Terrible Clues

[bobthebald]

Does anybody else here struggle because of poor clues?

An example - "Hard to come by" and the answer "Out of Print"

I'd solve them a lot faster if the clues were a little less tenuous.

[stewartp]

Yes, there are some terrible clues. All we can do is complain by voting them down. But I wouldn't want to have to come up with clues for all these puzzles.

[admin]

Yes, please vote down clues as you come across them to let us know which ones need attention. I am constantly reviewing user feedback and altering/removing/updating clues that have the highest ratios of down-to-up votes. Many thousands have already been fixed and I'm sure there are plenty more to be done.

We originally had several clue authors working for us and while most of their work was stellar there were a few who tended to include clues that were a bit too esoteric/vague. I'm doing my best to fix those as we find them, but as the original puzzle set for this site included more than a quarter of a million clues, its quite a task to catch them all.

So please do use those downvote buttons whenever you see a clue that needs a bit of freshening up!

[dlbrandt]

Hi Administrator; Glad to see you are reading these comments. Please reply more often. I thought we were talking to ourselves.

[compuspud]

When it comes to the question of whether people are cheating, we are talking to ourselves

[bobthebald]

Thanks to the Admin for replying to my post. It is appreciated, and good to know you're listening.

[SweetCC]

One of the things I really like about this sight is that the clues tend to be a lot better than many, many crossword puzzles. I get so angry when the answers are so obscure or stretched that the only way you can get them is by knowing what's been used in crosswords in the past. I also like that we get to vote on things we don't like.

[bobthebald]

Another fantastic clue, "The M in HOMES" You'd think the answer began with the letter 'M' wouldn't you?
You'd be wrong, the answer was "Lake Michigan"
I'd love to know who this site employs to write it's clues. My money is on some random kindergarteners from a non-English speaking country.

[waldo]

HOMES (Note the capitals) stands for the first letters of the Great Lakes of which Michigan is one. Not a terrible clue.

[bobthebald]

Thanks Waldo! I did not know that, you learn something new every day.

[christinedux]

I consider a clue like HOMES very clever word play. In my day (granted, a while ago), HOMES was the mnemonic used in many schoolrooms for the five great lakes: Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, and Superior. I remembered them without googling thanks to HOMES.