How well the spoiler policy worked last time

[kkersey_austin]

So, is anyone out there actually planning on visiting the main list
between July 16 and the time they finish reading the book?


We do have a way of seeing how well a post-release spoiler policy
works:

I just went back a took a glance at the post-OOP activity on the main
list during the time that a no-spoiler rule was in effect (messages in
the vicinity of 62000 and forward).

Not suprisingly - almost *every* message had "OOP" in the subject
line, and of those that didn't, it was most often the case that
according to the rules it should have been there. Anyone who hoped to
avoid spoilers on the main list at the time would have been sorely
disapointed, in spite of the apparent good-faith efforts of both
moderators and list members to follow the rules. 

The non-OOP discussion on the list at that time was almost totally
non-existent. Scanning through about 300 messages I found one that was
arguably off-topic (about the word "muggle" appearing as the word of
the day somewhere) and a few messages about news reports that a few
copies of OOP were missing some pages. Plus a good number of reminders
from the admins about spoiler policy, of course ;-)

So, who exactly is a post-spoiler policy on the main list supposed to
protect? I just don't get it...

Karen, yet again, sorry.

p.s. I used the "summary view" when scanning through the archives, but
even looking at just subject headings there were plenty of spoilers in
the fairly small sample of 300 messages I glanced through.