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People for Spoiler Free Internet?
Jun. 21st, 2007 09:30 amCould you imagine how much information would disappear if you had to get rid of all the spoilers to various things on the Internet? Would you have to put all discussion about "Citizen Kane" because not everyone has seen the movie? Would you have to wait until the latest episode of Stargate was aired all over the world? Is a year long enough before it is no longer a spoiler? How about the last Harry Potter book? Should there never be spoilers since there will always be people reading it for the first time? Or even Lord of the Rings for the same reason? Could you discuss anything without spoilers for someone?
Currently there is a discussion of when should something come out from behind the spoiler cuts in one of the groups I belong to. Now I agree that right now about a 1/3 of the group is current with the show in question and the other 2/3 will probably be by October I believe which is when I think the DVD will be out or closer to Christmas. So do the moderators declare that this season is under a spoiler cut until January?
It is a fine line that has to be walked. I tend to err on the side of hiding what I think might be a spoiler after I blew the end of "The Addams Family" movie for a couple of friends of mine (it had to do with the Identity of the Christopher Lloyd character by the end of the film) and "the Crying Game" for my little brother because of an ad in the New York Times fashion supplement. Since then I have been rather careful about spoilers.
This has only compounded over the years because of all the various things that Peter and I have worked on. I knew about various film scripts because of either my job at Del Rey or Peter was writing the novel based on the screenplay or because I read Peter's comic book scripts as he writes them and see the art as it comes in. I have been playing a lot of information I have very close to the vest. And sometimes it is hard when I see information that is wrong but the poster has convinced everyone that it is right and they are up in arms about something that the original poster made up of whole cloth. (Yea, I am thinking about the sewing I have to do today thus all the sewing metaphors.)
One of the few times I did step in with a correction about mis-information (about the movie Labyrinth 20 years after the fact), I was accused of being a big meanie because I proved their pet theory totally wrong by the use of IMDB and someone's website that was there at the time. I did get thanked privately by some other members of the group but in the group I was berated for causing such pain for this one special snowflake by their cronies. I put the group on read-only until the special snowflake flounced because no one was replying to their subjects of interest (which had nothing to do with Labyrinth). They came back beginning of this year but so far they are behaving themselves.
So I stay in the background and watch. I am very careful about what I say in groups and I tend to use cuts on my own web log with warnings clearly labeled.
I am grateful for all the cool information I do have in my skull.
Currently there is a discussion of when should something come out from behind the spoiler cuts in one of the groups I belong to. Now I agree that right now about a 1/3 of the group is current with the show in question and the other 2/3 will probably be by October I believe which is when I think the DVD will be out or closer to Christmas. So do the moderators declare that this season is under a spoiler cut until January?
It is a fine line that has to be walked. I tend to err on the side of hiding what I think might be a spoiler after I blew the end of "The Addams Family" movie for a couple of friends of mine (it had to do with the Identity of the Christopher Lloyd character by the end of the film) and "the Crying Game" for my little brother because of an ad in the New York Times fashion supplement. Since then I have been rather careful about spoilers.
This has only compounded over the years because of all the various things that Peter and I have worked on. I knew about various film scripts because of either my job at Del Rey or Peter was writing the novel based on the screenplay or because I read Peter's comic book scripts as he writes them and see the art as it comes in. I have been playing a lot of information I have very close to the vest. And sometimes it is hard when I see information that is wrong but the poster has convinced everyone that it is right and they are up in arms about something that the original poster made up of whole cloth. (Yea, I am thinking about the sewing I have to do today thus all the sewing metaphors.)
One of the few times I did step in with a correction about mis-information (about the movie Labyrinth 20 years after the fact), I was accused of being a big meanie because I proved their pet theory totally wrong by the use of IMDB and someone's website that was there at the time. I did get thanked privately by some other members of the group but in the group I was berated for causing such pain for this one special snowflake by their cronies. I put the group on read-only until the special snowflake flounced because no one was replying to their subjects of interest (which had nothing to do with Labyrinth). They came back beginning of this year but so far they are behaving themselves.
So I stay in the background and watch. I am very careful about what I say in groups and I tend to use cuts on my own web log with warnings clearly labeled.
I am grateful for all the cool information I do have in my skull.
