Reddit Is Banning Users That Post Star Wars 7 Spoilers (softpedia.com)

An anonymous reader writes: A few naughty users have started spamming Reddit with Star Wars 7 spoilers, but also hoaxes. Some known Star Wars fans with Reddit accounts were even bombarded with PMs about the upcoming film, with trolls trying to ruin the movie before they saw it. As a result, Reddit is now banning any user that posts Star Wars 7 spoilers. The movie officially launches tomorrow; do you plan to see it? Do you care about spoilers?

Comments

What about me?

[Anonymous Coward]

So, how about people who like other movies and don't like getting spoilers?
Or is this a Star Wars Master Race thing where everyone else are second class citizens that doesn't deserve protection?

Re:What about me?

[Rei]

I'm curious as to how Slashdotters would react if I were to post a giant Star Wars spoiler here.

Re:What about me?

[MisterSquid]

So, how about people who like other movies and don't like getting spoilers? Or is this a Star Wars Master Race thing where everyone else are second class citizens that doesn't deserve protection?

Encountering new narratives is one of narrative's fundamental pleasures. Novelty is so important to narratives that in many cases entire classes of aesthetic effects and domains of hermeneutic structures depend on an audience's relative ignorance about what happens next.

So, it's not just courtesy to label narrative "secrets" spoilers if they are unexpected; doing so protects the value of narratives for future audiences, and the act of people coming to their own understandings about a narrative is worth protecting because, in many ways, our very identities are constructed from the kinds of narratives we encounter and the lessons we learn as we experience (and later reflect on) the things we experience as we discover a narrative that is new to us.

I take a pragmatic approach. If I'm on the web and writing about a recently-produced (within a year) narrative, I label my reveals with clear ***SPOILER ALERT***s. On the other opposite hand, if I'm writing for (say) a literary journal about Thomas Pynchon's _The Crying of Lot 49_, I don't bother with them because the target audience understands they are expected to have already read the narrative I'm discussing.

But most discussions which contain narrative "secrets" fall somewhere in the middle, like a 400-year old story called _Romeo and Juliet_ which is one of the cornerstones of Modern aesthetic culture. Or maybe you're discussing a 2500-year old story about a king searching for the cause of the plague across his kingdom called _Oedipus Rex_ (well, the spoiler comes up front in that play, but you get the idea). My habit is to label those middle-ground reveals as spoilers, too, something I think everyone should do to protect the value of those narratives for future generations.

In other words, be a good human being and care for those who come after you by labelling your spoilers and being sensitive to the audience who will encounter what you write perhaps in an entirely different context.

I applaud Reddit's decision to block (banning may be a little extreme) users who want to destroy the aesthetic and epistemological value of a long-awaited narrative. I wish Slashdot and all my other Internet favorites would do something similar not only for Abrams' _The Force Awakens_ but for ALL narratives.

For my part, I knowingly took a risk even coming here to post, given that Slashdot is (rightly) renown for allowing all speech to flourish (to various degrees subject to the moderation system). But that uncritical acceptance of all speech also means that I will not come back to this thread until AFTER I've seen Abrams' contribution to the Star Wars franchise.

See you at the movies!

Re:What about me?

[c]

Encountering new narratives is one of narrative's fundamental pleasures.

Then there's Hollywood, which prefers to substitute explosions for new and novel narrative.

Re:What about me?

[Anonymous Coward]

Reddit is not banning anybody.
The mods of the general movies sub-reddit are banning people who post them in the area they control. The PSA linked in the summary tells people to avoid certain other sub-reddits where the spoilers are also being posted.

Or is this a Star Wars Master Race thing where everyone else are second class citizens that doesn't deserve protection?

Goood, gooooood, let the Butthurt flow through you.

Re: What about me?

[Anonymous Coward]

> Slashdot is trying to get bought by Reddit.

Thanks for the spoiler warning, you insensitive clod!

Mace Windu isn't dead!

[jcr]

He's teaching a yoga class at Tatooine Community College, and selling "Jedi Force Crystals" on the Trade Federation shopping channel.

-jcr

Re:Spoiler alart!

[jcr]

Who's Kylo Ren? Is he Darth Stimpy's friend?

-jcr

Um

[damicatz]

Reddit isn't banning anyone. The moderators of that particular subreddit are and they are not Reddit employees. Someone doesn't seem to understand how Reddit works.

Re:Meh.

[aaaaaaargh!]

I was planning to watch it, but the aggressive marketing has really put me off. I'll probably skip this one or watch it much later.

The same thing happened for me with the Hobbit movies and Fallout 4. I have no problem with normal amounts of advertising, but too much is just too much.

Ultimate spoiler

[The-Ixian]

I'll tell you what the real spoiler is: Seeing the movie.... it gives away EVERYTHING!

I guess I understand why people don't want spoilers.. intellectually, anyway.

But seriously, do spoilers *really* ruin a movie? Are you not entertained because someone told you about a piece of the story? I mean, you know that there is going to be wookies and droids and the force... you know what you are getting into.

What about movies that do that whole backwards in time style that show the ending first?.... that is technically a spoiler, right? Yet it doesn't detract from the movie because it is out of context.

I mean, people still watch shows about WW II and we all know how that turned out... but it doesn't seem to make it any less of a good story...