Catching up...

2) We want the website and offical press releases considered not spoilers

During the summer, yes. During the season, I'll cede to precedent/current policy, because I agree that there have been episode screenshots in the past that have revealed plot points.

I see you repeatedly bringing this up, this idea of using a search engine, when that's never been part of a proposal, but rather was just an idea tossed at you, when you asked how people could verify.

Yes, this. ita asked how to tell where something came from. She clearly thinks this is an important point; I don't, because a)so few casting changes will fall under this rule; b) anything official will be linked to within a few nanoseconds anyhow; and c) (bluntly) I think that if you can't figure out how to verify something you hear secondhand, you're probably not smart enough for this board.

Anyhow, I gave a snotty answer, and it was being treated as a serious amendment to the proposal, when it was really an "It's after 5 on a Friday and this discussion is giving me a headache" answer.

If Joss said he's human that would somehow stay out of the discussions?

It would have to. We kept the Faith news out of the show threads last year until she showed up.

(As a side note, isn't it funny that the people who have actually posted casting news have all been people who claim to be mostly anti-spoiler?)

DB is Angel is no more a piece of valid news because I see a promo on my TV, than it is when I read a press release from the WB, officially confirming it renewed Angel and which cast members will be regulars. It's been artificially validated by a FAQ answer, that didn't truly answer the question with regards to Buffista spoiler/casting news treatment.

Cindy is smart.

if people would use the Spoiler Light thread more efectively, preferably without the white font. That way, those who only want to know the casting spoilers and hypothesize about the rest could go there, the hardcore can stay in hardcore, and the virgins can stay in NAFDA. If this means there's only two people chatting in the Angel thread, then there's only two people chatting in the Angel thread.

Eh. This strikes me as a bad compromise, because it's not a natural division of the discussion, it will hamper use of spoilage light, and it wouldn't be clear to a new person that the real discussion is in "spoilage light." But if the proposal fails, this would be my second choice.

I disliked it because it looked like a parliamentary end-run on necessary discussion.

This is how I felt about it, too, reading it after the fact.

In our efforts to compromise please let me point out, once more, that once spoiled one cannot be un-spoiled.

Please please PLEASE let's have a place on the board where people who don't want to know can converse.

In our efforts to compromise please let me point out, once more, that once spoiled one cannot be un-spoiled.

This is as true for the people who end up choosing to be spoiled on plot points, so that they can discuss items they consider casting news, as it is for the people who chose to shut themselves out of a thread to avoid being spoiled.

Please please PLEASE let's have a place on the board where people who don't want to know can converse.

This is the crux of it all, Trudy. The people who don't want to spoil (not the very unspoiled, the people who will read between season casting news) don't have that place either. Like Plei said, the hardcore spoiler people will be fine in the spoilers thread. But the people who do read news, (sometimes because they know they'll eventually see it in a promo anyhow, sometimes for other reasons), have to choose between totally spoiled, or losing their avenue for conversation over the summer, too. Spoilers lite doesn't generally (there have been exceptions) work well for conversation, because there is very much a feeling that although I came here to find out if casting news item A is true, the other people may only want to know about item B, and not A.

The people who wish to remain completely unspoiled are not the only ones who risk disenfranchisement. The regular posters either have to get way more spoiled than they want, or not have a place to talk about things, either.

The people who wish to remain completely unspoiled are not the only ones who risk disenfranchisement. The regular posters either have to get way more spoiled than they want, or not have a place to talk about things, either.

Yes, I define myself as this regular poster. This also goes back to the question of whether the type of official casting announcements we are discussing are actually spoils. To me (and many other) they just aren't.

I don't want to go through another round of repeating again, so I'm sitting waiting for a Press annoucement now.

Cindy, the difference is that if you know something and can't discuss it that inhibts the discussion but you can still discuss. Dialing down isn't optimum but you can still play.

cereal

OTOH, if you don't want to know and there is no place left to discuss you're off the board.

Someone mentioned over at the Bureaucracy that more of the unspoiled would speak out, so here I am. Frankly, I don't understand why this discussion had to have gotten so freakin' heated. This is all very alarming.

I haven't read *all* the posts, but I think I got the gist. The spoiled want to talk about BCS with more freedom and are concerned about the undiscussed-drift of the board into stronger spoilerphobicity, and the unspoiled are worried about policy changes and slippery slopes. Speaking as a relative spoiler-phobe, I was pretty freaking pissed when I was spoiled about BCS#1 (not here), a.k.a. Elephant in the room, because it was sprung on me without consideration even before the finales for both shows aired, which totally colored my expectation of the finales. Afterwards, I got spoiled for the BCS #2 and 3 here, because after the finales aired, I got curious about BCS#1 and ventured into the Spoiler Lite, and told myself, "what the hell" and highlighted the whitefonts about those. But really, these three casting spoilers are all I know. I don't want to know anything about future plotty things at all. And I imagine there are quite a few people here who are in the same position as I am.

Speaking only for myself;

1) I like the board's rather stringent spoiler policy in principle--it's a nice safe haven, since I unsubbed from most of the discussion lists I used to be on after being carelessly spoiled about one thing or another onlist. However, I can understand how a request for 'emergency whitefont!' on something that is not really a spoiler would bother the author of the said post. For example, Nutty's story about someone asking stompies to whitefont a LOTR plotline in Natter sounds highly unreasonable. Perhaps, when we are talking about anything other than very obvious show spoilers, a dialog can be made in-thread to clarify the nature of the said post before someone runs to stompies crying, "Kill the spoiler! Kill it! Kill it!".

2) However, I *would* like to discuss Angel S5 speculations somewhere, because it's really difficult to do it in the main thread without mentioning the casting spoilers, and I don't want to venture into the spoiler thread or elsewhere that is not the Buffistasland where I may be opening myself to further spoilage. I don't know why we can't refashion the Angel Spoiler Lite (much like the way we refashioned the Firefly Spoilers) so that the main discussion/speculations with the knowledge of casting spoilers can occur there. We can decide to do so freely without whitefonting the said main casting spoilers (or anti-spoilers), with a request for the spoiled not to unleash any plot-related stuff or other, more minor casting spoiler information for the duration of the summer.

3) When the push comes to shove, I personally don't really care that much if the BCS-related discussions happen on the main-thread, being spoiled on those already, but it looks like several Buffistas who are more virginal than I would be very unhappy if this happpened. I want to pick a way that makes the least people very unhappy. As one of the wee-bit-spoiled folks who have been feeling a bit pinched about not having a place to discuss the BCS, I would be perfectly happy adopting Spoiler Lite as the default Angel discussion thread for the summer, provided other people like me want to come over and play.

Cindy, the difference is that if you know something and can't discuss it that inhibts the discussion but you can still discuss. Dialing down isn't optimum but you can still play.

That's true, insofar as there's something left to talk about. Please remind me, because I can't remember after all this talk, do you, Elena and other very unspoiled posters you know vacate NAFDA when the promos start rolling, or do you typically let yourselves know the information at that point.

Regardless, at some point people run out of conversation. And it may not be technically impossible to speculate about those elements for which you're still unspoiled, but knowing there are three cast changes is going to make what people *aren't* saying, as plain as what they are saying. If nobody (of those you know for certain is spoiled) speculates on the fates of characters A, B, and C, isn't that going to make you suspicious that A, B, and C are no longer on the canvas?

If Jim hasn't run away and changed his name, I'll mention this again to him again, but, I think summer rules (should they pass) should build in ample time in which a NAFDA show thread is still casting news free. I don't want to see people chased out the day of the finale, just because the network makes their renewal and cast announcements that day.

That's true, insofar as there's something left to talk about. Please remind me, because I can't remember after all this talk, do you, Elena and other very unspoiled posters you know vacate NAFDA when the promos start rolling, or do you typically let yourselves know the information at that point.

I do, or did in summers past.

If Jim hasn't run away and changed his name, I'll mention this again to him again, but, I think summer rules (should they pass) should build in ample time in which a NAFDA show thread is still casting news free. I don't want to see people chased out the day of the finale, just because the network makes their renewal and cast announcements that day.

I like that suggestion.

What Vonnie said. This makes perfect sense to me. fwiw.