To be perfectly honest, I haven't played any of those puzzles in decades . However, those I remember had no numbering whatsoever. You just had a list of Across clues and Down clues, and those two letters belonging to words that had to cross in order to allow you to solve the rest of the puzzle. As Agony pointed out, it was very much a process of trial and error - hence the need for a pencil or a pen that could be erased. Here's a link to the Italian Wiki for crosswords, which shows not just the grid, but also the clues. The instructions also provide the number of black spaces included (ten in this case), and state that there are no clues for groups of two letters. This type of CW is called "Incroci obbligati" (obliged crossings): https://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parole_crociate#Tipi_di_cruciverba

The only comment I'd make is to say I don't like the idea of restrictions placed before someone is allowed to even attempt a puzzle.

I had been wanting to get into crossword writing almost from the time I joined FT in 2012. I was told then that I had to have 10 good quizzes under my belt, then I could ask permission. I had to ask several times.

The only positive thing that can be said for that approach is that it forced me out of my comfort zone, because I had no interest in writing quizzes (which probably is reflected in the quality), but I could very easily have given up altogether.

I am so pleased that this restriction was removed sometime in the last few years. Just as quiz authors and crossword authors are different, I am sure we will see differences between variety writers and the more conventional ones.

The editorial process should be more than adequate to ensure a good standard is met.

Much as we ask writers to make their first quiz a standard multiple choice instead of FITB, we would want variant writers to have a few standard crosswords' worth of experience simply because learning curve is steep and it's a whole lot to grasp at once. A variant writer should be reasonably familiar with the basic requirements of a crossword - how to write a clue, how to use the grid editor, crossing enough letters, etc. - before jumping in on variants.

It's like you need to teach addition and multiplication before attempting algebra. Just how much training an author may need might be very different; I can well imagine some who can confidently tackle a variant after one standard puzzle. Others might still struggle with basics after ten. (We see the same with quizzes all the time). Remember also that, for practically all aspects of authoring, we have started out with some hurdles and later lowered or eliminated them as both authors and editors got more comfortable with new features. Today, an author could conceivably write a photo quiz as their 2nd quiz - when the feature started, it was first only editors who wrote them, then later you qualified via AinA, which required 20ish quizzes to get to that point. It'll be much easier to do your first variant if you already have two dozen good examples of the same type than if you have none.

You should also remember that at least for some variants, a flaw can mean starting over. A standard grid can usually be saved - a variant grid, especially a picture grid, with a systematic flaw has a substantial risk of being unsalvageable.

Sorry, I didn't phrase that too well. I simply meant that I would hope any restrictions would not be as daunting as I found them to be in the past. The way you frame it makes perfect sense.

As an example of that, I had completely given up on the idea of writing a photo quiz; now you tell me that I might qualify to write one! I had no idea.

Well, this is all stuff for the CW editors to kick around, decide what they are up for.

In the meantime, anyone interested in challenging themselves when it comes to the grid can play around with ideas and see what they come up with within our currant boundaries.

One type of puzzle I enjoyed (but haven't seen in years) is one where they give you all the answer words as an alphabetical list broken up by word length. Your challenge is to find where in the puzzle each of the words fits as there are no clues.

Yes, those are fun.

I recall playing (and really enjoying) crosswords called alphabeticals, similar to those described by Ladynym. The only modification that would be required is for the FT program to allow clues without numbering (4 across, etc). I don't know if that would be an insurmountable problem, as the clues would need to be stacked alphabetically.

The author would fill them out exactly as at present, using the grid references, but the clues would appear with just the letter of the alphabet rather than the normal reference.

A clue giving one or more letters to start the player off might need to be put in the intro., such as 'Place an E in the central square before starting'.

Thinking about my previous post, it SHOULD be possible to have a toggle button, accessible by either the author or the editor, to enable the clue numbers to appear (while compiling and editing) and disappear when finished and online.

I don't know if this is feasible or not, but something has struck me over the past few days as I've been playing various games. There are a number of very good single questions now being included in games which I honestly believe I've never seen before and would love to have had the opportunity to rate. As it stands, and please correct me if I'm wrong, the only chance you get to rate a single question is during the period it is in rotation in the New Question Game, so if a particular question did not appear in your set during that time, you never get to rate it. Please could consideration be given to using the same system for single questions as for quizzes where you can rate a question when you come across it in a game, perhaps still before you know who the author is if you want to keep to that premise, as long as you haven't previously rated it.

[quote=HairyBear][font:Book Antiqua]I would really like to see a limitation placed on the number of questions from a single quiz author in a timed game, preferably ONE. New Question and Gold Member Madness are the worst for this, I've seen as many as FOUR questions from the same question author in a single game, sometimes all on the same subject, but I just played a round of Who's the Smartest that had three questions from the same author in the game. Years ago when there were fewer questions and fewer question authors, this might have been a problem, but now? You might have to exclude Who's the Expert from this idea for smaller topics with just a few quizzes from just a few authors, but everything else should have more than enough quizzes to have 10 or 15 different question authors included.[/font]

Formatting has been disabled? [/quote]

Bumping this back up because I just had another round of GMM with FOUR questions from the same author, all from the same category, even. And I don't particularly LIKE that author.