[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 4.22 "Restless". So all episodes which have already aired in
the current BBC2 schedule (the first four seasons) are spoilerfree,
and can be freely discussed and mentioned. All episodes which have not
yet aired on BBC2 (season 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 Thursday, but not on Friday mentioning
the episode season, name and number in the message header is useful for
people who skip the Thursday 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 Thursday 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 Tuesday in the
UK as the dividing line. The latest episode aired is 1.22 "To Shanshu in
LA". this means that the entire S1 of Angel is now spoilerfree.
Episodes that have not yet aired on C4 (season 2) 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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