This has come up before but we can probably use a policy on it. Give your input, MSBites!
Also what's a good punishment? I don't feel banning people is appropriate unless it's truly malicious and intentional. Enforced signatures? Lame avatars? 
If you're gonna talk about something that is culturally significant in media and you might spoil someone, make a thread for it.
"Excuse the hell out of you. He's a bag of dicks. I'm a carefully curated box of cocks." -- to @GirlCalledBlu upon being misrepresented.
@coin Well sure, but for example if I mention Hulk smashing Loki in Avengers 1 no one can reasonably complain.
So the question is basically "what is reasonable in this context?".
@coin Well sure, but for example if I mention Hulk smashing Loki in Avengers 1 no one can reasonably complain.
So the question is basically "what is reasonable in this context?".
In general, I think six months becomes spoiler-free because if you haven't seen something six months after it came out (especially for movies, maybe not so much for tv shows or books) then how important was it really for you? But that's admittedly subjective.
I'd say anything within six months for movies, a year for TV/literature, should be in spoiler tags or its own thread (preferably the latter if the discussion is specifically about that thing).
Also, if anyone mentions they haven't seen/read a thing, don't immediately spoil it with a casual mention or toss up a spoilery meme and be like "well, it's past the time limit!" That's just asshole behavior.
Usually a month then after that gloves off.
Two weeks for a movie. IF people are really sensitive to spoilers beyond that, I don't mind them shunning me because I'd rather not be around joykills.
By all means, mark threads spoilers, but jumping on someone for a slip for a slip up or office talk is bullshit after a couple weeks.
I don't think anyone should have "repercussions" for accidents of this nature. Intentional griefing via spoilers -- regardless of when it happens in relation to the media in question -- should be swatted (fly swatted, not the other kind omg), though I don't know what kind of consequences are possible/enforceable. I don't think that anyone should ever be banned for this specific infraction, only breaking it many times (like, not for spoilers, but for repeatedly not following rules or w/e).
Two weeks out is reasonable mod-enforced (edit peoples' posts or whatnot), though I don't think people should be discouraged from being respectful about it after that. Like, there's no reason whatsoever to not put spoiler details behind a cut if you know you're going to blah blah a bunch of stuff. If set rules are written down, please include a clause that says something like 'two weeks is the hard and fast rule, but please don't take this to mean that two weeks out you should run all around the forum screaming THE TITANIC SINKS just because you can, it's disrespectful.' Or whatever.
This stuff isn't as hard for people as it's made out to be. Spoiler tags are easy. Not ruining things for other people is easy. It's really NOT hard to tell when you should or shouldn't give away major details of a book/movie. Nobody here is dumb.
i answered two weeks as a good general rule since most people who are excited to see something tend to get there in that time, but as an addendum to that I do think if someone asks hey can you please not spoil a specific thing it should be respected, after all we do have spoiler tags.
One the third hand I also think spoilers have to be significant moments to count, or be something that was kept by the studio as a surprise. For example Hela shattering Thor's hammer in Ragnarok to me would not count as a spoiler since it was in both the trailer and commercials for the movie even though it was a significant moment.
@thatguythere said in Spoilers:
two weeks as a good general rule since most people who are excited to see something tend to get there in that time
This is why cam rips are a thing. Two weeks really isn't enough time for a lot of people with kids and having to find a sitter around extra curricular activities going on 7 days a week outside of work and school.
Add to that the fact that not everyone can afford expensive movie tickets and have to wait to be able to rent it or buy it on disc or whatever.
I wouldn't spoil Forest Gump by talking about the people he meets during the movie or original Roller Ball with details on how society is controlled or what Jonathan E. does. I wouldn't explain what Zardoz means to anyone who hasn't seen that movie other than to say if they like Sean Connery they should check it out. And these are decades old movies.
I don't think its that hard to make a new thread to talk about a movie, and for anyone to understand that reading a thread risks spoilers. But like in good/new movies where we (or I at least) hope to see something without spoilers that would perk my interest, its not hard to add the spoiler here, just a click away, or start a new thread.
Maybe its a difference in sharing these days. Like I wouldn't go watch the latest Jesus Christ Superstar and try to entice someone with 'OMG you'll be so shocked, they crucify him', but instead I might say 'so and so' did a stellar job on vocals, definitely a must see. Like its a thing, to be the first to notice/realize something and spoil it; spoiler alert, Freddy Kreuger's Glove is in the tool room in evil dead! (broke my own code there, sorry).
I selected other because of the part about moderating and I don't know what repercussions should be, if any, for spoilers.
The fact that going online at all can be a minefield trying to avoid spoilers, people are going to expect new things to spoil them, I think. A warning would be nice. If it's still in theatres, or on the top of the charts, spoiler tag it, it's not that difficult. If someone can't afford to see something until it's on sale or whatever it sucks, but with the nature of the internet, they've probably already been spoiled.
Spoilers are lame, and people like the Snape kills Dumbledore guy are lame, but I think punishments, even lame ones on a forum not devoted to movies / tv / books / games would be the thing to finally push me off of it.
People who tweet spoilers the next day and don't tag it as a spoiler alert are the best kind of people.
It's not as difficult as it might seem to avoid spoilers. I have had a few recent movies spoiled for me but only minorly, not to the movie wrecking levels that one might expect from spending more than a few passing moments on the internet.
"Just leave me alone. I'm not myself. I'm falling apart, and I don't want you here." - ― Daniel Keyes, Flowers for Algernon
People will want to communicate about this thing they've just seen. That's natural. In their exuberance spoilers will happen, it's just a fact of life in as information-rich a world that we live in now, so punishing people that make such mistakes (as opposed to those that shout "Rosebud is..." just to annoy people, who should be castrated and then eviscerated.)
That said, if you are on a forum like this one it's not difficult to create a new, spoiler-warning laden thread in which those that have absorbed the relevant media can participate, while leaving those that haven't and those that don't care out of it.
@apu said in Spoilers:
It's not as difficult as it might seem to avoid spoilers.
One particular event in Infinity War was spoiled for me by a title of a link automatically aggregated into my Google feed, which I see when I first launch Chrome on my Pixel 2 phone.
So basically this guy made an article titled "Why did Dumbledore had to die!"-type post, giving me no option to not get spoiled. Just seeing it in a list did the trick.
Those are the true assholes.
No, wait, the really true asshole was this professional movie reviewer years ago. That guy can just go fuck himself forever. So what happened is I was reading a newspaper (as I said, years ago 
) and ran across a review for Million Dollar Baby which I had tickets to see that night in the theater. In it, without any warning or spoiler alert, he basically had a whole section on "is euthanasia ethical?".
Fuck you, guy.
I don't think anyone should have "repercussions" for accidents of this nature. Intentional griefing via spoilers -- regardless of when it happens in relation to the media in question -- should be swatted (fly swatted, not the other kind omg), though I don't know what kind of consequences are possible/enforceable.
I concur with this.
I asked -- asked -- that people not spoil things, and, for the most part, that was respected. I never expected to Macho Man Randy Savage Flying Elbow Drop them for it.
What I would like to say is that some of us -- maybe most of us -- don't have the same amount of free time or disposable cash as others. Some of us hover around the poverty line. And I know, as NERDS Y'ALL NERDS we want to chitter-chatter about the things we like, don't like, and argue about incessantly, but let's also try to be considerate of others, in the vein of our recent push to make this place feel more like a community.
“It is better to live doing the things that you like. It is foolish to live within this dream of a world seeing unpleasantness and doing only things that you do not like.” -- Yamamoto Tsunetomo.
Ugh. Yeah, people like that suck. They're the kind of people who need to be kicked in the genitals a time or two.
Or repeatedly until they see the errs of their ways and vow to never do it again.
I totally get people will want to talk about it. I just hope people will understand that not everyone's seen whatever's being spoken about, like a movie, and talk with others via something like pages while on a mu* or a private email or IM or whatever.
I picked OTHER.
I am a huge movie buff, but even the best intentions can't get me to the theaters 30 times a year, and I don't have time to binge the entire Netflix catalogue.
I never give spoilers. About anything. I would never greet people with, "So-and-so dying in that comic book movie was terrible, don't you think???" People do that. It's like street cred currency for people to blurt out "THIS IS WHAT I KNOW, DO YOU KNOW IT, I MIGHT KNOW MORE THAN YOU! I SAW IT FIRST, I AM BIGGER FAN, RAR!"
I would vote that if you are talking about anything surprising in a film, do it with care. Getting the girl, dying, reincarnation, ultimate season finale revenge - shut your whore mouth. Nobody cares if you can watch entire seasons of Dr. Who in 90 tidy hours. Keep it to yourself, bitch.
But that's just me.
This has come up before but we can probably use a policy on it. Give your input, MSBites!
Also what's a good punishment? I don't feel banning people is appropriate unless it's truly malicious and intentional. Enforced signatures? Lame avatars?
