[Solace]

Originally Posted by Ledgem

I view this as a bit of a chicken-and-egg scenario. You're implying that the overall fanbase is becoming more accepting of spoilers (or just views more than the anime itself), but I'd offer an alternative suggestion: people have been burned by spoilers before, and then don't participate in discussions.

To a point it is a chicken and egg scenario. Like any social group, behavior is affected by enforcement (or lack of) the generally accepted rule structure.

But it's not quite the same as chicken and egg. The difference is that you're justifying not participating at all because you have been spoiled in the past. The other side of that point is mine, which is that no policy will ever prevent all spoilers from existing in areas designated as "spoiler free". People have to break a rule before we can punish them, which means damage is done even if it's minimal.

So posting or reading in a discussion area where spoilers might occur is something you have to accept as a potential risk in participation.

Also, bear in mind that you can exclude anime and novel readers from this problem and still have spoilers. For example, last season we had low quality streams from Nico premiere days before the high quality streams from Crunchyroll and television airings. This friction was somewhat resolved by splitting the discussion threads, but it wasn't an ideal solution and spoilers still occurred. There's also the issue of raw watchers and the delay in translations. Previews, images, and web information are also sources of friction among the "I don't want to be spoiled" group.

I hope by now people realize how complex it is to moderate spoilers and why they still occur. Not only is it impossible to control behavior, but spoilers can come from almost anywhere.

That's why this comment:

At that point we would need to admit that while spoilers are requested to be placed in spoiler tags, people are reading at their own risk.

....should be considered advice and warning everywhere on the internet.

This isn't an admission of moderators "losing the war" against spoilers, but a statement that people should manage their expectations. Spoilers suck, but they're a risk no matter how prepared you try to be. This folds back into my earlier point about understanding the community. It has changed, like it or not, and there's only so much segregation and rule making you can do before accepting there are limits on both preventing spoilers and discussing them in the face of the multiple groups with varying interests.

We do our best, but nothing's perfect.