seeing a lot of repetitiveness, you are doing the wrong puzzles.

jordanpg 11y ago

Longtime NYT solver here. The most interesting thing about this to me is that it belies the common impression that many have that the NYT crossword is "elitist". I mean, how can it be "elitist" if it's routinely copied by USA Today?? I think people try it, find it to be impossible to penetrate on the first try, see a couple of clues about 1930's opera or NYC-specific stuff and then punt. However, like many other things in life, there is a learning curve to basic competency. There is a common, shared vocabulary among professional crossword constructors that provides a foundation for even the most difficult puzzles. The point is that you can still finish the puzzle even without knowing anything about 1930's opera by knowing something else nearby and some intelligent guesses. Among most solvers, the quality of a puzzle is proportional to how fun it is to solve and that is closely related to non-repetition of the theme. Good puzzles minimize this and solvers take it for granted that every puzzle will be genuinely new. The best case is a theme that is never before seen, something completely original. The problem with plagiarism in this case is easier to understand if it's seen through the lens of an inveterate solver. It's a betrayal of this unspoken (but still very casual) ethic of originality. See almost any post from: http://rexwordpuzzle.blogspot.com/ http://rexwordpuzzle.blogspot.com/ for an example of typical daily thoughts along these lines.

fenomas 11y ago
> impression that many have that the NYT crossword is "elitist" If that's the case, I imagine it's partly due to it not being widely known that the difficulty of the puzzles follows a set schedule[1]. People pick up a Saturday puzzle, very reasonably suppose that future puzzles will be similar, and write off the whole business. [1] Easiest on Monday, ramping up to hardest on Saturday, with Sunday somewhere in the middle, for anyone else unaware.
bbanyc 11y ago
The NYT crossword has a steep difficulty curve increasing over each week. It took me a few years of regular solving before I could consistently finish a Saturday puzzle. If people are only seeing the NYT puzzles on weekends, no wonder they think it's elitist. Try a Monday puzzle! (Also, the obscure 1930's opera references have been on the decline since Will Shortz took over for the late Eugene T. Maleska. Maleska was an admitted elitist who filled the puzzles with high culture, while Shortz prefers misleading wordplay. You see a 5-letter clue, "Pentagonal part of a diamond", and it takes a while for the baseball reference to click - but once it does, PLATE is the obvious answer.) I've looked at the USA Today crossword a few times, but found the quality relatively poor. Lots of dull clues and obscure three-letter words to make the fill fit together. No wonder he got away with plagiarism for so long, the people who'd notice wouldn't bother sticking around long enough to find anything wrong.