CUT BACK ON THE SPOILERS

[Despain]

You people use way too many spoilers in your posts. The purpose of a spoiler tag is:

Spoiler

to hide spoilers!

In other words, if you're talking about Harry Potter book 6, then you'd spoiler Snape kills Dumbledore! Like so:

Spoiler

Snape kills Dumbledore!

Cool feature, huh? I'm glad we have a nice thing on the forums. This way we can talk about things like Lost without spoiling the fact that Ben's contact on the Freighter is Michael. Oops!

One thing that the spoiler tag was not intended for is to hide long blocks of text. In some cases, it makes sense, especially if the text is an aside, or a long piece of code or something. In other cases (in most cases that you see here in the Project Discussion forum), you have absolutely no reason to use spoilers.

I don't really know who started this trend, and I don't really know why it became so popular as to become the norm. But it's incredibly annoying to have to click "show" to read an extra line or two of text. In most cases, as soon as I see a whole bunch of spoilers, I don't even bother reading them and I leave the thread.

The purpose of a spoiler is to hide information that you don't want people to see. So stop using them to "organize" your threads. You can use formatting such as bold and font size to create headers for sections of your post. There's no need to further divide things and make even more effort for your readers.

Good day! I'm not locking this so you can discuss if you want. But I doubt you'll be able to change my mind.

 

[Citrus Insanity]

I'd say it does a good job at organizing threads.

 

[Kav]

Agreed. I'm glad we have spoilers so people don't blab out things like "At the end of The Dark Knight, Batman takes the blame for Harvey Dent's murders and becomes public enemy #1".

 

[Shingu]

...Yah 'em, spoilers can be used for whatever...

And, Nobody like a wannabe mod

 

[So fist]

Spoiler: Don't read it will spoil your forum experience!!

Dracula weighs over 500 pounds!

Spoiler: Praise to Shingu

Well put shingu

Spoiler: Don't read it will spoil your forum experience!!

missingno isn't a girl

 

[BlueScope]

Well, in expectation of this topic not being meant to change your mind, but to freely discuss this, I'll reply...

In my opinion (yeah, I added it), spoilers aren't meant for text you don't want people to read, but for text you want others to be able to decide for theirselves if they want to read it or not. That applies to link collections (which can be useful for certain people at certain times), as well as the example you gave or other contents.
Organizing threads is something that isn't intended to use spoilers for, but yeah... it eases up the topics extremely in my opinion, especially for tutorials that have several chapters... that way, it's easier for people to find something specific they're looking for, while those who want to read through it all are just a few clicks further away.
Then of course, there's the useless and non-intelligent content such as images or something, in which case I totally agree with you on that that's something that should stop, both for the sake of a clean forum and lower bandwidth usage, and so on... but then, of course, you can't force people not to use it, and ultimately, it'd be even more annoying if they'd post it outside a spoiler, wouldn't it?

 

[Despain]

Spoiler

WHAT

Spoiler

YEAH

Spoiler

OKAY

 

[mawk]

Um, missingno is an admin. This is an announcement for a reason. :x

Can spoiler tags still be used to enclose things like the Screenshots section of a project thread to cut down on bulk, or is that out as well?

Wait, if they're out across the board, that might actually be to the good -- it might motivate people to carefully select the most pertinent screenshots to cut down on bulk (and consequently label them to make them go the extra mile,) rather than dumping large numbers of random pictures without context. I really don't like it when people do that. :x

 

[MukanshinBlack]

I've always thought spoilers good not just for hiding actual spoilers, but also at keeping posts smaller.  In most good project threads, if things were not spoilered, the first post would be pretty gigantic.

I guess this applies to few people, but I use Opera as my main internet browser and things under spoilers don't load so spoilers have many uses to me.

 

[Despain]

I've always thought spoilers good not just for hiding actual spoilers, but also at keeping posts smaller.  In most good project threads, if things were not spoilered, the first post would be pretty gigantic.

there's nothing wrong with a gigantic post. it's actually easier to read most of the time because spoilers mess with the page's height and scrolling is a pain sometimes.

but that's no the big problem here. i'm talking about spoiler OVERUSE, not spoiler use. for example:

Spoiler: STORYLINE

One man must set out to find the villain who destroyed his village... will he make it in time?

That's bullshit, and the problem is that I've seen it way too many times. It's especially annoying since the end result is taller than the single line of text anyway. Rule of thumb: if it's ten or less lines, don't use a spoiler.

I guess this applies to few people, but I use Opera as my main internet browser and things under spoilers don't load so spoilers have many uses to me.

me too. it's understandable for screenshots because of this. but for text it doesn't really make sense.

 

[So fist]

Um, missingno is an admin.

CHIMMY SPOILER THAT SHIT!  YOU ARE RUINING THE FORUMS FOR ALL OF US!

 

[Shingu]

It can lag some peoples computer if things are overly bulked up...
It makes post look orderly, and infact, its only called a spoiler because it hides stuff, like a spoiler would, It doesn't have to be used as a spoiler...

-.- And this is the wrong section isn't it...

Um, missingno is an admin. This is an announcement for a reason. :x

Can spoiler tags still be used to enclose things like the Screenshots section of a project thread to cut down on bulk, or is that out as well?

Wait, if they're out across the board, that might actually be to the good -- it might motivate people to carefully select the most pertinent screenshots to cut down on bulk (and consequently label them to make them go the extra mile,) rather than dumping large numbers of random pictures without context. I really don't like it when people do that. :x

If it WAS an ANNOUNCEMENT it would be in the ANNOUNCEMENT section, would it not...?

 

[So fist]

Spoiler: For Shingu Only

U R MY FAVORITE MAMBER CAN I BUY U A CAKE

 

[Shingu]

Spoiler: Do not read unless you want to know whats behind this!

Tbh, I think this should be posted, here: http://www.rmxp.org/forums/http://dev.rmxp.org/forums/viewforum.php?f=2.0

Spoiler: For Shingu Only

U R MY FAVORITE MAMBER CAN I BUY U A CAKE

Spoiler: For Lil' Jon

You can buy me 2 cakes if you want

 

[MukanshinBlack]

but that's no the big problem here. i'm talking about spoiler OVERUSE, not spoiler use. for example:

Spoiler: STORYLINE

One man must set out to find the villain who destroyed his village... will he make it in time?

It's rare that I see such a crappy use of spoilers like that but I see your point.  I'm all for a new rule that spoilers should only be used for big things (essays or screenshots) although I really doubt many will follow this rule and whatnot (most of the rule-breakers never read the rules to begin with).

 

[mawk]

Oh, I guess I misspoke.

Not an actual announcement. I apologize, my mind has been rather swozzled today.

Spoiler: spoiler

And, uh, he's still an admin regardless. :x

 

[Shingu]

Spoiler: sexiest spoiler ever

I Don't care if she's god! This is a pretty stupid rule...

Spoiler: DONT READ PLEASE

The title really should be CUT BACK ON THE DRUGS

 

[Xaixis]

Personally, I think that spoilers are a great way to organize a topic. Ok, I understand that some people over do it and have few liners, but that could also be because the rest of the information is in spoiler forum also cleaning up the thread.

No offense Missing#, but it really isn't that big of a deal. If someone wants to organize there thread a certain way, then let them be, if you don't like it you don't have to view it.
Things are fine the way they are. Don't rock the boat

 

[Despain]

shingu your signature is too tall. please edit it.

thanks,
rmxp.org staff

 

[MukanshinBlack]

Heheh, you got told.