Dragaera

Issola Spoilers vs. Orca Spoilers

Tue Mar 11 12:17:48 PST 2003

On Tue, 11 Mar 2003, Warlord wrote:

@> > Based on my (admittedly limited) sample of messages on this list, the
@> > traffic can be broken down into the following categories:
@> >
@> > A) Discussions about non-Dragaera things. (spoiler space,
@> > politics, history)
@> > B) Discussions about general topics. (Morganti, the method in which Paarfi
@> > is accustomed to expressing his thoughts, how to make Klava)
@> > C) Discussions of specific books.
@> > D) Bad jokes.
@> 
@> Hey, I put at least 10 minutes effort into that poem.
@> I direct a haughty Warlord Sneer in your general direction.

Yeah, I'm just jealous because I don't have the nerve to send the bad
jokes I write to the list.

@> > Only category C really needs to be marked, and that actually appears to be
@> > the smallest category (as you'd expect it to be, unless a new
@> > book has just come out).
@> 
@> The book title and "spoiler" in the subject line is sufficient.
@> If more is required, then so is discipline.

Many people, such as, say, me, have mail clients that helpfully go to the
next unread message when you signal them that you're done with the one
you're on. This is why spoiler space was invented in the first place; it
gives people the opportunity to see a blank page when the new message
loads up, with a warning in it saying that they shouldn't scroll
down. This feature is a lot more important in text-based clients (such as
Pine, which I'm using), because these generally don't include multiple
panes that you can use to read subject lines at the same time as you're
reading an individual message, so actually reading the subject line to see
if the next message involved spoilers would involve lots of moving in and
out of various text menus.

The best way to handle this would actually be to have a spoiler mail
header that would be read by clients, which would present some kind of
warning when hitting a spoilery message (which would include the contents
of the header). Somebody should get in touch with the IETF about this.