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leatherhead333 wrote:

誤称 wrote:

Honestly, is using a spoiler tag such a hardship that we even need to have this discussion? Seriously, just be considerate to others and if you think that something you post could be a spoiler to someone who hasn't seen the content yet use the tag. It isn't HARD.

By the same token is it THAT HARD to watch the freaking episode first before commenting? Rolling Eyes

Geez, maybe I'm a week behind due to Funimation being crappy about their simulcasts and I am trying to read comments on that episode when a dumbass like you posts spoilers about today's episode. Seriously, do you have a problem with being considerate of others or are you just a jerk?

yuna49 wrote:

I would like to see some guidance on how long spoiler tags are required for an episode that has aired. I'll spoiler key events in past episodes but generally consider the rest of their content fair game after a week or two. For episodes that have just aired, I'd like to see a grace period of maybe a couple of days beyond which spoiler tags are no longer required.

I'd say five posts is definitely long enough, even if they're all posted in the same minute. The real question is how long on the slower threads. Spoiler images probably should probably be limited to links until the next page, though.

leatherhead333 wrote:

By the same token is it THAT HARD to watch the freaking episode first before commenting? Rolling Eyes

As 誤称 and I said, not everybody gets them at the same time and might still reasonably assume that they're still current; it's rather easy to not notice you're using a delayed source until you notice people start posting about the next episode before you can see it. All that has to happen is that somebody say they're talking about the new episode before doing so. If you can't be inconvenienced to do that little, then I suppose calls for politeness are lost on you.

Another thing to keep in mind about series discussion threads is that they do not have an expiration date in regards to necroposting.
They are not just for the people who are watching the show as it is being aired or streamed.

Somebody who is watching the show on DVD months, or even years, from now might want to follow the discussion as he watches the show and make comments or ask questions about something in the episode that he just saw.

Not everybody is watching the show at the same time.

I have edited my opening post to try to better explain my suggestions about series discussion threads.

I always try to remember to start my post with an episode number.

Ep 9000 -
OMFG spoiler[Luke is Darth Vader's father!].

And if the spoiler isn't related to the show in discussion I say what the spoiler is for, like-

Manga spoiler[Chewbaca and Han Solo are brothers! Chewbaca just doesn't shave!]

But I don't do that on each post. Only the first time I comment on that episode.

As for the spoiler tags, I try to use them for anything that would be a spoiler for somebody has has seen up to the previous episode. Not everyone watches fansubs or perfectly punctual simucasts so I try to be considerate. It only takes a second to do, and it doesn't make it any harder to read.

誤称 wrote:

Geez, maybe I'm a week behind due to Funimation being crappy about their simulcasts and I am trying to read comments on that episode when a dumbass like you posts spoilers about today's episode. Seriously, do you have a problem with being considerate of others or are you just a jerk?

If I'm behind on anime i simply don't look at any discussion threads or comments on the episode. That's like people who complain about folks posting anime clips that spoil important details of an anime on youtube. Just don't search for those things until you are fully caught up.

Anything thing you've said could have been corrected or explained in the episode you haven't caught up with. So it's likely you just lurk which doesn't really solve anything since your still going to most likely look at the spoilers to see what happened. Either way I still don't understand what the problem is here.

Discussion threads should not be full of pointless black texts especially when not everyone knows how to use them correctly. All it does is appease people who don't know how to use their heads and it's senseless. You can call it courtesy but i call it suffering dumb behavior. I think people should still at least label what episode they are talking about but nothing beyond that.

Touma wrote:

Let's try to be clear about what we are talking about.

My idea is that series discussion threads would be different from other threads and would not require spoiler tags.

In all other threads spoiler tags should be used.

Ah ok I'm fully on board with that then Laughing

[EDIT: Slightly edited for attitude. -TK]

Touma wrote:

I am saying that each post should clearly identify the episode that is the subject of that post. That would make spoiler tags unnecessary because it is reasonable to expect that a person who has not seen that episode and does not want to be spoiled will not read the post.

This makes no sense to me. My apologies, but this suggestion assumes people will read over the post, and continue reading. This isn't how the flow works in these discussions. It would be difficult to skip over one or two discussions while trying to be in the middle of another. I don't see how this can work.

People tend to quote a reply to add their opinions, and these chains (for lack of a better word) are not easy to skip over.

I'm not pushing to have any rules changed, but I can't understand how anyone can complain about spoilers when they're entering a discussion of a series they've not seen.

Spoiler tags are important in discussions outside of the series thread, but I don't see this being a large problem in the threads I read (mostly Talkback).

Spoilers outside of a series discussion can be reported for a moderator to edit should the poster not be available to do it themselves.

So, those of you who say that there shouldn't be spoiler tags on anime discussion threads, I guess you're saying that people who can't afford (or don't want) to pay for subscriptions shouldn't be allowed to participate?

Because I know Crunchyroll, and I believe FUNimation as well, locks new episodes to a week after the premium members get it. So anyone who doesn't pay for a subscription will always be a week behind, and therefore, by your reasoning, shouldn't go into the thread, meaning they can't discuss the show at all.

Excessive spoiler'd out blocks, I agree, are a bit much. But important things that are not going to want to be known by someone who hasn't seen the episode? Spoiler it. And spoiler as little as possible. To use the Madoka spoiler, I'd only spoiler out the important part.

Quote:

Wow, in Episode 3, when Mami spoiler[gets killed].

It gives enough knowledge to point out who and when is being discussed, but not the spoiler that people who haven't seen it wouldn't want to see.

Last edited by Touma on Tue May 27, 2014 7:17 pm; edited 2 times in total

Violynne wrote:

Touma wrote:

I am saying that each post should clearly identify the episode that is the subject of that post. That would make spoiler tags unnecessary because it is reasonable to expect that a person who has not seen that episode and does not want to be spoiled will not read the post.

This makes no sense to me. My apologies, but this suggestion assumes people will read over the post, and continue reading.

It assumes that people will skip over posts for episodes that they have not seen yet.
I know that it can be difficult to scroll down through a post without reading anything, especially if you have to skip several posts, but it can be done.
The discussion is open for alternative ways of doing this.

Quote:

I'm not pushing to have any rules changed, but I can't understand how anyone can complain about spoilers when they're entering a discussion of a series they've not seen.

You seem to be of the opinion that a person should not participate in a series discussion thread until he has watched the entire series. Am I understanding you correctly?
It seems to me that most people like to discuss the show as they watch it. Perhaps I am wrong?

It any case, this is a thread for suggestions.
Could you please tell us how you think that things should be done?

Dessa wrote:

So, those of you who say that there shouldn't be spoiler tags on anime discussion threads, I guess you're saying that people who can't afford (or don't want) to pay for subscriptions shouldn't be allowed to participate?

I am certainly not saying that and I have not noticed anybody else who is, but I could have missed it.
I do not think that what I have been discussing with others has anything to do with subscriptions.
EDIT: After reading the last post from Violynne, which follows this one, I think that I might be wrong about that.

Quote:

I guess you're saying that people who can't afford (or don't want) to pay for subscriptions shouldn't be allowed to participate?

You're more than welcome to participate, but you shouldn't be upset when there are conversations ahead of you which may spoil your enjoyment of the series.

If you're inclined to discuss a series this badly, you should be prepared for anything that's going to be said.

In some discussions, I've seen people predicting what's going to happen, which may turn out to be an indirect spoiler, and these aren't in spoiler tags.

Is there an unwritten rule which states if it hasn't aired, it can be discussed openly? It seems contradictory to me.

Read the Attack on Titan discussion thread and let me know what your opinion is after reading the posts. You don't need to do the 80+ pages, but it won't take long to see the contradiction.

I read the AoT thread a few months ago, and while a few things did get spoiled (without the need to uncover spoiler tags), it didn't take away from my enjoyment of the series.

Not everyone will feel the way I did, but it's tough to define what makes a spoiler when you've seen the show. Death scenes are covered but discussions about the basement are not?

I guess this comes down to what people define as a spoiler.

Dessa wrote:

So, those of you who say that there shouldn't be spoiler tags on anime discussion threads, I guess you're saying that people who can't afford (or don't want) to pay for subscriptions shouldn't be allowed to participate?

Because I know Crunchyroll, and I believe FUNimation as well, locks new episodes to a week after the premium members get it. So anyone who doesn't pay for a subscription will always be a week behind, and therefore, by your reasoning, shouldn't go into the thread, meaning they can't discuss the show at all.

Excessive spoiler'd out blocks, I agree, are a bit much. But important things that are not going to want to be known by someone who hasn't seen the episode? Spoiler it. And spoiler as little as possible. To use the Madoka spoiler, I'd only spoiler out the important part.

Quote:

Wow, in Episode 3, when Mami spoiler[gets killed].

It gives enough knowledge to point out who and when is being discussed, but not the spoiler that people who haven't seen it wouldn't want to see.

Here is how most discussions go if they are regularly active (current example "The World is still Beautiful") .
The first day. Everyone uses spoiler tags.
Second day. a couple words or events might have spoilers but most of it is unedited.
Third day. People stop using spoilers because pretty much everyone is on the same page.

See the how that works? So really I highly doubt that someone who has the issue of being a week behind isn't going to see the spoilers at some point. As Violynne said if you aren't caught up you should already be prepared to potentially get spoiled on the episode since not everyone uses spoilers effectively. Because spoilers or not your not really going to be able to talk about recent events very effectively. You can talk about characters and or something of that nature but really you just need to live with the fact your always going to be at a disadvantage.

If someone posts about someone dying wouldn't that still be a spoiler considering they are telling you that someone important is going to die? Even if they don't give the specifics that's STILL a spoiler and could potentially lessen the impact it will have when you actually watch the episode. Now I know the example you used doesn't say who will die but if someone is going to follow up on that and it's in spoilers that means that something important is going to happen to that character and is still technically a spoiler.

It all depends on what you consider a spoielr as Violynne said.

Note that the subject of this post is series discussion threads in the Anime and Manga forums. It does not apply to other threads.

^@leatherhead333

Everything that you say makes sense to me, but I think that none of it would be a problem if people would put the episode number at the start of the post.
Anybody who is behind could just not read anything in the posts for episodes that he has not seen yet.

@Dessa,
Would episode numbers on the posts be good enough for you?
Or would you still want spoiler tags?

@Violynne,
Is there some reason why the episode numbers should not be at the start of the post?
Do you see a problem with it?

Does anybody else have an opinion on this.
Some input would be helpful.
When considering this please remember that due to the nature of discussion threads others could be reading them at a later time, even years from now.

I thing labeling a post with an episode number would actually help alleviate a lot of qualms with spoilers in general.

For instance, I stopped using spoiler tags in my Mushishi thread and simply started referencing by episode number at the beginning of each post, instead. At some point, I figured for a series discussion thread, enough people were probably either used to my formatting by then or had built a certain level of expectation for the series as a whole.

Although, the special case with *that* series is that its content is already completely episodic, so I don't think any of the reveals are really that much of a spoiler since there *is* no central plot. So, I guess you'd have to consider the context/magnitude of your comments in relation to the kind of story the series has as well.

I would definitely say spoiler tagging everything isn't necessary for a long-running series thread, since the assumption is that if you're watching it that long, eventual discussion of plot elements or character progression will lead to certain logical conclusions, anyway. But maybe be courteous to the point of only tagging really "big" reveals like deaths, appearances, twists, or anything that could affect those who are a little behind?

No I think the episode number thing is a good idea but when responding to people about certain things (not the most current episode) would you still need to keep the episode number up? Like if people are discussing a issue that happened in an episode would they need to keep putting the episode number up? I think that might be a little messy. It's not something that people would really think about.

I still think it's worth a try but maybe people could put a couple empty enter spaces before their post? If the episode number is only slightly over the comment it's still pretty easy to accidentally read some of the text (and people would surely complain about it).

I'd still give it a shot though.

Last edited by Touma on Wed May 28, 2014 4:38 pm; edited 1 time in total

leatherhead333 wrote:

No I think the episode number thing is a good idea but when responding to people about certain things (not the most current episode) would you still need to keep the episode number up?

Unfortunately, yes. In my opinion the episode number should be at the start of every post.
EDIT: Actually I was being too extreme there because I did not think it through completely.
As long as a post is about the same episode as the previous post it would not need to have the number. Only if the episode is different from the previous post would the number be needed to indicate the change.

This is necessary because there is no order to the sequence of the posts.
The general flow of the thread will probably be in the order of the episode numbers, at least in the beginning. But there will be posts that are out of order, and this will happen more often as the thread gets longer.
In the beginning all of the posts will be about episode 1.
Then most of the posts will be about episode 2, but there might be some episode 1 posts mixed in.
Then the series of posts for episode 3 can have some 1 and 2 posts mixed in.
And then ... You get the idea.

And that happens when everybody is watching at about the same time. It gets even more complicated when people who are watching later join in.
I think that it is possible to get a flood of new posts when a show gets a new release and people who have not seen it before start watching.
Even people who have seen it before might make new posts if there is a difference between the broadcast and DVD version of the show.

In some other forums a completely new discussion thread will be started for a DVD release.
I do not know if that would be practical, or necessary, here.

Quote:

I still think it's worth a try but maybe people could put a couple empty enter spaces before their post? If the episode number is only slightly over the comment it's still pretty easy to accidentally read some of the text (and people would surely complain about it).

I think that is a good idea.
That is the way that we did it back in the old days when the discussions were in newsgroups rather than web forums. It was necessary then because Usenet was all plain text with no formatting of any kind.
We called it "spoiler space."

leatherhead333 wrote:

..but when responding to people about certain things (not the most current episode) would you still need to keep the episode number up? Like if people are discussing a issue that happened in an episode would they need to keep putting the episode number up?

I think either putting the episode number or quoting that user would suffice. Chances are if people are reading at that point in the thread, they should realize that a continuing discussion could be taking place and that they run the risk of possible spoilage, should they continue reading past it.

Although, you would think common sense would dictate that the reader know what episode they're on and what episode is being discussed. Hopefully, just a simple glance scrolling up and down the page should be enough of an indicator, though.

Like if I were browsing a discussion thread and was an episode or 2 behind, and saw Ep. xx, that should be enough of a flag to warn me to not read that post or to be weary of any following posts quoting/referencing it, thereafter.

But the real question is: once we get all this etiquette ironed out, what then? If a user reports a post for failing to insert some spoiler tags, should there be any admonishment or ultimatums? I don't think "forgetfulness" or "lack of courtesy" should be something punishable, unless that user is an outright troll or cantankerous a-hole with no respect for anybody to begin with. Fortunately, we don't get a lot of those, here, as they're easy to spot and are dealt with pretty quickly.

Touma wrote:

In some other forums a completely new discussion thread will be started for a DVD release.

I do not know if that would be practical, or necessary, here.

Nope. A new thread would be locked and re-directed to the main discussion thread or Series Discussion Index. There's a certain degree of pragmatism in the culture of this community, and I think most regulars have already been acclimated to it. Heck, some people even *promote* it.

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