How Kitazo's anti-spoiler system works

Comments are covered based on what you have watched

Kitazo does not ask people to tag their own spoilers. It compares every comment with your progress and covers anything that could give something away.

• A comment on a single episode stays covered until you mark that episode as watched.
• A comment on a season stays covered until you complete that season, or finish the series.
• A comment on the series as a whole stays covered until you finish the series.
• A comment on a film stays covered until you mark the film as watched.

Your own comments are never covered from you.

Covered does not mean hidden. The comment is still on the page: you see who wrote it and when, and in place of the text a strip that says the spoiler is hidden. Tap it and the comment opens. Both the text and any attached image sit behind that strip.

When at least one comment on the page is covered, a Reveal all spoilers button appears above the list. One tap opens all of them, for people who do not mind. Tap it again to put them back.

In the feed the cover is a little looser for series: a comment about a series in general uncovers once you have started watching it, while on the title page it stays covered until you finish. Episode comments and film comments follow the same rule in both places. On a comment's own page, the replies underneath are covered while the main comment is, and they open when you reveal it.

You can only comment on what you have watched

The other half of the system is a rule on writing, not on reading. To comment on a film you must have marked it as watched. To comment on a series you must have finished it. To comment on a single episode you must have watched that episode. Replying inside a thread about a title follows the same rule.

This is why a comment section on Kitazo is never full of people who have not seen the thing.

Reporting a comment

Tap the ••• on a comment that is not yours — or the flag under a comment in a thread. Kitazo then asks why, and there are exactly two answers:

• Spoiler — the comment reveals plot details without warning.
• Offensive — offensive or inappropriate language.

The choice matters. The two reasons feed two separate counters on the author's account, and they lead to two different restrictions. You can also report a comment straight from its card in the feed, without opening the thread.

Each person counts once per comment. Reporting the same comment twice does not count twice, and if you pick a different reason the second time the newer one replaces the older. You cannot report your own comment, and your email address has to be verified. The first time you report a comment you get a notification confirming it arrived; changing your mind about the reason does not send a second one.

What a moderator can do

Reported comments go into a review queue. A moderator sees the comment, how many different people reported it, who they are, how the reports split between the two reasons, and how many strikes the author already carries on each track. There are two outcomes.

The comment was fine. The moderator dismisses the report. The comment stays online, its report count goes back to zero and it leaves the queue. Everyone who reported it is notified, each in the terms they used: whoever reported a spoiler is told it was not judged an unmarked spoiler, whoever reported offensive language is told it was not judged offensive. The author gets nothing — no strike, no notification.

The report was upheld. The comment is removed, along with its replies and the entry it created in the feed. The author gets one strike, on the track the moderator picks when removing it.

The two strike tracks

Spoiler strikes and offensive strikes are counted separately and never add up. Three spoiler strikes and two offensive ones are not five of anything. Each track works the same way.

• First strike. Nothing is restricted. You get a notification saying your comment was removed, that it is the first time, and what happens if it continues.
• Second strike. Still nothing is restricted, but the notification now shows your counter at 2 of 3.
• Third strike. A temporary block starts and that track's counter resets to zero.

Strikes do not fade with time. A counter only goes back to zero when it reaches three and the block begins.

What each block restricts

The spoiler block. You can still comment on whole titles you have finished. What you cannot do is comment on a single episode, or reply in a thread that is about one specific episode. That is where an unmarked spoiler does the most damage, so that is what closes.

The offensive block. Stricter. You cannot comment on titles or episodes at all. The only thing left is replying to a comment written by one of your friends, meaning someone you follow who follows you back.

While a block is running, a banner at the top of the comment section says which of the two it is and how many days are left, and the button that opens the composer is not shown.

How long a block lasts

The first block on a track lasts one week. If you collect three more strikes on the same track after it ends, the next one lasts two weeks. From the third block onwards it is one month, and it stays a month after that.

Each track keeps its own history. A spoiler block does not make a later offensive block any longer.

Some language never gets posted

A short list of slurs is checked the moment you press send and the comment is refused before it exists: racial ones in their English forms, homophobic ones across several languages. The list is deliberately narrow, so that ordinary words which happen to look like a slur in another language are not caught. Everything else is left to reports and human judgement.

Fixing your own comment

You can edit your own comment for six hours after posting it; after that the text is fixed. An edited comment is labelled as edited, so nobody can quietly rewrite what a reply was answering. You can delete your own comment at any time, which also removes its replies and its entry in the feed. Deleting your own comment is not moderation and carries no strike.