Qt3 Needs a Little Eyeball Logo

Thanks!

Psst, stusser. Sneak back in there and enable spoiler tags.

Guys I have nothing to do with the site, I’m just another poster here helping out on the tech side. Talk to Tom for all that stuff.

It sure is hella-snappy though now eh?

We already have spoiler tags. Just type the word “spoiler” and maybe stick asterisks around it. Then hit the carriage return a bunch of times. Voila! Spoiler tag!

Also, stusser’s being awfully modest, but you guys have no idea how big a help he’s been. I’m also loving the little Bloodshot Joe in my browser tab and on my bookmarks.

-Tom

Tom, you have no idea how much spoiler tags help out. Sure, they can be abused with silliness, but when you’re really trying to prevent people from seeing spoilers, they are indispensable.

Like I said, we have them already. You guys just want the cute little black-out function like they have on GAF. I’m not personally a fan of it and I don’t see how it makes a difference. Anyone who’s conscientious enough to include code to warn someone of a spoiler should also be conscientious enough to either not include the frickin’ spoiler in the first place or to provide enough space and capital letters to warn people.

If I’m misreading the issue, though, I’m certainly open to hearing the other side.

-Tom

Well, we can rank them according to poster annoyance and reader annoyance.

Code block.
(code)…The Butler Did it.(/code)
Poster annoyance: A whole fuckload of dots.
Reader annoyance: Goddamned horizontal scroll having to be used. If spoiler is particularly long, is difficult to read. Tough to reply to a portion of a long spoiler.
Verdict: Sucks

“Spoiler Alert!” plus space.
**** (b)Spoiler alert!(/b) ****
^M^M^M^M^M^M^M^M^M^M^M^M^M^M^M^M^M^M^M^M^M^M^M^M^M^M^M^M^M^M^M^M^M^M^M^M^M^MThe butler did it.
Poster annoyance: Let’s check this in preview… did I put enough space in? No, maybe a little more… How about now? OK, maybe that’s too much… Uh… Dammit! Someone’s flaming me because they accidentally scrolled up and ended up reading that the butler did it!
Reader annoyance: Goddamned vscroll… OK, Here’s his point. Now lemme respond to it… Aww crap, gotta get rid of all that space and now… DAMMIT someone wanted to skip those and is flaming me for quoting the spoilers!
Verdict: Swallows

Spoiler tag.
(spoiler)The butler did it.(/spoiler)
Poster annoyance: 19 characters.
Reader annoyance: Oh, someone’s trying to be clever, hiding a non-spoiler in a spoiler tag. Lame.
Verdict: Genuinely useful when not abused, and not any more annoying than the other two when abused.

Winner: Spoiler tags.

Spoiler tags smuggle spoiler topics into non-spoiler threads. We’ve already got threads where spoilers are okay vs. threads where spoilers are not okay. Blurring that line will blur the general compliance that makes that work.

Spoiler tags don’t solve a problem we’re having. If people get spoiled for something on Qt3, it’s because they’ve gone into a thread knowing there will be spoilers or at least reasonably expecting them.

Spoiler tags are advocated by Rimbo. What’s next, smileys?

With spoiler tags, then the whole concept of a “spoiler thread” becomes obsolete. I can read any thread I like, and I can enjoy a finer-grained selection of spoiler and spoiler-free discussion since I no longer have to skip an entire thread just because it happens to have one little spoiler in it. You sound like my Mom 20 years ago, complaining that she didn’t understand why one would use a “word processor” instead of just typing things out.

Is it really a bad thing to have one discussion for people who’ve finished a game/seen a film/read a book and another discussion for people who haven’t? The character of those discussions is very different.

It’s not a bad thing to do things that way. It’s a good thing, and most of the time, like you, I prefer it that way. Spoiler comments do get made in threads not otherwise marked – usually because the thread in particular is not directly related to the movie – and so the spoiler content is marked, but in a way that’s generally inferior to what the spoiler tag does. To me, it’s not a choice between “bad” and “good,” but “good” and “better,” and I think having the spoiler tag capability among this generally mature population isn’t going to lead to mass-scale problems.

I think QT3 would only devolve into GAF if the change resulted in a sudden shift to GAF’s demographics.

Edit: P.S. Love the favicon.

Whoever yells about spoilers because they’re reading the fucking forum thread backwards should get a temporary gentle touch for being morons.