Could the Write Review page include a Note about Spoiler warnings?

I just got started in LibraryThing and was surprised to see so many people writing reviews that were spoilers. I don't know that this is intentionally obtuse, but many people need to be helped to understand that a spoiler review should be marked as such. I have three proposals to address this:

1. The Write Your Review page could contain a note in big bold face telling people that they should not put a spoiler in their review.

2. Have a Spoiler Flag that can be used to tag reviews as spoilers. These reviews will be shown only of the reader requests them (show 3 | show all non-spoilers | show all), or click on a specific spoiler-flagged review to show its contents.

3. Have a separate page for spoiler reviews.

Cheers,
- Kamesh

3.

Oh boy. You're new and insulting the community you want to join. Here we go. If you search talk you will come up with threads that went on endlessly debating what does and what does not constitute a spoiler and how no 2 people can agree.

In some of those threads (such as this one), there's also some discussion of why it doesn't necessarily matter that people don't agree on what constitutes a spoiler.

I still think a Spoiler flag is reasonable, and hiding reviews behind a "show" link when enough people think they have spoilers. Of course, I'd also like that for the Amazon descriptions.

many people need to be helped to understand that a spoiler review should be marked as such

That sound you hear is that of hundreds of worms being released from their can.

I think this is basically a copy of a GoodReads (sorry!) function. Frankly, I find it a rather annoying feature on GoodReads, but I also find most of GoodReads annoying, so take it for what it's worth. I've also only ever logged one book there and that's that, anywhooo....

Being that we've already hit one of the issues I have with the interpretation of "spoiler" - an individual that doesn't like Amazon descriptions - we're likely at the same standstill we've been at for a while.

This is not to say I'm more right in my rather high tolerance for spoiler information - it just is what it is.

On a site where getting people together to discuss books is a rather large function, I think the idea that you can protect yourself from spoilers of any kind is simply not going to happen.

I would say that one of the things that can help with a suggestion like this is to provide examples. Saying "so many people writing reviews that are spoilers" with some examples helps.

For those that don't like spoilers, I still encourage you to read the book for yourself! You're letting something so minor dictate what you're going to do with your pleasure time. Heck, take The Virgin Suicides - the title is a spoiler! But that's not the point of the book - the point is how Jeffrey Eugenides gets us there - and nothing in short descriptions or reviews can really spoil his storytelling, I promise.

ETA - changed without to with so it actually made sense! d'oh!

I want to speak up to support kameshaiyer! It's entirely reasonable to request a spoiler alert before revealing the solution to the mystery or the plot twists of a novel. People can continue to argue, er, discuss precisely what constitutes a spoiler, as much as they wish. But don't ruin surprises for the rest of us! Not too much to ask from a community of book lovers.

7: So if people are still discussing what constitutes a spoiler, how are they supposed to know how not to ruin surprises for you?

I second everything stephmo said.

8 nperrin

In many cases, it is (or, in my opinion, should be) obvious what constitutes a spoiler. Major plot points/twists, the whodunnit in a mystery, the end of a book (and I'm talking fiction here; "the boat sank" is not a spoiler if you're reading about the Titanic). I imagine Imprinted was talking about the ones that are less clear.

And for those of you who don't care about spoilers, that's fine, great for you, have some compassion for the rest of us?

> 9 It's not that I don't have compassion for someone that feels genuinely "ruined" if they run across information they feel will be detrimental to their enjoyment.

What I have issue with is the level to which people will let their enjoyment be "ruined." At this point, everything a person needs to do to avoid spoilers in reviews is 100% in place on this site - you simply do not read the reviews.

Reviews do not pop up on every view of a book, they don't randomly rotate through the Talk threads and they aren't randomly forwarded via e-mail in the middle of the night. That's the solution.

Again, would LOVE, LOVE, LOVE to see these horrendous reviews that are causing so much pain and grief. When you make a request that will alter the entire review system and bring about things like spoiler flags, hiding reviews and whatnot, the burden of proof is kind of on you to provide evidence of harm done. Based on what poster #1 has said in their first sentence, these examples should be plentiful - perhaps I haven't been reading the right reviews today?

> 11

Seconded.

I just went to my profile page and read the first four pages (120 reviews) of books in my library reviewed by others.

And I found one, ONE, that contained what I would even remotely consider a "spoiler", and that was a review of Jane Eyre which revealed the outcome of Jane and Mr. Rochester's relationship. However, that review was so long and detailed that I doubt that anyone who was frightened of spoilers would have read far enough to discover this.

I could point to several of my reviews that contain major plot points, but I always put a spoiler warning before them.

I almost never read reviews of books I haven't already finished, because of past experience. Which I've always kind of defeats the point...aren't reviews supposed to be a way to gauge whether or not I might like a book?

10: Could you explain how spoiler flags would alter the entire review system, and how they would bring about so much pain and grief?

Edited to add post reference.

I feel uncomfortable posting specific examples, mostly because I don't want to call people out for something that the LT community doesn't have any consensus on. That said, in reading over some reviews for my books, I have found what I would consider pretty major spoilers. I'm not sure a spoiler flagging system would be any more effective than the not a review flagging system, but I would like to be able to read reviews of something I haven't read without the ending being totally spelled out for me.

>13 _Zoe_: Okay, off the top of my head, there's an active thread encouraging reviews. Amongst other things Tim threw out:

http://www.librarything.com/talktopic.php?topic=36260

Post #6

My ideas:

*Review of the day. Yeah, I just made this idea up! ;)
*A review widget
*Request-a-review feature, for when people have a good, but nobody's reviewed it

All good?


If we have to ask the LT staff (which was the way it was suggested by you) also account for blandest review ever lest we have anyone complain that a Review of the Day turned out to be one big fat spoiler...what's the point?

The other obvious one?

Let's talk about how big the argument for the, "oh yes it is!" flag implementation. That was much grief and this was just getting people to agree that flagging "was a long book," may or may not constitute a review. There are still those thoroughly insulted that there's no reason given for TOS Violations on the red-flag reviews.

So now what, do we have a "no these are not spoilers, you're just too sensitive!" flags to counter the "oh, no, you spoiled the book in your review!" flags (and are these purple and grey flags?).

Yeah, flagging's never thoroughly upset anyone...

>14 Jthierer:, I'm sorry, but if there are examples, there are examples. Otherwise they might as well be unicorns.

Well, every time this subject has come up, I've made my opinion known. If you want to read reviews and not be spoiled, I'd suggest accepting the fact that you'll need to grow thicker spoiler skin - really, the major plot points aren't it - it's how you get there.

I'm outie...

9: I do have compassion. In my estimation, my reviews don't have spoilers--but I'm sure you could find people around here who would disagree. Whenever I have posted something spoilerish in a Talk thread I've put in a nice big warning. But I've heard people complaining about tags being spoilers--"twins" in one case and "unreliable narrator" in another. Should we be flagging these two so they don't show up in a tag cloud? Some people are terrified of knowing ANYTHING about a book in advance, and they are better off avoiding the entire work page.

And the reason I don't think flags are a solution is that (a) someone will have to be spoiled in order to flag it and (b) LT has such an enormous long tail that I don't think it will help that much. If you give a flagging threshold, even if it's based on copies owned, I think there still just won't be enough people flagging spoilers on unpopular books.

If we have to ask the LT staff (which was the way it was suggested by you) also account for blandest review ever lest we have anyone complain that a Review of the Day turned out to be one big fat spoiler...what's the point?

This makes no sense. I'm not sure what you're saying I suggested, but I never said that the Review of the Day shouldn't be a spoiler. I'd just like to see a little count in the corner of how many people considered it a spoiler, so I could judge for myself whether to read it.

There are still those thoroughly insulted that there's no reason given for TOS Violations on the red-flag reviews.

Who? As far as I can tell, the debate about blue and red flags is over; I don't remember seeing anyone complain about it since the green flags were added.

Lots of changes to the site bring temporary anger or frustration; you yourself have complained about overreactions before. Usually, minor adjustments are made and it settles down. Maybe my question should have been more precisely worded: where is the lasting pain and grief?

And the reason I don't think flags are a solution is that (a) someone will have to be spoiled in order to flag it and (b) LT has such an enormous long tail that I don't think it will help that much.

I don't think (a) is necessarily the case; I usually read reviews of books that I've just finished. As for (b), I'm more concerned about spoilers for popular books. There are already so many fiction books that I want to read that I don't tend to seek out really obscure ones, and spoilers don't matter for non-fiction.

One person's spoiler is another person's ... (what? I wish I knew).

One of the first books I entered was a young adult book, "Speak" by Laurie Anderson. There is only one mystery in the whole book - why the protagonist is being shunned. That she was raped over the preceding summer is revealed about 2/3 of the way. I think a review that reveals that is a "spoiler" no matter how you cut it.

*** WARNING: WAS A SPOILER, NOW TONED DOWN ******
One of the "reviews" of this book was one sentence: "This book is about an event XXX in a girl's life and how it affects her first year in high school..." and the event XXX is described, so the author's intent is subverted - I am paraphrasing.
*** YOU CAN OPEN YOUR EYES NOW ******

The reason I said that people may need to be helped to understand what a spoiler is, is that Speak, being a children's book will be reviewed by people whose sense of what is appropriate in a review is still developing. FWIW, my idea of what is appropriate in a review is still developing.

Obviously there can be many levels of spoilers and the subject of how to fine-tune it can be up for debate. Having a thousand-or-more levels is not realistic; trying to be all things to all people is not realistic. Having one level is a partial concession.

Having zero levels is self-abuse -- I will refuse to write or read any reviews if that is the case. Then LibraryThing becomes MERELY an online catalog of my library that I can set up for a small sum and it may be worth it to me personally for that purpose, but note that I said MERELY.

That would be unfortunate.

There are community alternatives to a flag -- e.g., a double flag that provides a vote count of people who are interested enough to vote that a review IS or IS NOT a spoiler. A user can set a personal profile parameter that says -- "I consider a review a spoiler if it has more than 10% spoiler votes".

The problem with the vote count is that it can be expensive to implement if you want to prevent double voting. Alternatively, you can make either spoiler vote a little painful by putting a bump-in-the-process (password or other time wasting exercise). This is all purely mechanical.

I think that 95% of the time, people will not write spoilers. But as more and more books are entered and more and more reviews are written, that 5% will start to taint the process of reading reviews. The problem is that the necessary quality-control parameter for spoilers will be something like .000001 percent (7 or 8 sigma) assuming that there are about 10 billion books out there with an average of 10 reviews each!

Let me state this if it isn't obvious -- it is possible to design a spoiler control mechanism that will NOT affect people who don't care -- they can ignore a flag, they can write reviews and let other people flag their review as a "spoiler", and so on -- precisely because they DON'T CARE.

Or is it really the case that they are asserting their right to be in-my-face with their reviews?

they can write reviews and let other people flag their review as a "spoiler", and so on -- precisely because they DON'T CARE.

You say "let" other people flag their review as if they would have a choice. Now, if that's the case, if I can opt out of your "spoiler flag" system, fine. Go for it. I won't flag anyone, and no one can flag me. That works.

But I don't think that's what you mean!

The problem with the vote count is that it can be expensive to implement if you want to prevent double voting.

This already exists. Any place we can thumbs-up or flag, we can only do it once.

19 lilithcat

Why does that matter? Why are you so adamant that nobody else's opinion touch you, even when it doesn't effect you? If you don't flag anyone, and you never look at the flags, then why do they matter to you?

>18 kameshaiyer: I'm absolutely appalled. I just can't believe that after starting this whole thread you would be so inconsiderate as to post an unmarked spoiler in a Talk post. To borrow your own phrasing, are you being intentionally obtuse? It's one thing for people to avoid reviews of books they haven't read and threads specifically about those books, but what are we supposed to do about spoilers in general discussions? I know someone was asking for examples of spoilers, but the courteous thing would have been to preface it with something like "An example of a spoiler review is...".

if I can opt out of your "spoiler flag" system, fine. Go for it. I won't flag anyone, and no one can flag me.

But what if you could opt out of it in the sense that you couldn't see any of the spoiler flags, whether they had been applied to your reviews or others'?

With the current flag system, after a certain number of flags the (post/review/whatever) disappears. That would be very annoying to people who don't consider such stuff spoilers. (including me)

Now, what kameshaiyer was suggesting was a profile option that notices spoiler votes and makes reviews flagged 'spoiler' disappear for those people who set the option. That's exactly what lilithcat is asking for - a flag system that is completely transparent to those who don't care, while protecting those who do.

I don't know how hard it would be to program, but kameshaiyer's idea sounds great to me! I wouldn't set the option - I suspect some of my reviews would get flagged, but I'd never notice, nor lose (someone else's) review because someone(s) thought it was a spoiler.

> 21

You cannot avoid seeing the flags. It's not a matter of "looking" at them. They are there, visible, whether one "looks" or not.

But, of course, you misread my post. I was responding to the implicit suggestion in #18 that one could "let" others flag their reviews, when obviously that was not the intent of the poster.

>24 lilithcat: But you're avoiding the issue by responding only to the messages that don't attempt to address your concerns.

Again, I'll ask: what if you could avoid seeing the flags?

25: I'm obviously not lilithcat, but I'd like to answer just the same. If I could avoid seeing the spoiler flags and/or avoid having "spoiler" reviewers changed (dropped down on the list, etc), that would be great.

However, I would still want to see if anyone has marked any of my reviews as spoilers.... And here we get into the same argument that stephmo and others have put forth. WHAT can you flag as a spoiler? I have many spoilers in my reviews, but I put spoiler warnings before them. Does that mean that they can't be flagged, because I've warned you, or can they still be flagged because they are still spoilers?

What happens when someone flags a review about a war book because it says that such-and-such country was fighting against such-and-such? That shouldn't be a spoiler, but it's something I could see happening.

I wouldn't mind spoiler flags if there was a VERY clear definition of what could be flagged, AND an enforcement where people could be penalized/talked to/whatever for inappropriate flagging. ....... But that is a lot to ask.

I wouldn't mind spoiler flags if there was a VERY clear definition of what could be flagged

I think this is exactly what we can't have, though. We'd only be able to determine "more spoilerish" and "less-spoilerish", but I'd still find that valuable.

> 26

What happens when someone flags a review about a war book because it says that such-and-such country was fighting against such-and-such? That shouldn't be a spoiler, but it's something I could see happening.

Actually, it was a comment like that (on a forum on another site) that made me throw up my hands and decide the "don't post spoilers" situation was getting ridiculous. Someone actually complained that a statement of historical fact was a spoiler.

Opting out of spoilers would be like opting out of certain adult content on some sites. One could elect to opt out and miss a good review. I suppose an opt out check list could be added to our profile page.

I try not to use spoilers even though at times they would do a lot to improve the review. Of course I'm one of those people who gets frustrated with a story and reads ahead. I then go back where I left off, pefectly content to read on knowing what will happen.

I agree, why start a thread with a comment on the unmarked use of spoilers and then include one in a comment.

>10 stephmo:: There are so many examples of spoilers that I'm surprised you haven't seen one. Just to give an example, there was one on the works page for Gentlemen and Players by Joanne Harris that completely revealed the ending without warning -- but that review now seems to be gone. I'm not concerned about nonfiction, just about novels, especially mysteries.

Actually, it was a comment like that (on a forum on another site) that made me throw up my hands and decide the "don't post spoilers" situation was getting ridiculous. Someone actually complained that a statement of historical fact was a spoiler.

Yes, we know you consider the issue hopeless and don't care much about spoilers. The question is, can something be done for the people who do care about the issue without disturbing you?

It's usually possible to find a compromise solution, but it's difficult when the people who are satisfied with the status quo refuse to participate constructively in the discussion.

Hmm...
responding to #18... _Zoe_:

I did think about the logic of my copying a spoiler and not marking it but let it go because the spoiler was already published and available. But I did not think through all the ramifications, in particular, that even if the original got tagged as a spoiler by a future edit or system feature, this one would most likely not be. So, I'm sorry.

Also, I can't figure out how all of you are able to include message fragments as italicized lines -- my browser does not seem to support any such capability.

Also, I can't figure out how all of you are able to include message fragments as italicized lines -- my browser does not seem to support any such capability.

I cut and pasted the line between the HTML italics markers. Here's a quick guide to HTML; the page is already set up for you.

Robert

32> You can go back now and edit that post to add a spoiler warning.

ETA: It would be nice though to add an ETA (Edited To Add) to say that's what you did, to avoid confusing people who read the whole thread later.

and the point is I read #18 without even thinking it was a spoiler. I've not read the book in question, but it sounds like just the vital sort of information that should be in a review. Many people may not want to read books where girls get raped, and including this information in the review allows them to avoid it.

I tend to restrict my reviews to plot points that occur in the first half -2/3rd of the book, but I'm sure some people would flag some of them as containign spoilers, and I'd be aggrieved at recieving the flags.

If you could make it a transparent flagging system, I wouldn't mind.

#35, I'd be annoyed at the revelation of any major plot point in a review. Reviews aren't supposed to be summaries. I actually suspect this is where part of the disconnect comes in; some people see "spoiler" and think only of spoiling the ending, while others think of spoiling the plot. Certainly plot isn't the only reason for reading a book, but it is an important one for some people, and revelation of major plot events, whether it's halfway through the book or two-thirds or on the last page, can also affect a reader's understanding of character development. It's easy enough to talk about the shape of a book and what you liked or disliked about it without talking about plot specifics.

The best example I can think of is Use of Weapons by Iain Banks. There's a major, book-changing plot revelation partway through; I don't remember if it's past your 2/3 cutoff or not, but it's clearly the key point of the book. Revealing that in a review would be a HUGE character development spoiler. I just checked, and fortunately none of the reviews spoil this.

> 36

Reviews aren't supposed to be summaries.

They should not be merely summaries, but they should contain some description of the plot! I cannot stand those awful blurbs on the back of books that don't tell you one single thing about the plot.

Sure, major plot points ought, perhaps, not to be disclosed (though this is not an absolute, in my view), but how the heck do you talk about Anna Karenina without mentioning adultery? I want a review that tells me enough about the book so that I can decide whether or not I want to read it. And that includes information about the plot.

(P.S. Most of my books are rectangular, though I do have one that is round.)

Generally, I try to keep to the first half though don't always, for things going on in the book, and I try to avoid anything that surprised me or I found important at the point it is reveled.

But for this to really work with spoiler flags, there has to be some kind of relativeness associated to the flags. Some mix of # of copies/# of reviews/# of thumbs. 3 spoilers on a single review of a book with 20 copies is more significant the 3 on a review for HP and the Deathly Hallows. Maybe just being able to sort by the flags would be enough here.

And then on top of everything, to keep the other half happy, it would have to be able to be 'invisible' to those who for what ever reason don't want to see this at what ever level.

There's no way to determine if a review is a spoiler for any one individual. I have friends who are both sensitive about spoilers and really good at the kind of reasoning it takes to see spoilers. For them, even mentioning what character is in a book may constitute a spoiler. When a book comes out that they don't want spoiled, they go off the internet completely and warn their email correspondents, it's the only way for them to avoid spoilers.

I think the compromise solution is to give people a way to block reviews from the site entirely, an option from the profile or something. That way, if someone wants to see reviews for a particular time period or a particular book, they can toggle reviews on and off knowing that they may come across spoilers and accepting that risk, and go back to their personal default of no reviews when they've scratched their curiosity itch. Those who don't care won't be affected and no individual's reviews will be singled out as having spoilers or not. It also spares us arguments over how many flags does it take to get to the middle of a tootsie-pop.

But for this to really work with spoiler flags, there has to be some kind of relativeness associated to the flags. Some mix of # of copies/# of reviews/# of thumbs. 3 spoilers on a single review of a book with 20 copies is more significant the 3 on a review for HP and the Deathly Hallows. Maybe just being able to sort by the flags would be enough here.

I'd be happy just being able to see the number of spoiler flags; I could decide for myself how many flags I considered significant, based on the number of copies and the date of the review. While some people might find it easier to have an absolute spoiler number calculated based on various factors, I think it would complicate things too much for the feature ever to be implemented. Adding the "invisible" option is enough complication to start with.

>39 mvrdrk: The thing is, I want to be able to look at reviews. I'm not accidentally reading reviews while trying to see something else.

37>

Not having read Anna Karenina, I'd probably think of that as being more of a "plot-shape" or "thematic" issue rather than a detail of the plot.

Most of my reviews are of non-fiction, admittedly, but I'd like to think the reviews of fiction are useful while not revealing plot details. (I'd be interested in what you think about that -- are they annoyingly vague in your opinion?) There is one case where I give what some people might consider a spoiler (I say a particular book has a deus ex machina ending, though I don't say what it actually entails), but that's in the context of warning people away from the book so I think it's justified.

Edited to add: We both reviewed Haroun and the Sea of Stories, for instance. I don't think yours gives away too much; do you think mine is too vague?

>40 _Zoe_: Yes, I know. But this argument has been going on for a long time and I have yet to see a solution that satisfies everyone's sensitivities. This issue is going to come up over and over again, even with spoiler flag ratings. The only way to protect everyone is to be able to turn them all off.

Besides, how are you going to teach people what the numbers mean? Will they learn it before they read too many spoilers or will they have to go out and deliberately read spoilers and compare them to the flag numbers in order to get a feel for how many flags are too many for their tastes? What about reviews that haven't been flagged, does that mean it contains no spoilers or that no one's read the review?

I'm not opposed to spoiler warning mechanisms, I just haven't seen what I would consider a really workable proposal.

Aren't there really two different kinds of reviews for two different audiences? You might read a review to decide if you want to read the book and in that case you don't want spoilers (whatever that means to you). But you might also want to read a review after you read the book and see what someone else thought of all the twists and turns of a plot. That would be the kind of book review you write for a school assignment I suppose.

Might it be a solution to allow people to mark their reviews for their intended audience, either people who have or who have not read the book already?

>42 mvrdrk: There's never going to be a perfect solution, but that doesn't mean the status quo is as good as it gets. Currently, there are lots of reviews that I'd be happy to read but don't out of fear of spoilers. With some sort of flagging system, there would still be plenty of reviews that I'd unnecessarily avoid from fear of spoilers (for example, ones written very recently), but fewer than before.

The thing about turning all reviews off is that we can pretty much do that already, just by not looking at them; we don't need a feature to do that. Likewise, people would be sufficiently "protected" by not coming to LT at all. The goal, though, is to protect people while still letting them use the site fully.

As for learning what the numbers mean, if we could sort by number of flags then people could start with the reviews that were considered least spoilerish and read until they started getting uncomfortable with the level of detail. Again, it would be necessary to avoid the most recently-written reviews too, but I trust that people could figure it out. Ideally there would be some combined sort that took into account both flags and date, but for now I think any unnecessary complications would be bad.

Might it be a solution to allow people to mark their reviews for their intended audience, either people who have or who have not read the book already?

I don't think that would be a complete solution, but it would probably help.

Would anyone pardon a case study on the spoiler provided in this very thread?

Okay, in post 18 the OP mentions that a spoiler was posted for the book Speak, mainly the potential spoiler (coming right up skip to the next paragraph right now if you don't want to read it) that the main character is sexually assaulted. Putting aside for now that the original poster seems a little confused about how the mystery of the book plays out, let us examine this little piece of spoilery information and why it shouldn't matter in the least.

Firstly, the publisher's weekly copy has the same "spoiler." I'm fairly certain that the "spoiler" in the movie is shown more or less in chronological order, placing it at the beginning of the story. (I may be wrong about this, but I've seen the movie a couple of times and am fairly certain the "spoiler" is revealed fairly quickly.) Even if I'm wrong about that, again the Amazon.com product description of the DVD contains the same "spoiler."

Leaving all that aside, the same spoiler appears in the tag cloud (as one of the most prominent tags, I might add) and in the frickin' LOC subject headings.

Now, why does this not matter in the least? Because it's hardly the point of the book as our OP suggested it was and it should be spoiled. That's right. It should be spoiled. Because rape can be a trigger for others who have experienced sexual abuse. And I firmly believe that no one should have to walk in blind to that sort of potential psychological situation because everyone else has been poked and prodded by the spoiler police. Much as I would be pissed if I read review that glossed over serious animal abuse (I have a hard time dealing with that) or self-injury because that's a trigger to me and could actually result in harm to myself.

However, there are still times when I don't want to know certain plot points. For example, I really didn't want to know what happened in the last Harry Potter book so I avoided reading anything about it until I was done. And this is mostly what I think should be done if you are so thin-skinned as to think the above was a real spoiler. Don't read reviews. Don't read blurbs or back copy. In fact, you better run in grab your books and open to the first page as fast as possible, while wearing ear plugs, of course, in case someone should recognize the book and ask you if you've gotten to the point where that one character dies.

I will accept exactly one spoiler prevention method without getting really, really pissed at all the anti-spoiler sentiment. A small notice, like the OP originally suggested that says, simply: "Please remember that some readers dislike the exposing of plot information in reviews. You may wish to ruin the flow and readability of your review by including a spoiler warning."*

Because even if you succeed and get your flag system, are you going to demand that the LOC develop a system for flagging subject headings?

*And maybe if you promise never to complain about spoilers ever again, I will consider the removal of the flow and readability.

> 39

For them, even mentioning what character is in a book may constitute a spoiler.

Seriously? How is someone supposed to write a review and not mention the characters?? "This is the story of . . . 's life and loves, from his or her birth in the town of . . ., through his or her career as a . . . and how meeting . . . changes his or her life." Kind of pointless, no? Of course, the fact that I've mentioned that this unknown character was born and had a career would probably be considered "spoilerish".

> 41

Edited to add: We both reviewed Haroun and the Sea of Stories, for instance. I don't think yours gives away too much; do you think mine is too vague?

No, I don't think yours is too vague.

But something like this ("A truly great read. The symbolism is great. The books combines the artistical elements of great literature with a kid friendly plot. Perfect for any Harry Potter buffs.") or this ("While this is technically a kids book, really it's a wonderful story for people of all ages. This is the book I reach for when I'm feeling stressed or upset. It's comforting, funny, and sweet.") is.

48>

I think we're in resounding agreement, then. We're just operating from slightly different definitions of "plot".

Possible spoilers for Speak.
I haven't read the book, so I can't judge whether knowing this information is actually a spoiler or not.

It should be spoiled. Because rape can be a trigger for others who have experienced sexual abuse. And I firmly believe that no one should have to walk in blind to that sort of potential psychological situation because everyone else has been poked and prodded by the spoiler police.

But by that logic, anyone concerned about these triggers needs to read in advance a point-by-point description of the plot that gives far greater detail than most reviews, because rape could still occur prominently in a book without being such a key part of the story that a reviewer would think to mention it.

You mock people who try to avoid spoilers for over-reacting, but you think allowing spoiler flags would mean that "spoiler police" had taken over and there would be no more spoilers anywhere on the site (or elsewhere on the web, for that matter), leading you to accidentally read about animal abuse and hurt yourself?

For example, I really didn't want to know what happened in the last Harry Potter book so I avoided reading anything about it until I was done.... Don't read reviews. Don't read blurbs or back copy. In fact, you better run in grab your books and open to the first page as fast as possible, while wearing ear plugs, of course

Oh, brilliant. From this point on in my life, I'll only read books that are the continuation of series I've already started. Then I won't have to worry about reviews or blurbs anymore.

For them, even mentioning what character is in a book may constitute a spoiler.

Seriously? How is someone supposed to write a review and not mention the characters??

The key word there was "may". I imagine that this largely applies to continuations of series. "The daughter of A and B" might well be a spoiler.

Also, the post you were responding to said that those people had an unusual knack for figuring out what was going to happen and took appropriate measures to prevent being spoiled. There was no suggestion that anyone should avoid naming the characters in a review.

Re 46: Firstly, the publisher's weekly copy has the same "spoiler." I'm fairly certain that the "spoiler" in the movie is shown more or less in chronological order, placing it at the beginning of the story. (I may be wrong about this, but I've seen the movie a couple of times and am fairly certain the "spoiler" is revealed fairly quickly.) Even if I'm wrong about that, again the Amazon.com product description of the DVD contains the same "spoiler."


Make that one vote for my ignorance -- I purchased a "Platinum Edition" of Speak that does not mention that there was a movie, has a new foreword, has blurbs that don't mention anything, and so on. "twomoredays" is certainly right that this particular example comes with spoilers in many other settings.

So what's a reader and reviewer to do?

I am not looking for anything complex. An AI program that performed a semantic analysis of every review and tagged every sentence with a spoiler potential would be a little too much.

I would prefer mechanisms that are reader-driven. I don't want to restrict reviewers if possible. But if no reader-driven alternative is possible, I would like responsible reviewers to include a spoiler warning and LT can help that with a note on the Write A Review page. I don't want to make things more complicated for reviewers than that.

I don't want to add work to the LT implementors, so having a moderator is not a solution.

A reader-driven mechanism that functions at a very low level would be excessive -- You can't vote on each sentence or phrase in a review. Even voting on paragraphs is too much. You could have a vote on ALL the reviews as a unit, but this seems to be too chunky. The only meaningful grain for voting is the individual review.

There are likely to be irreconciliable differences between readers as to what a spoiler is and how bad it is. One reader cannot decode what another reader might mean by a 50% spoiler or a "major spoiler". So, LT should not get into making those value judgments. It seems to me that a simple yes/no voting mechanism should suffice. If LT decides they want to let this be a 5 point scale or a 10 point scale, they can, but I don't believe it will add much more value than a yes/no scale.

Readers will fall into three categories -- yes, no, or did-not-vote. Only yes/no votes need to be counted (LT could probably track how many visitors each review page has had since it was set up, but I don't know what meaning could be associated to that). If a particular review attracts more than a small number of yes/no votes, it may suggest that there is something unusual about that review (and a reader may want to be careful about reading it). If the yes/no vote ratio for a review is greater than some reader-profile-specific number, that review does not automatically show up for that reader. These would all be reader-driven mechanisms.

Now, a number of reader-driven mechanisms are going to piss-off some reviewers who think they have a right to be read. For instance, one result of a number of readers flagging a review as a spoiler might be that the review goes to a separate page for certain readers (who don't want to see spoilers). Some reviewers might get upset at that. It might feel like censorship. I am not sure that such a mechanism cannot be misused by a clique of readers out to get some reviewer. But, there is little evidence that something like that is about to happen, though I can imagne it.

However, if you look at fiction reviews, you see some level of spoilers all over the place. I don't need to imagine it.

Ultimately, the system can only be improved if there is a feedback mechanism from readers to reviewers that can moderate what reviewers write. It doesn't work if the only mechanism for readers to provide feedback is to STOP reading reviews. That's not feedback that's burial or cremation.

Radical statement:
From a policy standpoint, LT ought to be more interested in creating a viable feedback mechanism, and less interested in reviewers right to write anything they please.

> 51

From a policy standpoint, LT ought to be more interested in creating a viable feedback mechanism, and less interested in reviewers right to write anything they please.

Quite frankly, a good part of this problem is the result of the disconnect between the original status of reviews, which was as a field that appeared only in one's own catalogue, and the current status, which places those same reviews on other areas of the site. Many people continue to write reviews of their books solely for their own use, and simply do not know, care, or consider that others may view them elsewhere.

Not every LTer writes reviews and not every LT review is a review. LT reviews are written by a broad range of readers, most of whom are not writers. As I read the comments in this thread, I thought about the reviews I have written and those submitted by others. This caused me to hunt up the rules/guidelines for LT reviews.

http://www.librarything.com/wiki/index.php/Review

Now, I have NEVER flagged a review and from reading what is out there, I am not alone. According to what constitutes a review, many should be flagged. I imagine it is the free flow and sense of family invoked by LT overall that keeps us from judging or reprimanding another member. It’s obvious throughout the various threads that no matter how heated the discussion or sensitive the topic LTers are the cream of the crop. Whether the member is like one reading philosophical Greek and Latin literature, or me (in a historical romance/crafts period) mutual respect is evident.

That said; I don’t see much flagging occurring based on the many reviews not flagged now. Will members flag spoilers? If spoilers are a major problem for some members the suggestion by >Message 39: mvrdrk would be the best option and more than likely easy to program. Although some could consider the descriptions to include spoilers.

From a policy standpoint, LT ought to be more interested in creating a viable feedback mechanism, and less interested in reviewers right to write anything they please.

I call shenanigans on that. It's LONG been stressed that our data in our catalogs is ours, and we can enter it it however we please. Although our reviews show up on public pages (as do our tags, etc.), they're still ours, and we do have a right to write our review exactly how we please (within the blue-flagging limits, of course).

Spoiler warnings are not mandatory; they're an issue of politeness and consideration for other people. LT can encourage politeness, it can create systems to foster politeness (or to allow people to protect themselves from rudeness), but it can't enforce politeness.

Not every LTer writes reviews and not every LT review is a review

The first part is obviously true.

The second? True, but unfortunate, and exactly what the blue flag was designed for.

Yes! The suggestion of a note on the 'write-a-review' page is fine - but I've literally never been to that page, so I would never have seen it. I write reviews either in the book edit page or (by double-clicking) in my catalog.

And I have reviews that are probably spoilers and ones that are probably too vague (very much along the lines of what lilithcat was objecting to in msg 48). I'm writing my reviews for me - to remind me what about this book was good or bad or (un)interesting.

I do occasionally read others' reviews, generally either from the book page or from 'other people's reviews of your books'. I've found both vague and spoilerish reviews to be valuable - though I admit I'm not very sensitive to spoilers. As stephmo said way back in msg 6 - what makes a story is how you get to the reveal, not what it is (ok, there are some where that makes the whole story, but they must not be very good if you have to be surprised to enjoy it!). If that weren't true, no one could ever reread a book.

Quite frankly, a good part of this problem is the result of the disconnect between the original status of reviews, which was as a field that appeared only in one's own catalogue, and the current status, which places those same reviews on other areas of the site.

This is partially why I've always favoured a flagging system over something like what jjwilson61 suggests in 43. I don't think the reviewer should be required to change anything in his own catalogue.

Ultimately, the system can only be improved if there is a feedback mechanism from readers to reviewers that can moderate what reviewers write.

I don't think this is the case at all. Rather than "improving" individual reviews, we just need a better way of matching readers to the sort of reviews they want to read. I wouldn't care if a book had a thousand reviews that I considered terrible and only ten that I considered good if the site could find those ten and show them to me.

>53 muzzie: muzzie - FYI, I wrote the bulk of that wiki page, so please don't take it as any kind of "official" LT policy about what is or isn't a review. I was just trying to capture what little consensus I could after reading about a bazillion "what is a review?" threads with about a gazillion "no summary!/some summary!/all summary!" back-and-forths, about the time the blue flags debuted.

About the only "official" word I remember seeing is that it's not okay to copy other people's reviews (red flag), and that your review should say something about the book's contents, so that "Terrible." counts as a review but "Read this on vacation." doesn't (blue flag).

> 56

And I have reviews that are probably spoilers and ones that are probably too vague (very much along the lines of what lilithcat was objecting to in msg 48).

Just so it's clear, I'm not suggesting that "vague" reviews aren't reviews, or that they should be removed or flagged, just that I personally find them not particularly useful. I'm sure the folks that wrote them found them useful, and, as #54 points out, that's enough.

>50 _Zoe_: - Here's my (hopefully) more cool-headed approach

"Oh, brilliant. From this point on in my life, I'll only read books that are the continuation of series I've already started. Then I won't have to worry about reviews or blurbs anymore."

This is exactly my point. If one wants to avoid spoilers entirely and doesn't wish to engage in random reading, that's pretty much your remaining option. I don't think this is ideal, I just feel that spoilers are a part of being engaged in a literary community. If you really want to be restrictive about spoilers, LT reviews are just the beginning of your plight.

You mock people who try to avoid spoilers for over-reacting, but you think allowing spoiler flags would mean that "spoiler police" had taken over and there would be no more spoilers anywhere on the site (or elsewhere on the web, for that matter), leading you to accidentally read about animal abuse and hurt yourself?

Ok, you have a point. I was mostly trying to point out that there is this assumption that plot points, minor or major, serve no purpose in a review. Certainly, I'm not going to fault a reviewer for leaving out that there was animal abuse or triggers in a book. (Especially since it's going to be a small community that even knows what some of those triggers may be. I will admit I was purposely using an extreme example that's probably just the other end of the spoiler spectrum.)

I just hate it when features on a sight seem to be causing users to create less than excellent content. I just feel like by adding a "spoiler flag" we're just creating more restrictions on reviewers and that discourages reviews, which I very much want to see more and more of on LT. I also want better reviews, not just more and I have a hard time believing that a review that has "***OMG SPOILER COMING UP***" stuck in the middle of it is really the best review. Of course, neither is a precis of the work.

Even more than the spoiler discouraging notice, why not have a link to a review writing tutorial that explains what a really good review entails? Which in my opinion is rarely spoilers and certainly is not spoilers that break the flow of the review by requiring flags.

It's never going to be perfect. We're probably never going to find the perfect middle ground that completely satisfies both you and me, but I certainly don't want the compromise to result in a compromise in the quality of LT as a source for book information.

Out of curiosity, Zoe, Where do you read most of your book reviews now?

Would a "suitable for the spoiler-sensitive" marker trigger less opposition? I can quite see that people might very reasonably object to having their reviews marked in what they might perceive as a negative way, but this is the opposite.

Those who were spoiler sensitive, after they had finished reading a book, could read the reviews and mark those reviews that are suitable for spoiler-avoiders, and spoiler avoiders could potentially have a setting to only read reviews marked as such, while the rest of us could read the whole page. This would effectively make the default state of a review "may possibly contain spoilers", and would not impose on review writers in the way a "don't write spoilers" policy or advice would do.

(Personally, I usually read the last few pages of a book first, so I know where the story is heading, and who is still alive at the end...)

What I would like to know is why anyone would think that a spoiler flag would in any way restrict the reviewer? A spoiler flag is just a sign post to those reading that things they may not want to know could be reveled. Some people want that, some don't, I like that AFTER I've read the book but certainly not BEFORE. So I would still read them, but the when would be different.

Here's another possibility. a rating system of 1-5 (or 10) the people can rate a review as spoilerish. then Average the numbers of all who have rated it. a '1' could be so little information to be worthless on plot and 5 whodunit and how.

Personally I don't care one way or the other about this particular feature, but I find it a fun exercise trying to come up with reasonable useful ways to make %80 happy.

You know, I'm curious.

Has anyone ever demanded that the New York Review of Books or the Times Literary Supplement or any other respected book review journal include spoiler warnings? Or do people who are "spoiler-sensitive" simply assume that they may encounter spoilers and not read reviews of books that they might want to read?

And, if the latter, why do people have different expectations of reviews on this site?

>62 readafew: While not actually limiting what the reviewer can write, it's applying a sort of penalty to the reviewer for including what someone may think of as spoilers. I don't really believe that to be in the interest of making LT better.

>63 lilithcat: That's exactly what I'm curious about, too, lilithcat.

63 > IMO - The major difference is this is community based information area. there is nothing preventing a mystery buff from putting in 'Whodunit' in every one of their reviews just so they can remember later. If I discover someone doing this it would be nice of me to warn others of this. Without a flag the reviewer will quit possibly get nasty notes, with a flag they don't have to care and others can easily avoid it or on the flip side seek them out.

I actually see nothing wrong with that information in a review IF there is a way to mark them as such for others to avoid.

64 > why is it a penalty? That is what I don't understand. does 'spoiler' have a negative connotation, that the reviewer is being a 'jerk' for writing about a piece of info?

44> I'm not suggesting that status quo is as good as it gets. Nor am I implying that something shouldn't be done.

>60 twomoredays: I generally read the editorial reviews and top few customer reviews on Amazon. I'm actually not one of those crazy avoid-all-possible-spoilers people :). I find LT reviews too unpredictable, though. I think that may partially stem from the fact that people seem to be pretty grudging with thumbs, so it's not always possible to sort them very usefully. Either that, or people just aren't reading the reviews. (Straying entirely from the topic now, I really hope we can one day sort by affinity.)

Back to spoilers, I also dislike ugly spoiler warnings, but I think it would still be reasonable to say, in normal text, "You may not want to read beyond this point if you haven't read the book yet." I think most people do this anyway, but it's frustrating when they don't.

I wonder whether a lot of the problem just comes from the term "spoiler flag". What if it were called a plot-details marker? I certainly don't want to discourage people from writing reviews either, but at the same time, I'd like to feel comfortable looking at them.

I like the idea of a review writing tutorial.

I got distracted in the middle of writing my last post and hadn't read beyond 60 at that time. I love the idea of having a "suitable for the spoiler-sensitive" marker instead. It would serve the same purpose, but in a positive way.

63 lilithcat

I have certainly heard people - including authors - talk about spoilers they wish hadn't been included in reviews in publications like that. I've seen authors warn their readers about spoilers, when linking to those reviews.

64 twomoredays

I agree with readafew, how is it a penalty?

>57 _Zoe_: You bring up a new idea for solving this. What if there were a way to favorite reviewers, so you could see new reviews by those reviewers or float them to the top? It might mitigate the problem, especially if reviewers tend to the same type of review style across books. Doesn't help if a reviewer's style is all over the place ...

> 47 I can't tell you. I'm one of those people who reads a book the 2nd time and is still thrilled and surprised by what happens in it. I only know that some people can derive spoilers from the weirdest, random information and it can really ruin their desire to read a book.

>64 twomoredays: At the very least, it's a psychic penalty. Especially if we're talking about a "flag system" which is going to be associated (if not out right confused) with the traditional "not a review"/TOS violation flags. Especially if let's say a spoiler-extreme type goes around flagging reviews for character names, locations, the most generic plot details.

I'm going to feel penalized if I write a well-written review that reveals no more than the average back cover of back and someone slaps a "spoiler" flag on it. It's hard for me to view that NOT as someone marking a review as somehow inappropriate or deficient. I'm all for constructive criticism and would welcome someone suggesting an improvement but marking a review I write as generally spoilery without (I'm assuming) any further explanation.

it is only a psychic penalty if you let it. but beyond that, since you are obviously not alone with this view, using the rating system I suggested 1-5 (or 10) where having a rating of 3 would be expected to be normal, 5 major spoilage, 1 opinion only? You could even start by rating it yourself where you think it should be. We could even call it a 'Plot Rating' or something.

>74 readafew:

What about just a checkbox that the reviewer can check for "This review contains spoilers" and an option to ignore such reviews and a show link (like those for flagged posts) so one can read a review even if you have that option turned on.

Then it's up to the reviewer and there is no "penalty". Would this solve at least a few complaints?

Message 58: fyrefly98
See: rules/guidelines. It should have read guidelines/rule.

Thanks for taking the time to write the page. The free flow on LT is great and I hesitate more than I should about flagging. Many problems with reviews occur when a review is used instead of a tag or note in a comment section. Should one just flag those or would one of the friendly notes be appropriate?

twomoredays

I agree with you on post #73 and #75

I will read and enjoy a book several times but understand others feel differently.

where the disconnect is, is if as a reviewer you know it has spoilers it is just as easy to write in "this has spoilers" as it is to click a check box, AND you are assuming that everyone will who writes reviews will consider this (not to mention the differences in what a spoiler entails).

Part of what I am reading here is people are not wanting judgments from others about what they have written for those others to read. we already have thumbs. The thumbs/flags/ratings are to give others the chance to help readers. One of the most powerful things about LT is the power the COMMUNITY brings to the site.

If 10 people rate one review a 3 and another review a 5 it would be fairly obvious that the 5 has more spoilers and it will be much more likely to be accurate than one opinion that might or might not even be expressed.

>77 readafew:
I'm fine with the thumbs. I'm even more fine with Zoe's idea of finding a way to cull the reviews most pleasing to me. However, I find it unlikely that we're going to see personalized review recommendations anytime soon.

I just think adding another thumb system specifically for spoilers unnecessarily complicates everything. How do we display reviews then? With two settings? "Display by spoiler" AND "display by thumbs"? Why is that necessary? I'm assuming that if a review is just chock-full with spoilers that are unnecessary to the review it's going to get voted down. And if that doesn't bother enough people to vote it down than this whole argument is kind of moot, isn't it?

Furthermore, why is "spoiler-sensitivity" such a special consideration that it deserves it's own rating system? What if I want a grammar voting system? I'm sure I'm not the only one who winces at poorly written, rushed reviews. But I would be laughed off the site if I suggested it deserved a separate rating/flag/whatever.

Sure it's easy to just add in, but a checkbox would allow a.)automated sorting out of self-identified "spoiler" reviews and b.)the checkbox would act in a manner similar to the reminder I suggested much earlier, in prompting the reviewer to consider some user's sensitivities to spoilers.

Another advantage it has over a rating system is that no one else has to read the review to mark it as containing spoilers and so no one is initially "spoiled" and there's no real or perceived attacking of the reviewer.

78> I'm assuming that if a review is just chock-full with spoilers that are unnecessary to the review it's going to get voted down.

There is no way to vote a review down, though.

For reviews of highly popular books it is true that simply not getting voted up will result in a review being hidden in a sort-by-thumbs view, but that's not the case for most titles.

"I'm assuming that if a review is just chock-full with spoilers that are unnecessary to the review it's going to get voted down"

This seems to be your biggest hang-up about the entire thing. Even the use of language 'unnecessary' and 'voted down'. this seems to be a fear of a perceived negative feed back, when it can just as easily be a positive step forward. The whole idea of this system (at least the last one I offered) if you stopped to think about it is not a negative oriented idea. It is ALSO not about the REVIEWER it is about the READER. If the readers find it very spoilerish THEY are the ones marking it as such and hence it is NOT 'unnecessary'. The range I suggested would not be pushing it down or up. All of them are still available for reading and the same people who don't want to view the spoilers won't have to. So by being marked as such ONLY the people who already DON'T want to read are not going to read it. Also it is not always a bad thing to be a high spoiler, since there are people who want that exact information. This isn't a good vs. bad rating but a layered view of the reviews allowing people to more easily get to the kind of review that they want.

Just to add, we already have a grammar setting it's called the thumbs. If my grammar sucks I won't get any thumbs.

To reiterate, I don't care if this feature comes into existence or not, what I am trying to do is suggest a way to add a feature that would make the largest number of people happy as possible (if this should come about).

The problem as I understand it is, people are reading reviews they think should have either been marked for spoilers or not had the information in them in the first place.

So, there are 2 options, convince ALL the reviewers to do this to change what they write, how they write or consider all the readers when writing a review. THIS IS NOT GOING TO HAPPEN. There will always be reviews for any number of reasons people will be upset they read.

So what I see is option 2. Which also fits in with the rest of the LT way of doing things. Let the community decide. People can give reviews a plot rating and it is not the responsibility of the reviewer anymore.

80>

Just to add, we already have a grammar setting it's called the thumbs. If my grammar sucks I won't get any thumbs.

And that's one of my main problems with the "positive only" model of the thumbs, right there. There's no way to distinguish between "this review is okay but nothing special" and "this review reads like it was randomly typed by chimps, but it is recognizably a review." (Some people may instead give a thumbs-up to anything written in a coherent version of the language of their choice, and then lose the distinction between "This is a well-written, insightful, and exceptional review" and "This review is mostly correctly spelled". I hardly think that's an improvement.)

LT Lamentations: Woe is me that I have started a thread that will not stop...

Anything that encourages politeness is a goodness. That we can all grok. Guidelines/rules for would be reviewers is definitely a goodness. But in practice, grokfulness is easily missed. The energy that reviewers bring to the system is good too, and we should encourage that. But for precisely that reason, i.e., high energy, reviewers will be uncontrolled to some extent, so we are stuck with it. You can ask for a reviewer to be considerate of a wide range of readers, but you will get whatever you get.

I think the proposal to avoid negative language like "spoilers", and "warnings" is an excellent one. A review that reveals plot details is one that I might enjoy reading in a particular state of mind rather than in another state of mind. So what I need as a reader is not a "warning" but an encouragement to enter the state of mind in which reading about plot details is fun. For instance, I might be anxious about how a story is going to end and it would alleviate anxiety to know that it ends well for the heroine (or hero).

Over time, we might well evolve a psychology of states of mind, or an ontology of plot-exposure, but that is a long time coming and maybe the burden should not be LT, at least not now. But LT could use a simple mechanism.

So we could have a vote counting (not a binary flag) mechanism for "Reveals Plot Details" that is applied to each review and an "Ignorance is Bliss" threshhold for each user.

Well, whatever... I never expected this much response to this request!

83: See what happens when you open a canful of worms around here? lol It never stops!

Much like the blue flag, I don't why I should care if someone else dislike's what I've written as a review for my own benefit. But I found that I did regarding a blue flag and would equally annoyed by a flag that disapproved of some percieved spoilerishness. However I'd have no objection to someone adding a "this is suitable for sensitive people" indicator.

Some rating scale seems overly complex - considering that TIM doesn't even use the existing rating data for anything - I suspect there would never be enough traffic for any but the most popular books to make it worthwhile.

#75 will never work, for the same reason that people don't already include spoiler warnings in the review.

Somewhere in this thread was a suggestion for an option for viewing reviews. Since:

few reviews have spoilers;

those writing reviews with spoilers are not apt to note the fact;

most readers will not flag or otherwise indicate spoilers;

most readers are not bothered by spoilers;

a few readers of reviews do not like spoilers;

why not give those the choice of indicating whether reviews will be visible by a box on the Profile page. I would think this would not be difficult to program and after a period of time the data on the number who chose to opt out could be analyzed and if indicated another system developed.

It’s been a long time since I studied logic in school, but this seems to make sense. However, I might just be sleep deprived.

why not give those the choice of indicating whether reviews will be visible by a box on the Profile page. I would think this would not be difficult to program and after a period of time the data on the number who chose to opt out could be analyzed and if indicated another system developed.


I would go along with a proposal for collecting data that would help with prioritizing any proposal. However, there is a catch and that has to do with interpreting the data. That is another can of worms and maybe should be a separate thread...

I've fallen behind in this thread, but I agree with #85. A "this is suitable for sensitive people" thumb would address the issue and be entirely positive.

And, actually, why not have a "good grammar" thumb too? Being a good review overall might imply good grammar, but good grammar doesn't imply that the review as a whole is worthy of thumbing. Since regular thumbs aren't used enough to be very helpful, it would be nice to have another way of sorting reviews. Sorting by thumbs could show first the ones with green thumbs, in decreasing order of thumbs, and then the rest in order of good grammar.

I think adding more ways of getting positive feedback would encourage more reviews. It would show the reviewer that people were actually reading their reviews, because even if someone read it but didn't think it was great, they could still note that it was appropriate for sensitive people and grammatically correct.

+1 to ability to mark spoilers (either by the reviewer or other readers)

I'd like to be able to read reviews before I read a book, without encountering spoilers. After reading a book, I like to read reviews even if they do have spoilers.

I disagree regarding the ability to mark for spoilers. If you're reading any kind of worthwhile review, its a pretty fair assumption that you're going to read something about what the book was about.

Don't want to be spoiled? Don't read the review. Its pretty simple.