Today in the New Question Game, I got a question about the ending of a classic book/movie. It was one I thought I might read/watch someday. Now that I know the ending, I have no desire to ever read/see that one.

I'm just wondering how other people feel about this.

I agree. There is nothing more annoying than knowing the ending of a book or film. People should be very careful about it.

As an editor, I try to catch spoilers like that in single questions especially. At least in a quiz you can put a Spoiler Alert in the intro.

If you see one like that on a Movies question (my area) please send an error report so we can try to do something about it. (I won't speak for Lit.)

In Lit, my general feeling is that a book is a classic for more reasons than the suspense of finding out what happens, so I tend not to worry about it for books which would be considered part of the canon of Western Literature. Anyway, the ending tends to have been given away by an episode of "Wishbone".* I'm a little more careful when it comes to modern novels.

*"Wishbone" was a kids TV series where a Jack Russell terrier acted out the plots, loosely, of classic works of Literature.

In many regards, I find that video game and TV releases past a certain date are fair game. If someone posts a question about an ending aired or released ten years ago and it's a fairly notable title, it's probably something everyone's heard of unless they've been living under a rock. We all know who ends up with who on 'Friends'; Mario saves the princess, etc. etc.

Newer stuff I tend to be a bit more leery of.

Just don't give away the ending to Titanic!

I loved Wishbone.

I agree, for classic books and movies that have been parodied and just celebrated in pop culture, many people often end up knowing the plot and/or ending without ever seeing or reading any of the original work. I've never seen Psycho or Casablanca but I know how they end. I don't think it's fair to expect that endings or significant details of works that have been around for decades won't be mentioned in a public 'place' (Internet in this case).

More recent works are a bit different and perhaps we might have an informal policy to avoid single questions giving away the ending of movies or books until at least a year has passed since they came out. After a year you may not still not have seen it, but you have had the opportunity. I think in most cases if it's something you want to see and you care enough that you don't want it spoiled, you'll probably have made a point to see it by the time a year has passed. In some cases, say a TV series or competition, maybe a few weeks is enough time to avoid giving major spoilers in single Qs, though they take weeks to be presented to players anyway. As an editor I had the ending of House spoiled for me going through the submitted single Qs the day after it had aired. If it had been a full quiz about the episode I could have avoided opening it, but I didn't know what was waiting in the single queue Q. I was a bit annoyed but, c'est la vie. It didn't make think that people shouldn't ask such questions.

As a sidenote, I've always thought it's a bit silly to include a Spoiler Alert in a quiz intro. If you haven't yet seen the newest James Bond movie, you wish to see the newest James Bond and wish to be surprised, you're not very bright if you start voluntary playing a newly posted quiz on the newest James Bond movie. Of course there's going to be spoilers, even if minor ones. And any of the questions can still appear in the hourly/daily games; in that case a Spoiler Alert in the quiz's intro is of no use.

Spoiler Alerts are just a courtesy, and probably more pertinent in a mixture quiz, they may include both already seen/planning to see movies/TV shows and so on, than in a quiz about a single movie.

Also, remember that we have players worldwide and that movies and TV shows don't reach all parts of the globe at the same time. I never saw an episode of "Friends" until I moved back to Canada from Spain - the year after the series ended. It had never been offered on any channel I could watch, even dubbed in Spanish.

I knew how "Thelma and Louise" ended long before I had the opportunity to see it. There was no movie theatre where I lived, and it wasn't shown on TV. By the time I did get the chance I didn't even bother, because I knew what happened.

I still think we should try to keep the spoilers to the minimum.

Really? Sorry, must get back to my rock.

cubswin, the boat makes it to New York safe and sound.

The single questions get me too. I haven't finished the third book of the Hunger Games yet but a single question in the Obscurity game has spoiled it a little for me. When I've got Hunger Games questions in the hourlies I have to blur my eyes and click randomly, and hope I was quick enough not to get any info.

I meant single questions like in the New Question game. Most of the hourly games still primarily use quiz questions. We can't very well ask for no spoilers in a quiz entirely about The Hunger Games for example, that would be a pretty biring quiz, but they're still going to pop up in other games, so to me, seeing spoilers on this site is just 'one of those things'.

I completely agree.

Whew! What a relief! Thanks, George!

oh nos, I cannot watch it now

Actually this thread dovetails with one of my pet peeves. Why do people take quizzes on movies they haven't seen or books they haven't read etc, etc? I have never understood this.
I get frustrated when I have written a quiz that I think should be easy to average and find it's rating at tough. After almost ten years of editing Movies quizzes, I think I should have a better handle on how certain questions will score. Then I check the scores and generally find the reason for this is a number of players have scored 0, or only 1 or 2 points. This skews the rating and may deter other players from taking the quiz.

So, in my humble opinion, if you take a quiz about something you haven't seen or read, you really don't have a right to whine about spoilers. You should expect them. If we disallowed questions because they gave away plot twists, character flaws and such, we would be left with some pretty unexciting questions.

Having said that, individual questions are indeed another matter because you can't avoid taking those if you play that game.
The same goes for quizzes on multiple movies and books. You don't know going into the quiz what the questions will be about, so spoilers should be avoided in those as well.

I agree that if you take a quiz about a specific movie/book or whatever, there is no need for "spoiler alert". If you are playing a mixed quiz, a "spoiler alert" is nice because you may come across a movie you haven't seen in the ten varied questions, and don't want to ruin it. That is different.

However, some people have to play certain quizzes for challenges, and don't want to ruin anything, so play a quiz about a certain movie with hazy vision...

I've played a lot of Harry Potter movie quizzes of yours skunkee, but don't score well because I have not seen them. I enjoy your quizzes, so play them, even if not on a topic I know. I also never plan on seeing them, however, so spoilers don't bother me.



Echoing most others on the thread, single questions are completely different, and I think spoilers should be avoided.

Normally because it's part of the Daily Challenge!

Every weekend, I make it a point to see at least one movie on Turner Classic that I've never seen before. After reading this thread, I'm REALLY glad I took care of Moby Dick already this year.

I may be in the minority on this, but while an individual question "How did such-and-such end?" (which I got in the NQG) qualifies as trivia, questions like that completely remove the FUN from this site.

At least I can try Chavs' suggestion for dealing with those in the future ... AND automatically give them Poor ratings.

Because I get them online within a couple days of their airing, I've had people write to me that they completed a quiz about 'The Amazing Race' to catch up on episodes they've missed.

Never even thought about using it for that purpose. Too bad none of the shows I watch have a quiz per episode. :P I should make a series...

I don't usually bother with the Buzzy Bee challenges because that darn wasp rarely appears during my daytime and by the time it appears there are too many people across the pond racing me for it and it's not worth the points to be bored to death by some stupid teen novella or baseball statistics that even people in baseball don't know. However, last week I did try one of Kyle's Amazing Races - a show I'd never heard of, could never have watched, and wouldn't have watched even if I could. I found a fan site/wiki for the show and started in the middle of the list of quizzes. Just potluck, on another day I might have started at the end, but that day I started in the middle and worked my way down. When I got to the end I went back to the middle and worked my way up - by this time I'd invested so much effort I didn't want to waste it so kept going. Naturally the quiz in question was the top one. So, ask anything you like about that series of the Amazing Race and I'm your rabbit. As long as I remember which series it was and can find that wiki again. And Kyle? I got at least 8/10 on all of them, so your stats owe me!

Edited because I can't type.