A: While I (Adam Vellender) was in utter awe of John Green's epic efforts with marking and maintaining statistics for the Listener (and Robert Teuton's efforts with the Crossword Centre puzzles, similarly Chris Lear at Magpie), I'd thought for a while that most, though definitely not all, thematic crosswords could have their solutions inputted via some nice web interface. As a solver, the printing, cutting, and ever-increasing postage costs for the Listener were a little off-putting; were such a puzzle series to be born today, I doubt that postal entry would be seen as the most attractive option. When word came round that John Green was retiring, I assumed it was very likely indeed that no volunteer would come forward to mark something of the order of 450 crosswords per week, plus transcribe comments etc., none which strikes me as a wildly fun task for anyone at all. I therefore hacked together a prototype of this new input method over a couple of evenings, thinking it might be a fun little project and a chance to modernise things a bit. My assumption was wrong though - a volunteer did come forward, so my prototype wasn't needed or wanted there.
Then a few months later when Robert thought it was time for a rest as Crossword Centre marker, I thought perhaps this was an opportunity for that prototype to come back to life rather than go to waste. It's now more polished than the original version and makes computers do most of the marking work, as well as the generation of stats.
A: It very substantially cuts down on the amount of human effort involved on the marking side - everything is pretty much automated. Rather than having to wade through emails and check every cell of every grid, this new system auto-marks every entry as correct or incorrect. Within a millisecond of your entry being submitted, it checks that every cell contains the correct letter(s) and that the correct cells are highlighted (and in puzzles that require alteration of barring, drawing of lines, splitting of cells, uppercase/lowercase, checks all those things too). That's not to say that a human eye won't be passed over all entries - it will. The behind-the-scenes marking interface changes the visual styling of any cell that the auto-marker thinks is wrong, so it'll be very rapid indeed to see where any incorrect entries differ from the intended solution (if you enter MUDDLES instead of MUDDIES, the erroneous "L" will appear in bright red bold text in the behind-the-scenes checking interface). This allows for a bit of humanity in the marking - for instance a small typo like entering "M," into a cell that should contain "M" would likely be overlooked!
The system also records comments for the setter and automatically compiles these into a PDF to be sent to them and compiles puzzle/annual statistics as entries come in. Plus, it can randomly select a correct solver to be the prize winner.
A: At present, the following are supported:
A: An important question! After all, the entry method must not stifle setters' creativity. In puzzles where the solution cannot be implemented using the tools provided, there will be a box under the grid asking for any non-standard requirements. For instance, I set a puzzle in Magpie semi-recently that required solvers to draw a little picture of a tunnel in a cell. The way I'd expect something like that to be implemented would be a box under the grid with a label saying something like "Enter an asterisk into any cell containing non-alphanumeric contents and describe what your entry contains in this box". In extreme circumstances (e.g. unusual grid geometries), the occasional month could revert to being of an "email a photo/scan" format to cater for highly unusual puzzles too.
Simply resubmit the corrected entry. If you submit multiple entries in a month, the one submitted most recently will be considered your definitive entry.
Since the grid uses quite a bit of JavaScript to generate it, this would not straightforward to implement an emailed receipt that would properly render in all email clients. Instead, after submission, you have the option to print a receipt which includes your submitted grid. If you don't want to print onto paper, many systems will allow you to print this as a PDF to keep for your records.
A: Great! Email me at cc@vellender.com, or write something in the "Comments for the organisers" box on the submission page.
A: Email me at cc@vellender.com and I'll see if I can help overcome any difficulties. The one thing that I don't want to do though is to transcribe a photo or similar into the grid for you every month; the idea of this system is to cut down on the amount of work required from the checker after all!