I hate spoilers. Anyone who loves a good story hates spoilers. The pace of a story is a crucial part of the experience, especially when reading something for the first time. Spoilers ruin the pacing and thereby steal some of the magic of a good story. The internet, with its high-speed modes of communication and large, easily-accessible audiences, has only made spoilers more dangerous to the world of story lovers.

I love the Harry Potter series, so much so that for the releases of the past three books I anticipated each of them for an entire year prior to release and waded through caped nine year olds at midnight release parties to acquire my precious hardback copy. Hackers have apparently gotten hold of the transcript of the seventh and final book of the Harry Potter series, and spoilers have already started to surface.

Many of my friends had the ending of the sixth book ruined for them. I scrambled to dodge this fate. I rushed to finish the book, I avoided anything and everything on the internet related to Harry Potter, and I wouldn’t answer phone calls from anyone who could accidentally drop a hint.

Despite my caution, I was done in by one of my own forum moderators. 15 pages from the story’s climax I got an IM that said “I think this guy should be banned. His last post is really despicable. Can you take a look and tell me what you think?” Being a trusting and naïve Community Manager, I clicked on the link he/she provided. And there, naked on the page, was the climax of The Half-Blood Prince described in the plainest of terms. I actually howled “Nooooooooo!” in the middle of the Ubisoft office. I was heartbroken, and to this day I still can’t believe my moderator asked for a second opinion about a SPOILER and didn’t think to warn me that a SPOILER was involved.

That was an accidental spoiler and I almost flayed my moderator for it. You can imagine how I feel about intentional, malicious spoilering and the spoilerers who do it. This time around, I cannot let myself be a passive target for this kind of griefing. I’ve concocted a plan. Let the Anti-Spoiler Campaign begin!

Goal: Create a smoke screen of fake Harry Potter spoilers so that the real spoilers cannot be easily identified.

How: Reactively and proactively create random fake spoilers to counter-act any real spoilers about the seventh Harry Potter book.

I have never run an anti-spoiler campaign, but here are a few guidelines that should help make it effective:

1) Be Believable: Nobody is going to believe that Voldemort eats a vomit flavored Every Flavor Bean, has a change of heart, resurrects Harry’s parents, and then kills himself. Make a fake spoiler that could be true.

2) Stick With It: Pick a couple fake spoilers and stick to them. If people notice you saying a different spoiler each minute they’re not going to believe the other ones you’ve said. Stick to just a few.

3) Reactive Approach - Rumor Has It… : If you see something that looks like a spoiler, create a fake spoiler in the form of a rumor. For example, something like “I heard Dumbledore’s spirit camps out in Harry’s mind and helps him kill Voldemort.”

4) Proactive Approach - Think Like A Griefer: If you want to stave off real spoilers in a proactive way, make sure your spoiler is planted the way a griefer would plant it. For example, one common griefer trick is to start a thread with an innocuous title and put the spoiler in the body of the first post so that it’s the first thing any innocent clicker will see.

5) Recruit Your Friends: More spoilers = better smoke screen. With enough people, our anti-spoilers will gain momentum and everyone will have heard so many possible endings that the real ending will remain a surprise.

There is no way to predict the exact results of this social experiment, but it is possible for us to influence our public space and take charge of our destiny as readers. We have the power to defend ourselves and others against the destruction caused by story spoilers.

Rally your friends! Form your own army! This is our opportunity to thwart the dark forces that would plot to take the magic out of our Harry Potter experience.