Talk:The New York Times crossword

"The New York Times crossword puzzle"
I would interpret the opening sentence such that the first word "The" is not intentionally a part of the title, even though it is called The New York Times. If I am right, then the first word of the article should not be part of the anchor text.

Instead of "The New York Times crossword puzzle is", it should be "The New York Times crossword puzzle is..."

--- Arancaytar - avá artanhé (reply) 12:21, 26 March 2008 (UTC)

papers which carry
The papers which publish the NYT puzzle is an important part of the thing itself, as is a habitat information for a wild bird! Without this information the article is incorrect in its statement that the NYT carries it (to the implicit exclusion of other newspapers), and less useful - decreasing general relevance to people outside New York with alternative access. This is testified by the high number of previous revisions which added to the list of journals.

I have left out the table of winners previously removed, being in itself trivia, but have reinstated the useful information removed by Dreamguy. 92.12.36.78 (talk) 11:41, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

I have to agree here with this previous user, (DreamGuy just again deleted the section as trivial). a) It makes the point that the puzzle is important; b) many people live in areas where the NYT is not available and for them these papers are THE primary means of access for the puzzle. I obtained a reference source confirming that the puzzle is widely syndicated. So I'd really argue that where the puzzle is available is an important part of an article discussing it. 71.167.243.54 (talk) 20:55, 12 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia is not a directory. There's no need to list the newspapers. It's sufficient to mention the number of newspapers. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 03:02, 13 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I agree with the anonymous user above (71.167.243.54) that it's notable that the puzzle is widely syndicated and a list of where it is syndicated is relevant to the topic. WP:NOT doesn't apply to this sort of list. It's clearly related to the topic, and it's not a "directory" in the sense given in section 3 of the guideline, whereas a list of upcoming topics or clues or perhaps where to find these newspapers would be. The article's not that long, but if it gets to be, then move the list to a sub-article. PaulGS (talk) 15:58, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not a directory, but it contains many, many directory-like lists, literally tens of thousands of them. We don't slavishly follow guidelines -- we discuss them and decide what to do in a particular case. In this particular case, I know that this information is not available elsewhere and is unlikely to be available elsewhere. I know that people inquire about this information on a regular basis and it would be a good thing to have it available. Therefore, I think this list should be retained and improved. Should it grow too large, we can put it in a separate page. RoyLeban (talk) 08:22, 28 April 2009 (UTC)


 * Personally, I'd be more inclined to switch from a list of specific newspapers to a paragraph that gives an overview of papers that carry it in more general terms. My two cents. --MZMcBride (talk) 18:47, 28 April 2009 (UTC)


 * This would be my preference, too. Perhaps mention a couple of very well-known or high-circulation examples - like the International Herald Tribune and the Chicago Sun-Times - then discuss its wide circulation in the US and Canada with statistics etc (is the number rising or falling?), and mention some of the unusual outliers like China Daily and the campus newspapers. This would probably be more generally interesting than just a bare list, and serve to point out some of the details that can be missed when people skim over a plain list of names. Shimgray | talk | 21:23, 4 April 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't see any need to remove the list, particularly since all the papers currently in the list have their own articles and are therefore notable. Adding a section at the beginning would improve the article, though, or there could be a separate page for the list to cut down on the size of the page. PaulGS (talk) 05:23, 5 April 2010 (UTC)

Not on Sundays?
I have the Sunday New York Times here, and it does not contain a crossword. Is this normal? Should the article mention on which days papers carry the crossword? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.181.87.26 (talk) 00:36, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

did you look in the Magazine? The puzzle appears in the New York Times Magazine on the weekend. 71.167.243.54 (talk) 15:26, 12 March 2009 (UTC)ethan

Adding redirect?
I don't know how to do this but I've noticed that searches for: New York Times crosswords New York Times crossword New York Times crossword puzzles the new york times crossword puzzles

all go to a 'cannot find' page--shouldn't they redirect to this article?

Also 'The New York Times Crosswords' takes you to a page for the Nintendo DS game; wouldn't a disambiguation page be better? I suspect most searchers who type that phrase in are looking for this article instead. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.193.47.202 (talk) 14:05, 13 March 2009 (UTC)


 * I've created redirects for the above searches and placed a hatnote on the DS game. Gobonobo  T C 23:51, 14 February 2010 (UTC)

Editor Mel Taub
Article says there were only 4 editors of the NYT xword, but Mel Taub was the interim editor between Maleska and Shortz, from August 1993 until November 20 (http://www.xwordinfo.com/PS?date=11/20/1993). Mr. Taub may not have been full-time, but he did edit the NYT xword so I feel he should be included in the list. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Puzmonkey (talk • contribs) 17:23, 16 February 2017 (UTC)

Proposed merge of The New York Times Crosswords into The New York Times crossword puzzle
It seems like the NYT experimented with releasing their crossword on the Nintendo DS back in 2007. More than a decade out, I think that experiment would be better discussed briefly and with context here, rather than as an unsourced standalone page of dubious notability. &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 07:25, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose It passes the Metacritic Test with more than 3 reviews in reliable sources. Per WP:NEXIST, it should not be merged due to non-notability.ZXCVBNM (TALK) 11:52, 25 April 2021 (UTC)
 * Oppose As pointed out enough dedicated reviews about the game exist for it to be a standalone article.  Spy-cicle💥   Talk? 01:23, 30 April 2021 (UTC)

Title
The crossword is never branded as the "New York Times crossword puzzle", but rather "The New York Times Crossword" or even just "The Crossword" (which should probably be mentioned in parentheses in the lead). It's also super weird that this article's title doesn't have the leading "The", but The New York Times Spelling Bee and The New York Times Connections do. I'm suggesting we move this page to The New York Times Crossword, with a capital C, and with the The, but this feels worth discussing. Banjo Zebra (talk) 15:19, 5 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Agree: The New York Times Crossword is better.
 * In the same vein, it would also be desirable to unify nomenclature for all of the articles under the umbrella of The New York Times Games. Following the above logic, the name of each game would be preceded by "The New York Times" (in italics). Letter Boxed would become The New York Times Letter Boxed, and so forth. [NB: More nit-picky, perhaps, though unifying short descriptions, as well as italic usage, infobox usage and style, layout, etc. would be a plus too.]
 * Creating articles for those games which we are missing (i.e., The Mini, Tiles, Vertex) is something that's on my list too.-- Cl3phact0 (talk) 16:09, 5 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Letter Boxed is barely passing notability right now; I highly doubt The Mini, Tiles, Vertex will get their own articles any time soon unless significant coverage is warranted. Quangson306 (talk) 13:23, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
 * The Mini is the only one of these I can see having its own article, given its massive popularity and decent amount of news coverage (e.g. that one Slate article, the recent Joel Fagliano interview), but yeah Tiles and Vertex aren't anywhere close to that point Banjo Zebra  (talk) 15:25, 6 March 2024 (UTC)
 * I would argue that The New York Times should only be appended to articles that have ambiguous names. Wordle should never be switched to The New York Times Wordle, for example. Same with Letter Boxed, as there is no colliding articles currently. Highly agree with moving the page to The New York Times Crossword. Quangson306 (talk) 10:49, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

"Crossword" probably shouldn't be capitalized in this title; see ngrams for common name, but definitely support undoing this undiscussed move. Hameltion (talk &#124; contribs) 18:11, 5 March 2024 (UTC)


 * Point taken re: caps (cool tool too), though I'd still vote to to err on the side of uniformity within the group of NYT Games articles (even if we need to bend the logic for this one). Cheers, Cl3phact0 (talk) 18:37, 5 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Common name is a good point, but for what it's worth NYT consistently styles New York Times Crossword with a capital C (and notably no capital P when it's followed by "puzzle")  Banjo Zebra  (talk) 18:40, 5 March 2024 (UTC)

Comment: I suggest moving this discussion to Talk:The New York Times Games as it concerns the articles that are regrouped there rather than just this one. -- Cl3phact0 (talk) 17:25, 6 March 2024 (UTC)

Requested move 5 June 2024

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: moved. Moved to The New York Times crossword (closed by non-admin page mover) BilledMammal (talk) 21:11, 22 June 2024 (UTC)

The New York Times Crossword → The New York Times crossword puzzle – (restoring longstanding title) Per WP:AT, Although official ... or trademarked names are often used for article titles, the term or name most typically used in reliable sources is generally preferred (in other words, the NYT branding does not matter). Ngrams strongly support lowercase. Web searches too: competitors of the Times lowercase it almost exclusively. Lowercase also makes linking easier; running text in the encyclopedia should generally not use brand-y capitalization. Hameltion (talk &#124; contribs) 05:57, 5 June 2024 (UTC) — Relisting. Safari Scribe Edits! Talk! 16:49, 12 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Pinging from above discussion. Hameltion (talk &#124; contribs) 05:58, 5 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Good point about not using brand-y capitalization, but I do think the title should still be The New York Times crossword instead of The New York Times crossword puzzle, as the official branding for the NYT crossword, most external references to the NYT crossword, and the Wikipedia page Crossword all ditch the "puzzle" by default. Banjo Zebra  (talk) 20:44, 5 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I could go either way there, though leaning toward including "puzzle": About 60–70% of ngrams for The New York Times crossword are actually using crossword puzzle in full, a rate that's similar at a glance in the above web searches. And I do often find myself piping crossword puzzle in running text but that page is another discussion. Hameltion (talk &#124; contribs) 20:55, 5 June 2024 (UTC)
 * I definitely do see an argument that crossword should be lowercase. This is interesting because, for example, USA Today Crossword (one of the larger competitor) exclusively uses the capitalization for its own crossword, but lowercase competitors' like NYT and WSJ. The same for NYT capitalizing its own crossword instead of its competitors. I think for neutrality sake we lowercase crossword, should there be future articles on USA Today and WSJ variants. I'm much leaning towards The New York Times crossword with the "the" and "the NYT" italicized instead of "crossword puzzle" though, as a good compromise. The example links in web search Hameltion gave showed mix results for "crossword" and "crossword puzzle", and Google Trends shows significantly more for "crossword" than "crossword puzzle". "crossword" also is more all-encompassing too. Quangson306 (talk) 14:55, 8 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Note: INACTIVEWP, WikiProject Media, WikiProject Games, and WikiProject Newspapers have been notified of this discussion. Safari Scribe Edits! Talk! 16:49, 12 June 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.