12/21/24
June 17, 2002
So, um... I call boo hiss on moving things from the front page. If you couldn't wake up for the game, it is utterly ridiculous to come to a web page all about sports and not see reaction to the most significant game in American soccer history.
posted by tieguy to editorial policy at 09:32 AM - 9 comments
Agreed. It would be like asking the following of SportsCenter: Dear ESPN, I'm a great fan of SportsCenter, but I am disappointed that they disclose scores of games that I've not yet watched. Could you please ask them NOT to give out the scores for those of us who are waiting to see the game at a later time?!? I'd greatly appreciate it.
posted by jacknose at 01:59 PM on June 17, 2002
I agree with rcade and jacknose, with one proviso for a spoiler warning, maybe set in the posting guidelines. It would go something like this: "Feel free to post a link about the results of a big game, but know that you will be criticized for your decision. Instead, insert a meta refresh to espn.com within your post."
posted by insomnyuk at 03:26 PM on June 17, 2002
Usenet convention in the bicycle racing group I'ver read for years dictated "no results in the subject lines." However, that's been pretty well done away with over the past year or so. The big difference is that on rec.bicycles.racing, race progress reports were often posted, so that those without the appropriate cable channels could follow the races almost live. At this point, with so many web outlets for live event coverage, as well as increased television coverage, those arguments hold far less water. Here, where it's more about discussion than event coverage, I'd say that the spoiler issue could be handled pretty easily -- toss the word "SPOILER" or "RESULT" in the beginning of the post. Wanna know? click the link. Don't? Move along, kiddo. But I like the meta refresh trick.
posted by ahhgrr at 10:40 PM on June 17, 2002
FWIW, I think posting this (similarly) to metafilter, as was done today, pretty much sucks- I felt very badly for having put the Portugal-US score in an email to a computer list and spoiled several people's TIVO-ing. But that was a linux list and metafilter, not _sports_filter :)
posted by tieguy at 12:28 PM on June 18, 2002
I hope no one was TIVOing the Cyclones v. Yankees game.
posted by djacobs at 10:18 PM on June 18, 2002
at the risk of opening up a can of worms, i think this feature would be nifty and unique. (and helpful for us tivo users) have a option in customize for no spoilers...and a checkbox when you post on the front page that will indicate a score/outcome spoiler.
posted by lescour at 03:24 PM on June 19, 2002
add to that idea: in customize, an option to view/hide spoilers, and a listbox for number of days to hide - 1,2,3,7,never show. something like that. on the front page, if you have spoilers hidden, you see that there is a post - SPOILER POST in [Category], but not the post itself. then you can decide to go into the thread or not.
posted by lescour at 03:39 PM on June 19, 2002
If you don't allow spoilers on a FFP here, it really limits what we can post. Let's say your favorite team gets an unfavorable call in a loss - when is it okay to post a link to the article? Becasue we read left to right and not top to bottom, it's almost impossible to not notice any potentially bad parts of a front page post unless we just post something along the lines of "SPOILER". And there's nothing worse than one word FFPs. If you've TIVOed something and don't want to know the results, it's best to just avoid television and sports-orientated websites.
posted by Samsonov14 at 02:10 AM on June 23, 2002
There's plenty of reaction to the game, just not in a post-game link. We should discuss this and come up with a consistent approach. It's a tough call, but for me I think we should not edit ourselves because of "spoilers". Four reasons: 1) New users are not going to expect to find post-game discussion in a pre-game thread. 2) For huge events the site's members are going to care about (this one fits the bill), there should be a post-game link. 3) Every other sports site on the planet puts post-game details online immediately after the game. The people who are watching a recording afterward need to take care of themselves. 4) At some point, we'll probably start offering sports headlines via RSS. There's no way to do that if we're a no-spoiler site.