[4Tran]

Originally Posted by Solace

The rules are well meaning but they fight a losing battle. Only a naive person will come to a discussion about the topic they are interested in and not expect to be spoiled in some way. The very nature of a worldwide forum that discusses fansubbed material creates a place where there is going to be someone who knows something will happen before others do. It's that persons responsibility to keep the impulses to discuss such things in check, but deciding when and where the place is to speak or hold back is a slippery slope.

You may be correct, but the spoiler policy's goal isn't to eradicate all inadvertent spoilers - it's to let people know what the proper places to discuss certain material is, and to apply that uniformly to all of AnimeSuki. It's really more to clarify existing policies than it is to create new ones altogether, and I hope that there's less of a slippery-slope problem because of it.

Originally Posted by Ledgem

]I was curious as to why this is necessary, as I thought that we always had some sort of rule about this. I found a fair bit of it to be confusing and a bit frightening, as well. I know that we're not politicians here, but saying "anything outside the scope of a topic will be considered a spoiler" is something that would be ripe for abuse. We all know what spoilers are and we all know what that's supposed to mean but I started wondering if any posts that start to go off-topic could lead to punishment, with a moderator pointing to the spoiler policy as justification.

The reason for setting up a universal FAQ for spoilers like this is mostly to set up a more uniform rule rather than have them vary based on which subforum/thread it happens to be in. As you pointed out, most of this has already been enforced; we're just hoping that putting in one place like this will lessen the confusion of what is and isn't allowed.

The goal of the spoiler policy is what it always has been: to keep readers from getting stories ruined for them by inconsiderate posters. Overly off-topic thread drift will be treated as it always has been, and the new policy will only apply when such drift meanders into spoiling stories.

Originally Posted by Ledgem

I also became confused as to when spoiler tags are appropriate. For example, the "Gundam Seed Trilogy?" thread is a thread based around wondering if there will be a third part to the Gundam SEED franchise. A good amount of the thread was dedicated to rehashing the events of Gundam SEED and Gundam SEED Destiny, analyzing, speculating - in short, doing everything that fans like to do. Everyone actively participating had clearly seen both SEED and SEED Destiny, and the entire conversation was based on what would be spoilers to someone who hadn't seen both series fully through. Would it be expected that you use spoiler tags in those cases? If the answer is yes, then do you realize that any discussion of events after (or perhaps even including) the first episode of a series would need to be put into spoiler tags? I don't really have an opinion as to whether that would be a good thing or a bad thing, personally.

To expand on relentlessflame's reply, this issue is covered by the scope of the topic:

Anything outside the scope of a topic is considered a spoiler. Check the thread's title and forum to determine what is allowed. For example, in an anime thread (e.g. threads in the Fansubbed forum), information from the manga, novels, or games would be considered a spoiler.

In the example you provided, it's sort of implicit that the material covered in the thread would pertain to the entirety of the contents of Gundam Seed and Gundam Seed Destiny. Therefore, spoiler tags aren't necessary when talking about these two shows. However, it isn't so implicit that the discussion will be about the Seed sidestories, so spoiler tags would be expected for them.

Originally Posted by KholdStare

Here's the problem. On one side, if you don't use spoiler tags correctly, then mods hunt you down and give you infractions. On the other side, we have people like The Small One who condemns using spoiler tags excessively. I don't want to spend 15 minutes posting thinking about whether or not to use a spoiler tag or how I should mark them. Regarding to what Ledgem said, it's logical for the entire thread to be spoiler-tag free, but what if people want to be courteous? There's nothing wrong with too many spoiler tags in that case. It's just a simple extra click to reveal a spoiler, not the screen blacking out and Vista asking you for the administrator's password to view a spoiler.

I can't recall a single time that a warning or infraction has been given for over-using spoiler tags. The only times that it's even an issue has always been for other reasons: inappropriate content, over-large images and the like. The sole exception to this is that spoiler tags aren't allowed in a signature. (Well, there is a problem with inadequately labeled spoiler tags, but that's sort of a different issue)