Spoiler alert - I want a flag #2

Continued because the original thread was getting way long.

Refer back to msg #243.*

The bottom "opt in" is for readers of a review to alert others when the review should be read. It's a brilliant idea and should not offend anyone.

* ...where it says: Read this: after completion (5), anytime (1)

Current proposal now in message 18 of this thread

We're currently seeing if brightcopy's suggestion in post 243 of the previous thread solves most of the problems brought up in the previous thread which include (I'm sure I missed some):

- flagging is seen as negative by some reviewers
- some reviewers write their reviews specifically for others who have read the book, not to tell people whether they might want to read the book. In that context a spoiler is meaningless.
- we couldn't get agreement on what the term spoiler meant, even after three tries
- because of the problem with defining spoilers, it's better to have some system where you can see a range of opinion about the review

Edited to keep up with the changing landscape.

259: lilithcat

Can you be more specific about what's confusing? Wording? Interpretation of statistics? The choices?

2: In addition to not being offensive, I think (pending lilithcat's reply) that unlike a spoiler flag, this option actually conveys some information. (Recap from previous thread: if you can't define spoiler the flag isn't meaningful)

I think the first option says clearly that this is a review intended to discuss the book after reading. (Some people would call this a critique rather than a review, but whatever it is, people on LT use the review field for writing of this sort)

I think the second option says that people who read it don't think it gives away too much. This is still problematic because we know one person's not too much is someone else's spoiler. However, with the counts and the addition of the first option, you get more of a feel for the trend in the "spoiler thinking".

The third (silent option) says that the spoiler adverse should be wary. It either hasn't been evaluated before or it's got some possible spoilers but isn't written to be read after finishing the book.

If we have the option to mark our own books, I would definitely put the "read it after completion" on some of my reviews which are much more discussions of the book than reviews.

I like that it is not a flag and that it shows the counts, but I think that unless it actually uses the word spoiler somewhere that people won't know what it means. The only reason that we know what it means is that we've been talking about it for days and its on our minds.

> 2

It offends me. I don't want random strangers telling other random strangers when they should read my review! It's none of their business.

I would still prefer to have the split system where users decide if they want to post regular reviews (with the flagging system that we have now) or spoiler-free reviews (with an added spoiler flag). It just feels right to allow each individual user to decide whether or not their review would be subject to outside judgement (regardless of what that judgement is), especially in light of how flagging isn't always properly utilized.

But I could definitely live with the alternative proposed by brightcopy.

I am 100% opposed to 243 unless it is optional (which knowing Tim is unlikely). I don't want to have to click through every damn time I want to read a review, nor to have my reviews (mostly of non-fiction) truncated mid-paragraph by default because people are trying to solve a problem that cannot possibly exist in that sort of review.

>9 lorax: Where did the idea of click-through or truncating come in? Neither of those appears in the mockup.

10>

Brightcopy said the original review was longer; why else would he have edited it rather than just choosing a shorter review for the mockup? And what's the point when the "when should I read this" is AFTER the entirety of the review, when you've already read it?

>11 lorax: I assume he chose that one because it has what appears to be a major spoiler (but isn't actually) at the end, and left out the middle because it just wasn't necessary to make the point.

I can't imagine how it would make sense to have a spoiler system that hid the middle part of a review while leaving the spoiler visible. Also, there's no mention of a mechanism for choosing which part to leave out.

>11 lorax: In response to the edited part: people who care about these things could look at the "when should I read this" beforehand, even though it's at the bottom.

>11 lorax: Brightcopy said the original review was longer

I think you misunderstood: Brightcopy just "rewrote" my review as an example---I assume because it was about a mystery and mystery reviews are sensitive to spoilers. So he created a kind of imaginary review that had a spoiler-- "the butler did it." to use as an example.

Ugh, sorry for confusing everyone. I should have just completely faked up a review but I was trying to do it quickly. There was no truncation or clicking through or any of that in my proposal.

Also, for those wondering, I would expect that clicking on either of the two links would expand out an explanation of what they mean, just like when you click to Flag messages or reviews. And of course the information would be there if they clicked the Help link at the top right of the screen on the reviews page.

7: But random strangers WANT other random strangers to tell them whether to read your review. So why can't they go about that business and you can just ignore it?

I don't have time to read through all of both threads, but this suggestion sounds great. I read reviews primarily to decide whether I want to buy a book, and it would be awesome to be able to avoid spoilers.

Perhaps a better example (a review I faked just for this).

WARNING: Following mockup screenshot has a MAJOR spoiler for The Murders in the Rue Morgue by Edgar Allen Poe.



END OF META-SPOILER: You can read the rest of this message without worrying about it anymore.

To recap:

"Best read" is a vote on when the best time to read this review is: either "anytime" (before or after you read the book) or "after completion" (upon finishing the book)

I've bolded what the highest voted one is (either both or neither bolded in case of a tie?) Or it could just be bolded if you picked one.

When you click on either link, it expands into some text that explains what this vote is for and what each term means. It also shows your current vote if you have one and lets you either change your vote or unvote.

My biggest criticism is the wording. This is the "least bad" wording I could think of that was also short. I could see translations possibly being annoying, as there is very little horizontal space to fill if you want the reviews to not take up another line on the screen.

Possible UI confusion: I had assumed that the bolded one was the one we had selected ourselves.

7> reviews are random strangers telling other random strangers what they should read.

#19 by @_Zoe_> Yeah, I went back and forth on that one. I think it'd be more obvious when you saw a list of reviews that you didn't vote on and some had bolding. But honestly, I could go either way on it and be happy.

#20 by @SimonW11> And thumbs are random strangers telling random strangers which reviews are better than the others.

#18 is an improvement on the original mock-up, which was itself a vault forward on the info-vs-stigma spectrum. Better to have "anytime" before "after completion," and thus more default-ish.

My continuing reservation is that this "when to read," like the original "spoiler flag," covers the entire review, thus disallowing a general review with a small piece in which "spoilerish" material is broached. Also, I think that the writer of the review must be allowed to vote on "when to read."

Now, I don't worry about spoilers myself. I don't trust the veracity of people who write spoiler-centric reviews, and I tend to gloss over reviews that are chiefly concerned with recounting plot. But if I were wanting a way for these to be identified, I'm not sure I'd be satisfied with a note at the very bottom of the review.

Yeah, in an ideal world there would also be an option for "partially before and partially after, as indicated in the review", but I'm not sure there's room for that even if it could be expressed in just a few words.

15, 18>

Thanks for the clarification. I'm sure the confusion was all on my end - low on sleep thanks to a sick baby.

23>

I'd call that "anytime", assuming the reader could figure out on their own to stop if the review explicitly signals spoilers ahead.

22 > I was also thinking that having it at the bottom of the review was suboptimal, but then it occured to me we seem to be doing fine with the thumbs and flags being at the bottom. So I expect it 'd work fine in practice.

I've been following this discussion with interest. I popped in to add an observation. Just looking at the page for one of my favorite books, The Debt to Pleasure, I noticed a *MAJOR* spoiler in the two-line library description of the book. As another example, the tags for The Boys From Brazil are going to spoil the book for you if you don't already know what's going on.

My point is, spoilers are everywhere, and I don't think it's possible to protect against them. So, I'm against adding spoiler flags/alerts/whatever to reviews, because I think it introduces unnecessary complications without really solving the problem. In very short reviews that contain a spoiler, I would think you would already be spoiled before having seen the alert at the end of the review, in any case.

I try to warn others when I think there are spoilers in my reviews. I am receptive to polite emails suggesting that I add such a warning, if one isn't there, and I think most reviewers would feel the same. I think you have to rely on the goodwill of the reviewers, and realize there will always be those bad apples who want to spoil (pun intended) the fun (I don't think there are many, though).

If we were to introduce anything of this nature, I would probably only support a tag that whites out the spoiler, similar to what is used on TV Tropes.

26> I think you have to rely on the goodwill of the reviewers, and realize there will always be those bad apples who want to spoil (pun intended) the fun (I don't think there are many, though).

I object to being called a bad apple just because I want to share my thoughts on a book without having to worry about whether the reader has read the book or not. If there's a major plot point that was handled well or not so well, I want to be able to discuss it without having to jump through hoops.

#26 by @sturlington> My point is, spoilers are everywhere, and I don't think it's possible to protect against them.

Come now, let's leave the baby and just throw out the bathwater. :)

The point is to allow people who want to avoid spoilers to avoid them. I can (and do) generally skip the tags section for a book I haven't read. Also, how often do you think the spoilers in the Library Description actually happen in the real world versus in reviews? In any case, one can skip Library Descriptions. In fact, I probably would if I had this feature and I could just browse the reviews without having to worry as much about spoilers.

The placement at the bottom of the reviews is fine if you are going into reviews looking for reviews that can be read anytime without revealing much. That's how I would use it. I also dare suggest another feature that would let you filter reviews by "all | anytime | after completion".

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. No one is asking for a system that provides perfection. We're just looking to Recomment and Improvement to the Site. :)

26: I think we all agree that we can't solve the spoiler problem for everyone.

The question before us is: does the solution proposed by brightcopy add additional information to reviews which will help some people get at reviews they want to read? (Some here being enough for Tim and Co. to consider the time it would take to implement)

In addition to partially solving the spoiler problem for some people, I like this solution because it allows me to see which reviews discuss the book in-depth for after-reading enjoyment. This is an entirely new feature which would enhance my reading of reviews, even though it would not solve my personal problem with spoilers. So to me this added information provides better value than any kind of spoiler notice ever would.

Yeah, I'd want this feature even if I wasn't trying to avoid spoilers before reading the book, because I love reading reviews that actually go into detail about what actually happened in a lot of books I read.

I'm going to back up from the implementation details and look at a few basic questions:

1. Do you want spoilers to be marked in some way on reviews?

2. Do you want the author of a review to have sole discretion over whether their reviews are marked?

3. Do you want the marking to actually conceal the review, in whole or in part, in some way (behind a "click for more" cut, sorted to the bottom, whited-out until highlighted, etc.?)

4. Do you want the marking to be prominent and immediately noticeable before reading the review (boldface text placed above the text of the review, etc.)?

5. Do you want the marking to be for spoilers (reviews are presumed safe until voted otherwise) or for non-spoilers (reviews are presumed spoilers until voted otherwise)?

So, for instance, one proposal on the table was purely-decorative yellow flags to appear below the review - marked (so yes on #1), voted on (no on #2), no concealment, and the markings not prominent (so no on #3 and #4), and spoiler-indicative (no on #5). I think that these actually should be sorted out individually, rather than proposing overall solutions and having people like or dislike them because of some combination of the above factors and ones I'm not thinking of (like the word "spoiler" or "flag".)

Edit to add: I've made polls. Please consider the conditionals in polls 2-5; if you don't want a spoiler marker, please don't automatically vote "no" to all of them as a result; vote "no" in #1 and in the way you think would be least awful in the rest.

1. Do you want spoilers to be marked in some way on reviews?

Yes. But I also want a pointer to reviews that discuss plot details without having to worry about keeping it vague.

2. Do you want the author of a review to have sole discretion over whether their reviews are marked?

No, because I find that to just not be feasible. Many people leave reviews and never come back.

3. Do you want the marking to actually conceal the review, in whole or in part, in some way (behind a "click for more" cut, sorted to the bottom, whited-out until highlighted, etc.?)

No.

4. Do you want the marking to be prominent and immediately noticeable before reading the review (boldface text placed above the text of the review, etc.)?

While I wouldn't mind it at the beginning and more noticeable, I am willing to compromise to appease people who feel that this is a stigma.

5. Do you want the marking to be for spoilers (reviews are presumed safe until voted otherwise) or for non-spoilers (reviews are presumed spoilers until voted otherwise)?

Neither. I'd want it to start out neutral, meaning no one has expressed an opinion on whether it's a review best read after or best read anytime.

ETA: Bleh on the votes. I just don't think they work very well for this, where all the issues need to be looked at together as a whole rather than in isolation, which the votes force.

>27 jjwilson61: By "bad apple" I was referring to those people who might intentionally spoil the mystery in a 4-word review: The butler did it! Sorry that wasn't clear to you.

Even before seeing any of the voting results, though, I think we can be sure that there will be no consensus. That's why I like the approach of looking at how we can make both groups moderately satisfied.

For example, question 5 (should we mark for spoilers or non-spoilers) has been basically circumvented by saying that we should mark for both, so that we don't have to worry about the implications of no markers: that just means no one has voted yet.

Similarly, for question 4, some people will want the marking to be prominent and obvious, while others won't want it to be there at all. Rather than giving one side everything they want and making the others very unhappy, a reasonable compromise is putting the information at the bottom of the review, in a place that's clearly visible but doesn't overwhelm everything else.

For those who really care about spoilers I would think the 'safe' marker would be better, as an unmarked review might have spoilers in it, whereas a 'safe' one is at least not going to have really bad spoilers in it.

For what it is worth I have one review marked as containing a spoiler - which is something the author gives away much too early in the book for my taste. http://www.librarything.com/work/386357

#40 by @MarthaJeanne> Right. Which is why I voted Undecided on that last votey because in the proposal you vote for either, but the default shows that no one has voted for anything. But yeah, I think it's superior to the original ideas of marking things because you have that extra bit of information that distinguishes between "no one has said it revels anything" versus "no one has looked at it".

1. Do you want spoilers to be marked in some way on reviews?

Undecided.

2. Do you want the author of a review to have sole discretion over whether their reviews are marked?

That's in effect what we have now - reviewers can (and occasionally do) warn you they're about spoil something, but nobody else can do anything.

3. Do you want the marking to actually conceal the review, in whole or in part, in some way (behind a "click for more" cut, sorted to the bottom, whited-out until highlighted, etc.?)

Not automatically no. But if we get a spoiler marker, it'd make lots of sense to introduce a new sorting option to send them to the bottom.

4. Do you want the marking to be prominent and immediately noticeable before reading the review (boldface text placed above the text of the review, etc.)?

Given the absence for calls to put the red and blue flags prominently at the top, I don't think there's any need for this. That said, I don't particularly object to it either.

5. Do you want the marking to be for spoilers (reviews are presumed safe until voted otherwise) or for non-spoilers (reviews are presumed spoilers until voted otherwise)?

Neither. No votes should mean just that, once there are votes one can see if most indicate spoilerishness or otherwise.

An added advantage of showing separate vote totals for "safe" and "spoiler", as in brightcopy's mockup, is that if there's, say, 17 "safe" and 15 "spoiler" votes, you can accord greater weight to variables like whether there are any other reviews for the book than you would if there's 31 "safe" and 1 "spoiler".

#42 by @AndreasJ> But if we get a spoiler marker, it'd make lots of sense to introduce a new sorting option to send them to the bottom.

Or to the top! I'd use that at least as often as the inverse (for reasons described above).

31> I am not sure I can answer these polls and make my view clear. While I was against the flags, I find the example in #18 acceptable. I wouldn't mind if people marked my review as to be read before or after reading the book. Whether this option will provide a level of clarity that would satisfy people who want to avoid spoilers is just something that will have to be determined by experience. Hiding part of the text is too "fiddly" in my opinion. You either get the whole package or not. Life is like that.

k4k

ETA: I would prefer not to have my reviews sent to the bottom (or top) because some people think they contain spoilers. That feels punitive. Ok, so call me sensitive. ;-)

(Possibly a mistake to throw this out there, but if such a feature was put in place, I could make a script/style that would highlight either reviews that were marked "anytime" and "after completion" with two different colors or borders or something.)

45> As long as they aren't green and red. ;-)

#46 by @krazy4katz> Well, neither would be obnoxious because I WANT to read the "after completion" reviews.

duplicate

45> "salmon roe" and "sushi"?

> 40

How is it a spoiler if the author tells you early on?

50> I'd consider that if a review contains a spoiler that adding a warning doesn't change that fact. But I guess that's a definitional thing. Is the review itself the spoiler or is the spoiler some text within the review?

1. Do you want spoilers to be marked in some way on reviews?

No.

2. Do you want the author of a review to have sole discretion over whether their reviews are marked?

Yes. I've seen too much misuse of the "not a review" flag, even though the criteria for it have been clearly set forth. Since there is even greater disagreement as to what constitutes a spoiler, I don't think people should be able to label other folks' reviews.

3. Do you want the marking to actually conceal the review, in whole or in part, in some way (behind a "click for more" cut, sorted to the bottom, whited-out until highlighted, etc.?)

No, though I'd have no problem if the reviewer could choose to use a "white out" tag.

4. Do you want the marking to be prominent and immediately noticeable before reading the review (boldface text placed above the text of the review, etc.)?

No. That would just clutter up the review page.

5. Do you want the marking to be for spoilers (reviews are presumed safe until voted otherwise) or for non-spoilers (reviews are presumed spoilers until voted otherwise)?

Mark for spoilers. I find marking for the absence of something weird and off-putting. And since most reviews aren't going to get marked at all, marking for non-spoilers will result in people missing out on good reviews.

> 51

?? I don't understand how that answers my question in #50.

53> Because if a piece of text is a spoiler, that is it tells of a major plot point, then even if there's a spoiler warning before it, it's still a spoiler. Just as if you're driving down the road and there's a pothole with a sign in front of it warning you about the pothole. It's still a pothole.

I admire the tenacity with which some people here continue the discussion :)

I like brightcopy's mockup.

The idea of marking a review as having no spoilers, and the option of sorting such reviews at the top/showing only those, appeals to me.
It solves the problem of the default being no marks.

Perhaps I'd call it a non-revealing review.

>55 JerryMmm:
Or perhaps a "discreet" or "modest" review?

Discreet works well

I skimmed both the original thread and this overflow thread because I recently ran across a very short (two line) review with a major plot-point spoiler. I noticed there was no way to flag these in the interface, and so I did a search to find out what the site's policy on spoilers was. I have noticed that the site has a function that allows the author of a review to flag parts of his own text with a "spoiler" tag which will hide it unless the reader chooses to reveal it, and that is a nice start, but that's as far as it goes currently. What I've seen in the foregoing discussion is that there was never a consensus reached on how to address the issue of spoilers, so apparently the default was to just leave things as they are:
Group A thinks it would be nice for there to be some sort of designation available so potential readers could be alerted to the presence of spoilers in a review.
Group B asserts that any such system is offensive because it is in some way limiting, pejorative, or otherwise limiting their freedom of expression by influencing potential readers to skip over their review as a result of the "spoiler" alert. There also seems to be a concern here that there is not complete consensus on what constitutes and ACTUAL spoiler.

Personally, I think part of the issue is that a lot of people seem to not get that there is a major difference between an actual book review and literary criticism. If you're going to be providing some sort of detailed literary analysis of a particular work, discussing the themes, plot elements, how skillfully the author handled certain things, or any sort of in-depth plot discussion, that isn't really a review. Maybe there should be a separate section for Analysis/Literary Criticism/Commentary where these things could be posted. This would add more depth to the book info page, and running across a book with lots of commentary would be a helpful indicator for someone not familiar with that book/author/genre that here is something that a lot of people are passionate about and maybe it might be worthwile to check out as a result.
If there were a separate section, then the "Reviews" section could be reserved for short informational posts that would help the reader decide whether or not this book is a good match for his interests. Separate sections for these two might be a solution that more people could live with. Then you could set up some sort of spoiler indicator system for the "review" section and if a "review" got a sufficient number of "spoiler" votes it could be moved to the "commentary" section.

I find reviews USEFUL when making a decision on whether to buy or read a book: I read them to save time. On the other hand, I find commentary and literary criticism STUMULATING and EDUCATIONAL when the subject is an author or work that I have strong feelings about... it can either reinforce my existing opinion or give me a new perspective to ponder.

>58 Dragget: Personally, I think part of the issue is that a lot of people seem to not get that there is a major difference between an actual book review and literary criticism.

Your distinction, while perhaps useful, is not borne out by published reviews in the world at large, which frequently include "detailed literary analysis of a particular work, discussing the themes, plot elements, how skillfully the author handled certain things," etc.

My LT reviews are a lot less about helping a prospective reader "decide whether or not this book is a good match for his interests," and more about expressing where the book succeeded (or failed) in matching my interests. After all, our LT reviews, while they are socially aggregated, are part of our individual catalogs and entered there.

Call it what you will... you're just arguing semantics. My point is there is a distinction in the purpose between a "review" and an in-depth "analysis". You can call a Cliff's Notes commentary on Moby Dick a "book review" if you want, but most people would understand the difference between that and the average book review. I also think that having these two types separated would address the problem that a lot of people have with spoilers without restricting people who want to do the more detailed analysis. The point is allowing people to choose what they want to see or not see while at the same time allowing more flexibility for those that want to do extended commentary.
As it stands, now, everything is consolidated in one area. This may be just fine for those who don't care about the spoilers, but just as those writing the reviews are entitled to write them as they see best, those evaluating books for future reading and/or purchase are entitled to some consideration as well when it comes to not ruining the suspense and pacing of a book with spoilers. Just as the site offers a lot of tools for cataloging and organizing individual collections, it provides just as many tools for people to discover new books and research various authors/series that may interest them based on their current library. After all, if all you're looking for is a way to catalog your books and express your thoughts on them, you could just as easily create your own private database to accomplish that goal. A major point of cataloging your books here is to participate in the community. Any time you join a community, there has to be some compromise and accommodation. If there is a way to accomplish both goals, why would you have a problem with that?
Bottom Line: people who want to do book write-ups containing spoilers are (and should continue to be) allowed to do so. I'm merely proposing that these items be given their own separate area so that others can make their choice what they do or do not want to look at when they have not yet read the book in question. As it stands, the site relies upon the person writing the comment to self-censor (using spoiler tags) out of courtesy, and obviously there are quite a few people here who would rather not make that effort.

>60 Dragget: I think I understand what you are suggesting but as long as people are going to be self-selecting where their reviews should go, you will have the same problem. It's just the risk one takes interacting with people on social media. I don't think it's practical without moderators to oversee the reviews. LT simply doesn't have that framework and probably most people wouldn't want that.

Why would it have to work any differently than the current "report" function? Just add a new selection to that for "detailed analysis containing spoilers" and it could be moved at that point, and the person who posted it notified that it had been moved. I think most people would be willing to respect that distinction, and those that inadvertently posted in the wrong section would get reminded when it got moved after being reported. This wouldn't stop people who are intentionally being jerks, but like you said, there are always going to be a few of those around. I think the majority, however, would place their reviews and analyses in the proper spot, thus reducing the overall incidence of spoilers in the review section.

>62 Dragget: I understand your very clear viewpoint, but I don't think a majority of users will agree that it is an important enough distinction to merit a whole separate section.

Since spoilers can be inadvertent or be found in a one-sentence review, and since some people disagree strongly about what constitutes a spoiler and what does not, I don't see that this would be as simple to implement as you think.

>61 krazy4katz: "I don't think it's practical without moderators to oversee the reviews." I do not know why you think that. LT has never had any problem crowd sourcing people to do such tasks.

>64 SimonW11: I guess what >63 PhaedraB: said summarizes my perspective pretty well. What constitutes a spoiler is not always agreed upon. This is more complicated than spam, for example.

It wouldn't be too hard to come up with a specific definition of "spoiler" to be used in this situation. Basically, giving away major plot points and/or "reveals" that the work in question relies upon for suspense: that's simple enough to understand and identify for purposes of organizing commentary into "spoiler" and "non-spoiler" groups. That's the definition at its most basic, and anyone should be able to determine what falls into that category. If you want to quibble about major versus minor spoilers, then you're getting into area where you can have a lot of pointless debate, but in general, as long as people aren't trying to lawyer over minutia or being intentionally obtuse, it's not that difficult to identify the most obvious spoilers.
In any event, how useful is a two-line "review" that simply gives away the main villain in a mystery or spoils a critical plot reveal? That kind of thing is typically not any sort of serious analysis of the work in question, but rather more like trolling. Is it really the intent to give trolls a free pass for this type of thing? There has to be some sort of minimum standard, but currently, the "this is not a review" report function doesn't cover this case: so as long as it's not outright spam, it can't be reported.

>66 Dragget:

It wouldn't be too hard to come up with a specific definition of "spoiler"

You're kidding, right? I've had people tell me it's a spoiler to say that Romeo and Juliet die, despite the fact that Shakespeare tells us this in the very first speech of the play. I've had other people call statements of historical fact "spoilers".

And define "major plot points". I'll bet what one person thinks is "major" is someone else's "minor".

So, yeah, it would be hard.

In any case, I think that people who are worried about spoilers shouldn't read reviews.

You're taking a couple of extreme cases where someone stakes out an irrational position on what is a "spoiler", and trying to use that edge case to say that no reasonable definition can be made. There are lots of people in this world with absurd ideas on any given subject, but in general, they're a tiny minority and it's possible to come to a consensus on a few general principles: a little bit of common sense and rationality goes a long way towards resolving most inconsistencies. It's not that hard to identify the most obvious spoilers. Typically, the "reviews" I see on this site (and others) that contain spoilers fall into one of two categories:
a) The review is more of a summary of the plot and doesn't really have the writer's opinion or viewpoint on the book.
b) A one or two sentence comment that gives something major away. May or may not contain an opinion on the quality of the work.
There may be a few that don't fit into either of the above categories, but just moving those two types to a separate section would mean a huge reduction in the amount of spoilers out in plain view. In the first case, the author of the "plot summary" might see that their comment had been moved and possibly try to understand why, thereby learning something about literary criticism. In the second case, the commenter usually knows exactly what they are doing and either doesn't know how to use spoiler tags, or lacks the consideration to do so.

>68 Dragget: We are bringing up these points because what you are discussing has been brought up before, over and over.

There just isn't any way that you're going to be able to teach users to write reviews the way you think they should be written. It's a very personal thing to people.

>68 Dragget:

a) The review is more of a summary of the plot and doesn't really have the writer's opinion or viewpoint on the book.

I completely disagree with that. In my view, a review, to be of any use at all, must include the writer's opinion of the book. Otherwise, why write it?

>70 lilithcat:

Ditto.

>70 lilithcat:

In my view, a review, to be of any use at all, must include the writer's opinion of the book.

I agree with that, but Tim doesn't. I used to grumble about that, but eventually decided that there are two words spelled "review" - one of them used most other places, where it means something that includes an opinion or evaluation of the contents, and one used on LT where it means, more or less, "Anything someone has chosen to type into the review field that indicates they have at least attempted to read at least a portion of the book." So there are a lot of things in the review field that aren't "reviews", but since they're "LT-reviews" they're fair game here.

>72 lorax:

Notice that I did not say "to be a review"; I said "to be of any use".

>73 lilithcat:

Fair point.

@lilithcat: Your quote from my message was given as one common example of book comments that frequently contain spoilers. I guess you didn't read the whole message. You're quoting me out of context. I actually agree with you that if a review is to be of use, it should contain the reviewer's opinion on the book in question.
@paradoxosalpha: see above
@lorax: I understand the policy here that people can write whatever they want in the comments as long as it's not spam and relates to the book in question. I just think there ought to at least be some way to fence off the stuff with egregious spoilers from everything else... it doesn't need to be any more complicated or specific than that.
The problem with the current system is that it relies upon the ability of each user to understand how a spoiler can ruin the experience of a new book for others, and then either a) refrain from putting spoilers in their comments or b) be considerate enough and/or knowledgeable enough to add spoiler tags around the spoilers if they leave them in. Given the number of spoilers I've encountered here to date, that's clearly an unreasonable expectation.
All I'm suggesting here is an idea for allowing people to continue to write "reviews" however they want to do it, while at the same time allowing people who don't want to have plots spoiled for them to have that option. Since the earlier suggestion of allowing people to rate comments was rejected because it was considered too judgmental somehow (in spite of the fact that the voting option was purely to indicate spoiler/non-spoiler and not a value judgement of the comment itself) I was trying to suggest something that would categorize these comments (without using a voting mechanism that might conceivably be misinterpreted) in a way that could not be construed even by the most sensitive person as somehow critical of their comment.

I wonder how often such an alert would actually be of use. A vast number of the books reviewed here are hard non-fiction or literary but not fiction, like poetry. Of the fiction books, many are short story collections. Of the novels, many aren't plot driven and a spoiler wouldn't even be relevant; many others wouldn't be spoiled by a give-away because though they might have a twist or a mystery solved their appeal lies elsewhere. Of the ones where solutions/twists actually are very important elements, how large a percentage of their reviews actually give away an important turn? I wouldn't thought it would be a significant one.

@bluepiano: I suspect that the frequency with which you encounter comments containing spoilers would depend to a significant degree on the type of books you were looking at on this site. I will grant that some genres are much more vulnerable to spoilers than others. I should probably clarify a bit as well: I did not intend to imply that I am tripping over spoilers right and left, but I do run across them fairly regularly when researching books on here. I use some of the features of this site for tracking my own collection, but mainly, I will upload book information to see what is recommended, so I can possible find new authors and series that match my tastes, and possibly avoid authors and series that are similar to ones that I didn't enjoy so much. Since my reading time is limited, I want to make the most of it. As a result, most of the comments I read are for books I haven't read yet. Apparently, my use-case for LibraryThing makes it more likely that I will run upon a spoiler, given my taste in fiction.

I think you would get more traction for letting people mark reviews as "spoiler-free" than for asking people to mark things as containing spoilers; there's no possible stigma attached to saying "There are no spoilers here." Members could then elect to hide reviews containing spoilers; the default situation would be "potentially contains spoilers" and "show me everything". Those who specifically selected to "hide spoiler-containing reviews" would only be shown reviews explicitly marked as spoiler-free; obviously this would be a small fraction of total reviews, since the marking would require positive action, but it has no impact on the majority of the population and does not stigmatize anyone. While the subjective nature of precisely what constitutes a spoiler remains, nobody's potentially upset by having their review tarred as "containing spoilers" because they mentioned that the Titanic sinks or that Romeo and Juliet die at the end.

>78 lorax: This sounds good, except I think you'd still run into the quibbling over what's a spoiler. "Everyone knows they die at the end, so this review talking about that is spoiler-free!" and, same problem. Granted from that angle there'd at least be the no upset over being declared a spoiler-review (though frankly I am utterly perplexed at why anyone would possibly be bothered that people see something in their review as a spoiler, wtf is there to be upset over in that?! urgh), but the whole, what is/isn't a spoiler argument would still rage on.

>78 lorax: "I think you would get more traction for letting people mark reviews as "spoiler-free" than for asking people to mark things as containing spoilers"

Sounds good to me. As far as what is/isn't a spoiler, that may never get resolved, but at least if there is some sort of system in place that doesn't rely on the comment posters to self-censor, at least the majority of the worst ones can be filtered over time. Nothing is perfect, but any improvement over the status quo would be welcome as far as I'm concerned. I always give a thumbs up to any comment I read that I think is helpful/insightful/clever and if there was a feature to mark stuff spoiler free I would click that too as I went along. It seems like a no-brainer to me. If the system was implemented like the thumbs-up feature we have now, a filter could be put in place for users to hide any comments below a certain threshold for the "spoiler-free" value if they chose, (i.e. only show comments with a "spoiler free" score of 2 or better). Granted that enabling the filter would block a lot of commentary, it comes down to a personal choice, and the individual can decide for themselves if it's worth the tradeoff.

>78 lorax: Of all the possibilities, that sounds the most rational. The only problem is that it would be the people who most hate spoilers who would end up bothering to vote, so they would see them anyway. So it goes...

>81 krazy4katz: if the spoiler-sensitive, when they finished a book, read all the reviews of it, and marked those suitable for the spoiler sensitive, then they would help future such readers

>81 krazy4katz: THIS ^^^^ and after all, isn't that the point?
>78 lorax: ...and as for that, if you've already been spoiled, you may as well go through the rest of the comments for that book and mark 'em while you're there, then set your filter threshold high enough that you feel safe. Any comments with a lower score than your threshold will then be hidden going forward. Users who set their threshold value high may miss out on a lot of comments that way, but everyone has their own priorities and is free to decide whether the trade-off is worth it to them.
Another option that might be useful with a system like this would be a preference to turn off filters by default on books that a user has marked as "read" sothey can see all comments on those, whereas anything not flagged as "read" would leave the filters enabled on that title by default.

>65 krazy4katz: neither has LT had problems setting up crowd sourced systems that self moderate.

>69 PhaedraB: I have zero interest in teaching users how to write reviews. It has nothing to do with the thread topic. We are discussing how to warn people that a review is likely to spoil the book.

>85 SimonW11:

It has nothing to do with the thread topic.

You must not visit Talk very often! Digression is what we do best here.

>86 lilithcat: It is more appropriate in soe groups than others.

It is more COMMON in some groups than others....

now, can we get the flags in different pretty colors?

and maybe with a pony?

>85 SimonW11: I was not addressing you, I was addressing multiple posts by >60 Dragget:.

>84 SimonW11: neither has LT had problems setting up crowd sourced systems that self moderate.

But they took considerable effort to program. The question is what else wouldn't get implemented or what bugs wouldn't get fixed if this suggestion was followed.

I agree with >90 jjwilson61:
This would be very complex compared to other crowd sourced systems that have been implemented here. The basic "flag as spam and LT will take care of it" is on quite another level. Selectively blocking reviews based on a "spoiler score" — and only for people who want that — seems quite complex to me. Of course I know nothing about programming. Doesn't stop me from having an opinion though. ;-)

91> a variation of the system used to combine tags would seem adequate
to me.

>70 lilithcat: I can quite see that myself.
Especially in speculative fiction what kind of world this is and what characters we're given to experience it through are major elements not always made explicit enough in blurbs ("The Best Thing Since Sliced Bread Tolkien !!!").
Detailing or situating them with a relatively fine grain in relation to others within genre or outside of it is intrinsically helpful and might not always warrant a value judgement if the reviewer feels the choice and use of such are neither extremely poor/clever/unique/of outstanding appeal/etc...
Likewise the writing and handling of story may not receive particular praise or criticism if they're somewhere from serviceable to fair, the overall rating kind of takes care of that.

(Sarcasm) Hey! I have an idea! Don't read reviews of others! Just read the flipping book! (End sarcasm)