[HN Gopher] NYT shutting down the Wordle archive
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NYT shutting down the Wordle archive
Author : dtagames
Score : 74 points
Date : 2022-03-13 21:29 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (gamerant.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (gamerant.com)
| Ansil849 wrote:
| The NYT has put a shitton of advertising trackers on their Wordle
| site [1], has censored words from the original word list [2], and
| now this.
|
| These kinds of user-hostile actions are exactly why I will never
| support them.
|
| [1] https://gizmodo.com/wordle-ad-trackers-privacy-new-york-
| time...
|
| [2] https://www.newsweek.com/wordle-bans-slave-new-york-times-
| of...
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| What's user hostile in taking words off the list? I don't
| really see how that impacts the experience.
|
| Adding trackers is the expected move, when going from a hobby
| site to a publisher. This is something which has to be fixed
| systematically by proper legislation.
| Ansil849 wrote:
| > What's user hostile in taking words off the list? I don't
| really see how that impacts the experience.
|
| If you don't see how removing words off the wordlist impacts
| the experience, I really can't explain it to you, it's a
| tautology: removing words impacts the experience precisely by
| removing words. Because you can no longer use the removed
| word in gameplay, as you could previously. Therefore
| experience is impacted.
|
| > Adding trackers is the expected move
|
| It being 'expected' has no bearing on it not being palatable
| and being user hostile.
| paulcole wrote:
| > Therefore experience is impacted
|
| This is like saying stubbing your toe on a grain of sand
| impacts the experience of your foot.
|
| Yes, you are technically correct that the Wordle experience
| has changed, but it hasn't changed in a meaningful (or even
| noticeable) way for 99.9% of Wordle players.
| Ansil849 wrote:
| If your criteria is some specific quantity instead of one
| around the ethics of censorship, would you likewise be OK
| with dictionaries removing a small percentage of words?
| Under the same pretense, that this removal would surely
| only impact .1% of those who may consult a dictionary in
| a meaningful (or even noticeable) way?
|
| If anything, the fact that the censorship is hard to
| notice makes it all the more pernicious and harmful.
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| Maybe it changes the difficulty, but hostile. But yeah, I
| know what your beef is ...
| Steko wrote:
| I take delight knowing that it drives racists crazy so it's
| improved my user experience.
| Ansil849 wrote:
| Did a lot of racists play Wordle on the NYT page? Is
| there a stormfront thread about it or something? I
| haven't really seen any news of racists being outraged by
| this; likely because many of the removed words are not
| racially-charged terms.
| [deleted]
| nojito wrote:
| I mean NYT Games' strategy is to put game archives behind a
| subscription.
|
| See here for crosswords: https://help.nytimes.com/hc/en-
| us/articles/360051947672-New-...
|
| Doubt they will ever go after un-named clones though.
| bin_bash wrote:
| They might go after the trademark
| donohoe wrote:
| Unfortunately I think they have little choice. If you don't
| enforce a trademark then you risk losing it.
| bin_bash wrote:
| People say this a lot but there aren't many examples of
| this actually happening in legal matters.
|
| The bigger risk is losing the trademark inside of people's
| minds--which would have to happen first anyways. Similar to
| Velcro, which still legally has the trademark but to the
| public it's genericized.
| donohoe wrote:
| My understanding is that it happens enough that lawyers
| worry enough about it and therefore chase these things
| down constantly.
|
| Over the years I have received cease-and desists from
| nice lawyers for Virgin Atlantic, The Coke-Cola Company
| (I had a Chrome extension called "Facebook Classic" that
| restored the reverse-chronological feed when FB started
| moving away from that), and an unofficial polite pre-
| lawyer request from The New York Times.
| charcircuit wrote:
| Wordle is not open source. You do not have a license to
| redistribute it.
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| The gameplay rules of Wordle are not patented or protected.
| Anyone can make a clone with the same rules, just don't call it
| Wordle or use trademarked/copyrighted names associated with it.
|
| See more here:
| https://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=cd3b3bbc-03d8...
| OrderlyTiamat wrote:
| I didn't see any mention of license back when it wasn't bought
| yet, what license did it used to be under before NYT?
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| There is no license which allows you redistribution. Default
| in copyright. A license is needed tongtant you tights. (fair
| use etc. exists of course)
| [deleted]
| Someone1234 wrote:
| See this previous HN thread for how difficult NYT makes it to
| cancel:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26174269
|
| This is the kind of dark-pattern/anti-consumer stuff you should
| expect if you must keep using Wordle-branded Wordle (as opposed
| to one of their competitors).
| teaearlgraycold wrote:
| I use privacy.com (single use/purpose card number generator)
| for my NYT subscription because of that part.
| jrockway wrote:
| They don't cancel your subscription when your credit card
| number stops working. They keep charging you, and send the
| account balance to a collections agency. So hopefully you
| signed up with a fake name and fake address.
| DoneWithAllThat wrote:
| What is the relevance of this at all to the topic we're
| discussing?
| gdulli wrote:
| It's outrage culture. The people who don't like a thing use
| their dislike as a wildcard, making it relevant to every
| discussion involving that thing.
| Ansil849 wrote:
| The relevance is that the NYT has a sordid history of user
| hostile actions, and this is just the latest in a long line
| of them. In other words, the relevance is in highlighting
| that this is kind of conduct is part of a pattern, not an
| aberration. This is relevant, as it helps situate the action.
| imgabe wrote:
| You don't need a subscription to play Wordle
| nixass wrote:
| Yet
| koolba wrote:
| At one point, pre 2011 I think, you didn't need one for the
| crossword either.
| gumby wrote:
| ...unless you live in California. In some ways this is a minor
| issue, but it would be best for everyone, _including
| subscription service providers_ , if this kind of thing were
| banned by law.
| blamazon wrote:
| Can we just admire for a moment that the person who made Wordle
| is named Josh Wardle. That's amazing.
|
| (That a side project punnily named after his last name became
| such a phenomenon)
| jachee wrote:
| Yeah, he named it after himself. It's really not a coincidence.
| :)
| booleandilemma wrote:
| And Lou Gehrig got Lou Gehrig's disease, what are the chances?
| PragmaticPulp wrote:
| I'm not a Wordle player so I was confused about why they'd shut
| down the archive part of their acquisition.
|
| Reading closer, the "Wordle Archive" was a Wordle clone site that
| allowed people to play old Wordles.
|
| No surprise that they'd be asking clone sites, especially those
| using both the trademark and exact content, to shut down. You
| can't expect to clone Wordle, call it Wordle, use the Wordle
| words, and expect the Wordle owners to look the other way. This
| seems like a non-story.
| alar44 wrote:
| Idk, wordle isn't really new and isn't something you should be
| able to own.
|
| It'd be like claiming to own tic tac toe or rock paper
| scissors. It's just too simple imo.
| cush wrote:
| "Wordle" is a trademark that NYT owns
| dehrmann wrote:
| Apparently a few entities own it:
|
| https://tmsearch.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=toc&state=4805%3
| A...
| hartator wrote:
| I don't think "Wordle" is a _registered_ trademark.
| jeroenhd wrote:
| I don't think "wordle" was a popular name for the game before
| it got popular on the internet, so a trademark makes sense in
| this case.
|
| Of course Wordle is just Lingo but online. And Lingo is just
| televised Mastermind with letters instead of colours.
| Mastermind is an extension of Bulls and Cows and if you go
| back further I'm sure you can find another game like it.
|
| There are some very big broadcasting companies that have put
| a lot of money into the "guess the word" genre and the New
| York Times probably know that they can't take down every game
| with similar rules.
|
| The best they can do is find infringement of their trademark
| and pursue those who infringe upon it, or risk losing the
| trademark all together. They could also license the
| trademark, of course, but a blanket cease and desist letter
| is cheaper than negotiating a contract.
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| I can't tell because it has been taken down--was the Wordle
| archive using the original game's javascript code, or was it
| a complete rewrite? Wordle is entirely client-side, so it
| would have been easy to do.
|
| The game concept (probably) isn't copyrightable, but the code
| certainly is.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| I think it's fine to have "dog bites man" stories. NYT paying
| money for a property and aggressively trying to defend is
| totally expected, but still a story worth conveying.
| cush wrote:
| A small indie dev got $1M+ for the name "Wordle" and NYT
| wants to own the brand. It's not "dog bites man"... it's a
| complete non-story.
| topynate wrote:
| Does anyone know of a wordle that's in sync with the NYT's list
| of answers but uses the original dictionary? The NYT site doesn't
| work for me with uBO turned on (actually it barely works with it
| turned off).
|
| (Edit: I think I answered my own question:
| https://www.wordel.app. Author at
| https://twitter.com/m_yxnk/status/1498171177763803140)
| jstx1 wrote:
| Enjoy while it lasts -
| https://www.devangthakkar.com/wordle_archive/
|
| There's a part of me that wants to spin up a new clone of this on
| a regular basis purely out of spite.
| cush wrote:
| Anyone can create a clone as long as it's not called Wordle.
| Aeolun wrote:
| How does that work if all these things already existed before
| the acquisition?
|
| Clearly nobody cared about protecting the name before.
|
| The whole reason Wordle is so popular is because all the
| stuff around it.
| [deleted]
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(page generated 2022-03-13 23:00 UTC)