Forgot to mention it before but this reminded me of another problem. Someone in the TV thread would openly ask book readers to give them information. Book readers trying to be helpful would then post info, pissing off other TV viewers who never wanted that info in the first place.

What if we said 2 is not as good as 1, or that books 4 and 5 are much slower, etc. Wouldn't that make you less pumped up for the upcoming seasons? It's a bit of a spoiler that less stuff is going to happen in the lower ranked books too. Plus, a discussion about ranking the books is tempting people to put veiled spoilers ("how can you rank book 5 below book 4 when book 5 has that scene with Dany???"). Again, not major red wedding type spoilers but I can see why someone who only watches the TV show might be pissed off about it.

Either way though, having a tangent that went on for several posts about ranking the books in a thread clearly labeled TV SHOW ONLY doesn't make any sense.

In practice we have something of value to add, and in the unlikely event that somebody screws it up, we have a mod. Can you point to a clear but accidental spoiler by a non-malicious book-reader that occurred during last season and was read by more than 2 non-readers?

The call for a total ban on book-readers is just another example of humans failing badly at risk-reward calculations.

are you saying you would be a good book reader?

Define your terms.

I think my record in the other thread speaks for itself.

A few examples have already been posted. I don't know if any of them were from the last season though.

Allowing book readers to post in the TV thread:

Risks: TV only viewers get spoiled outright by book info or at the least become worried about potential spoilers slipping through from book readers.
Reward: Book readers get to post stuff in the TV thread, even though they already have a book reader thread they can post in.

Seems pretty clearly high risk low reward. This has been the entire point we've been trying to make - that the potential risk of TV only viewers being spoiled or receiving book info outweighs whatever benefits there are to having book readers post in the TV thread (and I'm still not seeing much in the way of benefits there. Certainly not for the TV only viewers at least).

Less talk about other threads, more talk about Sansa on the Iron Throne pls.

**** sansa

OMFG can we have book readers banned from this thread too??

Look, I made a post or two early on in the other thread, but I stopped because I felt so constrained about what I should and should not say and it just was not fun. I'm happy posting here (or will be once this discussion finally dies). There is absolutely no need whatsoever for any of us to post in there. The "service" book readers perform in the other thread can be done by reporting spoilery posts to mods and requires no actual posting. Just lurk in the other thread for the lulz and leave the posting to those who have not read the books.

I would LOVE it if we could simply ban META from the book reader thread, i.e., THIS ONE. (Meta = talking about the discussions, rather than discussions about the subject matter). What does or does not happen in the TV watcher thread has very little to do with this at this point. May have been relevant in the past, but it's not now.

I'm all for that. Also meta meta stuff is banned, startingggggggggggg NOW

People rank the books (and most stories in general) based on "big **** happens". So when you hear that books 4 and 5 suck, you have an idea of what to expect (nothing).



The narcissism in thinking that YOU would be a helpful and invaluable asset to the TV thread and that they are at a GREAT LOSS for not having you is truly unbelievable. Like I literally have trouble believing that a forum of supposedly intelligent people would carry on like this.

After murdering her loving husband, King Petyr I of the House Baelish, she will forever be known as "The Mad Queen."

this 100%. Every scene was from S3, and it even mentioned S3 in the video. Trying to encourage a rewatch before S4 premiere.

Lol, it's only been going on for three years, should be any time now...

Anyone willing to play "beg the moderator" to post in that thread shouldn't be allowed to post in that thread.

Is it that hard to just not post in that thread guys?

Yes, like whether or not some ban was justified. Oy vey!

I love the actual story discussions here (both book and TV) regardless of how stupid^H^H^H^H^H^H erm, outlandish the ideas are, but death to meta discussions indeed.

The notion that book-ranking is severely spoilerish is ridiculous and I repeat that the request for such information was made by a non-book-reader. I'd suggest that the thread developed an approach that worked to keep spoilers to a practical minimum. Spoiling wasn't done last season by aware book-readers, but either maliciously or by people who haven't been following the history of the threads.

Wow! Straw man much?

The risk is that a small number of book readers will be spoiled before a mod deletes the offending post by a book-reader who knows better carelessly revealing by implication some future plot development. Banning book-readers doesn't protect from malicious spoiling or from spoiling by new posters who don't know what's going on about spoiler control. These latter two constitute a far greater risk to TV-only consumers. IDK if there has even been one instance of the former case since the attitude re spoilers was made clear.

The reward isn't book-readers getting to post. That's ridiculous. Book readers get to post ITT already. The reward is that non-book-readers get to read a wider range of opinion, insight and information than they would if a sizeable portion of potential contributors is banned from the thread. TV-only viewer posters do not between them contribute as wide a range of thread content as would be available to them if book readers were allowed to post in a non-spoilery way.

Seems like you just provided a prime example to support my claim that people are bad at risk-reward analysis. You way overblow the risk that dedicated book-reading posters pose. You fail to recognize that almost all spoil risk is not covered by the ban. You totally fail to understand the nature of the benefit to be enjoyed by those you are trying to protect.

Somebody else who fails to understand that the biggest value a forum has to offer readers is content, and that limiting content sources from threads devalues the threads.

I guess the best place to be talking about spoiler control via paranoid xenophobia, and similar subjects, is in ATF, but since nobody else seems to have moved the discussion there, I wasn't going to be the first. Mods, perhaps you can suggest/enforce such a transfer.

Not at all. It's no skin off my nose if I can only post ITT. I'm arguing on behalf of the interest of people who have read only some of the books, who will be unable to safely post anywhere if banned from the other thread, and the interests of non-readers, who will be exposed to less content if book-readers are fully banned from the other thread. If the vast majority of nonreaders doesn't want us, OK, ****'em. We'll post here only, and probably be less motivated to read the other thread, and hence provide spoiler protection. But so far I think it is only a vocal minority of paranoid and selfish fools who think the world would be a better place with a ban in effect.

Somebody else who fails to understand that they don't want opinion, insight and information from those of us who have read the books!

This additional content you say will add value to the other thread will, at best, be unavoidably informed by our knowledge of the books, or, at worst, contain inadvertent spoilers.

Holy ****ing ****.

Yeah DoTheMath is super serious about posting in the other thread, gotta love his commitment

DTM is super serious about everything he posts.

dothemath,


dude.

I don't think I've seen a post by dothemath that wasn't pure gold. It's like logic and intelligence just flow out of him naturally. Video games, pokerstars nonsense, and GOT nonsense, he's just got it all covered.