[OT] New Word Similarity Checker

[Daniel B Widdis]

I have added a new feature to the Dixonary website to check for word similarity for candidate words you want to deal.

This essentially allows for checking against the current copy of the Used Words spreadsheet for words that might be minor variations of previously dealt words.  You can, of course, always use the spreadsheet, but this serves as a quick final check that may catch things you have missed.

You can go to https://dixonary.net which redirects you to https://sites.google.com/dixonary.net/dixonarydocs which you should already have bookmarked in your browser.  From there, click on “Similarity Check” from the menu (or bookmark this direct link: https://sites.google.com/dixonary.net/dixonarydocs/old-game-archive/similarity-check)

Enter the word you want to deal.  It will tell you if it’s an exact match (in which case, definitely don’t deal it) or if there are other similar spelled words (in which case you should evaluate if any of them are actual matches).

Feel free to suggest improvements.

Sample checks:

[Stephen Dixon]

Daniel, that is brilliant!

Steve Dixon

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[Shani Naylor]

Hi Dan

When I click on it, it asks for my email address, and then I got this (so I didn't go any further):

Google hasn’t verified this app

The app is requesting access to sensitive info in your Google Account. Until the developer (pjake...@gmail.com) verifies this app with Google, you shouldn't use it.

[Tim Bourne]

I got that too, but I ignored it and carried on. It worked fine, and should be very useful. I'm not clear why it needed access to anything from Google, though.

Tim B 

[Paul Keating]

I'm not sure why my name is on it.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/dixonary/CAH53O2fzCJ7yM9jpnivzYdXSa_OJD3ZzLWb5ixC5_NUMjqonDg%40mail.gmail.com.

[Daniel B Widdis]

Because you are the “owner” of the used word list sheet. 

Sent from my iPhone

On Dec 28, 2025, at 1:10 AM, Paul Keating <dixo...@boargules.com> wrote:



I'm not sure why my name is on it.

On 2025-12-28 09:55:29, Shani Naylor <shani....@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi Dan

When I click on it, it asks for my email address, and then I got this (so I didn't go any further):

Google hasn’t verified this app

The app is requesting access to sensitive info in your Google Account. Until the developer (pjake...@gmail.com) verifies this app with Google, you shouldn't use it.

On Sun, Dec 28, 2025 at 9:28 AM Daniel B Widdis <wid...@dixonary.net> wrote:

I have added a new feature to the Dixonary website to check for word similarity for candidate words you want to deal.

This essentially allows for checking against the current copy of the Used Words spreadsheet for words that might be minor variations of previously dealt words.  You can, of course, always use the spreadsheet, but this serves as a quick final check that may catch things you have missed.

You can go to https://dixonary.net which redirects you to https://sites.google.com/dixonary.net/dixonarydocs which you should already have bookmarked in your browser.  From there, click on “Similarity Check” from the menu (or bookmark this direct link: https://sites.google.com/dixonary.net/dixonarydocs/old-game-archive/similarity-check)

Enter the word you want to deal.  It will tell you if it’s an exact match (in which case, definitely don’t deal it) or if there are other similar spelled words (in which case you should evaluate if any of them are actual matches).

Feel free to suggest improvements.

Sample checks:

<image.png>

<image.png>

<image.png>

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[Daniel B Widdis]

I’ll troubleshoot this later today. 

Sent from my iPhone

On Dec 28, 2025, at 12:55 AM, Shani Naylor <shani....@gmail.com> wrote:



Hi Dan

When I click on it, it asks for my email address, and then I got this (so I didn't go any further):

Google hasn’t verified this app

The app is requesting access to sensitive info in your Google Account. Until the developer (pjake...@gmail.com) verifies this app with Google, you shouldn't use it.

On Sun, Dec 28, 2025 at 9:28 AM Daniel B Widdis <wid...@dixonary.net> wrote:

I have added a new feature to the Dixonary website to check for word similarity for candidate words you want to deal.

This essentially allows for checking against the current copy of the Used Words spreadsheet for words that might be minor variations of previously dealt words.  You can, of course, always use the spreadsheet, but this serves as a quick final check that may catch things you have missed.

You can go to https://dixonary.net which redirects you to https://sites.google.com/dixonary.net/dixonarydocs which you should already have bookmarked in your browser.  From there, click on “Similarity Check” from the menu (or bookmark this direct link: https://sites.google.com/dixonary.net/dixonarydocs/old-game-archive/similarity-check)

Enter the word you want to deal.  It will tell you if it’s an exact match (in which case, definitely don’t deal it) or if there are other similar spelled words (in which case you should evaluate if any of them are actual matches).

Feel free to suggest improvements.

Sample checks:

<image.png>

<image.png>

<image.png>

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[Stephen Dixon]

The Google warning is probably because the app link was sent to us via Gmail, and they don’t know how much we trust Daniel.

Steve Dixon

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/dixonary/6BE5AB13-076C-4572-B51A-ED1049EF5BC9%40dixonary.net.

[Daniel B Widdis]

Heh.  “Trust me bro.”

I’ve debugged it to:

• I set the app to “run as user” but I can have it run as owner
• The app has default “too wide” scopes that it doesn’t need, that I can narrow down, such as knowing your email address if you’re logged in to google.

I changed to “run as owner” (me).

Removing scopes is a bit more complicated so I’ll save that for another time, but this should at least resolve the issue you see.  

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/dixonary/CAFkjdZO3xdnkGt4KAtfq2zFDNj6JWaYqe6qxqT4-qC6nkk_zMw%40mail.gmail.com.

[Paul Keating]

This is the chief reason why there isn't a version of Coryphæus for the new century. 

Anything to do with data in Google mail, sites, groups and the rest is so hedged about with security that you need to have the resources of a company or a collective before you can share a harmless little app. 

I'm not saying the security is unnecessary. I am saying the way it is done has a chilling effect on creativity and sharing. 

It's not just Google. When I wanted to get a signed-code certificate for Coryphæus, I lived in The Netherlands. The Dutch CAs that I approached all told me that as an individual, I was not eligible. That is not what the rules say, of course, but if the CA says it is (and they all did) then there is no recourse 

[Paul Keating]

Judging by the way Google Sites works, if you give permissions to the group's email address, that extends to all members of the group.

That still gives trouble if someone is a member of the group with a different Gmail address from the one they normally fire up their browser with. Many people have two Google accounts without realizing it. And there is no way to merge them.

[Paul Keating]

Dan,

I picked several actual cases that I recall where the dealer searched for the proposed word and did not find it, even though there was a word in the list that was close in both form and meaning. Those were fartleks (744)~fartlek (3241), callipygous (521)~callipygian (3564),  chamfron (318)~chanfrin (near miss). I’m sure there were more than that: I wasn’t aiming to be comprehensive.

I found the search tool easier to use, and with better results, than the wildcard searches already available in the spreadsheet. And those have always been superior to a naive string search.

But for it to be truly useful, we first have to convince players that dixonary.net offers more and better facilities than local textfiles do. That has not been much of a success so far. If would be nice if this new tool could change that.

P

[Daniel B. Widdis]

Thanks for putting it through a real-world test, Paul.

I tried to put together some of the best of existing tools (a previous web based "Da Woid Checker", and the spreadsheet's search pages) into something simple, very fast/easy to get to, and with a bit more functionality.   

Admittedly the several hours I spent creating it were mostly educational for me, but I do hope the few minutes of time savings for each dealer are worth it.

I also finally investigated the slow loading of dixonary.net and migrated our domain hosting and DNS to Cloudflare, which should result in much faster redirects than the previous proxy-based whatever-it-was.  So really all anyone needs to remember is to go to https://dixonary.net .... and it's pretty simple from there.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/dixonary/Mailbird-81f736bf-c624-474c-ad5f-4399344ce5ad%40boargules.com.