Ideally there'd by a Wolfram thread where everyone can only discuss the shows I'm caught up on.

Proliferationist!

But seriously, the assumption that there's any way to assume a particular broadcast date for an episode -- or even that there will be one in any meaningful way, in the case of streaming-only shows, where the date is really for a season rather than an ep -- has been broken for me for years now. It doesn't keep me out of threads, because I don't care about being spoiled, but it does keep me from starting any discussions there, because I honestly have no clue any more what or when or where...

I don't know what the answer is for this, and I don't want to hijack the specific matter of MCU discussion (which is awesome!) with a lot of navelgazing about the future of television, release schedules, what a sensible unit to discuss might be, whether it's sensible to think in terms of broadcast, cable or whatever else, and whether the magic elves in the box really are talking just to me me me me. But just like in the industry itself, the problem isn't going to go away.

I know what you mean, Wolfram. I currently need to keep a list of what I need to catch up on before I resubscribe to Boxed Set, and if we go to a number-of-episodes algorithm for streaming I will have to make a chart.

Which is not a bad thing, making charts is not exactly a hardship for me.

it does keep me from starting any discussions there, because I honestly have no clue any more what or when or where...

That seems like the bigger problem to me, than spoilers. ANd I don't really even know how to state the problem.

But only virtually.

Relatively.

Proliferationist!

Unapologetically.

But just like in the industry itself, the problem isn't going to go away.

Nope. Further complicating things is that while Netflix streaming is bingeable, I don't think Amazon Prime is, and I know that Hulu and Yahoo Screen (Community!) and even obscure ones like the Playstation Network (anyone watching Powers?) are not bingeable at all and come out weekly like regular broadcast/cable shows do.

I'm finding the changing nature of entertainment distribution fascinating. As for spoilers, I guess the people who care about spoilers are going to have to come up with a configuration that works for them.

I strongly agree with Ginger about simplifying the parameters of any given thread which, I think, also addresses David's point about fostering richer conversation than can be found in silos.

I actively seek spoilers and conversation about them, so I have no good solution for that issue in thread except for the methods I've seen already in place. Like when someone says something like 'I've jumped to the end of the thread/unsubscribed to avoid spoilers.

If the cocktail party analogy can be used for the community, the spoiler policy might simply be tied to choice. If you don't want to hear the discussion, change rooms.

ita used to give me the hardest time around whitefonting for sake of politeness when something had aired.

In general (not just due to this) I honestly felt like I could not win for losing when it came to the right time to say something...so I stopped posting until WELL after the conversation was either relevant or interesting...then I stopped altogether.

In the age of streaming, and being in a community that spans the globe, my sense of 'broadcast' is that it is always NOW somewhere in the world.

It's really too bad we don't have something like tumblr savior, it would solve the problem of white-fonting completely.

How does tumblr savior know what to block? Does it rely on the poster using appropriate hashtags?

bonny, I feel like that best way to address that sort of confusion is to have clear spoiler font policies that are adequate to cover what might be whitefonted "for politeness" as you say.

Unless what you are saying is that ANY spoilerfont requirements are too complicated and we should just not have any, in which case I disagree. Surely we want to have everyone who wants to be participating in any given thread, not sitting out because there is no way they won't be spoiled.

tumblr savior allows you to "black list" or "white list" words. For example, I black list the words NSFW or penis when I'm at work, because one of my favorite posters has one day of the week where all she posts is Sherlock porn. It collapses the post and says why it's blocked, which words you're filtering on. It can be in the tag or in the text, doesn't matter.