I have mixed feelings. Part of the fun of the off-season for me is speculation about the upcoming season, and a lot of us can't really have that kind of fun without referring to The Spoiler and/or The Other Spoiler. One answer is to keep spectulation to the spoiler threads.

I am not a spoiler companion, and when I tried to be I felt guilty, so I stopped. So I don't want to play in Spoilers or Lite, because I really don't want to be more spoiled than I already am. Also, I didn't go looking for these spoilers, they just fell in my lap with renewal annoucement.

Certain spoilers are just going to be everywhere, but not all of them reach elephant-in-the-room proportions. I don't think the "Faith returns" spoiler became elephant-sized. I think the "SMG leaving" very quickly became elephant-sized, and it would have become very frustrating (to me) if somebody hadn't taken the intiative to proclaim it fact, not spoiler.

Bottom line, for me, is that I would like to allow discussion about the elephants that are already in the room, but I would like to limit other casting spoilers until they become elephants in the room.

YElephantMV.

I think if Joss is talking about it to the press at large it should not be considered a spoiler because he would never spoil a plot point - but that's just me.

(But what I really want to know - is how did you do that superscript thing Jon?)

I can see Vortex's viewpoint on this. Spoilage Lite was created to discuss casting spoilers by those who couldn't bear to go whole hog. (It was a R*ley returns spoiler that sparked it, IIRC.) That was the whole point of Spoilage Lite.

Then again, I can see that the definition of "spoiler" has grown a lot in the past two years. Everybody knew Giles was going off-contract after S5, right? Everybody knew Buffy would come back from the dead after S5. Everybody knew that Gunn, and then Fred, would be getting contracts. I don't know why that is/isn't in the opening credits stuff is spoily now, when it didn't used to be.

Then again again, knowing [positive casting spoiler] changed how I saw events in the Jossverse, and if I'd known it before the events occurred, I would have been irritated at that knowledge. So I'm glad I found out only after the seasons were over. [Negative casting spoiler] makes no never mind to me one way or the other, because having a contract != not dying a horrible death.

Vortex, this possible spoiler is being promoted by the WB (posters and web site so far, probably in promos late summer), Joss, any given interview. I don't think they have any interest in anyone getting to October 8th without knowing.

I think the urge to change is that this restriction gets more and more artificial, because we are fighting so much.

And in that case, what's the difference between knowing now, and knowing October 7th?

Vortex, I think this is a proposal to expand the definition of spoiler (or technically, what isn't a spoiler), not make an exception to it. If this passes a major cast change that has been announced by ME through mass media means (and what constitutes mass media is one of the things being hashed out here, I think) will no longer be considered a spoiler any where on these boards.

x-posted, naturally.

(But what I really want to know - is how did you do that superscript thing Jon?)

It's an html entity: ™ --> ™

Why are t sup and t sub not enabled here? We just didn't do it, or can they be used in stupid ways that will screw up the board?

Use the quickedit t Cindy...

Jon - I corrected and a more sensible question is now above. Just wondering why the html for superscript and subscript don't work here. (There's no quick edit for them, right? I've looked, before, although I could have missed them.)

Everybody knew Giles was going off-contract after S5, right? Everybody knew Buffy would come back from the dead after S5. Everybody knew that Gunn, and then Fred, would be getting contracts. I don't know why that is/isn't in the opening credits stuff is spoily now, when it didn't used to be.

This is what I'm wondering. When did we (officially, or by bullshit consensus) decide that major cast additions/deletions were spoilery.

And I also feel like this proposal is ONLY about The Big Spoiler. Which is okay by me, because I'm tired of pretending it hasn't already been all over newspapers, magazines, and the internet. I mean, really. If you go into a bookstore, be careful to not look at the rack of fandom-related magazines, because The Big Spoiler is all over the covers of them. The WB and Mutant Enemy are not keeping this secret.