Trudy has a point - I thought the main reason for the grandfather clause is because we didn't want policies already in place to get picked apart.

You only wanted it applied to rules you do like?

Bloody hell. Of course not. I've always wanted a Politics thread, but I'm not agitating to change the 9/20 rule for that one because I don't feel like there was a bait-and-switch what the initial consensus MEANT in that case.

Seriously. What do you mean by this?

I mean that in previous years, the spoiler rules weren't applied to casting changes (or non-changes, in the case of SMG's return in S6) that were announced over the summer. It was an unwritten exception, but a consistent exception nonetheless. Suddenly, this year, the exception no longer exists. That change was never codified or agreed upon in Bureaucracy or by a vote. I feel like the Sept. 20 thing shouldn't apply to cases where we want to clarify an existing rule because (in my perception and many others') the interpretation has drastically changed without any formal discussion.

But the problem is that while the "law" may have been written one way, it has previously been interpreted a different way. So then they could both be grandfathered decisions.

If the FAQ truly falls under grandfathering, we shouldn't be having this debate.

On the other hand, if the precedent falls under grandfathering, this debate is moot because the casting spoilers in question can be discussed right now in NAFDA threads.

If the FAQ truly falls under grandfathering, we shouldn't be having this debate.

That's what we're trying to determine.

On the other hand, if the precedent falls under grandfathering, this debate is moot because the casting spoilers in question can be discussed right now in NAFDA threads.

This is not so clear, because the precedents don't, in my opinion, count as policy.

It was an unwritten exception, but a consistent exception nonetheless. Suddenly, this year, the exception no longer exists.

At the 2002 F2F Matt The Bruins Fan flipped over a chair in order to avoid a spoiler. As far as I know, he remained virginal until the new season. I have certainly made it into new seasons knowing much less than those around me. My recollection is not of this exception being unilateral.

My recollection is not of this exception being unilateral.

OK, I know I've been very obviously angry in all my posts tonight (and I just made a nonspoilery post in my livejournal trying to figure out why), but I promise the following question is not being asked in anger:

Could you please clarify? I really, honestly don't understand what you mean by "unilateral". Are you saying you don't think the exception I talked about existed, or that it wasn't consistently applied?

I don't think it was as consistently applied as you are asserting.

I stayed unspoiled between seasons. Other people stayed unspoiled between seasons. There was whitefonting between seasons on questionable matters.

OK, first of all, I want to apologize for going all hulk-smash in my earlier posts tonight. I think what happened is I was gone for 7 hours, came back to a lengthy discussion, and read a bunch of things that made me angry all at once without the breaks of going into Natter, Bitches, etc. that would've happened if I'd been following in real time. (And, I'm probably having anger-transferance issues from my job again. Ugh. I'm beginning to think I made a big mistake going back there.)

So, I'm very sorry for the tone I took, especially because I ended up screaming at people I like a lot and whose contributions to Buffistas I value very much. I hate my stupid volatile temper, I really do. I'm going to leave the posts as they stand, because I stand by my opinions, though I wish I'd expressed them more temperately.

Also, I don't think a decision about closing this thread should be made until tomorrow when there are more people around, because I think genuine substantive cases can be made for both a "letter of the law" and a precedent approach, and there's just not enough of us around right now to make the call.

WAIT

Sorry for shouting, but as my head hit the pillow (where it should be right now since it's 4:45 in the am) I got what is either a fucking brilliant idea or some kind of sleep deprivation brain fever.

We have some problems. Let me list them as I see them.

1) Some people who know the BCS want to discuss it more widely than they are able to in the Spoiler threads, or won't go discuss it in the spoiler threads because they are worried about further spoilage.

2) Some people who know the BCS and some people that don't would rather not have it discussed in the regular show threads because they worry about people getting spoiled.

3) The BCS may or may not be considered common knowledge, and there doesn't seem to be an agreed upon method to determine this.

4) The proposal as currently written may require a change in policy which
4a) is not permissible under our grandfather policy
4b) is not a change in policy, just a clarification of policy which is not covered by the grandfather clause
4c) is a change in policy, but the policy itself is not covered under the grandfather clause
4d) is going to be a bitch and a half to determine
4e) if you type 'policy' enough it doesn't even seem like a word - policy policy policy - weird.

So what I suggest, to neatly solve all of our problems 1-4e is that we circumvent the whole thing by creating a new thread.

Hear me out.

When the Torez spoiler came out we created a special thread for people that already knew that Riley was coming back and wanted to talk about it and/or didn't care about being spoiled and just wanted to know.

If we do that this time then the people who know and want to talk about it can do it in a thread where they will get new blood as people who want to discuss this topic without further spoilage and people who are intrigued by the hullaballo join in. Solving problem one and three.

And people who either know and don't want to talk about it or don't know and don't care to know or may or may not know but don't want suspicions confirmed can steer clear of the thread and still have the regular Angel thread for general show discussion. Solving problem two and three.

Thread creation is not a grandfatherable topic, thus neatly shutting down all of problem 4. And since the topic will still be spoilery only until either a promo airs - rendering it not a spoiler - or the episode(s) in question airs - also rendering it NAS - which will be two months or less - thread proliferation should not be an issue!

Okay, I know that it's not the proposal on the table, but the proposer (Jim) can change the proposal to whatever works best for him, right? It's all up to Jim.

So the proposal can be something like this -

Create a new thread for the purposes of discussion of the Big Spoiler which you may or may not already know. If you click on this link (and link it to a whitefonted post in spoilers light or another thread) you can see what the spoiler is. If you wish, instead, to have your spoiler suspicion confirmed, you can contact (Plei, Susan W, Sue, Ken, Kristen, any number of spoiled folk who don't mind confirming). This new thread will self-destruct once the spoiler is no longer a spoiler and discussion can be moved to the Angel show thread.

yes ___
no ___
abstain___

***

And if people still want the spoiler policy changed and/or clarified they can propose it on or after September 20th so we can avoid the whole grandfather issue.

Oh, please consider this. It just seems to so neatly solve all of our problems with a minimum of pain.

Well, hello. Hope all are well. I hope we're able to come to a good conclusion that allows us to enjoy our board. I'm also very sleepy, so forgive the sentimentality. I think quite a lot of you, so I hope we work it out well.

About precedent: I'll go ahead and be your example dog for this one, too. I think I stated it earlier, but in case: I was unhappy that we discussed the ASH/AA casting information at the time. I doubt I said anything because of the aforementioned latitude. In all fairness, I don't recall being unhappy about knowing about JAR, but that may have something to do with shirts. Or I may just not recall. I was not unhappy about SMG's S5 return or S7 departure info. It had relevance to the continuance of the show.

About spoiler discussion: Unfortunately, I can no longer be your example dog for the inevitability and widespreadedness arguments. Because of the context in this thread, I now know the spoiler. I think. But don't tell me.

About grandfathering: I dunno.

Okay, that's it for me for the moment. Let me apologize to those I'm disagreeing with. I really don't intend to be confrontational or to support subtle and incremental changes that are problematic. I do intend to discuss the issues, and I hope we're able to reach an acceptable standard.