And I'm also unsure about the mechanism by which a piece of news is determined to valid under this.

Say there's casting stuff I know because I know. I don't know if it's been widely disseminated. How do I find out?

Both positive and negative regular cast changes have been announced over summers past, and have not been treated as spoilers as recently as 1 year ago. (SEE: Firefly cast list, Giles, Fred, Gunn.) Now, they are considered spoilers.

I have not yet seen an argument that explains why the policy was allowed to change without consulting precedent. Therefore, I want to see the policy return to the precedent that worked for us (really! There didn't used to be complaints!) for 2-3 years before it was summarily changed.

I think Nutty's point here is key.

I agree. I am also not sure that the proposal as it stands addresses this. I am also middle of the road for spoilers. I am still in spoilers right now because I can keep up there, but will probably step out soon.

Why is that point key? Does it make a difference to how the Phoenix surfing habits of Buffistas change or not change? To how deeply how many people may be inconvenienced by the change or the continued status quo?

It is. Some people like it, some people don't.

Say there's casting stuff I know because I know. I don't know if it's been widely disseminated. How do I find out?

I think the publicized by studio/producers/network thing is pretty clear. If it's genuinely unclear -- say, Joss holds an online chat and says Joel Gray is joining the Angel fulltime, and you haven't heard anything else about it -- you could check in spoilage light and see what the consensus is.

I honestly don't think this will be a problem that often.

I think the publicized by studio/producers/network thing is pretty clear.

If you've heard it from those sources sure. If you haven't one has no idea if it's not been mentioned there, does one?

If Spoilage Lite is the right place to go to verify if something's verboten or kosher in the main thread, I think it should be stated in the proposal, and also in thread headers.

ita - I think you are right that we can't tell people how to feel. I think the main thing we can do is guess how many people feel what. We don't have unbiased statistical surveys. But we do have the biased but still indicative responses of actual posters.

I may repeat my reasoning in a future post as to why I think more people are frustrated by not having this proposal in place than will be frustrated by having it place. But I just want to make one point (not to ita but to those who have gotten a bit emotional, including perhaps myself).

Taking either side on this proposal is not a sign of insensitivity.

Those who support it have judged that more people are frustrated by not being able to talk about widely known stuff, than the tiny minority who would be spoiled by talk of it.

Those who oppose it disagree with the "widely known" premise or the "tiny minority" premise or (most likely) both.

It is at bottom a disgreement about what the facts are. Thus I don't think anyone is being insenstive or trying to ride-roughshot or expects to be mollycoddled or packed in cotton wool. I honestly think people on both sides of the issues are supporting what they think is the best choice for all the Buffistas as a whole.

If you haven't one has no idea if it's not been mentioned there, does one?

I'm not seeing your point. After all, one presumably knows how to use search engines, doesn't one?

I have no problems with your proposed Spoilers Lite modification.

One presumably knows how to use search engines, doesn't one?

Guh. I preferred your suggestion about clearing it in Spoilage Lite. Trawling through the web, quite possibly other spoiler sites to find cites may be okay if you're a Sean who's not concerned about what he knows, but popping in to Spoilage Lite seems more hospitable. For one.

Ita, I didn't mean freaking Google! GoogleNews, or TheWB's internal search engine, or LexisNexis, or any of the thousand other news search engines out there. I just assumed that was obvious from context.

Tho really, if someone hears something but is too afraid of being spoiled further to do some elementary research to confirm it, isn't that his or her problem? If it's true, it will no doubt come from someone else; if it isn't, it's betetr kept under wraps.

Ita, I didn't mean freaking Google! GoogleNews, or TheWB's internal search engine, or LexisNexis, or any of the thousand other news search engines out there. I just assumed that was obvious from context.

Sorry to be dense, but what search engine did you mean, then?

if someone hears something but is too afraid of being spoiled further to do some elementary research to confirm it, isn't that his or her problem?

Yes, yes it is. However, if someone wants to discuss casting news in the Angel thread, it's his or her problem. Also, if someone wants to not discuss casting news in the Angel thread, it may become his or her problem.

That's why we're talking about it.

The current criterion (been aired on the WB) is really, really simple. Everyone knows whether a given piece of information falls into allowable (although we're human, and sometimes we slip).

That's my favourite thing about the current guidelines, actually. You can just point at the sign and shrug.

If you're going to replace it with fine print, or absent print, there's going to be a lot more accidental spoilage. That's the point I was trying to raise.