In order to make the Game of Thrones threads in CS stand out so people get used to the system, I’ve temporarily stickied them so they are immediately obvious. Regrettably, this will disorder the existing stickies for the time being. (2 weeks.)
I apologize for the inconvenience.
I don’t really care about the stickies, but i am curious as to why this particular show merits this sort of special attention.
Cafe Society has, and has had in the past, long-running threads about hundreds of TV shows. Some are done on a per-episode basis; others on a per-season basis. Some are open spoiler threads; others are not. For the most part, people seem to work out the system fine without having them stickied.
Is there something fundamentally different about Games of Thrones (or the people who watch it :)) that requires this sort of hand-holding?
Because this is the first time people have been repeatedly posting in the wrong thread, spoiling people who don’t want to be spoiled.
Basically, history. Last year’s discussions got very heated and the structure I’ve imposed now is a direct continuation of what evolved last year as the best way to handle the heat.
So it’s the people that watch it that are “special”.
Game of Thrones is probably the most-discussed show in Cafe Society when it’s running - the episodic threads were usually 300-600 posts, and there was a spoiler thread for the season that went like 1500 posts, along with other threads. It’s also a show that’s unusually sensitive to spoilers, and yet a show that people who’ve invested a lot into the books want to discuss as a whole. It was also really particularly nasty last year early on before the spoiler rules shook out.
Such a level of interest, and a level of train wreck is unusual. We finally worked out a good system later in the year, and we’re just trying to make sure that system continues on.
Gukumatz very kindly volunteered to help out the Cafe Society mods with this show, which indeed was very contentious last season. The problem was that the people who had read the books were – either deliberately or not – bringing stuff from the books into the discussion of the TV show, which was really pissing off a lot of the people who hadn’t read the books. Since Gukumatz has both read the books and was watching the TV show, he was able to sort out exactly who was doing what, spoilerwise, and he was an enormous help to the regular CS mods, since none of us were familiar with the material in either form.
He will be acting CS mod while the show is on, with special responsibility for the Game of Thrones threads, and Marley23, Ellen Cherry, and I are *extremely *grateful for his willingness to do so.
twickster, Cafe Society moderator
Better alternative than “if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the Cafe.”
< Entitled customer mode on >
This is not acceptable. It is crucial that nothing disturb the sanctity of the Cafe Society stickies.
By doing so, you have violated the sacred covenant between SDMB and customer.
Fix it at once or face the consequences.
:: snaps fingers ::
< /Entitled customer mode off >
Hands Fenris a splint for his snapped fingers. Man, that had to hurt. Want an aspirin?
Which is the rule for all other series that are adaptations of series.
Trek Dopers solved that problem years ago.
Hijacks, hijinks, and an incredibly frenetic pace.
Come to think on it … that really didn’t work. We even made a special separate message board for a while. The level of participation/modding from Gukumatz is outstanding. That’s some HARD work!
Makes sense to me.
I’ve never even heard of the show or the books.
Can I get my own sticky as well?
Can you provide an example? I can’t think of anything off the top of my head, as most adaptations are for movies. And even then, it’s not uncommon for two threads to pop up.
I’d like to know why spoiler boxes are suddenly inadequate to the task of preventing, you know, spoilers…
I don’t participate in The Walking Dead threads because of the spoiler bullshit. Games of Thrones seems popular enough to support two threads, but I don’t watch that. TWD’s attempt didn’t get enough traction to make it worthwhile.
Because people weren’t using them, which is how the moderators got dragged into it.
The Walking Dead, True Blood and Dexter off the top of my head. Though my understanding is that at least with True Blood and Dexter the shows diverged from the books pretty early on only loosely following the same story so while spoilers aren’t quite as big of a deal people still usually box them because the shows do occasionally come back around to the books.
Having entirely seperate conversatons in one thread which most of the thread isn’t reading is just annoying and cluttery - wouldn’t it be great if those secondary discussions were their own discussion?
People also use spoiler boxes badly. Sometimes they’ll just put a spoiler box without describing what’s in it, so you don’t know whether or not you want to read it. Or you’ll just assume it’s something minor based on context but then it turns out to be SNAPE KILLS DUMBLEDORE. Other people will say “Oh Joe, about your spoiler, I think [reply that references spoilers without explicitly stating it which nonetheless hint at what the spoiler was]”, etc.
Now for stuff where you’re going to just have very occasional spoilers, it works well enough, but for GOT, where people who’ve read the books have entire conversations based on spoilers, hundreds of posts, it would be really crappy to try to cram that all into a non-spoiler thread. It’d become a minefield.
Again, the system worked really well last year. Turned trainwrecks into good threads.