If you're a "Star Wars" fan, the best plan for avoiding spoilers is probably just to shut down your computer until you can see "The Force Awakens."
Unfortunately for Reddit moderators, their job is to scan for spoilers on a near-constant basis.
At this point, many of them know exactly what happens in the movie without seeing it for themselves.
"Star Wars: The Force Awakens" will be officially released to the public on December 18, but the premiere of the movie took place on December 14 in Los Angeles. This means the internet is already beginning to crawl with trolls who want to spoil the film for others.
One Redditor wrote a warning post late Tuesday evening, saying "PSA: There are already people purposefully spoiling the new 'Star Wars' in various comment sections. Tread carefully." The leaks are allegedly coming from the notorious troll site 4chan.
A moderator named TheGreatZiegfeld chimed in, explaining: "We've banned dozens of users so far for this. I think all the mods have had it spoiled for them by now. We'll do our best to make sure you guys don't suffer the same fate."
Moderating a subreddit is a voluntary position, but the role is not taken lightly. In /r/movies, for example, moderators are vigilant about deleting comments revealing key plot points of any recent film. Every new movie has a special discussion thread with a spoiler warning, but not all Redditors play nice.
This means the moderators are reading and reviewing every comment related to "The Force Awakens" in an effort to protect regular Redditors from accidentally stumbling on spoilers themselves.
Their efforts don't go unnoticed. Many subscribers to these subreddits have expressed their appreciation and respect for the herculean efforts of the moderators. "You're doing God's work, we all really appreciate it I can tell you that," one user said.
"Yeah, the original trilogy was my childhood, it's not fun to have the new one spoiled for you over and over again, but I make up for it in other ways," TheGreatZiegfield replied. "I haven't seen a trailer for it yet, so every scene in the movie feels new. It's a small consolation."
There's no perfect solution to keep spoilers offline. A Chrome extension called Force Block was created, but it scans sites for literally any mention of "Star Wars," so the filter is very broad. You'd be blocked from accessing Facebook or virtually any news site with a headline mentioning the movie, even if there aren't actual spoilers there.
In the meantime, the Reddit moderating teams' acceptance of a less-than-ideal role is admirable. "We signed up for the job, we can't just skimp out when things get hard," TheGreatZiegfield told the /r/movies community. "There'll be other movies that blow our minds with surprises and twists, Star Wars just wont be one of them."
