I hadn't realized that Eliezer retracted the statement or that I was I was violating the rules.

In general, when someone says something is a spoiler and should be put in ROT13, the polite thing to do is to comply. You can then argue that it shouldn't be necessary, after the damage control is done.

If you're failing to do that, then the only recourse the rest of us have is to downvote the comment several times so that it is by default hidden from view. I will generally check back in a day to see if the spoiler has been ROT13'd, and reverse my downvote if it has.

The policy is listed in the post header, and the "more specifically" link says exactly what it is that should only be mentioned in ROT13.

And if you'd just bothered to go down to the local planning office, you'd see the policy was available for anyone to look at for the last nine months.

When I awoke, I had lost half my karma and I was ready to fight about it.
[...] and I am sure as hell not going to change what I wrote now, rules or no rules.

Too bad, agreeing to follow the rules of the thread, even if that means editing/rot13ing past comments, would have been the easiest way to get your karma back.

Edited to add: Some Quirrel-type lesson about learning when to lose, and the costs of needless escalation, seems appropriate.

Are you suggesting there's some rule about what a post 'deserves' in terms of votes?

The actual mechanic is that scores or hundreds of individuals read each post. If they like it, they hit upvote. If they don't like it, they hit downvote. Some voters may think "this has enough upvotes already" and not upvote even though they like a post. Some voters may think "this has enough downvotes to collapse and I only get a limited number of downvotes myself so I'll save them for things other people aren't downvoting." But in the end it is mostly a reflect of the number of people that noticed your post and felt something about it.

You don't deserve 12 downvotes for this, that's just what happened.

Also, you can prevent accumulation of negative karma, if you're concerned about that, by retracting.

and deciding that a scene is no longer meant to be the big reveal without (as far as I know) changing a word of the text.

The text was changed; a short scene at the end was deleted for being too obvious.

The scene still means exactly what it did, it's just that a lot of people came away from that scene without figuring out the thing that was stated in the (now deleted) Author's Note, and as I understand it they expressed annoyance at having it thrown in their faces like that.

Is there a list somewhere of all edits and retractions?

There is one relevant retraction. It comes up about once per discussion thread, and it is referred to obliquely in the header of every discussion thread. I know that you already know what it is.

Perhaps we should ROT13 the actual spoiler and stick it in the standard MOR discussion header, so that people stop missing the point.

It is a better story without that spoiler. People are very annoyed when it gets spoiled, with good reason.

Sure, the cat's out of the bag, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily clawing your face yet.

A general norm in forums discussing fiction is that all material published through normal channels (or all but the most recent) is treated equally in regards to the spoiler policy. This would include the entire fic and all authors notes, and not allow for any "retractions" to make something "no longer common knowledge"

Even granting that this is indeed the "general norm" in such forums (I wouldn't know), don't you think that when a thread in some forum states different rules, then it ought be respected?

Or do you feel that no thread, anywhere in the internet, should be allowed to utilize different rules than what you consider the norm?

This is fantastic and I look forward to more of the same.

Curious: what are you referring to by this?

Clearly

Not so, good sir. Do you call me a liar? I would challenge you on the field of honor, had I any.

For what it's worth, I hadn't read the Rowling books when I first read MoR, and finding out who Quirrell was was actually somewhat of a shock. I'm the target audience for this rule, so far as any such exists, and I think it's pretty dumb.

Is anyone logging anecdotes? We've got one here!

I wouldn't just slap it on as a chapter title if I was the editor, but if you're reading this forum thread, certain things are assumed of you.

Okay. That's cool. So how do you feel about following politely asked and reasonable requests that cost you only quick trip to rot13.com and are enthusiastically enforced by at least a handful of trigger-happy registrants of karmic disapproval?

If said under-thumbers weren't in play, would you obey the request of the author?

What's your price?

I'm sorry about my tone

It may be difficult to take an apology like this at face value when you could just go back and edit the tone to something you wouldn't have to apologize for. You either put it in before you clicked 'Comment' the first time or you hit Edit to put it in.

Also, he said, "you know perfectly well." This communicates that the conclusion you would draw is the correct one. And that is spoilage.

My theory was correct: the policy did not prevent that user from being told the spoiler. You may say this is because it was violated, as of course it was, but what was the correct response?

"We can't tell you due to the spoiler policy"? "Ryvrmre fnvq fb va na rneyvre nhgube'f abgr gung jnf ergenpgrq"? Would either of those, or indeed any response, have resulted in that user not finding out about it?

If someone says something similar in the next thread, what would you have me do?