Forum:CT Archive/Spoilers and new movies

So with Episode VII and more movies coming starting late next year, there's still plenty of time before we can make specific decisions on how to handle the new content. However, I would like to propose one simple change right now while the relevant policy is fresh on my mind.

According to Spoilers: On Wookieepedia, a spoiler is considered a spoiler up to and until one month after the official U.S. (or country of origin's) release date of the particular product. Therefore, any new information from said source must contain a spoiler tag until one month has passed since the product's release. Also, Quotes of the Day may not appear on the Main Page until at least one month after the United States release of the quote's source. This works well with the material that has been released in recent years: books, comics, short stories, TV episodes, etc., where the material can be read or viewed in the comfort of one's own home beginning on the original release date. However, the same does not apply to movies. With the advent of Netflix and similar services, as well as the ever-rising price of movie theater tickets, more and more people are completely eschewing the traditional movie theater in favor of streaming movies from Netflix, or renting them from Redbox or similar rental kiosks, or (like me) even borrowing them from the library at no charge), and viewing them on their home theater systems. These people are often perfectly willing to wait until the movie is available through their favorite service, even if it could be watched in a traditional theater six months earlier. To add to the problem, most major movie companies, including Disney, force rental services to wait 28 days after home video release before they can begin renting the movie out, in an attempt to increase outright sales of the DVD or Blu-ray.

Our current spoiler policy would only allow one month between release to theaters and detagging of spoilers; this is inadequate for newly released movies, as they would still be in first-run theaters at that time, and home video/Netflix release would still be months away. Taking into account both the increasing number of people who utilize these services in place of traditional theaters, as well as the aforementioned 28-day rule, I therefore propose that the section of the policy quoted above be modified as follows: On Wookieepedia, a spoiler is considered a spoiler up to and until one month after the official U.S. (or country of origin's) release date of the particular product, except for movies. Material from movies is considered a spoiler until two months after the movie is released to home video in the United States. Therefore, any new information from movies must contain a spoiler tag until two months have passed since the movie's home video release, and new information from other products must contain a spoiler tag until one month has passed since the product's release. Also, Quotes of the Day may not appear on the Main Page while material from the quote's source is still within the spoiler period and required to be tagged as such. This ensures that people who utilize Netflix and other rental services to the exclusion of traditional theaters are not left hanging by untagged spoilers until they have had a reasonable chance to watch the movie. &mdash;MJ&mdash; War Room 03:58, March 8, 2014 (UTC)

Support

 * 1) As proposer. &mdash;MJ&mdash; War Room 03:58, March 8, 2014 (UTC)