New labels at FanFare for special case threads

June 6, 2014 8:14 AM

Today we're adding four new labels for TV show threads at FanFare, to denote special spoiler conditions. Two are for recent experiments in "Rewatch" and "First Watch" threads, the other two are specifically for Game of Thrones threads, which we'll be splitting the last two episodes of this season into "Show Only" and "Books included".

The four types are defined on the FAQ, which the labels themselves will link to as well.

To reiterate, a "First Watch" is for people going back to an old show/season that most people have seen years ago, but watching it for the first time, like Sara C. is currently doing with The Wire. The expectation in people participating in the thread will not mention future events from the series even though the show aired over a decade ago and many members have seen it.

A "Rewatch" is when people choose to watch an old show but open the discussion to all spoilers leading up to the present, so people can mention things that happen in the future or notice things in the first episodes that appear later on in the series. There are currently rewatches of the Mad Men series going on that fit this.

For Game of Thrones, policing a sane spoiler policy when future events are known by a significant subset of participants has proven difficult. We're going to try splitting the last two episodes of Game of Thrones for this season into "Show Only" for people that haven't read the books, are only following the show, and do not want to hear about the events in the books, and "Books Included" for the book readers that want to discuss significant spoilers from the books. We'll see if this eases the friction for the end of this season.

I know that technically, every new TV show thread is a "First Watch" sort of thread, but we decided not to apply the label to every single thread because it is implied and would clutter up the interface but also it's important to note typical thread are already covered by the existing spoiler policy. The labels are for special spoiler conditions that deviate from the normal policy, so the "First Watch" in these cases are special ones to pay extra attention to not spoiling, even on a very old show.

The labels look like what you see in this screenshot. We applied the Book/Show labels to demo threads just for the sake of the screenshot, on Sunday night you'll see two separate threads for Game of Thrones.

When making a post, we added options below the show info, hidden behind a link to expose them, since they're rarely used for now and we didn't want to confuse users making the other 90% of posts that don't require these labels. Once expanded, you'll see the four options, but none being the default.

These labels apply to some obvious special conditions that have sprung up in TV Show threads, but there are certainly going to be edge-cases (are there even spoilers to worry about in MST3K Rewatch threads that would warrant the label?) where it's unclear.

posted by mathowie (staff) to MetaFilter-Related at 8:14 AM (242 comments total)

This is a great pony, thanks Matt and pb. Needs the "giddyup" tag.
posted by arcticseal at 8:17 AM on June 6, 2014 [5 favorites]

The labels will look like what you see in this screenshot.

Not sure if you meant to link to an image there, but currently there's no link.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:19 AM on June 6, 2014

Sorry, added.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 8:20 AM on June 6, 2014

Thank you for this; it seems very sensible.

Was there ever a discussion of how streaming-exclusive shows are going to work (IE Netflix shows where the entire season hits at once)? Will there be one thread or multiple? Just wondering with Orange is the New Black hitting today. Sadly I am still a few episodes from the end of the last series.
posted by selfnoise at 8:21 AM on June 6, 2014

As ponies go, this one seems very flexible and well-suited to the situation. Thanks!
posted by jacquilynne at 8:22 AM on June 6, 2014

Orange is the New Black should have one thread per episode, and we'll be limited by what the site supports. I guess 13 people could make one post for each episode today if they wanted, but I suspect a couple people will be making a new thread for each episode every day or two over the next week and get them all up. I don't think the site needs any special mechanisms for Netflix shows per se.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 8:26 AM on June 6, 2014

First Watch? Check!
Rewatch? Check!
Game of Thrones? Check!

I know that technically, every new TV show thread is a "First Watch" sort of thread, but we decided not to apply the label to every single thread

Since those are going to be the bulk of the shows discussed, can we have a name for those, too, so everyone will be using the same vocabulary when discussing them? I was calling the first run shows First Watch which probably made my posts on the subject confusing, and First Run is still distinct from First Watch.

Great work, all. TV Dinners for everyone!
posted by Room 641-A at 8:27 AM on June 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

Thank you.
posted by zarq at 8:27 AM on June 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

Since those are going to be the bulk of the shows discussed, can we have a name for those, too

They're just show threads. We don't need a special name for the default, it's just the default.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 8:35 AM on June 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

Thanks!
posted by isthmus at 8:39 AM on June 6, 2014

Thanks Matt, much appreciated. Only one clarifying question: does that mean that Book readers should 100% not participate in Show threads, or can they participate, but just not discuss the book?
posted by corb at 8:41 AM on June 6, 2014

YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
posted by Jacqueline at 8:46 AM on June 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

It just means, yeah, no, really, hush up about the books, in a really thorough sense. Book-readers totally welcome in the Show-Only threads if they're not having any trouble partitioning that aspect of their media experience out of their discussion. If not so much, hie to the Books-Included threads and set up your camp chair there and leave it at that.

Ultimately that's a question of personal filtering (and in the hopefully unlikely case of failed personal filtering, mod-enforced "seriously, dude..." filtering). I'd say folks who have had any kind of negative interaction with other users over an inclination to include book-motivated thoughts in their comments should probably mostly beeline to Books-Included.
posted by cortex (staff) at 8:47 AM on June 6, 2014 [15 favorites]

does that mean that Book readers should 100% not participate in Show threads, or can they participate, but just not discuss the book?

Honestly, I don't know why a book reader would comment in a show only thread, but there's nothing barring them from it. Just don't mention anything from the books, or compare scenes from the books, or make any references to it.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 8:48 AM on June 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

I would like to offer a calm and rational compliment on how well you guys are building up the features and policy on FanFare. If anybody ever writes a textbook called How To Build A Topical Discussion Forum, this should have a chapter to itself.

Good? Good.

Now that that's taken care of, I would also like to run around the site Kermit-flailing and high-fiving people. YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 8:51 AM on June 6, 2014 [13 favorites]

Honestly, I don't know why a book reader would comment in a show only thread, but there's nothing barring them from it.

It's not always a black and white divide. I've only read a book and half, with no intention of reading anymore. Others have read the books but years ago and can barely remember stuff. Still others have read the books several times and taken part in speculating or read about clues, so...yeah.

Not a big deal, but just pointing out grey areas.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:55 AM on June 6, 2014 [3 favorites]

Sounds good.

Honestly, I don't know why a book reader would comment in a show only thread

On other forums, I've found the show only thread has more interesting discussion of the episode while the book threads quickly get into discussing how future episodes will be executed or kind of boring whining about changes. So, more of the conversation I want is in the show thread.
posted by Drinky Die at 8:55 AM on June 6, 2014 [3 favorites]

I know that technically, every new TV show thread is a "First Watch" sort of thread, but we decided not to apply the label to every single thread because it is implied and would clutter up the interface but also it's important to note typical thread are already covered by the existing spoiler policy.

Maybe include the base state info in the tag FAQ just to be on the safe side?
posted by robocop is bleeding at 8:56 AM on June 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

Thanks so much, Matt and crew! FanFare has quickly become my new Happy Place.
posted by Sweetie Darling at 8:57 AM on June 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

Huzzah! Great job, seems very sensible.
posted by Sticherbeast at 9:02 AM on June 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

Does this mean that there could be a First Watch and a Rewatch post for a specific episode and/or series?
posted by Rob Rockets at 9:05 AM on June 6, 2014

I've found the show only thread has more interesting discussion of the episode while the book threads quickly get into discussing how future episodes will be executed or kind of boring whining about changes.

I find both of those discussions interesting, but agree. Show-only threads I think are more likely to be full of things like "Hey, did you catch Lady Woolface's dress? So pretty! It's the same one she wore in this other episode" while book threads are more likely to say "Did you catch that thing Lady Woolface said? It's part of this quote from the books on why pigs die in winter, except longer!" So if you want both /and/ can keep it in your pants, metaphorically speaking, there'd certainly be value in both.
posted by corb at 9:06 AM on June 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

does that mean that Book readers should 100% not participate in Show threads, or can they participate, but just not discuss the book?

I mean no one is going to go to your house and investigate your bookshelves, so I guess if you never talk about the books, no one is going to know, will they?
posted by empath at 9:08 AM on June 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

Does this mean that there could be a First Watch and a Rewatch post for a specific episode and/or series?

Yeah, for Mad Men, or The Wire, there could be duplicates of the existing season 1 threads based on whether people have watched the series before.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:08 AM on June 6, 2014

Does this mean that there could be a First Watch and a Rewatch post for a specific episode and/or series?

Yep. Right now that hasn't actually happened in an overlapping way yet—the Mad Men Rewatch threads are several seasons behind the ones that aired since FanFare launched, for example—but in principle folks could start up both Rewatch and First Watch threads for the same show at the same time if there was interest in both for whatever reason.
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:09 AM on June 6, 2014

I don't know why a book reader would comment in a show only thread,

Innocuous comments to lock thread in 'Recent Activity' for easy reading.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 9:23 AM on June 6, 2014 [3 favorites]

I don't know why a book reader would comment in a show only thread,

Why not? You've got more people hanging out in the show-only thread. You could reserve the Bookwalker thread just for purely book-related observations/questions/limericks.
posted by Sticherbeast at 9:29 AM on June 6, 2014

Innocuous comments to lock thread in 'Recent Activity' for easy reading.

"Wow, what a great episode!" is certainly going to be something I have to say about many episodes. Until we can finally just add things to recent activity manually.
posted by Drinky Die at 9:46 AM on June 6, 2014 [3 favorites]

To be a complete pedant about this, would it be appropriate to tag a Walking Dead thread with "Books Included" if you wanted to discuss how the episode paralleled or diverged from the comics? And with Books Included, it's assuming that everyone is OK discussing things in all the (comic)books published to date?
posted by filthy light thief at 9:49 AM on June 6, 2014

the man of twists and turns: Innocuous comments to lock thread in 'Recent Activity' for easy reading.

I am looking for a used car.
posted by filthy light thief at 9:51 AM on June 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

I'm a book reader but I'll be commenting on and reading both threads. Several other Mefites who are show-only have made comments in previous GoT threads that were so funny my SO and I are still quoting them to each other. Wouldn't want to miss out on that!
posted by chainsofreedom at 9:52 AM on June 6, 2014

Until we can finally just add things to recent activity manually.

You could also add the thread as a Favorite and follow it in the My Favorites tab in Recent Activity.
posted by pb (staff) at 9:52 AM on June 6, 2014

Doesn't really work for me, because a lot of stuff I favorite I don't want to follow the discussion. Would just be a jumbled mess.
posted by Drinky Die at 9:57 AM on June 6, 2014 [3 favorites]

Please don't add noise to the site just to make it easier for you to use. I keep threads I like open in tabs for days, and come back periodically without commenting in them or marking them as favorites.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:59 AM on June 6, 2014 [6 favorites]

God, I will hate you TV people forever if your bullshit spoiler drama over at FanFare is the straw on the backs of MeFi's general camel.
posted by BeerFilter at 9:59 AM on June 6, 2014 [5 favorites]

Please add a way to follow threads that makes sense for the year 2014. I haven't actually been making noise and I won't in the future, I just gravitate back towards SA even though the quality of discussion is lower because it isn't a chore just to mark the threads you want to follow and to pick them up exactly where you left off without hunting for your spot.
posted by Drinky Die at 10:02 AM on June 6, 2014 [9 favorites]

Sorry, that came off harsher than I wanted. I just hope everyone can appreciate all the work the staff is putting into getting the TV chatter forum working smoothly.
posted by BeerFilter at 10:07 AM on June 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

Just favorite the last comment you read, it's easy to pick up a thread that way.
posted by troika at 10:07 AM on June 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

Thanks for this. I'm looking forward to the potential of the show-only GoT threads. The prospect of the book-readers also participating in the show-watchers' threads doesn't bother me per se, if they make a good-faith effort not to steer or proctor the discussion, but I am really, really hoping that book readers don't hang out in the show watchers' threads so they can educate us when they deem it relevant.

TLDR: We don't need any TAs in the show-watcher threads.
posted by mudpuppie at 10:09 AM on June 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

Or use mathowie's open tab method, or keep the individual comment URL where you left off in a draft doc or whatever. There are lots of ways to pick up where you left off. I don't think we need the mods to hand us a solution when there are already a bunch of no-effort ones available already.
posted by troika at 10:11 AM on June 6, 2014

We have a different definition of no-effort.
posted by Drinky Die at 10:14 AM on June 6, 2014 [12 favorites]

Different discussions happen in different threads. I'm not a GoT person, but this seems like it's patently obvious to me. If someone in the show-only thread starts commenting on, I don't know, someone's costuming or the brilliance of some bit of casting, having that discussion in the show-only thread would be more inclusive. There's lots of other stuff besides plot details that's worth discussing about a show.

I'm a fan of all of these changes, especially because I was starting to be a bit concerned about whether the GoT book issue was going to start causing problems for others.

I am still utterly baffled at how anybody can do a show rewatch at that kind of pace. For me it's either binge or nothing. Netflix has twice today so far asked me if I'm still watching Supernatural and I just want to be like YES STOP JUDGING ME.
posted by Sequence at 10:14 AM on June 6, 2014 [5 favorites]

Please don't add noise to the site just to make it easier for you to use. I keep threads I like open in tabs for days, and come back periodically without commenting in them or marking them as favorites

That only really works on a desktop, though. I do a lot of my MeFi browsing on my phone, using the recent activity tab. This allows me to keep up with multiple threads I'm interested in through one tab, as it were. I don't know how common that is, but I'd have to guess I'm not the only one.

On another point --- and I feel kind of like a dink even bringing it up, since it's a super-specific GoT thing --- but it may be better to hash it out now rather than in thread: is it permissible to solicit background information in a Show Only thread? Just the other day I mentioned a minor point that had confused me on the show, but which seemed likely to be crystal clear to book readers, and a bunch of people chimed in and very helpfully explained what was up. Quite possibly those who answered my question are just more observant show-watchers than I am, but I feel like one of the ways having book people around in the current threads has been helpful is in clearing up these little points of confusion and adding background info, and to my mind people have been really good about doing that in a non-spoileriffic way.

But I can't say that that info is strictly show-only, either. There's a lot of background knowledge about events that transpired before the beginning of the show or relationship between the characters which are extensively covered in the books and which might end up being a single line of dialogue in the show, but which are helpful to understanding motivations, plot possibilities, etc. Will soliciting such background info now be verboten in the Show Only threads? Like, if someone says, "does anyone know whose flag that was in the background of X scene?" is it okay for a reader to pipe up, "oh, that's such and such house, they're vassals of the Starks, the dude with the weird beard who got his head chopped off was one of them." Etc.?
posted by Diablevert at 10:18 AM on June 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

Just favorite the last comment you read, it's easy to pick up a thread that way.

That means you have to look at your favorites instead of just going directly to Recent Activity.

For what its worth, I'll usually leave a relevant comment in threads I want to read later. It's the easiest, simplest and most direct way to pick up a thread from an exact point.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 10:26 AM on June 6, 2014

I am still utterly baffled at how anybody can do a show rewatch at that kind of pace.

I just got HBO, and am slowly working through True Detective. I couldn't crush through the whole season in one sitting.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 10:31 AM on June 6, 2014

is it permissible to solicit background information in a Show Only thread?

I think it's pretty normal for people to post questions about a scene or something they saw, and if it had been mentioned in earlier episodes, chances are someone would chime in to give more information about when it appeared. I don't think that's an open invitation to have people discuss the books though, it seems the spirit of the thread is everyone has only watched the show.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 10:34 AM on June 6, 2014

About the request for a thread-following function: we've discussed this a bunch in the past, and IIRC the short answer is: given the way things are built on the back end, it's way, way harder than it would seem to build such a functionality.
posted by LobsterMitten (staff) at 10:36 AM on June 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

Imagine if Third Watch had a cult following that inspired Rewatch and First Watch threads? heh
posted by oh yeah! at 10:53 AM on June 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

This is great, thank you. It ought to improve the experience for both camps of GoT watchers.
posted by norm at 10:55 AM on June 6, 2014

FYI, the link to add spoiler conditions is currently not working for me in Chrome 35.0.1916.114; I get the following error:

Uncaught ReferenceError: showRules is not defined
at
fanfare.metafilter.com/contribute/post.cfm##:33
posted by asterix at 11:02 AM on June 6, 2014

Thank you so very much. I hope the GOT strategy gets you (and the rest of us) spoiler peace.
posted by immlass at 11:02 AM on June 6, 2014

It's checking out fine for me in that version of Chrome, asterix. Any chance you're running a script-blocking browser extension or something that could interfering with the page?
posted by pb (staff) at 11:13 AM on June 6, 2014

Scratch that, found the problem. It'll be fixed shortly.
posted by pb (staff) at 11:16 AM on June 6, 2014

we'll be splitting the last two episodes of this season into "Show Only" and "Books included".

I think you need to take away my geek card as I thought that was the Season Finale last weekend.

I didn't realise there was also a First Watch option. Interesting, thanks!
posted by tilde at 11:20 AM on June 6, 2014

I think it's pretty normal for people to post questions about a scene or something they saw, and if it had been mentioned in earlier episodes, chances are someone would chime in to give more information about when it appeared. I don't think that's an open invitation to have people discuss the books

Sorry, I don't think I explained myself well, maybe. A lot of the time, there's stuff that appears on the show or is referred to on the show very briefly, but which is discussed in the books quite extensively. There might be a lot of useful context, which is not necessarily in and of itself a spoiler, which book readers understand that show watchers wouldn't. Say for the sake of argument, a certain flag is shown in a battle scene, a book reader might grok, "ah, thus and such noble family is now allied with these guys" whereas 95% of show watchers will just think "hunh, I don't think they've shown that flag before."

If I go into a fanfare Show Only thread and say, "hey, does anyone know what's up with that flag?" is it kosher for someone to say, "it's the flag of X family, it means they've joined the side of the Ys"? Or is that drawing from the books and thus verboten? I feel like this kind of stuff comes up a lot --- for example, there's all kinds of rules about say, who can inherit property and titles or how trials work that they don't have time to go into on the show but which are much more clearly laid out in the books, and which affect your sense of the possibilities for the plot going forward, but aren't really spoilers in and of themselves.


Sorry if I'm being all how-many-angels-can-dance about this, I just want to make sure I understand the parameters here. If a fact relevant to present or past events is available to book readers but not show watchers, is it kosher for book readers to mention that fact?
posted by Diablevert at 11:34 AM on June 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

Diablevert: Just the other day I mentioned a minor point that had confused me on the show, but which seemed likely to be crystal clear to book readers, and a bunch of people chimed in and very helpfully explained what was up. Quite possibly those who answered my question are just more observant show-watchers than I am, but I feel like one of the ways having book people around in the current threads has been helpful is in clearing up these little points of confusion and adding background info, and to my mind people have been really good about doing that in a non-spoileriffic way.

There is a Game of Thrones wiki that is show-only, if you want a web resource for that sort of thing.
posted by Rock Steady at 11:35 AM on June 6, 2014 [3 favorites]

Yeaaaaah! Rad! Thanks, mods!

This reminds me, it's high time for a new The Wire thread...
posted by Sara C. at 11:51 AM on June 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

If a fact relevant to present or past events is available to book readers but not show watchers, is it kosher for book readers to mention that fact?

The way I'm reading this, I'd say no, because even thought it's in the books, it's not part of the show. Show facts goes in show thread. Book facts that have not been revealed in the show stay in the thread for bookreaders.

Scenario: Magenta flag is flown. Person asks in show thread "why Magenta Flag?"

>> If Magenta Flag is explained in that episode, or any of the episodes that have already aired, answer it.
>> If Magenta Flag has been explained in the books, but NOT in that episode, or any episodes that have already aired, do not answer it.
>> If Magenta Flag has never appeared before, speculate wildly.
posted by kimberussell at 12:08 PM on June 6, 2014

My answer to the GoT "magenta flag" hypothetical is that there are MANY other places on the internet to find out that information, without further muddying the already ominously murky Metafilter Game Of Thrones Spoiler Issue.

FWIW Grantland has a great spoiler-free "Wait so what was that about" column going, for exactly this sort of issue.
posted by Sara C. at 12:14 PM on June 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

Honestly, I don't know why a book reader would comment in a show only thread, but there's nothing barring them from it. Just don't mention anything from the books, or compare scenes from the books, or make any references to it.

So, for example, an unsolicited comment like this one comparing the scene on the show to the book would not be allowed, even though it was not a spoiler?
posted by homunculus at 12:30 PM on June 6, 2014

Right, comments about the books go in the book thread. The show-only thread doesn't refer to the books.
posted by isthmus at 12:31 PM on June 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

My answer to the GoT "magenta flag" hypothetical is that there are MANY other places on the internet to find out that information, without further muddying the already ominously murky Metafilter Game Of Thrones Spoiler Issue.

You can also just MeMail one of the GoT mavens if you don't feel like googling.
posted by corb at 12:39 PM on June 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

Darn, I'm going to miss comments like that. They don't spoil anything but they do add context.
posted by homunculus at 12:40 PM on June 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

I would think that the many book readers who are reading the show threads would jump in and say, "Heya, ask the magenta flag question in the book thread!" or "MeMail me for information on the magenta flag from the books!"
posted by chainsofreedom at 1:09 PM on June 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

We have a different definition of no-effort.

Your appears to involve no effort on your part and a lot of work on the mods' part and you're sort of being a jerk about it. Maybe try to find a way to ask for what you want in a way that doesn't insult the people you're asking. Just a friendly suggestion.

I think the FAQ is clear on this and good luck with this moving forward, it looks cool.
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 1:21 PM on June 6, 2014 [6 favorites]

> There is a Game of Thrones wiki that is show-only, if you want a web resource for that sort of thing.

About that wiki: can we reference it in the Show Only threads? Someone raised an issue in the current thread which was answered there, but rather than say "this is what the wiki says" I opted to just link the wiki entry without further commentary. It wouldn't have been a spoiler since the wiki is for the show only, but I don't know if the information was ever spelled out on the show itself.
posted by homunculus at 1:26 PM on June 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

Darn, I'm going to miss comments like that. They don't spoil anything but they do add context

We've had several complaints from people that said basically they were tired of seeing several "omg, in the book that character acted like THIS but on the show they are like THAT" because they wanted to read the books someday and that was considered a "spoiler" if you ever wanted to read the books later on.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 1:47 PM on June 6, 2014

Ah, okay. I plan on reading them too someday, so that makes sense.
posted by homunculus at 1:50 PM on June 6, 2014

I wasn't using MetaFilter much when FanFare came on-line, and have only started reading it thanks to the latest GoT episode. I just wanted to say that it's a really excellent addition to the site, and I think the bifurcated GoT threads is an even more excellent improvement. So thanks, mods. As a TV writer (although not for the kind of show that will get FanFare posts) I'm very happy to be able to read MetaFilter-level comments on television. The AV Club is a poor substitute.

Is there a system for polling interest on potential rewatch threads? I've been considering a The Shield rewatch and would love to have people to discuss it with.
posted by Bookhouse at 2:16 PM on June 6, 2014

I don't follow Game of Thrones at all, but if there is a parallel book-thread of that, could FanFare be used for other books as a sort of virtual book club? For a while there was such a thing organized through MeTa but it seems to have petered out.

Apologies if this has already been addressed.
posted by Rumple at 2:31 PM on June 6, 2014

I don't care if you rewatch The Shield or not but thank you for mentioning it because it gives me an excuse to link to Tough Justice.
posted by mudpuppie at 2:35 PM on June 6, 2014

Eventually we'll be adding books as a separate media type.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 3:00 PM on June 6, 2014 [11 favorites]

And on that day, I will be the happiest MeFite in the land.

But in the meanwhile, FanFare continues to be awesome and this tweak makes it even awesome-er. Thanks!
posted by Stacey at 3:07 PM on June 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

Is there a system for polling interest on potential rewatch threads?

Related to this, I'd be curious what you (Matt, mods) are thinking long-term for notification of new shows on FanFare. I imagine the simplest answer in terms of building back-end would be to just have people watch the front page for whatever shows come up day by day. But from a "pony" perspective, it might be handy to have some type of wish- or watchlist: you type in the names of books, shows, movies you'd be interested in discussing (maybe via tags?), and then you're notified (via MeMail?) if and when somebody opens a relevant post.
posted by cribcage at 3:10 PM on June 6, 2014

Right now the FanFare archives are a quick way to see what has been discussed so far.
posted by pb (staff) at 3:15 PM on June 6, 2014

Darn, I'm going to miss comments like that. They don't spoil anything but they do add context.

Well, you could solve that by reading the books....
posted by 256 at 3:22 PM on June 6, 2014 [3 favorites]

Is there a system for polling interest on potential rewatch threads?

Nothing formal yet; informally, posting a metatalk thread saying HEY WHO WANTS TO DO A REWATCH OF SHOW X is totally fine and welcome. In the long run we're hoping to add some more explicit tools for organizing/scheduling rewatches but there's a lot of other stuff in front of that on the to-do list.

Related to this, I'd be curious what you (Matt, mods) are thinking long-term for notification of new shows on FanFare.

We're talking about (see to-do list above) methods for subscribing to threads/shows both explicitly and by category/tag stuff, yeah. Figuring out the best way to handle that in terms of both the variety of metadata/media and the site UI stuff is a big job but I'm sure we'll talk more about it in the future as we continue to get FanFare built out.
posted by cortex (staff) at 3:38 PM on June 6, 2014

It would be sort of funny to immediately post an extra rewatch and first watch thread of every episode of every show as soon as it goes up but actually it wouldn't be that funny and just thinking about doing it is funnier.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 4:41 PM on June 6, 2014

Grace Under Fire - BOOK READERS ONLY
posted by Potomac Avenue at 4:49 PM on June 6, 2014 [9 favorites]

Mickey Mouse Club S26 E4 -- Where Are They Now Spoilers Welcome
posted by Potomac Avenue at 4:50 PM on June 6, 2014 [3 favorites]

We've had several complaints from people that said basically they were tired of seeing several "omg, in the book that character acted like THIS but on the show they are like THAT" because they wanted to read the books someday and that was considered a "spoiler" if you ever wanted to read the books later on.

I did waffle a little bit on whether to make the comment homunculus mentions for that reason. I eventually decided to understand the spoiler policy as applying to show spoilers and not book spoilers, and I thought it was more likely that non-book-readers would appreciate the info than think of it as an annoying tease. I get that the new spoiler policy bans book spoilers in addition to show spoilers. That makes things clean.

But there are certainly going to be GoT rewatch threads for earlier seasons at some point. Will there be both books-included rewatch threads (where we can talk about how scenes are different from the books) in addition to show-only rewatch threads (where people can discuss old episodes without having the books spoiled)?
posted by painquale at 4:59 PM on June 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

I think we will unexpectedly violently kill that bridge when we come to it.
posted by cortex (staff) at 5:05 PM on June 6, 2014 [22 favorites]

We could also do a reread where no information from the show is allowed for book only people who don't want to be spoiled by any changes that have been made in the adaption.
posted by Drinky Die at 5:17 PM on June 6, 2014

Yeah, Matt did say up above that books will eventually be added as media types. We'll need threads for rereads of the GoT books for show-watchers, first reads for show-watchers, rereads for books-onlyers, and first reads for books-onlyers.

And then when the Telltale Game of Thrones video games come out....
posted by painquale at 5:23 PM on June 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

KWCH Channel 10 News at 11: Season 54, Episode 221 - REWATCH
posted by nobody at 5:23 PM on June 6, 2014 [7 favorites]

We'll need threads for rereads of the GoT books for show-watchers, first reads for show-watchers, rereads for books-onlyers, and first reads for books-onlyers

I'm on Book 2 of ASOIF and Season 1 of GoT.

If you want to cause complete chaos let me know, and I can start the ball rolling.
posted by philipy at 5:25 PM on June 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

Grace Under Fire - BOOK READERS ONLY

Little House on the Prairie - BOOK READERS ONLY

Spoiler: Nellie doesn't really get a restaurant for her birthday.
posted by scody at 5:37 PM on June 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

Oh man if there really was a Little House rewatch I would have to stay sooooooo far away. I would be the worst bookwalker EVER. I'd be all "actually, the wolves in the moonlight thing happened when they were living in Dakota Territory, NOT Minnesota, and Nellie Olson wasn't even there."
posted by Sara C. at 5:42 PM on June 6, 2014 [5 favorites]

Real talk, though, I've only seen a few episodes of the show, and it has always bothered me that Nellie is a character, when she doesn't appear in Little House On The Prairie at all.
posted by Sara C. at 5:43 PM on June 6, 2014

mathowie: "Eventually we'll be adding books as a separate media type."

WooHOO bookfilter lives! sort of!
posted by dhruva at 5:50 PM on June 6, 2014

We're going to try splitting the last two episodes of Game of Thrones for this season into "Show Only" for people that haven't read the books, are only following the show, and do not want to hear about the events in the books, and "Books Included" for the book readers that want to discuss significant spoilers from the books.

Huh. That is a surprisingly narrow choice of terminology. Seems to foreclose on the option of generalizing it later as and if required.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:54 PM on June 6, 2014

Without the inclusion of Nellie Oleson the only "villains" of the story would be native americans. Nellie Oleson is fucking VITAL.
posted by elizardbits at 5:56 PM on June 6, 2014 [2 favorites]

Oh sure I'm not saying she shouldn't have been in it. But, like, why is it called Little House On The Prairie when AFAIK it deals almost exclusively with the events from later books?
posted by Sara C. at 5:58 PM on June 6, 2014

Sara C., where's that new Wire post??
posted by Bugbread at 5:59 PM on June 6, 2014

Eventually we'll be adding books as a separate media type.

(ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 6:15 PM on June 6, 2014 [14 favorites]

why is it called Little House On The Prairie when AFAIK it deals almost exclusively with the events from later books?

Well, they had to pick one of the book titles for the title of the show, and the first season specifically followed Little House on the Prairie pretty closely, as I recall. Otherwise they would had to call it A Song of Little Plum Creeks and Silver Lake Shores and Happy Golden Prairies and Towns and Houses.
posted by scody at 7:27 PM on June 6, 2014 [3 favorites]

Plus there was that scene where Cersei was like "Eddard, when one plays the game of prairie houses, go big or go home" and it just had a good ring, so.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:29 PM on June 6, 2014 [6 favorites]

KWCH Channel 10 News at 11: Season 54, Episode 221 - REWATCH

Please keep your spoilers in the rewatch threads I'm only on Season 2 of The News. Definitely don't tell me who the next villain is after Hitler!
posted by Potomac Avenue at 7:39 PM on June 6, 2014 [6 favorites]

How do the Game of Thrones comics and upcoming World of Ice and Fire reference fit into the new spoiler scopes? :P
posted by Jacqueline at 8:32 PM on June 6, 2014

Seems like both of those would be welcome in the book threads and unwelcome in the show-only threads.
posted by Justinian at 8:43 PM on June 6, 2014

Please keep your spoilers in the rewatch threads I'm only on Season 2 of The News. Definitely don't tell me who the next villain is after Hitler!

There's a lot of divergence between the national News and the various reboots for local markets, so I wouldn't get too uptight about spoilers. Did the original even touch on that whole subplot about break-ins at the bottling plant?
posted by nobody at 8:47 PM on June 6, 2014 [3 favorites]

Is that something I'd need to have read the print version to understand?
posted by Potomac Avenue at 9:48 PM on June 6, 2014 [3 favorites]

Wait until the news gets retconned and we're all speaking German.
posted by arcticseal at 10:18 PM on June 6, 2014 [3 favorites]

Without the inclusion of Nellie Oleson the only "villains" of the story would be native americans. Nellie Oleson is fucking VITAL.

Agreed, but didn't they get a fair amount of conflict from Harriet Oleson as well? She would be pretty frightening for someone who was only half a pint.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 10:57 PM on June 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

With Netflix releasing an entire season at once, just the front page description of later episodes can act as a spoiler. e.g. you can have episode 2 description say that "At Place, X runs into their old nemesis..." and just a couple of posts above would be description for episode 3: "With X dead, Y has to..." Maybe a modification for situations like that?
posted by Gyan at 11:27 PM on June 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

If you're watching an episode that has just been released en masse on Netflix, why not just watch the next episode before going to FanFare? It's like right there. Nothing is preventing you from knowing these details you're so intent on.
posted by Sara C. at 11:32 PM on June 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

Not that it affects me personally, given that there is no fucking Netflix in this country goddammit grumble grumble, but watching shows takes time, and while you can browse MeFi from a train / in a waiting room / at work / etc., you may not be able to watch another episode in those kinds of situations.
posted by Bugbread at 11:58 PM on June 6, 2014 [1 favorite]

Yes, yes, I know, I could just pay for a VPN and get a new credit card with a US billing address, or set up, I dunno, a TOR shell to pay BitCoin into a PayPal account which Amazon Mechanical Turk could use to pay Uber drivers to deliver cash to NetFlix USA or whatever, but that's work
posted by Bugbread at 12:10 AM on June 7, 2014 [2 favorites]

why not just watch the next episode before going to FanFare?

That would require watching the entire season in order to avoid potential spoilers. Only a minority do so, unlike a weekly episode or movie, which viewers don't partially watch before heading to a forum.

From WSJ:
Netflix only examined users who finished a season within the space of a month. For one serialized drama, 25% of the viewers finished the entire 13-episode season in two days, while it took 48% of them one week to do so.

This is from an article on the rise of binge viewing so those figures are likely an extreme example of the phenomenon.

The Netflix model is great for individual convenience but it breaks the rhythm as far as social discussion goes. I'm not asking Matt & co to ban later episode posts, only modify the front page description policy, maybe shift it to [more inside].
posted by Gyan at 12:27 AM on June 7, 2014

I skimmed the thread, and didn't see a clear answer to this... so apologies if it's already been addressed.

But if say, a completely new. series like the upcoming oryx and crake HBO one comes out, and i post a thread as "books included" for the first episode, will that be approved?

Or does there have to be an existing "show only" thread first.
posted by emptythought at 2:43 AM on June 7, 2014

Matt will correct me if I'm wrong, but as far as I know it doesn't matter which comes first.
posted by taz (staff) at 2:52 AM on June 7, 2014

Is that something I'd need to have read the print version to understand?

Look, I get that The News is a special case so I don't want to dwell on it too much, but if someone in one of the first-watch threads asks about, say, what the astronauts found on the moon (Season 16 of the KWCH12 Wichita series we've been doing the rewatch on), it seems safe to chime in with supporting information from the books if I know that bit of information isn't part of a big plot reveal later, right? The TV version does that Very Special Episode in '69, but then doesn't follow up on the moon rock spectrometer results at all. And I'm not trying to make fun of your favorite show or anything -- they have a whole lot less time each episode, so of course they're not going to delve into all the nooks and crannies of the source material -- but the search for alien life is, like, a huge part of The National Enquirer spinoff books, and it seems sad that there's currently no place to discus that.
posted by nobody at 4:09 AM on June 7, 2014 [4 favorites]

I think it's a spoiler to even say that the astronauts were even on the moon to find something. Some people are not that far along yet.
posted by taz (staff) at 4:20 AM on June 7, 2014 [10 favorites]

If you're watching an episode that has just been released en masse on Netflix, why not just watch the next episode before going to FanFare? It's like right there. Nothing is preventing you from knowing these details you're so intent on.

Because it defeats the purpose of having individual episode threads. Because sometimes I want to talk about a specific episode after I watch it without having to spend another hour (or in this case many hours) watching what comes next. I don't have the time to watch ten episodes at a stretch in a single sitting. Expecting people to do that is not going to work for everyone.

Telling people to "just watch the next episode" feels unhelpful. Not everyone is able to do that.
posted by zarq at 4:30 AM on June 7, 2014 [6 favorites]

With Netflix releasing an entire season at once, just the front page description of later episodes can act as a spoiler.

I have completely given up on Fanfare because I'm never 100% up to date with all the shows I watch and so many of the front page descriptions are spoilers. It's impossible to scroll past to find something I did watch without accidentally seeing really boringly written spoilers of shows I didn't watch yet. When one of the GOT threads described every main scene in the show above the fold I realised this site is not for me and haven't been back.

At this point only removing the unnecessary anyway descriptions and just keeping titles would probably be the only solution likely to tempt me back. But not every one has to like every thing so I'm fine with spending my time elsewhere.
posted by shelleycat at 5:16 AM on June 7, 2014 [6 favorites]

Also I will never be totally up to date with every show at once because I don't live in the US and don't always have access to legal copies (although I do pay for a lot of stuff via streaming rather than just torrent everything). Add in time zone stuff plus a demanding job with long hours and yeah.
posted by shelleycat at 5:19 AM on June 7, 2014 [2 favorites]

I have completely given up on Fanfare because I'm never 100% up to date

Of all the shows on Fanfare, there is only one where my watching is remotely in sync with where the threads are at.

Except for the few things that are on their first run and also airing pretty much simultaneously on network TV in the US and UK it's not likely that I will ever be closely in sync.

But it's ok if there is no solution that accommodates me, I'll just chip in the odd place now and then. Not having TV show discussion threads perfectly aligned with where I'm at is definitely in the realm of First World Problems.
posted by philipy at 5:53 AM on June 7, 2014

For people who are a bit behind on the shows they're watching and worried about accidentally seeing spoilers on the show pages, try the Archive view. Nothing but season and episode numbers -- no titles, no descriptions.
posted by jacquilynne at 6:18 AM on June 7, 2014 [5 favorites]

At this point only removing the unnecessary anyway descriptions and just keeping titles would probably be the only solution likely to tempt me back.

I think this a good idea. The descriptions don't really add much that is useful. Usually episode teasers don't spoil the content of the episode, but they do spoil episodes leading up to that one.
posted by painquale at 6:27 AM on June 7, 2014 [5 favorites]

Count me as another vote for titles only above the fold and everything else below the fold.
posted by Jacqueline at 7:25 AM on June 7, 2014 [3 favorites]

try the Archive view.

The Archive view mentions a spoiler policy but doesn't say what it is or link to. Maybe that should be put in, to make it easier for people to understand the system.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:27 AM on June 7, 2014

If you're watching an episode that has just been released en masse on Netflix, why not just watch the next episode before going to FanFare? It's like right there. Nothing is preventing you from knowing these details you're so intent on.

I agree in theory but this is the same exact argument that GoT book readers have fruitlessly begged show watchers to understand so it is in essence the most useless of all arguments.
posted by elizardbits at 7:44 AM on June 7, 2014 [2 favorites]

Yeah, I don't see the point of the descriptions on the main page either. Can anyone give a reason for them, other than "to match the format of the other sections"?
posted by smackfu at 8:28 AM on June 7, 2014 [2 favorites]

Episode descriptions are spoilers?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:18 AM on June 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

When they're episodes ahead of where you are they certainly can be, yes. Not maliciously so—the opposite, really, synopses do tend to be written with avoidant vagueness very much in mind—but they're still communicating a bunch of structural content to someone who is behind even as they approach non-descriptive self-parody. It's a tricky thing.

We'll think more about the specific possibilities of e.g. allowing hiding of synopses.
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:22 AM on June 7, 2014 [5 favorites]

Episode descriptions are spoilers?

Depending on how they're written they can be. For me one of the fun parts of Game of Thrones is not knowing which story lines will be covered in each episode. Because there are too many for them all to be shown every time. So seeing a really bland blah description of every scene, even when it didn't say how the scene ended, totally spoiled that particular show for me. In that case I'd already seen the show because GoT is the one thing I keep up to date with and avoid the entire internet if I'm behind on (since I'm clearly overly sensitive but not stupid), but I was already irritated and it was the last straw. Sure first world problems and my own fault for caring and whatever, but it was enough to stop me the few times I've thought about opening FanFare ever since. There was a recent shooting in Fargo (the other show I currently am in love with) where the outcome was spoiled to me by show descriptions elsewhere on the internet because I'm never up to date with that show and that has confirmed my choice. I'm not overly bothered by this in the end, but I figured I'd mention it since it was brought up.
posted by shelleycat at 11:20 AM on June 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

I would think that the many book readers who are reading the show threads would jump in and say, "Heya, ask the magenta flag question in the book thread!"

No, that doesn't work; show-only watchers can't go ask questions in the book thread, because the book thread may well be full of spoilers.

FWIW I kinda liked the carefully-non-spoilery-background-info contributions from bookreaders in the last few GoT threads.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 11:25 AM on June 7, 2014 [2 favorites]

Episode descriptions are spoilers?

Depending on how they're written they can be. For me one of the fun parts of Game of Thrones is not knowing which story lines will be covered in each episode.

Matt's episode descriptions were very good at vaguely describing each episode without giving away specifics.
posted by homunculus at 11:32 AM on June 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

For me one of the fun parts of Game of Thrones is not knowing which story lines will be covered in each episode.

If you're that spoiler averse you probably should just not do FanFare. I mean it's a fun part of Metafilter and all, but it's just not going to work for people who want to go in 100% blind to all media that they might potentially watch.

I don't mean this to be fighty or whatever, but just, like, if you seriously want to know NOTHING, you can't really complain when you go to a subsite that was created for the purpose of talking about this stuff.
posted by Sara C. at 11:46 AM on June 7, 2014

If that's the final decision then I'll stay away. But for now it's supposed to be no spoilers above the fold so that those of us not in the US and spending all our time watching TV can navigate the site without closing our eyes and, in my experience, it hasn't been stuck to. The descriptions often frankly suck anyway, so why argue about what is or is not a spoiler when they aren't necessary?
posted by shelleycat at 11:53 AM on June 7, 2014 [3 favorites]

Episode descriptions are spoilers?


They could be (spoiler alert for the 1980 season of Dallas.) If people were watching the show for some reason and didn't know that JR gets shot, a description of the next episode that began, "In the wake of JR's shooting..." would be a spoiler.

p.s. this may not be the best example, but I'm trying to use one that won't actually spoil anything for anybody. I have never seen an episode of Dallas, but I was alive in 1980 and you couldn't get away from "Who shot JR?" And not every reveal is a spoiler. Some things just enter the cultural consciousness. I know at least two people who have never seen Citizen Kane who know what Rosebud is.

p.p.s I just compared Larry Hagman to Orson Wells. I'm going outside.

p.p.p.s maybe I should have used Soylent Green instead of Citizen Kane. I've never seen Soylent Green, but I know what it is.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 11:54 AM on June 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

And honestly if not wanting badly written full scene by scene outline of a show I haven't seen yet is too much then I don't really know what to say.
posted by shelleycat at 11:55 AM on June 7, 2014 [2 favorites]

But for now it's supposed to be no spoilers above the fold

"Arya and The Hound ride through the woods" is not a spoiler.

If it is a spoiler for you, then talking about TV shows on the internet is probably not for you. It has nothing to do with whether you're caught up or not. You're at a point with spoilers where knowing any information about anything you haven't seen is a spoiler simply based on the fact that it's information.

To my mind, anything in the network's stock episode description* is by default not a spoiler. If it's in the "Next Week On" or a preview/teaser/trailer, it's not a spoiler. If it's in a press junket interview, it's not a spoiler. I was mildly annoyed that Orange Is The New Black sent out their new cast member on the press junket for the current season, because, yeah, I like to go in blind. But "there's going to be a new character and she's played by this actress" is not a spoiler, per se.

*I have edited down some of the synopses for "The Wire" just to be extra considerate of people who really hate knowing things, but it probably wasn't strictly necessary.
posted by Sara C. at 11:59 AM on June 7, 2014 [2 favorites]

For what it's worth, I think it's previously been decided that "next week on" and press junket info don't belong the preceding episode's thread, so this stuff obviously isn't so clear cut.

Not that I disagree that there's a level of future-info sensitivity that's not really compatible with reading about media on the internet, but your intuition about exactly where that line gets drawn isn't as universal as the forcefulness of your comment implies.
posted by nobody at 12:09 PM on June 7, 2014 [3 favorites]

Right; I carefully avoid the HBO "next time on" (and "previously on") because I find that they telegraph way too much of what is about to happen.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 12:16 PM on June 7, 2014

Talk about interviews, press coverage, and information gleaned there are absolutely allowed in FanFare. I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that they're not.
posted by Sara C. at 12:18 PM on June 7, 2014

If it is a spoiler for you, then talking about TV shows on the internet is probably not for you.

Can we please refrain from telling people they aren't welcome at Fanfare over petty differences in spoiler philosophies? Doubly so for telling someone the whole internet is "not for them" w/r/t TV discussion. Inadvertently reading something on the front page is totally different from clicking into a discussion, and either way it's kind of shitty to tell someone to basically get bent when they bring it up in a MeTa thread that's explicitly about spoiler issues.

I tend to agree that the synopses are inherently spoilery and I would love the option to hide them. I'm happy with the archive view for now, though.
posted by dialetheia at 12:31 PM on June 7, 2014 [13 favorites]

Talk about interviews, press coverage, and information gleaned there are absolutely allowed in FanFare.

Where has that been stated, Sara?

IIRC, the only mod statements on that topic thus far has been that discussion of external information still has to adhere to the spoiler scope for the episode thread. So we can discuss interviews regarding current or past episodes, but not anything that reveals or hints about future episodes (and I suppose casting announcements would fall under this).

Mods, please correct me if I'm mistaken.
posted by Jacqueline at 12:32 PM on June 7, 2014

I like these new tags. Seems like they could even be taken further. How about thematic movie clubs?

For instance, there could be threads in which people watch/rewatch famous series (Harry Potter, Star Wars, etc.) or famous studios/eras (Universal horror, Hammer horror), the films of a given director or actor, etc.

That could be really awesome. I'd be down for starting a Universal monster movie club.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 12:32 PM on June 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

Talk about interviews, press coverage, and information gleaned there are absolutely allowed in FanFare. I'm not sure where you're getting the idea that they're not.

The FanFare spoiler policy is "please refrain from discussing events that take place in future episodes."

It seems pretty clear to me: if your gleaned information reveals future events, then it is not suitable for Fanfare discussion.

(Although I guess that the policy FAQ will need some riders added for the "rewatch" and "books included" special cases.)
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 12:37 PM on June 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

I could swear there was another mod statement on promos, etc., but this one from Cortex is the only one I've managed to find so far:

For my part, I think in the spirit of the "only up to this episode" principle, avoiding discussion of preview and promo stuff may be the cleanest way to go.

So that's no official ruling, but I'm also pretty sure there hasn't been anything that would suggest promo info about unaired episodes is "absolutely allowed."
posted by nobody at 12:39 PM on June 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

IIRC some comments with info from interviews with Bryan Fuller were deleted from Hannibal fanfare threads, which is a large part of why a parallel discussion is continuing on the blue in the old thread.
posted by dialetheia at 12:42 PM on June 7, 2014

Thanks, mods!

You can also just MeMail one of the GoT mavens if you don't feel like googling.

Mauve wings, mauve words.
posted by ersatz at 12:50 PM on June 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

It seems pretty clear to me: if your gleaned information reveals future events, then it is not suitable for Fanfare discussion.

Yeah, that's something I was assuming. Only up to this episode. But there's a difference to me between "years later, David Simon said that Omar [spoiler spoiler spoiler] because [spoiler]," and "Arya and The Hound ride through the woods." In that the latter is not a spoiler.
posted by Sara C. at 12:57 PM on June 7, 2014

Like, if it's in the promotional photos, it's not a spoiler.
posted by Sara C. at 12:58 PM on June 7, 2014

I'm totally serious about the movie club thing. It could be a fun use of Fanfare. It'd be like an online book club, but for movies. If my proposed examples were too specific, we could go broader... MeFi Horror Film Club, for example. I keep mentioning horror stuff because the way several dozen MeFites come out of the woodwork every time there's a horror movie thread would indicate that one would go over well. It could work with anything, though: MeFi Chinese Cinema, MeFi Noir, etc.

Anyone else think this sounds fun?
posted by DirtyOldTown at 1:06 PM on June 7, 2014 [3 favorites]

ActingTheGoat: I've never seen Soylent Green, but I know what it is.

Is it... delicious?
posted by comealongpole at 1:06 PM on June 7, 2014

That is a surprisingly narrow choice of terminology.

I'm not sure I understand this criticism stavros, what descriptions would you have gone with?
posted by mathowie (staff) at 1:13 PM on June 7, 2014

It is kind of weird that the default policy for FanFare threads is "no spoilers" and the policy for the blue is "please keep spoilers off the front page" and yet there are spoilers all over the front page of FanFare.

The default policy is the same on both sites. No spoilers above the fold (shown on the front page), but you can reveal further details inside.

The episode descriptions are almost entirely from IMDB or Wikipedia -- they're mostly innocuous but do describe events that happen in each episode, and if you were five episodes or a whole season behind, that might reveal stuff that could seem spoilery.

I know it's tough to ask people to keep things spoiler-free above the fold (and we direct people to try the dry descriptions from Wikipedia), but defaulting the front page to just titles would lose a lot of personality from the front page of FanFare. It'd be extremely sparse and would lose a lot.

You could certainly tweak the display using Stylish or greasemonkey to kill show descriptions for now if you really want to try it out on a desktop.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 1:21 PM on June 7, 2014

I could swear there was another mod statement on promos, etc., but this one from Cortex is the only one I've managed to find so far

Here's another one from the current GOT thread.
posted by homunculus at 1:47 PM on June 7, 2014

efaulting the front page to just titles would lose a lot of personality from the front page of FanFare. It'd be extremely sparse and would lose a lot.

Given the history of shows I enjoy (Kitchen Confidential, Better Off Ted, Firefly, Almost Human), the mere existence of a new episode constitutes spoilers.
posted by the man of twists and turns at 3:14 PM on June 7, 2014 [3 favorites]

Tangentially speaking of book clubs, I have to say I'm really psyched for there to eventually be a books element of FanFare.
posted by Sara C. at 3:21 PM on June 7, 2014

Anyone else think this sounds fun?

Me and griphus basically do a podcast of this already, so you can be darned tootin' I could get onboard with a FanFare horror club thing. I am doubtful anybody wants threads for all nine of the Hellraiser films, though.
posted by cortex (staff) at 3:38 PM on June 7, 2014 [2 favorites]

If you're that spoiler averse you probably should just not do FanFare

It might be a good idea to keep in mind that FanFare is still in Beta, undergoing a gradual rollout, and none of the elements we're discussing are set in stone. The subsite is not your private sandbox. People may have different visions than yours of both how they will use the site and how it may be most enjoyable/useful for them.
posted by zarq at 4:03 PM on June 7, 2014 [4 favorites]

Anyone else think this sounds fun?

Absolutely. (Although I'm not much of a horror buff. Noir Club, maybe? There's room for more than one!)
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 4:09 PM on June 7, 2014

mathowie: "if you were five episodes or a whole season behind, that might reveal stuff that could seem spoilery."

Yes, and keep in mind that unless you live in the US or Canada, you are likely at least five episodes behind. And while Fanfare has older shows that you can engage in rewatches of (like the Wire), to get to them (or find out about them, when a show is being picked up in Fanfare), you have to scroll through all these other shows that the Net is saying are the best shows in the universe, yet which you won't be able to legally see for months.

mathowie: "defaulting the front page to just titles would lose a lot of personality from the front page of FanFare. It'd be extremely sparse and would lose a lot."

Sparse, yes, but what else would it lose? The blurbs aren't brimming with personality or anything. It's not like the blue where people are using the space to make jokes or quote choice bits or engage in wordplay. It just fills space to make the page look more like the other MeFi colors. It's basically Lorem Ipsum with spoilers.
posted by Bugbread at 4:11 PM on June 7, 2014 [8 favorites]

Sorry, that sounds bitter.

So, I almost never propose technical ponies. I know it makes work, and has unintended consequences, etc. But this is a rare time when I think it would be great, and fairly easy, to implement a pony: Have a setting (on your profile page, or a button on the front of Fanfare, or whatever) labeled "Hide show descriptions on front page of Fanfare". Click it, and, boom, you get the same Fanfare page, but without the description blurb.
posted by Bugbread at 4:14 PM on June 7, 2014 [2 favorites]

That's an interesting idea.
posted by zarq at 4:25 PM on June 7, 2014

I would ride and feed that pony. The descriptions don't add anything if you're in the post's target audience, and ifyou're not...well, for my part I spent the last couple of weeks powering through all of Orphan Black, and FanFare spoiled one of the major arcs of season two for me because I glanced at the front page last Sunday.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 4:28 PM on June 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

I have been putting airdates in with the post titles, and just noticed that it was moved below the fold in my most recent Sherlock post.

Sorry. Will do that in the future.
posted by zarq at 5:06 PM on June 7, 2014

I am doubtful anybody wants threads for all nine of the Hellraiser films, though.

Ummmmmmm.... HI THERE! Can we also do all the Nightmare on Elm Streets?
posted by DirtyOldTown at 5:22 PM on June 7, 2014

I am doubtful anybody wants threads for all nine ten of the Hellraiser films, though.
posted by homunculus at 5:35 PM on June 7, 2014

if you were five episodes or a whole season behind, that might reveal stuff that could seem spoilery.

It would be outright spoilery most of time, I think. Asking people to describe the contents of a show without spoiling the contents of that show is a pretty hopeless task, given the widely different standards everyone has for spoilers. IMO, I don't think the value-add to the look of the front page is worth it.

Maybe there's something else that could be added to the front page to give it some personality? Like, a little picture of Hodor DJing next to the Game of Thrones threads?
posted by painquale at 5:53 PM on June 7, 2014 [1 favorite]

Should I start a separate MeTa for the film clubs idea? Or is that a pony for another day? I don't want to open more cans of worms than we're ready for.

We could probably test it out with a simple "FilmClub" label for posts, much like the "Rewatch" label and the others.

If it were to be a real thing, there'd be questions about how many clubs there would or could be, how clubs started, how people agreed on which films clubs would watch, how the schedules were announced. That stuff might be worth discussing if/when it came to that.

For now, though, we could fake it with the label and some kind of impromptu agreement from here (or another MeTa thread, if we go that way) on what the first test film(s) would be.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:01 PM on June 7, 2014

Should I start a separate MeTa for the film clubs idea? Or is that a pony for another day? I don't want to open more cans of worms than we're ready for.

I'd say realistically it's not something we're likely to get to in the real short term; there's already a pretty long to-do list for FanFare that we'll need to work through before we'd get to formalizing something like that on-site.

So: if you want to just talk about the more generalized idea of organizing a movie-watching club or three that people'd just make FanFare movie posts about at the appropriate times and then discuss in like any other movie or TV post, that's fine and go for it.

If you want to talk more about server-side implementation details or functionality or that sort of "and now pb programs a thing" deal, I'd say no real use in doing that immediately vs. a few weeks down the line since we are unlikely to have any real ability to deal with it right now on top of everything else.
posted by cortex (staff) at 6:04 PM on June 7, 2014

So: if you want to just talk about the more generalized idea of organizing a movie-watching club or three that people'd just make FanFare movie posts about at the appropriate times and then discuss in like any other movie or TV post, that's fine and go for it.

So this is a thing we should be using MeTa for?
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 6:13 PM on June 7, 2014

I don't think there'd be any reason for pb to program anything more than a "FilmClub" label and even that wouldn't be necessary at the beginning. Just being permitted to make FanFare posts about older movies would be enough to get started. The thing to discuss would be where/how people would organize. So, as long as there's no issue with that, I'm going to go ahead and do a MeTa for a MeFi Horror Movie Club, if that's cool.

(Actually, now that I think about it... Were it to take off, there could be some utility in a system like the one used for IRL that would let people announce in advance when a Movie Club post would go up, so that people could watch a film in advance and be ready. I am more than happy to let that be a pony for another day, though. And were it readily doable, I'd buy pb a beer for even having mentioned it while he's no doubt already busy.)
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:14 PM on June 7, 2014 [2 favorites]

So this is a thing we should be using MeTa for?

In the absence of some other good solution for it so far, that's totally fine, yeah.

Just being permitted to make FanFare posts about older movies would be enough to get started.

Ah, I get you. I was underthinking it slightly; I'd actually forgotten that we were still in "only films that Matt specifically posts" mode on the movie category. I don't want to make a promise over his head that we're ready to flip that switch, but I am at least hopeful that things are shaping up okay there such that starting up some movie club chatter to sort of petition for a couple new additions every week in the mean time is probably reasonable.
posted by cortex (staff) at 6:18 PM on June 7, 2014

I submitted a MeTa. It's in the queue, and if it's approved, we'll hash it out and Matt can post the FanFare thread for us when/if needed. That would be fine for now. At this point, I'm proposing a single club, with a single movie a week. If it's too early to be branching this far out, though, that will be understandable, too.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:23 PM on June 7, 2014

I'm delighted FanFare even exists. I don't mean to hassle y'all for multiple waves of expansion while the paint is still drying.
posted by DirtyOldTown at 6:29 PM on June 7, 2014

I'm just here to underscore the preciously made point that some of us do live in countries without Netflix and with viewing schedules where we'll always be at least hours and often weeks behind the US broadcast schedules. It's not really fair to say "well, stay off Fanfare" - the front page synopsis means I could be spoiled for something I'm not even engaging with at Fanfare when I'm there just for a rewatch. And it's not like you can't tell what episode you want without a synopsis - you can search the title anywhere on the internet.
I mostly don't care, but the tone taken in the "just watch through or bug off" statements is grinding my corn.
posted by gingerest at 8:06 PM on June 7, 2014 [6 favorites]

Toggle for descriptions please if people are a fan of having th at all, otherwise Jobs-style. Because yes, in GoT for example, mentioning the continued existence of a character is indeed a type of spoiler. They are all so constantly placed in peril, in a series where peril really can be terminal, that it can remove a lot of the tension that makes the show into crack for a lot of us.
Also, as mentioned above, even if I am up to date or not spoiler-averse on one show, I am wading through swathes of other great shows that aren't released here yet or that I will watch on DVD because they never get a release here. I'm kinda squinting as I click around on FanFare.
posted by Iteki at 12:24 AM on June 8, 2014 [2 favorites]

Iteki: "I'm kinda squinting as I click around on FanFare."

Hehe, I thought I was the only one doing the squinting thing.
posted by Bugbread at 5:37 AM on June 8, 2014

Hey, so who is actually going to make the two GoT threads tonight? Are we now enabled to make the new Books Included thread on our own beginning with this episode or do we have to wait for a mod to do it or...?
posted by Jacqueline at 7:18 AM on June 8, 2014

A big part of the problem with synopses on Fanfare is this...

I know darn well not to go anywhere near any GoT threads because I am way behind, just starting out on Book 2. However if I want to follow anything on Fanfare (The Wire, Fargo, Sherlock, etc) whenever I look for threads about those I am liable to run into GoT threads with synposes which try as they might to be bland still tell me a lot about e.g. who is still around and what side they are on way down the line from where I am at.

At some point (not immed I guess because too much work) it would be good to have some way of maybe selecting what shows appear / don't appear on the page. A sort of MyFanfare, like MyMefi.
posted by philipy at 8:49 AM on June 8, 2014 [4 favorites]

Does not compute.

Seems pretty straightforward to me. The episode descriptions are as spoiler-free as possible, and they're slightly dry, but they say something and I find descriptions of other shows I don't watch often sound intriguing enough to try them out (I had no idea what Orphan Black was, sounds like a cool scifi thing from the descriptions). Having a front page of just show titles would be boring and take a lot away from it. I'm considering a "hide descriptions" button somewhere on the page in the future but for now I'm not going to unilaterally wipe all the descriptions from the front page.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:16 AM on June 8, 2014

Hey, so who is actually going to make the two GoT threads tonight? Are we now enabled to make the new Books Included thread on our own beginning with this episode or do we have to wait for a mod to do it or...?

Anyone can submit posts for tonight's show and label them accordingly. I suspect the above-the-fold descriptions will be similar/same and I'll approve both of them at the same time so both audiences are covered (around 10PM pacific when the west coast feed is done).
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:17 AM on June 8, 2014

I'd go without the descriptions, but I don't think it's a big deal either way. I just don't see much value in a non-dry front page. I'd rather have some form of show subscriptions and never have to see it at all but it doesn't seem like that's the vision here.

Of course, I was about to say I would never watch a show just based on a short description on a forum/blog but I ended up watching MLP because of the title of the thread back on SA so maybe I'm more easily persuaded than I was considering.
posted by Drinky Die at 9:23 AM on June 8, 2014

I'd rather have some form of show subscriptions and never have to see it at all but it doesn't seem like that's the vision here

Doesn't seem like that's the vision here? Dude, that has been discussed from day one as the goal we're working towards. We're hoping to expand it to books, music, games, etc along with all movies and TV, you can bet we've been planning a "My FanFare" feature from the start so you don't miss everything you like. In fact someday it might just be your default front page of the site once there's many posts in many subjects flying past.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 10:39 AM on June 8, 2014

descriptions of other shows I don't watch often sound intriguing

Fanfare is potentially a great discovery tool, and (long-term) it would be worth thinking how to make the most of that potential. I'd love to see Mefite-powered movie ratings for instance.

Maybe there could be Mefi-powered recs linked to iTunes etc as an extra revenue stream as well.

The way it is now isn't ideal though, because I wouldn't want to discover that GoT or The Wire are great by being bumping into the outlines of their Season 4 episodes. Not even at the level of passing references to who's the Mayor, who's a king, who's no longer police, who's in jail.

I definitely would like to discover things like "A lot of Mefites who like The Wire also like GoT and Elementary, and here's some blurb about those shows from TVDB, and links to their Season 1 trailers."

you can bet we've been planning a "My FanFare" feature from the start

Good to know.

Just like I an not up to date with everything GoT, I am not up to date with everything that's been discussed on MeTa about Fanfare. Apologies if I'm going over old ground. That's liable to happen from time to time unless I give up posting to MeTa altogether.
posted by philipy at 11:16 AM on June 8, 2014

I thought so, but the emphasis on the front page not being dry got me confuzzled.
posted by Drinky Die at 11:26 AM on June 8, 2014

the emphasis on the front page not being dry got me confuzzled

What? Has anyone said that? I certainly haven't. I said dry descriptions are what we aim for above the fold. We mention this on the posting page, and steer people to IMDB and Wikipedia to get dry show descriptions. I still think there's interestingness and value in even those dry descriptions on the front page and would not want to lose them by hiding all descriptions because I think it loses too much.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 11:33 AM on June 8, 2014 [1 favorite]

Ok
posted by Drinky Die at 11:53 AM on June 8, 2014

I'm not sure I understand this criticism stavros, what descriptions would you have gone with?

Oh, not really a criticism, just an observation, kinda. It just seemed to me that more generalized words -- like the newbie/expert review/discussion buckets at AVClub for this purpose -- might make it easier to wrap future {media products} conceptually where similar threadsplitting might make sense. Finding the best words for this thing is always tough, though, so I'm not sure what I would suggest.

Apologies for nitpicking without a better idea to offer though, which is always annoying, I know.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 3:57 PM on June 8, 2014

mathowie: "What? Has anyone said that? I certainly haven't. I said dry descriptions are what we aim for above the fold."

Y'all appear to be just using the word "dry" differently. I think Drinky Die is calling a page with just show names and episode numbers a "dry" page, and one with little description blurbs a "non-dry" page, while you seem to be calling a page with show names, episode numbers, and plain descriptions a "dry" page, and one with florid/jokey/otherwise-notable descriptions a "non-dry" page.
posted by Bugbread at 4:38 PM on June 8, 2014

(I had no idea what Orphan Black was, sounds like a cool scifi thing from the descriptions).

I highly recommend it, but you want to start from the beginning.
posted by homunculus at 5:09 PM on June 8, 2014 [2 favorites]

Having participated in both threads about the latest GoT episode, I noticed it's hard to tell the two apart in Recent Activity (especially since they both have the same description). Maybe the appropriate thread designation could included in the title?

Ex: BOOKS ONLY: Game of Thrones: The Watchers on the Wall
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 5:50 AM on June 9, 2014 [2 favorites]

I think part of the problem is that it's difficult to trust people to be appropriately non-spoilery in the show descriptions, at least until it's something that's been really ingrained in the culture of FanFare. The ones for the current Game of Thrones episode are good. The official HBO descriptions for Game of Thrones episodes are little masterpieces in terms of their ambiguity and vagueness. My favorite was the episode in which Sam gained his nickname: the description was "Sam and Gilly meet an older gentleman."
posted by painquale at 6:04 AM on June 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

I think part of the problem is that it's difficult to trust people to be appropriately non-spoilery in the show descriptions

Have there been a lot of especially "untrustworthy" descriptions at this point? I've been spoiled by a few, but it's never the fault of the description as written. I could have been just as easily spoiled by an AV Club headline.

Also, "Sam and Gilly meet an older gentleman" would be considered a spoiler by the standards of some in this MeTa. For instance now we know that Sam and Gilly are still characters on GoT, and that they're going to have a subplot in an upcoming episode.

I think as long as people are leaving out "In the aftermath of J.R. Ewing's death..." sort of things, and not spoiling the resolution to the episode in question (I often have to edit that out of HBO episode descriptions), it's fine.
posted by Sara C. at 8:55 AM on June 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

You're probably right about the decision being set, but I think it's worth accentuating the worry in order to make people very aware of the issue and to foster a culture of vague descriptions. It might even be worth putting in a little "Note: please keep descriptions vague and free of spoilers" on the post creation page (if there isn't one there already).
posted by painquale at 9:08 AM on June 9, 2014

Yeah, that series is quickly becoming a chronic offender as far as I'm concerned.

Maybe somebody can put together a userscript?
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 9:08 AM on June 9, 2014

Individual people make the posts for each episode. Maybe just shoot the poster a mefi mail about it?
posted by Sara C. at 9:13 AM on June 9, 2014

Having participated in both threads about the latest GoT episode, I noticed it's hard to tell the two apart in Recent Activity (especially since they both have the same description). Maybe the appropriate thread designation could included in the title?

Seconding this.
posted by Drinky Die at 9:41 AM on June 9, 2014 [2 favorites]

to foster a culture of vague descriptions.

Sometimes, I worry we're all taking this a bit too seriously.
posted by Diablevert at 10:31 AM on June 9, 2014 [4 favorites]

I was going to use the contact form and let me know if I should have (or indeed if I should just go outside) but this comment appears to be a textbook case of nonspoiler-spoiler from someone with book learnin'. Person X links to pretty facetious imageset including text that I certainly didn't read as a spoiler. Person B comes along and warns that the link contains spoilers. Now maybe they meant "hey, that link has stuff that might be speculation or spoiler in, I dunno, but skip it if you are wary" but what they said is that the link contains spoilers. I don't want clarification on whether they are speaking from a place of knowledge or not but it's a good example of spoiling by omission or something. I wish they'd just flagged the original comment and let other book-readers do the same or mail a mod if they were that concerned rather than drawing attention to it.
posted by Iteki at 10:59 AM on June 9, 2014

That's borderline, could be viewed as a spoiler but only if someone was reading it pretty sharply. Probably right codacorolla should have taken it to the mods instead of posting in the thread.
posted by Drinky Die at 11:05 AM on June 9, 2014

I think splitting the GoT threads was a great move and I really appreciate the labels. But man, now I have to read two different threads on Monday mornings!
posted by chatongriffes at 11:07 AM on June 9, 2014 [2 favorites]

One request: Can we get the words "book" / "show only" / "first watch" / "rewatch" appended to the titles of threads that are labeled that way, so they're easy to tell apart in recent activity and the urls are more obviously different if you have both threads open? As it stands, it would be pretty easy to post a comment in the wrong thread if you're simultaneously following "book included" and "show only" threads for the same episode.
posted by nangar at 12:34 PM on June 9, 2014 [2 favorites]

Yes, I'm working on that now.
posted by pb (staff) at 12:47 PM on June 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

Well, I flagged it. The problem definitely isn't with the poster though - any reasonably meaningful description for that episode would include that particular plot point.

I flagged it also and was honestly disappointed when I saw that first sentence. The rest of the description below the fold said everything, was perfectly non-spoilery, and the first sentence wasn't even needed.
posted by P.o.B. at 12:54 PM on June 9, 2014

Yes, I'm working on that now.

Thanks.
posted by Drinky Die at 1:02 PM on June 9, 2014

Awesome. Thanks, pb.
posted by nangar at 1:08 PM on June 9, 2014

In the Show Only thread today, I've been missing some of my favorite Books Included peeps who are now off playing happily in the other sandbox.

My only real quibble so far is that I could've done without the random Breaking Bad spoilers that popped up in the Show Only GoT thread. I know, I know, not technically spoilers for GoT purposes, but gah! I was going to watch that show someday! (And my own fault for not getting to that sooner.)
posted by hush at 2:20 PM on June 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

A couple FanFare updates. Threads with special discussion types are now labeled in Recent Activity and the page title.

You can now hide post descriptions by clicking the "Hide Post Descriptions" link in the sidebar on the front page. In the mobile version it's at the bottom of the page, so you can click "Skip to Menu" and then scroll up a little bit to enable it. Once hidden, that same link becomes the spot to show them again. It's a cookie-based preference, so you'll need to run through that routine for every browser you use to read FanFare.
posted by pb (staff) at 2:43 PM on June 9, 2014 [11 favorites]

My only real quibble so far is that I could've done without the random Breaking Bad spoilers

That stinks, I hate even minor spoilers, but I promise you BB is a show where you can enjoy the ride the entire way even if you are very spoiled. It's a journey more than destination show.
posted by Drinky Die at 2:44 PM on June 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

gah! I was going to watch that show someday! (And my own fault for not getting to that sooner.)

Just to reassure you, as someone who only started recently watching BB, the comment in the thread that I assume you're referring to is highly unlikely to ruin even a small degree of enjoyment of the series for you. Go forth and watch it and be stunned by its intense and terrifying awesomeness!
posted by scody at 2:47 PM on June 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

Woot woot! Go pb!!
posted by Bugbread at 2:55 PM on June 9, 2014 [1 favorite]

WOO PB
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 3:11 PM on June 9, 2014

Can the labels be added to the rss feeds? Right now both Game of Thrones entries look exactly the same.
posted by Gary at 4:13 PM on June 9, 2014

(which may get fixed automatically as a part of nangar's request you are already working on...)
posted by Gary at 4:15 PM on June 9, 2014

Can the labels be added to the rss feeds?

Yes, I'll them to the RSS feeds too.
posted by pb (staff) at 4:22 PM on June 9, 2014 [3 favorites]

(link to book reader thread) Hrm, it feels like there is a bottomless pit of accidental spoiler possibilities sometimes.
posted by Drinky Die at 5:43 AM on June 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

So there's a Last Week Tonight post on the blue that's just a link to a bit from this week's episode, which already has a FanFare post. What's the protocol here?
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 5:50 AM on June 10, 2014

Protocol is basically "that is a thing that happened". FanFare's existence doesn't preclude folks from making posts on the blue that they think are good posts for the blue, so the occasional bit of overlap is likely and okay.
posted by cortex (staff) at 6:03 AM on June 10, 2014

Cool beans (as it were). Up to this point the lines between sub-sites were so clear that it was tough to conceive of an inter-site double that actually belonged on both, so I had no idea whether these things were flagging material.
posted by Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish at 7:26 AM on June 10, 2014

(link to book reader thread) Hrm, it feels like there is a bottomless pit of accidental spoiler possibilities sometimes.

IMO, people have a responsibility to think before they click and realize that for that particular subsite, "so-and-so had a comment with X favorites in FanFare" might link them to something spoilery.
posted by Jacqueline at 7:32 AM on June 10, 2014 [3 favorites]

I know this experiment just started, but I'm ready to label it a massive success. Not only has my thirst for full spoileriffic discussion of GoT been slaked, but I really have felt no urge whatsoever to post in the thread for the non-readers. Thanks, y'all.
posted by norm at 8:53 AM on June 10, 2014 [3 favorites]

Yeah! I really enjoyed reading the show-only thread this week. Thanks Matt.
posted by isthmus at 8:57 AM on June 10, 2014

Hiding the descriptions seems to shift the sidebar over away from the right edge of the screen. This is in Chrome 35.0.1916.114 m and in Firefox 29.0.1. Screenshot here
posted by TwoWordReview at 3:31 PM on June 10, 2014

Thanks for the heads up TwoWordReview. According to our site stats we don't get too many visitors with their browsers open that wide, but we'll put this on the to-fix list.
posted by pb (staff) at 3:41 PM on June 10, 2014

pb: "According to our site stats we don't get too many visitors with their browsers open that wide, but we'll put this on the to-fix list."

Really?? What size are folks browsing at? I assumed anyone not on a phone or an iPad was browsing at 1920 x 1080.
posted by Bugbread at 5:09 PM on June 10, 2014

Mine's about 1300 wide on a 27" screen; I don't really want my browser to be super wide in the general case. On a big screen it's one column of my primary workspace (terms to the left, text/misc to the right), on a narrower screen maybe I'll maximize if it doesn't mean it's super wide.
posted by cortex (staff) at 5:15 PM on June 10, 2014

I think most laptop screens max out at 1280 still, and probably most non-worktime browsing is done on tablets these days rather than desktops. Guess we're in the minority of using widescreen monitors with windows maximised. (I vaguely remember a thread discussing browser window size behavior in recent memory)
posted by TwoWordReview at 5:16 PM on June 10, 2014

My not particularly big laptop (15", I think) is at 1366x768, and I see something similar to TwoWordReview if I turn off descriptions. Not as much whitespace between the sidebar and the edge of the screen as in 2WR's screenshot, but it's there. (The right edge of the sidebar lines up about with the "p" in "posted" in "3 posts and 27 comments posted since your last visit.") Firefox 29.0.1.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 8:37 PM on June 10, 2014

So when are we going to do a "Lost" rewatch?
posted by empath at 1:20 AM on June 11, 2014 [2 favorites]

but we'll put this on the to-fix list.

Oh neat, fixed already. I like how the items on pb's to-fix list get fixed quicker than most people's I'm-working-on-this-right-now list.
posted by TwoWordReview at 12:17 PM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

'Hide post descriptions' is a great feature. Thanks!
posted by isthmus at 1:58 PM on June 11, 2014

So when are we going to do a "Lost" rewatch?

I almost just posted an extreme spoiler in reflexive answer to this.
posted by norm at 2:26 PM on June 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

We just added a special-for-Netflix "binge" condition for Orange is the New Black -- if you load the front page of FanFare, you'll see the poster image next to the entire season of shows. That "post" will move down the page as new posts get made, and it's only shown on the front page, the archives, show, and tag pages show all thirteen shows as separate posts.

Use of this will be pretty rare, probably only 2-3x a year that Netflix does this (House of Cards, future shows, etc).
posted by mathowie (staff) at 3:28 PM on June 11, 2014 [8 favorites]

Just a thought (not particularly a request): that binge function might also be potentially useful for rewatch discussions, since a lot of rewatching tends to happen in a 'lost my weekend to Netflix' sort of way, as well.
posted by jacquilynne at 6:54 AM on June 12, 2014

Love this for OitNB and House of Cards threads. Mathowie, thanks!

jacquilynne, If that happens, I'd personally prefer that the Doctor Who rewatch threads not be set up that way. We are planning to post one every few days, not entire seasons at once.
posted by zarq at 6:56 AM on June 12, 2014

Yeah, I think the binge block as such really only makes sense as a response to this odd season-dump format; structurally speaking I think the natural pacing of weekly episodes we see with traditional television seasons is actually a lot better of a natural match to loose group discussion on FanFare than having everybody have everything at once and then trying to sort out pacing. I'd guess group rewatch stuff will tend to stick to the one episode every few days model as a result.

I think the season dump is an interesting experiment in TV programming strategy as internet-from-the-beginning streaming providers become a more significant, but it is for sure weird in the side effects for media consumption and discussion and I have no idea if five years from now it's something that will have become a more prominent model or an abandoned relic.
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:17 AM on June 12, 2014

Yeah, I wasn't thinking so much for structured and popular rewatches like what the DW people seem to be aiming for as for shows that might not draw quite as much participation. If someone wants to go back and watch, I don't know, Jake and the Fatman or something, where relatively few people are likely to participate in each episode, then having them all available at once might make sense and people can pick and choose which episodes to comment in.

But if it's a bad idea, I'm okay with it being a bad idea, too.
posted by jacquilynne at 10:04 AM on June 12, 2014

Would it be possible to add the comment count (with the "x new" too) to the binge blocks? Or is there another good way to see if posts from previous episodes have new comments? I could add them to my favorites, but I prefer some way with Fanfare itself. The only way I found is the show view: fanfare.metafilter.com/show/orange-is-the-new-black but the threads there are not in the right order and I haven't seen half of the episodes and prefer not to be spoiled by the descriptions (also, it's a bit confusing to find the episodes that I did watch among the ones that I didn't). If they were in episode order that would help too, I could be careful and not read any further than the episode I'm currently on.
posted by blub at 12:24 AM on June 13, 2014

Threads with special discussion types are now labeled in Recent Activity and the page title.

They're labeled on the "My Activity" tab on Recent Activity, but not on the "My Favorites" tab.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 4:35 AM on June 13, 2014

Just noticed the new Orange is the New Black listings. Brilliant!
posted by Jacqueline at 8:02 AM on June 13, 2014

Would it be possible to add the comment count (with the "x new" too) to the binge blocks?

No, we don't really have room for it in the post there. The show page is your best bet. We just fixed up the episode order there, sorry about that.

Thanks, I'll get those added there DevilsAdvocate.
posted by pb (staff) at 10:42 AM on June 13, 2014 [1 favorite]

Thanks very much for fixing the show page order pb, that works fine for checking new comments now.
posted by blub at 1:03 PM on June 13, 2014

Thanks for the many ponies granted in this thread! Huzzah!
posted by ocherdraco at 11:06 PM on June 14, 2014 [1 favorite]

As this apparently is the most recent Fanfare meta regarding technical aspects still alive, has there been any mind to changing the background on Fanfare from the Professional White Background?
posted by Atreides at 2:55 PM on June 30, 2014 [1 favorite]

I hated it at first but I'm kinda getting used to it. Not sure I want it to change any more.
posted by Drinky Die at 2:58 PM on June 30, 2014

I feel like the background ought to look like a 35 mm film reel, dark with the little squares around the edges.
posted by misha at 4:53 PM on July 5, 2014 [1 favorite]