THREE!?!?!?

I would say yes to everything Katie except:

Will it be okay to say that there was a possibility floated that Connor would return for an episode?

For this, I would say no. People could certainly speculate on if he might return and how that would happen but it wasn't ever in an official press release and it might never happen at all.

Does anyone remember what we did about Dawn? Did the WB show that in promos? Did we discuss the casting news?

Amend my answer to agree with Kristen's last paragraph.

Who decides this? You're spoiled on 3 things, I'm spoiled on two. I've been able to successfully avoid one of your spoilers. Who decides which casting spoilers are permitted and which are not?

First, I know of two major casting spoilers, not three. I have no idea where you found that third, but it wasn't in my posts. [edited to add that someone else clearly did know of three] I have been spoiled--against my desire--on several minor casting points, primarily because I was forced into Spoilage Lite. I consider all of those as verbotten, not only according to the current letter of the law, but also to the previous interpretation of the rules.

Second, have never offered myself up as the person who decides what can and cannot be discussed. I am simply presenting arguments in favor of Jim's proposal.

You want to be spoiled on a few things and I want to be spoiled on none.

Please do not assume to know what I do and do not want.

I don't want to spoil people like Katie and Liese who I believe are entirely unspoiled

Heh - I actually decided to just roll with the casting spoilers this year, because I wanted to be able to read end-of-season interviews and livejournals. I stopped as soon as it looked like anything plotty was showing up, though, so I don't know any of the specifics of how stuff's going to happen - just what the writers were already saying as of the end of S4.

I'm just more on the spoilerfree side of things. Plus my whole concept of what it means to not spoil others was formed on MBTV, which no one will be surprised to hear has a fairly hardcore opinion on the matter. (Or the Buffy boards did, anyway.) Discussion of Giles' departure in S6 was utterly verboten, for instance. That did limit discussion a little - I knew what was coming, so I could tell when people wanted to talk about it and couldn't - but on the other hand a bunch of people got to be surprised when he left, so.

Please do not assume to know what I do and do not want.

Burrell, do you WANT to discuss the casting news? In my vernacular you want to be spoiled on it.

Cindy, we're talking about changing current board policy. I like the way things are in the current NAFDA threads. You don't. I want the status quo, you want change. I suggested a new thread for the purposes of the BCS and it was not even discussed as a viable possibility. Would I reject a "virgins" thread? Hmm. I think that our current NAFDA show threads are basically what the "virgin" thread would become. I don't see the need.

No we're not talking about changing board policy. We're talking about modifying the written FAQ, so that when it answers the question as to what is a spoiler, it acknowledges what we always have in practice, namely that we talk about contracted regulars over the summer, and casting news that applies to them.

NAFDA became a virgin thread sometime this past season through squeezing. It hadn't been. It had been a first base thread. You were not going to get soiled, or even get a reputation for being fast, but you could talk about the regulars cast in a show. You couldn't talk about what was going to happen to them in anything other than a speculative sense (no plot spoilers), but you could discuss who was a regular and who wasn't.

Thank you, Cindy. I have felt like this huge group of posters has been invisible for this entire discussion.

I think I'm probably not supposed to say this, but I think most of us should acknowledge that this group is by far the biggest group. I'd bet a month's mortgage most people don't want to spoil.

What I feel is getting ignored is that official casting news is rejected when the WB tells us via the press or electronic media, but is embraced when it tells us via the TV. That's the whole main point.

We are not talking about getting permission to say in the Angel NAFDA thread that Darla and Dru coming to episode 7 in season 5. We want to be able to say (hypothetical casting news) DB is still Angel. J. August is gone. Andy Hallet is gone. Amy Acker is gone. CC is gone. VK is gone. AD is left.

We don't want to spoil you that Angel and Wesley will fall into bed to comfort each other over the fact that all of those people are gone.

THREE!?!?!?

Yeah, er, that's why I thought maybe I should check in, because I just remembered that #3 was probably officially announced, and it looks like it was. I wouldn't want anyone wandering in, thinking "well, I wish I were unspoiled, but I know everything that would be discussed" and then discovering something they didn't want to know.

Okay, Kristen, thanks - I bow to your knowledge of what was officially released and what wasn't. I can never remember where I read stuff.

NAFDA became a virgin thread sometime this past season through squeezing.

NAFDA is a spoiler free zone. It always has been. The squeezing has been taken off the table REPEATEDLY. NOBODY is advocating further squeezing.