My Little Pony VII: The Grand Galloping Thread

[EsperDerek]

If I say to you 'this episode sucks' you'll either start subconsciously look for any bad elements, to confirm it indeed sucks, or, if you don't like the person who stated it, to look for anything negating this opinion. It's basic human behaviour.

Then, there's affronting others, not letting them formulate their own opinion, or even opening yourself to slipping more spoilers than that. All IMHO, and all bad. Spoilers cover every information for a reason. Just don't do it.

To put that in perspective, would you be happy if I slapped similar non-spoiler on your fics, causing you to have less and less happy readers? Because that's what the spoilers do, in the end, kill your audience's enjoyment, bit by bit.

This is my opinion:

There's a difference between spoiling someone about what happens in a show or fic, and giving your opinion (IE: This was good/bad.) I agree, spoiling people about actual facts is a pretty bad thing to do, you'll brook no argument from me about this. If you spoil someone who hasn't watched Citizen Kane by revealing

Spoiler

Show

Rosebud was his sled!

you're a jerk. But I do not believe for a second that giving your opinion on something is something that should be hidden for fear of 'spoiling' something.

You use my fics as an example, and yes, maybe I would be bothered by someone completely spoiling the things that happened, plot point by plot point. But Out In The Cold currently has 150+ comments on it, both with people liking and disliking it. (Mostly liking it, thankfully.) Are you saying that each of those comments should be hidden? There have been opinions given on this thread and others about my stories, should those have been spoiled? Because I have to say, I really don't mind people giving their opinions freely. Even if they're negative. It's part of being in a public space.

If I tell you (for example, because I'm playing it right now): "Gee, I really think Megaman X is a good game." are you going to get irritated if you haven't played it before? If I tell you "Gee, I think Restaurant X is a really good place to go." are you going to get irate if you haven't eaten there?