So three times this morning I've come across LJ posts of jubilant Olympic fans who have been chastised in their comment section for posting "spoilers" of Olympic results in their journals
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Oh, yes, I'm sympathetic to the NBC watchers in the States. I understand that hardly anything is being shown live despite the time zones of the Games being so close. That would be frustrating and should be something that is addressed in future Olympics.
In fact I've also read that many Americans on the Canadian border who used to watch the Olympics on Canadian CBC are frustrated this year because the Olympics are being broadcast on CTV instead of CBC (which, I gather, doesn't broadcast into the States). CTV is showing a lot of events live here in Canada on a number of affiliate CTV channels.
As someone who lives in a country where most of the events are being decided at 3 or 4am, I've learned that if I want to watch "unspoiled" then either I have to be awake at 4am, or get up early and watch my recording before watching/hearing breakfast news
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Still your fellow Olympic-watchin' countrymates will be in the good timezone and we'll be in the strange staggered live times in 2012 :). I've followed plenty of Olympics (especially Winter Olympics, Summer Olympics are easier for me to stay up for, as a teacher) where the live events were in the middle of the night and I expect to wake up and simply read the results on-line. If any country got a medal in the middle of our night I wouldn't expect their LJ posters to keep it secret or under a cut. Such is geography- they should party. And odds are good I'm going to see the medal results long before I get to LJ, anyway :).
I just can't see live news and sports being spoilers. Movies and fictional TV shows? A totally different ballgame and absolutely should be cut for spoilers. Which doesn't mean (like the Harry Potter example) that you should trust the web enough to think that will always happen.
I agree about the Olympics .... with Formula 1 racing I found that if I could avoid spoilers, I could enjoy watching the race (or the qualifying sessions), but that if I knew the result and any major incidents, then I'll probably not watch the race as it holds far less interest for me
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I don't know- I'm still not sympathetic. Now, I don't tend to watch sports beyond the Olympics, but it seems to me if you don't want to be spoiled of a game you have taped to watch the onus is on you not to be listening to the radio or surfing open blog boards 'til you watch the recording- you're just tempting fate. Life goes on in real time- the onus isn't on those people to keep you unspoiled of a game that's already happened. If someone texts you the results, well, yeah, that's just mean, but beyond that discussing the results in public forums seems fair game.
Part of the problem, sadly, is that NBC's coverage of the Olympics here in the US has been *dreadful*, holding events for prime time long after they've been decided. There was a really good NPR blog piece on this that someone (vixyish on twitter, i *think*) linked to. Let me see if i can find it...here it is: http://www.npr.org/blogs/monkeysee/2010/02/nbcs_olympic_coverage_manages.html )
Anyway, the money quote from the piece:This just isn't the way people follow ... anything, really, at this point. At one time, you could broadcast events hours after they happened, and you'd have a reasonable chance that people could live in a bubble while they were waiting. That is not the world we live in anymore. The fantasy that is indulged when Bob Costas speaks breathlessly about an upcoming ski race where he already knows exactly what happened is no longer even a fragile fantasy; it's a blatant fiction that everyone knows about
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It seems surprising to me that NBC doesn't devote more time live to the Olympics even outside of primetime (and re-show the highlights in prime time). That's pretty much what has always happened here for Olympic coverage.
"I'm glad your students are getting so much exposure to the Olympics. The Winter Games particularly are my favourite, and I look forward to them every four years. With luck, they *won't* become cynical about them. There's always hope."
Yay, such a refreshing attitude. I so hope you're right.
Even though I'm watching them from the USA, I agree - the time shifted Olympics don't count as a "SPOILER" level event. I mean, there's only so much censoring people can do!
The responsibility is on the person who wants to delay finding out what happened - sorry, that's life. If a big event happens in the world, we're going to talk/tweet/post/sing/write about it! Anyone who doesn't want to hear that is responsible for placing THEMSELVES in the cone of silence, not the rest of the world! :)
I find that knowing the results doesn't stop me from enjoying replays of the event even if I didn't see it live, but I wouldn't try to keep myself from results before watching the replay.
There are a lot of places in this world where a bit of social courtesy helps life go more smoothly. If one is in a car merging onto the freeway, it really helps if there's an accepted model. If I'm in the slow lane and a car is merging at about my position, at some point the best thing to do is speed up and get past it, but if I'm a bit further back the best thing to do is slow down and let it go first (or perhaps I can move over a lane). Most people have a pretty good feel for where the dividing line is, and most people are pretty good at being courteous. (We may tend to really NOTICE the discourteous ones, but most people are pretty good about it
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Re: NetiquetteallisonaFebruary 24 2010, 16:58:59 UTC
I can appreciate what you're saying, but, I must admit, that this is the first time since I started this journal that it's even -occurred- to me someone might be upset if I posted the results of an Olympic event and consider it a spoiler. I've followed LJ through several other Olympics and I haven't ever seen this be an issue before.
I still find it hard to see celebrating an Olympic medal in your journal being the same as revealing the end of a book or movie. But I do understand now that other people feel differently.
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In fact I've also read that many Americans on the Canadian border who used to watch the Olympics on Canadian CBC are frustrated this year because the Olympics are being broadcast on CTV instead of CBC (which, I gather, doesn't broadcast into the States). CTV is showing a lot of events live here in Canada on a number of affiliate CTV channels.
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I just can't see live news and sports being spoilers. Movies and fictional TV shows? A totally different ballgame and absolutely should be cut for spoilers. Which doesn't mean (like the Harry Potter example) that you should trust the web enough to think that will always happen.
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Anyway, the money quote from the piece:This just isn't the way people follow ... anything, really, at this point. At one time, you could broadcast events hours after they happened, and you'd have a reasonable chance that people could live in a bubble while they were waiting. That is not the world we live in anymore. The fantasy that is indulged when Bob Costas speaks breathlessly about an upcoming ski race where he already knows exactly what happened is no longer even a fragile fantasy; it's a blatant fiction that everyone knows about ( ... )
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"I'm glad your students are getting so much exposure to the Olympics. The Winter Games particularly are my favourite, and I look forward to them every four years. With luck, they *won't* become cynical about them. There's always hope."
Yay, such a refreshing attitude. I so hope you're right.
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The responsibility is on the person who wants to delay finding out what happened - sorry, that's life. If a big event happens in the world, we're going to talk/tweet/post/sing/write about it! Anyone who doesn't want to hear that is responsible for placing THEMSELVES in the cone of silence, not the rest of the world! :)
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I still find it hard to see celebrating an Olympic medal in your journal being the same as revealing the end of a book or movie. But I do understand now that other people feel differently.
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