" His self-imposed term of involvement expired in 2016 (although I think he was also experiencing some serious health issues at the time), but he posted at least a couple of times after that. His last post that I'm aware of was on March 1st, 2017,... "

" When was the last time WR interacted here at all though? I'm pretty sure it was before I joined. I don't think they care anymore. "

" Has anyone considered reaching out to WR about him? His behavior over the last week or two has escalated to just plain spamming, which is almost universally recognized as grounds for being banned from any forum. "

" I don't think he IS copying from something. Nobody except WBM would just write "quest scions" and then move on without any explanation. "

" That's fair. I'm just trying to emphasize that the route to those rooms is completely consistent with the rules you've been using up until now. "

" I think he's just copying something and putting my name in it. None of this is describing anyone's actual behavior on the site, however generously viewed; nobody is requesting "evidence" (whatever that would mean, in the context of Maze) or clamoring for a debate; nobody... "

" So what, he's Ben Shapiro? "

" "No imaginative interpretation" is maybe slightly misleading. I'd say that reaching that clump of rooms requires some imaginative... observation, I guess is the best word? "

" You've made a key observation, but the conclusion is incorrect. There is a way to access those rooms, within the rules of the book--no cheating, no imaginative interpretation, no walking through unmarked doors. "

" I'm fairly certain I never said I saw a bull on the front cover. "

" curious how nobody seems to be complaining about this except you, "

" A "Turk's Turban" is a type of gourd... "

" "... and they had no coins." People without a coin are unable to pay Charon to ferry them across the River Styx, and they will wander the underworld hopelessly. "

" That just sounds like... being polite? "

" I don't know that this actually is an allusion; we already just called that guy a Turk or said he was wearing a turban, so we could have another T word to go with the theme of T-things in the room, which we also can't... "

" Interesting. Is there a point to this allusion, though? I don't see any meaningful way for this to connect to... well, anything, even in an ultimately meaningless way (like the shaft/shaft connection you mentioned earlier on this page.) "

" See "The Tortoise Trainer," a 1906/1907 painting by Osman Hamdi Bey, featuring a man in Ottoman attire, similar to the fellow pictured in room 20, training tortoises. "

" "You’ve spent months upon months doing nothing but floundering about with hidden meanings..." It's been way longer than months. When I first discovered the abyss in 2018 it was already littered with his comments. "

" "Here’s an idea. If you see something that you don’t agree with, then don’t respond to it." A lot of the time that's what happens... other times, we ask you once you mean, and give our two cents. Other other times, you respond to an... "

" I said I saw a bull on the front cover? Did that really happen? Your question may be rhetorical, William, but I think that, yes, part of the reason for suggesting things here is so that people can tell you they disagree and why. "

" For a second I thought we were on room 43 and you were doing some post-irony thing pfffft "

" Where, I ask, knowing the answer is almost certain to be more confusing than had I never asked? "

" Although, I guess it's a presumption, perhaps an unmerited one, that we're to rely on the bear for our directions. The sign itself is partway inside the door to 30, so maybe the natural reading of "this way" is that it refers to 30. "

" "Saints that way" presumably refers to the "pair o' dice"--ok, fair enough. That means "sinners this way" refers to the other direction--but does it refer to 30, 22, or both? 30 has the fruit tree and the mention of Eve--that is, suggestion of the Garden... "

" We only see one bowl, but the text indicates there are two of them. If this is true of the bowls, why not also of candlesticks, stethoscopes, Punchinellos and barber's poles - all of which have 12 letters when in the plural form. "

" and mine about bearing it on our shoulders and still being subjugated to this abyss or all that from when i first joined. honestly maze is unique in the reaction it inspires "

" This reminds me of my *own* breakdown comment about how we're all still trapped in Maze and the ultimate meaning of the entire book is that the reader can never escape. Good memories. Nice to have new blood around here! Always fun. "

" Hi El! Welcome to the abyss! That's a really nice way to put it, I guess we're all sort of suffering from stockholm syndrome with the book. I hope you have a good time here. Recent readers are actually kind of rare(?) so fresh takes... "

" I got this amazing book maze last week. Looked at it last night for a few hours realizing there is actually no way in for the living. Therefore ino riddle for me unless I’m a ghost. However... being that construction never stops, I decided to... "

" Wikipedia has an unsourced claim that theaters used to have standard backdrops, six to eight of them, that they would use for different sorts of scenes. Perhaps this room actually does resemble some old theatrical backdrops--though my googling has proven unhelpful in this regard. Anyone... "

" TRIDENT --> RED TINT I think that is unlikely to be intended, but it's a "red" in the room, which is enough to make me mention it. "

" I understand that the summaries on the backs of books are often added by the publisher rather than being written by the author. I'm not sure if that is the case here; the publisher would probably be overstepping boundaries to write it from the perspective... "

" Maybe the text is written to insinuate stopping like with the "overdone" and all that as some sort of meta subliminal thing that's not really part of the puzzle, but "dressing" in a way? Like something thematic about the text to make it seem like... "

" I do think the sign with the bird, cloud, moon and thunderbolt is just meant to indicate "things in the sky." We took a wrong turn by trying to read the shadows for answers. More simply, the door to 30 has "sun" ("svn" technically, but... "

" I know I’ve been the king of “maybe we should think about this” lately, without offering any actual productive thought, but… When we talk about the confirmed solutions in this book, we for some reason neglect to mention the solutions that are confirmed even more... "

" But it doesn't really clue "stop," is the point. Any block of text like this is highly likely to have lots of words "hidden" in similar ways. This would never, ever appear to be anything if there weren't a giant octagon on the floor--and even... "

" Well, I guess it's not really parallel. He wanted to clue STOP in several different ways in this room; this is one way he thought of to clue STOP. "

" Artistic satisfaction, money, recognition, etc., that's not really a related issue. "

" Why bother making a puzzle book? "

" I don't think it's mysterious why he would include the message "stop"; that seems like a reasonable thing to communicate, whether for the realistic consideration of the guests' predicament or just as a warning of the sort the Trap has elsewhere. What I'm saying is... "

" (Ugh, proofread before you hit the Post Comment button.) "

" I think this is a great find and increases all the other "STOP" stuff in here. To me and it's pretty clear why "STOP" makes sense for this room in-world. It's one of the two safest rooms in the Trap, if you measure safety by... "

" I think it's very interesting. This phrase is one we've picked out on MazeCast before as being sort of a non sequitur, and it's also easy to imagine taking the letters "S T O P," wanting to hide them in the text, seeing you could... "

" did u just call me "pink vewatkin" "

" I'm not sure how hard finding short words would be in selections of text like Maze- but this feels really solid actually "