How a File Format Led to a Crossword Scandal - Saul Pwanson

Saul Pwanson explains how designing a plain-text crossword format and building a data pipeline uncovered a major plagiarism scandal.

In 2016 I designed a plain-text file format for crossword puzzle data, and then spent a couple of months building a micro-data-pipeline, scraping tens of thousands of crosswords from various sources. Then, having all those crosswords in a simple format, I wanted to see if there were any common grid patterns--and discovered egregious plagiarism by a major crossword editor that had gone on for years. This talk would cover the file format, data pipeline, and the design choices that aided rapid exploration; the evidence for the scandal, from the initial anomalies to the final damning visualization; and what it's like for a data project to get 15 minutes of fame. Slides from Saul Pwanson's Presentation (doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2836892#.XNyBaUXUB1Y) csvconf.com/