People just click all the boxes instead of reading them I think.

i think its a conspiricy
new users are all part of a conspiricy towards us *shifts eyes* ♥

A solution to the problem... Hmmmm... Give them a good slapping?
It drives me nuts too. I usually leave a fairly rude comment, but it doesn't make a difference. What makes it particularly annoying is that people who are actually posting spoilers still don't mark them spoilers. *sigh*

I agree with hooch here: Harold's Rule #6 is "People Don't Read". They either just click whatever, or claire-aka-bob is onto something, and they click "spoiler" knowing that it will intrigue people to actually click on the pick rather than ignoring it.

At this point I'm going to fold in a philosophical question that was being discussed in the link forum thread, which was WAAAYY off-topic there, but fits here a bit better: what makes something legitimately a spoiler?

We've been discussing it in regards to the idea that quiz questions should be able to be marked as spoilers, but my contention is that pretty much any trivia question you would ask could be legitimately labeled as a spoiler. amazondebs responded with two examples of spoiler questions.

Debs, I'm not sure which one you are proposing is NOT a spoiler - they both sound like spoilers for someone who hasn't seen the material in question, to me. Both reveal information that wouldn't be known otherwise, so it seems like you want to call out "major spoilers". But a value judgment is required to determine what is a major spoiler and what isn't. If it isn't clear from your experience on Fanpop, let me just say that people will always disagree when value judgments are in play.

I have to say, if you're that worried about spoilers, then maybe you shouldn't be looking at a site like this at all. If you are not caught up on a particular show and are looking online for information about it, you are bound to come across a spoiler of some kind. Other people can only protect you from yourself so much. I certainly don't like spoilers for episodes that haven't aired yet, but I'm careful about what I read or look at. If there's even a hint of something spoilerish, I skip it. I understand that shows in the U.S. aren't aired at the same time in other countries. But you can find pretty much any episode online these days, so in my opinion, that's not a valid excuse for not being caught up on a show. I don't mean to sound harsh, but in my experience, if you really don't want to be spoiled then you shouldn't go looking.

fanfly, you can only know how irritating it is for someone that's not in the same time zone to a show until you really live it. It takes time for someone to upload the episode online also and during that time i may be asleep so can't watch it straight away, in a day i can come here and there'll be a spoiler already as a pick or a quiz or a link just giving away everything.

It needs to be done, having spoilers, sure the people can just not come here...oh wait...i come here so i can see the episode :| yup.

I think spoilers should be used for the latest episode for a few days until it's clear that everyone has had their chance to watch the show.

I'm not saying get rid of spoilers, snerkie. I'm just saying, if you haven't seen an episode yet and you come to a site like this, you are taking a risk. If you come here to watch the episode, go directly to the videos/links, don't look at anything else until you've seen the episode. No one's making you look at the new picks. And I do know what it's like to have to work and miss an episode and then have to wait until it's uploaded online. I never visit Fanpop until I've seen the episode because I know that there will be spoilers here. There's a great website called sidreel.com that I usually use to view episodes I've missed.

well harold i think a major spoiler is a common sense call really

pregnancies, deaths, majoe character life styles changes, new relationships, ending relationships ect

what book a character was reading not so much lol

yes fanfly i agree you are taking a risk but people should wait a least a couple of days for everyone else to catch up and what about spoilers of things that havn't happened yet?

Spoilers of things that haven't happened yet are horrible ;P and should definitely be marked as spoilers. Unfortunately, if you are caught up on the show and click to view that particular spoiler- ack! I mean, there's no way to tell if a spoiler is from the latest episode or for something that hasn't happened yet. Hm, maybe there should be spoiler levels?

I'm with you, debs- questions about minor details that don't give away major plot points shouldn't be marked as spoilers. I mean, who's going to be traumatized to learn that a certain character is reading a certain book in a certain episode they haven't seen yet? *OMG He read Heart of Darkness? That must mean that he's fallen in love with his brother's wife!* lol

yes fanfly but one of the points of Fanpop is to view the latest episodes and you only have to go to the front page to have a big spoiler in your face, that easy if people decide to not mark it a spoiler. Is that my fault? well the fact that there is an option to mark it a spoiler, it's not my fault at all, and it's just something people need to consider instead of thinking that their country (mostly america) is the only place out there and that people in other countries don't exist.

didnt you, knifey, propose and i thought it was a good idea that you could mark a spoiler with season and episode!? you could say "spoiler" and a little field to put "S2 E6" or something!?
have the f4 said something aboot that idea?

Me, I watch all my TV online or via Netflix when the series are released (right now, I'm watching link and can't recommend it highly enough), so I see the shows LOOONG after they are first broadcast. This means that pretty much every question about TV programs reveals stuff that I haven't seen. My points are that: it doesn't matter which episode you're talking about - the latest episode of a current series or the first episode of a series that ended 20 years ago - there's going to be a significant number of people who haven't seen it so anything will be a spoiler, and what constitutes an inappropriate spoiler is going to be different for everybody. Putting a "spoiler" tag on it won't make a difference (ignoring the real world issue of whether people would use the spoiler tag on quiz questions were it available): some questions are always going to have information you don't want to see (I can't tell you how irritated I'd get with the UK link fans who'd post picks about that night's episode, long before it was possible for most of the world to have seen it). People are either going to assume that "everyone" knows the information, or they're going to have a different sense of what a "major" spoiler is (I'd say that information I don't want to see also includes little asides, inside jokes, or particularly funny lines, because the impact of all three is ruined if you see them out of context first).

Note that I'm not trying to say that there isn't a problem - I agree that there is one. But I don't think spoiler tags really work, for picks or for quiz questions. Some users have implemented what I think is a much better approach: to label which episode the question concerns. That way, users reading through the questions can say "Oh, I haven't seen that one yet", and STOP READING before getting to the juicy bits. Then they can also remember to return to answer the question after seeing the particular episode. But that's best practice, and thus more of a topic for link, probably. Tangent!

Edit: WHOA! I took a long time to write this piece, and three people posted during the time I was writing it. germany123's right: knifewrench (and maybe others) did have the wonderful suggestion to include episode and season information in questions, which would make the spoiler tag actually useful for a change. As it is, the spoiler tag's next to useless. But then, as I say, many of the better question creators (picks or quiz) DO insert the episode name and/or number at the start of the question, as I mentioned above. For example:
"In the Shadow of Z'Ha'Dum": Which character first arrived at Z'Ha'Dum in this episode?
As soon as you read the title, you know to stop and can come back later after you've seen the episode.

To me, this is superior to the spoiler tag - at least as it's been implemented so far.

Ok, harold, I know I sound like a broken record but I'm going to say it one more time. If you haven't seen the entire show and you don't want to be spoiled, don't go surfing the internet for the show! Especially if it's been off the air for a few years. Websites like this are geared toward fans- people who've seen the shows. To expect us to protect the billions of people out there who may not have seen it, is ridiculous. If that were the case, then 90% of everything on this whole site should be marked as a spoiler. Other people can only do so much to protect your unspoiled eyes. You have to take responsibility, summon a bit of self control, and refrain from looking at sites that talk about the show you haven't finished. When I first started watching Buffy, it was a few seasons in. I didn't want to get spoiled so I never looked up anything online about it until I had caught up entirely. That took a long time, but I still managed to go without being spoiled. I'm sorry if I sound bitchy and I'm probably not winning any fans here, but that's my opinion.

I do agree that spoiler tags should be more specific- especially for things that haven't been aired yet.
And on a side note, I have to say the fans on the Supernatural spot are pretty awesome when it comes to Spoiler marking. There have been very few times when something that deserved a spoiler wasn't marked as such. And usually if you bring it to their attention, they change it. So- Go SPN fans!

yep shout oot to MOST himym fans who will put descriptions of how "spoilery" certain clips and interviews are...the draw back of fanpop for watching episodes is that picks and quizzes give so much away.
i think the episodes should be seperated anyway it would make it sooooo much easier to find them

I agree, germany! It would make it alot easier if there was a subcategory for episode videos, just like there's a subcategory for screencaps.

"don't go surfing the internet for the show!"
You suggest how i see the episode then...see you are just being one of those people that irritate the living hell out of me that just think because you have seen the episode already it's okay to post spoilers everywhere around the internet minutes later not saying "hey look this is going to be a spoiler".

I agree with the whole not being able to protect a whole series of a show since people will know to watch the show and try and avoid as much as possible but when it's the latest episode i think it's just ignorant for people to think that everyone else has seen it or should just "suck it up", since it really does not concern the people that have seen that episode when it first airs.

If I post something a few days after the episode has aired, I mark it as a spoiler, I assure you. And I gave you the name of a website that has relatively few spoilers and airs a great many episodes for a great many shows- Sidereel.com Check it out. If you go directly to the video links, you'll be unspoiled. Sometimes it's hard to find a live link but other than that, it's a great site.