@piespy: Just for the record, I finally watched the...

piespy
2011-03-17T13:21:53-04:00

Just for the record, I finally watched the episode in question.

So now I can say with certainty that these pics of nerd Homura weren't spoilers. I mean, from them I expected a flashback to a younger Homura, which I got. But that by itself is hardly a spoiler. It was clearly coming anyway sooner or later. So all these pics told me is that it was going to be in episode 10, and not 11 or 12.

And even the fact that Homura is a time traveller isn't much of a spoiler either, Kyubey already stated that in episode 9, quite aside from seeing her manipulate time so readily in each fight. And there's no way you're getting that clue just from looking at Homura with braids and glasses either. (However, it would be a spoiler before seeing episode 9, so it should probably still be tagged.)

So all in all I agree with what Suiseiseki wrote above, about what constitutes a spoiler and what doesn't. I'm seriously glad I avoided that post before watching the episode.

Overtagging spoilers is like the boy who cried wolf. If even the tiniest spoiler is tagged, you either have to take the <series> spoiler combo out of your blacklist or miss a lot of good pics that wouldn't be actual spoilers for you.

It makes avoiding the real, big spoilers just as hard as if the spoiler tag didn't exist.

Maybe one solution would be to create a minor_spoilers tag. It would help people who want to avoid those too, while allowing others like me to blacklist only major spoilers.