Scheduling the daily five-letter puzzle is more demanding than you might think
On the surface, there are few word games that would seem to need active editing less than Wordle. After all, the daily Wordle puzzle boils down to just a single five-letter word. Picking that word each day doesn't exactly require the skill or artistry of, say, crafting an entire crossword puzzle or designing a more algorithmic game like Knotwords.
Despite this, on Monday, The New York Times announced that "Wordle finally has an editor." Which kind of leads to an obvious follow-up question: What does a Wordle editor actually do all day?
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How “Wordle Editor” Became a Real Job at the New York Times
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(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2022, @07:59AM
Meetings 9am-4.30pm, work overtime to get the Wordle done by midnight. Every day.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Sunday November 20 2022, @08:10AM
With the level of orthography and grammar taught in school nowadays, that kind of skill is hard to come by.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 20 2022, @12:33PM
The nation needs a full time editor to help it solve a word puzzle today.
(Score: 4, Informative) by zocalo on Sunday November 20 2022, @01:23PM (1 child)
30-60min a day. Most of which seems to be making sure that a chosen word isn't offensive to some minority group or other, that the relative difficulty averages out and avoids blocks of very easy/hard words, nouns/verbs, and the like, plus building up a word list for the next several months after which the time demands will drop. I thought Josh Wardle had already done that with the original curated list, but I guess the NYT is more risk averse over being sued over some word that might give offence, or just wants to avoid things like the "honor" vs. "honour" thing where possible.
Personally, I think that's still a lot of time for this, but I guess with so many words with double meanings these days maybe there's a lot more research than I expect and maybe she's checking quite a few words a day over the next few weeks to build up the queue, after which the time demands will drop back to zero while it runs down a bit?
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 2) by janrinok on Sunday November 20 2022, @03:15PM
Answer:
So there it is. It is only a part of her day. And as you acknowledge, she then goes on to explain how even a seemingly simple puzzle can require far more time than might first be imagined because we have a society that takes offence at the slightest hint of something derogatory. It also requires some research, varying the degree of difficulty from day to day, and so on. As the link that you were 'forced' to click also says: "Scheduling the daily five-letter puzzle is more demanding than you might think".
The SN editor did read the story and was well aware of what it said. It is a 'Random' story, often included at weekends to lighten the mood a little bit. But ultimately we rely on your submissions.
Another story will be along shortly, in fact it is already out.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by zocalo on Sunday November 20 2022, @01:41PM (1 child)
This is where you get a pattern like "PA?ER" or "?IGHT" were there are lot of potential permutations that can burn through your guesses. Um, no. That's something you overcome with strategy, namely by recognising that you're in that position and using words that will confirm or deny which of a few possible options are in the target word. Words like "EGRET" or "GIRTH" would both confirm or eliminate three possible options in a single guess in the cases of "PA?ER" for instance. For me, that adds an interesting angle to the game because I've then got a set of possible letters and I'm trying to think of optimal words to whittle them down as fast as possible, and maybe confirm any known letters I'm missing a position on at the same time.
* OK, yes, Wordle has a "hard mode" that means you must use confirmed letters and positions in subsequent guesses that prevents using this strategy, but that' the player's choice knowing that situations like this exist.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 21 2022, @04:57AM
Agreed that those can be interesting. But it's also frustrating when the real answer is one you assumed it wouldn't be because it's an obscure word no one uses outside of word games.