Spoiler Policy Q&A thread

[IceHism]

I would say that light novel franchises in the west are mostly judged by their anime or manga adaption rather than the source itself. That's why they, as a medium, have a bad rep in the international anime community.

For an example...How many people understood Horizon's first season without reading the novels?

[Marcus H.]

For an example...How many people understood Horizon's first season without reading the novels?

That was a combined effort of those who know the novels, and some who just know how to piece down clues dropped by the anime.

[Cosmic Eagle]

Originally Posted by IceHism

I would say that light novel franchises in the west are mostly judged by their anime or manga adaption rather than the source itself. That's why they, as a medium, have a bad rep in the international anime community.

For an example...How many people understood Horizon's first season without reading the novels?

Hah. You're fortunate that you haven't seen some "hyperextending opinions" that base their opinions of the source from the anime adaptation, regardless of anything. That's a really potent source of vitriol, especially when "ignorance versus source elitism" comes into play.

Who cares though....it's not like what a bunch of people outside Japan think is going to affect the title's success in Japan..... It's not really a big issue as much as it is a matter of learning how to not associate yourself with those who want to judge based on shallow interpretations. Just give those foreign "fans" the finger and ignore them....You don't need like minded followers to be able to enjoy what you enjoy no?


And since the anime threads are so screwed up then just stay out of it lol.....The source threads are always active...

[Archon_Wing]

Originally Posted by Marcus H.

As you said before, there's no perfect solution to this. However, I feel that the problem mainly lies with the poster itself: No matter how many specified tags are created, all those are prone to misuse, deliberate or unintentional, and these tags are instant landmines to anyone who is overly cautious of spoilers.



Hah. You're fortunate that you haven't seen some "hyperextending opinions" that base their opinions of the source from the anime adaptation, regardless of anything. That's a really potent source of vitriol, especially when "ignorance versus source elitism" comes into play.

It's no worse than thinking that just because you read some half-done translation of a source that you suddenly become an authority on the matter and can speak on behalf of the author.

Like I said before, I think the only way we could make the spoiler policy more lenient is if people were able to use this information on an objective fashion that isn't meant to sway someone into a certain subjective interpretation which would require a fairly nuanced understanding of whatever they were reading and honestly I would say this isn't viable for a rule to the general public. Even when I go over the source itself and spend a lot of time going over the details, it's incredibly hard to put forth details to people that have incomplete information that isn't going to sway their opinions inappropriately due to my own bias.

It could be arrogance on my part, but I consider myself to work very hard to keep opinions to myself and understand that I have biases that will stamp out alternative interpretations while I have seen way too many "corrections" that have zero consideration on those parts. Fact is, i take the time to challenge opposing viewpoints unless said assertion is flat out wrong due to direct visual and storytelling contradiction. (example: Goku's power level

Spoiler for DBZ:

His power level > 8000 vs Nappa is a fact but confused due to a translation error)

But anyone that truly appreciates a work will realize that these things aren't really too common.

So at the risk of sounding smug, how many people have you actually seen trying to enhance the understanding of a so called "misled" opinion by challenging this point of dispute with a strong argument rooted with a fact, or simply tried to correct someone because you decided the source was precious to you and anyone that disagrees with the way you put it together is wrong? Or you decide to override the decisions of the adapting studio just because you think they're wrong? Do you understand the difference between "You're wrong because the anime butchered his/her character" and "I think I disagree with the anime's handling of the character because I liked the source's characterization due to...."? This is mainly because I think the later allows both viewpoints to coexist.

Such heavy handed, defensive, positions do no good for anyone. Even when dealing with original anime, I would not bother to debate the finer points of say Neon Genesis Evangelion, because if we can't agree on a premise, then there's no point but it doesn't always invalidate the criticism. Plus in 95% of cases nobody gives a shit anyways.

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by Archon_Wing

It's no worse than thinking that just because you read some half-done translation of a source that you suddenly become an authority on the matter and can speak on behalf of the author.

To expand on this point a bit, it's not as though just because you're a source reader makes you part of the informed hivemind either. Source readers can have massive disagreements over what actually happened in the source, how the source should be interpreted, and what things mean in context to what is shown in the anime. And this is also why the rule tries to direct these sorts of conversations out of anime threads. Someone thinks they're going to be "helpful" and "correct" an anime-only viewer, and then it turns into a multi-page tangent about the source material with multiple source readers correcting each other. That stuff does not belong in anime threads.

And the other point I'd like to say related to this is... fan translations aren't always accurate either, and this too can be a point of contention. For example, I remember being part of the very active discussion of the last Oreimo Light Novels, and you'd get vastly different interpretations of the story depending on if you took the fan translation literally, or if you actually compared to the Japanese source. Lots of "novel readers" were making all sorts of statements about the meaning and importance of what was shown or not shown in the anime, even though they didn't really truly understand what happened in the novel in the first place.

The dynamics of the conversation are muddled at the best of times. At least if you restrict the conversation to what was shown in the anime, you might think there'll at least be more common understanding. (Of course, this presumes that people actually watched the episode and paid attention, and weren't spaced out doing other things and felt like they got the gist of things enough to get into a deep essay-length argument about it. Which isn't too far from the exposure some "source readers" have in actuality.)

Originally Posted by Marcus H.

As you said before, there's no perfect solution to this. However, I feel that the problem mainly lies with the poster itself: No matter how many specified tags are created, all those are prone to misuse, deliberate or unintentional, and these tags are instant landmines to anyone who is overly cautious of spoilers.

If people would start by just using the one tag we have, and following the straightforward rules about its use, that would be a start. It is not as if we ask people to navigate through a bunch of different tags or choose something complicated. There's a button you can press, and it prompts you about exactly what is best to put as a label ("context and purpose"). If people would hit the button, read the prompt, and do what it says, I think we would have very few issues.

Originally Posted by Marcus H.

Hah. You're fortunate that you haven't seen some "hyperextending opinions" that base their opinions of the source from the anime adaptation, regardless of anything. That's a really potent source of vitriol, especially when "ignorance versus source elitism" comes into play.

I've also seen the opposite side of the coin: over-defensive source-readers who turn on anime-only viewers if their precious franchise was even-slightly criticised, and act like it's utterly impossible to appreciate the majesty of the work on its own merits without being intimately aware with the infallible source material.

Both of these extreme, unreasonable, inflexible opinions should simply be discarded. We can't create rules that shelter everyone from stupid opinions or force people to be reasonable. People who are prone to making unreasonable sweeping judgements won't let little things like "facts" get in their way in the first place.

[Marcus H.]

If people would start by just using the one tag we have, and following the straightforward rules about its use, that would be a start. It is not as if we ask people to navigate through a bunch of different tags or choose something complicated. There's a button you can press, and it prompts you about exactly what is best to put as a label ("context and purpose"). If people would hit the button, read the prompt, and do what it says, I think we would have very few issues.

On a related note, it would be nice if the Images, that other Spoiler tag, and the TL;DR tag can be easily accessible through the Quick Reply box. Has there been any motion towards adding those for better accessibility?

[Archon_Wing]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

(Of course, this presumes that people actually watched the episode and paid attention, and weren't spaced out doing other things and felt like they got the gist of things enough to get into a deep essay-length argument about it. Which isn't too far from the exposure some "source readers" have in actuality.)

Lol, I admit sometimes I fail to pay attention at times a lot. But yes, this is where corrections are perfectly valid when people are simply not even watching. When I read some of the more ridiculous critiques of a series, it really feels like they 1.) Came in the episode with pre-defined conclusions and ignored the screen; especially when this isn't the first episode and they just repeat what they've said before (funny how you can engineer "predictable" like this.) 2.) Read other people's summaries, skimmed the episode while pretending to watch it, just to reaffirm what they were going to say, and sometimes not even. 3.) Both. I'm not sure if it actually happens, but let's just say I'm wouldn't be surprised.

I actually occasionally fast forward stuff for really marginal series, especially if I just came to watch fights or moe or fanservice or whatever nonsense I was thinking of but I usually have the decency to realize I'd have a really distorted opinion. Nor would I have much of a rebuttal if you want to call me out on it either. But again, I just don't see enough people willing to admit these things.

[Reckoner]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

Both of these extreme, unreasonable, inflexible opinions should simply be discarded. We can't create rules that shelter everyone from stupid opinions or force people to be reasonable. People who are prone to making unreasonable sweeping judgements won't let little things like "facts" get in their way in the first place.

Speaking as someone who has often been on either side of this story, people just misunderstand each other. I've never seen most source readers intentionally trying to be patronizing. They are simply doing everything in their best power to share their love and fascination of a particular story. It can be painful to read deliberate misinterpretations of what's going on simply by others simply because my gosh it's not enough that I dislike this show, everyone must too! On the other hand all too many times have I made comments on an anime only for a source reader to contradict me with the sacred scriptures of the LN (Whether the thing in question happened or not at that particularly timeline of the story). Beyond the spoilery nature, I think the more significant issue here is that it's simply not relevant to the anime. They're two separate entities.

People need to learn to keep discussions specific to what is going on. If someone is misinterpreting the story of an anime in your view, the best thing is to use things within the anime to justify your points instead of the LN text. If it's a LN vs anime comparison, it should be spoilered and described as a context post. There also should be an acknowledgement that intent and execution are two separate things. Yes, an author might have been going for X but the way he wrote it he got Y and there lies the problem. You have to execute your ideas too, and sometimes anime adaptions ruin the execution themselves, and other times the LN never did a great job itself. It'd go a long way to creating more reasonable discussion.

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by Marcus H.

On a related note, it would be nice if the Images, that other Spoiler tag, and the TL;DR tag can be easily accessible through the Quick Reply box. Has there been any motion towards adding those for better accessibility?

I could probably just add a whole bunch of individual boxes for each thing. I would have liked to have made a single "hide" button that then asks you like "what is this for?" and then puts the right tag (spoil, images, tldr, etc.)... but that's more work since it then requires some sort of UI after you click the button.

But yeah, it would be a good idea to make it a bit easier. (I personally am a bad example since I don't use the WYSIWYG editor and always type all the BBCodes, but I know most people don't do that these days...)

Originally Posted by Archon_Wing

I actually occasionally fast forward stuff for really marginal series, especially if I just came to watch fights or moe or fanservice or whatever nonsense I was thinking of but I usually have the decency to realize I'd have a really distorted opinion. Nor would I have much of a rebuttal if you want to call me out on it either. But again, I just don't see enough people willing to admit these things.

Well, yeah. I think the main thing is always awareness.

With novels in particular, the gulf between "bullet-point raw summary", "quick/rough fan translation" (or translation of a translation) and "actual translation" is pretty huge, but I think this is pretty underplayed in the community. In some cases, the majority of the English community for a work is basing all their judgements on one particular person's summary of the work, and presuming it's complete, accurate, and unbiased.

[cyth]

Originally Posted by Archon_Wing

Lol, I admit sometimes I fail to pay attention at times a lot. But yes, this is where corrections are perfectly valid when people are simply not even watching.

I do this too sometimes, but I'd rather be corrected by an anime-only watcher. It's not at all pleasant to figure out you actually were paying attention and that some guy just knew more or was more aware of certain details because he read the novels first.

Originally Posted by Reckoner

Beyond the spoilery nature, I think the more significant issue here is that it's simply not relevant to the anime. They're two separate entities.

I don't want to be the contrarian here, because I'd rather wish it weren't so, but more often than not anime media are supposed to be consumed along with the original.

I don't want to think that anime readers are being pressured by producers to read the source or get into other adaptations and spinoffs, but that's what media mix projects are aiming for. It's not enough to watch the anime to get the full scope and be recognized as a fan. Maybe this is a decades-old problem just repackaged now that even western fans are aware of media mixes, but this awareness has also brought forth the entitlement that we see coming from source readers. They know they're riding the evolutionary wave and feel entitled to dispense their new ways. Us anime-only watchers are quite literally snobs for pushing against it.

So it'll take a concerned effort just to keep what little ground we still have on this forum. I've had enough of trying to constantly deal with frequent spoiling offenders. These days I just report and put them on the ignore list. Wish more people started doing that, then maybe eventually they'd start feeling less relevant and stop doing it. A man can dream right.

[Marcus H.]

That kind of vitriol is uncalled for, cyth. I can exist as a source reader on one show and an anime-only watcher on another, and that aggressive push to keep one "faction" out just to "keep what little ground" you guys have isn't the solution. (And no, I don't believe there's no room for both sides in this forum, especially since the active side of the community has rather shrunk throughout the decade of its existence.)

[Archon_Wing]

Personally, I admit there's a few cases where spoilers ended up encouraging me to watch a series *cough*, but I guess this is still up to the individual to decide. It's just hazardous to have any one individual decide what's best for everyone else, so this is one of the cases where the rules are more impartial in that sense.

[Reckoner]

Originally Posted by cyth

I don't want to be the contrarian here, because I'd rather wish it weren't so, but more often than not anime media are supposed to be consumed along with the original.

Well that's another issue entirely, but it does seem like every season we see increasing amounts of glorified commercials for source material.

[cyth]

Originally Posted by Marcus H.

That kind of vitriol is uncalled for, cyth.

Is it really? You think I enjoy having these debates over spoiler policy just for the sake of it?

I can exist as a source reader on one show and an anime-only watcher on another, and that aggressive push to keep one "faction" out just to "keep what little ground" you guys have isn't the solution.

Look, I don't want this to be an us vs. them thing either, just want to watch and discuss my damn cartoons with some peace of mind.

Some "pro-spoiler" people are so entitled they say anime-only watchers should only discuss original anime if we want to avoid spoilers. This "suggestion" pops up from time to time, never mind that people can get spoiled in original anime threads as well, since leaks coming from production aren't that rare anymore. By this logic we should just quit posting on the forum.

I'm being loud and to some parties probably obnoxious because quite simply more needs to be done. Since more creative options are off the table because vBulletin sucks, I think the only thing that can be done is to just better enforce the current spoiler policy (quicker, more consistent) and to make people more aware that they can report offending posts.

The spoiler policy as is is good I think. The only thing I'd change is to put in place harsher punishments for senior users. You'd think someone who's been a user of this forum since 2007 would have remembered that spoilers are a no-no in anime threads. They had ample time to read the rules, they have no excuses. Instead, they post spoilers on one account, get warned, spoil some more, get warned, maybe banned, when they get banned, they switch to a blatantly obvious alternative account and spoil away there. That's two rules they broke, defied their punishment, yet they are still members of this forum.

Marcus H., I know you're a good guy and just want to stand up for the little guy, but I just don't see how you can defend the kinds of people I mentioned. The only guys that truly deserve the benefit of the doubt are new users who got a bit carried away. Every other offense isn't coming out of love for works, but from a place of selfishness and entitlement.

[Toullaty]

Hello, I don't know if I'm in the good threat but I have a question on the use of spoilers.

Not long ago, I wanted to put a picture in a spoiler, it seems to work. But after, when I tried to open the spoiler, the picture did not appear.

I tried several times for the same result. I think I wasn't wrong in the use of spoiler but if anyone knows how bring up the image when I open the spoiler, thank you.

[karice67]

Because of an issue that's cropped up again in the ERASED (BokuMachi) anime thread, may I suggest that "discussions of pacing" be specifically addressed in the spoiler policy?

In the section about exceptions, the closest point would be

Comparing events in an adaptation to the way they were presented in the source material or other adaptations. (Discussions about the source material itself, or extended comparisons should be directed to the appropriate manga/novel/game thread.)

However, I feel that specifying exactly how much of the source has been covered and thus how much is left is problematic, especially because this generally happens only when readers lament that "they're going to be cutting heaps of stuff to cram all that material into the last x episodes!" This potentially primes anime-only viewers into looking for pacing problems when the adaptation might work even with all the cuts.

I'm not averse to these kinds of comparisons. However, to give (anime) adaptations a fair chance, I feel that they should be confined to the source thread--or a dedicated comparison thread in a sub-forum--until the show is finished. Can something like that please be done?

Otherwise, I would petition that spoilers and comparisons be kept completely out of the anime threads, because far too many source readers simply aren't being careful enough--in the ERASED thread, most of them aren't even using spoiler tags.

[relentlessflame]

So... generally speaking I agree with you, and it's in alignment with our policy to not allow these sorts of comparisons to future events in anime threads. It should go in the source thread, or in a comparison thread if one exists.

However... the amount of people who seem to care about these sorts of comparisons and report posts to uphold this aspect of the policy these days seem to be dwindling. The general tolerance/acceptance for this sort of para-anime info seems to have risen (so long as it's not outright plot spoilers). Some people have argued before that this is because we're not strict enough and we should just outright ban anyone who posts any source content in anime threads at all. But, even as it stands, I think we have one of the more strict spoiler policies of any anime forum I've seen.

So I honestly don't really know what to do. If you report posts, the mod team will try to deal with them. I deleted a bunch of posts in that particular thread now, and will leave a warning.

[Marcus H.]

I won't be that worried about comparisons, provided that they adhere to the Spoiler Policy.
Sometimes, comparisons can provide insight on the stuff that's way outside of the anime series universe, like how a director focuses on one aspect of the show (e.g., Tatsuyuki Nagai in Railgun and Railgun S) or how the story is shifted in favor of another character in some episodes (Dagashi Kashi comes to mind). Eventually, this knowledge can provide people with things that they can put into consideration whenever they stumble upon the same staff member in another anime series.

In the case of Dagashi Kashi...

Spoiler for Dagashi Kashi:

The heavily Hotaru-centric original manga series is changed up a bit so that Saya gains a lot more relevance to the story. This somewhat divides the anime-watching fanbase; some people see the show as putting the focus on a opposite extreme as the manga, while others find it a great balance on the antics between the two heroines.

So yeah, I see nothing wrong in pointing those out. The issue is more of being really pushy about it instead of disobeying the Spoiler Policy.

[monster]

Originally Posted by Marcus H.

Sometimes, comparisons can provide insight on the stuff that's way outside of the anime series universe, like how a director focuses on one aspect of the show (e.g., Tatsuyuki Nagai in Railgun and Railgun S) or how the story is shifted in favor of another character in some episodes (Dagashi Kashi comes to mind). Eventually, this knowledge can provide people with things that they can put into consideration whenever they stumble upon the same staff member in another anime series.

I don't see how that is of any relevance to people who are not interested in actually reading (or otherwise experiencing) the source material.

For anyone who is interested, such considerations can still be done either in threads specifically catered for such topics and/or when discussing the anime as a whole.

[relentlessflame]

Originally Posted by Marcus H.

I won't be that worried about comparisons, provided that they adhere to the Spoiler Policy.

Well, provided it does adhere with the Spoiler Policy and is behind properly-marked spoiler tags, it would usually be fine. The issue is really the fact that people aren't bothering to use the tags because -- I guess -- threads are dominated by people who either a) have read the source material, or b) don't care about these sorts of comparisons (and/or always find it useful/valuable).

I do think in some cases comparisons can be relevant and interesting, but I also think people should have the choice whether they want to read them or not. And I also kind of agree with monster as well in the sense that, a lot of times, these comparisons aren't really as interesting to anime-only viewers as the source readers posting them think they are. A lot of it can be "inside baseball" as best, and actually irrelevant to the anime viewing experience at worse.