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Old 04-30-2012, 11:09 PM   #1
Talon87
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Spoiler Tag How-To

Tired of people not replying to your posts? Upset when someone clicks on something you spoiler tagged and then shares with you that they've ruined the surprise for themselves? I see a lot of people using the spoiler tag but not knowing how to use it to its full effect. The most common mistake I see users do is posting everything inside of an unlabeled spoiler tag. This is the surest-fire way to either ruin somebody's experience of something or else to get absolutely no replies. Why is that? And what can you do to fix it? In this thread, I'll tell you.

For the purposes of this thread, I'm going to assume that you have seen Walt Disney's Beauty and the Beast. If you have not, I suggest you go rent the movie right now and then come back here in 2 hours and continue reading this thread. All examples I provide will be written accordingly.
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Old 04-30-2012, 11:10 PM   #2
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Example 1. Discussing the end of a TV series, film, video game, or other narrative

Suppose we have a thread called "Beauty and the Beast." Inside this thread should go any and all posts having to do with the Walt Disney film. How should you go about posting inside this thread if you want to discuss the ending?

GOOD:

Wow, the end of Beauty and the Beast was so amazing. I really liked the part when ...

Spoiler: show
the Beast kicked Gaston's ass on top of the castle. That was intense!


BAD:

Spoiler: show
Wow, I really loved the end of this movie! It was so good! I especially liked the part when the Beast and Gaston were fighting on top of the castle. I didn't know who was going to win!

In the good example, the poster makes it clear that he will be talking about the end of the film inside the spoiler box. By doing so, he invites those who have also seen the end of this film to click and sufficiently shoos away those who have not. In the bad example, the poster doesn't make it clear at all what he intends to discuss. The result? People who are spoiler averse will not click his spoiler box. He will in effect be put on Ignore by these members. In turn, he will feel ignored and may even develop feelings of resentment, disappointment, and frustration.
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Old 04-30-2012, 11:10 PM   #3
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Example 2. Replying to someone else's post

Suppose we have a thread called "Beauty and the Beast." Inside this thread should go any and all posts having to do with the Walt Disney film. How should you go about posting inside this thread if you want to reply to somebody else?

GOOD:

Quote:
Originally Posted by somebody else
[somebody else's post contents inside of a spoiler tag of their own]
(you can click this if you've finished both the original film and the sequel)

Spoiler: show
Have you seen the sequel with the evil organ pipe? Man was that an unnecessary sequel. I really thought it was dumb when [movie 2's big dumb moment].


BAD:

Quote:
Originally Posted by somebody else
[somebody else's post contents inside of a spoiler tag of their own]
Spoiler: show
Hey I'mma reply to you just like this.

In the good example, the replier makes it clear both to the person he's replying to as well as to any third parties who may be reading the thread what it is that he'll be spoiler-discussing in his reply and whether they should click or not. So say, for example, they've seen the original film but not the sequel. And say they want to see the sequel. Now you've helped them to avoid getting spoilered! Even more importantly, you've made it much easier for people who are just joining in on the conversation to know whether they can click your spoiler tag or not. When you start spoiler-replying to other people's spoilers, it can get very messy for outsiders to safely click unless you politely label your spoiler tags.
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Old 04-30-2012, 11:11 PM   #4
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Example 3. Chitchatting about the franchise

Suppose we have a thread called "Beauty and the Beast." Inside this thread should go any and all posts having to do with the Walt Disney film ... franchise!? Yes, franchise. Imagine that there are "Beasties" just like there are bronies for My Little Pony. Imagine that there's Beauty and the Beast fanart, Beauty and the Beast webcomics, Beauty and the Beast fanfics, Beauty and the Beast musical fan remixes, the works! How should you go about posting inside this thread if you want to talk about various aspects of the fandom?

GOOD:

Hey, the folks over at Cogs&Candlesticks updated their weblog. It looks like a new playable character's been unveiled for the upcoming fighter ...!

Spoiler: show
IT'S MRS. POTTS! Apparently she battles like Bridget in Guilty Gear or Litchi in Blaz Blue. Here's the video link! [provides link to video on Youtube]


BAD:

Spoiler: show
Hey, the folks over at Cogs&Candlesticks updated their weblog. It looks like a new playable character's been unveiled for the upcoming fighter ... IT'S MRS. POTTS! Apparently she battles like Bridget in Guilty Gear or Litchi in Blaz Blue. Here's the video link! [provides link to video on Youtube]

The two posts are otherwise identical. The only difference is that in the good example the poster made it very clear what aspect of the fandom he was talking about (the fan-made fighting game), what level of spoiler info he was going to share (a brand-new character reveal), and then put the juicy info inside of the spoiler tag; whereas in the bad example, he put everything inside the spoiler tag. To better understand why this is bad, let me help you out with one final example ...
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Old 04-30-2012, 11:13 PM   #5
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Example 4. A Demonstration

Imagine if the following four posts all came in a straight row, no interruptions, in the Beauty and the Beast thread. Here's what they'd look like. First, let's look at the Bad example, to really illustrate the problem some of you seem to be having with how to use the spoiler tag. ^^;
BAD:

-Post 1-
Spoiler: show
Hey guys, I just saw Beauty and the Beast for the first time. I really liked it. My favorite part of the movie was when they sang Gaston's theme song. That was hilarious!


-Post 2-
Quote:
Originally Posted by Post 1
Spoiler: show
Hey guys, I just saw Beauty and the Beast for the first time. I really liked it. My favorite part of the movie was when they sang Gaston's theme song. That was hilarious!
Spoiler: show
Yeah, that part of the movie is great. For me, though, the best part of the movie is the Beast transforms into a human again. Especially for 1991, that was amazing animation! The part where his furry mane billows in the turbulence and then you see those golden-red locks of hair? Crazy awesome!


-Post 3-
Spoiler: show
Anyone heard anything about the fighter? I wonder if they're going to include Gaston in it. They might not, considering that he said he's only going to include characters who were still alive by the end of the film and, well, I don't think Gaston survived that fall. ^^;


-Post 4-
Spoiler: show
The spoilers are out for the newest B&tB trading card expansion. Check out these pictures!

[insert images here]


See how bad this is? You can't possibly follow the conversation without opening each and every spoiler tag. But do that and you risk spoilering yourself on things you didn't want to get spoilered on! That's no fun! And it can be easily avoided! Let's see how ... with the Good example!


GOOD:

-Post 1-
Hey guys, I just saw Beauty and the Beast for the first time. I really liked it. My favorite part of the movie was when ...

Spoiler: show
... they sang Gaston's theme song. That was hilarious!


-Post 2-
Quote:
Originally Posted by Post 1
Hey guys, I just saw Beauty and the Beast for the first time. I really liked it. My favorite part of the movie was when ...

Spoiler: show
... they sang Gaston's theme song. That was hilarious!
Yeah, that part of the movie is great. For me, though, the best part of the movie is:

Spoiler: show
the Beast transforms into a human again. Especially for 1991, that was amazing animation! The part where his furry mane billows in the turbulence and then you see those golden-red locks of hair? Crazy awesome!


-Post 3-
Anyone heard anything about the fighter? I wonder if they're going to include Gaston in it. They might not, considering that ...

(spoilers for the movie)
Spoiler: show
he said he's only going to include characters who were still alive by the end of the film and, well, I don't think Gaston survived that fall. ^^;


-Post 4-
The spoilers are out for the newest B&tB trading card expansion. Pics after the break!

Spoiler: show
[insert images here]
See how easy that was to follow? :o You could tell what each and every person was going to talk about inside of his spoiler tagged posts without actually opening up the spoiler tags first and getting spoilered! So say for example you'd seen the movie and felt comfortable reading anything about that but you didn't want to get spoilered about the TCG? You could safely open the tags in Posts 1 and 2 while leaving the one in Post 4 closed. And what about Post 3? Maybe you'd never even heard of the fighter until today. And now, thanks to that snippet of text outside of the spoiler box, you have!
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Old 04-30-2012, 11:18 PM   #6
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Closing comments:

There are as many ways to properly label your spoiler tags as there are members. Some people like to use hypertext like bold and italics. Some people like to use a ton of words while others like to use the bare minimum. Some people like to only use one spoiler box all post and have the bulk of their post be inside of it while others are the opposite and like to have every single non-spoiler word in the main body of the post, even if that means their post has dozens of spoiler tags for dozens of spoiler words. The important thing for you to take away from this thread isn't the specific examples I showed of how to label your spoilers; rather, it's to appreciate the importance of labeling them period. When you don't label your spoiler tags, you get a spoiler tag clusterfuck like this. (Scroll down to post #767 and observe the next five posts, inclusive.) I don't want to link to other examples since I'm sure even linking to one is going to make people feel like they've been singled out when that isn't the intent. >_>; This isn't about singling any one person out because, quite frankly, I'd say 25% to 33% of the board suffers from this problem. Members who chronically, habitually will make a post in a franchise thread out of nowhere, without any warning, and put everything inside the spoiler box. This helps nobody. It doesn't help you if your goal is to get people to read what you had to write -- 'cause like I said, people are going to just pass over your post if they don't want to risk being spoilered even if, lo and behold, what you had to say was safe for their ears after all. And it doesn't help the rest of the board either since it forces us to play the ignore-or-risk-getting-burned game. You have to keep in mind that if you want newcomers to join your franchise thread, you need to make your posts newcomer-friendly. You can't just have the attitude "It's obvious we're all talking about this week's episode, duuuuuuuuuh," because if a new person shows up it may not be so obvious to them. What if there are several new people? What if 50% of you are on Episode 17, one person's on Episode 14, one's on Episode 5, and one is just starting? How is the person who is on Episode 14 supposed to know whether you guys are replying to him or not when all you do is put your stuff inside one giant spoiler tag with zero indication as to what's inside?

The number one thing I can encourage you to do when discussing a television series, film, book, video game, or other indexable narrative is to indicate the safety progression marker for your spoiler. Some great examples would be:
  • (safe to click if you've seen {some innocuous detail})
  • Episode 16 spoilers:
  • If you haven't seen Star Wars, don't click this spoiler.
  • WARNING: discussion of the ending of the movie The Godfather inside
  • pics of the final boss of the game
  • Mass Effect 2 end-of-game discussion
  • safe to click if you've read thru The Prisoner of Azkaban
Make 'em as short or as detailed as you like. Make them look like labels a label maker might spit out or make them flow in an authentic manner into the body of your post, it doesn't matter to me or to the others here. What does matter is that you properly label your spoiler tags so that we know whether we can safely click on it or not. Because putting a spoiler inside a spoiler tag isn't good enough! You have to give us some inkling of what kind of information lies inside of that spoiler box so that we can make an informed decision as to whether to click on it or not. And so that we can avoid spoiler tag clusterfucks like the ones you'll find in some of the Entertainment forum's busiest threads.
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Old 05-01-2012, 12:04 AM   #7
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Or you could...

Spoiler: show
Not click spoilers in the relevant threads if you're afraid of being spoiled THAT much.


Alternative suggestion...

Spoiler: show
Kuno will never agree to this, but make it like Serebii, where you can put a "heading" of sorts to spoiler boxes.


Am I doing it right?
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Old 05-01-2012, 12:06 AM   #8
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I think it's hilarious that you put in the time and effort to create this thread.
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Old 05-01-2012, 12:29 AM   #9
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It didn't take more than 15 minutes for the entire thing. Worth it, considering how many members are struggling with this.

tl;dr never make a post that is nothing but a spoiler box

And no, Rangeet, I don't think you understand -- nor bothered to read what I wrote, since I know you're smart enough to understand had you bothered to read them. The problem is the uncertainty and confusion that naturally arises when people may or may not be holding different conversations with different levels of spoiler info in the same exact thread and you have no way of telling because it's straight spoiler boxes for pages on end. I've been quite amused (cynically so?) at the level of non-spoiler information people will hole away inside of spoiler boxes, info that never gets read because everyone values their own opportunities to be pleasantly surprised. I've seen posts like this:

Spoiler: show
That's a good point.

And that shouldn't be happening.
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Old 05-01-2012, 01:02 AM   #10
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Spoiler: show
hay gurl hay thanks for making this guide.

Edit:
Wasn't meant to be.
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Old 05-01-2012, 01:09 AM   #11
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That wasn't very clever.
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Old 05-01-2012, 07:59 AM   #12
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Thanks to this thread I've learned

Spoiler: show
Talon has
Spoiler: show
ALL THE AUTISMS
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Old 05-01-2012, 11:42 AM   #13
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Hi, I'm Kin, and I actually apreciate this thread and think it was a great idea. Thanks, Talon! ^_^
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Old 05-04-2012, 02:14 PM   #14
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Honestly, I think there's been a noticeable improvement of spoiler tag usage since this was posted. Whether people read it, commented on it, or just saw it posted, it seems this guide has made a difference, so Thanks Talon!
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Old 05-04-2012, 02:54 PM   #15
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You're welcome, and thank you. Thank you both.
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Old 09-28-2013, 09:57 AM   #16
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When I posted this thread last year, some people were sarcastic and rude about it, but a few people actually had the balls and courtesy to publicly thank me for the thread, saying it had helped them out. Bumping this thread today because I've noticed a spate of really bad spoiler tag habits across different accounts and different forums here and I'm just sick and tired of it. If you're going to discuss spoilers for Element X, say so. Be very clear. If a thread covers multiple games in a video game series or multiple seasons in a television series, it's not good enough to say "Chapter 2" or "Episode 03". Say which game/season you're spoiling as well. If you want to talk about the latest episode, indicate that you'll be doing that outside your spoiler tag: don't say that you're going to be discussing last week's and then, SURPRISE!, shift into discussing this week's episode when the mood strikes you. At least don't do it without giving any warning. It's disrespectful and, frankly, kind of borders on an abuse of the spoiler tag. People click the spoiler tag when they feel that they're safe to do so. They see what you've indicated you'll be discussing and they say "Hey! I meet all of the clearance checks! I'm good to go! " and eagerly expand it. And then you spoil them. And that's not cool for anybody. Be kind. Please, please, please give people a proper head's up outside of your spoiler tags what you will and will not be spoiling inside of them. Thank you.
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