Review of spoiler guidelines

I did say that I was going to do this, so let's hear what everone thinks needs to be added, clarified or altered.

One thing I'll say straight off the bat that we need to re-work is the idea of "spoiler space". Unfortunately this really has become useless through no specific fault of anyone. We've all become rather lazy with these, especially when replying to something that someone else has said in a spoiler space, but not giving any of our own.

What I would like to do is reform the idea of spoiler space into something that will be useful. First thing is that we have to say that any thread that does not contain a warning about spoilers or possible spoilers can not have any spoilers at all, even with spoiler space. This would mean that the majority of threads would be spoiler free areas in Lit. From there, what we can do is for threads in Lit, and clubs in EUC like the Critics Club (just chose it because it's an example of a thread that does discuss the new books inside the spoiler time), we give the warning "Possible Spoilers", and then allow people to use spoiler space when discussing things so someone can possibly read the discussion, yet skip over spoilers. Obviously because of the title the risk is up to the user as not everyone will remember to follow on with spoiler space, but we can try to make people aware of this, even to the point of one of the mods adding it in if neccessary/wanted. Finally for any thread marked as spoilers, the situation would be the same as now, there will be spoilers throughout, and it is definitely the risk of the individual if they want to read it.

Also, we need it to be drummed in that spoiler space is something that means you can not see any text on the screen if the initial spoiler warning is at the top of the page. That would mean something like 25-30 blank lines, but I think that we're all able to make that kind of effort for each other.


That's just my thoughts to start on one area. What else would people like to see done. Do we want to set out distinct penalties for spoiling? Make the penalties harsh? Bring up anything that you wish to.

There's another way to not spoil someone of course - have spoilers blanked, so you select 'em to read 'em. The code is;

Text here [/color ]

Which comes out like this

EDIT: Of course, in the real thing you delete those spaces before the ]s

I like the "coloring" method -- using #DDDDDD for spoilers. That way, people can't get spoiled unintentionally.

True, but the problem with that is, what happens when we switch board colours? Even for something as simple as say Halloween will mean that all spoilers will become visible for the time that colour scheme is active.

Why can't you always have the same "background" color even if you change everything else?

Some schemes require differing colours just so that they look right. A Halloween one won't look right unless it's full of orange, black and red, while St Pat's won't unless it's all shades of green.

Not to mention that most schemes are matched to the banners. The current Lit one is the same as the general scheme because a) I didn't get time to find a decent set before I went on leave, and b) because this one matches well enough.

Where is the list of colors? Is the choice of a transparent (invisible) font possible?

Pardon me, I don't know much about the boards' coding and all, but...

Would a "spoiler markup code" be at all possible? Simply have a code that makes all text within its brackets the default background color. So, if the background were to change, so would the color of the spoiler text.

Would such a thing be possible? Maybe I'm just dreaming in CSS...

That'd be an idea - maybe have a tag called

Show Spoiler Hide Spoiler

so that all you need to do to hide the spoilers is place those tags and it automatically reverts to background colour?

We don't have a transparent colour, so we can't do that.

As for a spoiler tag, again, a no go as we don't have control over the coding of the boards, and have very little say in any improvements.

Trust me, I've looked into all the tech side of things on this, and we don't have anywhere to go. What I'd prefer to focus on is what can we all agree to as some guidelines for collective posting of spoilers so that everyone can use the forum.

Apologies, Kadue, was me knocked it off on that tangent in the first place!

Kay, it's obviously gonna hafta be a matter of guidelines, yeah.

SPOILER SPACE
-->We've become lazy
True enough; I've done my best to stick to it, but I do see what you mean!

-->No threads that don't contain 'Spoiler' warnings will allow them AT ALL, even *with* spoiler space
Hmm, that might seem a little too far (for example a thread on How Will Peter Parker die? (For PP insert name of a character who dies in DW) becomes rather untouched when he actually *does* die, when it could easily turn into a discussion of the death if spoilers were allowed. In this, though, I guess the key would be - contact a Mod and ask the title to be changed? (Just a random guess?)

-->Possible Spoilers warning for clubs that discuss spoilers, while they still use spoiler space - yeah, understood, agreed

Question: For threads marked 'Spoilers' that are ONGOING (such as SOS) would we necessarily need the spoiler space? I'd keep it up anyway personally out of respect for any of the long-term posters who'd want to skip them, but I'm curious about the position of that in relation to the guidelines?

-->Length of spoiler space
Thanks for that, a couple of times I've slipped up I gotta admit - tx for setting some exact limits on length of spoiler space!

-->Penalties
*shrugs* Search me!

For threads marked 'Spoilers' that are ONGOING (such as SOS) would we necessarily need the spoiler space? I'd keep it up anyway personally out of respect for any of the long-term posters who'd want to skip them, but I'm curious about the position of that in relation to the guidelines?

If it's marked as spoilers, then technically no. But as you said, there are 'members' that do try and keep spoiler free, so for the sake of those people, using a little spoiler space isn't too hard in those threads, but there wouldn't be any major penalties for slips.

becomes rather untouched when he actually *does* die, when it could easily turn into a discussion of the death if spoilers were allowed. In this, though, I guess the key would be - contact a Mod and ask the title to be changed? (Just a random guess?)

Well, at any stage we are happy to add the spoiler tag to a thread if we see it, or if asked. But in a thread asking if someone could/should die, adding a spoiler tag is like creating a flashing neon sign. The death of characters is one of the biggest spoilers for people, and so in this kind of case it would be better to start a new thread with just the characters name and a spoiler tag, and link to the original thread for referrence.

I suggest having two different spoiler policies for Lit and the EUC. In Lit, any thread that doesn?t have a spoiler warning simply cannot contain spoilers. In the EUC, all threads may contain spoilers, but only with spoiler space.

In special cases, like the SOS thread in lit, the people that ?run? or ?lead? the thread have the right to dictate whether spoilers should have spoiler space or not, but if spoilers are in the thread at all, it still needs a warning in the title. In the case of the SOS thread, Skydancer or ChildOfWinds would make that decision.

Honestly, I think this is already in use. The Jacen FC doesn?t have a spoiler warning in the title, but we talk about spoilers all the time, with the appropriate spoiler space. In the SOS thread, a time was designated after the release of Episode II when all discussions on the movie needed to have spoiler space, and everyone abided by that. The ?Jacen's loves? poll in lit was not originally a spoiler thread, but spoilers were placed in that thread anyway, and someone complained (alright, I complained ), so the thread?s title was altered to include a spoiler warning.

Like I said, I think this split policy is already in effect. People in the EUC are discussing spoilers with spoiler space, but there is no spoiler warning in the titles of most of the threads over there, and that works for the EUC. That doesn?t seem to work as well in lit, IMO, so the policies should be different.

There also has to be consensus amongst MODS as to what constitutes a spoiler -- both in titles and in threads.

TG posted the Alpha Red thread with Alpha Red in the title. Now I happen to agree with him that unless you read DW (and the thread was marked "DW Spoilers") that you wouldn't know what Alpha Red was. But yet, according to the spoiler guidelines we have it was a spoiler and you, Kadue, edited the thread title.

So if the Mods are confused... shouldn't we all be confused?