Discussion of rules in Game of Thrones threads

There’s squabbling and trolling and other issues in the spoiler-free Game of Thrones discussion thread. I (and the moderators, I think) don’t want argument over the rules of the threads to take place in the actual threads. I’ve asked anyone who has a problem with this to take it to ATMB, but no one has created, a thread, and instead kept trying to stir up trouble in that one, so I will create one myself.

So if you have any issues with the rules or moderation of those threads, take it here, and not in the episode threads.

On my end of this, the only issue I have is that “speculation” is among the listed things that are not allowed in the non-spoiler thread, and I think this needs clarificaton. Speculaton that isn’t informed by outside knowledge - for instance, if I said “I think character X will end up betraying his house because [some piece of dialogue on the show]”, and I don’t know if that’s actually going to happen - just trying to piece it together from what I’ve seen - that’s a normal part of the episode discussion.

On the other hand, saying “I wonder if they’re going to have character X betray his house or if they’re going to change that part of the story” would obviously be a spoiler.

I would assume that when speculation was added to the list of banned things, the latter was more in line with what they were thinking - speculation involving outside information.

In any case, I doubt that there were any plans to moderate actual non-spoiler speculation, but it’d be good to clear that up.

Anything else about the threads themselves goes here. Everything in the threads should be discussion about the show.

Yes, I do have something to say. The “no speculation” rule is ridiculous. What is anyone supposed to talk about in the thread?

“Did you see the episode?”
“Sure did.”
“I saw a battle and a fight.”
“Yeup, saw that. What do you think it means?”
“Can’t tell ya.”
“But the scenery was pretty.”
“Yeup it was. Do you think winter is coming?”
“Can’t say. Against the rules.”

Totally ridiculous.

I am not following the show, but I am curious: why are they stickied?

It’s not trolling, you just refuse to understand what a pain in the ass participating in those threads was with the constant unjustified spoiler accusations. I know there was some minor spoilers on the earlier threads, but not a single major plot point, character death or future events was posted. So when you start a thread with a million warnings about spoilers and nary a sigh about what really ruined the threads for a fair number of us it did strike a nerve. I doubt anyone has a problem with the actual rules, but they were a big warning sign that the paranoia that ruled the threads last year was going to make a comeback.

Let me 'splain. No, there’s too much. Let me sum up.

Last year’s GoT threads were a major clusterfuck of epic proportions. In the early days, it was understandable since the show is VERY spoiler-heavy (with at least one MAJOR one), as any show that follows the first of what are now six very large books has to be. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Cafe Society thread that became quite so vitriolic, paranoid and just plain hysteric before, though. The problem was that everyone had different ideas of what constituted a spoiler…plot points? Sure. Character development? In some cases, yes. General knowledge about how the world in the show works? Hmmm…not sure about that.

So, three threads. And they’re probably stickied so that nobody gets lost and wanders into the most recent open thread, which would probably be the non-spoiler one, and start spewing things about the books subsequent to the current timeline of the show.

Seriously, though…you have to actually read at least the first four or five pages of what became the non-spoiler thread for last season to understand how messed up the whole thing was before things got separated and straightened out. It was unlike anything I’d ever seen on here over a TV show.

Where is this rule about speculation? I am reading the Forum Rules for The Maze-Cornfield Art and I can’t seem to find any reference to the word “speculation.” Indeed, the string of characters “specu” does not even appear on the rules page.

As for the moderator putting rules in the Sticky thread, well, that’s pretty much chickenshit but I gather is done to appease the people of The Maze-Cornfield Art whom appear to take their discussion of TV shows so seriously that A) moderators feel the need to place arbitrary rules on the thread after they’re posted and B) posters feel the need to come to Map of the Cornfield to complain when they perceive some slight against their discussion of a TV show.

In all, the only issue here is that people are taking their internet message board posting far too seriously.

Then again, you do have 2 other threads stickied in the forum in which you can freely post speculation to your heart’s content. Which kind of begs the question: Why in the fuck are there 3 threads stickied, all about the same goddamn topic, albeit with slight variations in the “rules” governing those 3 topics.

See my post directly above yours. To sum up the summing up: Huge clusterfuck last season.

Gukumatz’s addition.

Thank you. On reflection, the speculation bit was indeed stupid.

I’ve edited the rules in the Zero Spoilers thread from “speculation” to “speculation based on unaired content.”

  • Gukumatz

Thanks.

I thought the bit forbidding speculation full stop was because, while most people would speculate based only on show knowledge, some people were speculating based on limited book knowledge (which could ruin things for the show-only folks) and so it became too difficult to tell the two apart.

I just think it’s ironic that SenorBeef, who more than anyone has lead the “No spoilers, nothing except show knowledge, no spoiler NO SPOILERS!” brigade more than anyone else has been hoist by his own petard*. I remember one minor-turned-major kerfuffle when someone noted that, in the books, Tyrion’s Sky Cell in the Aerie was slanted, to make it more discomfiting, and s/he was curious why that wasn’t included in the show. The heads of SB and his ilk exploded, because book knowledge always equals spoilerage, whereas sane readers said, “Um, that’s not a spoiler.” Now, SB finds himself on the sane side – speculation isn’t a spoiler, he says, even if it technically violates the “Show only” rule he’s lobbied so repeatedly for.

So it seems his umbrage with spoilers was so vast and so untargeted that he inadvertently struck himself with it!

P.S. Not everyone who disagrees with you, SenorBeef, is trolling.

[sub]*Of course, he has whined and gotten the rules changed to suit his purposes. The ironclad rule of “Nothing outside the books, NOTHING” now needs an exception in addition to three separate threads. Methinks SB should start his own message board so he can discuss GoT in just the right way.[/sub]

I have no problem with you folks ironing out a few rules here but this is NOT going to be the home where people complain about moderation and other people in “Games of Thrones” threads.

There are more appropriate places for that kind of thing, including the Pit if you have a personal problem with someone else. Not here.

Can we get a closed spoilers version of this ATMB discussion thread? I came in here with no idea that there’d be open discussion of thread rules.

That was also my assumption as to why he added that - which is also why I wanted to clarify if that’s what he meant, and alter the rule appropriately, since I’m pretty sure he had no intention to ban/moderate legitimate non-spoiler-informed speculation.

How have I been hoisted by my own petard? Have I ever declared that I feel that speculation based on the TV show was a spoiler? Was I not, in fact, the first person to open an ATMB thread in which to address that issue? I’m leading the charge on trying to amend/clarify that rule, and you’re acting as if I’m somehow complicit in it.

Here you’re just wrong. I wasn’t on their side. In fact, the reaction to the prison slanting thing I thought was really stupid and it made me cringe because I thought “now they’re going to go off on how oversensitive people are and use this to justify posting more actual spoilers, or at least spend another page ranting about how bad the anti-spoiler page is instead of discussing the show”

I will, say, though, if people keep their “in the books they did this” type discussion to the appropriate threads, the issue wouldn’t have popped up at all. Which is part of the goal - if we have iron clad rules about this sort of thing, there should be no conflict, no borderline cases, etc.

So to be clear, do you believe that post #80 in that thread was genuine? That he was trying to helpfully junior mod and inform us that we shouldn’t post such things as “I hope they have a bigger budget next season so they can show battles” because reasonable people would interpret them as spoilers?

Of course not. He was mocking people who wanted non-spoiler threads. In fact, pretty much all of the conflict in that thread comes from people on the “oh shut up you big pussies, I’ll say what I want” side of things trying to mock or blame the anti-spoiler side. Which is how it was last year too - almost all of the conflict wasn’t the result of posting actual spoilers (although it happened from time to time), but from people saying “oh, you delicate little snowflake, I’ll decide what you should or shouldn’t know, and if you disagree I’m going to fight with you to the death”.

How is anything I’ve proposed specialized or esoteric?

Probably over 90% of the people who watch this show have never read the books. Therefore, to have a thread that caters to those 90% is not even remotely in the realm of specialized discussion - the vast majority of the discussion is suitable for this format. All I’m trying to do is establish a thread for the people who are watching the show who don’t want to be spoiled.

The speculation rule isn’t an exception, it’s how it should’ve been in the first place, he just didn’t think it through when he wrote the rule, that was brought to his attention, and it was changed. The issue is that we don’t want to bring outside knowledge into the discussion of the TV show. Speculation, based on no outside knowledge, based on what they’ve seen on the show is a normal, non-spoiler part of the discussion.

Of course the pit is appropriate if you want to take a particular poster to task about their behavior in the thread, but we were having arguments over what the thread rules should be, and I wanted them to stop clogging up the thread, so I redirected them here, that seems appropriate.

But actually - just to clarify - you seem to be saying that complaints about the moderation of the thread should go to the pit, but don’t the current rules about the pit preclude that?

I think the cause of most of the problems this time around is the fact that there are three stickied threads for a show that hasn’t even started airing yet.

I understand that there were problems of epic proportions last year, and I understand the need for multiple threads. I even understand the reasoning for the stickies; so that those people who would participate in these threads will (hopefully) read the rules and post appropriately.

But still, the fact that every visit to the forum means “GAME OF THRONES” hits you smack in the face does tend to beg the question “What’s so special about *this *show and *it’s *fans? Why can’t I have three sticky threads for my favorite TV show/book/movie/etc.? How come these people are so much more deserving than me?”

If I recall correctly, the threads will be un-stickied “in a few weeks”, once the show actually airs and the discussion picks up, presumably after the participants have read the rules and agreed to follow them. At that point, I imagine most of the complaints will die down. If I may make a suggestion in hindsight: Perhaps it would have been netter to create a *single *sticky thread explaining the ‘rules of engagement’ for the Game of Thrones discussion. I think that would have server to catch the eye of anyone interested in the threads, and wouldn’t have created the appearance of ‘favoritism’ that having three sticky threads did.
As for me, I don’t really care one way or another. I just read A Game of Thrones in the last month, have not seen the series, and don’t have HBO. I’m currently about 80 pages into A Clash of Kings, so even if I could, I wouldn’t be watching season 2 now…so what sort of discussion may or may not take place here really doesn’t affect me one way or another.

Maybe out there IRL. But this is the SDMB, where we are much smarter and more literate.

Honestly, altho spoilers are one thing I don’t get it why this show so SO special that dudes can’t say “Hmm, he was shorter in the book”.

OK, somebody open a poll in Cafe Society “Have you read the Games of Thrones books, at least book #1 & #2?”

I am willing to bet the % here is more than 50%.

Interesting. Someone in the holy non-spoiled thread has asked what the name of “Rasputina”/the red woman is. And they’ve gotten an answer, which is good. But while I’m reading the question, I’m wondering, “Can I answer that? It’s in the books, and so is verboten and cannot be mentioned. Too bad they didn’t say it in the episode. Wonder if her name was in the credits, because I didn’t watch them that closely.”

And *that’s *what makes that thread so obnoxious.

By the standards that brought us the multiple threads, no. I got accused of ‘spoilers’ for mentioning Osha’s name last season.

Rather put me off the discussion threads, since the choice was ‘risk real spoilers by going into the spoiler thread’ or ‘get told off for non-spoilers’.

There WAS actually a middle ground. I started a “general information about the Westeros world” thread with a closed-spoiler policy, if necessary, just to answer questions like “What’s this thing with years-long winters and summers?”, which is possibly a question whose answer could involve spoilers but won’t necessarily do so.