The Mookse and the Gripes discussion

A debate about spoiler tags has broken out on the thread for His Bloody Project.

I am in favour of them for books where plot and revelations are significant; most of the others who have posted so far are not.
(See here: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/... )

This thread is to hopefully garner a few more opinions from members who aren't following the discussion on that book.

I am also in favor of spoiler tags. I understand that the html may be problematic on some devices (as is the case on my phone), but in that case, it doesn't take much for me to insert the words "spoiler alert" before I say something potentially spoiler-y (is that a word?).

My feeling about this reflects my feelings about so many other things: If it's important to someone else and doesn't cost me anything to comply, why not do it?

As the culprit who inadvertently started the whole debate, I've always stated 'spoiler ahead' whenever I thought something I say could ruin someone else's reading experience, as that's just good manners and thought that should suffice - and until Antonomasia's tutelage, I didn't know HOW to do the tags. I am certainly willing to use tags, now that I know how, but personally, I don't read a thread until I've read the book and reviewed it on my own, since I don't WANT anyone else's opinion to influence my own.

I'm all in favour of using them, but in general I trust reviewers and commenters to use their discretion. The publishers' blurbs are often the worst offenders.

Hugh wrote: "The publishers' blurbs are often the worst offenders.."

Indeed. I recently read a short book whose blurb was basically a synopsis of the whole plot including the climax which should not have been revealed. It did not ruin my reading experience but, as a self-appointed conscientious GR librarian, I still changed it with a shorter blurb from wiki for the benefit of posterity.

As for using spoiler tags, looks like the ayes will have it....

I'm a no.

Largely because I seemed to manage the first 40 years of my life quite happily until the last decade without even hearing anyone use the word. (and it's rise seems to be due to on demand TV/box sets, which is not relevant to literature).

This quote sums it up from me (source: http://www.jonathanrosenbaum.net/2006...)

"Look at novels written from Don Quixote all the way through much of the 19th century, and you’ll find spoilers even in the chapter titles — headings that habitually tell you what’s going to happen before it happens. How come nobody complained much about this practice for a good three centuries before it started getting readers and moviegoers so hot and bothered — mainly, it would appear, over the past decade? And what about the titles of certain plays? Should William Shakespeare have been horsewhipped by Elizabethan audiences for calling one of his comedies The Taming of the Shrew, thus giving away the outcome of the story? And what about Death of a Salesman?"

And sorry if I should have put any of the above in spoiler tags and have just ruined someone's prospective enjoyment of an Arthur Miller play :-)

Paul wrote: "And sorry if I should have put any of the above in spoiler tags and have just ruined someone's prospective enjoyment of an Arthur Miller play :-) "

No worries, Paul; Miller managed to ruin his own plays just fine.

We may be talking about two different things: coded spoiler tags and textual spoiler warnings.

My problem is with coded spoiler tags where I have to go to a computer to read them because my iPhone app won't let me read them at all (that I can figure out). I would rather people not use those but it's not going to cause me fits if they do—I just won't be able to engage as freely. I do think they're excessively precautionary, but I don't want anyone to be run out for using them as I don't want anyone run out for not.

For spoiler warnings people put in the text simply to warn, I say go for it if it feels good. It doesn't hamper my ability to read the comment and reply.

I said in the other thread that people should be careful going into a thread devoted to a book they haven't read, and I stick with that. I'm not going to mandate people warn about spoilers and I don't want others to either. In my experience threads flow better when folks aren't worried about such things.

I thinking a warning is fine but I'm not for spoiler tags as in the html coded ones. From my perspective they completely ruin the flow of the conversation. Not to mention they exclude people who use the app from participating.

I would vote 'no' to the spoiler tags that can't be used on a phone. We should make the assumption going into a book specific thread that there will be spoilers, so textual warnings are already an unexpected courtesy.

Okay, I'm going to make an administrative call here so we can get back to the books.

For the sake of flow PLEASE DO NOT USE HTML SPOILER TAGS.

If you feel the need to warn others, simply make a note like we used to. If you don't feel the need to warn others, as someone who is not spoiler sensitive in the least and as someone who truly enjoyed Paul's post above, please do not worry about it.

For those of you who have been using these tags to hide your comments, please do not take this as a rebuke. We all benefit from the participation here and I've been thrilled to get to know your thoughts on these books. Looking forward to more discussion on the books!

I am of the same view as Paul about the whole spoiler phenomenon, but I'm okay with it either way. I think if members are divided over it, it's better to have a compromise where we avoid coded spoilers and simply caution readers for "spoilers ahead". It'd be a reasonable thing to do as some of you have problems viewing coded spoilers on apps.

Yes, Jibran's approach is what we'll do. Please avoid coded spoilers and feel free to pepper your posts with warnings all you like.

I'm going to close this thread now. If any of you want this revisited, please let me know in the Feedback thread (here), and I can reopen it if necessary.