Kevin's Watch

There is a poll on the home page of this site which is asking its takers when discussions on ROTE stop becoming spoilers. The three options are: now, the book has been out long enough; when the next book in the series appears; and when the third chronicles is complete. I think that there is one option that is missing. Never.
For any book, no matter how old, there will always be someone who hasn't read it. Anything that could take a way part of the enjoyment of reading the book by revealing part of it is a spoiler for him. However, the forums of this site are filled with discussions on the book, and one cannot expect there to be discussions on a book without there being spoilers within the discussions.
For this reason, it is mostly the fault of the victim of the spoilers for reading them. However, it is the responsibilty of those who have already read the book to keep others in mind. Imagine stumbling upon the last sentence of Runes posted just anywhere on a website before you have had the chance to even begin the book.
I think this site has done a good job of being courteous to others. It keeps the discussions of the seperate groups of books localized to their own forums and warns readers of the danger of entering them. I personally have not finished reading the gap series yet and I won't enter that forum until I do. I think that the courtesy of being mindful of others is not too much of an inconvience and should continue as long as there are people who haven't read the books. Which means forever.
Those who have read the books, can continue going on discussing them (warning others of spoilers when necessary), and those who haven't read them can benefit from the site without consequence. (As long as they can navigate correctly)

Having written all that I have to confess that I have an uncle and cousin who are waiting for the entire 3rd Chronicles to be finished before they read ROTE and I have often considered putting posters up all over their houses that say:

Spoiler

the other stranger was unmistakeably Thomas Covenant.

Hmmm . . . interesting question. My gut reaction was to say, "The book has been out for nearly a year!" But I do hope new readers keep discovering it, so you have a point about not spoiling it for them. So my next thought was, "Well, if they haven't read it, they should just stay away from discussions of it, like I did." But then I remembered that while I was reading Runes, I desperately wanted to talk about what I'd read so far, without spoiling what was ahead. So perhaps there should be an intermediate forum for half-way readers? A forum where the subject headings aren't spoilers, and where each one clearly defines where the cut-off point of discussion should be? That would have made my Runes experience more enjoyable.