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.

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 *can* attest to that, Ms. Nutley, because you delurked right after I did in November 2000, which is only a little over 2.5 years ago.

(edit: the Gunn thing is interesting, though. Lemmee go check.)

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

Nope. It'll never happen.

Despite the language Betsy used in her grandfather clause (gfc) about finding the earliest mention, I don't know if that follows the spirit of her proposal, which was to give consensed decisions the same protection that the moratorium vote gave voted-in decisions.

In this case, where it's a pre-vote element of the FAQ in question, we have to remember that a FAQ is a document that does change with time and did probably changed in ways approved by Buffistas over time. So in this case, if the gfc is called into effect to stop this proposal, wouldn't we be looking not for the first spoiler policy discussions, but instead, the most recent (pre-vote) spoiler policy discussions that resulted in the FAQ as it is today? They may be one in the same. But all this digging at TT may not be looking for what is needed here. I think we'd want to look in recent stuff from WXing, probably in roll your own or beautiful city (or whatever it was)

The challenger has a FAQ entry and the header of the NAFDA threads, both in place and well-used during the period protected.

Short of stone tablets, what else is there?

But what does that have to do with it? That there is a FAQ, and that the FAQ contains a spoiler policy is not in dispute. Our doubt lies in whether or not this specific issue - summertime casting news - was actually addressed in our FAQ's spoiler entry. If someone wants to invoke the gfc to stop this proposal for summertime casting news, that person needs to prove summertime casting announcements about the regular cast were specifically discussed when writing the FAQ. Because if not, gfc wouldn't apply. This isn't an attempt to overturn that FAQ, it's an attempt to address the treatment of summertime news items.

Please consider this: If we had never had a film thread, and all of the spoiler policy only addressed how to treat Television spoilers, and then we got a film thread, would we be able to invoke the gfc to prevent people from adding to the FAQ's spoiler policy, so that it now covered movies? Would we make the film thread posters adhere to the 'once it airs it's free game' rule, simply because spoilers only address tv shows?

That's what this attempt to use the gfc here is like. It seems to me we're applying the gfc in a way it wasn't meant to be applied. As Gar said:

I think the point of the grandfather clause was to avoid refighting battles that had already been thought - not to freeze in place stuff we saw no problem with , and now having experienced it do.

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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.

Who wrote it?

format edits

"(DX can attest I can't count to save my life.)" I *can* attest to that, Ms. Nutley

Mother. Fucker. Told you. It's a wonder I made it through grade school.

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.

Yeah, I guess that's not 100% clear to me. Also, that the FAQ didn't match the rules, at some points in time, either because the rules were actually different (cast changes OK) or there were exceptions (these cast changes OK). Either way, telling people to read the FAQ, when in fact the rules are more subtle than the FAQ attests, means I think we need to revise the FAQ a little.

edited because context is good.