[FAQ] Spoiler Policy
P@rick
This FAQ is posted weekly. At the moment, you can also find it at:
http://deadlock.et.tudelft.nl/~jonathan/abe/rules.html
When posting a message in a.b.e, please heed the following rules concerning
the use of spoiler protection.
***What is the dividing line between spoiler and non-spoiler material?***
In other words, which eps can we discuss or mention freely, without using
spoiler protection. A division is made between 'protected' epsiodes, which
fall under spoiler protection, and 'spoilerfree' episodes.
The dividing line is the episode BBC2 airs on Friday. The latest episode
aired is 4.04 "Fear, Itself". So all episodes which have already
aired in the current BBC2 schedule (including season 1, 2 and 3) are
spoilerfree, and can be freely discussed and mentioned. All episodes which
have not yet aired on BBC2 (including season 4 *and* 5) are protected, and
discussing or mentioning them requires the use of spoiler protection.
***What exactly is a spoiler?***
A spoiler is any information about protected episodes that could ruin the
element of surprise of an episode. Of course we are talking about
substantial spoilers here. Mentioning who is going to die in a protected
episode is obviously a big spoiler. So is giving away information about
story developments. But mentioning that Buffy wears a pyama with rabbit
print in a certain ep is, although technically a spoiler, no big deal. And
mentioning the name of a character who is new in season 4, but not relating
it to any event or episode is not much of a spoiler either. It's left to
people's common sense to decide what they can say without spoiler
protection, and what not. An occasional slip-up can occur, so there's no
need to get nasty when that happens. Let's keep things peaceful.
***What kind of spoiler protection to use?***
For protected episodes:
- mentioning the episode season, number and name and the word 'spoiler' in
the message header
- doing the same in the message body, and adding a minimum of 15 lines of
spoilerspace (no blank lines)
For BBC2 eps that have aired on Wednesday, but not on Friday mentioning the
episode season, name and number in the message header is useful for people
who skip the Wednesday airing. In that way these people get the chance to
skip these messages until Friday. However, in this case using spoiler
protection is optional and matter of courtesy. People who purposely skip the
Wednesday airing automatically have the responsibility to avoid postings
about that ep until Friday. But to be able to do so, these postings should
at least have the episode title in the header.
***How about episodes of Angel?***
There is little information about which countries get Angel and at which
episode they are. Therefore we use the episode C4 airs on Friday in the UK
as the dividing line. The latest episode aired is 1.09 "Hero".
Episodes that have not yet aired on C4 are protected, and episodes that have
aired on C4 are spoilerfree. The same spoiler protection we use for Buffy
applies for Angel.
Bye, Patrick
--
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