Posted by Dom
You may have noticed that there’s a new Harry Potter book out at the weekend. Across the land on Friday night, hordes of fans will be queuing up to get their hands on the seventh and final title in the series, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
Away from the controversy over whether Asda will actually be able to sell the blockbuster (see our news story on the resolution of the Asda/Bloomsbury spat here), and debates over whether the dominance of one title is actually good news for the book industry as a whole, attention has focussed on one issue – the ending.
Various rumours have, of course, been floating around the internet pretty much ever since it was announced that this was to be the final bow for the series. As anticipation rises ahead of the Friday midnight launch, spoilers and scanned pages of what may be the entire text of the book are now spreading across the internet – read the news article here (note: no spoilers in the report!). Genuine fan sites such as http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/ and http://www.mugglenet.com are vowing to be spoiler free, but it’s going to take some seriously dedicated online policing to prevent spoilsports slipping through the net and ruining publishing’s greatest mystery for unfortunate surfers.
Which brings us to the question exercising the mind of the MSN UK homepage team at the moment – how should we cover the launch of the book and, more pertinently, its actual contents?
We’ve had feedback from you before about our homepage ruining various TV and film cliffhangers for you – most recently when people complained that we’d thoughtlessly revealed the identity of a contestant booted out of The Apprentice, only minutes after it had been shown on the programme. In these days of Sky + and TV on demand, people are more and more choosing to watch what they want, when they want – and don’t want their enjoyment spoiled by catching sight of a random news story on a website.
On the other hand, we’re duty bound to report all aspects of the Potter launch, and we will be reviewing the title itself – Tech and Gadgets editor Patrick Goss will be blogging his thoughts as he ploughs through the weighty tome on Saturday morning. And our message boards will be full of thousands of fans wanting to share their thoughts on the conclusion of the series.
If you’re a Potter fan who isn’t planning to read Deathly Hallows for a while, it’s going to be very hard in our media-saturated world to avoid all possible TV, radio, magazine, newspaper and web avenues which may or may not be describing just what happens in modern literature’s most talked-about ending.
So, this weekend, how would you expect the MSN UK homepage to cover the Potter launch? Should we bury articles about the book far down the page? Should any feature or message board talking in any way about the book’s contents be plastered with ‘SPOILER ALERT!’ warnings? Would you be angry if any mention of the ending crops up on our site, or do you think individuals should be responsible for their own browsing habits, and just avoid areas where they might come across plot revelations? How long, indeed, after launch night is it acceptable for us to be talking about the book’s conclusion openly?
Let us know your thoughts on this thorny literary issue – we’re listening to what you want and, rest assured, will be doing our best to tread carefully online over the weekend.
Homepage team blog 
Check out this proposed ending to the Harry Potter saga:
http://www.rinesmith.com/~roger/running-with-scissors/2007/07/14/the-perfect-ending-to-harry-potter/
The best thing is not to mention any of the plot. People don\’t want to lose the surpise element in the story and if they do they can skip chapters and turn to the last page. Not from inadvertently looking at a bit of the MSN homepage.
Report anything else, booksales, stores going mental, Amazon having record orders, tell us it all apart from the story.
Seems fair enough to me.
Well i think its fair enough that you report on it but on your link make sure you make it clear that people are about to read some spoilers, then it gives people the right to click on it or not i.e Haryy Potter\’s final moments or What happens to HP… This gives people the option then to go to your homepage without viewing any spoilers unless they choose to click on them!
Fair enough i think!
the best idea is to have spoiler tags (the things that are like hyperlinks without actually taking you to another page just revealing more text) and not mention directly what is behind the spoiler tag in your normal text then everyone is happy
Guys Id be careful, I reckon this could be a spoiler message that guy just posted, ironic seeing what we are talking a but is keeping it spoiler free
Make a HP dedicated books section.
See with MSn, I have it as homepage, for news and the like, you know, so perhaps just have a section which you have to click on ( make it pretty big though!) of hp book the seventh!
I say it\’s the responsibility of the reader to know if they\’re going to a potential spoiler site.
I\’ve nver come across a spoiler before, so why worry about it now?
However, I\’m one of the ones who is picking the book up on Friday midnight and won\’t sleep until the book is finished!
well yhoo\’ve gotta give us all enuff tym to read it!! but i fink yhoo shud ptu a massive bold heading tellin everyone \’IF YOU CLICK ON THIS YOU\’LL FIND OUT THE ENDING TO THE BOOK\’ joost so we know that it\’s our own fault 4 clickin on it! cos it aint very fair if we all sign into msn and we dont have a chocie on the matter cos rite in front of us it sez \’OH BTW ********* DIES!!!\’ whoever it is thats gonna die! give us all a choice whether we want 2 read it or no. i personally hink it\’ll b neville cos it sed earlier that it cud actually be harry OR neville that share the prophecy wi voldemort cos they\’re both orphans; it makes sense 4 him 2 die cos then voldemort will die 2 obv n then rowling can mae another book on how harry grows up wiffout havin 2 look over his shoulder all the tym lol
xx
well yhoo\’ve gotta give us all enuff tym to read it!! but i fink yhoo shud ptu a massive bold heading tellin everyone \’IF YOU CLICK ON THIS YOU\’LL FIND OUT THE ENDING TO THE BOOK\’ joost so we know that it\’s our own fault 4 clickin on it! cos it aint very fair if we all sign into msn and we dont have a chocie on the matter cos rite in front of us it sez \’OH BTW ********* DIES!!!\’ whoever it is thats gonna die! give us all a choice whether we want 2 read it or no. i personally hink it\’ll b neville cos it sed earlier that it cud actually be harry OR neville that sahre the prophecy wi voldemort cos they\’re both orphans; it makes sense 4 him 2 die cos then voldemort will die 2 obv n then rowling can mae another book on how harry grows up wiffout havin 2 look over his shoulder all the tym lol
xx
I got an idea, lets ignore the hype, buy and read the book and then leave it at that. Its a book. Period. Calm down.
No Spoiler headline(s)… Make it that anyone interested in learning the ending and/or names of those who might die can select a link to do so…. I would expect by Sunday, it will be impossible not to have heard or seen the details somewhere in the media… Those who really don\’t want to know will need to lock themselves in their bedroom I\’m thinking!
I think a \’Review of Harry\’s Final Frontier – With Spoilers!\’ – Is enough to keep some of us from clicking if we dont want to find out who dies.
Simply plastering the homepage with \’******* dies in Rowling\’s final installment\’, however, would not be the way to go about things, and Ive seen such things happen on MSN before – please dont make it this time around as Ive got the book arriving Saturday, and will likely be surfing the web beforehand and MSN is my homepage. I don\’t want the ending ruined before I even received the book – if I wanted to however, I agree that it would only be fair for MSN to cover the story, and the ending for those who wish to see it – just don\’t spoil the whole plot on the homepage.
I\’m thinking, if you want to report on the main page, use, instead of a picture, a black background with red lettering "SPOILERS – Harry Potter Report", or something along those lines. That way, no one will know from the title of the article, what it contains. If they want to click, they will.
Well i\’ve download and read what seems to be the photographed entire book, and it seems pretty genuine to me 🙂
I wont say what happens but you are in for one hell of a rollercoaster book.
clearly it will be near enough impossible for anyone not to know how the book ends by the end of the weekend, but in fairness to those who cant read the whole book at supersonic speed it would surely been fair to put some form of spoiler warning on any articles. however people clearly have to use their own common sense (which admittedly is a practice which is in rapid decline) and choose not to read articles if it may contain a spoiler. ive read many of the supposed "endings" yet have had to exercise the patience of a saint when talking to a friend of mine who will not hear any of i, in the chance that they could be true. so really, i think what im trying to say, is basic warnings from msn would be good, common sense from everyone would be better.
also, just because im a sad person who points these things out, world-o-ma-ain theory that neville dies due to the prophecy cannot be true as dumbledore pointed out that voldemort chose harry to be the child mentioned in the prophecy as he tried to kill him, thereby eliminating neville from the equation, so yeh, i am that sad…sorry
well i wont be online until i finished the book, which could be a while because my prom is on the 21st, but for others a big spoiler alert on every site sounds good
I am begging you. PLEASE DO NOT SAY ANYTHING! You have to give the people to actually have teh chance to read it. I don\’t want to find it out by just clicking on the web. I BEG OF YOU NOT TO DO IT! It\’ll ruin the fact that Harry Potter has to be read not be somthing that you can just find out on the interenet. Please don\’t do it. It\’ll ruin the whole thing.
Don\’t say anything… I\’m a big fan of the films but havn\’t read more than the first book, and won\’t be doing till after the movie comes out, and that\’s years off (!) Fed up of movie spoilers. (At least use spoiler warnings, hidden text or something) I already know too much about movies I\’ve not yet seen 😦
I will be picking up my copy at midnight for a reason. I want to READ what happens and how the main story concludes. I am already disappointed that the final book is not the biggest of them all. I think you should leave out giving away the ending altogether, take the moral ground, and let others do what they inevitably will. . .
I think you should cover how the fan\’s celebrate the release of the final book, what plot lines have been running through the 6 books (sometimes we miss some of the obvious stuff like where James & Lily lived etc) and what answers the fans may be looking for in the final outing, and do mention what the fan\’s may wish to move onto reading next. The interest in Harry Potter will not die any time soon and if it does anything like the Star Wars saga then I for one would not be complaining.
If you absolutely must reveal some info then USE A SPOILER ALER!!!
One of the great joys left in life is to sit and read a good book. Books are written to reveal the story as one progresses through the book. Please do not spoil this for the many thousands of children (and others) who want to read the book and enjoy the story.
Cover everything with "SPOILER!!!!" because if any important information is prominent on your page and you spoil it for me, I don\’t think I\’ll be the only Potter fan that will attempt to sue MSN. I personally have decided to avoid all media (TV, radio, internet, papers) until I\’ve finished the book. I may have to avoid some so-called friends too.
P.S. And by the way \’no-name\’ if you have, as you claim, \’already read the book last month\’ I think you\’d know that Hermione is not spelt Homiony!!
Agreeing with the majority of people on here, I think the best thing would be to have a big \’spoiler alert\’ sign on anything that reveals a little too much, but feel free to post your thoughts, blogs or articles. With warning people can choose to not look at it or whatever. That way it\’ll be their fault if they look as they\’d only be spoiling it for themselves.
Please please please add message warnings at the top of the page for each article you publish. Personally, I was on the waiting list for the waiting list on a well known online book seller and it is getting delivered to me on Saturday. It wouldnot appreciate any spoiler in the plot or ending. I\’ll be reading it pretty much there and then. Still I\’m glad about this article warning about spoilers. I will be avoiding any internet item marked Harry Potter like the plague until the book is finished.
I have to wait until I go on holiday on the 31st to read the last book! If there is anything on the front page, it should be something like Harry Potter 7 Review- SPOILERS. Obviously then, people will be able to avoid it at all costs. Much like I will be doing.
By now, there must be hundreds of people who know the ending, from the author, publisher, printers, down to the distributors and booksellers. There is bound to be someone amongst that lot who has sold out the ending
The answer is very simple: if you don\’t want to know the ending before reading the book and assuming you\’re getting a copy on Saturday, keep away from all other media: Internet, television, radio, newspapers, even your friends on their mobile phones. Tell everyone you are going to your room and don\’t want to be disturbed until Sunday evening. Take adequate supplies of food and drink!
Good Luck
For an HP fan young or old any moral standing website should prevail and not disclose any key information about the book for at least a week if not two. Since this is the final book to end the series it is of paramaount importance for all fans and associates and I believe with the utmost respect for JK Rowling too; years of writing and I am sure trilas have led her to her final piece, as we believe to date, lets not spoil it for any of us.
try writing a review of the book without giving away the ending and main plot twists, it\’s not rocket science. if you need to put in other information highlight SPOILER in the article title
Please listen to what nearly everyone is saying on this subject!
If you are going to put any articles on your front page i would suggest that you put it near the bottom with spoliler written in every title – also please take in to consideration what you have as the title – there is no use putting \’HP7 – the boy who dies!\’ that would clearly tell us all if what happens – keep it very plain. The people who are likely to want to read the reviews anytime before Monday are people who just want to know what happens before reading the book or people who have just read it.
I know that all the HP fan sites have a 48 hour ban on posting items etc and i would suggest MSN do the same – i dont think it is worth the millions of complaints you will get from across the world if you let out any critical information.
For any true HP fan this is a very important weekend and we do not want it spoiled by anyone – that also includes the people who are posting on this wall who seem to feel it nescessary to release rumours – its not big and its not clever!
These books have been the bane of most bookseller\’s lives for the past several years. Everyone has jumped on the bandwagon of this popularist tripe but everyone seems to have failed to notice how it is really affecting (and will continue to affect) the whole of the book trade. Selling \’Potter\’ books at half price (and under) means only one thing – booksellers make NOTHING on the sale of Rowling book launches. These books are the the biggest thing to happen to the book trade but only Bloomsbury & JK get any money from them. Buying into this hype means instant wealth for these two \’powers\’ while the people who sell the books struggle to through the effort of keeping their jobs. (Take a look at the figures for this side of the liesure industry and then tell me I\’m wrong.) Since the demise of the net book agreement, (Waterstones & HarperCollins attempting to line their own pockets) the cover price of books has risen dramatically while discounts to booksellers have risen only marginally. Thanks to these changes it now cost you – the consumer – more to purchase three books @ 3 for the price of 2 than it would to have bought 3 under the old \’net book\’ rules; but how else are publishers and booksellers going to make any money out of this cut price- cut throat – war zone that goes by the name of bookselling? There will be winners other than the publisher and the author, supermarkets will gain too. Booksellers have ONE line of profit – books; supermarkets have whole product ranges. Very soon you will be able to buy your books ONLY through supermarkets or on line. When that happens the second phase of the war will take place, the battle between the on line shops and the supermarkets. Again the supermarkets will win. One thing to remember through all of this is – once a monopoly has been created eg:Tesco own everyone, then you will find that there are only \’Potter\’ type books to be had. Supermarkets will show no respect for the small publisher or for the esoteric reader. Taste, which has already been dictated by the \’Potter\’ books, will be further dictated by the powerbrokers in the supermarkets – and with the dictatorship of taste will come the dictatorship of price. Books are already more expensive than they should be; your Harry Potter hardback should only cost around £12.00 and not the £18.00 cover price it now commands, and the average paperback should cost between £5.00 & £6.00 pounds maximum. How much more will a cover price be when monopolies can dictate this? It is about time that people realised that we are not talking about some dull product like baked beans when we talk about books, we are talking about massive vistas of imagination locked between the covers of a massively diverse product. Each title has something different to offer, each one has a whole world waiting to explode onto the reader\’s mind. Take Heinz beans off the market and you still have hundreds of other manufacturers to choose from. Taking just one title away from the public is not the same as removing just the Heinz beans, it\’s like removing every can of beans from the shelves. Stop one title from being published and you have lost an entire world. With the way things are going in publishing and bookselling, and especially with ridiculous hype of the \’Potter\’ books, you who participate in this farce are ENTIRELY responsible for the imminent demise of the booktrade. So my advice to you Mr. MSN, is to stop playing silly buggers and, as soon as you know what happens – spill the beans.
These books have been the bane of most bookseller\’s lives for the past several years. Everyone has jumped on the bandwagon of this popularist tripe but everyone seems to have failed to notice how it is really affecting (and will continue to affect) the whole of the book trade. Selling \’Potter\’ books at half price (and under) means only one thing – booksellers make NOTHING on the sale of Rowling book launches. These books are the the biggest thing to happen to the book trade but only Bloomsbury & JK get any money from them. Buying into this hype means instant wealth for these two \’powers\’ while the people who sell the books struggle to through the effort of keeping their jobs. (Take a look at the figures for this side of the liesure industry and then tell me I\’m wrong.) Since the demise of the net book agreement, (Waterstones & HarperCollins attempting to line their own pockets) the cover price of books has risen dramatically while discounts to booksellers have risen only marginally. Thanks to these changes it now cost you – the consumer – more to purchase three books @ 3 for the price of 2 than it would to have bought 3 under the old \’net book\’ rules; but how else are publishers and booksellers going to make any money out of this cut price- cut throat – war zone that goes by the name of bookselling? There will be winners other than the publisher and the author, supermarkets will gain too. Booksellers have ONE line of profit – books; supermarkets have whole product ranges. Very soon you will be able to buy your books ONLY through supermarkets or on line. When that happens the second phase of the war will take place, the battle between the on line shops and the supermarkets. Again the supermarkets will win. One thing to remember through all of this is – once a monopoly has been created eg:Tesco own everyone, then you will find that there are only \’Potter\’ type books to be had. Supermarkets will show no respect for the small publisher or for the esoteric reader. Taste, which has already been dictated by the \’Potter\’ books, will be further dictated by the powerbrokers in the supermarkets – and with the dictatorship of taste will come the dictatorship of price. Books are already more expensive than they should be; your Harry Potter hardback should only cost around £12.00 and not the £18.00 cover price it now commands, and the average paperback should cost between £5.00 & £6.00 pounds maximum. How much more will a cover price be when monopolies can dictate this? It is about time that people realised that we are not talking about some dull product like baked beans when we talk about books, we are talking about massive vistas of imagination locked between the covers of a massively diverse product. Each title has something different to offer, each one has a whole world waiting to explode onto the reader\’s mind. Take Heinz beans off the market and you still have hundreds of other manufacturers to choose from. Taking just one title away from the public is not the same as removing just the Heinz beans, it\’s like removing every can of beans from the shelves. Stop one title from being published and you have lost an entire world. With the way things are going in publishing and bookselling, and especially with ridiculous hype of the \’Potter\’ books, you who participate in this farce are ENTIRELY responsible for the imminent demise of the booktrade. So my advice to you Mr. MSN, is to stop playing silly buggers and, as soon as you know what happens – spill the beans.
I don\’t think the link to the news story should contain any soilers at all, certainly not for a while anyway, but the news article could contain spoilers, as lond this was made clear in the link!
Thats my opinion anyway, but i personally will be reading the book on saturday!
Hi i think because it\’s the last and final book and everyone who has read the rest will want to read it to find out for them selves . i think that Harrys fate should NOT be posted on here or any other web site.callum
By Saturday morning, everyone will know the ending. It will be posted all over the internet anyway. So, if people would rather read the book, then thats fine. But for the lazy people aka me, you could let us know – just make sure you let everyone know you\’re going to reveal the ending – although we have come with theories so far as to the ending.
I\’d like to be able to read the book and find out what happens on my own. I\’ve had the last three endings spoilt for me! The whole point of reading the book is to find out yourself. If we can\’t do that then the Harry Potter books are just too famous for a good book. They are awesome books but it\’s sad and upsetting that some people have nothing better to do than give away book endings!
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE DO NOT SPOIl THE ENDING!!!!!
Fair enough i know it\’s going to be hard to avoid hearing the end what with the newspapers and other internet sites but please give people a fair chance! Put any news about the story way down at the bottom of the page and mark with some kind of warning so people will know that if they open the link then they may find out something about the story that they don\’t already know!Think of all the die hard fns who have been abticipating this for so long, please don\’t spoil it for them!
oh come on people.
are you seriously suggesting that you have no control over what you see or read? that your computer suddenly has a mind of its own and bombards you with "the ending" before you have even had a chance to log in, click to a web page, load your mail, or whatever? block pop ups if you are worried about these sneaky attention grabbing forms of advertisement. you choose the programs you watch on television, to which you listen on the radio, what you read in print….and you have no choice in the Internet?
phooey.
The MSN team are part of the general media….they will do what is financially expedient. And you can do what is likewise…don\’t visit MSN if you think you will be "spoiled".
I can see why people would be annoyed about spoilers, but as long as any article is posted with a massive SPOILERS warning i dont see what the problem is. If people don\’t want to know, they just dont access it! (It might even be a compromise to wait so many hours, or a day even after the books release?) Im personally getting my book at midnight because im flying out on holiday at 3am that morning, and I\’ll be reading it as soon as I get it. All this talk about copies of the book being on the internet is the real issue to get annoyed about, not info on the book being posted after its release.
I\’m not being funny but….
….If you don\’t want the ending spoilt then don\’t read any news about the book – simple!.
I haven\’t and will never read the books, i\’ve only seen the first movie and still do not understand what the hype is all about.
MSN my advise – put at the top of the page "Harry Potter Spoiler", if the die hard fans click on it and read the story it\’s their own fault!
Oh there\’d just have to be some moron who\’d post a spoiler ending in their blog, wouldn\’t there?! How pitiful that they couldn\’t (a) understand the whole point of this message board and (b) resepct the other people on here. What\’s really laughable is how smug they seem to feel! I\’d like to thank them for giving me that feel-good factor!
I think MSN should respect the fact that some people, no matter how much they would like to, because of work or other committments, will not be able to start reading the book at midnight on Friday and keep going until they\’ve finished. Some of us have MSN set as our homepages – if I\’m going to have things spoiled for me as result of that, I\’m going to switch it to something else. Fair enough, you have to review the book and run a story, but please ensure that any spoilers are only revealed by deliberately choosing to click on a link, rather than just ooking at the MSN page.
I think that there should definatly be spoiler alerts and any forums that will have the book discussed in should be clearly marked so i can avoid them!
I shan\’t be able to get the book when it comes out as I will be in the wilds of Norfolk doing volunteering and living miles away from any kind of book shop, woe is me! So I shall be avoiding most of my usual internet sites, but i will probably be on the msn homepage to catch up on news and weather and I dont want the book spoiled for me.
Also, nice try noname, people like you make me sick.
I think you should leave it one week before divulging any of the plot. This will give the real Potter fans time to buy and indeed read the book. If they havnt read it by then they are not really Potter fans.
I think that no coverage of the actual contents should be made for several days – if not a week. Therefore we won\’t be disappointed when half way through the book!
I personally think either leave it a week or have spoiler alerts. I will more than likely have it finished with a day or two as i won\’t put it down so it doesn\’t matter to me
i think you should put spoiler in title tho this wont realli help since the headline of all newspapers will say what happens in the end!! i shall be avoiding all contact from outside world until i have finished the book! luckily im better off than my brother who (along with the rest of the rugby tour) is jetting off to south america on saturday and i am convinced some one on the plane will stand up shouting the ending before the majority of the plane have finished and subsequently get tackled by a LOT of rugby players!!
Hi
I would like it if you somehow make it clear that the article contains spoilers. Its the only way. Maybe you can report it by writing two articles. One with how the launch went not mentioning anything about the plot and a second one about the plot and warn people it contains spoilers. I know it will leak out eventually. Like big quiz winners are reported in the papers months ahead of when the show is broadcast even though the audience are sworn to secercy but still manages somehow to get out. PLEASE MSN do the right thing and do not spoil it for others. If you must then at least put a warning. thanks James,From London,UK but in New Jersey,USA for the summer.
I think 36 hours is fair, so after noon on Sunday feel free to assume those who wanted to find out for themselves will have. However, I like a previous commentors suggestion that you could hide the information behind a warning after the style of "if you don\’t want to know, don\’t click here" it still works on TV for important football games. This could last until Monday morning at 08:00 AM when I\’m sur breakfast TV will be revealing all.
Roll on Saturday.
Mike Barry
Hi. We all know the book is coming out but I for one dont want the contents spoilt. Report the launch MSN, even report the ferver but dont ruin the contents.
If the team at MSN have any kind of writing and reporting ability at all, you\’ll certainly be able to include coverage of the book without giving away the ending… I know that\’s a big \’if\’ though.
So, given that, perhaps you could just write \’CAUTION: CONTAINS SPOILERS\’ at the top of any article where you feel the need to explicitly comment on the ending. And try to come up with something creative for the article title that doesn\’t give it all away.
I HATE Harry Potter hype, its just a book!!! It\’s contents isnt going to effect life in general so why make so much fuss? I think it degrades the book & puts people who haven\’t read it off, simply because they can\’t get away from it. Now listen don\’t get me wrong, I LOVE Potter & I\’m just as much looking forward to the rest of the story as alot of people are, I\’ve grown up with it (Im 18 now) but please…just leave it be. Anyone who doesn\’t read the books & wants to find out what happens can find out many many many differant ways & the people who do read them will know what happens anyway.
Report on other news storys, more IMPORTANT ones. When the media & harry potter is concerned…it\’s just pathetic.
When I get my book, im going to take my time with it, I know theres going to be plenty of kids who read on the night….why?? whats the point?? It\’ll just end quicker. Take your time, it\’s not going anywhere.
Wikapidia have permanant "contains spoilers" so people can avoid it, many things say "if you don;t want to know look away now".
your free to report it in my opinion but watch out for the head lines and give a clear signal is contains spoilers before the text can be seen and i say leave this on as long as the article is left on. Anyone who wnats to know what happens can read an article "harry potter ending" and it will attract attention so no need for headlines that everyone can read intitled "harry dies".
there is no need to hide it too much just not on the home page where anyone with your homepage will read it as soon as they get on the internet.
Please please please put up spoiler warnings if you have to write anything about the ending. I\’m planning to read the thing as soon as I have my hands on it, but all the same, I don\’t want to have to live in a hermetically sealed box for the entire weekend to avoid some a***hole spoiling the ending for me.
I noticed someone had said to not put up anything about the content until 36 hours after its released, which is fair enough, but I\’m pretty sure that not all fans have the luxury of a full weekend off to read it, plus some people will be wanting to savour it and make it last-it is the last Harry Potter after all. When people want to discuss the ending, as I\’m sure they will, then set up a special discussion board for that.
And anyone who does plan on maliciously spoiling it for the rest of us, I will hunt you down….
Here\’s the thing – if you openly choose to include information about the plot or finale of this next Harry Potter – I will stop checking my email until I have read it.
That’s really the long of the short of it. I won\’t read your articles, see your advertising or leave comments on these things (not that I have ever done this before so that’s not much of an incentive for msn!).
The commute to work, reading the papers, listening to the radio, etc, will all be fraught with dangers as it is – and a week or so of not checking my email is a small price to pay!
There is a lot to be said for and against the Harry Potter series, as the people who have left comments here have demonstrated, but really it is just a book. A book I, and few others, are looking forward to reading. I\’m not an uberfan, just a reader who likes a bit of suspense, and after a lead up of 7 years of these I\’m on the edge of my seat.
When you review a movie you don\’t reveal the ending, so why on this occasion would you choose to report on differently?
i think any articles should have huge SPOILER ALERT! signs by it, then if anybody finds out by the website it\’s their own fault! I plan to read it on saturday (i\’m a quick reader) and just not come online before i finish it. but my brother is dyslexic and so hates reading, therefore he gets the audio cds which obviously take longer to get through and i\’d hate for it to be spoiled for him.
It may only be a book but to some of us its a very important one so you need to put a huge spoiler warning first as its unfair on those of us who have waited so long to read the final book. I personally will be avoiding all forms of media until i have finished reading it so that it doesnt ruin it for me.
Splash the ending across the Headlines before someone else does!!!!
What a Muggle. I\’m Bewitched by the whole thing.
Not everybody reads that fast and to say you\’re not a Harry Potter fan if you haven\’t read it by monday is ludicrous.
Not only children read the books and for some adults like it or not they have other things to do than sit glued to a book for the whole weekend.
As to the ending it\’ll be everywhere anyway, but i don\’t think SPOILER ALERT would do any harm.
As to the person who said they\’d never read the books, just seen one movie. Fine thats your choice. And another saying if you know the ending its not a good book – have they seen Oliver Twist or read A Christmas Carol (Scrooge). Most people know the endings but they\’re still read over and over again.
And to the person who doesn\’t see what all the hype is about. From the first book these stories have brought more people together
just by talking about them than anything written for many years.
I still haven\’t read the last one yet, but that doesn\’t make me not a Harry Potter\’ fan. It just means i\’m not fanatical and although its already ordered i won\’t be queueing (even if it wasn\’t) but people like the commanderie and thats a good thing.
Just use SPOILER ALERT and if that doesn\’t warn people, well i don\’t know what will! Easy.
Jean
Put SPOILER WARNINGS on anything that could…you know, spoil. People who are smart enough will just stay away from the news and the internet for a while if they don\’t want it ruined. I know I will. As long as you would actively have to go into an article to find out the ending then thats fine. If it just popped up at me though I would be extremely annoyed.
warn us, make a point of saying "spoiler alert", i\’m not going to be able to get the book straight away, may make a parent take me to get it but cant exactly buy it at midnight and lets face it, the spoilers are going to be everywhere by the time i get up saturday and then add in waiting for a parent to get up, convincing them to take me to tesco just for the sake of buying a book, its gonna be a pain to avoid spoilers while waiting to get my hands on it, thats even relying on the fact that someone will oblige in taking me to get it (my parents wont let me wander off on my own to buy it on the grounds that i have a bad habit of having people think i\’m a great person to start fights with, needless to say my chances of getting really hurt are highest when i\’m on my own so in order to avoid my parents not letting me get it i have to get a lift off them since i cant exactly ask a mate to meet me in town, walk to a bookshop and then leave me in peace to read all day can i lol). so i say warn us, personally i\’m going to go out of my way to avoid all articles on it until i\’ve read it, same as all websites, speaking of which its http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org just incase someone tries clicking the misstyped link. mugglenet is the site i used for hp news when i want it and i\’m avoiding that at all costs until i\’ve read it. when waiting to get to buy the book i\’m going to be refusing to even let the msn homeapge load (but please dont post spoilers directly on it since i cant always get my laptop to redirect me without loading the page first) before i\’ve redirected the page to another pointless website, that is as likely to mention harry potter as it is to tell me that the moon was made by frogs (in other words a site i can guarantee wont wreck the story for me). i rarely watch tv, saturday will be refusing to be near anything covering the news at all in any way shape or form, as in refusing to be in the same room as the tv my family will be watching, i\’m going out of my way to avoid the spoilers but it would be appreciated if you could warn us before we read yours all the same.
tbh, i just dont want there to be a big title on the homepage saying \’harry potter is dead\’ or suchlike.
as long as there is a link away from the mainpage im not completely bothered. just dont ruin it for me! i wont be able tor ead it until sunday night because of work :\'(
DON\’T REVEAL THE PLOT! LET PEOPLE FIND OUT FOR THEMSELVES!!!
DON\’T REVEAL THE PLOT! LET PEOPLE FIND OUT FOR THEMSELVES!!!
I think the safest thing to do, is to create a seperate \’Harry Potter area\’, where you can only read infomation about the book/ending/spoilers if you choose to click on it, and not just by scrolling down and having somthing catch your eye. If this \’area\’ contains spoilers, then readers should be warned before they choose to \’enter\’ and read them. This would solve the issue of people accidently reading a spoiler on the main page. This could be combined with a Harry Potter forum, for those readers wishing to discuss the book, and again readers should be warned about spoilers.
Basically we should be told if an article contains spoilers before we read it, then it is our choice continue to read.
What do others think?
What is Tescos?
How about, rather than forcing some poor soul from your staff list to sit and read the enitre book the moment it comes out in the vain attempt to get a report up before anyone else…just give a brief over-view of the book in a story like this one (…not revealing the ending of course!!), about how magical it is, great battles…you know. general Harry Potter stuff that we have all come to know and love and quite frankly expect. You don\’t need to even give names, perhaps just hints. Then…here is the genius…we can add our own reviews and discuss the book when we have read it. We wont bother reading comments or leaving them until we have read the book and won\’t want to look at what other people think! That was, it saves you guys at MSN a lot of work and allows us to become the reports whilst enabling us to conduct our lives as normally as possible! Just put spoiler warnings about the comments people leave about the article!
I reckon that the story should be run, but on a seperate page. Link it off from the homepage with a Spoiler warning on it. That way if people do want to read up on it without having to trawl through the 608 page wonder, they can, and fans who want to read the book, can. If only all of the media took this option to ask their readers views first!! I personally have ordered my book from a certain online retailer and hope to have read it by Sunday! I\’ve reread the first 6 books in just over a week and can\’t wait to get my hands on the new one! A big round of applause to whoever suggested getting our views!
Me thinks that you should advertise and do what ever you like, because afterall, all the people that are wanting to read harry potter, will be reading…. NOT lookin on the the net. For example, i going to go out and buy the book in the morning (once i\’ve finally woken up) and just start reading… and to be honest i dont plan to even turn on the computer let alone have time to surf the internet. I\’ll be too busy reading. And as for those people that want to read it later. Thats their choice! and if that means that hey have to put up with all the publicity everywhere and people talking what will happen in the end. There\’s nothing anyone else can do about it. Its a famous book and its just a disadvantage to not being able to read the book straight away. So a message to MSN, feel free to mention whatever you like. Because i, for sure, wont be on the internet to see it! 🙂 *GRIN*
Which brings us to the question exercising the mind of the MSN UK homepage team at the moment – how should we cover the launch of the book and, more pertinently, its actual contents?
Well, you asked for it!
No, I can\’t do it, it\’s too easy, too soft a target, like shooting fish in a barrel. I demur.
Mind you, that must be a seriously overworked little brain cell this week.
The book isnt out yet. Who cares…
http://rapidshare.com/files/43938738/HP7_Full_PDF.rar
Download it there. its the full book no picture book type of thing
the complete typed out book.
Have fun you potter fans ❤
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