Comments

[BoredInTheCar]

But, the 20% stalking rate reeks of something else.

Okay, first - I have no dog in this fight. I haven't particularly noticed scores by mpd - do they mostly play 4x4? Never mind, it doesn't matter.

What I am curious about is - how the heck would you know that someone had a "20% stalking rate"? There must be ways to look at past game data that I am completely unaware of.

The "stalking" part is, in my very limited understanding, technically possible - if what you mean is, someone flips through game after game after game looking at who has the high score, then playing only games where the high score is from a particular player. That would be tedious but doable. For example, I don't "stalk" RussDNails, but I do like to play the same games he does - if he scores 900+ I can usually score 700+, which for me is pretty good.

But ... let's assume (falsely!) that I actually beat his scores. How would he know that I had come through after him, played the same game and beat him? Further, how would he know what percentage of my total games played were ones where he had previously held the high score?

(Oh wait ... do you get more data if you are a premium player? Maybe that's the answer.)

[Naboka]

I'm usually pretty quiet on here but i will respond to this subject.. I don't know this person you all are talking about or what he is doing. I know people like Mega , Dibs, Estive, Brisul and others who have been playing for awhile and put up scores that even I cant touch but, the real cheaters that I have experienced were the ones who come on here and then all of a sudden out of nowhere they putting up scores that even Mega cant touch..I joined here a LONG time ago and started in the 400s and gradually worked my way up... I dont play for anything other than the enjoyment of the game... Love playing word games and like on the WWF app I play on my phone... LOTS of the words I play I have no idea what the hell they mean. I know most from memory and most words I will never ever used in a sentence. The more you play on this site, you learn patterns . I have never been one to go after the Long high scoring words as I play mostly the 3,4,and 5 letter words Once in awhile I will catch a large word but not too often. I find it awesome that the players who get these enormous words and high point count words. That part of the game is out of my league...lol With all that being said, I wish everybody the best and love reading everyones posts.

You know topping one of your scores is the next to the last item on my Wordtwist bucket list. (Scoring 900 is the other. I thought that if you would just play games under 700 points I could get you. Nope. Amazes me how many words you're able to find on apparently weak boards. Everyone else I can overtake by concentrating on the rare words.

Looking at your photo piqued my curiosity. Have you ever experienced people being amazed by how good your brain is? Do you look at them, puzzled, an wonder, "what in the hell is smart supposed to look like?"

[Brisul]

It's nice to see the Hall Of Fame players like Russ and Thunder Rock weighing in on this! Ever since I started playing, I look for games that you two in particular have played and try to top them. Most of the time I don't, but on those rare occasions that I do, I feel pretty good!

This whole thread started because of a comment I made about a player I'd never heard of who was putting up astronomical scores that were higher than Mega Word's and Fast Eddie's and I thought it was a bit suspicious. I noticed that this person had signed up some time in 2023 and was immediately outpacing the high scorers in both the 4x4 and 5x5 grids. I'm not saying that it's impossible, but it is improbable.

I rarely ever post in the comments unless it's to congratulate myself over something I may have achieved in a month. I saw some unusual scoring taking place and thought I'd point it out. I'm sticking to my assertion that it is suspicious.

[ThunderRock]

I'm usually pretty quiet on here but i will respond to this subject.. I don't know this person you all are talking about or what he is doing. I know people like Mega , Dibs, Estive, Brisul and others who have been playing for awhile and put up scores that even I cant touch but, the real cheaters that I have experienced were the ones who come on here and then all of a sudden out of nowhere they putting up scores that even Mega cant touch..I joined here a LONG time ago and started in the 400s and gradually worked my way up... I dont play for anything other than the enjoyment of the game... Love playing word games and like on the WWF app I play on my phone... LOTS of the words I play I have no idea what the hell they mean. I know most from memory and most words I will never ever used in a sentence. The more you play on this site, you learn patterns . I have never been one to go after the Long high scoring words as I play mostly the 3,4,and 5 letter words Once in awhile I will catch a large word but not too often. I find it awesome that the players who get these enormous words and high point count words. That part of the game is out of my league...lol With all that being said, I wish everybody the best and love reading everyones posts.

[RussDNails]

My last post on this topic. Clearly there are some things going on between players here that I am not privy to and honestly don't need to know. I just saw some things that taken at face value looked rather riduculous. The observation that a player can't be good right out of the gate on a particular word game is totally untrue. If I went to another site and played any type of word game I might be a little stronger than the average starting player because of all the hours I've logged here and the huge increase in my vocabulary. I likely don't even know the meaning of half or more of the words I key in!

The theory that other good players are now avoiding the site because there is someone putting up relatively higher scores is silly. There is no empirical evidence that this is true and certainly no way to prove it. It's likely just summer in most places where people play more during the colder months......

I tend to be very gullible and maybe there is more going on here but taken at face value IMHO the scores posted by mpd are achievable......

[mpd]

Thanks very much to those who have heard me out and voiced support. Public posting is not everyone's cup of tea, mine included, so it is very much appreciated. Happy playing!

[Naboka]

The son called and wanted to go riding with us, so that's off until later. While biding my time and cleaning the pool I got to thinking about the misconception that game cheaters just come and disappear.

There's probably at least two categories. One is the prankster that flits in and flits out. Gets his kicks and is gone. The other is the identity cheater. He cheats to maintain his identity status.

There's an avid golfer in the news who's notorious for cheating. It's something he probably can't not do. Nor is it something he recognises as cheating. And he's been doing it for decades.

My son and his friends used to and still do play a lot of online video games. All of them cheat like crazy. They don't see it as cheating.

Status is an essential element to our survival. The more status, the more your chances of rewards and survival. Winning here or other games can provide rewards. Being a winner makes a person feel good about themselves. And when feeling good about yourself is scarce it, like anything valued, increases in value.

Unfortunately, those rewards can't be monetized. Nothing here will provide anyone a loaf of bread at the market.

Nor will my son's games.

Studies indicate that when some people believe a lie and have invested themselve in that lie, presenting them with evidence about the falseness of that lie doesn't make them change their minds. In fact they dig in harder. They attack the source of that evidence. They attack the evidence. They protect their sacred acceptance. They get livid.

Humans can be just a wee bit cray-craay. Some more than others.

Having open minds allow us to reexamine information and make better decisions when the data or premise we've been using is flawed.

So, no, cheaters aren't always flitting in and out. Cheaters can be involved in a game for decades. Sometimes it's little cheats. I'm guilty of lots of little cheats that I've described elsewhere. Most people tended to think those cheats acceptable. Sometimes I feel I'm not being fair. Yet, here I am after several years. I justify it by telling myself I'm playing a different game than anyone else here.

I think the fly-by-night-cheat theory only applies to a particular breed of "player."

[Brisul]

No disrespect felt.

You ever get in a spat with the spouse that escalates quickly into nuclear confrontation? Then after the raging subsides you wonder where in the world did that come from. And it's often about something absolutely irrelevant and silly?

I wondered about all this discussion and it traces back months ago to anomolies I witnessed and grew curious about. I'd gotten pretty decent at this game. Good enough that I was finding games where Megaword had played against me and gotten most words but not most points. There would be days when I wouldn't lose any best scores in the personal records. Days.

Then, suddenly, I was losing 4, 6, 8, 10,12 a day. Hmm, me thinks. Something's amiss. Was it the system glitch that sometimes adds 20 longest word records overnight when you haven't played a single game?

So I started tracking who was online when the records disappeared. And it was mpd. Then I started tracking how many game records I lost against how many games he played. It was consistently 18-25% of his games.

In all your years of playing, who have you played 20% of your games day after day after day? Pretty statistically damning.

A few months ago the clan celebrated my sister's 80th birthday. Big deal with all the kids, grandkids, great grandkids attending. Lot of very attractive females in those younger echelons. And during the various conversations the subject of cyberstalking came up. Every single one of those girls had been the victim of cyberstalking. My son's financee is working on her doctorate in clinical psychology. So, as is our wont, we got discussing the psychology of stalkers. What makes them tick. She indicated that stalkers often suffer from self delusion and therapy doesn't work well. You have to be honest and willing to look for therapy to work. But, stalkers tend to be flawed and dishonest. Ergo, no soup for them.

This coincided with the time I suddenly found a fellow player "stalking" my games. Maybe an unjust appraisal, but certainly fitting the pattern. Twenty percent of a person's games played against one player?!

So I provoked a conversation. It wasn't a willingly offered conversation. It was purposely provoked. The argument that these are willing postings falls flat.

His response was a flippant dismissal about my "precious records." He offered that since he considered that I had the largest UR word vocablulary he was trying to learn new words from my games. He also indicated that 5/5 was his preferred game. On the surface, that seemed logical, but really, does a player with decades of word experience need to stalk any other player's games to find words? A person with that much skill and experience will have a stockpile of words that may need tweaking, but certainly won't require that kind of excess.

To me the entire thing was a bit creepy. I wondered what really lay behind that necessity to play 20% of his games against me. Certainly not a normal motivation. There are bunches of players with huge vocabularies here and he wasn't playing 20% of his games against them. And it's not because I have more records popping up on boards to be played. I'll consistently run across 3 boards in a row where the same player has most points. Sometimes I don't even see a single game with my records in a day. How many games do you have to skip through to find 12 or more of my games to play? As a test, I skipped throuugh 157 this morning before I found one. Not that that's a valid sampling of anything, but I'm certainly not going to waste hours seeing how many games I have to skip through to find 12 to arrive at a statistical norm.

Just ask yourself what you would think if some player were doing this to you? You have as large a vocabulary as I do. Would you simply think it's normal behavior? Or would you wonder about what's motivating that player?

I think mpd is also chubtrub. I think chubtrub's scores are more indicatitive of his skill level. Though initially chubtrub scored over 13oo points in a 4x4 game before backing off. So he has access to whatever enables such high skills.

Sorry, but there are just too many niggling inconsistencies and contradictions for me to not be sceptical.

I would love for him to be an honest player putting up valid scores. What a thrill to have a hero. But, the 20% stalking rate reeks of something else. And the explanation of looking to expand one's word base just falls short if we're talking about someone with enough mastery of the game that they can average over 1700 point on 5x5 and 1100 in 4x4. Do you think it's likely that chess Grand Masters are hanging around high school chess matches to discover new lines of attack? If they are, it's either they aren't really Grand Masters or they're interested in something other than the chess.

I've had someone staring at me for months and it's just....creepy.

And I'm sure there are all manner of "explanations". "Oh, you looked like a friend I had." But day after day, week after week? After a while the explanations seem more like cover stories than honest answers.

And, accordng to my maybe someday daughter in law, you're not going to get honest answers. Even when the explanations seem convincing.

Any successful con artist can spin whatever story is necessary to sell you on his scam. So, good explanations might give you confidence that the con is on the up and up, but... that's the point. Confidence. Belief.

And we all want to believe.

I don't buy the explanation that because he isn't earning money playing this game it's not the same as sports. Value is value. You don't spend entire days on things that have no value to you.

But, as I said before, this is a tempest in a teapot. Just wanted to voice why I personally distrust him. Probably none of you were being stalked so you lack that viewpoint. His scornful dismissals have the flavor of someone who's contemptuous of others. Someone who easily justifies whatever he does without regard for the concerns of others.

Time for a bike ride. 30 miles of bliss. 2 hours where a mosquito will surely make it's presence known, and soon be forgotten.

I have really enjoyed the amount of time, effort and thought that you have put into all of your responses.

[Naboka]

Nope Naboka, my post was really directed at the person accusing mpd of cheating. He called him out and when a polite and civilized reply was posted he disappeared. Accusations of cheating really seem to be a hot button topic here and I agree, it sucks to see some loser write a program and rack up unattainable scores. It’s always quite clear when this happens and the admin is pretty quick to blot these morons out. I don’t normally post a lot, I just enjoy coming here to play but it seemed really unfair to call out a perfectly legit player putting up scores at the higher end of the spectrum. Mention was made of a “learning curve” and mpd clearly explained that he’s been playing online word games for years honing his craft. Good enough for me. No disrespect toward you was meant at all.

No disrespect felt.

You ever get in a spat with the spouse that escalates quickly into nuclear confrontation? Then after the raging subsides you wonder where in the world did that come from. And it's often about something absolutely irrelevant and silly?

I wondered about all this discussion and it traces back months ago to anomolies I witnessed and grew curious about. I'd gotten pretty decent at this game. Good enough that I was finding games where Megaword had played against me and gotten most words but not most points. There would be days when I wouldn't lose any best scores in the personal records. Days.

Then, suddenly, I was losing 4, 6, 8, 10,12 a day. Hmm, me thinks. Something's amiss. Was it the system glitch that sometimes adds 20 longest word records overnight when you haven't played a single game?

So I started tracking who was online when the records disappeared. And it was mpd. Then I started tracking how many game records I lost against how many games he played. It was consistently 18-25% of his games.

In all your years of playing, who have you played 20% of your games day after day after day? Pretty statistically damning.

A few months ago the clan celebrated my sister's 80th birthday. Big deal with all the kids, grandkids, great grandkids attending. Lot of very attractive females in those younger echelons. And during the various conversations the subject of cyberstalking came up. Every single one of those girls had been the victim of cyberstalking. My son's financee is working on her doctorate in clinical psychology. So, as is our wont, we got discussing the psychology of stalkers. What makes them tick. She indicated that stalkers often suffer from self delusion and therapy doesn't work well. You have to be honest and willing to look for therapy to work. But, stalkers tend to be flawed and dishonest. Ergo, no soup for them.

This coincided with the time I suddenly found a fellow player "stalking" my games. Maybe an unjust appraisal, but certainly fitting the pattern. Twenty percent of a person's games played against one player?!

So I provoked a conversation. It wasn't a willingly offered conversation. It was purposely provoked. The argument that these are willing postings falls flat.

His response was a flippant dismissal about my "precious records." He offered that since he considered that I had the largest UR word vocablulary he was trying to learn new words from my games. He also indicated that 5/5 was his preferred game. On the surface, that seemed logical, but really, does a player with decades of word experience need to stalk any other player's games to find words? A person with that much skill and experience will have a stockpile of words that may need tweaking, but certainly won't require that kind of excess.

To me the entire thing was a bit creepy. I wondered what really lay behind that necessity to play 20% of his games against me. Certainly not a normal motivation. There are bunches of players with huge vocabularies here and he wasn't playing 20% of his games against them. And it's not because I have more records popping up on boards to be played. I'll consistently run across 3 boards in a row where the same player has most points. Sometimes I don't even see a single game with my records in a day. How many games do you have to skip through to find 12 or more of my games to play? As a test, I skipped throuugh 157 this morning before I found one. Not that that's a valid sampling of anything, but I'm certainly not going to waste hours seeing how many games I have to skip through to find 12 to arrive at a statistical norm.

Just ask yourself what you would think if some player were doing this to you? You have as large a vocabulary as I do. Would you simply think it's normal behavior? Or would you wonder about what's motivating that player?

I think mpd is also chubtrub. I think chubtrub's scores are more indicatitive of his skill level. Though initially chubtrub scored over 13oo points in a 4x4 game before backing off. So he has access to whatever enables such high skills.

Sorry, but there are just too many niggling inconsistencies and contradictions for me to not be sceptical.

I would love for him to be an honest player putting up valid scores. What a thrill to have a hero. But, the 20% stalking rate reeks of something else. And the explanation of looking to expand one's word base just falls short if we're talking about someone with enough mastery of the game that they can average over 1700 point on 5x5 and 1100 in 4x4. Do you think it's likely that chess Grand Masters are hanging around high school chess matches to discover new lines of attack? If they are, it's either they aren't really Grand Masters or they're interested in something other than the chess.

I've had someone staring at me for months and it's just....creepy.

And I'm sure there are all manner of "explanations". "Oh, you looked like a friend I had." But day after day, week after week? After a while the explanations seem more like cover stories than honest answers.

And, accordng to my maybe someday daughter in law, you're not going to get honest answers. Even when the explanations seem convincing.

Any successful con artist can spin whatever story is necessary to sell you on his scam. So, good explanations might give you confidence that the con is on the up and up, but... that's the point. Confidence. Belief.

And we all want to believe.

I don't buy the explanation that because he isn't earning money playing this game it's not the same as sports. Value is value. You don't spend entire days on things that have no value to you.

But, as I said before, this is a tempest in a teapot. Just wanted to voice why I personally distrust him. Probably none of you were being stalked so you lack that viewpoint. His scornful dismissals have the flavor of someone who's contemptuous of others. Someone who easily justifies whatever he does without regard for the concerns of others.

Time for a bike ride. 30 miles of bliss. 2 hours where a mosquito will surely make it's presence known, and soon be forgotten.

[Brisul]

I almost hate to jump into this but mpd is clearly legit. His scores are achievable with a good vocabulary and typing skills. I've been on here for many years and seen the patterns that always follow true cheating. And cheaters rarely respond to any posts here. mpd has no obligation to any of us to defend himself but has politely and quite eloquently offered an honest assessment of his history and abilities. The person who accused him of cheating seems to have disappeared from the chat entirely. IMHO an apology is in order.

No, I was in a different chat. I stand by what I said because his scores are super fishy.

[RussDNails]

Nope Naboka, my post was really directed at the person accusing mpd of cheating. He called him out and when a polite and civilized reply was posted he disappeared. Accusations of cheating really seem to be a hot button topic here and I agree, it sucks to see some loser write a program and rack up unattainable scores. It’s always quite clear when this happens and the admin is pretty quick to blot these morons out. I don’t normally post a lot, I just enjoy coming here to play but it seemed really unfair to call out a perfectly legit player putting up scores at the higher end of the spectrum. Mention was made of a “learning curve” and mpd clearly explained that he’s been playing online word games for years honing his craft. Good enough for me. No disrespect toward you was meant at all.

[Naboka]

I almost hate to jump into this but mpd is clearly legit. His scores are achievable with a good vocabulary and typing skills. I've been on here for many years and seen the patterns that always follow true cheating. And cheaters rarely respond to any posts here. mpd has no obligation to any of us to defend himself but has politely and quite eloquently offered an honest assessment of his history and abilities. The person who accused him of cheating seems to have disappeared from the chat entirely. IMHO an apology is in order.

Pretty sure he's talking to me here, not the person who openly accused him of cheating. Not sure I would deem an apology necessary. There may be disagreements, but the jury's still out here, and even then, juries sometimes get it wrong.

Doesn't take long being on the internet to realize people do the craziest things for reasons that make absolutely no sense to us. To most of us, a rational person wouldn't do such and such because we wouldn't. But we're not inside their brains. We don't know what drives them. We aren't privy to irrational obsessions. We aren't privy to the capacity of a particular person's mind that assigns distorted values to whatever. You find some CEO of a major company is secretly obsessed with biker gangs taking a dump on him. Makes no sense. He's such a smart charismatic guy. Why in the world would he have such "desires?"

What does a person value? And what are they willing to do to attain what they value.

Sports figures may make millions and have millions at stake with their performance, but money isn't the only value out there. Money in and of itself is valueless. Just look at what happened in the Weimar Republic, where a wheel barrow full of cash couldn't buy you a loaf of bread. Even jewels are just rocks. They have no inherent value. All the value anything has is what we assign it.

We tend to pour our time and energy into what we value. And sometimes those values get obsessive and distorted.

One of the most frustrating things in the world is to almost get something. To be far away from achieving something doesn't frustrate us much. But to almost? It can be maddening.

If a person spends decades doing something, he/she values that thing. If a person spends decades almost attaining what they want most, the frustration can be horrible. If you're almost the best and desperately want to be the best finding a means to be the best can gain more and more value.

We tell each other little white lies because ... it just seems right. We tell ourselves little white lies because... it's easier to live with ourselves. The clerk gives us back too much change and we're short on money, it just seems fair that we have that money instead of the big corporation.

Our minds can justify absolutely anything. History is filled with the horrors of justified actions. And a lot of those who carried out horrible crimes could be polite and charming and reasonable. It's simply that they were able to justify their actions.

I have no doubts that players exist who can achieve mpd's scores honestly. Even Megaword realizes that his game has flaws which keep his scores lower than they could be. Records are made to be broken and someone always seems to come along eventually to break them.

All of us are full of inconsistencies and contradictions. Inconsistencies and contradictions might gainsay nothing. Or might speak loudly.

To me, there are inconsistencies and contradictions here. I've enumerated some. Does that mean he's cheating? Not necessarily. But enough to make me skeptical. And we all have the right to be skeptical. No one else can shame us because we doubt the truth of something they believe to be true.

I was getting lumber at Home Depot yesterday and a guy pulls over in the parking lot with his family. While in his car, he shows me a fancy ring, tells me a story about losing his wallet and needing cash. Maybe he actually did lose his wallet and most of us need cash... But, did I believe him? He seemed really nice. He had cute kids. I wouldn't have minded giving him twenty bucks just because. But, something just wasn't right.

Bernie Madoff was a chaming guy. Convinced a lot of savy people of his legitimacy. A very, very nice guy by all accounts. Very communicative. Very convincing. Surely he wouldn't...

Being nice and communicating prove very little.

Do I know if anyone is cheating in the game? With 100% certainty? Nope. Maybe unbeatable and asdf had eidetic memories and getting perfect scores was part of their skill sets.

Am I going to buy a ring just because someone is polite and convincing?

Am I going to doubt unbeatable and asdf's scores? You betcha.

The world is filled with all manner of events and issues that cover the spectrum from very bad to very good. This entire issue being discussed here is no more important than a single mosquito amongst all the living creatures that exist. When we ride our bikes on the trail, mosquitos swarm us when we stop. The trail runs along a small river. Lots of them critters. For a brief moment, we have to deal with buzzing and the attempted feedings. Then we get on our bikes and ride on. Mosquitos can't even fly 2 miles per hour and we average 15.

When we get home none of us talks about the mosquitos because they're irrelevant. Much like this issue here. Completely without importance in our daily lives.

For a moment, we might feel elated to have accomplished some goal here with this game. But in the outside world, no one cares. Let me repeat that: no one cares. A particular player might care enough to spend ungodly numbers of hours here. But in the real world no one cares. No one values what goes on here. It's not important.

But, to some players what goes on here is the bread and butter of their existence. Being a noted player can be the crux of their identity. It's a thing they value greatly. And that's perfectly fine. It's no worse than an artist who spends thousands of hours painting works that no one else wants. As long as a person enjoys what they're doing and sees benefit...

Just saying.

There are far, far more important things to spend our time with.

Such as: there are far more important things for me to do than posting here. Makes me wonder why I waste time doing it when the opportunity cost is so great.

Sigh.

Guess I'll reevaluate and attempt to make wiser decisions about time allocation.

Tempest in a teapot.

Guess posting here demostrates once again my tendency towards obsessive and irrational behavior. What a shock. What a come-to-Jesus moment. Gonna have to fix that.

Hallelujah.

Where's that motorcycle gang?

Arrivederci, Roma.

[JJBeanie]

I totally agree, RussDNails.

[RussDNails]

OK. Right. Sports analogies. Wordtwist is, in fact, not like professional sports whatsoever, whereby competitive advantage potentially comes with millions of dollars in contracts and endorsements. People care about sports. This is a niche, online word game with little to no significance other than to those that play it, a small community. Cheating at such a game is beyond pointless, as anyone who has spent much time playing here would undoubtedly agree. Cheaters come in as a bit of a joke, are usually pretty snarky about it, get bored, and leave not long after showing up. I've been playing these games a long time, I've developed friendships through them, and continue to enjoy playing and improving at them. There is a certain mutual respect that comes with knowing the people who engage in similar pursuits, which I feel is present in the other communities where I have traditionally played. You could ask around if you so chose, though I'm not holding my breath.

I'm 'new' here, a relative unknown quantity, if you can say that after playing several thousands of games. Without familiarity being established, sure, if you've never left the confines of Wordtwist, you might think that my scores are highly suspicious. I'm not upset there is doubt, that is more or less expected. I also don't feel like I've been indignant about this (despite you trying to put words into my mouth). What upsets me more are the actions you've taken as a result of your doubt. You have compared me in separate posts to termites, cheating husbands, Gollum, worms, weeds, and con artists, and extrapolated that to my personality being one morally bankrupt unconcerned with fairness and consumed with self-delusion. All this based on nothing more than your own amateur psychoanalysis of someone you have never met, someone who has done you no wrong, and without ever engaging with them with any measure of decorum. You seem to have developed some respect from some other users here, excuse me if I reserve mine.

I almost hate to jump into this but mpd is clearly legit. His scores are achievable with a good vocabulary and typing skills. I've been on here for many years and seen the patterns that always follow true cheating. And cheaters rarely respond to any posts here. mpd has no obligation to any of us to defend himself but has politely and quite eloquently offered an honest assessment of his history and abilities. The person who accused him of cheating seems to have disappeared from the chat entirely. IMHO an apology is in order.

[crazykate]

Before anyone gets hurt or offended by words spoken in anger or resentment, more than they've already been, let's take a step back instead of doubling down.
A lot of new players and/or strategies have been greeted by accusations of cheating in this forum.
To me, being so far away from being in direct competition with the best players, the difference between actual cheats and people who were just extremely good at Wordtwist has always been how they interact with other players. And I think that mpd proved his willingness to communicate by starting this thread. Let's give him the benefit of the doubt.