The Collaborative Word List Project

What is this project?

• It has always bugged me that crossword constructors' word lists remain a closely guarded secret. The word lists available at Cruciverb.com are wonderful but the fact that they are unranked makes them somewhat less than ideal.
  
  This led to the following idea: why not create a shared word list that users can update themselves? This way, we get several minds working on a word list at once. New words will be added faster, bad words will be removed faster and the end result should be better than anything one person could do on his own in the same amount of time. Hence we have this project. A user checks out the word list, makes adjustments, and checks it back in. What could be better?

How do I join?

• You'll need a Cruciverb.com gold membership. In fact, this is the first thing you should do if you're serious about constructing crosswords at all. Just send me an with some proof of gold membership (a screen shot is fine) and let me know what you want your username to be. I'll sign you up and fill you in how to proceed!

How does it work?

• I've written instruction pages for Crossword Compiler users and CrossFire users that you can peruse. That should give you an idea about how this works.

How should I be scoring words in the word list?

• See our handy guidelines for scoring words. These are not to be taken as gospel but should be a good place to start.