Dragaera

*Dragaera* Spoiler protection

Fri Jun 14 19:43:50 PDT 2002

Matthew Hunter <matthew at infodancer.org> wrote on Fri, 14 Jun 2002 13:32:05
> On Fri, Jun 14, 2002, Thomas Yan <tyan at twcny.rr.com> wrote:
> > Matthew Hunter <matthew at infodancer.org> wrote on Fri, 14 Jun 2002 02:57:02
> > > [...] lets put a warning *prominently* in the list
> > > rules that spoilers are rampant and if you have not read
> > > everything available, beware... 
> 
> > This seems to me like a great way to scare people off.
> 
> How is this different than putting spoiler warnings into every
> message?

Here's a little table of how the trade-offs of these 2 alternatives
look to me.  [Please view in a fixed width font, e.g. Courier New.]

    If a reader is                   If a poster doesn't want
    worried about spoilers           to add spoilers.
  --------------------------------------------------------------
  | Spoiler protection is          | Don't worry, be happy.    | Protection
  | not required, so you probably  |                           | is *not*
  | shouldn't join: Steve has done |                           | required
  | a great job of foreshadowing,  |                           |
  | so spoilers are likely to      |                           |
  | spring up even in previously   |                           |
  | safe-for-you discussions.      |                           |
  --------------------------------------------------------------
  | Spoilers are supposed to be    | Please make sure a post   | Protection
  | protected, so you should be    | has adequate protection,  | *is*
  | able to avoid most by paying   | e.g. at least a broad     | required
  | heed to the warnings.          | spectrum warning.         |
  --------------------------------------------------------------

> > Please explain why a simple "Rampant spoilers for everything Brustian"
> > warning is significantly inefficient?
> 
> Look at the amount of traffic we can generate when discussions
> are running.  Are you seriously arguing that typing a spoiler
> warning into every message -- of which there are already nearly
> 300, in a week or so -- is NOT significantly less efficient than
> a single warning?

Do you retype in quoted text?  I don't.  So since I expect most posts
in a discussion to be replies, I expect most posts to automagically
inherit *some* protection without any extra work.  Sure, protection
will need broadening now and then, but I expect that to be unneeded
most of the time.

- tky