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The NYT has put a shitton of advertising trackers on their Wordle site [1], has censored words from the original word list [2], and now this. These kinds of us

The NYT has put a shitton of advertising trackers on their Wordle site [1], has censored words from the original word list [2], and now this. These kinds of user-hostile actions are exactly why I will never support them. [1] https://gizmodo.com/wordle-ad-trackers-privacy-new-york-times-1848554549 https://gizmodo.com/wordle-ad-trackers-privacy-new-york-time... [2] https://www.newsweek.com/wordle-bans-slave-new-york-times-offensive-words-banned-removed-1679793 https://www.newsweek.com/wordle-bans-slave-new-york-times-of...

johannes1234321 5y ago
What's user hostile in taking words off the list? I don't really see how that impacts the experience. Adding trackers is the expected move, when going from a hobby site to a publisher. This is something which has to be fixed systematically by proper legislation.
- Ansil849 5y ago
  > What's user hostile in taking words off the list? I don't really see how that impacts the experience. If you don't see how removing words off the wordlist impacts the experience, I really can't explain it to you, it's a tautology: removing words impacts the experience precisely by removing words. Because you can no longer use the removed word in gameplay, as you could previously. Therefore experience is impacted. > Adding trackers is the expected move It being 'expected' has no bearing on it not being palatable and being user hostile.
  - paulcole 5y ago
    > Therefore experience is impacted This is like saying stubbing your toe on a grain of sand impacts the experience of your foot. Yes, you are technically correct that the Wordle experience has changed, but it hasn’t changed in a meaningful (or even noticeable) way for 99.9% of Wordle players.
    - Ansil849 5y ago
      If your criteria is some specific quantity instead of one around the ethics of censorship, would you likewise be OK with dictionaries removing a small percentage of words? Under the same pretense, that this removal would surely only impact .1% of those who may consult a dictionary in a meaningful (or even noticeable) way? If anything, the fact that the censorship is hard to notice makes it all the more pernicious and harmful.
      - paulcole 5y ago
        Yes, I’m fine with that. For example, there are a huge number of English-language words that aren’t in every English language dictionary. Compare British English dictionaries to American English dictionaries. Is this censorship? Yes. Am I OK with it? Absolutely.
        Ansil849 5y ago
        > Compare British English dictionaries to American English dictionaries. Is this censorship? Yes. Am I OK with it? Absolutely. Removing a word because it is not in use in the region the dictionary is published is much like you wouldn't necessarily expect a dictionary in Portugal to be identical to a dictionary in Brazil. It is vastly different from removing words because the words are deemed offensive. We're not talking about the NYT removing British spellings like 'fibre', but rather words like 'bitch' or 'slave'.
        paulcole 5y ago
        Yeah, I’m fine w/ the NYT’s chosen deletions. It’s their game and their rules. Wordle’s not a dictionary, it’s a game and a game’s owners get to set the rules. In this case, the acceptable words are a big part of the rules.
  - johannes1234321 5y ago
    Maybe it changes the difficulty, but hostile. But yeah, I know what your beef is ...
  - Steko 5y ago
    I take delight knowing that it drives racists crazy so it’s improved my user experience.
    - Ansil849 5y ago
      Did a lot of racists play Wordle on the NYT page? Is there a stormfront thread about it or something? I haven't really seen any news of racists being outraged by this; likely because many of the removed words are not racially-charged terms.
- qiskit 5y ago
  > What's user hostile in taking words off the list? That's like asking what's subscriber hostile about netflix taking movies off their service. Certainly limiting choice affects user experience. > Adding trackers is the expected move, when going from a hobby site to a publisher. Except that the NYT loves to attack social media about their trackers. Not only does the NYT track their users, they also charge them a fee for the privilege of being tracked. > This is something which has to be fixed systematically by proper legislation. NYT deliberately chose to track their users and sink to the level of facebook, google, twitter, etc. Always shocked that there are NYT defenders. I'm also shocked people waste their lives on facebook, twitter, etc also. To be fair, I guess they'd shocked by how I waste time.
  - Barrin92 5y ago
    >That's like asking what's subscriber hostile about netflix taking movies off their service. Certainly limiting choice affects user experience. This might be a candidate for worst analogy of the month. Removing words is part of the game design, the words aren't 'content'. The NYT removed words with foreign roots you might not expect ("pupal" / "agora") in an English language game, as well as several insults which players may also not expect to be in a game without an age rating ("whore" / "pussy" etc.)
    - Ansil849 5y ago
      > The NYT removed words with foreign roots you might not expect ("pupal" / "agora") in an English language game If the NYT were to remove words with foreign roots, there would be a lot more words removed than just 19. So no, that's not an adequate explanation. > several insults which players may also not expect to be in a game without an age rating Did you know that words have multiple meanings? But not even that, but that their standards meanings may not even be insulting at all? Like the word 'bitch'. And then there are words like "slave", which are not insults.
      - Barrin92 5y ago
        They have removed a lot more. You can try plenty of loan words from other languages that aren't available. The basis for the original game was 'Collins Scrabble Words 19' which omits words as well. And it may shock you but I do indeed know that words have multiple meanings. However I'm not really sure what's so hard to understand about the fact that the NYT is going to remove most controversial ones from a word game.

johannes1234321 5y ago

What's user hostile in taking words off the list? I don't really see how that impacts the experience. Adding trackers is the expected move, when going from a hobby site to a publisher. This is something which has to be fixed systematically by proper legislation.

Ansil849 5y ago
> What's user hostile in taking words off the list? I don't really see how that impacts the experience. If you don't see how removing words off the wordlist impacts the experience, I really can't explain it to you, it's a tautology: removing words impacts the experience precisely by removing words. Because you can no longer use the removed word in gameplay, as you could previously. Therefore experience is impacted. > Adding trackers is the expected move It being 'expected' has no bearing on it not being palatable and being user hostile.
- paulcole 5y ago
  > Therefore experience is impacted This is like saying stubbing your toe on a grain of sand impacts the experience of your foot. Yes, you are technically correct that the Wordle experience has changed, but it hasn’t changed in a meaningful (or even noticeable) way for 99.9% of Wordle players.
  - Ansil849 5y ago
    If your criteria is some specific quantity instead of one around the ethics of censorship, would you likewise be OK with dictionaries removing a small percentage of words? Under the same pretense, that this removal would surely only impact .1% of those who may consult a dictionary in a meaningful (or even noticeable) way? If anything, the fact that the censorship is hard to notice makes it all the more pernicious and harmful.
    - paulcole 5y ago
      Yes, I’m fine with that. For example, there are a huge number of English-language words that aren’t in every English language dictionary. Compare British English dictionaries to American English dictionaries. Is this censorship? Yes. Am I OK with it? Absolutely.
      - Ansil849 5y ago
        > Compare British English dictionaries to American English dictionaries. Is this censorship? Yes. Am I OK with it? Absolutely. Removing a word because it is not in use in the region the dictionary is published is much like you wouldn't necessarily expect a dictionary in Portugal to be identical to a dictionary in Brazil. It is vastly different from removing words because the words are deemed offensive. We're not talking about the NYT removing British spellings like 'fibre', but rather words like 'bitch' or 'slave'.
        paulcole 5y ago
        Yeah, I’m fine w/ the NYT’s chosen deletions. It’s their game and their rules. Wordle’s not a dictionary, it’s a game and a game’s owners get to set the rules. In this case, the acceptable words are a big part of the rules.
- johannes1234321 5y ago
  Maybe it changes the difficulty, but hostile. But yeah, I know what your beef is ...
- Steko 5y ago
  I take delight knowing that it drives racists crazy so it’s improved my user experience.
  - Ansil849 5y ago
    Did a lot of racists play Wordle on the NYT page? Is there a stormfront thread about it or something? I haven't really seen any news of racists being outraged by this; likely because many of the removed words are not racially-charged terms.
qiskit 5y ago
> What's user hostile in taking words off the list? That's like asking what's subscriber hostile about netflix taking movies off their service. Certainly limiting choice affects user experience. > Adding trackers is the expected move, when going from a hobby site to a publisher. Except that the NYT loves to attack social media about their trackers. Not only does the NYT track their users, they also charge them a fee for the privilege of being tracked. > This is something which has to be fixed systematically by proper legislation. NYT deliberately chose to track their users and sink to the level of facebook, google, twitter, etc. Always shocked that there are NYT defenders. I'm also shocked people waste their lives on facebook, twitter, etc also. To be fair, I guess they'd shocked by how I waste time.
- Barrin92 5y ago
  >That's like asking what's subscriber hostile about netflix taking movies off their service. Certainly limiting choice affects user experience. This might be a candidate for worst analogy of the month. Removing words is part of the game design, the words aren't 'content'. The NYT removed words with foreign roots you might not expect ("pupal" / "agora") in an English language game, as well as several insults which players may also not expect to be in a game without an age rating ("whore" / "pussy" etc.)
  - Ansil849 5y ago
    > The NYT removed words with foreign roots you might not expect ("pupal" / "agora") in an English language game If the NYT were to remove words with foreign roots, there would be a lot more words removed than just 19. So no, that's not an adequate explanation. > several insults which players may also not expect to be in a game without an age rating Did you know that words have multiple meanings? But not even that, but that their standards meanings may not even be insulting at all? Like the word 'bitch'. And then there are words like "slave", which are not insults.
    - Barrin92 5y ago
      They have removed a lot more. You can try plenty of loan words from other languages that aren't available. The basis for the original game was 'Collins Scrabble Words 19' which omits words as well. And it may shock you but I do indeed know that words have multiple meanings. However I'm not really sure what's so hard to understand about the fact that the NYT is going to remove most controversial ones from a word game.