Spoilers (no actual spoilers included)

[Aragarthiel]

the owner of the show shouldn't be posting spoilers until every market has had a chance to see it.

I wouldn't quite say that, because some markets take up to a month to get new episodes, which seems a bit excessive. A week sounds reasonable to me, but at least give it a day or two.

[TheHuckster]

If they are posting headlines that end up in people's news feeds with the spoiler in big bold letters that you can't avoid, then I agree that's pretty damn sucky.

If they had used some consideration and said, "Discuss yesterday's episode here" and one had to click to see the spoilers and people's comments, then that's perfectly fine. After all, if you hadn't seen the episode yet, I'd expect people to use common sense and not click. Muzzling anyone who's seen the episode just because others might have not seen it and would foolishly click on the comments is ridiculous, IMO.

[mathnerd]

I think it`s inconsiderate to ask people not to talk about the show, just because you or whoever hasn`t seen it yet. The emotional attachment people feel to the show that makes them so upset about posting of spoilers is the same one that makes people who have just seen something new and interesting want to talk about it, process it, work their feelings out about it. While the officials from the show shouldn`t post information about an episode until it has played in the major premiere markets I would still expect the facebook page to be full of ÒMG, Pete quit being a doctor and started Alexandria's first clown college! (Not an actual spoiler to anything)

If a show premiers at 10pm and you don`t plan on watching it until noon the next day, don`t go look on the shows website or facebook page. That`s on you, not the rest of the world.

But why doesn't this consideration towards people's emotions work both ways? People in California don't deserve consideration because they live three hours behind people in New York and the networks don't air things at the same time?

[NecCat]

But why doesn't this consideration towards people's emotions work both ways? People in California don't deserve consideration because they live three hours behind people in New York and the networks don't air things at the same time?

If you are referring to the owner of show or shows facebook posting in such a way that it doesn't automatically show you the spoiler, I amended that later in the discussion.

With that new information, I agree with earlier that it is acceptable to ask the show to stop posting spoilers.

If you are referring to people posting information on the internet about the recently aired episode that the west coast hasn't gotten yet, then its not because the people on the west don't deserve courtesy, its because of who is in control of the emotional distress (Im using that term in the lightest possible way) caused by the behaviour.

Either you are allowed (by social etiquette, not in the draconian sense)to post on the internet and discuss the episode you've just seen, or you are not. Either you are in the group that sees the episode when it first airs, or you are not. Which leaves 4 outcomes:

1) You are in the group that has seen the first airing of the episode, and you get to post about it. You are able to work through the emotions of seeing the episode by discussing what happened and reading what others thought. This works out well for you.
2) You are in the group that has seen the first airing of the episode, but you do not get to post information on the internet, read others thoughts on the subject. This leads to emotional distress, as you try to work through your feelings on your own.
3) You are not in the group that seen the first airing of the episode, but others are posting about it. If you visit the website and facebook page of the show then you will see spoilers, which will ruin your experience of the story the way it was meant to be experienced. However if you, by your own choice, avoid visiting such places you will not have your experience ruined, and will not suffer the distress of having the experience spoiled.
4) You are not in the group that has seen the first airing of the episode, but others are not allowed to be posting about it. You have no chance of having your experience spoiled, and do not experience the emotional distress.

There is only one way in which emotional distress is forced on people, and that is by not allowing free discussion of the emotions the media brought, when they are new and important. The only way people who haven't experienced the media are distressed is by their own doing, which is why there isn't the same consideration towards their emotions.

[Peppergirl]

I dunno. I consider it my responsibility to try to avoid spoilers if I'm going to watch things months or even years later.

Example is Sons of Anarchy. I am a cord-cutter and am just now watching the final season on Netflix. I've been a fanatic about avoiding spoilers but if I come across one, such is life. I figure it's my choice to wait that long and that it's a risk I take.

A day or few days later, then yeah - I think people should possibly be more considerate before posting spoilers, especially in the first few lines of a post.

[AmbrosiaWriter]

I figure it's my choice to wait that long and that it's a risk I take.

But what if it isn't your choice? What if - because of the media developer's decision - you just simply aren't going to have access to the content until later than other people?

If I decide I'm not going to play a video game until weeks or months after it is released, I will just take it upon myself to not go anywhere that could be spoiler-ific (though I do find the gaming community to be FAR better in terms of not spoiling the game for others.)

However, if I'm just straight up not going to have the access to purchase and play the game for months (or hell, it used to be entire YEARS) after it's been released elsewhere... what then?

[Aragarthiel]

But what if it isn't your choice? What if - because of the media developer's decision - you just simply aren't going to have access to the content until later than other people?

I think the threshold should revolve around how long it takes for a majority of people who want to see it, to see it. Where a show might only be a week, a new movie released in theaters might take several months before enough people have seen it. Some precautions must always be taken by the people who haven't seen it, namely avoiding places that will definitely be posting spoilers (like the comments in the Facebook post in the OP). The world really can't wait for everyone who wants to see something to see it, because the wait would take forever. There's really no winning in that situation, just both sides doing what they can for each other.

[Peppergirl]

^^ Thanks for answering in nearly the exact way I was going to. Saved me some time. lol

[TheHuckster]

...and before long, the twist ending will be so passe and known that re-releases will have it right smack dab on the cover, as they did with Planet of the Apes.

My wife, never having seen it, said she didn't know the twist ending. I told her she does, she just doesn't realize it. She understood what I meant after she finally watched the movie.

[Aragarthiel]

Exactly. I know plenty about movies I've never seen. Pulp Fiction comes to mind. It's impossible to never see something about one scene or another, but the last time I (sort of) saw it I was too young to pay attention and it didn't interest me anyway.

[Shangri-laschild]

I follow several pages associated with shows. I don't mind when the pages go with spoilers or no spoilers and then stick to it. That way, if I don't want spoilers, I can make sure the ones that always have spoilers don't show up on my news feed if I'm not watching the episodes right away. If I was following a page that never posted about the episode immediately afterwards and suddenly they decided to start doing spoilers so I didn't know to avoid them, I'd be a little irritated. And there are ways around giving spoilers or at least ways to make it obvious that a post has them before they are blurted out. There are a couple of pages I'm on that do that and I never really get spoilers on accident from those pages because I can tell when I need to skip the update. It comes in handy a lot. So I can understand the frustration, mostly with pages that can't decide how they want to format and switch around back and forth. Given that this page never did it before, it's understandable to not be happy about it.