Spoilers Revisited

[Treamayne]

I feel like the guidelines (here) are missing a some things. I'm not sure "what right looks like" but I don't think the current state necessarily meets that goal. For example:

Quote

Unpublished work that has not been publicly released by Brandon and his team (including the original manuscript of Dragonsteel), may not be discussed on any 17th Shard platform.

• Publicly available chapters or samples of unpublished work may be only discussed in the appropriate forum or Discord channel.

Seems straight forward - except that it does not address how that unpublished-yet-public-available material is handled when in a forum with published-non-spoiler material. So, to me, this poilicy is really referencing things like Aether of Night and White Sand Prose (allowed in appropriate forum) and Dragonsteel Prime (no allowed forums); but fails to address things like Stormlight Archive 5 preview material. 

For example:

• Topics in Cosmere Discussion discussing Sixth of the Dusk Sequel Preview material
• Topics in both Cosmere Discussion and Stormlight Archive discussing SA5 preview material

In many topics, it seems users are at least trying to do the right thing (actual preview quotes in spoiler tags) but then you have posts like this one (SA5 Spoilers) where the topic title seems innocuous, but really the whole post is derived from Spoiler material, so even reading the parts not covered under the spoiler tag causes spoilers (or feels like it might be spoilers)

Spoiler of SA5 Spoiler example:

Spoiler

In the referenced and linked post - without opening the spoiler tag - I stoppped reading as soon as I saw the "SA5 spoiler" notation - but now I have to worry for the next year that something about SA5 preview material will deal with the Black Fisher to such an extent that fans are theorizing it might be Kaladin. 

So, what would we call that? Impicit Spoiler? Spoiler by association? 

I don't know - but I am rapidly feeling like I need to leave the forum until after SA5 releases because it seems like every-third-topic is an SA5 spoiler with no way of knowing until you open the thread and read the first post (by which point it is too late). 

Maybe I am overreacting. I don't know if anybody else feels this way (possibly nobody else is trying to avoid SP4, SA5, SotD2, and other "preview" spoilers).

Maybe require a "Preview spoiler" tag in the title? But then, how do you fix that if it wasn't the first post that added the spoiler material? If it is one of those orange tag things - then maybe "report post" so a mod can "tag" it?

Like I said above, I don't know what a good answer might be. I just wanted to start the discussion because I know I liked that the Secret Projects go their own preview chatter location I could avoid; but I can't seem to find a way to avoid other "preview chapter" spoilers and I can't be the only one that feels this way. 

Edited August 1, 2023 by Treamayne
SPAG

[Frustration he/him]

8 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

Spoiler of SA5 Spoiler example:

  Reveal hidden contents

In the referenced and linked post - without opening the spoiler tag - I stoppped reading as soon as I saw the "SA5 spoiler" notation - but now I have to worry for the next year that something about SA5 preview material will deal with the Black Fisher to such an extent that fans are theorizing it might be Kaladin. 

 

Having read all the sample chapters and the post in question, you have nothing to worry about, there's nothing substantial there.

That said I do think that having something like a SA 5 forum or the like could be useful.

[Firesong she/her]

2 hours ago, Treamayne said:

Snip

 

I second was Frustration said, the previews were nothing substantial. For instance, the one you noted was mostly just a conversation (I won't go into details as I respect your choice to avoid spoilers, but it wasn't too spoilerly). Not gonna elaborate, but one preview interestingly did have spoilers but he actively cut them out, which I find such a tease. 

I will agree with you that it is problematic to post threads on SA5 content without warning, though. That thread did annoy me a bit even though I already read the scene. 

(Edit: Everything but the prologue, that one I recommend avoiding.)

Edited August 2, 2023 by Firesong

[Chaos he/him]

I agree the policy can be clarified; I think this is one situation where Discord's rules have advanced some and the forums have not been properly clarified in this way. Currently I feel that topics using SA5 content or any preview content must be flagged in the title or by the spoiler they are referring to.

I feel like it is far too early to have a Stormlight 5 preview board.

Regardless, it can be challenging to have compliance, whether it be topic tags or a spoiler board. As we clarify this policy, please Report violations and we can adjust as needed. 

It is challenging to have a space where people wish to discuss new things (which obviously get a lot of hype) while also noting some don't want preview content. Challenging when we have things like the prologue which was released 2+ years prior to the book, and that is unfortunate.

[Treamayne]

38 minutes ago, Chaos said:

I agree the policy can be clarified; I think this is one situation where Discord's rules have advanced some and the forums have not been properly clarified in this way.

3 hours ago, Frustration said:

Having read all the sample chapters and the post in question, you have nothing to worry about, there's nothing substantial there.

1 hour ago, Firesong said:

I will agree with you that it is problematic to post threads on SA5 content without warning, though. That thread did annoy me a bit even though I already read the scene. 

(Edit: Everything but the prologue, that one I recommend avoiding.)

Thank you everybody for the responses. Rep for all my friends.

38 minutes ago, Chaos said:

I feel like it is far too early to have a Stormlight 5 preview board.

It is challenging to have a space where people wish to discuss new things (which obviously get a lot of hype) while also noting some don't want preview content. Challenging when we have things like the prologue which was released 2+ years prior to the book, and that is unfortunate.

Two thougths:

1. Could "Cosmere Secret Projects Previews" simply become "Cosmere Previews"
   • Afterall, only 1 SP remains that hasn't received a Spoiler Board or main forum
   • As reading and newsletter previews become more common, I don't see the pace of Previews slacking too much after the SP kickstarter ends.
2. If not, can Mods add the yellow (or some other color if more than one color is available) topic-title tags?
   • It might be an option that we report the suspect post(s) and if an Admin concurs they add that tag to the title to "flag" the preview material.
   • It might not even have to be SA5 Specific just something like "Preview Spoilers" (or PS for short) since most people avoiding one set of previews are likely avoiding them all.

Thank you all very much for indulging my rambling.

[Chaos he/him]

Re: preview board:

I think given the chaos of this year, we will probably not rock the boat with the Cosmere Secrets Projects board yet until SP4 is out. I think consistency and consistent expectations matters and let's continue executing that plan. We aren't that far from SP4 anyway.

However, a Previews area has been suggested on Discord, and that idea has some merit. There are pros and cons to this. In addition I don't think it's reasonable to restrict preview posts only in there, even if it did exist. It could be outside if properly tagged.

Re: yellow topic title tags (these are called prefixes, by the way):

I mean, anyone can choose one of their tags to be a prefix. It doesn't happen often, which is probably why requiring such a thing is not going to get a lot of community uptake. A lot of people don't interface with tags at all, and they don't appear everywhere, whereas a topic title does. 

Even still, any of these strategies will lead to newer members not quite knowing where to put things (which is a huge problem in general, because we have too many individual boards), or may not think to put a topic title. We have tried enforcing a [OB] tag in the topic title which was extremely challenging to get compliance on, but it went okay, I guess. With previews I think this would be harder.

We can indeed try our best, and I would want to, but at the same time, compliance can be shakey, and things can fall through.