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Can we get a clear ruling on spoilers?

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In general, if this happens, you should PM a mod. We can't be everywhere, but if you point stuff out to us we'll come and clean it up.

And, not to be an asshole
said everyone everywhere right before being an asshole anyway
, but if the Life of Pi thing is an example of what you consider spoilers, you are probably doomed. :/

I've already admitted that the Life of Pi thing was fair game if it was indeed in the trailer (I must have forgotten about it). Theatrical trailers are fair game and I've already apologized to that poster and he was very gracious. But yeah, I have been pming mods and they've been editing and banning accordingly. But the sheer amount of spoilers posted in the Hobbit NO SPOILERS thread tells me that a lot of people don't seem be getting the message/are still very unaware of the protocol (even if the thread title should be a giveaway). People aren't being deterred like they ought to imo, whether it through a lack of not caring or ignorance to policy (because officially, there isn't one).
 
I have been catching up on Supernatural on Netflix and the official thread title ruined the
Cass going bad story arc for me.
So can we at least keep major plot points out of OT's titles?
 
I've already admitted that the Life of Pi thing was fair game if it was indeed in the trailer (I must have forgotten about it). Theatrical trailers are fair game and I've already apologized to that poster and he was very gracious. But yeah, I have been pming mods and they've been editing and banning accordingly. But the sheer amount of spoilers posted in the Hobbit NO SPOILERS thread tells me that a lot of people don't seem be getting the message/are still very unaware of the protocol (even if the thread title should be a giveaway). People aren't being deterred like they ought to imo, whether it through a lack of not caring or ignorance to policy (because officially, there isn't one).

So it's in OP titles, the op rules and mods are banning and editing as well. What more do you want? What more can you even do? Maybe again, if you are just that precious about film, maybe limiting any discussion of it to after you have seen the film would be good. We are already banning people for discussing a movie as you wish, how much deeper do you want to go?

GAF as a whole is quite precious on this. You people should see something awful. It's way more brutal.
 
I think it's bullshit how spoilers about TV series can be openly discussed immediately when the episode has been aired in NA, eventhough it hasn't been aired in the rest of the world. It just shows how America-centric this forum can sometimes be, and it makes OTs purely for people living there.

Uh, the same thing happens for UK-based shows.

Spoilers are fine in the Doctor Who/Sherlock threads, for example, after the episode airs in the UK.
 
So it's in OP titles, the op rules and mods are banning and editing as well. What more do you want? What more can you even do? Maybe again, if you are just that precious about film, maybe limiting any discussion of it to after you have seen the film would be good. We are already banning people for discussing a movie as you wish, how much deeper do you want to go?

GAF as a whole is quite precious on this. You people should see something awful. It's way more brutal.
I'm asking that posters are made well aware of consequences/rules. maharg was posting in the same hobbit thread constantly and I wouldn't accuse him of inaction because there are no specified consequences for him to enforce. Yet should I pm that mod every time a spoiler is posted?

Setting some clear rules to post by could go a long way.
 
IMO Anything in pre-release material = not a spoiler.

For movies I think impressions of how pre-revealed material turned out should be fine without tags. And non-revealing events and conversations.
 
So it's in OP titles, the op rules and mods are banning and editing as well. What more do you want? What more can you even do? Maybe again, if you are just that precious about film, maybe limiting any discussion of it to after you have seen the film would be good. We are already banning people for discussing a movie as you wish, how much deeper do you want to go?

GAF as a whole is quite precious on this. You people should see something awful. It's way more brutal.

Do you really want to live in a world where people tell you that there are FISH in a movie about a boy lost at sea?!
 
Seems like spilt milk. I wouldnt go out of my way to post spoilers and be a dick about but... http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/newsrel/soc/2011_08spoilers.asp
That's a stupid article with a flawed conclusion. I cringe every time it's posted.

Personally, my enjoyment of fiction is greatly enhanced by the process of anticipation, speculation, and discovery that I experience when I don't have advance knowledge of a plot. This applies to media for the masses like Halo just as much as to great works of literature like Crime and Punishment. Another thing I try to avoid before I have the chance to form my own impression is other people's negative opinions. It's awful to watch a movie or read a book in suspense, waiting for a moment that was spoiled for you by some jerkoff who was itching to complain about something.

It's even worse when you know about a twist that was designed to modify your perception of characters or earlier events. I can't take seriously anyone who would claim that these things don't matter. The order in which you learn things about a story can drastically influence your first and most enduring impression. Good artists take advantage of this fact with enormous invention and subtlety. It's simply wrongheaded to dismiss the chronological dimension of storytelling. If you don't believe that, go ahead and look up A Song of Ice and Fire as well as The Book of the New Sun on Wikipedia. Study the plot summaries, then read both series all the way through and see if you can still tell yourself that spoilers don't matter. See if you don't feel robbed of the richer, fuller, more challenging and more memorable experiences you would have had if you'd restrained your curiosity.
 
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I don't think this is that hard to interpret. Is the problem that it is too general, or that it is reffering to games and explicitly not media nor whatnot?
 
What may be a spoiler to you may not be a spoiler to someone else

Even if everything was spoiler tagged - u kinda get a sense of what the spoiler is

This happened to me in the Skyfall thread

I think it's best to just stay out until you watch it - Solo the Wise makes a habbit of doing this
 
Schattenjäger;45499358 said:
What may be a spoiler to you may not be a spoiler to someone else

Even if everything was spoiler tagged - u kinda get a sense of what the spoiler is

This happened to me in the Skyfall thread

I think it's best to just stay out until you watch it - Solo the Wise makes a habbit of doing this

Exactly. If you are that bothered by possible spoilers then just stay out of the thread until you see it. And if you are so passionate about a film then it shouldnt be that difficult since you will probably see it very soon after release.
Its rodiculous to demand such a point by point breakdown from mods for what is and isn't a spoiler and what is and isn't acceptable. Just stay out of the threads until you said film. Not hard.
 
You need to practice safe surfing when it comes to spoilers. Don't want to have The Hobbit spoiled? Don't go in The Hobbit threads, even if they say no spoilers... avoid avoid avoid. Not sure you can avoid being spoiled by another movie randomly in another thread, thats the risk you take when being on the internet I suppose.

I'm against over regulating these forums any more than they already are. If GAF is too much of a risk for you.. perhaps time for a new community. *shrug*
Agree completely.
Even borderline spoilers end up with whiners. Sometimes I think it falls into the "looking for something to complain about" category. Deal with it.
It's not up to individuals or moderators to babysit your internet experience. A little common sense can avoid spoilers, especially if it's such a major annoyance for you.
 
"I haven't seen this movie yet, but I'm gonna read a thread dedicated to it anyway."
*gets spoiled on irrelevant plot detail*
*RAAAAAAAAAGE*

I hate people who complain about spoilers and being spoiled. Life was better when your feeble complaints were relegated to your office cubicle, sobbing quietly after you overheard the mailroom guy talking about Empire Strikes Back at the water cooler. PEACE.
 
I think it's bullshit how spoilers about TV series can be openly discussed immediately when the episode has been aired in NA, eventhough it hasn't been aired in the rest of the world. It just shows how America-centric this forum can sometimes be, and it makes OTs purely for people living there.

At what point are people allowed to openly discuss things on a discussion forum then? If you aren't caught up on a show, then the onus should be on you to stay out of those threads if you are that sensitive to spoilers.

Hell people discuss American shows that air in EST before I get to see them being on the west coast, but it doesn't affect me because I stay out of the thread until I have watched the episode.
 
Not really sure I can provide the OP with the information he really needs. My rule is basically "When in doubt, spoiler it". This pretty much leads me to being the most liberal with my spoiler tags in the anime thread, almost certainly overly so. I guess I just hate the idea of being the guy who ruins something for somebody inadvertently. Even if it's really tiny insignificant details.
 
Why does everyone keep talking about Playing for Keeps? Some shitty 80's movie about kids with Phil Collins on the soundtrack? Motherfuck that garbage film.

I'm gonna spoil Playing for Keeps right now: it fucking blows. For some godforsaken reason I bought the soundtrack on CD about 10 years ago, despite knowing I'd hate it, and yeah, the soundtrack fucking blows too. In conclusion, fuck Phil Collins.
 
Why does everyone keep talking about Playing for Keeps? Some shitty 80's movie about kids with Phil Collins on the soundtrack? Motherfuck that garbage film.

I'm gonna spoil Playing for Keeps right now: it fucking blows, and for some godforsaken reason I bought the soundtrack on CD about 10 years ago, despite knowing I'd hate it, and yeah, the soundtrack fucking blows too. In conclusion, fuck Phil Collins.

SPOILER!!! I was planning on seeing that movie!!
 
Why does everyone keep talking about Playing for Keeps? Some shitty 80's movie about kids with Phil Collins on the soundtrack? Motherfuck that garbage film.

I'm gonna spoil Playing for Keeps right now: it fucking blows. For some godforsaken reason I bought the soundtrack on CD about 10 years ago, despite knowing I'd hate it, and yeah, the soundtrack fucking blows too. In conclusion, fuck Phil Collins.
Fun fact about that aborting of a film - it was a vanity project directed by the Weinstein brothers, and thankfully, they did not tried it again.
 
Here's how I see it, not that it matters a pinch of shit in this thread anyway, but here goes:

Think of it like this: If you're don't *think* something is a spoiler? Tag it anyway. Just like, if you're not sure whether someone could be offended by the word "cunt" IRL, you don't say it. Don't debate the merits of whether it should be officially classified as a spoiler or not, just use some common sense. If you went "wow" at something in the movie, then it's probably a spoiler. See a really fucking cool effect that they hadn't shown in a trailer? Even if it's not a spoiler in the truest sense, knowing that it occurs in the movie could be a spoiler for someone. But please, whining about whether something might be a spoiler or not is kinda pissweak. If you were surprised when you first heard something or saw it in the movie, you shouldn't rob someone of finding it out themselves regardless of how small it might be.

Same goes with games as well.

TV shows are different because it's generally accepted that TV shows only air at a certain time and discussions often happen while the show's being broadcast anyway. I fully knew this when entering the Community thread, but whenever I went in there after a show had just aired, I opened the page I was last at and followed the thread from there. If you're coming into a show well after broadcast, you could perhaps start an LTTP thread and mention that you don't want spoilers in the title.

And regardless of whether it's based on an IRL event or a book or whatever, why expect everyone has the same knowledge of the thing as you? Not everyone read The Hobbit. Not everyone was alive while the whole Argo thing happened. Not everyone knows that the second and third Matrix movies were turds.
 
More and more my attitude towards people who are sensitive to spoilers is "sorry, it's your fetish." Why should the rest of the world, who is happily talking about the pop culture they enjoy, change their behavior just because you need a total information quarantine to enjoy a movie? You have the special needs. You take the precautions.
 
More and more my attitude towards people who are sensitive to spoilers is "sorry, it's your fetish." Why should the rest of the world, who is happily talking about the pop culture they enjoy, change their behavior just because you need a total information quarantine to enjoy a movie? You have the special needs. You take the precautions.
Exactly. If you are that bothered then step away from the internet until you see/ play it.
 
More and more my attitude towards people who are sensitive to spoilers is "sorry, it's your fetish." Why should the rest of the world, who is happily talking about the pop culture they enjoy, change their behavior just because you need a total information quarantine to enjoy a movie? You have the special needs. You take the precautions.
Well said. Were that this was a more popular position.
 
Wouldn't that be tough to moderate? I mean, I know we have a diverse set of mods, but being able to keep track of all this media, varying release dates and prerelease screening and the like, how would they know it's a spoiler or not.

For me, my simple solution is to never visit a thread, spoiler or not, if I'm interested in that content.

Sure, it sucks for discussion, but I just wait. Did the same for TDKR and the Avengers.
 
More and more my attitude towards people who are sensitive to spoilers is "sorry, it's your fetish." Why should the rest of the world, who is happily talking about the pop culture they enjoy, change their behavior just because you need a total information quarantine to enjoy a movie? You have the special needs. You take the precautions.

Love the people who exaggerate the issue into 'total information quarantine'. Anything in trailers etc is fair game. When it comes to stuff you'll only see in the cinema, why is it so hard to press the spoiler tag button for those who might be affected? It's just being an inconsiderate douchebag when you say 'Well, that's your problem and if you don't like it you can fuck off.'
 
Love the people who exaggerate the issue into 'total information quarantine'. Anything in trailers etc is fair game. When it comes to stuff you'll only see in the cinema, why is it so hard to press the spoiler tag button for those who might be affected? It's just being an inconsiderate douchebag when you say 'Well, that's your problem and if you don't like it you can fuck off.'

But you're playing fire. Why not wait until you've seen film?

I just catch the trailers and YT and avoid any all discussion until I see it. Burned too many times to rely on mods who are doing this pro-bono and have other real jobs to do.

But I can see that you enjoy cinema and discussing it, but dem the brakes, man.
 
But you're playing fire. Why not wait until you've seen film?

Because I like talking about films I'm looking forward to with the rest of GAF. I like getting other members' impressions of a film without being spoiled. I think that having to avoid a 'Spoiler Free' hobbit thread for the fear of being spoiled is kind of ridiculous.
 
Because I like talking about films I'm looking forward to with the rest of GAF. I like getting other members' impressions of a film without being spoiled. I think that having to avoid a 'Spoiler Free' hobbit thread for the fear of being spoiled is kind of ridiculous.

Well, I just learned that those threads always become dangerous, especially if its based on source material already out there, i.e. Game of Thrones. Life of Pi is also based on source material too.
 
Love the people who exaggerate the issue into 'total information quarantine'. Anything in trailers etc is fair game. When it comes to stuff you'll only see in the cinema, why is it so hard to press the spoiler tag button for those who might be affected? It's just being an inconsiderate douchebag when you say 'Well, that's your problem and if you don't like it you can fuck off.'

Or you can be a big boy and avoid said threads until you see said movie.
 
More and more my attitude towards people who are sensitive to spoilers is "sorry, it's your fetish." Why should the rest of the world, who is happily talking about the pop culture they enjoy, change their behavior just because you need a total information quarantine to enjoy a movie? You have the special needs. You take the precautions.
Co signed.

Love the people who exaggerate the issue into 'total information quarantine'. Anything in trailers etc is fair game. When it comes to stuff you'll only see in the cinema, why is it so hard to press the spoiler tag button for those who might be affected? It's just being an inconsiderate douchebag when you say 'Well, that's your problem and if you don't like it you can fuck off.'
It's been proven like a million times that you have a much more strict definition of a spoiler than a large parts of movie going public.
Do you really think that the correct course of action here is to educate gaf about what you consider a spoiler?

I think we have a pretty decent system here that works well for most people, sorry it doesn't fit your zero tolerance policy, but I don't think more bans or more explicit TOS rules are going to help the community as a whole.

edit: seriously man, it's just a decision you made, you can change your position on the subject, I personally value spirited and open critical discussion of film even if it mean the occasional spoiler; yeah it can be fun to watch a film completely cold, but for the most part, it's not really worth the hassle for me.
There are very few films that are destroyed by revealing plot elements, and most of them are not worth watching anyway, and if the film is truly great, you're going to see it more than once (i.e. in a fully spoiled state).
It's your own choice at the end of the day, but man, you're going to have much more enjoyable online living if you let it go just a bit.
 
Love the people who exaggerate the issue into 'total information quarantine'. Anything in trailers etc is fair game. When it comes to stuff you'll only see in the cinema, why is it so hard to press the spoiler tag button for those who might be affected? It's just being an inconsiderate douchebag when you say 'Well, that's your problem and if you don't like it you can fuck off.'

Because the notion of a thread where people discuss a movie is a work-saving technique so that people don't have to tag every single thing they write.

Honestly, I have a hard time allowing that the entire content of the movie (except what was in the trailer or poster) should be considered a spoiler.

The traditional definition of spoiler used to be for those few instances in movies when one particular plot point could blow the entire experience of seeing a movie. Those only happen maybe once or twice a year. There are maybe a hundred of these honest-to-god spoilers in recent history of cinema. The rest of the time people who are complaining about spoilers are really complaining about not having seen a movie yet. And that is nobody's fault but their own.
 
Love the people who exaggerate the issue into 'total information quarantine'. Anything in trailers etc is fair game. When it comes to stuff you'll only see in the cinema, why is it so hard to press the spoiler tag button for those who might be affected? It's just being an inconsiderate douchebag when you say 'Well, that's your problem and if you don't like it you can fuck off.'

Wait, is there a spoiler tag button? I have one, but I thought it was just a script I installed.
 
Because the notion of a thread where people discuss a movie is a work-saving technique so that people don't have to tag every single thing they write.

Honestly, I have a hard time allowing that the entire content of the movie (except what was in the trailer or poster) should be considered a spoiler.

The traditional definition of spoiler used to be for those few instances in movies when one particular plot point could blow the entire experience of seeing a movie. Those only happen maybe once or twice a year. There are maybe a hundred of these honest-to-god spoilers in recent history of cinema. The rest of the time people who are complaining about spoilers are really complaining about not having seen a movie yet. And that is nobody's fault but their own.

Sometimes but given how stuff gets released people outside the US are usually S.O.L. on spoilers. That being said if it bothers you that much it's not that hard to avoid them. I manage to even though I don't really care because my first instinct isn't to talk about a movie after it's out if I haven't seen it. Not to mention the definition of spoiler sure has expanded over the last couple of years. If you want to be completely in the dark, go out of your way to do it, don't expect others not to discuss a film they saw.
 
How is this even a conversation. Just because you've seen/played/read something doesn't mean that now everyone else has to also have done so and it's their fault for being slow if they haven't.

Tag all spoilers, no matter the release date. Use spoiler threads for discussion. Exception goes for the "spoilers" that everybody knows already. The Aeris dies, Vader is Luke's father kind of stuff.
 
How is this even a conversation. Just because you've seen/played/read something doesn't mean that now everyone else has to also have done so and it's their fault for being slow if they haven't.

Tag all spoilers, no matter the release date. Use spoiler threads for discussion. Exception goes for the "spoilers" that everybody knows already. The Aeris dies, Vader is Luke's father kind of stuff.

When people start dictating anything as spoilers it becomes a conversation.
 
Fun fact about that aborting of a film - it was a vanity project directed by the Weinstein brothers, and thankfully, they did not tried it again.

Can someone give me the grammatical reasoning for why "tried" is incorrect in this sentence? English is such a stupid language.
 
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