Almost – it’s actually a link to check the status of flights, and contains no important news whatsoever, and has been a feature on the site for a while.

Immediately underneath that, though, is something much less prominent and easily overlooked. A box with bold lettering at the top which reads “Europe’s leading low fares airline” and, on the next line, “Where we fly to” (which links to a useful route map). Below that is a link to a page about the current situation – which, being smaller text in a box which starts off with a bit of promotional text, is easily overlooked. Okay, so the text is orange, a bright colour which should stand out, but this being the Easyjet website, that colour features heavily, which results in that text NOT standing out.

But that’s not the FAIL I’m talking about (though it is a FAIL).

No.

Clicking on that link takes you to a page with a summary of the current situation, and some instructions for passengers, referring to EU regulation 261 (but note there is no mention of hotel and meals for stranded passengers – this, if anything, is appropriate for people who haven’t started their trip yet, and who are still at home).

The FAIL, though, is the link where it says “Attention all passengers who have car hire booked with their flight – for details please click here” – which, when clicked on, like the customer services link mentioned above, leads to a page which says:

“Permission Denied

This answer is no longer available.”

FAIL!

(Prompted by that, I clicked “No” in answer to the question “Was the above information of any use?” and pointed out the mistake – as well as including a link to this blog post.)

“Realistically, if you want strict control of spoilers and other nuisances, you want a moderated group, which this is not.”

I found that ironic, given that it was posts to rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.MODERATED which prompted me to write the above blog entry.

Something you must always remember when posting to usenet and mailing lists is that not everyone is using the same software as you, and they might be using the software they have in a vastly different way to how you use yours.

Some people scan their newsgroup, opening posts they are interested in, reading them, closing those, then finding the next interesting post. These people would be “protected” from your spoiler if you put the warning in the subject line and didn’t bother with any space.

Other people, however, just start at the top of the group – the first post in their client – open it, and read on using keyboard shortcuts. These shortcuts might enable them to skip to the next unread post, or the next thread if this one is uninteresting, or whatever. Each time they press the relevant keys, the currently displayed post is closed (or deleted) and the next one, according to the keypress used, is opened. (In one of my news clients, for example, this can even take me from one newsgroup to another if the post I’m finished with was the last in the group). This is done to read the whole group (or all the subscribed groups) as quickly as possible.

What this means, though, is that posts with spoilers in them might be opened without the reader having noticed the spoiler warning in the subject line.

If you included suitable spoiler space – no harm is done; the reader doesn’t see the spoiler. He sees the space, glances at the subject (or warning above the space) and moves on to the next post (or thread).

If you thought the warning in the subject line was sufficient, and that space was therefore not needed, the reader sees your spoiler in all its glory.

It can’t be stressed enough that spoiler space is a very simple idea, dreamed up decades ago, that works and works well. It’s a shame that although it’s a “netiquette” issue, it’s generally handled on a per newsgroup/subject basis, with each group having its own rules about when it’s needed, and about what. As I said, this inconsistent use leads to mistakes. In my extremely well considered and experienced opinion, spoiler space should be standard netiquette in the same way that interleaved posting is, rather than top-posting, or not posting binary attachments to newsgroups, and so on.