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-   -   "Fansubbed" Forum: Should discussion be limited to fansubbed episodes? (http://forums.animesuki.com/showthread.php?t=41008)

Skyfall 2007-01-02 17:11

Well, as it stands now, in majority of cases i visit the Fansub subforum is when i am interested in reading some RAW spoilers about what happens 5 episodes in the future (from SUB POV) :eyespin:

Wether that is good or bad...i don't know. It certainly is inconvenient that the thread is littered with spoilers... sort of ruins the mood for discussion when the things you are posting is old news.

Radiosity 2007-01-02 17:26

If raw dicussion was banned I wonder what would happen to the activity levels in the forum?

As it stands, there's a lot of activity with people discussing raws. However, as has been said by a couple of people now (and I include myself too), people feel less inclined to post what would be considered 'old news'. So that's a lot of activity lost because of fansub watchers who don't feel like posting.

So by banning raw discussion, while it would initially cause a drop in activity, I could also see an overall rise in activity as people who don't bother posting currently are drawn back into active discussion.

Yay for the fansub watchers, but now the raw watchers are out in the cold. Heh, can't win this one. Allowing discussion within spoilers and hoping people honour the rules seems to be the only realistic way forward without alienating a large portion of the people who visit the site.

SeijiSensei 2007-01-02 20:49

i definitely felt the need to avoid the NHK ni Youkoso forum for a while because raw viewers were way ahead of the rest of us. Many of the raw viewers had also read much of the manga, so there were discussions swirling around the anime vs. manga issue as well. There were many polite participants who used spoiler tags liberally, but the occasional impolite contributor can really ruin a story with an inadvertent revelation. Also it gets tedious to see a discussion with a dozen consecutive posts in spoilers and know you don't want to read any of them.

I also felt something of the "old news" problems in this forum as well. By the time those of us watching subs caught up, the raw viewers were discussing issues three to four episodes ahead.

I don't really see how it would hurt to have an "unsubbed" category along with subbed and licensed. I don't know if every series would end up in both categories, but we're really only talking about a few dozen threads at any one time. Given the speed with which threads come and go in these forums, it doesn't look like we'd be adding a lot of overhead by setting up a locale for people to discuss raws.

I'll often resort to spoiler tags even for series that have finished because I'll want to discuss critical events that someone new to a series hasn't yet seen. (See my discussion of Blood+ for an example.) Most well-intentioned contributors here do the same. But then there are the people who complain that they can't figure out how to insert spoiler tags. I observe in passing that the "quick reply" box does not offer the spoiler option, so we're relying on participants' willingness to delve into the advanced composition form to use spoilers. I think that's asking a lot of infrequent or new contributors. Adding a spoiler option to the quick reply form might help in this regard.

Zu Ra 2007-01-03 04:33

In the fansub section shows thread which I frequent I can say all for all raw ep discussions spoilers are used . But the only drawback ragarding raw ep discussion via spoilers is once the subs do get released the discussion on that ep is non exsisitant as its already been done when raw comes out . Thats a tad bit irritating for a sub watcher .

Deathkillz 2007-01-03 05:46

Quote:

Originally Posted by Radiosity (Post 787175)
If raw dicussion was banned I wonder what would happen to the activity levels in the forum?

As it stands, there's a lot of activity with people discussing raws. However, as has been said by a couple of people now (and I include myself too), people feel less inclined to post what would be considered 'old news'. So that's a lot of activity lost because of fansub watchers who don't feel like posting.

So by banning raw discussion, while it would initially cause a drop in activity, I could also see an overall rise in activity as people who don't bother posting currently are drawn back into active discussion.

Yay for the fansub watchers, but now the raw watchers are out in the cold. Heh, can't win this one. Allowing discussion within spoilers and hoping people honour the rules seems to be the only realistic way forward without alienating a large portion of the people who visit the site.

you mean lurkers would be more inclined to post? but tbh it depends on how far behind the subs are...sure if its 1 or 2 ep behind that fine...but when a massive delay happens and it turns into a 5-6 ep delay then theres a problem...because the same thing is being circulated over and over again there is a danger of the topic progressing either at a snails pace with hardly and useful talk after a certain point or completely stop at all as nobody has anything good to say...while all the time the RAW watchers are sitting back and holding everything in that might have happened in the next ep par say ~

cyth 2007-01-03 06:13

Well, at some point AnimeSuki will have to decide who gets the priority on this issue (fansub or RAW watchers), and while everything could continue the way it is, we'll never know what would be like with extended forum options/posting instructions if we never try them out.
There's probably no best solution to this issue, however there's evil and there's lesser evil. I have no doubt in my mind that choosing the lesser evil, i.e. prioritizing fansub watchers since they are still the majority of potential participants, would be a better solution. I remember a few years ago, the "news community" or, if you want, the "spoiler community" wasn't even remotely as big as it is today. It consists of rare individuals who have the ability to follow episodes in Japanese (or indulge in other media such as manga, novels, games of the same franchise) and post summaries through their blogs, or on forums, and groups of people who enjoy spoilers and/or watch raws just for the heck of being the first to watch something (and have very limited or no japanese language skills). The "fear" of deprioritizing and, most likely, offending this minority stems from the fact that this group is far more progressive than the other; it's striving to be the first, to deliver the latest news and insight with their language/data mining abilities. It's definitely a gain to have such people around. But fansub watchers heavily rely on fansubs, however they are still the majority.
I do feel the same, as others have expressed already, that fansub watchers are most likely less inclined to discuss a series if they feel that there's high possibility that their insight would offer nothing new to the discussion. And while I have the ability to follow raws in a decent manner I can understand their frustration.

Whitemoon648 2007-01-03 10:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Shay (Post 786065)
Been spoiled too many times. I know it is a selfish reason but it is an English speaking forum afterall.

I distinctly remember episodes of AIR and School Rumble being completely ruined for me at times.

Edit: Yes these were popular and both had their own forums but that was the most infuriating part. By the time an episode was subbed the discussion was 2-3 episodes ahead. Pissed me off!

Well anyway. Sorry if I have responded inappropriately*.

I agree with you too. I have been spoiled on way too many of my favorite series thats its not even funny :heh: . Like About
Spoiler for naruto. Its anime:
or even
Spoiler for bealch. its anime:
.

So i strongly agree with you but still i dont want to be selfish to many people who like to discuss raws too ( same as you). I think if we divide each forums to Spoiler free and spoiler allowed, Mayby we could solve this problem. I know its a hard task and requires double the amount of moderating, but if at least we can set it for the famous and popular series , its better than nothing.

With all that said, i still think animesuki is the best forums in terms of following the rules about spoilers. Most of the forums are moderated extremely well and most of the people always use spoiler tags. I Think another way we can solve this problem is by actually telling the members who dont know about the spoiler tag rules ( which mainly are the new members) about them. And this way we can keep them at the minimum.

P.S. I voted the third option.

Radiosity 2007-01-03 11:55

Quote:

Originally Posted by Deathkillz
you mean lurkers would be more inclined to post?

I think you're a bit confused on the definition of lurker there. I mean people like myself who would post to these threads but don't feel like it because of all the raw discussions going on. A lurker is someone who signs up but never posts, unless they happen to need help with something ("...hi, long term lurker here, great site, need some help...")

A member who's been here a year and a half and has 1500+ posts (that's including my time before the great hack of 2005) cannot possibly be considered a lurker. I'm active in most other areas of the forum, it's just the fansubs forum (and to a lesser extent the series forums) that I tend to avoid now. I don't particularly want to avoid them, but it's incredibly annoying posting what to me is a sudden revelation, only to find that it's been discussed two weeks prior in spoilers and is considered 'old news'.

It's frustrating, but it's better than having a series ruined by that one unmarked spoiler.

Deathkillz 2007-01-03 12:12

^ lol soz about that i was being rather vague (and my brain isnt working :eyespin:) ~ what i mean was people that are in your situation who doesnt know whether to post or not or even go into a thread in fear of being spoiled...right got it but tbh it can be avoided ~ there is bound to be some fool who doesnt realize that he/she are spoiling things (unwittingly ive done once or twice as well) ~ and it won be fair to say banning someone for committing a wrong that they are unaware themselves...

cant say that there is a real solution here...making double threads for every series seem to be a waste of manpower (and as we know the mods are already very busy) ~ i think the only thing is for people to be more responsible when using spoilers and tag them!

Pellissier 2007-01-03 15:29

I voted the third option because I too when a show really catches me, end watching some raws and then post some comments (completely spoiler-tagged of course). It happens rarely, but since it happens, it'd be unfair by my side to vote for the first option.

Yes, because lately I've become a little more upset about the raw discussions. Not totally for their spoilerous nature though. That's a thing I've learnt to handle. When a series is very close to its ending, I do not touch a certain thread, until I'm finished watching the final episode fansubbed.

It's more for the consequence they seem to have on a thread life. I'm more feeling like they're somehow restraining people from partecipating. Just as Radiosity was saying.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Radiosity (Post 787175)
If raw dicussion was banned I wonder what would happen to the activity levels in the forum?

As it stands, there's a lot of activity with people discussing raws. However, as has been said by a couple of people now (and I include myself too), people feel less inclined to post what would be considered 'old news'. So that's a lot of activity lost because of fansub watchers who don't feel like posting.

Good point. Somehow I'm seeing a certain tendency coming from the raw discussions. This happens when there's a distance of 4-5+ episodes from the "fansub point" (where the fansub episodes are up to) to the "raw point".

In example yesterday I downloaded episode 10 of Tokimeki and I was seeing the thread continuosly bumping, so I thought that probably there was a discussion on the new episode going. Today I watched the episode and went to the thread, to find out that out of all the new discussion, 1 post was actually about episode 10, but all the rest was a comment of events going to come from episodes 13-14.
Note that I absolutely don't care of the nature of this, since I don't mind being a bit spoiled for an harem series which is still at an early point. What I find somewhat sad, is the lack of discussion about the new fansubbed episode. Granted that it wasn't nothing special per se. Granted that the aforementioned discussion was interesting indeed.
But I wonder how big is the influence of the raw talking on this. I personally find myself discouraged from posting because .. it's like it wouldn't be interesting. And since the show is watched by a number of people, being the thread quite popular, I too, wonder.

On the contrary, when a sub is 2 episodes or less behind the japanese airing, I usually see people more actively partecipating.


Returning on the thread main pattern, of course I don't see no way of splitting each discussions in two. Surely for the great effort requested to the mods. But also because I could see the discussions to dilute. I see all the elements (members) as complementary between them, so I'm not pro dividing them.
Plus, AnimeSuki was born for fansubs. Raw talking/seeking mostly is discouraged, so I really can't see how a "raw" section could arise.
That's already 3 reasons I stated here.
A nice, but not praticable, solution, was the one GHDpro mentioned, one thread for each episode discussion. But that's clearly utopia :)

So yes I'd be fine if people were to use spoiler tags properly. Unfortunately it's not something I can see always to happen.
Besides the lack of use of spoiler tags, which as said above would be penalized, there's also another little clarification I'd like to do.
It's fine to post spoiler events on spoiler tags but... I'd wish not to see anything outside the spoiler tags.
I'll explain myself better:

------------------------------------
Sample 1:

Fansubs are at episode 13. A new post appears into the thread.

Finally managed to see episode 18. Wow! I wouldn't ever have expected such a turn of events! I'm really surprised but also glad to see things going this way. I'm not going to spoiling anything, but let's say you would enjoy this episode.

Spoiler for episode 18:


Again this episode was amazing and the show is getting always better and better, I can only hope it continues to do so, because it's really becoming one of the best on its genre.

End of post
-------------------------------------------

^

I consider this formula to be wrong. While as a matter of facts there's nothing really major spoilered up there, I - viewer stucked at episode 13 - am not interested to know that the show takes an amazing turn on episode 18.
Because in my mind I may end to figure up that all what is going to come until that episode is minorily important. This shouldn't happen imho. It's a wrong influence I'm receiving.

That's why I'd like not to see any comments of the user, beside the spoilertagged spoiler. Because that user is influenced having seen more than me, and anything he says in that context is potentially "dangerous" (with "dangerous" being a metaphorical word here, heh ;) ) , to me.

So the correct formula would be, in the same case:


----------------------------------
Sample 2:

Fansubs are at episode 13. A new post appears into the thread.

Finally managed to see episode 18.

Spoiler for episode 18:


End of post
------------------------------------

^
I'd prefere this way. Of course these kind of things are nothing I wouldn't even think of reporting (also because I may be alone on the matter :heh: , it's just a sense I've raised throghout past experiences) , and there really isn't a reference to anyone here on Suki, it's just a general trend I'm sort of seeing ;)

Lastly, I wish the comments on the spoiler tags would be carefully used. I mean that line of text summarizing what's going to be onto the spoiler itself.
If in a delicate context, letting it blank may put people in difficult on whether opening it or not. And I'm betting they would choose to skip it.
Good if it was an horrorific spoiler. But if it was a ton of precious images/infos just spoilertagged for saving space? It'd be a waste! :)

Sorry for being picky on this, but relentlessflame on his original question asked how raw-watchers should behave, and I explained what I wish to see.
Which is also of course, what I do when I myself, though rarely, am the raw-watcher. :)

Shay 2007-01-03 17:26

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pellissier (Post 788034)
What I find somewhat sad, is the lack of discussion about the new fansubbed episode.

That's basically my biggest irk. Wading through a thread full of spoiler tags to only find like 2 posts about the newly subbed episode is shit. :(

relentlessflame 2007-01-03 19:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Small One (Post 787584)
BTW, the poll doesn't really make sense. It says "Yes", "No", but the third option "Don't care, if Spoiler Tags are used" is basically the same as Yes, since Spoiler-Tags are a requisite in the first place (unless you get a whole spoiler-Thread).

To clarify, what I meant by the question was whether we should have to wait till the fansub is released to discuss the episode at all in the "Fansubbed" forum. In other words, if the fansubs are at episode 3 and the raws are at episode 10, you could only talk about up to episode 3 and no higher, even in spoiler tags. Most importantly, I don't think that's really an option, but the point of the question was: would you like it better if that were how it was? This ties in to my other question about spoiler tags that I posted earlier. So, I could have phrased the options like this:
  • Raw spoilers in fansub threads are bad (I wish they weren't there at all, even in spoiler tags)
  • Raw spoilers in fansub threads are good (I like that they're there)
  • I don't care either way, just use spoiler tags
Hopefully that explains a bit more about why I phrased things the way I did. You may wonder "if you knew that one of the options was practically impossible, why ask in the first place?" And I think that's been hit upon by a number of people already: so that I, as someone who watches raws and posts about them, will know what behaviour people on the forum find courteous. That's basically what it comes down to.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pellissier (Post 788034)
Sorry for being picky on this, but relentlessflame on his original question asked how raw-watchers should behave, and I explained what I wish to see.

Thank you -- in fact, your very practical suggestion helps me a great deal in terms of giving me something to think about (don't know how I'll implement it yet). As I said to begin with, I didn't post this poll expecting anything to change on a forum-wide level -- going to a "two-tier" discussion system would be a pretty debatable "step forward" to say the least. You got at the heart of the issue, though, which is a question of responsible behaviour in an environment that is clearly designed primarily for fansub viewers. (And, to be clear, I still do watch a lot of fansubs too, and that's what brought me here in the first place. My interests may have drifted in time to raws and R2 DVDs, but it started with fansubs.)

I have to admit that one of my side-motivations in a "Type A" spoiler post (as per your example) would be because I want to encourage people to keep giving the show a chance in case they may be feeling disheartened. Then again, it'd be pretty rare to see me do the same in the event that my outlook were less positive (then I might do "Type B", if anything). That doesn't mean all other raw watchers do the same, of course; few things are more annoying to me than a "Type A" pessimistic spoiler post ("This show totally sucks once you get to not-yet-subbed episode xxx. <spoilers for why>") I realize, of course, that that's my bias, and I suppose it could be called a double-standard too (If my opinions are positive, I want people to hear them, but if they're negative, I want people to come to their own conclusions.). Don't ask why that's the case, because I'm not sure. :heh:

Anyway, thank you everyone for this useful discussion. The practically-minded may say it's useless because "there's no clear problem, and no practical solution", but I think just having the conversation is useful. We may not be able to change the big thing, but we can help improve some of the little things -- and maybe a better and more consistent understanding of "raw spoiler etiquette" is part of that equation.

Whitemoon648 2007-01-04 02:33

I think many people who dont use spoiler tags when need to, eaither dont know about the rules completely , Or confuse where they should and where they shouldnt Or even They might have forgotten about it( at the moment).
Also Its not practical to seperate each forum to Raw and Fansub. And it wouldnt be fair to people who want to discuss the raw not be able to.

So what if we make the first post ( which states the rules of the thread) apear in every single page. That way mayby the amount of people who forget to use spoiler tags reduce.

Whitemoon648 2007-01-04 04:30

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Small One (Post 788623)
I don't think somebody intended to seperate forums, but just threads. And what would be bad about having seperated "Series XY RAW discussion" and "Series XY fansubbed discussion" threads? Those who watch the Raws would have their place to discuss, and those who only watch fansubs have it, and they wouldn't disturb each other. :confused:

Well threads are part of forums :).

I am not saying its a bad thing to have the Raw and fansub discussion seperated. I am actually pro that idea. But doing that isnt practical. We will need more moderators and Also there is no guaranty even if thats done people will stop posting spoilers in the fansubed section.

martino 2007-01-04 07:30

My opinion:
Personally I don't like when people in the fansubbed forum start talking about episodes which haven't been subbed yet. I just don't like when people start talking about RAWs, when they can barely understand what's going on (of course, it might not be the case for everyone).
However if you created another forum just for discussion about RAWs it would feel kinda strange to have two different discussions on one series, maybe you could call it "fragmented". Also, not everyone would go and change between forums just because they want to discuss RAWs, it's kinda troublesome when you look at it from the practical perspective...

So I guess that spoiler tags are here for something, but many people still don't use them since they are forgetting that some (well, perhaps the majority) people don't watch RAWs and might not even think that something trivial could be considered as a spoiler.

relentlessflame 2007-01-04 14:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by Whitemoon648 (Post 788577)
So what if we make the first post ( which states the rules of the thread) apear in every single page. That way mayby the amount of people who forget to use spoiler tags reduce.

Well, semi-off-topic, but there are other reasons why I wish that were the case as well. Namely, to prevent the constant repetitive questions you often see in the Fansub threads (like, "how many episodes are there?" or "is the OP/ED/OST out?" or "will there be an OVA/second season?", etc. etc.) But somehow I doubt people would read it, even if it were more visible.

And for what it's worth, remember: no practical changes are being proposed here (at least, not by me). The point of the question is what you'd rather in your ideal world, not how to make it actually happen. If you get bogged down too much in the mechanics, then you'll misstate your opinion. But it is good to think through the consequences of your choices.

AvatarST 2007-01-04 19:36

Having separate threads seems like an adequate solution. No one loses out there.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Whitemoon648
Also there is no guaranty even if thats done people will stop posting spoilers in the fansubed section.

It'd happen much less though, and for the people who go and do that, they should be punished...that should be a good enough deterrent.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Deathkillz
and it won be fair to say banning someone for committing a wrong that they are unaware themselves...

Knowing the rules is a member's responsibility. They shouldn't be banned right away for -one- mistake, just the post would be deleted and the member in question would receive a warning. Multiple offenses, though, then yes. Banning.

Again, separate threads seems like the best option, it's gonna be safer from spoilers too. You're -never- going to be 100% safe from spoilers in ANY forums, there's always the chance that some fool posted a spoiler the minute before you decided to read the thread, and moderators are not machines so they can't deal with all issues instantly. But it'd be better than the current situation. If you want to be 100% safe from spoilers no matter what...there's always the option of discussing it via AIM/MSN with one of your friends or not visiting the threads till you're done with the whole series.

And if separate threads means having to get more moderators, then what's the problem? We get more moderators. We have a lot of active users, and I know more than one that is capable of doing the job. We have a reputation system that generally shows how much a user is around and how much he contributes. If the community gets bigger then we adapt, problem solved.

Radiosity 2007-01-04 19:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by AvatarST
No one loses out there.

I'd have to disagree. The mods would certainly be losing out there, because their workload for that forum would more or less double.

Extra moderators would work I guess, as you mentioned, but they'd have to specifically be moderators who already download and watch virtually everything raw, either that or people who don't mind being spoiled by going into active raw discussions to do their moderator jobs.

AvatarST 2007-01-04 19:45

And that kind of profile is hardly impossible to find. Current moderators do get spoiled too, to do their job.

Deathkillz 2007-01-04 19:48

and i suppose where are you gonna get new mods that are trustworthy and are willing to do the job properly?


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