Spoilers in the forum

[sine]

TOPIC SPLITTED FROM THE NEWBIE THREAD. sab.

Thanks Hunee!
[spoiler]I loved how he effectively died in 2 episodes, once with his family in hawaii and once with the hospital staff in Chicago, none of this dying only once for Dr Green.[/spoiler] Now that's good TV!

Dear comrades, please use the spoiler tag or at least attach a spoiler warning when talking about significant events on non-mscl shows, thank you.

Anyways, welcome on board!

[Natasha (candygirl)]

Actually, the way we define spoilers at mscl.com is as follows (from the FAQ):

When discussing current tv shows, a spoiler is any information (casting, plot, or otherwise) regarding an episode that has not yet aired in the USA.

Anthony Edwards' character Mark Green died at the end of the eighth season (May 2002) so that information does not require spoiler tags.

[Guest]

Actually, the way we define spoilers at mscl.com is as follows (from the FAQ):

When discussing current tv shows, a spoiler is any information (casting, plot, or otherwise) regarding an episode that has not yet aired in the USA.

Thanks for pointing out the Forum rules, I hadn't had noticed them.

On what grounds was the definition of a spoiler made? How did it end up getting its current form, which things were considered? If Sacha -- who posted the rules above -- or someone else who contributed to the definition could enlighten me on this matter, I'd be thankful. (and feel free to move this post to a more proper subforum)

Probably needless to say, but I feel that while the definition is one that I can live with, it could and should be more discriminating. The definition considers only the the technical aspect of experiencing an episode of a tv show -- that the programme/episode is aired -- but it doesn't consider at all whether the episode has actually been viewed by the reader of this forum.

[sine]

lotsa important stuff

That was of course me...

...and I managed to write Sascha's name wrong, I'm sorry

[Hunee]

yeah he died like two seasons ago... we did not look at it as a spoiler because im sure even the sindicated reruns have gotten to that part... i have even seen that episode 3 times already... it runs on channel 18 in the morning...

[Sascha]

Actually, the way we define spoilers at mscl.com is as follows (from the FAQ):

When discussing current tv shows, a spoiler is any information (casting, plot, or otherwise) regarding an episode that has not yet aired in the USA.

Thanks for pointing out the Forum rules, I hadn't had noticed them.

On what grounds was the definition of a spoiler made? How did it end up getting its current form, which things were considered? If Sacha -- who posted the rules above -- or someone else who contributed to the definition could enlighten me on this matter, I'd be thankful. (and feel free to move this post to a more proper subforum)

Probably needless to say, but I feel that while the definition is one that I can live with, it could and should be more discriminating. The definition considers only the the technical aspect of experiencing an episode of a tv show -- that the programme/episode is aired -- but it doesn't consider at all whether the episode has actually been viewed by the reader of this forum.

That's something we can't really consider in such a big and international forum. There're always people who haven't seen a particular series or season, so one could easily argue that every plot information to every series ever aired is a spoiler. That would result in the "Other TV Shows"-forum only to be filled with spoilers.

So we took a more technical approach to define what a spoiler is and looked at how other forums and usenet newsgroups are handling this issue. This website is located in the US, 70% of its visitors are from the USA, so we decided to take the US airdate as the official "expiration date" for spoiler information. If you look at international television usenet groups you'll find that they use the same strategy.

Of course, you are still free to add spoiler tags to every posting (i.e. if you know that some readers in a thread haven't seen a certain episode or if a topic is clearly marked for discussion among European viewers etc), we just don't require you to do so.

[sine]

Thank you for the clarification, Sascha.

So we took a more technical approach to define what a spoiler is and looked at how other forums and usenet newsgroups are handling this issue. This website is located in the US, 70% of its visitors are from the USA, so we decided to take the US airdate as the official "expiration date" for spoiler information.

Ok, I'm able to respect that.

But in this particular incident -- a significant piece of information about a show was handed out on a subforum and more particularly in a thread that has (directly) nothing to do with tv shows -- spoiler tags would have been in order, don't you think? According to the rules there shouldn't have been any, but if we keep writing about such stuff off-topic without spoiler tags or warnings then this forum becomes pretty hazardous for the generic tv series viewer a little behind on the seasons.

[Sascha]

But in this particular incident -- a significant piece of information about a show was handed out on a subforum and more particularly in a thread that has (directly) nothing to do with tv shows -- spoiler tags would have been in order, don't you think? According to the rules there shouldn't have been any, but if we keep writing about such stuff off-topic without spoiler tags or warnings then this forum becomes pretty hazardous for the generic tv series viewer a little behind on the seasons.

I agree, but please understand that we don't want to enforce more complicated rules to protect a minority in our forum from getting spoiled. We just have to draw a line somewhere. If a large part of the forum community would ask us to put the bar for this rule a bit higher, we might reconsider. But getting "exposed" to such an information like this "Dr. Green-Spoiler" could happen to you even in a normal conversation with friends.

[Jason R]

Bruce Willis's character is dead in "The Sixth Sense."

Marty McFly makes it back to 1985 and The Doc makes a time machine out of a steam locomotive.

Rosebud was a sled.

[dTheater]

There is no Easter Bunny.

[Natasha (candygirl)]

There is no Easter Bunny.

Please tell me there is a Santa Claus!

[sine]

Rosebud was a sled.

Actually, the movie RKO 281 gives another explanation.