MOD FanFic Spoiler Policy

FanFic Spoiler Policy

As per board rules, spoilers for any new movies must remain in the appropriate forum (the New Movies Spoilers Allowed Forum). This applies to all threads in resource, including the social thread.

FanFiction using spoilers for the upcoming movies is allowed with the following stipulations:

• A spoiler warning must be in the subject line of the thread.
  Example: Awesome Story Title - Action - H/L, Luke, R2 - Possible Spoilers for...

• A spoiler warning must be at the top of the body of the thread and must be obvious (no hiding it with similar to the background colors or very small font.)
  Example: HERE BE SPOILERS FOR EPISODE 7, PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK.

• If your story isn't intended to have spoilers and you later decide to add them, you must do the above and then warn in an obvious manner before the next post of the story.

There is a NO tolerance policy for spoilers. If you do not make every effort to warn people of possible spoilers your story will be removed in it's entirety and you will receive a temporary ban.




What Is and Isn't a Spoiler?


From No Spoilers Allowed forums, which applies board wide:

Basically, a good rule of thumb is, if you think it might be a spoiler, it probably is. Remember that some people love spoilers and some people don't, let's not ruin it for anyone.



How long is a new movie a spoiler?

The board standard is 2 weeks, which is what we will be using for fanfic. After two weeks, anything is fair game.

If after the movie comes out, people want to start character discussion threads, that is fine, but it needs to be clear (in the title and the thread) that there are spoilers within.



Spoilers for other media:
As per the Fanfic FAQ we follow the same Spoiler Policy as the Literature Forum and TV Forums, which is that spoilers must be denoted what the spoiler is for and include a spoiler tag:
One month (30 days) after a novel release
One week after a comic book release
One week after a TV episode release

 

Hey ladies,

Feel free to delete this post if you want the 1st post to stand on its own, but I have a question: now that at least a partial cast list is out, is that a non-spoiler? I mean, it's public knowledge, so I assume it would be considered Non, but I want to make sure.

Also, are you going to sticky this post? I certainly know I'll want to reference it for specifics from time to time, as I don't intend to go spoiler-free.

Thanks for putting this up for us!

 

Questions are fine.

Anything officially released by Disney/LFL is not a spoiler, so no, casting isn't a spoiler. I'd be careful if they let us know who they will play, just because that could give something away that people might not want to know, but if they tell us officially, it's not a spoiler.

Yep, It's going to be stickied after a few days, I just left it non-stickied because people tend to see things better if it's not initially stickied.

 

Just want to add, as a general rule, because we know StarWars.com is a trusted site (it's the official site so anything on there is direct from Disney/LFL), anything announced/covered on there is a non-spoiler.

 

A not-entirely-timely question, since TFA won't be released for another month, but I'd like to have this clarified straight away, lest I forget to ask when the time comes For how long after TFA is released should we consider any details from the movie itself to be spoilers? Will it be 30 days after the premiere, like for books and comics in Lit?

My question applies both to story threads and threads in resource (e.g. for starting character discussion threads or simply discussing the movie in the social thread).

 

That's a good question! We put note of it in the new FAQ, but forgot to put it here. We're going with the previous board standard of 2 weeks after each movie comes out the spoiler policy remain in effect for all parts of the fanfic boards.

If someone wants to start a character discussion thread or something along those lines in those two weeks, that would be fine, just make it clear on the title and in the first post that there will be spoilers within.

As for the social thread, we may have to discuss how we want to deal with that as I'm sure people will want to discuss it.

 

My two cents:

People will want to discuss it. That's a given. But other people will want to avoid spoilers until they see it later (me, for example; I love sifting through all the rumors, leaked photos, etc., even the supposed "plots", but I don't want the REAL thing spoiled until I see it around New Year's). Most places here on the boards, people wanting to avoid spoilers can simply not click on 7SA or not click on a thread about the film that says "spoilers allowed" or "spoilers tagged" (because face it, if you allow tagged spoilers, that's ALL you're going to have in that thread for some time; I've seen it in the TV forum with Rebels back in season 1 when episodes streamed a week early but had to be tagged until TV airing). In this way, spoiler discussion and spoiler-free users can co-exist.

But a social thread isn't a "thread about the film", per se. Using myself as an example again, I'll want to keep up with the social thread through the holidays, but I won't be able to if spoilers are allowed. Even if spoilers have to be tagged, the thread will be overrun with them, meaning having to skip pages of posts that are mostly spoilers; plus there's always the risk that someone will screw up the syntax and leave a visible spoiler, and there's also the ever-present temptation to click the open button. I really would rather not have to do that, and I'm sure others will be in the same position.

Having said that, I think the best way to proceed is to say that there will be no spoilers allowed in the social thread at all, BUT so that those seeing the film early can discuss it with fellow fanficcers, create a TFA spoilers-allowed discussion thread here in Resource for that purpose. That way we can discuss with each other (and not get lost in the mile-a-minute posting pace in 7SA), while those wishing to avoid spoilers until they see it later can simply avoid that thread. Once the spoiler period is over, I'd suggest leaving the film thread up and encouraging users to keep detailed film discussion in that thread rather than the social thread (again, so the social thread doesn't get overwhelmed). Eventually, once the film thread slows to a crawl and there's no longer a sizable risk of overrunning the social thread, the film thread can be locked and future comments can be redirected to the social thread.

So those are my thoughts (which I didn't expect to be that long ). Any comments or other ideas?

 

I'm in the middle of a study session going on it's 10th hour, so excuse my brain, but basically, yes. Mav and I were discussing it earlier today and we will probably do some sort of separate 'fanfic social thread for TFA' when the movie comes out and for the first 2 weeks that the spoiler policy will be in place. That way, as you said, people here can still discuss it (and maybe discuss it more in terms of fanfic?) without overrunning the social thread with spoiler tags and without having to brave the scary world of 7SA, and that way people who won't be seeing it till later won't have to avoid this place completely.

Depending on what the situation is like, we may lock the thread after the 2 weeks and let the discussion flow back into the social thread if we don't feel the movie discussion will overwhelm the the social thread (because this isn't really a movie discussion forum), but if it's still going strong, we will probably let it go on.

 

Glad to see that I was thinking along the same lines as you. Thanks!

 

Can you add the rules for other media (books, comics etc), just so we can be sure?

 

It's in the FAQ, but I did go ahead and add it to the bottom of the first post of this thread as well since this is a sticky thread.