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Sorry, but this is something I've seen on these forums quite a bit lately, and it's starting to become a pet peeve. I'm posting to the PFS subforum specifically because this complaint mostly relates to people talking about the content of PFS scenarios. Please don't move the thread to someplace where nobody will see it.
What's with people not understanding how to use spoiler tags? I'm not talking about people who don't use the spoiler tags at all. That's a newbie mistake, and understandable, though everyone should learn eventually.
I'm talking about people who intentionally create a spoiler tag, but put non-spoiler information inside them, especially the information that should be outside the tags so that readers will know whether or not to click on the spoilers.
Lately, I've seen dozens examples of people spoilering the content of a PFS adventure in spoiler tags (good idea!), but putting the name of the scenario INSIDE the spoiler tag, which at least partially defeats the purpose. You're supposed to put the name of the scenario OUTSIDE the tags, so people can decide whether or not to open the spoiler tag based on whether or not they've played/GMed the adventure and want to see information about its content.
Because two different people have done this with the same scenario lately, I already know what the main monster is in an adventure I'm scheduled to play next week and knew nothing about. *sigh* I looked away and closed the spoiler tag as soon as I realized what they were talking about, but the names of iconic monsters do tend to stand out at a glance.
For that matter, I've occasionally seen the same with thread titles (not putting the title of the adventure or the word "spoilers" in the title, and starting out with spoilers about an adventure), but that tends to be fixed quickly by the moderators, so it's not as big an issue. Again, that's just a newbie mistake, and hopefully everyone learns to use spoiler tags eventually.
And sometimes, people will put information in spoiler tags for no reason whatsoever, which just leaves me scratching my head. And no, I'm not complaining about people who intentionally put a huge list or "wall of text" post inside spoiler tags, as long as they explain why they're doing it. Again, the key here is having a reason to use spoiler tags, and making it clear to your readers what that reason is before they open the spoilers to find out.
So to summarize: Go ahead and put spoiler information inside spoiler tags, but always make sure to have enough non-spoiler information OUTSIDE the tags (name of the adventure, etc) so that people can make an informed decision before clicking to open the spoilers.
</rant>
Sorry - just had to get that off my chest.
And yes, I'm aware that every single response to this thread will be snarky responses making fun of me for ranting, all of them inside spoiler tags.
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So to summarize: Go ahead and put spoiler information inside spoiler tags, but always make sure to have enough non-spoiler information OUTSIDE the tags (name of the adventure, etc) so that people can make an informed decision before clicking to open the spoilers.
Thank you. I have noticed the same thing, and I agree completely.
I recognize that sometimes this happens because the context might be, say, combats with dragons, and so giving the scenario title may itself be a spoiler. In that case, if you absolutely have to spoiler the scenario title, *please* at least indicate that what is inside the spoiler is the scenario title.
In general, anytime you can indicate the category of information inside the spoiler, it is a very good thing.
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For those of you who don't know how spoiler tags work, click on the button at the bottom of this page which reads:
In particular, your spoiler should look like:
[*spoiler=The Empire Strikes Back]Luke finds out Darth Vader is his father and Han gets frozen in carbonite![/*spoiler]
(with the * removed).
