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A Note About Today’s Wordle Game

nytimes.com

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Re: A Note About Today’s Wordle Game

#31

Post by jaywalk »

ISL wrote: post #15
danso wrote: post #2

In case there's a paywall for the editor's note: the tl;dr is that today's word was originally supposed to be "FETUS". Last week the NYT noticed this and made a change, but this change wouldn't propagate to all the Wordle players who still have the cached word list in their browsers. Full text below: It’s been just over three months since The New York Times acquired Wordle, the hugely popular puzzle created by Josh W…

"current Wordle technology" is one of the things that made it so great -- it was /is client-side. I understand that NYT didn't want to step in it, and it was probably a smart decision, but I'd love to live in a world where the editor chose to say, "Well, we defined that word list many months ago and it happened to come up today. The public reaction to today's Wordle simply emphasizes the fact that words, even a singl…

This word, in this context, should not matter. It is essentially a random word, inserted far in advance, that happens to relate to current events. The fact that it matters to anyone here is a symptom of the severe societal illness that publications like the NYT are helping to spread. How long until dictionaries and textbooks are forced to change the definition of "fetus" because it makes some people uncomfortable to admit that a human embryo becomes a fetus at nine weeks of development?

Re: A Note About Today’s Wordle Game

#32

Post by mcphage »

aug_aug wrote: post #26

That's funny because "plant" was a solution on Earth Day, I thought that was suspicious too...

That could have been deliberately planned by Wardle well in advance. The issue wasn't so much with today's word, as the timing of it looks like it was deliberately placed recently.

Re: A Note About Today’s Wordle Game

#33

Post by jorpal »

happyopossum wrote: post #4

Sooo, “fetus” is a word dangerous enough that it requires a 350 word explainer article to accompany it?

My wife was using fetus as her first guess throughout most of her pregnancy, in honor of the fetus. Baby is 1 month old now, and the first guess preference has changed. Too bad this word didn’t come earlier, she would have got it first guess!

Re: A Note About Today’s Wordle Game

#34

Post by djur »

jaywalk wrote: post #31
ISL wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"current Wordle technology" is one of the things that made it so great -- it was /is client-side. I understand that NYT didn't want to step in it, and it was probably a smart decision, but I'd love to live in a world where the editor chose to say, "Well, we defined that word list many months ago and it happened to come up today. The public reaction to today's Wordle simply emphasizes the fact that words, even a singl…

This word, in this context, should not matter. It is essentially a random word, inserted far in advance, that happens to relate to current events. The fact that it matters to anyone here is a symptom of the severe societal illness that publications like the NYT are helping to spread. How long until dictionaries and textbooks are forced to change the definition of "fetus" because it makes some people uncomfortable to…

This has nothing to do with the definition of the word and everything to do with NYT not wanting to be perceived as injecting political commentary into a politically neutral product.

Re: A Note About Today’s Wordle Game

#35

Post by djur »

bluedays wrote: post #13

The source code seemed extremely simple, but somehow they messed it up so it’s impossible for them to change a word in time. Am I understanding this correctly?

The original implementation of Wordle was heavily optimized for reducing hosting costs and didn't have "allow changing the word list on the fly" as a requirement. As a result, the word list is cached on the client side.

Re: A Note About Today’s Wordle Game

#37

Post by qq66 »

bluedays wrote: post #13

The source code seemed extremely simple, but somehow they messed it up so it’s impossible for them to change a word in time. Am I understanding this correctly?

The game and all of its future word list are hardcoded into the Javascript. Many users have it cached.

Re: A Note About Today’s Wordle Game

#38

Post by bitsoda »

> We’re now busy revamping Wordle’s technology so that everyone always receives the same word. We are committed to ensuring that tens of millions of people have a gratifying and consistent experience, every day.

I wonder how much longer until the NYT requires a free account to play Wordle as a way to gently nudge more players into opting for a NYT Games subscription down the road? At this point, I wouldn't mind if it meant my stats/progress were written to a database that I could access from any browser.

Ultimately, they shelled out the money and it's their game now. I think they've done a decent job with it, and am glad to have found Spelling Bee, Letter Boxed, and the Mini Crossword along the way.

Re: A Note About Today’s Wordle Game

#40

Post by vivegi »

Hmm... on my iphone, the bookmark vanished this morning from the favorites list and it was weird. I got to the wordle homepage after googling it. I am guessing this had something to do with it.

Is that even a thing? Is there a way to force reload a bookmark?

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