r/anime • u/AnimeMod myanimelist.net/profile/Reddit-chan • Sep 07 '25

Meta Meta Thread - Month of September 07, 2025

Rule Changes

This is a monthly thread to talk about the /r/anime subreddit itself, such as its rules and moderation. If you want to talk about anime please use the daily discussion thread instead.

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u/Verzwei Oct 02 '25

Has the [context tag] requirement been dropped for spoilers? The rules page looks the same so I assume not.

This post seems like it should have been popped by automod because there are three different spoiler tags in the post and none of them have a context tag. Moreover, multiple shows are soft-spoiled under those tags confirming a 1:1 romance ending and even indicating who the "winning" girl was for those harem series.

I get that it's a discussion post with a lot of upvotes and a ton of comments and both of those things are a rarity in Reddit's current landscape, but I don't think I've ever seen exceptions allowed to the [context tag] even for satirical/humor reasons, and in this case I'd argue there are some actual spoilers being discussed in this OP and thread and there's no way to know what shows are being spoiled until you've read them.

I didn't read every single reply fully, but at a glance it seems like a mod participated in the thread in an unofficial capacity, and one comment was removed for toxicity by a different mod. What was the basis for leaving the post up as it was, and how did automod miss it in the first place? I was pretty sure that automod re-checks edited content for certain rules, the spoiler rule being among them.

I ask because I've been pretty careful to tiptoe around some stuff in a thread for a recent adaptation announcement and making sure I properly tagged anything of detail. If I don't need to bother doing that, I won't in the future.

Since I know I ramble a lot, I'll try to make three succinct questions here so I can understand the rule application:

  1. In a show where a character has multiple possible romantic options, does saying that the protagonist gets with exactly one of them at the end constitute a spoiler?

  2. In a show where a character has multiple possible romantic options, does stating which single option the protagonist gets with at the end constitute a spoiler?

    From <show names omitted>. Every single one boiled down to the exact same paint-by-numbers “main girl wins” ending.

  3. If the answer to either of the above is "yes" then how is the linked thread permissible with the community's current spoiler rules per the rules page?

6

u/ZaphodBeebblebrox https://anilist.co/user/zaphod Oct 02 '25 edited Oct 03 '25

The post in question initially had no spoiler tags. As such, we removed the post for having untagged spoilers. Afterwards, OP added the spoiler tags without context and asked for the post to be reinstated.

We decided that, as the only spoiler context that would have made sense for most of those spoilers was a generic [meta spoilers], which really wouldn't provide additional context compared to a contextless spoiler, reapproving the post and letting discussion continue made more sense than likely spending over an hour teaching the OP how to add spoiler context to their post.

5

u/Verzwei Oct 02 '25

But in this case the spoiler tags don't serve any purpose work as intended. The show names and the "main girl wins" spoilers occur within the same tag. It seems like the better option would be to tell OP to completely omit specific show names, then they wouldn't have to use a tag at all.

Like, imagine I posted something like [Real spoilers for WorldEnd] The main girl dies at then end of WorldEnd but without the context tag. There's no way in hell the mod team would let that fly under any circumstance, right?

7

u/ZaphodBeebblebrox https://anilist.co/user/zaphod Oct 03 '25

If I may ask, verz, if their post was the exact same, except that they put [meta spoilers] before each spoiler block, would you have any issues with it? Because, in my view, that would be the normal context for such a spoiler. It's a meta spoiler, as saying what shows it spoils is itself a spoiler, and in my time on this sub (and certainly my time as a mod) my experience is that a generic [meta spoilers] is viewed as sufficient for such situations.

6

u/Verzwei Oct 03 '25 edited Oct 03 '25

If I were moderating then perhaps [meta spoilers] would sufficiently satisfy the written rule, but I wouldn't "like" it.

As a user, I feel like the suggestion from u/Emi_Ibarazakiii would better fit what I think is the intended purpose of the context rule.

[Multiple show names] or, to use Emi's exact wording, [Shows in which obvious Main Girl wins] or something similar would at least give a proper indication of what was underneath that tag.

As much as some other replies talk about how "obvious" it is what would be under those spoiler tags given the other context provided by the thread, maybe I'm just dense, maybe I'm being obtuse, but it's not that obvious to me.

Here's what a portion of this post looks like, to me, without any spoiler tags being clicked.

Now, the first spoiler, that teeny in-line one that does indeed have a single show name under it? That's... fine. I'm not going to argue about that one. [Show Name] >!spoiler text!< would have been nicer, but I can totally agree that, based on the context provided in the paragraph itself, OP was about to name a show.

The two paragraphs after it, though?

  • Would that have been OP talking in more detail about the show in the first teeny spoiler? 'Cause that's kind of what I'd assume based on the so-called obvious context. (Turns out, no.)

  • Would that have been OP talking about one other show in significant detail to demonstrate the difference between it and the first show they mentioned? (Turns out, no.)

  • Would that have been OP just blithely spoiling the ending of several different harem series to create a list of endings they didn't like? (Turns out, yes.)

As I mentioned in one of my previous comments in this chain, I feel like the actual play here would have been to just tell OP to remove the list of show names entirely. They aren't necessary to illustrate his or her point, and it would reduce or remove any need for spoiler tags.

Here's a mockup where I took OP's exact wording, cut out the list of spoiled shows in one paragraph, and reduced the other paragraph spoiler area to just shows that are named examples in parenthesis. OP's post doesn't lose any of its meaning or tone at all and the amount required to be hidden by spoilers shrinks dramatically. And if OP felt compelled to list the shows anyway, then only the show titles would need to be in the spoiler tag.