This is a tough one and I think there should be some clarification in the rules. They do state that you need to respect the presence of anyone at the camp before you, but at the same time they do say AFK camping is frowned upon. Of course in this case they are talking about AFK'ing and letting your pet kill things for you, but I think it should be expanded to include spawns on long timers.
Just this last weekend I camped Hadden starting ~4 hours before he was due to spawn. Left my laptop in the living room and started doing stuff around the house, returning to the computer every 10-15 minutes to answer tells and click my peggy cloak to show that I wasn't taking a nap. I think this was fair to the people who were showing up and asking me if I was camping hadden, what the spawn timer was, etc.
I think that if you show up to a long spawn and someone is there, they should need to respond to you within 15-20 minutes or so to keep the camp. It isn't fair to park a character in the morning, leave the house, and then come back 7 hours and 55 minutes later to scoop up the kill, and you should expect to have your camp stolen in those circumstances.
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Jorg Shaman
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