You have to enact an information embargo, just as you'd have to do with any other major competition. Regular sports = no TV, radio or spots/news sites. Pinball = no forums. Not realistic to expect everyone to keep mum on the results just because one or two people missed the livestream....

But this isn't a case of assholes spoiling... it's just people talking about what happened. I disagree that people should censor thread titles and watch what they're saying just because a few people haven't seen the big event yet. It's up to the stragglers to embargo themselves.

The problem is you can't tell the difference. They are very different.

Someone walking around a bookstore with a "Snape killed Dumbledore" T-shirt the day of the book's release = asshole

People posting on a pinball site about who just won a public pinball championship = normal conversation.

Expecting "everyone else" to self-censor, watch what they post and keep things under wraps is extremely selfish, not to mention unworkable. I mean really, you expect thousands of people to avoid mentioning a winner in public? For how long? It's not like people will even know when you have gotten around to watching it. If you want to keep yourself from seeing the results, keep yourself away from any place that might have them until you can watch. Very simple, and puts the onus on you (the laggard), where it belongs.

If you DVR'd a football game, would you surf ESPN before watching it? Of course not. Take the same care with pinball matches...

I can't disagree more. What's "fucking selfish" is expecting thousands of people to self-censor themselves just because you can't be arsed to avoid pinball sites til you can watch the stream. See example to desertt1.. you'd never surf sports sites if you had a big game DVRd, so why expect anything different in pinball land? Solution is very simple - don't get on pinside til you watch the stream. Stop blaming everyone else.