Community Blog Topic: What is your spoiler policy?
In patch 5.4 there is the big reveal of Garrosh's fate and who becomes the new Horde leader(s). But in order to get that knowledge, you either need to beat the Siege of Orgrimmar, watch the end cinematics, or read about it on fansites like this one. Many people want to wait to find out on their own, but others want to talk about it now.
In the daily Queue column, we answer a lot of questions about a lot of things. And those who want to talk about the big reveal now ask now. Those who don't want to know yet get upset when they read the Queue and its comments. But how long after the information is known should we (or anyone) wait to talk about it without issuing major spoiler alerts?
Back in the days of yore, when I was 19, I was watching a Happy Days rerun. It was the one where they spoil the ending of Psycho for Ritchie. And when it was spoiled for him, it was spoiled for me. Aaargh. But really, the movie had been out for years and years at that point. One can't expect something with that big of a twist to be kept secret for too long. More recently, I got yelled at in the comments for revealing a surprise plot point from the first season of Mad Men -- by linking to it. I didn't even say it outright. I think it's fine to reveal something from several seasons ago in any television show, but that person was obviously late to the party and working his way through them on Netflix.
There are of course griefers who will spoil anything because they can, but that's not what we're trying to do here at WoW Insider and that's not what most of the commenters want to accomplish when they talk about spoileriffic topics in the Queue comment section.
So our question to you is, how soon after a big reveal do you think it's okay for people to talk about it without spoiler warnings? Do you think major reveals, such as the infamous one from the Harry Potter books should never be talked about without caveats? Or does the fact that both the book and movie have been out for quite some time absolve everyone from speaking about it in public? For this patch's ending, are you ok with fansites like us talking about it openly, or do you want to see spoiler warnings until most people have had a chance to meet Garrosh in the final SoO battle?
Blog about your answer and link to it in the comments below. Or, if you don't have a World of Warcraft blog, just put your response in the comments. We'll spotlight some of the posts in the next Community Blog Topic Results column.
