I am very much paying attention.

I am also trying to clarify the problem. I primarily see your spoiler concerns as anti-spoilers and the elephant.

Thank you Steph!

We have:

the elephant
anti-spoilers
cross-show whitefont

Any others?

Tep, cause you be grey, insent.

Brenda, if you have a moment, could you mail me?

Still. Cross-show whitefont is moot, until such time as there's a Jossverse spinoff and AtS goes into its 10th season and we all yell "Seinfeld! Just end the show!" at the screen.

I don't think we have to worry about that any more.

I just mentioned it as an example of how spoilers have gotten more tightly defined than what's in the FAQ.

t edit Plei, if your e-mail is trying to collect on that dollar, I'ma send you 100 pennies.

[Note: that is not an in-joke related to this discussion at all. I offered her a dollar for totally unrelated reasons. ::cough::sexualfavors::cough::]

Steph: snerk! Not at all.

And it's not that you're THAT new to spoilers. You've been in there off and on for a while.

I am so freaking confused.

Yes, we have made changes to the FAQ since March 20th. In fact, we made a small change to it [the addition of Doblerize] on March 21st. And there was talk in April about adding our voting procedures to it but I don't think that has happened yet.

When I voted for grandfathering, I did not vote to have it applied to the FAQ. It hadn't occurred to me that it was even a possiblity. The FAQ is not, and should not, be a legal document set in stone. It is an overview of information designed to help people navigate this place. Tying our hands by turning it into something we need to start voting on in order to change is a bureaucratic headache we don't need.

Yes, the FAQ does contain references to decisions and policies that we have made decisions on. But it doesn't contain every decision and it is a constantly evolving document.

At the heart of it all, I guess I just don't understand the viewpoint of extreme spoilerphobes. I don't get how knowing that NSYNC will be joining the AtS next fall as series regulars is a spoiler since we don't know how or why or when they will appear. If I heard news like that, I'd be too interested in speculating on it all. If it was announced that JAR would not be a regular next season because he's taken a second job as my pool boy, I don't see how that's a spoiler either.

But, you know, if we decide that both of those examples are spoilers, fine. It's not going to kill me to only talk about them in Spoilers. I am, however, going to propose an end to this anti-spoiler law once this current topic has been dealt with. Because yes. That one makes me insane.

I think the issue REALLY is in figuring out HOW spoilers got tighter without ever having a real discussion. I think there were seeral cases over the years of one person (many different one peoples) being upset in a show thread and everyone all saying "OK, I guess we won't talk about that. It is just that over several years the enforcement of the policy has migrated so that those incidents are now precedents.

My home comp is too slow for me to try and find any of these, although I do remember us talking about JM's contract status during Season 5, and Jen K objecting because she thought is was a spoiler and the thread at the time agreed not to talk about it.

OK, the FAQ isn't sufficient evidence that the spoiler policy is old. Fine.

Someone please show me an older one. Or even give me a vague recollection of an older one.

At the heart of it all, I guess I just don't understand the viewpoint of extreme spoilerphobes.

You know what? We've tried to answer this a jillion times and folks are going to understand or they aren't. Let's just say that we like the policy as it is written and if you don't grok our POV oh well.

People who like spoilers have a zillion places to pursue them, but once I'm spoiled it can't be undone. We are trying to protect our enjoyment of the show and your (used in a broad sense, not to the poster specifically) comprehension of that enjoyment dosen't matter to that fact.

Trudy, I don't appreciate your tone. I was simply saying that I'm just not in place where I can understand it but I would abide by whatever was decided.

And it occurred to me since I posted that that I can do that pretty easily. Why? Because I don't go into the show threads much anymore. I used to post in the show threads. When I first started posting, I was rarely in Spoilers. But as the spoiler policy gradually tightened, I just started going in there because I can never keep track of what is a spoiler and what isn't. And I don't really enjoy getting yelled at for inadvertently "spoiling" people.

I know I'm not the only one who feels that way. And yes, I see that as a problem for this community which is why, regardless of the outcome, I've wanted this conversation to continue. We need some clarification on this spoiler policy so that people will be less confused and stop feeling like they can't post in the show threads.

I have yet to get heated over this issue but, frankly, I feel like your last post to me was a slap in the face designed to provoke my anger and, no, I don't think I deserved it.

Let's just say that we like the policy as it is and if you don't grok our POV oh well.

Couldn't I say the same thing to you about casting spoilers, though? Why does your opinion weigh more?

People who like spoilers have a zillion places to pursue them, but once I'm spoiled it can't be undone.

unAmericans does exist, alongsdie Spoilers. Neither equal zillion, but there you have it.

Seems that for the handful of spoilerphobes (that seems to have a negative connotation, perhaps spoilerfree is better), it seems that they'd be better off with their own thread.

Agreeing with Trudy that in Spoilers, people have used the word insane to describe the hardcore spoilerfree.

Unreasonable might be better. Conversations are stifled when we can't discuss Nick's new show, or Emma's theatre aspirations. I think that's unreasonable, and I think my opinion on that weighs as much as anyone's.