I'm so spoiled

[Paul York]

Henry Musikar wrote:
> The pynchon-l wasn't created in
> response to a bestseller. It is a literary, not pop, salon, [snip]

Which sounds to me like an argument for ditching the warning.

> When I read a book or movie review, I skip the part that reveals plot
> details, eg. "One of the most touching moments in..."

That's fine, and as I've said in another meta-spoiler thread I don't 
mind that we keep the M&D [page number] convention going; it's helpful, 
especially for those of us who set some of these messages aside for 
later reference, and I like it because it does give me an opportunity to 
 set aside those posts re parts of the book I haven't got to yet (not 
because I feel reading them would ruin my otherwise *pristine* encounter 
with "the Book" but because most of the posts I read re parts of the 
book I haven't got to yet just don't make a lot of sense (it's that 
context thing I guess)).

That said, I would like to add that (1) I think we could allow people to 
include little hints in the subject headers of spoiler posts without it 
ruining others' reading experience one bit while at the same time 
providing a little extra reference for those interested in the spoiler 
threads (but I'm repeating stuff I've already said in another post), and 
(2) the main thing that gets my goat about the whole spoiler thing is 
that it leads to posts bitching up other listers because they, through 
momentary carelessness or a misunderstanding of the procedure, post a 
spoiler without the adequate warning, when it seems like the easiest, 
most civil thing to do would be to handle it the way you say you handle 
unwanted info in book and movie reviews:  simply skip over it.  At 773 
pages (whoops! maybe I shouldn't have given that away!) I don't think 
accidentally reading a stray word or three has much chance of kicking a 
dent in anyone's M&D experience.

> No, the spoilers aren't that important to me [snip]

Nor to me.  I guess that's why we keep posting in response to these 
particular threads :-).

	Paul