We couldn't have discussed Riley's departure until after Into the Woods aired, because that wasn't officially announced over the summer.

Question - if they had announced it during the summer, that MB would be leaving partway through the season, would that count as a spoiler under the new proposal?

I have some issues with summer casting spoilers that affect who will or will not be on the show at the beginning of the season anyway, but casting information that tells you someone will be leaving mid-season would bother me much, much more.

Knowing that Amber Benson was still recurring didn't matter at all. She could have been in every episode or two-- it told us nothing.

Telling people they can discuss X from the website and not Y will prove tricky.

I think "official copy" would cover it. That's very specifically not boards and chat rooms.

I wasn't clear here. A policy that says you can discuss major casting changes from the website but not minor casting announcements from the website would be confusing.

As it stands now, a medium is either kosher or not.

It seems like you're insisting that we find a way to create an absolutely pure and sanctified place for you to never be spoiled, or you're going to take your bat and ball and go home.

Nope. I just want a thread that continues the "show or promo" policy we've had all along.

We did talk about AB remaining a recurring cast member over the summer, with no problems.

The difference between that and "we want to talk about it NOW" is tremendous.

But we've talked about this sort of thing every other summer. I don't understand why this sort of thing is more spoilery this year than it was last year, or the year before.

A policy that says you can discuss major casting changes from the website but not minor casting announcements from the website would be confusing.

Doesn't sound confusing to me. Major casting has been defined as folks listed in the title credits, correct? Not confusing.

AB's unchanging status was immaterial.

Angel is still on Angel! He's still a lead!-- immaterial

Question - if they had announced it during the summer, that MB would be leaving partway through the season, would that count as a spoiler under the new proposal?

No, I don't think so.

Quite frankly, no matter what our spoiler policy, there's nothing to prevent someone coming into even the Ultra Pure Spoiler Virgin thread and posting all over that place about how Orlando Bloom will be leaving the cast of AtS next season, and spoiling the crap out of you.

Oh, well, in that case why have a spoiler policy at all?

Trudy, and I, and some others, are asking that the spoiler rules as they currently stand be respected. That's all. It's not satisfactory for some people, I know, and I hope we can find a way to resolve this. But right now we have a clear policy. The fact that it was violated in the past without a hubbub doesn't mean it wasn't there, or that the fact that some of us are now asking that it be respected should be invalid.

At the root, my problem is this: Spoiled and unspoiled are very different ways of coming at the show. A restrictive spoiler policy means that certain topics are excluded from the threads. A looser policy means that certain people are excluded from the threads, and I want us to be very careful before we go there.

Doesn't sound confusing to me. Major casting has been defined as folks listed in the title credits, correct? Not confusing.

What is confusing is that SOME things from the website are ok and SOME things aren't.

This is less clear than our current long standing policy where ALL things aired are OK and ALL things aired are not.

ASH's semi-departure -- not a spoiler.

AB and JAR being added to the cast -- not spoilers.

This year, everything's a spoiler. Nothing official about our spoiler policy changed, so I want to know what did.