This is one of those issues on which that I strongly disagree with the general don’t-spoiler-box-things dope consensus. So you might think that anyone who was ever going to watch (to pick an example at random) The Usual Suspects has already seen it. Why on earth would that be true, though? What about someone who was born in 1990? They were 5 when it came out, and presumably not taken to see it by their parents, and are 18 now. For them, it’s one of many movies from before their time which they might or might not get around to seeing depending on their taste in movies. Why would randomly, out-of-context, revealing the end of that movie NOT be something which might spoil it for someone?
In general, you may think it’s stupid for people to not want to be spoiled, but it’s an objective fact that there ARE people out there who don’t want to be spoiled. So it’s just common courtesy to use a spoiler box, even if you yourself think it’s a bit silly.
The Lord of the Rings example is a good one, actually. Sure the books had been out for 50 years. But there were plenty of people in the world who, when the movies started coming out, had not read the books. Were those people so deserving of scorn that we should have no empathy for them? Was the plot of that series of books so well known, so part of the general cultural consciousness, that you could go into a thread discussing the first movie, immediately following its release, and assume that everyone in that thread was familiar with the plot of the 2nd and 3rd books? It seems 100% patently obvious to me that revealing plot points of The Two Towers at that point WOULD in fact be a spoiler. So much so that I can’t even see any point in arguing about it.
There are a few times when I think it’s perfectly OK to reveal things without spoilers. They include:
-Threads which, AS INDICATED IN THE THREAD TITLE, are discussing old things. If I start a thread entitled “favorite episodes of Buffy”, there is no need to say “I loved that episode in season 6 where (spoiler box)”. I don’t think we should assume that everyone who would ever want to watch Buffy has already done so. If nothing else, there are thousands of people per day who are just now becoming old enough to appreciate Buffy, and as Buffy fans, we should assume they will want to watch Buffy, and thus we shouldn’t randomly fill the netosphere with offhand remarks revealing surprising plot twists. But if those people consciously choose to enter a thread discussing favorite episodes of a show that went off the air years ago, they should expect to be spoiled
-Exception: If someone starts a thread about Buffy and then in the OP says “my wife and I are in the middle of season 2 of Buffy and…” or something, and the discussion wanders into a discussion of the series as a whole, it is just common sense to spoiler box post-season-2 discussions
-Threads in which the thread title itself points out that there will be spoilers about a particular work. (Ie, “Just saw The Love Guru (spoilers)”)
-Threads in which the thread title itself makes it obvious that spoilers will be flying free (ie, “Your favorite twist endings”)
-Weekly TV-episode threads. If the thread title is “Lost, 9/14/07”, then it is generally accepted that the episode of Lost that aired on 9/14/07 will be discussed in that thread.
Addendum #1: Note that there is dispute about the extent to which things other than what was broadcast in the episode need to be spoiler-boxed. For instance, in Lost threads, the “next week on” is open for discussion, but in 24 threads, it is not. And in general, things-you-read-in-articles and things-you-heard-in-podcasts should probably be spoiler boxed. But speculation generally should not.
Addendum #2: Sometimes a thread about an episode will be created a few days before the episode airs, for purposes of anticipation and speculation. If you happen to see the episode significantly before it is generally available, you SHOULD use spoiler boxes to reveal what happened. But once the show is being broadcast live, spoil away. And if you’re on the west coast (as I am), for god’s sake don’t read the thread for the 3 hours of time change when the east coast has seen it and you haven’t.
In general, however, my feeling is that it’s a combination of risk/reward and courtesy. What’s the worst that happens if you spoiler box something that doesn’t need to be spoiler boxed? You typed a few extra characters and some people had to do some extra mouse dragging. What’s the worst that happens if you do NOT spoiler box something? Well, remember how damn awesome it was when you were watching (x) and moment (y) happened and you were like, “DAMN, that was awesome!”? Well, you just took that much happiness away from someone.
Oh, and one other point: The right way to use spoiler boxes is to indicate WHY the thing in the box is a spoiler, as in: “So I read an interview with the author of next week’s episode, and he says (spoiler box)” or “this is kind of like that scene in The Watchmen where (spoiler box)”.
On, and one final final final point: There are some times when even revealing that there’s a spoiler is a spoiler. For instance, people talk a lot about “the twist ending of X” without mentioning what that twist is. Which is nice of them. But there are times when even knowing that there IS a twist ending kind of ruins X, because then when you’re seeing X you’re spending all your time trying to guess the twist ending, which is a very different mindset than if you don’t assume there will be a twist ending. However, it can be almost impossible to avoid that kind of spoiling. You might argue that I’ve done some spoiling of that sort in this very post, in fact. But for brand-new things, particularly works which, based on their general genre, one wouldn’t necessarily expect to have a crazy-ass twist at the end, I would avoid even mentioning the existence of a twist. If possible.
For instance, start a thread entitled “what did you think of the ending of (x)” rather than “what did you think of the twist ending of (x)”. In neither case is the title of the thread revealing what the twist is. And in both cases, someone who has not seen (x) and doesn’t want to be spoiled will know to stay out of the thread. But the second thread does reveal something important about (x) merely from reading the thread title.
