Just to make sure I understand everything, the possibilities at this point are as follows:

• Decide the Grandfather Clause applies, and maintain the status quo for now.
1. Decide the Grandfather Clause applies, but Spoilers Lite should be the de facto home of people who want to discuss the casting news.
2. Decide the Grandfather Clause *should* apply, but we feel like voting anyhow.
3. Decide the grandfather clause does not apply, but decide not to hold a vote for other reasons, maintaining the status quo
4. Decide the grandfather clause does not apply, but decide not to hold a vote for other reasons, going the Spoilage Lite route.
5. Decide the grandfather clause does not apply, hold the vote and abide by the outcome.

Did I miss anything?

I think Pin is expanding on ours, specifically, DX, but that certainly doesn't mean ours wasn't inherited from TT TV at large.

I have to go with #3, myself. For one thing, here we are talking about the issue, for 2-3 days now, many people weighing in. It's clearly a question of now, not a question for the future (except inasmuch as the now-situation will happen again). It's making people feel marginalized on more than one side. Not voting at this point comes across as not consulting the community on an issue that affects all of us.

And, as I said in Light Bulb, I've felt that way about spoiler-policy application for too long now. The community at large needs to weigh in, and legal rules will need to take a back seat in this instance.

Okay, that's me still startled by the idea it all got written down with no discussion, and the silence didn't encompass lack of objection.

Startling, but true. I remember FAQ creation, and I remember never questioning that spoiler definition, despite the fact that we had already -- and would continue to -- violate its letter. You know, I had forgotten it was in the FAQ at all till the true-to-letter interpretation became prevalent on the board (i.e. about 6 months ago).

We am dum.

(Actually, it's easy. We forget, we don't pay attention unless it's a big deal, we use vague language that people can and do interpret differently, we skip and skim. Reading the Bureaucracies for the Lawspeak document I worked up, I saw a lot, a lot of confused repetition. Hey Jon, is that document ready yet?)

I remember FAQ creation

Did it predate Jon's mention of the very same policy on TT, though?

Did it predate Jon's mention of the very same policy on TT, though?

Nope. As noted, the FAQ was created in December 2000, a couple of months after Jon's post.

Another reason I think it was probably the policy for the TV Forum at large was that right from pretty much the beginning of Buffy 1, everyone seemed to know what a spoiler was. There were occasionally questions about whether a preview was, but it was always answered that previews were not considered spoilers. Most of the questions, up until the spoiler thread was created, were how to handle them in thread. White-fonting really didn't start to happen much until Buffy 2, and then became law (and it was discussed) in Buffy 3.

I don't have a clear timeline in my mind, ita. I do know that I read it -- skimmed it anyway -- when it first went live (or maybe the first time it was revised?), and did not object to the spoiler policy wording, although by then we'd already talked about Gunn getting a contract.

IOW, nobody noticed (or nobody cared) that word and deed were not the same thing. To a certain extent, I think that everybody said, "Oh nice, it's a FAQ!" but didn't take it as seriously as we would have, if we'd known it would end up having the force of law.

Actually, that's a question. Is the FAQ our law? Where Bureaucracy precendent (consenses) and votes differ from the FAQ, which one gets precedence? As I was compiling the Lawspeak thingie, I put together a detailed section on spoilers, and then Jon said to take it out, since spoilers are already covered in the FAQ. But the Lawspeak spoilers section was much more detailed than the FAQ spoilers section, and (IMHO) acknowledged a lot more ambiguity or flexibility or difference among threads and spoiler-types.

If the FAQ now has force of Buffista Law, I think we should all look at it very carefully. I wouldn't be surprised if large chunks of it no longer reflect Buffista practice, or haven't been updated, or have the potential to be interpreted in mutually exclusive ways, etc. etc.

You know, I think (and have always thought) that the spoiler definition is in the FAQ as a convenience, not as a way of scribing it in stone.

If it weren't there ... would there still be this kerfuffle? Would Jon's cite and the thread headers suffice as a citation that was grandfathered in?

If it wasn't written down at all, would that be better?

I don't see why people are caught up on the idea that the FAQ is at risk of being made law.

edit: or that it was put in the FAQ by silent mistake, or something ...

IOW, nobody noticed (or nobody cared) that word and deed were not the same thing.

But they were the same thing at the time. Everything was a spoiler unless it was a broadcast preview (just as Jon stated way back when). IIRC (and I haven't been able to check because WX was down earlier), the next time the subject came up was when the spoiler light threads were created, which was pretty much supposed to be for casting spoilers of all sorts.

You think so? Didn't we discuss the addition of Gunn to the main credits during the summer of 2000? I could have sworn we did, because I was spoilerfree back then, but I did know about it in advance. I also want to say I knew about Riley going on-contract between S4 and S5 (and about Tara staying off) although I did not know about Dawn.

It's entirely possible I'm counting wrong in my head. (DX can attest I can't count to save my life.) Man, I've been here 3.5 years??

I don't see why people are caught up on the idea that the FAQ is at risk of being made law.

Well, my fear is that people say "Read the FAQ" when you're not sure. If the FAQ doesn't represent current policy/practice, then all those newbies will start out with wrong or simplistic assumptions about things, and we'll get into problems like the varying interpretations we're arguing out now. I mean, in absence of a constitution or something gaudily legal, the FAQ is as close as we have to a topically-organized, formal, vetted Document Of Buffistadom.

The FAQ has some things in it that are reflections of our rules, and as such, I think are well covered by the grandfather clause.

The section on why Willow is so well-liked? NSM.

It seemed clear to me (and isn't that where everything falls apart? seeming clear?) that some things are there because people Frequently Ask Questions about rules, and some things are there because of Questions about pronunciation, or acronyms, and there's no other more rigid connection.

I do reserve the right to stop being "unspeakably cool" without running it by a vote, even after September 20th.