Hey admins... if anyone is listening... some jokester is hijacking people's names in the lobby and turning them all into "Ginas" or "Testicles." Weird sense of humor, amusing to some I suppose; but pretty irksome to those of us who want to play real games with real people. Can you do something about this ASAP please?

Many thanks to the Lexulous team for all the hard work, and the improvements in New Lexulous that have become apparent in the past few weeks. Here is something that I think many players would like to see implemented: The ability to accept or reject players who come to one's table. (This was a feature of the old Lexulous, but these days it seems as if, when you set a table, you are obliged either to play anyone who joins it or else delete the game.) If it ends up not being possible to accept-or-reject, how about bulking up Censor so that people whom one has censored can't join one's game? As far as I can see, at present they are able to do so. Thanks again...

Hear, hear. This feature is one of the last remaining bits needed to make the new Lexulous work as well as the old site (with all the bells and whistles that have been added). We all know change is difficult, but by now this new place is feeling a lot like home! Just please give us the ability to accept or reject players from our tables... tyvm

@roymccoy
"... and when you try to replace the real word Fibula
with a non-existent word like 'Fibia,'
your thinking is hazy like a Nebula...
I can't think of a good rhyme for Fibia.
Except Tibia."

@funkeymonkey so... if you play a higher-rated player and win, your rating will increase noticeably. If you play a lower-rated player and lose, your rating will decrease noticeably. But if you beat the lower rated player or lose to the higher rated player, the change in your rating (and in theirs) is more negligible. If you care about these things, check the advice about expected rating changes that the game gives you in the window that opens up when a game invitation is pending.

@betterlate1-0 Indeed, this happened overnight. Personally I don't really feel the need for these tabs but perhaps some do. How about adding one for "I strongly suspect you have an anagram program running in the background" .... since that seems to be an oft-expressed sentiment in these games!

@middlechild7 I was pretty unhappy with this new format too, at first (several months ago). But, having played under it pretty often recently, I have come to like it a lot. It offers almost all the features we were used to in the old Lexulous, though they aren't always in the same "place." And there are some things they did not use to have: for instance, you can see a much larger number of your past games than used to be possible.
Here is the most relevant point: Going back to the old format is not possible, NOT because of any decision made by Lexulous itself. The old game was based on an old Internet technology (I think it was "Flash"?) that has now been phased out almost everywhere else. Most browsers no longer support it. So if they had not gone and rebuilt Lexulous from the ground up, there would be no Lexulous any more. Personally I am grateful they did, and I am quite impressed by the amount of work that went into what is, after all, a free game!
(as always, "your mileage may vary")...

@mistertoad I see nothing wrong with this, but on the other hand I don't see that it solves the problem, if the problem is "too many posts about travel and customs, and not enough about the game." No matter what the category is, if they keep posting this stuff it is going to be there in the "recent posts" list every day. From my perspective this makes no difference, because my usual mode of interaction with the forum is to look below the lobby and note the recent posts. Category doesn't seem to make a difference. I suppose maybe it does, for people who use the forum differently.

@terrijay (and actually @betterlate1-0 and @Mistertoad and @ everyone) it would astonish me if Lexulous was able to institute any kind of reliable anti-cheating measures. Especially given their relatively limited resources. One factor is the wide variety of types of games and players (e-mail; snail's-pace live games; rapidfire timed games, etc.). Another is the fact that one player's "obvious cheat" is another's "how can you be so sure?". I have had people accuse me of certainty with playing at a rate that could not possibly be unaided. All I was doing was thinking up my move during the other player's turn, and typing my letters quickly when my turn came. Other players clobber me consistently because they take the game a lot more seriously and know huge numbers of obscure words (some people actually do play competitive scrabble in real-world tournaments). Good luck on getting any real curbs on cheating put in place!

@jrp32 yes. I chose the "olive" avatar and yet I think I show up as a microphone.

@pangloss I'd have a hard time dredging up an exact date, but my first Lexulous ID would have been created right back at the time when Literati died on Yahoo Games. That was, what, 2015 or thereabouts? A number of other players in Lex. are also former Literati people so they would have a better idea than I. I lost my old ID during the transition to the new board and can't dig up any old records.

@mapmakere interesting suggestion. But if your opponent seems oblivious to it and you (being the good friend that you are) want to warn them about it, then it seems likely that you are more on the ball than they are, and you probably don't need the dinger to alert you. Eh?

@mapmakere Back in Antediluvian times there used to be an Abort option: If both players agreed, the game would be canceled and wouldn't appear as a win or a loss for either player. I imagine that's what BL is wishing still existed.

@bettyl I'm not sure if this is at all relevant to your situation, but what I have noticed beginning this morning is that when I log in to Lexulous, instead of defaulting to the Live section (where I always play), the first screen that comes up is Email games. From there I can just easily click on the Live tab and get taken to the place I am used to. Not sure why this is happening now.... but it is! (odd)

@rjlwins How are you receiving these invitations? For many of us, we log into Lexulous first and that makes us available for invites from other players who are logged in at the same time. Not sure how yours is working.

@mapmakere same here. well, right-clicking brings up a menu, in which one of the options is Emoji. On the rare occasions when I feel like using one, I tend to go with Windows/period.

@karen-taylor It appears that this happens when players are joining games via the mobile app. I have had it happen frequently at my own hosted tables, and my policy these days is simply to delete the game before anyone has moved (or after the first move), which in either case doesn't affect the bottom line. It is a little irksome because it means you will have to set up a new hosted table. But the app players apparently don't have a choice; the site will sit them down at any available game!

@tracy-wambolt it would surprise me if that option ever becomes available, though it would be a fascinating thing to try! Presumably you would redesign the board like this only by prearrangement with the other player. But it would introduce a new wrinkle to the game if experienced players found they had to be on the lookout for new bonus square positions. Interesting idea!

@swimflower is it usually after you win a game that people block you? Some people are highly irritable and will do that.

@henrryyy What does Minecraft have to do with it?
Anyway, the proposed solutions do seem to have a ring of plausibility about them; but they don't really strike at the root of the question. When two players play each other several times in a row, Lexulous automatically alternates the starting player. The concern here is that some people may be game-shopping, dropping into other people's tables where they know they will get the first move and then moving on. See earlier responses in this thread.