Wikipedia talk:Spoiler/Archive 13: Difference between revisions

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Discussion on this guideline has been taking place on an RFC.

Unacceptable alternatives

What about reasoning why those "Unacceptable alternatives" are unacceptable??? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 80.165.250.10 (talk) 19:18, 5 May 2007 (UTC).

I thought the reasoning was explained well enough. Which one are you unsure about? — CharlotteWebb 20:39, 5 May 2007 (UTC)

If you just would have let me save {{endspoiler}} then it would display fine, kee jerk reaction, let me finish. See User:Drini/sandbox to see what I'm trying t oachieve. Spoilers collapsed by default so people won't see them if they don't want to. -- drini ^[meta:]_[commons:] 21:25, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Pages displayed wrong for a few seconds between saving {{spoiler}} and {{endspoiler}}. CSS hack cant' be turned on/off on the fly, Wikipedia:NavFrame does. So if you wanna see spoilers, click on "show". I did NOT break half of wikipedia pages, it was jsut that {{endspoiler}} saved a few seconds before {{spoiler}} and therefore in the meantime pages rendered wrong. Gee.. -- drini ^[meta:]_[commons:] 21:29, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Reading this conversation when all the Template:tls were mistyped as Template:trs was quite funny. --tjstrf talk 23:10, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Suggested complete change

To save this page from MFD, I suggest the German spoiler policy (this is a translation by me and babelfish, with adaptations by me):

When discussing creative works, e.g. books, music, computer games, TV series or films, then an encyclopedia's task is to give a summary of the work and its place in the overall field. Thus, it is natural that the action of a book or a film will be described and discussed in full.

Many books or films lose their attraction, however, if too many details or the ending are revealed before they are read or seen. So it became common on the Internet to put before such descriptions a spoiler warning.

In encyclopedias, however, this is rare. In the German language Wikipedia, after long discussions, consensus developed not to include spoiler warnings, and to remove existing ones. The section which contains a description of the plot should, however, always be clearly denoted, for example by the heading ==Plot summary== or ==Synopsis==.

- David Gerard 22:30, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

Regardless if we have spoiler warnings or not, there should still be some form of spoiler guideline, even if all it says is to use or not use warning, and to not remove spoilers for simply being spoilers. -- Ned Scott 02:56, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

The German wording seems okay to me. --Tony Sidaway 03:02, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Agreed, sounds like a good compromise, plot details go into a section that is clearly titled. --Iamunknown 03:05, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
In the light of the massive amount of anti-spoiler-tag feeling on Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Spoiler warning, and agreement her on David's suggestion, I've been bold and adapted the German wording to this enclopedia and inserted the result in place of the old guideline. --Tony Sidaway 03:09, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

And I've reverted that. It's really messed up that people just go and ignore all the points brought up in the past simply because a little bit of time has passed. I know consensus can change, but this is more like strong-arming the change. -- Ned Scott 03:14, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

It's fine to revert. I was just being bold. We now have a concrete suggestion in the history of the policy page to discuss. Nobody is strong-arming, but it's clear from the MFD discussion that consensus no longer exists for the guideline as it stood, and we need to work on what to do about that. --Tony Sidaway 03:16, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

The concrete suggestion was right here in the talk page. Putting it in the article was unnecesary, and yes, smacks of strong-arming the change.

Feelings are strong enough -- pro- as well as anti- --without that. Goldfritha 03:20, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

No Wikipedia is a wiki and there was certainly strong enough consensus to support a bold edit. No harm in reverting it either. --Tony Sidaway 03:29, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Now the point is that we now have a proposed new version to discuss:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Spoiler_warning&oldid=131208283

Whoever is edit warring please calm down and stop it. Whatever we end up deciding on will be the result of consensus. --Tony Sidaway 03:29, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, based on the discussion so far on various venues (including MFD and the mailing list), I think there is an emerging consensus that:

Article structure should not be dictated by the need for spoiler warnings, especially if a balanced encyclopedic approach requires that they be mentioned in the introduction.
Spoilers should not be used for anything but recent works; slapping {{spoiler}} templates on Shakespeare and the Bible makes us look silly.

If any commenters here disagree with the above two statements, please explain why. *** Crotalus *** 03:33, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Point taken about spoiler-tagging Shakespeare and the Bible, but they are remote examples. There are 20th century sound movies that I might not want spoiled, so how about defining "recent" as a 100-year retrospective window, which gives readers about a 10-year pad before the plots of sound movies begin to lose their tags?

Better still, since many will not agree with any particular size window of years, how about leaving this determination to local consensus? Milo 06:47, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Historical tag

I believe that the appropriate measure is to tag this page as historical. Even though it was prematurely closed, the MFD attracted substantial comment, and the evidence is strong that a consensus of users either wanted to delete the page entirely, or else deprecate it as historical. I think there is obviously no consensus for keeping the page the way that it is, as the MFD discussion indicates. A strong majority of users are dissatisfied with current spoiler policy. Crotalus horridus 03:23, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

We've seen MFDs and AFDs swing in a matter of days, so it's hardly accurate to say that less than a day's worth of MFD was anything near an accurate consensus. -- Ned Scott 03:26, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Then you should have left the MFD open, so a fuller consensus could be reached. Crotalus horridus 03:28, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Unsuitable forum.

There has been a lot of passionate support for the template; unless there is a reason to believe it vanished, the less than a day has to be presumed to be the cause.

Note that the people who want the change generally are the ones who act first; responses come after. Goldfritha 03:29, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, we should continue the discussion here. --Tony Sidaway 03:30, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

MfD is back up in part because of MfD talk page. --Iamunknown 03:32, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

MfD closing is disturbing

I find it ridiculous that the MfD was closed. Hate to say it, but the MfD was an infinitely better method of handling the situation. First, it's more clearly advertised then a conversation on a talkpage. Second, it gains the appeal of a wider range of editors by displaying it in multiple ways. Third, it gauges consensus easily. Just because it violated protocol doesn't mean common sense should be used. IAR really needs to be renamed to "Use Common Sense". I'm confident those numerous "delete" !votes will not be drowned out so easily. — Deckill er 03:32, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, its back up so no more disturbance is needed. --Iamunknown 03:32, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
If someone reverts it again, I'm contemplating pasting the entire discussion here. Nulling consensus building by hiding behind policy is appalling. — Deckill er 03:34, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- Not surprisingly, a user has reverted once again. We have a policy called WP:IAR for a reason. Streamlining community discussion as a means to improving Wikipedia is still improving Wikipedia. Again, circumventing a large delete swing by hiding behind policy isn't good. — Deckill er 03:40, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm getting the feeling

That not everyone is on the same talk page... -- Ned Scott 03:38, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Request for protected page edit

Please could someone remove the MFD tag because that discussion has been closed as inappropriate for discussion of a guideline, and moved to Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Policies/Wikipedia:Spoiler warning. Perhaps the tag should be replaced by a note that discussion of the guideline is continuing on that moved page. --Tony Sidaway 13:53, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

done. Kusma (talk) 14:31, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Closed again to move to an RFC.. heh. -- Ned Scott 18:56, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

With the TfD closed...

How will we notify the people reading the pages with spoiler templates? 168.229.22.213 14:06, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

We won't. That way we get to have our way instead of the reader's way. — The Storm Surfer 13:44, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Spoiler warnings and netiquette

The major problem, not just with this guideline, but with {{spoiler}} tag itself, and the reason why it keeps getting supporters even though it's flatly unencyclopedic and goes against most of our other policies on content warnings, comes, I think down to the first edit, which inadvertently says why spoiler warnings are bad policy that keeps surviving. From the very first edit:

Wikipedia is an attempt to write an encyclopedia.

...

It is traditional netiquette for this discussion to be surrounded with warnings of "spoilers".

This is, in a nutshell, the problem with spoiler warnings and the reason people keep insisting on adding them. Spoiler warnings have no place in an encyclopedia; but people are simply used to seeing them on message boards, in internet discussion forums, on Usenet... There are many compelling reasons for including spoiler warnings on message boards, but none of these have anything to do with making an accurate, professional encyclopedia. Worrying about how an article will affect someone's enjoyment of a book or movie is, basically, unencyclopedic; the logical extension of spoiler warnings would be to say that we can't report critical opinions of books and movies, even when widespread or noteworthy, because it might make it harder for people to enjoy them. Likewise, netiquette does not apply to Wikipedia content, and, indeed, a concerted effort should be made to avoid having netiquette and other internet-biased views influence article space. I think that this policy should be simple, straight, and to the point: "Spoiler warnings are always unapproprate for an encyclopedia, and should not be used in articles." --Aquillion 18:32, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

An intelligent analysis. Very nice, and I agree. — Deckill er 18:48, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, Wikipedia is not quite the same as every other encyclopedia, is it? We cover a great many more subjects, of a different character, than others, and present information in a different way. The idea that because other encyclopedias don't have spoiler warnings, we shouldn't either, doesn't hold water. Maybe we shouldn't cover subjects trivial or unimportant enough to include in a real encyclopedia, either? Or include dynamic media, which doesn't appear in a print encyclopedia? Demi ^T/_C 20:59, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

My concern was with new users who often will exclude or remove spoilers when they are appropriate. But, to be honest, it's not a major concern. -- Ned Scott 18:55, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Demi, the issue is that the reason why it is always unencyclopedic to employ spoiler warnings applies equally to Wikipedia: The purpose of an encyclopedia is to provide accurate and useful information, as clearly and directly as possible. That is all. Aside from necessary legal concerns, there are no other issues worth considering in writing an encyclopedic article. When people start making arguments like "This will annoy--" or "This could ruin someone's day--" or "This might hurt someone's enjoyment of--", they've gone wildly offbase. That is appropriate for a webforum, perhaps; but it has no place in an encyclopedia. Spoiler warnings are an artifact of this flawed way of looking at Wikipedia; the concerns they are made to address are simply not of any relevance to us at all. Whether or not it ruins someone's day to learn the ending of the book, or even whether or not (as some people have threatened) they stop reading Wikipedia to avoid spoiling the book, have nothing to do with the way we write articles, and should never, to the slightest degree, be used to influence our policies and guidelines on writing articles. Wikipedia is not "the free messageboard anyone can consult for a fun look at a book they were thinking of reading." It isn't a review service, or a political party that has to worry about who's going to vote for it, or anything like that. It is an encyclopedia, and that means that when you click on the Wikipedia page for a book or play, you should get a complete, immediate, straightforward description--a listing of what it's famous for, who kills who, what the major plot twists are, and so on, preferably with the key points in the introduction. If a book or play is famous for a particular plot twist, that should definitely be in the introduction; and, for clarity's sake, that introduction plainly cannot be broken up. That is why spoiler warnings fall completely and irreconcilably outside of Wikipedia's scope; that is why, I think, in the long run they are going to be removed completely, and policy rewritten to (at least) strongly discourage them. --Aquillion 05:54, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Spoiler removal

Several editors are systemically removing spoiler warnings -- from everywhere as far as I can tell. At least one explicitly declared that he does not care about that the use of the spoiler tag is disputed. (See Talk:A Wizard of Earthsea#Spoiler warning.)

This sort of end-run around the policy does not bode well for the end results of the dispute, if they are not reined in. Goldfritha 00:19, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Editing an article isn't an "end-run around policy". It's editing! It's what a wiki is for. Now please stop edit warring with the multiple editors who happen to disagree with you about the appropriateness of the tags you keep putting at the top of clearly labelled "Synopsis", "Plot summary" and similar sections. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tony Sidaway (talk • contribs)

No, they are just using common sense. Think of it this way. The first section is "plot summary". Readers immediately see the wall of text. Two major reasons why spoiler tags are not only laughable, but unnecessary by any definition of the term in that situation. — Deckill er 00:28, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Then I will dare say you will have no objections when, in a month or two, other editors have attacks of common sense that spoiler warnings are appropriate to all sections with spoilers and then go and put them everywhere. Goldfritha 00:47, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

That's not exactly common sense, because they aren't seeing where they are "needed" (although I'm in the deletion camp). There's a difference between removing poorly inserted spoiler warnings and adding them everywhere without thinking. — Deckill er 01:01, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

How do you intend to persuade them that your view is common sense? Given that they are as entitled to the tactic of using "common sense" as you are. Goldfritha 01:11, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

It would result dropping a spoiler tag on every "spoiler" on Wikipedia, even if it's common knowledge like the suicides in Romeo and Juliet, or in sections already labeled "plot summary". We don't have signs reminding us that "red light means stop", but we do have signs in those situations where right turns on red could be dangerous. We don't have signs reminding us what a "line" is at the grocery store. Nor do we have the definition of the word "stop" below the stop sign. People can read. A plot summary is a plot summary. Thin point, but the fact is that people will anticipate things, regardless of the scenerio. That is the essense of common sense. — Deckill er 01:22, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

The problem with "common sense" is that everybody has their own definition. To paraphrase Meta:Don't be a dick -- if a significant number of reasonable people differ with your definition of common sense, whether bluntly or politely, the odds are good that you are not entirely in the right. See also WP:POINT. It's clearly inappropriate to rampage around taking out spoiler warnings (at least the ones that don't immediately, clearly violate some of the guidance on the policy page, like a warning before the Plot subhead) when the dispute tag has already been applied. 144.51.111.1 14:53, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Whoever the editors are who are simply deleting spoiler warning because 'they can' - I would ask them to stop and discuss these edits on the pages themselves. Deciding something quickly (between only a few editors) on this page and then surfing thru WP and making changes to pages these editors harldy care about is rather rude and a bit presumptious. I am another voice asking these editors to stop. I am certainly not part of their hastily assembled "concensus"Smatprt 03:16, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

And did the page editors at the time the warnings were put in decide through consensus then too? See the problem? ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 03:23, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes. And the problem is that the proper location to discuss this matter is here. They should not be enforcing rules that are not part of the guidelines. Goldfritha 03:27, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

You seem to be mistaking editing articles for "enforcing rules". --Tony Sidaway 04:08, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

If you check, you'll see that there have been discussions on many talk pages. No good reasons have been advanced for including these extra tags after, to take an example from some of the articles that you edit, the "Synopsis" header on an article about a Shakespeare play. What we're saying is quite reasonable: if you must add this bold, intrusive message to an article, justify it. Explain what the article loses without it. The Synopsis is clearly marked. What else does it need? --Tony Sidaway 03:26, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't know where this idea that removing redundant spoiler warnings from sections whose titles clearly indicates that they contains spoilers is somehow an end run around policy. Exactly which policy is being "end run" around?

But the recent RfC does give an good indication that there is a consensus support to such removing redundant spoiler warnings and warnings from historical and classical works of fiction. --Farix (Talk) 12:04, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm slightly confused on all of this, so I'm just going to mention my take on this whole thing. I feel that Spoiler Tags are unnecessary and have only caused a lot of debate. This is an online encyclopedia, people come here to learn new information and they should expect something to be revealed. By telling people that they might find some information in an encyclopedia that might reveal something is pointless and completely defeats the purpose of it. It's a direct violation of Wikipedia:Not censored and is already stated in big bold writing in the Wikipedia Content Disclaimer. I don't see any of the other things on that list placed on every article on Wikipedia. The tag is only really used underneath headers that say Storyline or Plot, which really is unnecessary. I really think the tag should only be used for articles about an unreleased subject. - .:Alex:. 19:02, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I think the wiki-wide removal of spoiler tags is entirely justified and long overdue; reluctance to be bold in taking them out by the roots is what convinced numerous people to mistakenly conclude that they're acceptable, encouraged, or even required and led to this current dispute. Often they're added by one person with no discussion, and since they're made (wrongly) to look official, most other editors assume that that person knows what they're doing. It's probably a bad idea to go through and remove them without explaining it, no, not until a MfD on the {{spoiler}} template itself finally goes through, but I think that if we talk it through most people will understand why they have to go. If you're going to protest the removal of spoiler tags while this debate is ongoing, though, it has to work both ways... would you agree that no new spoiler tags should be added to any articles until a clear consensus on them is reached? --Aquillion 04:58, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Discussion?

Please point out the consensus leading to the addition of the section "Where spoilers may be inappropriate". --87.189.124.195

Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Policies/Wikipedia:Spoiler warning shows pretty close to unanimous agreement on those particular areas. Guy (Help!) 18:50, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

I participated in that discussion, did I make the impression I'm that easily fooled? Please point out the section and paragraph where the the consensus happened. --87.189.99.112

I think spoiler warnings are great! They help you avoid information which might end up "spoiling" your enojyment of a piece of work, such as a movie, viedeo game, etc. (mainly involving the plot) Cause in the end, the way you find that piece of information might be the an exciting part of the work. I hope any wikipedia editors don't end up removing spoiler warnings cause they really do work! Plus, who gets affected if they just there, right? So just forget about the whole thing and leave them spoilers alone. Da_PipinFonz

Shortcut

Please remove WP:SW from shortcuts as it redirects the the Star Wars WikiProject. - Patricknoddy^{TALK (reply here)}^|^HISTORY 20:03, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I've reverted the redirect change, as many talk pages and talk archives appear to still be using WP:SW to reference this page. -- Ned Scott 21:15, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

What is classic?

"They are also generally inappropriate in respect of factual works, classic works of fiction (including films), or subjects where plot twists have been the subject of considerable external debate."

What makes a work of fiction a "classic work of fiction"? As a first approximation, does it refer to any work of fiction whose copyright has expired? --Damian Yerrick (talk | stalk) 20:25, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

The only appropriate meaning in this context would be a work that you could expect any reader of Wikipedia to have read.

Given that Wikipedia is accessed worldwide, the suitable response would be none. Goldfritha 00:20, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

I would reasonably assume that literary and film scholars will have a say on what works are considered classic and which are not. --Farix (Talk) 01:02, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

If reading or studying it is considered part of a well-rounded (western?) education, I'd think that would be a good indicator. It's basically there to codify the common sense guideline of not putting a spoiler warning on Beowulf, The Epic of Gilgamesh, or Macbeth. --tjstrf talk 17:12, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

The works of Dickens and Shakespeare, the science-fiction of Asimov and Heinlein, the films of Hitchcock and Welles. There is a good deal of agreement on what constitutes classic in these areas, I think. Guy (Help!) 18:49, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd be astounded if even 10% of the American population, let alone the world, even knew who Asimov and Heinlein were. Really, this whole debate is extraordinary. On the one hand we have people who want to take Wikipedia in the direction of one of those old-fashioned paper 'encyclopedias', but at the same time insist that 'everyone' knows who Luke's father is and what happens to Dumbledore, a view that only someone who spends a large amount of time on the Internet could have.--Nydas^(Talk) 06:09, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is not here to fix real-world illiteracy :-) Regardless, anybody even moderately well-read in SF will be aware of who they are, and it's unlikely you'll find any significant discussion of their works that does not include the crucial plot details. Guy (Help!) 15:46, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Rejected

I've marked this as rejected. Whilst its merits as a guideline are obviously disputed - some people think it ought to be a guideline - it is obvious that it does not have a consensus in support in its current form - so it is quite clear that it is rejected (for now anyway). Does anyone seriously wish to argue that there IS a consensus in support of this.--Doc^g 08:51, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

We'll never know. The MfD was closed after a day, the TfD was closed after even less time, and the RfC is a bloated mess. It's interesting that the MfD (broadly in favour of deletion) is transcluded onto the RfC, whilst the TfD, (broadly in favour of keep) isn't. Of course, this whole sorry debacle is overshadowed by the mass actions of a group of admins, who seem to think that this has to be settled in a matter of hours, rather than weeks or months.--Nydas^(Talk) 10:05, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

It would be interesting to know when the spoilers suddenly got so badly out of control. I don't recall seeing them on articles on Biblical books and the works of Dickens before this debate started. Guy (Help!) 15:49, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

New draft

Taken from Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/Policies/Wikipedia:Spoiler warning#Time to close this - results are obvious, Tony Sidaway's adaptation of the German policy, several of the comments from the RFC, and a few of my own ideas. -- Ned Scott 01:29, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Like it so far. I think it does a pretty good (though not perfect, yet) job of reflecting consensus, and keeping a neutral tone, giving justifacation toward removing all the (what a lot of people consider ) silly places for them, etc. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 01:56, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

My problem is with "Spoiler warnings should never be used on ancient texts, literary classics, classic films, or works whose plot is 'common knowledge'." Can you confirm that the plot os all of Shakespeare's plays are "common knowledge"? For example, without looking it up, how many editors of this page can assure me that they know the plot twist at the end of "Timon of Athens" ? Smatprt 03:56, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

No, we can't, but this is a compromise document. Even before this whole mess, spoiler warnings were never meant to be a "right" to the reader, but only a reminder, because we were in a position to do so without a big fuss. You might have gotten used to using spoiler warnings on classics, but that's not why we allowed spoiler warnings. -- Ned Scott 04:01, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

- Who is this "we" you refer to in your last sentence. I thought on Wikipedia we are all "we".Smatprt 05:07, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

"We" is referring to the consensus that allowed the spoiler warnings. Take a look around on the talk archives on Wikipedia talk:Spoiler warning. -- Ned Scott 06:50, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I'm opposed to all spoiler warnings. But I think I could support this new text as a compromise. Basically you can have them on very recent works - but most others get removed.--Doc^g 11:10, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

While I'm still opposed to spoilers in general, I think this cleaves them into a good middle ground. Nice job, Ned. David Fuchs^{(talk / frog blast the vent core!)} 13:29, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Commentary

Seems like a good start. Some commentary on a few lines:

{{spoiler}} should only be used where the spoiler is not integral to the understanding of the work, and that knowledge of the spoiler would likely substantially diminish the readers enjoyment of the work.

Why shouldn't it be used if the spoiler is integral to understanding the work? I think I see what you're getting at here- if the only thing something is famous for is inherently tied up in "spoilerness," then go ahead and put that in the lead, which should not have spoiler tags. But if a spoiler is integral to understanding the work and in most of the article? Well, tag the first section of the article with the spoiler warning, then. That won't compromise the article structure, but it will offer fair warning. I'd tentatively suggest just chopping out the first half of that sentence, although perhaps there's a better phrasing.

Tagging an article should only be done for recent works of fiction. (Maybe on this one?)

I would not support this line. While I'm not in favor of spoiler warnings for Shakespeare and other classics, I'd stretch the definition of "contemporary" considerably farther. Not sure what a good phrasing is, but roughly "one lifetime" seems about right. King Kong is fair game; something from the 80's, however, is quite likely to still be experienced afresh. The 60's are a grey area, although I'd lean away from spoiler warnings. (Also, Snape kills Dumbledore is absolutely worthy of a spoiler warning — if it's mentioned outside the "plot" section for some reason. The same is true of all your other examples - I don't think they're nearly as widely known as something which has entered the language itself, like, say, Jekyll & Hyde.)

Spoilers should not be unnecessarily disclosed in the lead, and avoided only when reasonable.

"Reasonable" is fuzzy and kind of circularly defines itself. I'd suggest something like "Spoilers are only rarely appropriate for the lead, but may be reasonable in cases where the topic is inextricably tied to such information."

Also, there should probably be a line in there about not twisting the article structure for the sake of spoilers. I'd propose something like:

Articles often break down neatly into sections which contain spoilers (such as plot summaries and literary controversy) and sections lacking spoilers (considering authorship or lists of actors / characters). That said, this is not always true, and articles whose best structure would contain spoilers throughout should not be bent into "spoiler" and "non-spoiler" sections. Simply mark the first section with {{spoiler}} instead.

SnowFire 05:02, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Make it rare, like fair use images

Should we add a sentence with an analogy comparing such tags to fair use images, i.e. use them only when absolutely required, because in most cases, and especially classical works (compare with fair use images and living people), they aren't necessary? Johnleemk | Talk 06:09, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Once only

I strongly object to "Such tags should only be used once in an article." Consider articels such as Aubrey-Maturin series where a whole series of works is discussed in a number of mini-articles. Spoilers can exist in multiple sub-sections of such articles. DES ^(talk) 09:53, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

The idea is that we're moving away from spoiler warnings being an exact tag on an area, and more of a heads up, that Wikipedia might contain spoilers at any time, anywhere. -- Ned Scott 11:33, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Starts off on the wrong foot

This draft exemplifies the problem on the RfC discussion. The following text has appeared only recently in the existing spoiler warning (I realise it's not new to this draft), clearly placed there by the "anti" element:

When discussing creative works, e.g. books, music, computer games, TV series or films, then an encyclopedia's task is to give a summary of the work and its place in the overall field. Thus, it is natural that the action of a book or a film will be described and discussed in full.

This is a false description of what such articles should do (per the MoS:WP:WAF). It foregrounds in-universe plot summaries (bad) and relegates the primary purpose of the article (giving the work's place in the overall field) to secondary status. It is clear from WP:WAF that a good article about a work of fiction need not include a "full" description of the plot, whatever that means. If the work is of minor notability it need not include any details of the plot.

We also have the standard kow-tow to traditional encyclopedias:

In encyclopedias, however, this is rare, and spoiler warnings are generally avoided.

Right now, Wikipedia is THE encyclopedia (I speak as an academic). It is as accurate as any general-purpose encyclopedia, far more detailed, and far more accessible. Moreover, it is the only useful and serious encyclopedia designed for on-line reading, where spoiler warnings are particularly useful. PaddyLeahy 10:46, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I totally agree with with you about WAF, and was thinking about that when I was tinkering with the draft. A few ideas had popped into my head for some better wording, I'm still a little foggy about how to best put it. -- Ned Scott 11:27, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

And I'm not really sure what to do with "In encyclopedias, however, this is rare, and spoiler warnings are generally avoided." Something should be said to the effect that we generally try to avoid such warnings. -- Ned Scott 11:31, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, the first problem with it is that it's inaccurate - we've found no instances of spoiler warnings in other encyclopedias or serious reference works, which is the problem. This is one of the major problems with spoiler warnings - ostensibly our competition is serious reference works like Britannica, and yet we have editorial practices associated with Internet forums. I've tried to tighten this sentence a bit, but I agree - it still needs something. Phil Sandifer 13:45, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

It's a good point. Why don't we just cut the sentence? It doesn't really do any heavy lifting in terms of the guideline's meaning. In fact, I'll go kill it now. Phil Sandifer 13:45, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Wait a few days before declaring cooked

Ned's proposal, mixed with Phil's, looks not insane so far.

I'm still taking lots of inappropriate spoilers out to be shot, and I'm seeing that ... most are sticking that way. And those reverting them are tending to get themselves blocked for 3RR, i.e. are hotheads anyway. This suggests to me that the actual wiki-wide consensus either agrees with me or doesn't disagree. As such, I'd suggest leaving finalising this for a few days to see if complaints flood in from actual aggrieved readers (the people this is supposedly for) about spoilers.

(I don't hate spoilers. I've even added them myself. It's just almost all of them at present are redundant or ridiculous.) - David Gerard 15:16, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes - I like the current proposal, though it doesn't hurt to see if anyone comes up with improvement for a few days. Matthew Brown (Morven) (T:C) 17:05, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

preface to "Problems with spoiler warnings"

Somehow, I don't think the section on "Problems with spoiler warnings" is complete without first explain how the use of spoiler warnings have been abused in the past. So here is my attempt at an introduction to:

Spoiler warnings and spoiler protection came about as a way to protect readers of internet forums and newsgroups from being "spoiled" about what many considered an important plot point, plot twist, or ending of a recent TV episode/series, book, or film. However, as the internet culture matured, spoiler warnings were given when any detail about a work of fiction's plot was discussed. It was even argued by some that reveling the name of a character who will appear in a future episode or novel or the actor or actress who would play the character constituted a spoiler.

Perhaps someone can reword it a bit or take the basic idea and come up with their own introduction. --Farix (Talk) 17:01, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

(EC) I can see spoiler tags being used on very recent works of fiction (unreleased or just released), but that should be pretty much it, and I'm even hesitant to endorse that, I personally think we should have it in the general disclaimer and that is all. Still, this is a step in the right direction, and at least we won't be seeing any more "spoiler warnings" on The Passion of the Christ or The Iliad. Seraphimblade ^{Talk to me} 17:04, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Adding 'what is a spoiler' - David Gerard 17:16, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Magic tricks and puzzles

I've removed mention of this entirely. It is impossible to do even the weakest article on a magic trick without revealing its workings. Sawing a woman in half is a prime example of an article that is just dreadful because it's unwilling to reveal the method of the trick until the very end of the article, leaving it with an entire history section that leaves out key parts of the history like how the trick was completed at various times in its history. The same, it seems to me, can safely be said of any magic trick of sufficient notability to have an article - the history of the trick is its methods, and thus there is no article without revealing the secret constantly. Puzzles seem to me essentially similar - no meaningful analysis of them can take place without the solution being revealed. Phil Sandifer 17:26, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Having "spoiler warnings" for these just as absurd has having spoiler warnings for fairy tails. --Farix (Talk) 18:23, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I am a beginner magician and I really appreciate spoiler warnings in magic tricks. If you cannot write about trick without resorting to explanation, you really are not that good writer you think you are. I think there is always a way. It may be difficult to accept that, actually, the *main* reason that magicians (today) do not advertise the techniques they use is the enjoynment of the people they show their tricks to. I believe the opposite has been tried, and failed. If I show you 2 tricks (no matter which), and explain one of them, guess which one would be more interesting for you? Which one you would remember after a week? Wikipedia is encyclopedia for people, and it should take the human nature into account. Sometimes we want to learn about something, sometimes we want to be entertained. You shouldn't ruin the latter by doing the former. Ditto for the puzzles (I also like to solve mathematical problems, even if they have been solved already). Samohyl Jan 19:55, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

There is lots to say about magic tricks without revealing their secrets, yes - otherwise magicians would be out of business. (Or would all be Penn and Teller, I suppose) But I'm not sure there's an encyclopedia article to be written about magic tricks that doesn't deal substantively and constantly with their technological development. Phil Sandifer 20:01, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Here's a suggestion: Maybe you can split a history of the effect, and history of the method (behind spoiler warning)? Just like the magic descriptions are done: first from the view of the spectator, and then the secret is explained. Samohyl Jan

Does this mean that {{magic-spoiler}} tags should be removed from articles describing magic methods? Spoiler warnings must never be used for non-fictional subjects. seems to cover magic, but is that only for spoiler warnings related to plots? Magiclite 19:06, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Spoilers in articles not about the fictional work itself

I've added "about a fictional work" or words to that effect to various sections that say removing a spoiler is wrong. There are several cases where plot spoilers have been added to unrelated works and then marked with a spoiler warning, and in some cases the addition of the spoiler was really not relevant to the subject at all. For instance the Roger Bacon article has something about a Bacon character in a video game. This says:

A villainous character claiming to be Roger Bacon appears earlier in the story but proves to be an imposter, and eventually the "real" Bacon assists the game's protagonists in disposing of the pretender.

This gives the game away to some readers, but obviously it's of at best very tangential relevance to Bacon so the whole thing, or at least the spoiler itself, could be removed from the article and the article would most likely be all the better for that. A spoiler tag formerly on that article, on account of that plot spoiler, has recently been removed.

So I have added this:

It is sometimes acceptable to remove a spoiler about a fictional work from an article whose primary subject is not that work. For instance one might reasonably, if consensus for this exists, remove information about a plot twist in a film about ghosts from the article Ghost, but not from the article about that film. If inclusion of the spoiler would otherwise suggest that a spoiler warning should be expected because of its appearance in a largely unrelated article, this is worth considering.

Perhaps this is over-egging the pudding, though. Please edit mercilessly. --Tony Sidaway 17:44, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Seems more like a problem with WP:TRIVIA then with WP:SPOILER. --Farix (Talk) 18:06, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Grim Tuesday

Currently, I have noticed that in the Grim Tuesday Article, lines from the spoiler formatting are impeding on pictures. This could just be my computer, but if something can be done...? 86.132.249.228 18:04, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Two of the images are in clear violation of our non-free content criteria policy. I've removed them as such. --Farix (Talk) 18:15, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

A Show of Hands

As much as we could argue about this 'till kingdom come, it appears that (finally) we're getting somewhere with the prop'd guideline. Can we just do a show of hands to see if the proposal has support/needs tweaking? David Fuchs^{(talk / frog blast the vent core!)} 18:28, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

There needs to be some sort of mention or acknowledgment that a part of the English Wikipedia community feel that spoiler warnings are never appropriate in an encyclopedia, perhaps at the point where the German ban on spoiler warnings is mentioned. - Nunh-huh 18:34, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Removed these proscriptions

Spoiler tags are redundant when used in ==Plot== or other sections that are clearly going to discuss the plot. Using such headers is stylistically preferable to a tag.

As noted repeatedly on the RfC, redundancy is not a sin and these sections do not necessarily contain spoilers. Therefore spoiler warnings may be appropriate.

Except that we're trying to minimize spoiler warnings. Redundancy is not good if one of the redundant things, namely the spoiler warning, is something that we're trying to reduce. Phil Sandifer 19:49, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

A plot summary that doesn't spoil the plot is (1) not comprehensive and (2) not a plot summary, but a "back-of-the-book advertisement". — Deckill er 19:54, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I've responded to these points already on the RfC and had some support from other editors. PaddyLeahy 20:02, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Articles about fictional characters, objects or places can be expected to be substantially made up of elements of the story in question and should not need spoiler warnings.

This is an outright invitation to fancruft. If there is nothing but in-universe comment to give, the article should be deleted.

PaddyLeahy 19:46, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

This misunderstands the point of that proscription - the point is that such articles can be expected to rely on details from the story, as their subjects are somewhat detailed. I've rephrased. Phil Sandifer 19:49, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

No, you're just trying to have your cake and eat it. Given that the RfC has been bypassed by one side on this argument, edits to this page are the only way of carrying on the debate. PaddyLeahy 20:19, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd rather stop the debate, where it's clear that there is no consensus for the inclusion of spoiler warnings on much of anything, and move on to writing a policy that actually comes to a useful compromise. If you'd prefer to stubbornly insist on a minority viewpoint that is untenable, you're welcome to do that, but I'd certainly prefer you don't do it on a guideline page that has an actual chance of creating something useful. Phil Sandifer 21:14, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Rehashing the debate on the guideline page

Since the guideline is, in its current form, coming down against spoilers, it seems beside the point to rehash the pro-spoiler warning arguments. The purpose of that section, as I see it, is to offer an explanation for the logic of the guideline, which is important so that people, when directed to the guideline, do not see it as arbitrary. To rehash the debate implicitly promotes further fighting over spoiler warnings. If any of the counter-arguments listed sincerely have a consensus behind them, the guideline should be adjusted to fit them. Otherwise, they probably don't belong. Phil Sandifer 19:54, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

If this guidline is to be accepted, it has to reflect the consensus. The only consensus possible at present is to agree to disagree. So I've been bold and modified the guideline accordingly. (This also stops it being used as justification for rash action by proponents of one side of the argument.) PaddyLeahy 20:01, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I am very uncomfortable with this, simply because it all but invites further fighting and makes dissent from the guideline frankly encouraged. "It's only a guideline, and the guideline has all these reasons for disagreeing..." and then we're all but where we started. There's plenty of dissent about WP:RS - and I'm one of the main dissenters - but I'd never argue that counter-arguments should be put in the guideline. Phil Sandifer 20:18, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Seconded, Those arguments belong on this talk page or on the RFC, not on the guideline for future editors to war over. —— Eagle101^{Need help?} 21:02, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Removed example

Examples

In mid to late 2006, a spoiler template before the fact that Snape Kills Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince would be warranted. Due to the wide dissemination of this information, however, a spoiler tag would not currently be appropriate. The same reasoning can be used for major spoilers in Ender's Game, The Usual Suspects, and The Sixth Sense.

I can't be the only person in the world who has neither seen The Usual Suspects nor heard the spoiler. And I only know about the one in The Sixth Sense through participation in this debate. Thanks, guys and girls! PaddyLeahy 19:58, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

You're surely not. The better question, though, is whether the majority of people who are going to see The Sixth Sense or The Usual Suspects have already done so. Proportionally speaking, I think it almost unquestionable that in both cases they have. Phil Sandifer 20:13, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Lots of them havn't been born yet. PaddyLeahy 20:20, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

And? The nature of popular culture is a tendency towards immediate consumption. Phil Sandifer 20:23, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

How will someone who is 12 years old today manage to consume the last 100 years works of fiction and media "immediately"? How will someone who is born 100 years from now manage to consume the previous 200 years works of fiction "immediately"? Are you saying that they should NEVER EVER DARE consult wikipedia for tidbits of information on fiction or media works? Your comment smacks of elitism. "Oh, YOU haven't read Enders Game yet?"

Another thought. I know they chose "encyclopedia" when they started making wikipedia, and "encyclpedia's" don't contain spoilers. But maybe THEY SHOULD? There's a reason that spoiler warnings developed into netequette! Maybe we should be building an "encyclopedia+".

Finally, do encyclopedia's contain the full storylines of the works they are reporting on? Do they actually give away the endings as much as the huge all-encompassing "articles" that we have here? I've seen articles on wikipedia that are basically a minute by minute summary of a work. Is that "encyclopedic"? CraigWyllie 18:02, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually it's not, and it usually trimmed down because of the fact it's getting close to going against other policies (fair use, etc). ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 18:06, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

"Snape kills Dumbledore" is on its way to becoming a cliched phrase in English and may deserve its own article soon - David Gerard 20:52, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

The presumptions being made all through this debate are symptomatic of Wikipedia's bias. How many women over 50 will know who Luke's father is? How many English-speaking Africans will know the twist in the Sixth Sense?--Nydas^(Talk) 20:56, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

How many will even be looking up these articles? Complaints from actual outside readers so far: 0 - David Gerard 21:06, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

It's not our place to guess. Actual readers are unlikely to know how to complain now that so many of the tags have been whisked away after a couple of days of discussion. The sensible thing to do would have been to stick a link to the discussion on the tag and leave it for a week. Announcing the discussion on the Signpost would help as well.--Nydas^(Talk) 21:19, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Actual users have, historically, been very good at complaining. Or, at least, we regularly field complaints from actual users. That is how WP:BLP got built. It's how we learned about the worst of AfD. To my knowledge, and someone who handles OTRS stuff can correct me, we have had no complaints in blogs, phone calls, e-mails, or elsewhere about spoilers. Ever. Anywhere. Phil Sandifer 21:54, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

As one of those whose phone number seems to have become Wikipedia's phone number, I can corroborate this. I get people calling and complaining about their login not working as well as every other content issue under the sun. I have never had a complaint that we spoilt a work of fiction for someone. I await a single piece of evidence, not conjecture - David Gerard 22:08, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

And that's testament to the fact that the public understands that we contain spoilers, or just doesn't care. Ironically, perhaps the anti-spoiler tag people, myself included, are putting it in perspective. — Deckill er 22:12, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Then there should be no problem restoring the tags, slapping a link to the discussion and letting it run for a bit more. And mention this in the Signpost. There's (three days late) a mention on the centralized discussion template, though it could use a more descriptive title. 'Changes to spoiler warnings guideline' doesn't really capture what you're trying to do here.

I'm more concerned about the systematic bias in all these 'obvious' examples, though. Only people who spend large amounts of time on the Internet are likely to know about them.--Nydas^(Talk) 22:24, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

That's in the form of a logical argument but doesn't appear to be. There seems to be zero evidence of the alleged benefits of spoiler warnings, and we're a top 10 website that's been around for six years. Therefore there should be no problem not restoring the tags until evidence that they're of any use is produced - David Gerard 22:30, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

And regarding the claims of systemic bias by not including spoiler tags — perhaps the relevant WikiProject, Wikipedia:WikiProject Countering systemic bias, can be convinced to take up the cause of spoiler warnings? - David Gerard 22:33, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I really don't see what evidence has to do with it. The last RfC in 2006 ran for two weeks. This one has been rushed through in two days. Why?--Nydas^(Talk) 23:04, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

The last one was contentious, whereas this one found spoiler warnings actively hurting the encyclopedia quite quickly and has moved on to trying to fix the problem and create a good guideline? You might have more luck trying to tune the guideline to being useful instead of stamping your feet. For instance, if you know of anyone who has ever actually been upset by a spoiler in Wikipedia, that would be useful so we can make sure to write a guideline that helps prevent that. Phil Sandifer 23:07, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

The evidence that lack of spoiler warnings is bad doesn't yet exist because your frantic removal operation has only been in operation for a day or two, and the discussion has been poorly documented and handled.--Nydas^(Talk) 23:41, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Nonsense. We only ever had spoiler warnings on 45,000 articles. We discussed fictional subjects in far more than that. If people cared, we would have complaints. Phil Sandifer 23:48, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Six years. Zero documented reader complaints. Not, of course, that mere evidence has anything to do with it - David Gerard 23:51, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

This is a distraction to the actual argument. See the reasoning as to why people might not feel too keen about complaining, especially when they might be derided as whiners for doing so. Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 00:07, 20 May 2007 (UTC)
As well, might I ask you to cite both the basis of your claim of 45,000 spoiler-tagged articles as well as your reference for zero "documented reader complaints"? Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 00:19, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

That was the number of pages that Template:Spoiler was transcluded on before David started removing it. As for documented reader complaints, I am not sure how to provide evidence of their absence. But since nobody seems to know of any, it seems reasonable to assume they're not around. Phil Sandifer 00:24, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh, that must be an admin tool thing, as I didn't see any sort of numbering at the link provided. And not to be semantical, but stating unequivocally that there were zero complaints when you are unsure as to how to define the paramters for such complaints seems a bit unreasonable. It would be more accurate to state that you yourself have not heard of any reader complaints. I can guarantee you that they exist, as I put one in while still an anon user (and boy, doI wish I could remember the article; all I remember is that the editor who replied was kind of a dick about it). Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 00:42, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

It's not an "admin tool thing". You can count them by hand, or get the number with AutoWikiBrowser. My profound scepticism comes from the noted willingness of our readership to complain loud and long about every other aspect of Wikipedia's content, but not this one - David Gerard 04:37, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Callibrating the teeth of this guideline

It occurs to me that it would be easier to better calibrate where this guideline supports and discourages spoiler warnings if we could actually turn to the readers. Would the pro-warning people be so kind as to provide, briefly, any accounts they are aware of where people have complained because their enjoyment of a work was actually diminished by a spoiler revealed in Wikipedia? Not a case where you think someone's enjoyment might be, or where you personally learned a detail about a movie that you were maybe kinda going to see one day. I'm talking about cases where somebody looked up Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince while they were still reading it, learned that Snape killed Dumbledore, and were upset to learn this information. If we can have a sense of who is actually upset and hurt by spoilers, it's a lot easier to write an appropriate guideline. Phil Sandifer 22:10, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

The only guy I've ever seen "complain" about spoilers was 65.184.123.30, who took it upon himself to repeatedly blank a page for being spoiler filled even though it had a warning on it. --tjstrf talk 22:24, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

(as Phil and David seemed to use essentially the same post to argue their points, I will reproduce, with minor alterations, the response to David's identical argument) Not to be too flippant about it, Phil, but that question has been answered repeatedly by a great many users. In itself, the question is a logic contruct based solely upon the idea that the reader is some whiner who is going to complain every time when the surprise ending is given. the first time they may do so, and someone will berate them for believing in the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus, or some other derisive comment. What's the point in complaining, when the damage is already done and nopting the disappointment will not only fail to fix the situation but will garner derision?

Speaking personally, I had not seen Unbreakable before I read the WP article. Imagine my surprise (and disappointment) when I discover the ending was given without spoiler warnings. Shymalan's other films appear to have spoiler warnings; indeed, the critical success of films with surprise endings, like The Usual Suspects, depends upon the secret being kept. Other films, like The Blair Witch Project (a mess of an article, to be sure) depended upon the viewer's specifically manipulated (via the media) belief that they are viewing actual documentary footage, rely on spoiler warnings - some people are still not aware that the film was a complete fiction. And yes, I was rather pissed when the Snape spoiler was provided without warning. I prefer to fal into the story like a reader, and not analyze it like a coder or some such.

People keep making the argument that WP is an encyclopedia, so we 'best grow up and act like one', or some such elitist nonsense. Frankly, the point being missed is that we are an online encyclopedia, and a great many people are used to spoiler warnings, as they are considered courteous. Not "mollycoddling", but polite. Do articles need to be written better? Yes, I think that's evident. However, changing the policy regarding spoiler warnings is akin to simply changing the brand of band-aid purchased to stop a sucking chest wound.

Lastly, its rather unfair to accuse users like David and Phil of attempting to cabal thir own interpretation of a guideline to force a fait accompli down the community's throat. Certainly, they are surely waiting for the dust to settle and some sort of guideline/policy to solidly emerge before doing something to disrupt Wikipedia simply to make a point. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 23:37, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Let me be clear on this: You saw a heading ==Plot summary==, read it, and were quite upset it contained plot elements? Or where was the spoiler without a tag that spoiled it for you? - David Gerard 23:45, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, treating me like a dummy isn't going to win my love and respect here, David. I think that kinda illustrates why folk don't bother complaining, if in doing so their basic reasoning skills are going to be called into question.Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 00:17, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

No, I'm asking if what I describe is or isn't the case. Was the article in bad shape? Was the spoiler in the plot summary? Was it somewhere else? Please keep in mind that this section of the discussion is for calibrating the teeth of the guideline - that is, coming up with a spoiler guideline that actually serves a purpose. If you can help with that, good; if you want to rant, it's probably not going to be helpful - David Gerard 00:34, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

And, while noting yours, I was asking about any examples of people who had flagged their complaint before the question was asked here. Have there been any? - David Gerard 23:47, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Surely this is a difficult question to answer, because up until a couple of days ago, pretty much everything did have a spoiler warning on it (even nursery rhymes, which I agree is silly...) I don't mean to be facetious, but isn't it possible that this explains the lack of complaints? Now that spoiler warnings have been removed I can imagine complaints starting. Of course if they don't, then we can all rest happy. AEH 23:37, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

There were, at the high point, around 45,000 spoiler-tagged articles on Wikipedia. I'm guessing here, but I think our coverage of fictional subjects vastly outstrips that. So we should have generated some complaints if anyone was actually offended. Phil Sandifer 23:39, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, 45,000 articles sounds like a lot to me. Does the number of fiction articles with detailed plot summaries vastly outstrip that? Have you encountered any articles yet that revealed an ending but did not have a spoiler tag? Again I'm not trying to be funny here, but I'm wondering if the reason for the lack of complaints is that there was a system that worked well. AEH 00:11, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree that having 45.000 warnings against reading information in this very same encyclopedia is a lot. But, still, there are plenty of information in the almost 2 million articles we have that could be seen as revealing plot details in some works of fiction. The (dreaded) trivia lists we have in so many articles come to mind. And this is one reason why even trying to keep spoilers tucked in between tags is a bad idea. We can never make a completely "spoiler"-safe encyclopedia, even if everyone here wanted. So by the mere existence of spoiler warnings in some articles we only support an illusion that reading an encyclopedia will always only reveal information you are prepared to take in. It never will. We can't and we shouldn't try to live up to that and further the impression that we try very hard. That it's in an encyclopedia's mission to tuck away information. And the lack of complaints from readers in all these years is also a sign that the readers understand this. Readers are smarter than us editors often seem to believe. Shanes 00:34, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

45,000 sounds about right to me. A lot of fictional articles will be stubs with little chance of containing spoilers.--Nydas^(Talk) 08:09, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Here is a vote for keeping spoiler tags. I had "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" spoiled for me wile reading it.. but that spoiler came on a message board about another film (someone making a snotty comment about spoilers in general dropped that bomb). I think this "all you people who have been spoiled by Wikipedia spoilers step up so we can gage it" is a specious argument. So lets see... we need to find people who read Wikipedia, know what a spoiler is, read a spoiler, are annoyed by a spoiler, read Discussion pages, and have the free time and inclination to post on a Discussion page that they were spoiled. That sample is so self-selecting as to be non-existent. Spoilers are annoying no matter where you read them. Courtesy dictates that you warn about them at least. I have seen no guidelines one Wikipedia banning courtesy. Halfblue 00:36, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Misapplication of guideline?

I think the misapplication of the spoiler tag is part of the problem as well. There should be tags for films (both relatively current and those which rely upon the element of surprise for effectiveness) as well as literature utilizing similar methods of surprise. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 23:44, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Also, is there a citation for that number?

Yeah. Eagle_101 counted them with a bot, I counted them with AutoWikiBrowser - David Gerard 00:43, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

I see. And pray tell, which bot counted the "zero" instances of reader complaints as to spoilers? Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 17:28, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Controversy surrounding spoiler warnings on Wikipedia

This would be better as a talk page note, where people can still understand the background of this debate without having to read archives, but doesn't clutter the actual guideline. -- Ned Scott 22:43, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Yup box it on the talk page as a summary of the debate and not to be archived - then perhaps a link on the actual page saying - "this has been the subject of heated debate - for details see [here]"--Doc^g 22:45, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I still think some explanation of the reasoning behind the guideline is worth having in the guideline, it should be noted. But I'd accept a colorful box at the start of the talk page or something. Phil Sandifer 22:49, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, my feelings are mostly from a stylistic point of view, so whatever. -- Ned Scott 22:55, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

The talk page notice would work for the list of arguments bit, but at least the paragraoh about policies on WikiProjects and other Wikipedias should probably stay on the main page. --tjstrf talk 23:02, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

People write essays about everything on Wikipedia, and sometimes links to these essays are appended at the end of guideline or policy pages. I think that could be appropriate here, too. Shanes 23:18, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

and a nice shrubbery would be pretty as well. ;) Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 23:39, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

That would spoil it - David Gerard 23:45, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

Okay, then just down a tree with...a herring! (our dearly beloved President says to do so, staying the course, and whatnot). Arcayne 23:53, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

I reiterate that having a lengthy section of "reasons people dislike this guideline" is silly. If any of these viewpoints actually have consensus, they are reasons to alter the guideline. If (as I suspect) they do not actually have consensus so much as a few dogged adherents, they belong at Wikipedia:Why spoiler warnings are good, which should be tagged as essay. To put them in the guideline page they oppose falsely elevates them, and excessively encourages ignoring the guideline. Furthermore, many of the reasons in there currently are just... bad. People might not speak up about movies being spoiled? We should include spoiler warnings when we don't include any other disclaimers? Calling these arguments a reach is generous. Phil Sandifer 02:37, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree that it's beginning to look like a debate with some of the few dogged defenders of spoiler warnings. Removing the whole thing off to an essay seems reasonable. --Tony Sidaway 03:04, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

That would be because the general community has never been informed, or has it? No announcement, no tag. The debate is between those anti-spoiler editors who happened to see it and those pro-spoiler editors who happened to see it. --Kizor 04:29, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

The general editor community doesn't complain on my talk page - it's those hotheaded enough to revert it it ways that get them blocked that seem to - David Gerard 04:40, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't see how that disproves the claim that the editor community is quite unaware of the whole thing. --Kizor 04:47, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

It's been on MfD, TfD, RfC, talked about on IRC, ANI, and the mailing list. Short of sky-writing, what exactly would you prefer be done to notify more of the editor community? Phil Sandifer 04:55, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

The MfD and TfD were both closed in under a day. There was a single tangentially related topic about it, possibly two, on AN/I. Haven't been to the mailing list or IRC, I'm afraid. Very few editors read RfC. I would prefer a note of the ongoing discussion - at the moment, a webcomic AfD gets more exposure than this. (Not an exaggeration, to be anal, they're transcluded to a single page that is on a great number of watchlists.) Change the spoiler template. Add "The status of spoiler warnings is currently being discussed; see this debate." If there indeed is such an overwhelming consensus, you can do that. --Kizor 04:59, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

This is getting ridicules to the point that I've removed the entire section. The guideline should not be rehashing the debate where one side tries to "out point" the other. If you wish to make a point for or against spoiler warnings, it should be done here on the talk page or at the RfC. --Farix (Talk) 05:56, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:No disclaimer templates

This is severely disappointing: The "No disclaimer templates" policy page had a specific exception for allowing spoiler tags. It was removed because of the pressure to change spoiler policy here. The lack of the exception is now being used in the arguments here for pressure to change spoiler policy. Am I the only one who sees a problem with this? --Kizor 04:36, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Frankly, I'm appalled it made it into NDT as an exception in the first place - David Gerard 04:40, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

I know that you're extremely confident about you being right, but I'm faulting the process here. How does the validity or lack thereof excuse the use of such circular reasoning? --Kizor 04:44, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, I didn't use the lack of the exception as an argument, so it's not clear who you're talking to here. There's more than one person behind all these "bad spoilers suck" accounts ya know - David Gerard 05:33, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

I am very well aware of that. I asked why your appallement is relevant. --Kizor 05:36, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't using it as an argument, just saying so. For further joy, here's one from 2003 - David Gerard 10:33, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Stop bringing in things that you openly admit have nothing to do with this argument! Some of us are trying to accomplish something here, foolishly or not. --Kizor 16:35, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Were you genuinely surprised when editors noted in the RfC that your smug condescension and sense of superiority come across as insulting? I mean, you're using what is desperately attempting to be a serious argument as your plaything. --Kizor 16:44, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

If the "anti" element are seriously trying to write a guideline which allows use of spoilers in a way which minimizes distortion of article structure, they should welcome the use of {{Endspoiler}}. Without this tag, editors are driven to place spoiler material at the end of the article, after all the information they would like to be seen by readers who don't want to see the spoiler (e.g. those contemplating reading/viewing the work in question). By the same token, the advice (on the template page) not to use {{Endspoiler}} at the end of sections should be removed. PaddyLeahy 10:33, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

"Without this tag, editors are driven to place spoiler material at the end of the article" - this would only apply if they were editing badly, i.e. warping the article for the sake of spoilers. That's the sort of thing that inspired the demolition of spoiler tags in the first place: that the expectation of them is damaging to the encyclopedia itself - David Gerard 11:11, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

I sense the agenda here is to use the stipulation that text should not be distorted to effectively ban spoiler tags despite apparently allowing them. Not very subtle. PaddyLeahy 11:27, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

The agenda here is that writing a good encyclopedia article that conforms to fundamental content policies is far more important than any consderation of spoiler warnings, as I and many others have noted repeatedly. Because it is - David Gerard 12:40, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Endspoiler is the single worst part about spoiler warnings, in that it encourages restricting spoilers to a single section of an article instead of putting them where they would naturally occur in a well-structured article. By creating a spoiler section of the article Endspoiler implicitly advocates writing around spoilers. The vast majority of my objections to spoiler warnings would vanish if we stopped using them on plot summaries, stopped using endspoiler, and acknowledged that there are cases where thes poiler will have to go in the lead. Phil Sandifer 15:11, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

It is possible, and from the truckload of spoiler-warninged articles I've seen since this whole mess began, not uncommon, to use multiple spoiler and endspoiler tags. I've seen spoiler warnings often cover multiple sections until and endspoiler. Neither of those is restricting spoilers to a single article. Most of the rest of the uses of endspoiler that I've seen have been when there was a genuinely spoiler-free last section or sections, such as awards or themes. --Kizor 16:34, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Uh, I'll just echo what Paddy has said. I'm not in favor of spoiler warnings causing an article's structure to warp, and endspoiler will help that task if anything. SnowFire 22:03, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Redundancy

David Gerard has removed my deletion of the stipulation that "Plot" sections should not be marked with spoiler tags, labelling it "silly". But this is the heart of the argument. This line, which of course is the principle new item added in this draft, justifies David's (and a few other editors) precipitate action in deleting many hundreds of spoiler warnings. I have given two reasons for resisting this proscription, which have not been satisfactorially answered by the anti element:

Plot descriptions need not and often do not contain spoilers

For instance, up until I would guess about 1700 most works of fiction were based on stock plots which the writer expected the audience to know. Therefore knowledge of the plot can hardly be described as a spoiler (so the line on the tag "Plot and/or ending details follow" misses the point... the current project page gives a much better definition of spoiler). Even today, many fictions do not rely on a surprise ending or plot twists but get their impact from the depth of characterisation etc. And many plot summaries on wikipedia do not reveal crucial plot twists. Is any of this disputed?

Redundancy is not a sin.

F y dn't blv m why nt rmv ll vwls frm wkpd—t's wll knwn tht nglsh txt cn b rd wtht thm. Or why not remove the lead section since it is supposedly a redundant summary of the rest of the article? Re-inforcing the message that Plot sections etc do indeed give away crucial elements (in specific cases) is one of the main points of spoiler warnings. PaddyLeahy 10:55, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

By the way, would you have any actual complaints from actual readers who expected Wikipedia not to have spoilers and were upset to find them here? It's just that so far there's zero evidence their alleged audience actually wants them. Which strikes me as strange given how eager they are to complain about every other aspect of Wikipedia's content. Note that I mean complaints not invoked by me asking - I'm trying to gather complaints on the matter from the readership, rather than the editors, over the past six years. Thanks! - David Gerard 11:09, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Several contributors to the RfC including me avowed from personal experience as readers that they found spoiler tags useful. As has been pointed out repeatedly, such tags are very widely (I'd accept too widely) used in Wikipedia at present, so complaints about them not being used were not expected. Despite your trawl of the blogosphere you have only found one or two complaints about their actual use... you havn't said yet how many irate readers have rung you up, in your apparent role as the Wikipedia complaints dept, to complain about the presence of spoiler warnings. Per my first post on this issue, it ain't broke, don't fix it. PaddyLeahy 11:36, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

OK ... from people who don't keep getting blocked for trying to edit-war their opinion in? - David Gerard 15:35, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

It's simple: a plot summary is naturally assumed to summarize the plot. Furthermore, articles that don't summarize the plot are low grade; they lack comprehensiveness. — Deckill er 15:20, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Redundancy is bad when it involves adding something harmful to an article. Spoiler warnings are harmful. They introduce a neologism, they encourage restructuring the article in counter-intuitive ways, and they suggest that the level of discourse here is that of a fanforum, not a scholarly work. They may be necessary at times, but they are harmful, and their use should be reduced. Phil Sandifer 15:23, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Was that response to my comment? If so, my comment was anti-spoilertags, and I was explaining how a plot summary is naturally assumed to have spoilers. — Deckill er 15:40, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

It was in response to the initial statement by Paddy. Phil Sandifer 15:47, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

What was your take on the multiple suggestions for alternative phrasings in the RfC? --Kizor 16:49, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Searching for public opinion

OK, we have apparently zero complaints from readers about spoilers from before Phil and I started asking for such complaints.

So I went looking for general public opinions on spoilers in Wikipedia. Since the Internet public in general complain chronically about any and every aspect of our content.

Quickly hitting blogsearch.google.com with "Wikipedia spoiler", I didn't get a lot. Or indeed any. I did find an expectation of full detail in Wikipedia, e.g. [1], [2], [3], [4] (where he spoils 300 for himself by reading Leonidas), [5], [6] (expects spoilers, doesn't sound entirely pleased by this), [7] (uses Wikipedia as source for a spoiler), [8] ("Spoiler warnings are the scourge of modern civilisation"), [9], [10], [11] ... - David Gerard 11:07, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

There's the fact that we HAD our spoilers clearly marked. Please check the German-speaking part. --Kizor 16:56, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Excellent suggestion! I look forward to your data - David Gerard 16:59, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Some while back I went to Sky marshals looking for info. on the law enforcement officers. While giving an example of sky marshals in fiction, the entire secret of Flightplan was revealed [12]. Very frustrating. This wasn't a spoiler within an article, but rather in an article unrelated to it. As to spoiler warnings in general--please keep them! JJL 00:53, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Fictional characters, etc.

I like this write up. I think it accurately represents the consensus that has developed. The only part I'm not sure about is:

Articles about fictional characters, objects or places can be expected to be substantially made up of elements of the story in question and should not need spoiler warnings.

I'm not sure I agree. There are three types of information on fictional characters, etc. There is real-world information (who played them, who created them, etc), there is background information (who the character is, basically stuff that happens before the story starts and isn't secret) and there are the events that took place in the fictional work involving them. Only the last one involves spoilers. I think it can make sense in certain articles to include spoiler warnings before bits of information fitting into the 3rd category. Quite often those bits of information will fall into a "Plot Summary" type section, so wouldn't need a warning, but that's already mentioned in a different bullet point.

--Tango 16:27, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Including spoiler warnings in this class of articles would encourage sectioning spoiler information off when that is inappropriate. So it should be done only in extreme cases with a good rationale for each case. Kusma (talk) 16:31, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

The first item - the one we should focus on in Wikipedia - should require spoilerish information if the article is well-written. A well-written article on a character is going to deal with criticism and analysis focusing on that character, documented fan response, writer/actor comments, etc. These are likely to be made in relation to the evolving plot, and certainly are likely to be torturous to de-integrate from the plot. Susan Ivanova is an article that I'm somewhat proud of how deals with this - but spoilers are integrated throughout the article, and with good reason. (I still think there's too much in-universe stuff, but sections like "Talia Winters" and "Departure from Babylon 5" are quite good, I think.) Phil Sandifer 16:35, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Works whose plot is 'common knowledge'

Can we have a coherent definition of this bias-magnet? Despite all the thundering denunciations of the 'everyforum.com' mentality, most of the examples (Star Wars, Harry Potter, etc) suggested as 'known to everyone' are really only known to members of everyforum. Are the works of Barbara Taylor Bradford or Jacqueline Wilson (both massive authors) 'common knowledge'?--Nydas^(Talk) 17:02, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Nope. Use editorial judgment on a case by case basis on article talk pages. Guideline pages give guidelines, not manuals. Phil Sandifer 17:04, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

It's still exceedingly vague, even for a guideline. Why not simply remove it and strengthen the other criteria?--Nydas^(Talk) 19:00, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, just remove this one. While the recency of a work certainly affects whether warning are appropriate for other reasons, "common knowledge" is such an extremely high bar to set it would apply in practically no cases. I would venture that a plot spoiler is only common knowledge if people know it without even knowing the existence of the work. For one of the rare examples of this, I'm sure that some people think that "Jekyll and Hyde" comparisons are just a phrase and have no clue who Robert Louis Stevenson is (for those not familiar with the book, it is in fact a spoiler; that they're the same person is not revealed until near the end). Can the same be said of even canonical examples like King Kong dying? I doubt it. I'm not saying that King Kong should have spoiler tags, but "common knowledge" is not the correct argument here. SnowFire 19:37, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

"Common knowledge" doesn't mean that everyone knows it; it means that everyone could know it. I think that the answer is to strengthen it, instead. For example: "Any play, book, movie, or other work that has been in publication for over a month should be considered common knowledge, and articles on such subjects should never contain spoiler tags. Extremely high-profile works may become common knowledge much more quickly." The exact length of time could be changed, but I think that that captures the idea nicely. Additional advantages of this method is that it will make the eventual phasing-out of spoiler tags entirely that much easier by allowing them to be cleanly removed from the vast majority of articles; and that it will prevent the "creep" effect where people see spoiler tags on one article, incorrectly assume they're supported by policy, and start adding them to other articles. --Aquillion 19:46, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Erm... if you admit that you want to abolish spoiler warnings from Wikipedia forever, then can you just advocate that? Advocating an equivalent "guideline" that says warnings are (basically) never appropriate is silly; just advocate against the policy as a whole, because your statement only makes any sense from the perspective of "let's destroy spoiler warnings, but slower to cause less alarm." My statement was from the perspective that spoiler warnings are a good idea but may not be necessary in certain topics. SnowFire 21:43, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

The fact that we've just had two completely different definitions of 'common knowledge' speaks volumes about the worthlessness of it as a guideline.--Nydas^(Talk) 21:57, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I do agree that we should eliminate spoiler warnings entirely, SnowFire. I just also support anything that would limit them as much as possible and prevent them from spreading further. They are inherently bad things, and the encyclopedia is improved every time one is taken out... the eventual goal, naturally, is the deletion of {{spoiler}} itself and barring recreation or the use of warnings in another form, but that can wait until it's been removed from most articles. The template has an inertia, I think, that these discussions are slowly sapping away. --Aquillion 14:54, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

"Common knowledge" means a random person on the street is likely to know it. You are thinking of "public knowledge", which means that a member of the general public can find it out if they want, but they don't necessarily know it. "public knowledge" would be a very bad guideline since by definition anything that is published is public knowledge. Common knowledge is a good guideline, it's just very difficult to really determine if something is common knowledge. I think Aquillion's definition is good - if you can find a major source for the information which doesn't mention the work and has nothing to do with the work (a magazine targeted at book clubs would be a bad source, for example, a general newspaper a much better source), as you could with Jekyll and Hyde, then it is common knowledge. --Tango 10:02, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Neologism?

The project page currently states:

Scholarly reference works tend to frown on the use of neologisms like "spoiler," however, (See Wikipedia:Manual of Style (neologisms)) and thus spoiler warnings are generally avoided on Wikipedia, and are controversial when they are used.

"Spoiler" isn't a neologism. The American Heritage dictionary (4th ed, 2006) defines it thus:

spoil·er n. [...] 5. A published piece of information that divulges a surprise, such as a plot twist in a movie. [13]

Compact Oxford has the definition "a news story published with the intention of reducing the impact of a related item published in a rival paper"[14] which is clearly a very closely related definition.

May I suggest removing this sentence and finding a different reason why people don't want to include them to elevate up to the top section? JulesH 19:00, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

I do not think the OED definition is close enough to be useful. Neither the OED nor Merriam-Webster has it. the American Heritage definition that I'm looking at [15] specifies "post to a newsgroup," which does little to remove the claim of neologism. Phil Sandifer 19:41, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Err... his says "2006", yours says "2000." His is the more updated version which outdates the last one. I'd say it does quite a lot to remove the claim of neologism... --Kizor 01:02, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

What the hell kind of logic is that? Give me a break man, and cut out the bullshit. -- Ned Scott 10:21, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

What I'm trying to say is that JulesH has a later edition of the same work, which supersedes the one Phil Sandifer uses. JulesH's edition does not have the specification which Phil Sandifer's edition has, and which Phil Sandifer uses to strengthen the claim of a neologism. If that's not clear enough, let me know so that I can try again. --Kizor 11:03, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

His comment made perfect sense. Try using a little logic yourself before you accuse someone, Ned. TK421 23:00, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Zero Documented Complaints?

"In six years, there are zero documented reader (as opposed to editor) complaints about a lack of spoilers in Wikipedia, when readers famously complain at length about every other aspect of Wikipedia's content."

Well I'ld like to destroy this argument right now. Try reading Talk:Shadow_of_the_Colossus. You'll find at least two. On top of that, the argument is fundamentally flawed seeing as there ARE spoiler tags. What do you expect? Why would people complain when there are already plenty of spoiler tags on most pages where spoilers occur?Ziiv 20:20, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

I sincerely doubt the possibility of writing an encyclopedia to satisfy people who are capable of being surprised that plot details get revealed in the plot section. And, furthermore, people who keep reading, seeing that the plot is getting described in more and more detail, and then don't realize "Hey, this might go all the way to the end..." Furthermore, the big complaint on that page seems to be a lack of consistency - that spoiler tags exist in someplaces and not in others. This could be satisfied in two ways - putting spoiler tags on all discussions of plot, or eliminating them so that people know to be cautious on their own. The former solution is clearly unacceptable, leading me to think that the complete abandonment of spoiler tags is probably the more reader-friendly solution. Phil Sandifer 20:37, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

I just glanced at it, and yes, it seems to me that the complaint was "I expected spoiler warnings because it's on other pages", not "I expect spoiler warnings <as a rule>" -- are there any complaints of people who don't have the PRESUMPTION of "Wikipedia has warnings" complaining about it? ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 21:35, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Moreover, the lack of complaints implies that Wikipedia's current policy of marking spoilers is working - people who read on and see a spoiler have only themselves to blame if they didn't want to, and are unlikely to complain. This seems a rather weak argument "against" warnings, as I've seen several cases where unmarked spoilers in a surprising location have in fact caused a complaint on the talk page- one from me awhile back, in fact. SnowFire 21:59, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

But was the complaint based on having seen them elsewhere in WP or not? THAT is the question we (or at least me) are trying to get examples of. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 22:39, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

"I sincerely doubt the possibility of writing an encyclopedia to satisfy people who are capable of being surprised that plot details get revealed in the plot section."

Then I'm afraid that you aren't very familiar with the flexibility of the english language. You honestly can't expect people to automatically expect spoilers in the plot section unless it's specifically said so or demonstrated so. Heck, you can't expect anyone to automatically understand anything unless it's specifically said so. The presence or absence of spoilers in a plot section is arbitrary, as are the meanings of just about everything in English. Expecting people to assume anything is a flawed concept unless there are numerous previous examples that would support the assumption. In this case, there are no previous examples, and thus no reason for people to expect that the plot section in and of itself would have spoilers. I'ld like to think that the simplicity, consistency, and popularity of windows over other more complicated and arbitrary operating systems would be enough to demonstrate this fact.

You also say that spoiler tags are for some reason unacceptable, and don't give any reason. If you don't like them you can turn them off. Please also tell me how abandoning spoiler tags is more "reader friendly"? I see no advantages for the reader. At best, all he can do is not read any articles which may contain spoilers at all, which makes wikipedia useless for him. Whereas if spoilers are marked, he can read any trivial or background information about the subject without fear of spoilers. (I'ld like you to note that many users are suggesting that spoilers should be allowed in opening paragraphs, so your plot summary argument is moot regardless)Ziiv 23:52, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Can anyone back this up, at all? And since when do we not count editors as readers? How on earth is such a small click of editors supposed to know about every single complaint about Wikipedia for six years? I don't care what side you support, this is just stupid. Pulling such claims out of one's ass isn't acceptable. Do you honestly expect any reasonably intelligent person to just accept such a statement, simply because someone said so? -- Ned Scott 10:37, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Did you read the discussion above? I'm one of the people who gets loud complaints about every other aspect of Wikipedia's content. I've not yet heard an outside reader complain once that we should have had a spoiler tag on something. I asked on wikien-l, no examples from there either - just more hypotheticals. Six years, zero complaints. I'm actually going out and asking this question and getting nothing - David Gerard 12:48, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

But that's because we had spoiler warnings on everything!!! Arghh!!!!!! 142.177.42.255 14:36, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Untrue. Many articles do not have spoiler warnings. Wikiproject:Final Fantasy, for instance, does not use them, so most of our Final Fantasy-related articles have no warnings. The German wikipedia bars spoiler warnings quite strictly, and has reported no issues. Additionally, realize how many complaints we get about other things that shouldn't have been that way--people who were called nazis by vandals, ugly-looking stubs, bad or incomplete information, whatever. If there was genuine concern over spoilers outside of a handful of noisy editors influenced by bbforum conventions, you'd expect at least a few people would have come across untagged articles and complained. Nobody has. Ever. --Aquillion 14:42, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Not to be a killjoy here, Aquillon and David, but neither of these processes constitute the adequate level of research to warrant the application of the statement that no one has ever complained. As niether you nor anyone else has pored through the entirety of Wiki-enL for such complaints (or even indicated the methodology of this search), I think that it is an opinion, and not fact. It would be akin to asking any of your acquaintances if they had ever met bin Laden and, receiving answers to the negative, stoutly affirm that bin Laden must not exist. Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 23:24, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Template merge

To simplify how many templates we have, I've proposed this change to {{spoiler}}. -- Ned Scott 21:14, 20 May 2007 (UTC)

Guideline rationale

Ned Scott moved these here from the main page. --Tony Sidaway 11:27, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

The use of spoiler warnings is controversial amongst Wikipedians. Key arguments against are:

Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a current event discussion forum. It aims to contain complete information. The general content disclaimer states that "WIKIPEDIA CONTAINS SPOILERS AND CONTENT YOU MAY FIND OBJECTIONABLE".
Spoiler warnings have in the past spread to articles on authors, mythology, religious text, fairy tales and nonfictional works and topics.
Warning about such content in sections marked "Plot", "Plot Summary", "Synopsis" or similar is redundant.
Such warnings are disproportionate. Per (Wikipedia:No disclaimer templates) we don't warn about other objectionable content — including, in cases such as Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy, content that people have been killed over.
Some Wikipedias forbid spoiler warnings entirely, like the German Wikipedia (de:Wikipedia:Spoilerwarnung). On the English Wikipedia, some WikiProjects do not use spoiler tags, such as WikiProject Final Fantasy and WikiProject Opera.
Spoiler warnings might, by their nature, encourage bad article layout, causing important information that would normally have been referred to throughout an article to be restricted to one or two areas so that it can be delimited by tags. Where this means that important information is omitted from the lead section, this seriously compromises the balance of the article.

Key arguments for are:

Few readers look at disclaimer pages; indeed, most search engines take the user to the relevant article, bypassing the disclaimer page altogether..
The text will frequently be present on mirror sites where our disclaimer is absent.
Addressing plot points is believed by some editors to spoil the reception of the article for the casual reader.
Wikipedia is not censored; therefore, it is arguable that spoilers regarding key elements (surprise endings and the like) should have alerts, allowing the user to determine for himself if he wishes to proceed. It is not our place to decide for him.
Spoiler tags can be hidden. Editors with aesthetic objections can prevent themselves from seeing them.
Two years ago, Wikipedia:No disclaimer templates was created with a specific exception for spoiler tags [16] [17].
What is needed is a stricter policy in regards to the application of spoilers, and not their community-wide removal altogether.
What is good policy in other Wiki's is not necessarily good for the English language wiki.

Here's a couple more.

It is not true that a section marked "Plot" or "Synopsis" must contain spoilers. Not every plot element is a spoiler.
Even if it was true that such sections must contain spoilers, redundancy is part of usability. It's better for all spoilers to be marked, thus making the use of warnings simple and consistent, rather than for some spoilers to be unmarked just because the user can figure out spoilers are there anyway.
The proper response to seeing spoiler warnings on fairy tales is to say "spoiler warnings must not be used on fairy tales", not to restrict spoiler warnings in much wider ways.

Ken Arromdee 15:07, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

This looks good

This page is well-written and gives reasonable restrictions to limit the proliferation of spoiler tags. >Radiant< 10:44, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

It was also dictated more than talked out, I'm afraid. --Kizor 11:29, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd definitely like to hear more about what you think is missing, since I think a lot of interested parties are getting their sides of what makes a good spoiler guideline. Jussen 01:08, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

It's not so much what is missing as what shouldn't be there in the first place. Debating the details while ignoring any debate that says that something simply shouldn't be there is not "interested parties getting their sides" in any even-handed manner. It's like writing a guideline about how Wikipedia editors should be shot, and then being open to arguments about what caliber of bullet to use, then claiming the page was widely discussed and open to all interested parties, when the biggest change--not to shoot editors at all--was not an acceptable option. Ken Arromdee 15:14, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Question

"Spoiler warnings are inappropriate in articles discussing classical works of literature, poetry, film, theatre, and other fields. In grey areas, editors placing spoiler templates should attempt to justify this on the individual article's talk page and be ready to defend them in discussion."

What exactly constitues a "classic work"? Sabre Knight 12:23, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Frankly, I think the answer is "a bias magnet." For one, Homer is classic; for another, Heinlein. --Kizor 12:56, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Fundimentally, I agree with you; this is one of the reasons why spoiler warnings will always be inappropriate for articles. Everyone agrees, I hope, that it would be comically absurd for us to put spoiler warnings on Homer; therefore, it follows from Kizor's statements above, we must ban spoiler warnings everywhere... if it is a choice between putting spoiler warnings on Shakespeare and putting spoiler warnings nowhere, I think it is plain that putting them nowhere must win out. --Aquillion 14:49, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately everyone doesn't agree, even on Homer. See for instance Talk:Iliad#Spoiler_warning. It was also brought up in discussions here where people argued that everyone should be warned no matter how old the work is, because "readers deserve to be warned of spoilers that might reduce their enjoyment of the work", to quote an argument used. I find this commitment to warn against learning about the classics highly inappropriate for anyone writing an encyclopedia. Shanes 16:32, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

How does a spoiler warning on a classic work (British,Irish,American etc that's the problem defining a classic work ) stop you learning about any classic .You either decide to go off and read it or decide it doesn't matter if you are spoiled and read the article .Either way you learn about the classic .Garda40 19:27, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

So we're like Cliff's Notes? Great... 24.224.148.174 20:44, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

And you just illustrated the problem of one person's classic that another doesn't know anything. Cliff notes aren't called by that name here so asking people for them would get a blank stare in most bookshops .Garda40 21:10, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

That would depenmd heavily upon where you are asking. In the States, the guides are everywhere. And, in the course of film plot/synopses, we do summarize the main points of the film. - Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 23:11, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

When and how to use spoiler tags

"Spoiler warnings may be used in articles whose primary subject is fictional where the editors proposing them can provide a compelling and justifiable reason to insert one. Such reasons should show that knowledge of the spoiler would likely substantially diminish many readers' enjoyment of the work."

This statement is extremely silly! How can we give reasons why people would enjoy a work less, if, say, they knew in advance who dies at the end of the sixth Harry Potter? Wouldn't such a thing break WP:OR? To me this seems like an underhanded way to prevent spoiler tags from being used legitimately. Either we use {{spoiler}} or we don't. No sitting on the fence. --Temporarily Insane (talk) 21:25, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

I would disagree that its an either/or situation, Temp. The main arguments about the use of spoiler tags is that they are misused, and its only a few editors interpreting the spoiler definitions too (imho) narrowly.

I think that what most are advocating is a narrower application of the tag, not its utter removal. Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 23:08, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually, that appears to be the matter of some debate. Who is actually suggesting the removal of all spoilers, following the stated example of the German-L wiki? -Arcayne (^{cast a spell}) 07:21, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

What I'm actually saying is the statement doesn't make too much sense, since an editor's justification for using the tags will more than likely be original research. The section on when to use spoiler tags needs a little clean-up, that's all. --Temporarily Insane (talk) 14:00, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

WP:NOR doesn't prohibit editors from ever using judgment, it just keeps it out of the content of articles. NickelShoe (Talk) 20:12, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Swap positions of When to use and When not to use

At the moment, the order makes little sense. It would be better, in my opinion, to say when to use spoiler templates before saying when not to use them. Can I swap the positions of those two sections? --h2g2bob (talk) 00:19, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

I really wouldn't care, enjoy. Jussen 01:07, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Spoiler tags are redundant?

"Spoiler tags are redundant when used in ==Plot== or other sections that are clearly going to discuss the plot" - not if there are a "plot introduction" section (intended to be spoiler free) and a "Plot summary" which is for a fuller plot treatment 'likely' to contain spoilers. How else are we to indicate to the reader that the first is ok to read when wanting to avoid spoilers.

Also this rolling juggernaut of editing that is happen ahead of agreement on guidlines is huge concerning. Removing tag is "so" easy with tools like AWB. There are hugely difficult to put back, they represent months on work and effort. Another way to hacking off hardworking and responsible editors who are trying to do their best. Oh what the heck shall I just go and hang my head in my hands. 07:53, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Putting a template is hardly "months of work and effort". And in fact, I would think that such an article structure you describe would be hidious, and need to be rewritten. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 10:57, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

When you are talking of a fair majority of the Novel articles on wikipedia I would think a few months is a conservative estimate. And hideous it is not - just a different solution to the problem load of people are argueing here about. :: Kevinalewis : ^{(Talk Page)}/_(Desk) 13:24, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

As I pointed out in the main discussion, redundancy exists everywhere. My calendar labels Monday and Tuesday, even though labelling Tuesday provides absolutely no information to any user who knows what day comes after Monday. It's just there so the user can see a day of the week for every day of the month, rather than having to see it sometimes and having to figure it out sometimes. Likewise, putting spoiler warnings everywhere there are spoilers--even if the user can figure out some of them anyway--makes for a more consistent user interface.

It also isn't true that "plot" automatically implies "spoiler" anyway. Not every plot detail is a spoiler, and it's quite possible for a plot section to contain only non-spoiler plot details, or contain them near the end. Ken Arromdee 15:15, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Do you want to cordon off every sentence that contains a spoiler? Kusma (talk) 15:19, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

spoiler tags in plot sections

I disagree with the idea that "Plot" sections should not contain spoiler warnings (as the current text of the proposed guideline stipulates). Plot information does not always act as a spoiler, inasmuch as it does not disclose the ending or other details. Often a part of the section is a spoiler and another is not. When reading about a work that you haven't read/watched etc., you will normally want to: 1. have some general info about its plot so as to know whether you want to read/watch it; 2. avoid spoilers so as not to have your reading/watching spoiled. So it is helpful to indicate where the spoilers begin - otherwise the reader has to guess for himself which part of it to read and the articles become much less useful.

An example is the article Ghost World (film) about which I'm engaged in an edit conflict right now. The first sentence in the "Plot" section is "The story focuses on the relationship of two teenage friends, Enid (Thora Birch) and Rebecca (Scarlett Johansson), who are outside of the normal high school social order in an unnamed suburb, often assumed to be in or around Los Angeles, where much of the movie was shot." This is rather general and is not a spoiler; indeed it is very likely that a future viewer would like to know it. That's why the tag was placed after it and before everything else. --91.148.159.4 13:26, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Such information should go in the lead anyway, where we do not generally put spoiler tags. Phil Sandifer 13:37, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

It's clear that in many cases such information may be too long and detailed or otherwise inappropriate for the lead (I don't know about this particular article). And in any case, the editors who are removing the tags on a mass scale at the moment don't bother to move the info to the lead either. --91.148.159.4 14:01, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

This is also spilling over into System Shock 2 where people are arbitrarily declaring they have the right to remove these tags, despite nothing being finalised yet. DarkSaber2k 14:28, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

The "right?" Editors don't need to be specifically granted the right to try and improve articles. Spoiler tags are, regardless of the debate here, optional at the very least--I don't think anyone is seriously arguing to mandate them. Starting a debate over spoilers on a specific article where they are objected to is therefore quite approprate... given how controversal they are it's fair to say that users shouldn't just add them without discussing first, and that spoiler tags that were originally added without discussion should (when an objection arises) be removed until an agreement is reached. --Aquillion 17:25, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

You're saying that each and every addition of a spoiler tag requires prior consensus (like a change to a policy page), while a removal of a spoiler tag does not. The debate is not over yet, but you have already invented a rule that a spoiler tag is "guilty until the contrary is proved". This is just ... wild. Common decency, if not a specific rule, requires that one should achieve consensus, and a clear one, before undoing what has been a general, traditional practice here on Wikipedia for years and years and years. And no, nobody has been, as you suggested, "starting a debate over spoilers on a specific article where they are objected to", or even checking whether some editor happened to foresee, in 2005, the current wave of anti-spoiler-tag-ism, and to discuss it on the talk page. No, this is being done quite automatically, see e.g. here. --91.148.159.4 18:49, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Spoiler tags have never been a traditionally accepted policy. Even in the past there have been credible attempts to get the {{spoiler}} tag deleted, and many Wikiprojects (e.g. Final Fantasy) eschew spoiler tags entirely and remove them from articles they encompass. That is not the sign of a healthy or accepted practice... many users, like you, have seen the official-looking spoiler tags someone whipped up and mistakenly assumed it was common practice, causing them to spread, but they have always been controversal. Now, it is perfectly fair to be bold and make controversal edits; for a long time (whether they knew that it was controversal or not) many people have been adding tags without discussion. If you're challenged on it, though, you should step back and discuss, not add the edit again. --Aquillion 02:55, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

First of all, to use your wording - if your deletion of an old spoiler warning is challenged, you should step back and discuss, not delete it again. Second, casting a glance at the archives, I see only one attempt to delete the template (May 2006), and no or almost no trace of people opposing the very existence of spoiler warnings prior to that time. But even if there had been a noticeable opposition to spoiler warnings as such for a long time, still the presence of a large number of people who use and/or advocate spoiler warnings means that the right thing would have been to address this on the policy discussion pages instead of embarking on a crusade across thousands of articles. A question about principles should be decided on the level of principles, i.e. here. If you know that an edit and the principle behind it is highly controversial, then you are not supposed to make it at all. If you make it, it is just an invitation to edit war, not a WP:BRD thing. --91.148.159.4 03:27, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Fictional characters

This section is also unacceptable. Consider Valen, for instance, where the character's identity is a major spoiler, and is only revealed after some time, but it's possible to say things about him without revealing the spoiler. Or consider a murder mystery where a character is the killer. It seems reasonable to have a spoiler warning before the part saying that the person is the killer. Ken Arromdee 15:23, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Valen is about the worst example you could have used, because any lead that you write about the character that does not include the spoiler is going to violate WP:LS. Phil Sandifer 15:30, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

If that's a problem, put the spoiler warning at the top of the page. That's no excuse for not having a spoiler warning at all.

Besides, LS is a guideline, not a policy, and doesn't look like it was written to take fictional topics into account at all. Ken Arromdee 20:40, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

LS is a summary of basic writing skills, and ought apply well to any topic whatsoever. Phil Sandifer 21:15, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Option to turn spoilers on/off?

Instead of outright remove spoilers, why don't we just add an option to turn them on or off globally? CDClock 17:19, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

Hm, do you mean turn them on or off per user preference, like the way the date is presented? That could solve some, most, or nearly all of the problems mentioned. Milo 06:22, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Do you mean a hide/show option like the current invitation to Wikimania I get when I sign in? As someone who is in favor of spoiler tags, this sounds like a fantastic idea. Of course, there are two issues here. The "easy" problem is figuring out what the default for users not signed in should be (my vote is for "on," though I predict this breaking down along "party lines," so to speak). The "hard" problem has to do with feasibility. I'm not talking about how much work it would take. If it is a truly worthwhile task then the amount of effort required is trivial. The question becomes whether or not this is possible. The mechanics of the Wikimania invite seems to suggest that it is, but I'm no expert on these kinds of things (that is, programming code and the like). Postmodern Beatnik 20:07, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Tagged as guideline

As a "suck it and see" test, I've applied the "guideline" tag to this page. There will be changes, even major ones, but I think we've got the basic shape of it now. Please revert and raise objections (to the current content,not my bold, reversible act) if you think it's unsound and unsustainable (rather than just flawed) in its current form. --Tony Sidaway 23:26, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

As soon as it is made a guideline, all of its flaws are going into effect and will henceforward be envoked by editors everywhere as God's truth. Why, that was being done even before it was made a guideline. Obviously there are a lot of things in the text that are from the creed of the anti-spoiler warning faction and that I disagree with (and so do many others, as evident from all the preceding discussions, including the one about deleting the template altogether). That includes the statement that spoiler warnings must generally be avoided and that "Plot" sections may not contain them (I'm the anon who wrote about the latter issue a couple of sections above). But since personally reverting your edit would mean that I'm obliged to stay here and participate in an endless discussion (maybe an edit war, too) for days (more likely weeks) on end, I'm leaving it this way. I hope other people with more time and patience do something about it. Count this as a "vote" or something. --Anonymous44 02:54, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I also see this proposal as highly controversial. I've put it back to a proposal. This isn't ready yet, as you can see from the lack of a clear structure, which is leading to duplication of content such as the fiction-only requirement across different sections. Other worrying aspects from my point of view include the requirement of needing a "compelling and justifiable reason" being fundamentally at odds with the use of this template as a courtesy; plus the requirement that "must not interfere with ... encyclopedic tone" sounds reasonable but could be used to apply to any use of the template, effectively banning spoilers by the back door. --h2g2bob (talk) 01:19, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree that there's a conflict there. I think our current wording contains both "compelling and justifiable" and "as a courtesy." I don't see the conflict as unresolvable, because discussion of spoiler tags will take place on an article-by-article basis and different decisions will be made for different articles. This flexibility is a Very Good Thing, though it may upset people who would prefer consistency.

In some places, it may be decided that courtesy to the reader is important enough to override concern at degrading article quality. I expect this to be the case with many recent whodunnits, thrillers, films and television shows, particularly if it's understood that in time the warning may be removed as unnecessary. I've been swayed by the argument that the reader of articles on recent television shows may expect to see a warning, and in practice my edits to the Doctor Who programmes, retaining all spoiler tags after May 2005, have always reflected this.

The overall thrust of the guideline, however, does emphasize the phrases "must not interfere with ... encyclopedic tone" and "compelling and justifiable reason" because, well, it's an encyclopedia. Spoiler tags can be used for the good, but until recently we've had them on everything from Romeo and Juliet to Ultimate fate of the universe, making appearances on the works of Huxley, Shakespeare, Dickens, Hardy, Trollope, and Dumas, to mention just a few, so we do need to adopt a fairly proscriptive approach to keep them under control. --Tony Sidaway 11:42, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Spoiler warnings in leads

I suspect we should add a mention to the effect of "no spoiler warnings in leads," simply because spoiler warning tags, in their current appearance, break the visual flow of a lead, giving the false impression that a lead ends earlier than it does. The Crying Game in its current form is a good example of this - in terms of visual look the box cutting through the lead effectively creates a mini-lead that is incomplete. This is worsened by the fact that the box most resembles the contents box in its visual identity, which is the cue that the lead has ended. (Obviously nobody is going to be stupid enough to mistake a spoiler warning for a ToC, but the visual cue of "bracketed box" remains strong in this case, and suggests an end to the lead. The result, in any case, is to de-emphasize the later part of the lead.) Perhaps this could be solved with a new, smaller spoiler template that doesn't have the box look, or by moving the spoiler template to the beginning of the article so it doesn't bisect the lead. In either case, though, the current implementation is a problem. Phil Sandifer 03:56, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually, as I preview the article with the spoiler warning put right under the disambigs, it doesn't look half bad. This may actually be the ideal location for spoiler warnings - less visual intrusiveness (which is undoubtedly part of their problem - by putting a bordered box across the article they really do disrupt visual flow badly) and a solid pass on having to organize around spoilers. "Any article that has spoilers outside of the plot section should have a warning put at the beginning of the article" might actually be reasonable. Phil Sandifer 04:05, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Yeah I agree with this... also while on the same article The Crying Game, if you look at the sentence with the spoiler on it... it starts with The film was notable for its dramatic plot twist. . . Ok, if you don't want to see the plot twist... Stop reading! I mean really! How dumb do we presume our readers to be? I understand the usage in a small way if they are used when the spoiler is not so obvious, but the start of that sentence is almost like an inline spoiler tag. —— Eagle101^{Need help?} 04:07, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Sorry but I found that spoiler tag in the middle of a lead section so revolting I had to remove it pending at least some kind of justification for the monstrosity. I've removed it for now and left a note on the talk page.

The version Phil was discussing is here.

I would grouchily accept, if forced to, a spoiler warning at the very top of the article, as long as it wasn't too revoltingly ugly. It should be properly justified, though. --Tony Sidaway 05:29, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

How about something along these lines?

This is an article on a work of fiction or a fictional subject, and may reveal portions of the subject's plot, storyline, or ending.

We can take advantage of this opportunity to resolve several issues in one stroke: Clearly marking subjects that are fictional (which is sometimes an issue), guiding people to guidelines on fiction in Wikipedia, and covering spoilers without disrupting article text. It also avoids using the word 'spoiler', which I consider a plus. --Aquillion 06:44, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd prefer to just let the first sentence of the lead describe the subject adequately. For instance "Star Wars is a 1977 film directed by George Lucas..." and then you don't need to patronize the reader because obviously he knows films have plots. --Tony Sidaway 07:03, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

There is a very famous case like this in Jára Cimrman. He is a fictional person, but also a sort of national hero (every Czech knows that meme). There was a big discussion on Czech Wikipedia if to ever mention that he was fictional (because the basic point is the mystification that he is real). Of course, the introduction must mention that he is fictional, but it takes the magic of mystification away. I am not sure if it is possible write about him at all without spoiler warning in the beginning (if you don't oppose spoiler warnings in principle). PS - please do not remove the tag in that article, unless you really know well this Czech meme, you will sure break a long established consensus by doing that. Samohyl Jan 19:43, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Encyclopedia articles aren't creative works of fiction, so it's not necessary to maintain "the mystification that he's real"--in fact if you did that it wouldn't be much of an article because it would be misleading. You have to be upfront about it, because a fair covering of such a subject would devote a lot of space to discussing the act of mystification. --Tony Sidaway 02:42, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

The article mentioned has a huge problem with distinguishing facts from fiction. A quick scan reviles that the article is treating him as if he was a real life person and the only reason you would know that he is a fictional character is from the lead alone. As it stands, it violates WP:V, WP:NOT, WP:NOR, and probably WP:NPOV. The article is a ripe candidate for AfD if it's not cleaned up soon. --Farix (Talk) 03:03, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I warned you, do not touch the article itself, unless you really know what you are talking about. Jára Cimrman is very well known in Czech Republic, and definitely notable (and no, it's not original research). The "talking about him as he is real person" is exactly the point, and this is the main thing article should make you understand! I only showed that case to show that spoilers in the beginning may be neccessary sometimes. There is no consensus about removing spoilers at large, so please don't (they may be useful for other people). Samohyl Jan 04:43, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

"I warned you, do not touch the article itself" WTF, man? -- Ned Scott 04:45, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, the consensus on the article has been established before this discussion, and there are many people against spoilers in this page, so I explicitly wanted people not to change the article, unless they can come up with some reason for doing so which has not been discussed before. I just pointed to it as an example for discussion about spoiler issues. I think you shouldn't really change the article, unless you really know the subject. That's my point, so I reverted it back to the point it was before this discussion. I don't mean the warning personally, I warn about the upcoming edit war, if someone just do that. I will not revert your edit, but I believe in month or so the spoiler warning will be back. ;-) (by putting the fiction tag you are asking for people to solve the problem, but they actually solved it before by having article exactly as it was) Samohyl Jan 05:41, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

The further discussion has been moved to Talk:Jára Cimrman.

Scope of spoilers

In episodic works, is it appropriate to include information that gives away critical plot or character information from future episodes? I can see the reasoning behind much of WP:SW, but seems to allow for the inclusion of such information, which, I would argue, a reasonable reader should expect not to be present. Someone reading an article about the first episode of a 6 year TV series shouldn't have to worry that he might encounter information about the last episode, should he? — Aldaron • T/C 15:27, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Why not? A small percentage of secondary sources discussing the first episode will do so in isolation of the last episode, and surely any critical overview of the series as a whole will address the first episode, which should thus be reflected in that article. For me, part of the problem here is that spoiler warnings are, on one level, a warning against unexpected information. That is to say, if there's a warning, there's a reason not to expect that sort of information in that section. We ought not train Wikipedia readers to be surprised by thorough information. Quite the opposite, it should be assumed that Wikipedia is going to contain a lot of information. Phil Sandifer 15:48, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Why not? Because many (most?) readers of such articles are "reading along" with their viewing. We can, of course, "train" such people to expect such information; but their only response can then be not to read it at all. I can't see what the value of "containing a lot of information" is going to be if people aren't going to read it. — Aldaron • T/C 15:58, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

We can try to be reasonable about this. When discussing The Hobbit, information about things that happen in the Lord of the Rings should be fair game if necessary for the encyclopedic nature of the article, but we shouldn't have inserted information like "Harry meets Dumbledore, who will be killed by Snape in Book 6" into Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone when Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince wasn't even released yet. Kusma (talk) 16:12, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I would expect any good article on The Hobbit to allude to the Lord of the Rings, and the role of Gollum's "birthday present" in that larger work. Someone who hadn't read The Lord of the Rings would not know to expect that, but I don't think that means we shouldn't contain that information in the Hobbit article. --Tony Sidaway 16:33, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

This is an excellent example, I think - obviously The Hobbit has to mention the significance of the birthday present. On the other hand, I'm unconvinced of the benefit of mentioning "Snape kills Dumbledore" in the article for the first Harry Potter. Again, if you discard concern for spoilers one way or another (that is, to ignore both "we cannot reveal" and "we must reveal" arguments), these decisions really do make themselves in what seems to me a respectful way. Phil Sandifer 17:50, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the significance of Snape's later death isn't apparent in the first books, from what little I know of them. Obviously putting gratuitous and unrelated information into articles is wrong, but that has nothing to do with whether than information is a spoiler, but relates to how the information in the article must serve to illuminate the immediate subject matter and its overall context. But if for instance an event in a later book is foreshadowed by the one under discussion, that should be mentioned if it's significant. And this also applies to cases where, as with Lord of the Rings, the author later decided to adapt elements of the earlier work to construct the later work. --Tony Sidaway 18:31, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Here is an example of the sort of thing that seems inappropriate to me. Clearly, as both Tony Sidaway and Kusma point out w.r.t. Lord of the Rings, significant background or contextual information from a "later" work is appropriate to include. But I think there are two differences between this example and the case that concerns me: first, the revealed information does not really contribute to an appreciation of the work that is the subject of the article; and second, the nature of the work -- a series in which suspense about events that will occur in future episodes is a central part of viewers' enjoyment (as in the Harry Potter example Kusma also cites) -- is different. If that makes sense, I wonder if WP:SW should discourage mention of specific "future" events in cases where it is not clearly motivated by a meaningful thematic discussion of the the relationship of the subject work to future works or to the collection of works as a whole. — Aldaron • T/C 18:07, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree that this is bad, but I think it's bad largely because it's original research, not because it's inappropriate for the article. Phil Sandifer 18:20, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Putting gratuitous irrelevant spoilers into works of fiction can be a form of trolling, although it may also be due to cluelessness or a kind of free speech zealotry. It's disruptive and can be dealt with via dispute resolution or, in more egregious cases, administrator action. --Tony Sidaway 18:35, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I like Tony Sidaway's wording: "Putting gratuitous irrelevant spoilers into works of fiction can be a form of trolling". Perhaps this is something worth adding to the WP:SW guidelines. As they now read, there is a clear bias towards inclusion of information and a stance that, as Phil Sandifer puts it, readers should "expect" to come across information that might give things away, which I think needs to be balanced by pointing out that inclusion of specific "future" events, without good encyclopedic motivation, is rarely warranted (and can be considered trolling). — Aldaron • T/C 21:34, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

What about a poll about actual spoiler warning use?

Hello, I learned about this recent "spoiler warning controversy" from Wikipedia Signpost. I wish that those people doing quick polls about such large-scale changes to current consensus would at least wait until it will be mentioned on Signpost, but I digress. As far as I can see, there was never poll about if people reading and editing Wikipedia are actually *using* the spoiler warnings (and that's the point, I would say). I personally use them sometimes, like, when I know I will go to some movie in cinema, I don't read them. I actually would prefer to have them even in the classical works, for example, when I read 1984 10 years ago, I didn't know how it will end, and that was part of fun (and I remember I got an offer from schoolmate to give away the ending, but I refused, and I was glad). So you never should assume who will know what, it may be obvious for your culture, but people from other part of world can also read Wikipedia. Anyway, shouldn't there be such a poll then? Samohyl Jan 20:03, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Nobody is assuming who will know what. Rather, the main argument against SW (an argument that I disagree with) is that if you don't want to encounter spoilers, you simply shouldn't read a wikipedia article about the work at all. According to this view, if readers don't expect to encounter spoilers here, that's just the readers' problem, not ours. Here is the place where both sides explained their views in great detail. For some reason, the most active pro-SW editors seem to have abandoned the discussion on this page.

As for asking ordinary wikipedia readers, or people who mostly read rather than edit, that would be a very interesting thing to do, and a wikipedia first, I think. But I wonder whether it would be possible to prevent ballot stuffing by sock puppets in such a poll. --91.148.159.4 21:37, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Sure it would, they do it all the time on AfD. Try checkuser when justified. --Kizor 20:58, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Compelling and justifiable

In When and how to use spoiler warnings, there is a bullet point that says:

Spoiler warnings may be used in articles whose primary subject is fictional where the editors proposing them can provide a compelling and justifiable reason to insert one. Such reasons should show that knowledge of the spoiler would likely substantially diminish many readers' enjoyment of the work.

This was edited by Deckiller to remove the word "compelling".

I've restored that because I don't think the meaning is the same without it.

Several examples have been given, in the ongoing discussion, of why we shouldn't use spoiler tags: in particular, articles about subjects like The Crying Game, Julius Caesar and Romeo and Juliet that omit crucial information from the lead section. You cannot have a lead section about Julius Caesar, the Shakespeare play, that omits the conspiracy and assassination. Shakespeare himself explains the entire plot of Romeo and Juliet, feud, star cross'd lovers, suicide, and reconciliation of the families in the prolog of his play, the first speech that every theatergoer hears on curtain up. and one guaranteed to bring the auditorium to an immediate hush:

Two households, both alike in dignity,

In fair Verona, where we lay our scene,

From ancient grudge break to new mutiny,

Where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.

From forth the fatal loins of these two foes

A pair of star-cross'd lovers take their life;

Whose misadventured piteous overthrows

Do with their death bury their parents' strife.

The fearful passage of their death-mark'd love,

And the continuance of their parents' rage,

Which, but their children's end, nought could remove,

Is now the two hours' traffic of our stage;

The which if you with patient ears attend,

What here shall miss, our toil shall strive to mend.

Mr Shakespeare and I are terribly sorry if that has ruined the play for you, but the continuing popularity of Romeo and Juliet is compelling evidence that knowing the plot of a fictional work does not hurt your enjoyment of the work.

And if any English speaking person says they don't understand the above speech because it's in archaic language, I have only this to say: Please take a remedial course in your native tongue, for the import of those words has not changed in the intervening four hundred years. While some Shakespeare speeches may have been made relatively inaccessible by time, the same cannot be said of this one.

No, we need compelling, justifiable reasons to include spoiler tags in Wikipedia articles, because the alternative is to continue to hide essential information about fictional works, for fear of giving out snippets of information. The master himself shows in those few lines above how stupid we have become in mollycoddling the reader. We may not be able to match the language of Shakespeare in beauty, but we should at least set our standards at the same level. The play's the thing. Shakespeare did not treat his audience like frightened children, and nor should we. There must be a compelling reason to conceal crucial details behind spoiler tags. It must be shown that the article is worse without them. --Tony Sidaway 22:32, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree, and I'm on your side. I was just trying to think of our pro-spoiler tag comrades :) — Deckill er 23:19, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

To underline the importance of article quality I have performed the following edit.

Before:

Spoiler warnings may be used in articles whose primary subject is fictional where the editors proposing them can provide a compelling and justifiable reason to insert one. Such reasons should show that knowledge of the spoiler would likely substantially diminish many readers' enjoyment of the work.

After:

Spoiler warnings may be used in articles whose primary subject is fictional where the editors proposing them can provide a compelling and justifiable reason to insert one. Such reasons should show that without the spoiler tag the article is of lower quality.

I cannot think of a way in which the quality of an article can be improved by putting a spoiler tag into it, but in my opinion improvement of quality should be the only justification for putting anything into a Wikipedia article. --Tony Sidaway 23:48, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the change. — Deckill er 23:49, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Why would it need to improve the article? Inclusion of spoiler templates generally makes no difference - it does not improve, nor does it degrade the article. It normally only makes a difference to those avoiding spoilers, who find the article much improved with the template --h2g2bob (talk) 01:55, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I've modified the wording to say "does not detract from article quality" or somesuch. Personally I think spoiler warnings are ugly and make our articles look extremely unprofessional, but others have a different opinion and matters of style and taste are best not hard coded. --Tony Sidaway 10:53, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Kizor already dealt with this argument on the other page: "And Romeo's slaying of Tybalt, the banishment, Mercurio's death, the straying messenger, the twin suicides, the monk Lawrence's plan and the balcony scene?"

The anti-spoiler camp would be better served by intellectual honesty, rather than mumbo-jumbo like 'compelling and justifiable'.--Nydas^(Talk) 07:58, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Let's not get off track here... I don't think anyone could credibly suggest that we're going to end up with a policy that allows spoiler tags anywhere in Romeo and Juliet or similar articles. That's patiently absurd. --Aquillion 08:32, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Well just so you know, there was until recently a longstanding spoiler tag on Romeo and Juliet, and the lead didn't say much about the plot. Here is a very brief but already highly encyclopedic early version. By late 2003 the main plot elements had been removed from the lead. The spoiler tag was added in April, 2004. --Tony Sidaway 10:10, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I know. But I think that for the most part things like that are the result of dozens of 'creeping edits' and the generally official-looking nature of {{spoiler}}; I suspect that a significent percentage of editors don't even realize that it is possible to create or edit templates or that policy and guidelines are generally discussed, so when they see it they automatically assume that it is official unchangable law that Wikipedia has spoiler tags everywhere, and start slapping it on everything. I think that if you have people step back and look at the larger effect on Wikipedia, they'll eventually give up on spoiler tags entirely. --Aquillion 01:03, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure what Kizor's point may be. While it might be true that the lead could be improved by discussion of the subplots, with the exception of the suicides which are already mentioned in the lead these are not the main themes of the play and certainly not what the play is best known for. He can add them to the lead if he can do so in a way that maintains balance. --Tony Sidaway 10:12, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

But getting off the track is exactly what you have been doing, with your endless mentions of fairy tales, Shakespeare, the Crying game and other weak cases. Whenever someone tries to bring up examples of whodunnits, or John Le Carre novels, or older films, all we get is a barrage of abuse.--Nydas^(Talk) 10:37, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, it's hard to talk about hard cases without using actual spoilers. On whodunnits and thrillers, the plot device is often the most notable part of the novel. Suppose, for instance, there is a novel in which it turns out that the narrator is the murderer. If it's a very important plot point this fact should appear in the lead. If the first sentence of the lead contains a phrase like "famous for its trick ending which reveals the identity of the murderer" or "is a classic whodunnit", then the reader can stop reading at that point and maybe there's no need for an extra spoiler warning. On the other hand, there could be a compelling case for an extra warning. That case would have to be made on the article's talk page, and I don't see a problem there. If it's compellingly obvious, then I wouldn't object and I'm sure no reasonable person would. In that case, a spoiler warning could be placed at the head of the article before the lead section. --Tony Sidaway 10:50, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

The vast majority of thrillers and whodunnits are stand-alone works, the ending of which is not vital to the lead. As it stands, this guideline is a blancmange of vague gibberish like 'compelling and justifiable'. Please show a bit of intellectual honesty by admitting that you want to be rid of spoiler warnings entirely, rather than making the guideline as muddled as possible in an effort to sabotage their usage.--Nydas^(Talk) 13:38, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Please assume good faith. In my view of this guideline, at least, it is an attempt to compromise between "remove all spoilers" and the current position - one that allows their use in limited circumstances. Phil Sandifer 13:50, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

What are those circumstances?--Nydas^(Talk) 13:59, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Noting that there are no white line distinctions being drawn here, I would personally say that spoiler warnings would currently, under this guideline, be reasonable for Spider-Man 3, Pirates of the Carribean 3, Shrek 3, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (until at least August), any articles on the third season of Lost (at least until a UK airing or a DVD release of that season, whichever comes first)... this is all ballparky, but I think a compelling case for care can be made in all of these cases for a couple of reasons, which I can enumerate if you prefer. Phil Sandifer 15:38, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Why not simply say 'recently released films, TV and books' in the guideline itself?--Nydas^(Talk) 16:13, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

For me, because I'm allergic to whiteline distinctions. Phil Sandifer 16:21, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

In that case, you'll have no problem removing the part which says that spoilers are inappropriate for classics.--Nydas^(Talk) 16:44, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

In my opinion, it's okay to remove that. The term "classic" can embrace relatively recent works such as Midnight's Children, Gravity's Rainbow, and virtually anything from the pen of Salman Rushdie, Gore Vidal or Thomas Pynchon, and it's not inconceivable that there could be consensus for a spoiler tag on any of those works, though I think it unlikely. I've changed the wording here to "usually inappropriate", and it already discusses what to do to resolve gray areas quite well. --Tony Sidaway 16:53, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Why not have 'usually appropriate for recently released films'? It's still a double standard.--Nydas^(Talk) 05:58, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

(remove indent) I'd like to stress something. When I suggested that spoiler warnings might be avoided on classics (which I defined as works not read for pleasure by a good chunk of the readers), that was a *compromise*. It was a willingness to give in to getting rid of spoilers on some things in the hope that the opponents of spoiler warnings would in turn give in to allowing spoilers on everything else.

Since that doesn't seem to be happening, I'd like to point out that I don't actually consider "no spoilers on classics" to be a good idea. There are too many fuzzy areas, and in the case of something like Shakespeare or Sherlock Holmes, it's too easy to read any guideline to not care about spoiling people when in fact not everyone who reads those is a literary critic and some people *are* reading them for the first time and *do* care about the ending. And it gets even worse if you define "classic" more broadly. Star Wars is classic in one sense, and who Luke's father is is widely known. But there are some people--like kids, or older people who aren't science fiction fans--who have never heard of it. If you asked my mother who Luke's father is, she honestly wouldn't know. If she wanted to watch the Star Wars movies tomorrow, mentioning the revelation without a warning could genuinely spoil her. Ken Arromdee 18:10, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

We're not about to put spoiler warnings back on articles about the works of Shakespeare, Dickens, Trollope, Hardy, Huxley, Proust and so on. Putting spoiler warnings on articles about pretty ancient films like Star Wars (1977) or The Empire Strikes Back (1980) is pretty iffy. If people don't know that Darth Vader is Luke's father, an encyclopedia is a pretty good place to come to find out. The details of whether those articles may have spoiler warnings can be argued on the talk pages of the articles. --Tony Sidaway 18:23, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

All you've said in that paragraph is "no". In other words, you're making this new "policy" a fait accompli by assuming that the policy is correct, we damned well *will* remove spoilers from Shakespeare and probably Star Wars, and that this subject isn't even up for discussion. That's the textbook definition of ramming a policy through.

I do not accept this as producing "consensus" for a policy, when the policy remains unchanged because anyone who would change it significantly or get rid of parts is simply ignored. Ken Arromdee 15:28, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Plot vs Plot Synopsis

I would like to see the guideline encourage the use of "Plot synopsis" over just "Plot". For starters, it is less ambiguous that the section contains spoilers. It also further reduce the need for the use of {spoiler} and is less intrusive of a warning.

I also think that this could be used as a base for an "Alternatives to spoiler templates" section. --Farix (Talk) 01:36, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Plot, Synopsis, and Plot summary are used interchangeably on Wikipedia. If there is a place for a standard recommendation (and I do think it would be broadly a Good Thing to have consistent section labelling) then it's in the main style guide.

Some wikiprojects seem to separate "Plot introduction" from "Plot summary". Presumably the intention is to give fair warning of spoilers. I think this is probably a bad thing because, like spoiler warnings, it makes the editors write around the spoilers. We shouldn't be squeamish about giving important plot elements due prominence, even if they're spoilers.

On "Alternatives to spoiler templates", while I don't think we're in the business of looking for further ways to obfuscate the presentation of the plot, certainly alternative strategies for presenting the information in a way that will improve article quality are always welcome. --Tony Sidaway 10:19, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

If we put such emphasis on "Readers aren't morons", should we perhaps also put some thought into "Editors aren't morons"? Do we need to assume that the contributors must not be allowed the chance to break the rules because they no doubt will, instead of - say - dropping a note or a request for a rewrite or even going in ourselves when we see writing around spoilers going on? --Kizor 18:38, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, we can't presume that, as demonstrated by the edit-warring to keep the spoiler warning on The Three Little Pigs - David Gerard 23:06, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

I think in any case that Kizor has misread my comment as meaning the opposite of what I have said. I am as I've said above in favor of diversity. I don't want to make a hard-and-fast rule. --Tony Sidaway 03:24, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

When and how to use spoiler warnings

I've rewritten this section as follows:

Spoiler warnings may be used in articles whose primary subject is fictional where the editors proposing them can provide a compelling and justifiable reason to insert one. Such reasons should show that the spoiler tag does not diminish article quality, and that knowledge of the spoiler would substantially diminish many readers' enjoyment of the work.
A spoiler warning is a courtesy note to readers, such as those who find articles from search engine results. It is a reminder note, and never guaranteed. It must never affect article quality.
Very rarely, a spoiler warning may appear in the article lead. If this can be justified, the warning should be placed at the top of the article. The presumption should be that article lead should not warn about plot spoilers.
Wikipedia provides the {{Spoiler}} tag to mark spoilers.

I've reworded the first piece to remove the requirement that a spoiler tag should improve quality, and replace it by a requirement that it doesn't diminish quality. I've also trimmed some detail.

--Tony Sidaway 10:28, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

No spoiler tags in "plot" ?

I just want to say I disagree utterly with removing spoiler tags from sections headed "plot".

IMO the systematic presence of spoiler tags for all detailed plot discussions was a good thing. Quite apart from the courtesy to readers, it also represented a valuable on-page encouragement to editors to give a full and comprehensive plot summary (as per say Sight and Sound magazine), and not to hold back on key plot twists.

I don't see that the spoiler tags were causing any harm at all, but I do see significant harm in removing them. I'm also concerned that this is a change of policy has been made by a small clique of activist editors in a cupboard, without most WP editors having any idea that the change was being pushed.

I suspect when they do notice, I won't be the only one coming here to say: this proposed change is a mistake. Thank you. Jheald 17:13, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

You seem to be under the impression that this was for benefit of the readers. As far as I can tell, the readers have been a fringe issue. What this is about is that we are a real encyclopedia, and we need to prove it by looking like one (as opposed to proving it by being a useful reference.) I dearly wish that there was nothing but bitterness behind this little rant, but the need for spoiler warnings was dismissed by reducing works with them to a couple of ridiculously non-representative examples, such as the works of Shakespeare, and when I tried to point out that the entire genres of detective novels, thrillers et al were dependent on the lack of foreknowledge, the response from one person of this small clique was, quote, "Sucks for them." --Kizor 18:32, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

The answer is a bit subtler than that. Ironically, the need to be encyclopedic is such that the more important a secret is to the subject of an article, the more important it is to reveal that secret openly, early on, and throughout the article in dealing with that subject. It's trivial to withhold the ending to Shrek 2 from an article because the ending isn't that important to the film as a cultural object. I cannot imagine an article on And Then There Were None that doesn't deal heavily and constantly with the ending. And, of course, the ending is the best part of that book. This is the problem with reader concern. In general, the more pressing a reader's interest in not knowing the ending is, the more pressing the encyclopedic interest in dealing with the ending constantly through the article. Phil Sandifer 18:40, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. The bigger the spoiler (e.g. Fight Club, Crying Game, Soylent Green), the greater the requirement to reveal it really soon for the article to be encyclopedic - David Gerard 01:26, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Most of Wikipedia knows about the changes. The spoiler tags had a link to the RfC transcluded for several days, the issue has been all over the e-mail forums, and numerous talkpages have established threads relating to the issue. — Deckill er 01:54, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm sure there will be more waves of people who don't know what's going on, but it's unlikely that any new conclusions would be reached even with that added input. -- Ned Scott 02:13, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

It has been pretty widely circulated. All the usual places and then some. And the many thousands of edits you'd think would have pulled some people in. And they did, but not as many as I expected. A week ago I didn't expect us to make so much progress, but that progress did happen and I think it was because we realised firstly how many terribly misapplied spoiler tags there were, and secondly how little the readers care about their removal. --Tony Sidaway 03:32, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm pretty damn sure deleting thousands of tags just to 'test a reaction' or somesuch is a violation of Wikipedia:Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point. Kargath64 06:39, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. I've removed maybe three thousand spoiler tags in the past week or so, and I'm still surprised how little fuss there's been - David Gerard 22:52, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, yes. There's the matter that doing any kind of significant damage to removals on that scale would take an equally massive movement - a movement of contributors who would have to be idealistic enough to not be intimidated by going against several thousand spoiler removals by hand and to not mind the fact that any gains they'd make would be almost instantly reverted. This hypothetical army of hardheads would also have to have the temper and the insight to restrict themselves to two, three articles a person, because a larger effort would be considered disruptive and grounds for blocking, as you and Sandifer have shown and demonstrated. You can call the lack of fulfilling impossible criteria implicit agreement if you wish. --Kizor 07:04, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Let me just add (in case new readers don't know where to find it, or didn't know it existed, like I didn't) that there is actually a straw poll still open on this very question, on a general RfC page on the spoiler question, with votes still being added on both sides at this time. Jheald 08:14, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

It might be appropriate at this stage to turn the RFC page into a redirect to this talk page. This is where all the heavy lifting has been done. --Tony Sidaway 18:27, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

It might - no, it would - be interpreted as an attempt to stifle opposing opinions. Let the discussion run its course, and let the debate remain in view for posterity. It's not like you have anything to fear. --Kizor 19:09, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

And just because I'm seething, it's quite telling, and very descriptive of this whole debacle, that you describe this page as the one that matters, as opposed to the one dedicated to talking things out in detail and establishing consensus.(I for one was completely unimpressed to see the anti-spoiler crowd declare it had overwhelming consensus and rework this guideline in its image after two, three days of discussion in an obscure area with no public announcement whatsoever, and then ignore the event when a public announcement was made and the "overwhelming consensus" evaporated.) --Kizor 19:09, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Compelling reason

I'm worried about "compelling reason". I changed it to "good reason", but that got reverted (diff) with the edit summary "good is not strong enough. Otherwise, not spoiling the surprise to other readers would be 'good enough'". Not spoiling the surprise is the ONLY reason for using the template. If that reason is not valid, then the template should never be used.

If that is indeed the opinion of this guideline, then be a man about it and say so in the guideline, then re-list {{spoiler}} at MFD. Thanks --h2g2bob (talk) 04:22, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

There are times when the vast majority of the readers of an article can be expected to be unaware of the plot. A program or film not yet widely distributed, for instance. This might form the germ of a compelling argument for using the template, until the program is no longer new. It's not a given, you'd have to discuss it with other editors or within a wikiproject.

The reason I reject the word "good" is that it's too ambiguous. A good reason to jump into a bathtub full of water might be that I have an odd sense of humor. A compelling reason would be that my pants are on fire. I'd expect a substantial registration of distress to build up before anyone needed to consider a warning. --Tony Sidaway 04:43, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

So, that would be (for example) only use the spoiler template on pages where there's a spoiler before it's out in the cinema? That's very, very close to never. --h2g2bob (talk) 07:28, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Before or just released. Again, the reason given has to be more then just "protecting the reader from being spoiled". --Farix (Talk) 10:33, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually, h2g2bob, there is at least one group of cases where this will happen constantly, Anime. They're released in Japan first, usually fan translated into English online, and only make it over to the states commercially a couple years later. So a poor unsuspecting fan from the English television airing comes online, wants to look up information about that episode he missed last week, clicks on the wrong character article, and BAM, reads that the guy's actually the secret villain. A year and a half of setup ruined.

Arguing that the person should know not to read the plot section if they don't want spoilers is all good and well for series that don't have major plot twists, but in cases where there's no reason to expect anything unusual will happen, it's going to be one nasty surprise to them. (In the specific case I'm thinking of, the character is supposedly dead and shouldn't be doing anything, unusual or otherwise.)

So I guess what I'm saying is this: while we shouldn't use spoiler warnings just to say "Warning. Routine plot summary upcoming.", it makes sense to use them to say "Warning! MAJOR surprise twist ahead!". --tjstrf talk 10:45, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

That does make sense to me (especially as I'm in the UK so get everything later than you guys normally). Can examples like this be put into the guideline page, at the moment the policy is too vauge - both "good" and "compelling" are quite subjective, with examples we could have some idea of what it means in practice --h2g2bob (talk) 11:18, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't think the spoiler level is that high, honestly. As I've remarked earlier on this page, I adopted a commonsense approach for the Doctor Who episode articles, and removed all spoiler tags from episodes before two years ago: May 2005. That's the vast majority of all episode articles relating to this long-running series. To my knowledge, not one of them has been edited to restore spoiler tags. For more recent episodes, the spoiler tags are still there and I have no intention of removing them for the next two years unless a strong consensus develops to do so.

I think two years for a television series is quite generous and ensures that everybody in an English-speaking country, and most non-English speaking countries, has a chance to see a full season broadcast or obtain the DVDs before the spoiler tags are removed.

The compelling reason in this case is that there's a substantial readership in fandom who expect spoiler warnings for recently produced content. The warnings can be removed in due course, which is consistent with eventualism. --Tony Sidaway 12:28, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

That's not compelling. It's preferential treatment for fans at the expense of normal people.--Nydas^(Talk) 15:41, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

No, spoiler warnings themselves are preferential treatment for fans at the expense of normal people. --Aquillion 18:21, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Nobody but a fan will read most fictional character articles in the first place, so I don't see how it's favouring one group of readers over another. --tjstrf talk 21:28, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

If only fans will read them, perhaps we should export them to a fan wiki. But I don't agree here. Well articles on written characters can be encyclopedic. --Tony Sidaway 21:30, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

We have no business trying to guess who will be looking at our pages. Apart from anything else, most Wikipedians seem to be extremely bad at it, given the suggestions above that 'everyone' knows the ending the to Half-Blood Prince, or that only fans will look at character pages.--Nydas^(Talk) 07:46, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

This guideline needs a companion: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (plot summaries)

To along with the spoilers guideline, we need a dedicated guideline for specifying that except in exceptional circumstances, plot summaries should not be longer than two or three paragraphs. Pengo put it really well here: "Do we need "spoiler" tags to warn the reader that there's a terribly written "synopsis" following? No, we need better written plot summaries." --ragesoss 06:39, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Writing about fiction is that away (WP:WAF). --Farix (Talk) 10:34, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but the writing about fiction guideline has a somewhat different purpose. The length of plot summaries are tangential to the main thrust of the guideline.--ragesoss 14:03, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

WAF is more about fiction articles in general. It's not really about how actual plot summaries in the main articles of works should be treated. There are so many ridiculous misunderstandings WRT plot summaries (only a fool would expect analytical secondary sources in every plot summary, and each sentence doesn't need to begin with "fictional" or "the player or reader realizes that the characters encounter..."). I have a lot of experience with plot summaries and fictional articles in general; I can start a draft within a week or two if I'm up to it. However, two or three paragraphs is generally too short for certain works. A plot summary MoS would give ideal summaries for each type of work (for example, a 40 hour RPG would have a longer summary than a 2 hour movie). — Deckill er 14:44, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

A while ago, the popular culture expert and Wikipedian Phil Sandifer produced a good, brief, encyclopedic plot summary for the second Doctor Who story, The Daleks. It was reverted at the time, but as I'd more recently done something similar on the first story, An Unearthly Child, Phil happened to mention his earlier work to me. I had a look at it and have restored it to the article because it's an excellent example of writing in out-of-universe style. It's true that it would be better to have more external sources, and in the case of forty-year-old Doctor Who or Star Trek episodes there's plenty available. It's just that we haven't got around to citing them yet. --Tony Sidaway 18:32, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Why don't you do all the WP articles on books of the Bible too, while you're at it? Don't you think they could use your "out-of-universe" perspectives too? Seriously, if it's good enough for Sight and Sound to summarise what the viewer actually sees on screen, it should be good enough for Wikipedia too. Jheald 19:41, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I'll try to have a rough draft finished by Tuesday. Worst comes to worst, it can be a subsection on WAF or FICT instead of a separate page. — Deckill er 02:15, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
- I think it would be better to just make it apart of WAF, even if it is on it's "own page" for size reasons. It would make the information easier to find. -- Ned Scott 02:53, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
  - Yeah, that's what I was thinking. — Deckill er 03:04, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Forward Spoilers

A discussion has emerged on the talk page for the Lost episode Talk:Tricia_Tanaka_Is_Dead, regarding the use of what I'll call 'forward spoilers'. What I mean by this, is giving away important plot points for some episode in an article for a preceding episode. If I'm following a television series, I'm assuming that the spoiler waring only pertains to the plot of the article's episode, so that I can read the article without fear of fining out important things about episodes I haven't seen yet. I would like this policy to include something about only using backward spoilers, or marking forward spoilers especially.

This is not about removing information, just about structuring it so that an episode listing can be used by people who haven't seen the entire show yet. I think this is a significant part of the audience for Wikipedia episode listings, and implementing this small guideline would not hurt the encyclopedic value of wikipedia, but rather add to it. risk 12:35, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

I disagree. If, for example, an episode of a show is primarily notable and famous for setting up something that happens in a later episode, that should be the primary focus of the earlier episode's article and mentioned in the lead, not merely something that is buried later on. I don't think, overall, that 'giving away important plot points' is a worthwhile consideration in any case--what matters is covering the important parts of the subject as clearly and completely as possible. --Aquillion 18:19, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Thus making the encyclopaedia less useful still for its readers. --Kizor 18:44, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. It would make the encyclopedia less useful for its readers if we removed or concealed vital, central information on an episode's significance; thus, we should not remove or conceal descriptions of important parts of the plot, even parts from later episodes. If part of episode 7 belongs in the lead section to episode 1, that is where it belongs, and leaving it out would make Wikipedia less useful to anyone who wants to use it as a scholarly reference. --Aquillion 04:16, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

This is an important issue not adequately addressed in existing guidelines. — Aldaron • T/C 18:52, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

I looked at Wikipedia:Manual of Style (writing about fiction) (WP:WAF) today and decided to have a go at writing a compliant out-of-universe plot summary of An Unearthly Child. Of course the most significant thing about the plot of that Doctor Who story is that it introduces the four characters who formed the basis of the program for over a year. So I said that. And of course that's a "forward spoiler" because if you know that you know one member of the four characters didn't last more than a year. Wel that's too bad, because it's a good summary. --Tony Sidaway 20:44, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Fair enough, it can be significant to make these kinds of spoilers. What should be noted is that it's not necessarily the sort of thing you expect, even when a section has been tagged with the spoiler template, as one might take this to mean 'only spoilers about the subject of the article'. Perhaps a compromise would be to try and put these spoilers (where possible) in a separate section labeled 'Significance for future episodes' (or something better), which gives a clear signal to the unsuspecting reader. Anybody not ready to read about that could stop there, and there would be no need for any kind of extra spoiler tags. And if the bit of information is not significant enough for its own section, then it's probably best to keep it in the article for the future episode anyway. risk 02:59, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

No. The quality of writing in Wikipedia seems to have suffered greatly over the last couple of years, and part of that stems from trying to split everything up into discrete sections, as if filling in a form, rather than to write a coherent article. Information like that mentioned in this example belongs in a particular place in the discussion, and arbitrarily ripping it out and placing it elsewhere harms the whole piece. PeteVerdon 00:26, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

According to Spoiler (media)...

This whole paragraph is terrible:

According to Spoiler (media), "The term spoiler is associated with specialist Internet sites and in newsgroup postings." - Citing an unsourced article is not the best idea, especially when it uses weak phrases such as "is associated with"

Spoilers on the Internet are often precluded by a spoiler warning. - Okay, maybe so. Often? Prove it.

However, this is not done in scholarly reference works; - Okay, maybe so. But absolutely not done? Once again, disputable. And this line really doesn't help the guideline.

thus, spoiler warnings are generally avoided on Wikipedia. - This doesn't really directly follow from the previous statement. Something like "Wikipedia aims to be a scholarly encyclopedia" might help the logic here. --- RockMFR 23:11, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

I think the claim that spoiler warnings are not done in scholarly reference works is fairly hard to dispute. Phil Sandifer 23:13, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction is fairly scholarly, and it apparently does. What Scholarly reference works mostly don't do, is discuss the plot of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, for example, at all. Perhaps we shouldn't either; but if we do, their silence is no guide to us. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 23:24, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

One experiment I performed this evening was to write a partly out-of-universe description of the plot of the latest episode of Doctor Who, which was broadcast at about 1800 GMT today. It's much, much briefer than the meandering, scene-by-scene plot summaries that are normal on Doctor Who articles for episodes.

I didn't realise it at the time, but I completely forgot to insert a spoiler tag.

Well it's lasted two hours without collapsing into the usual morass of in-universe stuff, and still no spoiler tag.

I'm really beginning to think those tags were just there because people thought they should put them there to comply with the site standards, or something. --Tony Sidaway 23:34, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

"If a spoiler is added as trivia, and does not contribute to the article in any meaningful way, that information can be removed. However, the rationale is that the information was removed not because it was a spoiler, but because it was trivial or unnecessary." This line isn't really necessary. Suggest removing it. — Deckill er 02:25, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I've removed it. To me, it just seemed like someone's way of mixing up this issue with other content issues. This guideline is about spoilers and the unique issues that involve them, not about fictional writing as a whole or trivia. We already have guidelines for that stuff. --- RockMFR 03:25, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm adding it back in. While we're not catering to the stupid, it's good to note that spoilers can be removed if the reason is for something other than "being a spoiler. I've seen the confusion happen before. -- Ned Scott 03:41, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

And spoiler issues will over-lap with other issues, which isn't a bad thing. -- Ned Scott 03:42, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Ned Scott that spoilers explicitly added as trivia may be removed as trivia. This is generally true of all trivial plot details, wherever they are found because such details do not in general belong in Wikipedia. --Tony Sidaway 18:40, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Nutshell

We seem to keep changing the nutshell every few minutes. Perhaps that is a good indication that the guideline hasn't matured to the point to be summarized in just a couple of lines. But here is another possible suggestion

Wikipedia contains spoilers and strives to be a scholarly work. Therefore, spoiler warnings should be limited to articles about fictional works when there is a compelling reason, based on consensus, for the reader to be warned.

Farix (Talk) 00:11, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Whatever gets it across in the minimum number of words - David Gerard 01:43, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Ehh, I just noticed someone erasing every spoiler tag it seems using AWB, saw it because Barge of the Dead appeared on my watchlist, I don't see it explicitly written in this guideline anywhere, but does this mean spoiler tags are now officially out or what? Homestarmy 02:03, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, they're out. If you think an article needs one, argue a reason that editors will find compelling enough on the talk page. Pay due attention to the requirements that the tags will not interfere with article quality, particularly neutral point of view, completeness, etc. --Tony Sidaway 02:08, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

But since this particular article's creation by myself, I think i'm the only editor that really cares at all about the article anyway, and I was already sort of convinced to start with that the plot summary basically gives almost everything in the episode and constitutes a pretty big spoiler, am I expected to go find people to make them interested in debating with me first for all articles? Seems like a lot of trouble for an episode of Star Trek..... Homestarmy 02:11, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Looking at the article, the spoiler template was unnecessary as the section's title provided adequate enough warning. However, the article does have two problems, one is that the article is entirely a plot summery, which violates WP:NOT#IINFO. The other is that plot summery is written from an in-universe POV, which violates WP:WAF. --Farix (Talk) 02:52, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

This seems too short of a guideline to need a nutshell box. -- Ned Scott 02:05, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Short is good. The nutshell is even shorter. --Tony Sidaway 02:08, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. If we must keep the spoiler tag, we might as well mention the process (consensus), the realm to which spoilers logically should be confined (fiction), and...well, I don't see any reason to burden it with needlessly bureaucratic verbiage. As noted above, I think that spoilers harm the overall mission of being an uncensored encyclopedia, but I'm not against editors using a good, brief guideline. --Edwin Herdman 02:33, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

How about "If your article contains {{spoiler}}, it probably sucks and might as well contain {{cleanup}}"? - David Gerard 12:18, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Tony Sidaway's edit of 05:29, 27 May 2007

I've restored the nutshell (how did that get deleted)? I encountered the wording:

Scholarly reference works of the sort Wikipedia aspires to be do not usually warn for spoilers

Previously this had read:

Scholarly reference works of the sort Wikipedia aspires to be do not usually discuss the plots of works of fiction

The latter made more sense in context, so I've restored it. --Tony Sidaway 05:34, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

As I explained above (or in an edit summary), this doesn't make sense. The whole paragraph is illogical. Websites often use spoiler warnings, okay. Scholarly reference works don't usually detail plot, okay. The two sentences are not related. The bit about spoiler being a neologism does not make sense in this context at all. "Because of this, spoiler warnings should generally be avoided" does not logically follow from any of the preceding sentences. Changing it from "discuss the plots..." to "warn for spoilers" makes it halfway decent. However, the whole paragraph should bit split up, as 'spoiler' being a neologism and scholarly works not using spoiler warnings are two completely different ideas. --- RockMFR 08:58, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I find the new wording a little confusing but perhaps that's me. If any scholarly works warn for spoilers, it's news to me. --Tony Sidaway 15:06, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

As there are millions of "scholarly" works in existence, there is a high probability that some of them use spoiler warnings, or something similar to it. It very well may be that no such works use spoiler warnings, but stating that as fact is something that we simply cannot do. Maybe something a bit stronger than "usually" could be used here though. Perhaps "almost never"? --- RockMFR 17:09, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

The previous version, which was removed, said: "Scholarly reference works of the sort Wikipedia aspires to be do not usually discuss the plots of works of fiction." I support that version. So yes, I think we agree. "Almost never" isn't necessary, "do not usually" is adequate. --Tony Sidaway 18:49, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I think you're missing my point. The old version was not good because the statement was entirely irrelevant. It doesn't matter whether scholarly references works discuss the plots of works of fiction (which they do, actually). It matters whether they warn for spoilers. --- RockMFR 18:53, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Tony, why are you asking why the nutshell was removed when you replied to my comment about it, and you can see the page history? The guideline doesn't need a nutshell, it's completely pointless to use one on such a short guideline, and it's just another bickering point. -- Ned Scott 09:22, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd no idea you were seriously suggesting removal of the nutshell. I thought you were just making a flippant comment about the brevity of the guideline (which I think is something we should all be very proud of). I still have no idea why you want to remove the nutshell, which gives the basics of the guidelines and is obviously a lot easier to digest than a couple of pages of prose. --Tony Sidaway 15:04, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

There are actually good arguments in general against the use of nutshells. The same reasons infoboxes drive some people crazy. Summing something up in a few words without distorting it or dumbing it down requires skill. But maybe the advantages/disadvantages of nutshells is not best discussed here. Carcharoth 17:36, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, I had some sand in my vagina. I still think it's silly, but I don't really feel strongly about it. -- Ned Scott 21:03, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Reading practices

This guideline implies that there is a preferred way of reading - without knowing the ending ahead of time. Not everyone reads that way. Many people, for example, flip to the end of mysteries in order to figure out the end before they read the rest of the book. Wikipedia should not privilege one kind of reading practice over another in its guidelines. Awadewit ^Talk 14:27, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

That's silly. Those that flip to the end of mysteries can skim the article looking for spoiler warnings and then read them. No problem. TK421 16:30, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

"neutral point of view, completeness, encyclopedic tone, or other elements of article quality."

Although it doesn't seem to have been raised here as a problem, someone has removed the following statement:

Spoiler warnings must not interfere with neutral point of view, completeness, encyclopedic tone, or other elements of article quality.

As it's the core of this guideline, obviously removing it without discussion was an error, so I've restored it. --Tony Sidaway 15:10, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I've changed this to make it simpler. I fail to see how the presence of spoiler warnings or otherwise could affect NPOV anyway. --DrumCarton 21:37, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

That they were doing so was the impetus for the original MFD - David Gerard 12:20, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Dolly zoom article

Dolly_zoom appears to run into problems with the guideline as it is a non fiction article with mention of spoilers for various films yet to remove that many spoilers would probably disimprove the article .

Any Comments .Garda40 16:14, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

I would question whether those are actual spoilers. Remember that a spoiler is not a simple plot detail, but an important point that would "ruin" the viewer's enjoyment if the point was reveled before the viewer saw the movie. --Farix (Talk) 17:06, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Well, let's deal with the basics first. Should that section be there? Yeah. The article would not be comprehensive without a number of examples. The only one that might be spoiler-ish is the Goodfellas one. The explanation of the plot here definitely seems reasonable. A spoiler tag here would be incredibly useless, so I think the guideline holds up here. --- RockMFR 17:25, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

It might be spoiler-ish but it doesn't need a spoiler tag.That's logic I can't fellow unless you mean just for one item .Garda40 17:55, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

We don't put spoiler warnings into non-fiction articles, so there are no problems here. The discussion of what goes into the article should focus purely on article quality and those who want to know about aspects of the real world should set to one side their pre-occupations and avoid imposing the technical requirements of theirpreferred style of reading fiction upon the contents of encyclopedia articles. --Tony Sidaway 18:53, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Requiring a compelling reason

Why is this in the guideline? This completely goes against Wikipedia:Be bold in updating pages. Yes, a good editor will provide reasons for every edit; however, it is not required. If someone disagrees with your edit, THEN you should provide compelling reasons. --- RockMFR 17:49, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

The presumption is that you don't insert these unsightly stylistic blunders without a compelling reason. The justification for this presumption is that spoiler warnings have provably compromised the balance, encyclopedic tone and quality of our articles in the past. This doesn't mean you can't be bold, or that the guideline doesn't have exceptions (all guidelines do, they're not bright-line policy). --Tony Sidaway 18:57, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

Yes, but you don't need to provide one right away. As long as you aren't inserting spoiler tags mindlessly, it's fine. However, in the guideline's current form, the nutshell incorrectly states that the editor must provide one. By changing it to must "have" a compelling reason, I think it will be clearer and more correct. --- RockMFR 18:59, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

It's a nuance, I agree. Please remove the word "provide" and replace it with "have" or something. --Tony Sidaway 22:43, 27 May 2007 (UTC)

It'd be better to remove 'compelling reasons' altogether, and replace it with 'recently released films' and so on. The only reason for keeping it is 'not a white line', an idiosyncratic principle which is not followed by the preceding 'when not to use spoilers' section, nor anywhere else in Wikipedia.--Nydas^(Talk) 09:07, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Oh I don't want to hard code stuff. I want people editing individual articles to make up their own mind. This is a style issue and I don't really want to have a consistent style across Wikipedia because it isn't that kind of project. Popular culture articles will tend to be influenced by internet notions like "canon" and "spoilers", which we can't really eliminate. The real problem we had until recently, as I see it, was that those internet conventions leaked into articles on literature and even the sciences. We've done what we need to eliminate that drift but I don't want people editing, say, articles about recent episodes of Lost or Prison Break, to feel that they need to look in a list of exceptions for an excuse to place a spoiler tag. If the readers can be expected to want a warning, it's reasonable to put one there. This is why I'm not removing spoiler tags from articles about Doctor Who episodes that have aired first more recently than May two years ago. The other Doctor Who people didn't object to that, in fact they don't even seem to be much interested in the subject at all. But I'm erring on the generous side because this is a big change. --Tony Sidaway 22:22, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

'Recently released films' isn't hard code. And again I must point to the 'hard code' of the 'when to not use spoilers' section. As for your personal style issues, it has been possible to turn off spoilers for sometime now.--Nydas^(Talk) 19:24, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Non-encyclopedic?

People keep saying that spoiler tags are non-scholarly, or non-encyclopaedic. Can I suggest that as an example of a source which does aim to be scholarly and encyclopaedic, we might consider the film journal Sight and Sound, backed by the British Film Institute? I can't help but notice, looking at the articles of record they've put online, eg for The Lives of Others or Zodiac, that each one starts with a plot summary, headed Synopsis, and the first thing it does is to give the warning: Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.

The other thing that is perhaps notable is that those plot summaries give a straight, "in-universe" summary of what is seen on screen, with analysis and discussion held over to the review which follows. It seems to me this model may be helpful for WP also - in particular wrt neutral point of view and verifiability concerns, by separating out material which can be verified from the work itself, from comment and analysis which may need to be supported by other sources.

Of course, quite correctly per Wikipedia:Manual of Style (writing about fiction) (WP:WAF), it is important that the article as a whole present a detached and analytical "out-of-universe" perspective. But as the S&S articles demonstrate, a straight unvarnished summary of what is seen is entirely compatible with retaining this critical distance, particularly when it is clearly sectioned off and headlined "Synopsis" – or, in our case, "Plot Summary". Jheald 01:23, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Well your Sight and Sound reference doesn't contradict our guideline; rather it corroborates the statement that when scholarly works do have a warning that warning is not couched in terms of neologisms such as "spoiler".

There are copyright problems arising from writing complete blow-by-blow plot summaries such as those that are common on, for instance, our Doctor Who articles. Otherwise this is good thinking. We can probably go with this, because there is no shortage of fans willing to write detailed scene-by-scene accounts rather than readable analytical summaries. --Tony Sidaway 02:59, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I researched the "spoiler" neologism claim. It's only a neologism in the narrow technical sense that it doesn't appear in, and maybe has been overlooked by, M-W.com or the COED. It has a Wikipedia article, it does appear in some web glossaries, and apparently has been in use for decades. Talk about Wikipedia looking silly — by Google test, { spoiler movie } appears an impressive 2,170,000 times. I'd say that anyone concerned about the issue, knows the term. Doesn't "spoiler", in the contextual meaning used here, fit the requirement of use in Wikipedia as "common knowledge"? Milo 07:16, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

According to the Compact Oxford English Dictionary, spoiler can mean "4. a news story published with the intention of reducing the impact of a related item published in a rival paper"; so a sense of 'reducing the impact of a published item' is long-established. Technically therefore spoiler is not a neologism ("a newly coined word or expression" according to the COED), at most it is the extension of use of an existing sense. Jheald 09:31, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Tony, you seem to be focussing on the colour of the wallpaper rather than the elephant in the room. S&S is a clear example of a source which aims to be scholarly and encyclopaedic, which includes a warning. Have any examples been brought forward of online resources with no-holds-barred plot summaries that aim to be similarly authoritative, which do not include a warning? I see S&S as presenting the rule for us regarding what is professionalism, not the exception. Jheald 10:01, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Not all scholarly sources are online (or at least, their contents are not accessible without paying a subscription). Not all online scholarly sources are the one cited. As an example of a very respectable source, albeit a journalistic one, that regularly gives major plot elements without warning, I'd cite The Guardian.

For instance in the review of 28 Weeks Later Peter Bradshaw refers to "one stupid plot-glitch around 30 minutes in" and then discusses it later in the article: "But then all its hard-won authenticity and interest are blown when we are asked to believe that Don, a civilian caretaker in one of the requisitioned buildings, can use his swipecard to gain secret access to a heavily guarded military prisoner - and exchange bodily fluids with her."[18] He discusses other plot details that would probably spoil the film for people who care about that kind of thing.

Writing in The Guardian's Sunday sister paper, The Observer, Philip French gives away the McGuffin that drives the personal subplot of the film: "A bravura five-minute sequence follows that includes rapidly edited close-ups of shock and gore and a tracking shot from a helicopter of Don (Robert Carlyle) running for his life. To add to the terror, he's deserting his wife" and "After a switch to condition red, the order is given to abandon selective targeting. In a scene of slaughter followed by aerial attacks sending fireballs through the canyons of docklands, the populace realises that if the zombies don't get you, the snipers will. In an attempt to save the children, both for themselves and because their blood may possibly provide the source of a vaccine, a concerned military doctor (Rose Byrne) leads them across London on foot and by car."[19]

Again no warnings are given. This is a serious online resource for ordinary filmgoers like you and me, and it make no apologies for giving us the facts we need to evaluate a film. Why should Wikipedia editors hide the same facts behind infantile warnings? --Tony Sidaway 13:55, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

Long-established internet courtesy within an internet encyclopedia. As you personally have frequently discussed, Wikipedia makes a big deal of courtesy. The article-writing problems are genuine, but now within range of solution. Milo 16:14, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't think we can realistically expect import internet notions of courtesy that aren't really courteous, and just pollute the article space with insulting messages. --Tony Sidaway 22:14, 28 May 2007 (UTC)

By poll sampling, even unscientifically, quite a lot of people seem to feel differently about what is or isn't insulting versus courteous. A lot of this may have to do with the assertion of internet culture into mass culture. Any time two cultures merge, many customs that one culture has, may be interpreted as insulting to the other.

But in this issue, I think there are ways to compromise and accommodate most of the significant concerns.

I think maybe you have agreed to a principle of local control. In a previous section you wrote, " 22:22 Tony Sidaway (Requiring a compelling reason - I want people editing individual articles to make up their own mind.)" With that as a starting point:

Stage A: Write the article to best standards while considering inherent spoiling in balance with every other element.
Let local article editors decide whether to add spoiler tags; and if they do, add them anywhere they think advisable, at top, at plot summary, in multiples if necessary, wherever they locally decide. There will some divisiveness about this, but maybe editors can be persuaded to accept locally imperfect articles from either POV, until a technical accomodation arrives.
Stage B: As soon as developers can implement the feature, allow readers and editors to turn on or off spoiler tags, not text, with cookies and user preferences.
No doubt there will be further disagreements about who gets the default configuration, and 'I don't want to click through a screen even once' tiffs, but there are good compromises available for those issues. For example, why not a permanent screen click box for setting this and all future reader preferences.

Milo 00:34, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I again agree with Tony. An example of a Wiki that does not use spoilers is The UESP, a carefully updated and monitored Wiki covering games in the Elder Scrolls series by Bethesda Softworks. I asked what their policy on spoilers was, and was told that local consensus was that spoilers made writing articles needlessly complex.

As a compromise I would accept a "Wikipedia is not censored" type tag on articles with spoilers, but anything more than that is overkill. --Edwin Herdman 06:50, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

My proposal addresses your concern in Stage A: which I've annotated above. If you can't support Stage B, how about at least supporting Stage A? Milo 13:41, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I don't have any concerns here. The current guideline appears workable and there has been incredibly little opposition to the mass removal of spoiler warnings. --Tony Sidaway 14:10, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

I think you should have concerns. I identify two separate issues that apparently you do not:

• (1) Actual consensus on spoiler tags.

• (2) Abuse of process in determining consensus on spoiler tags and underlying policy.

You claim "incredibly little opposition" over the mass removal of spoiler tags is essentially a consensus done-deal. Maybe so, maybe not. When process gets abused, how to know consensus in a short time, if the opposition has not been customarily notified?

I find it disturbing how little notice was given to editors of 45,000 articles before the spoiler tags were removed, and that the tags were removed, I think before any formal process was concluded. Both the TfD and MfD were invalidated. You wrote at the speedied TfD, "This is now closed. We're not discussing deletion of the template until we settle policy. --Tony Sidaway 14:37, 16 May 2007" Yet the tags were removed just as though the template had been deleted, and just as though policy had been settled. I don't agree that policy has been settled, partly because notification and other process was abused, and partly because the spoiler Wikiguide is still in an active phase of editing.

My experience with the TfD/AfD process is that notice of TfD and AfD is banner-displayed with the tag or article for at least a week. Banner notice to articles using the spoiler template TfD was 2 hours, 32 minutes, on 16 May which was then terminated by speedy. [20]. Banner notice of the RfC was 11:22 20 May to 12:54 22 May. Two days of an expected seven strikes me as an odius short-sheeting, but better than the nothing (that I found) for banner notice of the vote-lengthy MfD of 21:31, 15 May to 11:59, 17 May [21]. Farix revealed the MfD was 'no longer'ed (in some unidentified venue).

But you have no concerns.

Ok, let's level the policy playing field to make it clear in Wikiguides, that even large minorities of opinions (roughly 50:30 by my observation yesterday) can expect no future article courtesy accommodations at Wikipedia. There are strong arguments that Wikipedia must shock everyone, therefore courtesy in articles must become historically deprecated. I myself have argued that Wikipedia must be "equally unfair" to all.

Additionally, you seem to be constructively endorsing, that process inconvenient to the majority of editors should be deprecated. Are you willing to write into policy that "incredibly little opposition after two days of banner notice proves consensus"? I don't agree with substituting railroading for due process, but if you are going to endorse it anyway, I respectfully suggest writing it down. If written, there will be no complaints brooked when you are on the minority side of some future majoritarian coup. Milo 20:48, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

classical works

I would like to comment on the following sentence:

“

Spoiler warnings are usually inappropriate in articles discussing classical works of literature, poetry, film, theatre, and other fields.

”

Some people in this world might not have read classical works. For example, I am a freshman, and I have not read Romeo and Juliet until this year. We wouldn't want to spoil the development of the plot to the 8th graders, would we? While classical works are most famous for their plots, students might be google searching the web to learn about their writing style or publication and audience reaction.--Ed ^{¿Cómo estás?} 18:21, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Romeo and Juliet doesn't need a spoiler warning for its most famous plot element regardless of any policy, since Shakespeare says at the very start that they die.

But I'll repeat what I said above; banning spoiler warnings on classics is a bad idea. There are too many gray areas, and "classics" could cover Star Wars or many modern novels; and just using the example of Shakespeare, not every Shakespeare play has become part of the modern zeitgeist like Hamlet or Romeo and Juliet. Most people would be genuinely spoiled by revealing surprising parts of other Shakespeare plays. Ken Arromdee 18:37, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

This is a guideline. If a person thinks any article really needs a spoiler tag he can add it, and discuss it on the talk page to make a compelling case for it. --Tony Sidaway 18:40, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Romeo and Juliet was just an example (now that I think of it, maybe I should bring it up on the talk page there...). I realize that Shakespeare reveals the plot in the first few chorus lines; this is called dramatic irony. What keeps the play alive and intense, in this case, is the audiences desire to see the development of the plot. How do the two lovers die? What is the family feud all about? How do the lovers fall in love with each other? etc.--Ed ^{¿Cómo estás?} 19:08, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Ed makes a good point here - although Romeo and Juliet isn't just an example, it's been used in this discussion repeatedly to exemplify works of fiction and thereby debunk the need for spoiler warnings, despite the fact that as Shakespeare's most major work and one of the cornerstones of English and indeed Western culture, it's completely non-representative of just about everything else.
Anyway, to know of Romeo's and Juliet's deaths is not to know anything about Mercutio's death, Romeo's slaying of Tybalt, the banishment, the monk's plan, the straying messenger, the twin suicides or the balcony scene. --Kizor 19:18, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Shhh! We don't want to spoil the plot for those who didn't read the play, do we???--Ed ^{¿Cómo estás?} 19:23, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

If you don't, somebody else will

When I use a search engine rather than getting to this site first, I come across many commercial sites which have lifted their text direct from this and decorate it with advertisements. I think that the problem of spoilers is so significant that one of those sites will surely come up with the idea of putting spoiler warnings into all the places where it is being removed from this one. So is this decision mere precursory for the arrival of a competing site? Despite all the touting, Wikipedia is not an encyclopedia – the amusements of popular culture are traditionally beneath the purview of such works, and spoiling them therefore is likewise not going to be done.

[My own experience with spoilers is that I read Alva Rogers's Requiem for Astounding (on the shelves in the high school library) and it ruined all the plot lines of the golden-age science fiction stories for me (the Lensman, Foundation, Baldy, and Gallegher series, as well as the works of A. E. van Vogt) because the stories were out of print. But worse than this was the magazine "Protoculture Addicts", an anime fan magazine put out by people who had access to an entire series years before it became legally available in the West. It had pictures of anime characters, which attracted one to read the text, where there were spoilers.] Sobolewski 19:01, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Why should we be concerned about a "competing site"? That would be a good development. Wikipedia is freely available for any purpose. I hope that a competitor provides spoiler warnings for those who want it and Wikipedia can get on with the business of creating an encyclopedia. --dm ^(talk) 21:54, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Back to proposed guideline

Just to get everyone's attention, please update this to guideline providing a permanent link to the demonstration of consensus for future reference. In six years, when we all are gone, people will ask "Where is the consensus for this?" And yes, this is happening right now with new users not understanding, in example, the naming policy (and despite my sarcasm and irony, I like having links to demonstrate consensus handy). -- ReyBrujo 05:34, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Hey, I'm sure some of us will be around six years from now. — Deckill er 05:35, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Hope so, apparently Ned reverted without even reading the summary. Way to go! -- ReyBrujo 05:44, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

You downgraded it from a guideline to a proposal... for what? Because you wanted someone to post a link in the edit summary? While that would be helpful, it is not required. -- Ned Scott 06:29, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Not even you are able to point where consensus is demonstrated. -- ReyBrujo 13:09, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Many thousands of removals, very few complaints. --Tony Sidaway 03:19, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

... -- ReyBrujo 03:55, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I'd have been complaining if this hadn't been changed to a guideline, and the same goes for plenty of others who just see "guideline" and don't bother checking the talk page. Now, as I see that changing this to a guideline is merely the POV-pushing of a handful of editors... I'm forced to join this ridiculously oversized debate. I've watched User:David Gerard use AWB to remove spoiler tags from nearly every article on my watchlist. Seeing as, if there was a consensus to use this as a guideline, this argument wouldn't be happening, couldn't AWB be used to add spoiler tags back with no repercussions? Yep. Why force this into a full-scale "Wikiwar" over spoiler tags? That would make this joke of a debate a waste of everyone's time, instead of only the core audience's time like it is now.

This guideline needs a consensus before it's put into practice, and "thousands of removals, very few complaints" is not even an argument. Most people just stand to one side of an angry mob, right? Why should they get involved when it has nothing to do with them? That's exactly whats happening right now. Those select few reverters get smacked down hard by gangs of biased users, and the page is either protected, or the user blocked for one reason or another. I couldn't care less which way this goes--remove spoiler tags entirely or put them on the top of every article about fictional material, for all I care. What gets under my skin is a vocal, angry minority getting its way by forcing it before they've actually won. Straw polls ganged by two sides of close-knit editors? What ever happened to Wikipedia not being a democracy?

I, for one, would like to see some real consensus for any of this. Those who say there is one have clearly not reading this talk page, no matter which side they're on. If it's alright to get rid of spoiler tags, then why are half the discussions here complaining about their removal? I wouldn't call that a consensus by any stretch. Also, if it's wrong to remove spoiler tags, then why are the other half of the discussions complaining about them being there? A consensus is not claiming that the debate has somehow tilted to "60/40", based on nothing. If a few more people were called in here, then the consensus could go back to "50/50" or even "40/60". That just goes to show that no one has convinced anyone of anything, and that there is no consensus whatsoever. I could go on about this, but I'm already probably pushing a block, here. This will probably all be derailed by the current "winning" side as BS, but I wanted to get it off my chest, as this utterly frivolous and disruptive flamefest has been getting on my nerves for some time. JimmyBlackwing 09:40, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Why removing spoiler tags kneecaps Wikipedia

As I understand it, Wikipedia aims to provide an encyclopediac reference for users looking for information. There are three types of information-searchers Wikipedia needs to cater for: -Those who are looking for a simple "what is it?" about something (and with fictional media NOT necessarily learn the major plot points) -Those who are looking for a particular detail or fact about something -Those who wish to do detailed research on a topic, and gain all the info Wikipedia has about it. Removing spoiler tags and bringing all the important essentially prohibits the first group from using Wikipedia in relation to works of fiction or media. First category users who have not used wikipedia before will come and quickly get burned, and learn not to Wikipedia any more for that sort of search. However, if we DO have spoiler tags, we cater for Category 1 users, whilst still serving the interests of Category 2 and 3 users. Kargath64 07:45, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

All disclaimer templates have be claimed to "do no harm", as they may be ignored. Nevertheless, Wikipedia has chosen not to have more important and more useful warnings on medical content, nudity, or content that is offensive or prohibited to people of some religions. We do that because Wikipedia is not censored, and disclaimer templates are self-censorship (and often violate NPOV about whether some content is objectionable or not). As for whether spoiler warnings do or don't do harm, read Phil Sandifer's arguments in the MfD or the rest of the 400-600k of discussion at the RfC. Kusma (talk) 07:58, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Disclaimers don't necessarily "censor" Wikipedia. They just warn people that they are approaching a touchy topic. --Luigifan 11:32, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

Where is the "censorship" with spoiler tags? What part of the MediaWiki code deletes text between beginning and ending spoiler tags? Really, c'mon... Kargath64 01:47, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Removing the spoilers is bad in many cases. Some of us like to find out a little about something, without necessarily getting the plot and ending ruined for us. --MacRusgail 16:09, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

If knowing the plot of a fictional work ruins it for you, please avoid reading encyclopedia articles about works you haven't viewed or read. --Tony Sidaway 03:21, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Please don't do the "if you don't like it here, go away!" dance, Tony. We should be working to make things better for *everyone*, not just you.Kargath64 03:27, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Tony's remark does not seem like he's telling you to go away. He is right, the best way to avoid spoilers, warning present or not, is to avoid the Wikipedia article on the work of fiction. People can always avoid spoilers by using the table of contents to stay clear of the plot section, they could get a quick summary from the lead, and then skip to what ever other information they are looking for. If you click on a header on the TOC, it takes you to that section, avoiding potential spoilers in the plot section. Category one users, as you so called them, risk finding spoilers in articles with or without the tag. The question remains: if the majority of them were taken away, would users and readers really miss them? There haven't been that many complaints so far as Tony has pointed out.Darthgriz98 03:56, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

No, they can't. A point strongly driven by anti-spoiler editors is that spoilers central to the work should be placed in the lead, at which point it will be impossible for casual users to get any kind of information without being spoiled. --Kizor 04:03, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Why hide something so important to the story? For a spoiler to be in the lead, it would be of absolute great importance to the plot. Wikipedia leads are supposed to outline the main points of the article, if a massive spoiler is a crucial main point, then it should go in the lead. Hiding spoilers in the lead in this case would be inhibiting the thoroughness of Wikipedia. Darthgriz98 04:29, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

This reminds me of the Monty Python sketch in which a couple walk into a department store intending to buy a bed. Things go fine until they ask about mattresses. The assistant puts a bag over his head. Another explains: "I'm sorry, you have to say dog kennel to Mr Lambert, because if you say mattress he puts a bucket over his head. I should have explained. Otherwise he's perfectly all right." He won't take it off until everybody climbs into a tea chest and sings Jerusalem. There just has to be a way of writing an encyclopedia article about something without being scared in case someone reading it finds out that the butler did it. --Tony Sidaway 06:13, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

"If knowing the plot of a fictional work ruins it for you, please avoid reading encyclopedia articles about works you haven't viewed or read." - what happens if I want to know if I'd like something, without knowing what the ending is? That's why they have blurb on the back of books, and music/film recordings.--MacRusgail 16:06, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

But Wikipedia isn't a blurb, it's an encyclopedia article on the movie or book that tells the whole plot. Then the reader should look through for what they are looking for and not scroll the whole way to the ending. Darth Griz98 22:08, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I never said it was a "blurb", I just likened it to that. You can look up something without necessarily wanting to know the ending. What if I want to know say, the setting of Jules Verne's "Black Diamonds", but am not wanting to know who kills who and where (not that anyone does really - this is just an example).--MacRusgail 16:12, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Then find a review or just limit yourself to the lead section, which should give a brief one paragraph overview of the work. --Farix (Talk) 22:25, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

What the anti-tagging brigade wants is the lead section to contain ALL major spoilers in the story. It's sheer zealous idiotry. Kargath64 08:26, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Look, if you don't want to know something, you shouldn't be reading an encyclopedia article about it. There are other places to get this information and an encyclopedia cannot cater to everyone who wants to remain ignorant about certain facts. You don't want to read spoilers, but others don't want to see pictures of human anatomy or read criticism of their religious beliefs, or learn about a bit of history that might diminish their patriotic feelings. When a spoiler is revealed, all that's been ruined is some enjoyment of a particular work of fiction. Others that read Wikipedia risk having their whole world view shattered. These risks have to be borne by the reader. Wikipedia should only be concerned with facts, not on how those facts might affect some people. --dm ^(talk) 22:07, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

This is rubbish. There's a difference between finding out a little, and finding out too much. Wikipedia was catering to people who wanted to find out just enough, but not too much. Now it's not. I've looked up plenty of things on here, such as books, films, TV etc, without wanting to know the whole caboodle, plot twists etc. It's not black and white. --MacRusgail 18:38, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Of course there's a difference between finding out a little and finding out too much. That's my point. But "too much" is in the mind of the reader and we shouldn't be saying where that line is. What we should avoid is too little information. That means we should be erring on the side of inclusiveness. As to your point that Wikipedia used to cater to those who didn't want to read spoilers, we shouldn't keep doing something wrong simply because we used to. --D. Monack | talk 19:05, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

A simple reminder, in light of recent actions by some

To those in favour of removal of the spoiler template, do not go on deleting sprees until consensus is reached here and at the RfC.
Remember Wikipedia:Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point ! Kargath64 03:45, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Only the minority disrupts. When majority disrupts, it is called consensus :-P -- ReyBrujo 03:53, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Since when is about 3 editors the majority? Oh, and no thanks for moving my reminder to the bottom of the page, where people will see it *last*. Kargath64 04:00, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Ummm... talk page guidelines say all new stuff should go to the bottom. Axem Titanium 04:09, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

As opposed to the ~50:30 editor majority polled about the spoiler-tagging issue, is the speedy deleting spree supported by descendents of The Silent Majority? Milo 05:05, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Thank you

Thank you for purging so many of those unnecessary spoiler tags. Very rarely is there a reason to include a spoiler tag. They almost always appear in sections already identified in some ways as revealing plot, therefore the tag is redundant far more often than not. The tag invokes POV by saying that one part of plot information is more spoilable than another. Any criteria attempting to make use objective will only violate restrictions against arbitrary inclusion criteria. Thank you, thank you! Doczilla 05:56, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Your simple position on the underlying issue is well-known. But please commit to approval of their consensus process violations, if you do approve. Your answer may be reminded to you as reason to railroad your side, if you are ever in the minority on any future issue. Milo 07:13, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

A valid time to use Spoiler Warnings in the Plot section?

I'm consistently flabbergasted when I see that someone has added a detailed plot summary days, if not weeks in advance of a movie being released. I think this is a very valid time to use the spoiler warning tag even in the plot section, because who in their right mind would expect someone to have access to any REAL spoilers before the movie is even available for public consumption? This happened most recently with Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, which had a lengthy synopsis in place over a week before the movie hit theaters. I think we should allow this exception to continue to be a place where warnings are kept in effect. --Bishop2 13:45, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Remove such summaries - they're not based on reliable sources until the movie comes out. Phil Sandifer 14:31, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

My 2 cents on the spoiler tagging issue

As one who is in the obvious "minority" opposed to the wholesale removal of spoiler tags, my feeling on the subject is if they're going to be banned in one instance they may as well be banned utterly -- as in the template being deleted and everything. You can't have half-measures. And then, when people start complaining about either a) unwarned spoilers appearing in articles or b) articles being damaged by having to be written around spoilers, maybe the issue will be revisited. And for the record I resent the whole "this has consensus" thing -- no one asked me and I didn't even know about the issue until my Watchlist started to be filled by the deletions being made by a single editor. 23skidoo 14:24, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

I respectfully suggest accepting the half measures for now. With our being in the roughly 40% polled minority (last time I checked), half measures can evolve into the good compromise that is available:

Generally accept Phil Sandifer's fiction article writing standards, with tweaks.
Consense that spoiler warnings are entertainment consumer information, the need for them is enforced by a big money system, and are therefore a system feature, not a "courtesy".
Allow one or more spoiler warning tags anywhere local consensus determines their need, with tweaks.
Use existing technical options to allow the spoiler warning tags to be off for those that don't want to see them, with tweaks.
Improve the technical options for spoiler tags and all future such situations, by consensing future development of a non-registered reader-customized preferences system with a "My preferences" click box available on every standard page.

Milo 16:18, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

The second point is an unacceptable violation of WP:NPOV. I cannot believe that Wikipedia policy would support this biased point of view. It goes against everything I have ever heard with regards to spoilers -- a term created by FANS not corporations -- in the years since I first heard the term being used. 23skidoo 20:36, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Words and terms are normally created by people and not corporations.... And the term spoiler (in regards to spoiling fiction) has been around before the web. -- Ned Scott 20:50, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Spoiler warnings are a courtesy in the eyes of those who add them. No one is getting paid to place them in there. No one is making money off of spoiler warnings... -- Ned Scott 20:52, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

If they are a corporate tool enforced by "big film/big publishing", all the more reason to remove them. However, I have to agree with Ned and skidoo in that spoiler warnings are an invention by the fans for other fans. --Farix (Talk) 21:07, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Will you accept the other elements of compromise? Milo 00:07, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

If it is to be left up to consensus on each article, then the thousands of spoiler warning deletions should be reverted (by the person who did them, who has access to the scripts he used to delete them.) These deletions were made without consulting consensus on the individual articles--they were made wholesale.

And making massive deletions and saying "I won't accept consensus for the original situation unless you change the article back" is a form of opt-out. We really have no business forcing 5000 or 10000 or whatever articles to run through an opt-out gauntlet where we say "interested parties must take positive action just for us to leave this article alone". Ken Arromdee 06:38, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Your logic is somewhat faulty. SINCE the guideline -- as it stands now at least -- says they are NOT needed without consensus on the page, then removing them IS the thing to do, and they need to be added back if there's consensus for them to be there. Remember, most of the time people added warnings because they assumed it WAS the general policy on WP, not because the contributer thought it was somehow needed for the reasons most of the supporters are giving (conjecture? You bet! But do believe this is what happened). As others have said, those that actually care as opposed to saying "Oh wait, this page needs a warning like all other pages on WP!" and moving on, never returning, can decide if the warnings should be put back in. (And In ALL this debate, I've still never seen a good solid answer as to why spoiler warnings are ok, and others are not) ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 11:39, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

"logic ... faulty. ... guideline -- as it stands now at least" Isn't it amazing how changing the rules during the game can turn faultless logic into faulty logic on the turn of a dime? (This situation is related to the reason why ex post facto laws are unconstitutional and "grandfathering" exists in the real world.)

"people added warnings because they assumed it WAS the general policy" If so, this is a minor problem that could have and should have been handled slowly and gently.

"a good solid answer as to why spoiler warnings are ok, and others are not" I can walk through the showbiz rhetorical reasons, but a thought experiment is more entertaining — call it the 'hidden warning tag test':

Warning: Your probability of death may be increased by taking this drug for pain.

Warning: Your enjoyment of this packaged entertainment may be reduced by learning the following designed details.

Assume that both exist at WP, and that both are completely hidden unless the reader somehow learns to set obscure preferences that separately unhide them. Further assume that you are a person with a reasonable ability to generalize previous news, about the kinds of things that make people think they could be seriously harmed. Which hidden tag might cause serious complaints of potential or actual harm? Milo 23:58, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Spolier tag / Solution tag

Just a question - on a number of pages, this one for example, we have solution tags (and sometime spolier tags when they should be solution tags). Anyone know if there's a debate on the removal of them on the same premise?Pedro | Chat 15:36, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Remove them when they are clearly unnecessary like in the example you gave. Kusma (talk) 15:39, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

That is the most unnecessary and redundant tag I have ever seen. Remove them please.Darth Griz98 15:46, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Someone tell me why we have a solutions tag? It seems rather condescending to the reader, more so then some uses of the spoiler tag. --Farix (Talk) 21:09, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

Got rid of most of the redundancy for this tag. I left most of the more questionable usages alone. --Farix (Talk) 02:31, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Thank you to all for the consensus and clarity. We now have a reference if challenged by other editors, which is they key thing. Pedro | Chat 07:12, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Down to 4 - perhaps it is time to rewrite the remaining articles and get rid of the template. Kusma (talk) 11:44, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Template for Deletion nominations

I've nominated a slew of duplicate spoiler templates and one disclaimer for deletion tonight. You can find most of them at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2007 June 1 with an earlier nomination at Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/2007 May 30#Template:Sgspoiler. This also doesn't count the half-dozen or so duplicate spoiler templates that Ned Scott redirected instead of put up for deletion. --Farix (Talk) 02:31, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Good, good, love to see some cleanup around here. Will be voting on this. --Edwin Herdman 02:38, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

After this, I suggest targeting the various spoiler redirects, such as {{spoiler-storyelements}}. Most of them are unlikely to be used again. I am thinking of restoring some of Ned's redirected spoiler templates, orphan them, and then send them to TfD. --Farix (Talk) 11:20, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Farix. I had no idea that create-happy editors were stinking up the harbor (imho) with an onslaught of spoiler templates while the edit war over the main template rages on. Le sigh. David Spalding (☎ ✉ ✍) 15:41, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't be that hard on the creators. Most all of them were created in good faith long before the recent debate over spoiler warnings began last month. All of them, however, just are not needed regardless of what the outcome of the debate would have been. --Farix (Talk) 16:25, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

'Compelling reasons'

I've removed this pending worthwhile arguments for its inclusion. The two arguments advanced so far have been very weak. The first, that we don't set hard rules or 'white lines' in guidelines, is a principle not followed elsewhere in the article, specifically the section which says that classics should not (usually) have spoilers. Most Wikipedia guidelines do set hard rules. Imagine if WP:WEB had 'compelling reasons' instead of actual criteria.

The second, that these things should be hammered out on talk pages, sounds superficially reasonable, except that it was a principle totally ignored by the anti-spoiler brigade in their mass removal campaign.--Nydas^(Talk) 08:01, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I have reverted you. Inclusion should be justified on the talk page. The default is no spoiler tags. Kusma (talk) 09:14, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Inclusion of spoiler tags no more has to be justified than any edit one may do, whether removal or deletion. It is a clear double standard to insist upon muddled guidelines for inclusion. The default of no spoiler tags is not a policy, nor is it even consensus. Even some of the anti-spoiler camp have said that new fiction articles should have spoilers.--Nydas^(Talk) 09:29, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

We need to have strict anti-tag guidelines to prevent nonsense like spoiler warnings on the works of Plato (see here). I don't have a problem with including a spoiler warning in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows for the first couple months after it is released, but it shouldn't be hard to find a compelling argument for that. Kusma (talk) 09:37, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Why do we even need to have a 'compelling argument' on the talk page? Why not have 'spoiler warnings are appropriate for recently released works of fiction' in the guideline itself?--Nydas^(Talk) 09:52, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

That's a bit too absolute: Films that fictionalize a historic event don't really need spoiler warnings. In many cases, knowledge of the ending does not diminish enjoyment of the work (or people wouldn't go and see movies like Revenge of the Sith: you already know that Anakin will turn into Darth Vader). In these cases where no enjoyment is spoiled by knowing the ending, warnings will be unnecessary. Kusma (talk) 10:01, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Isn't 'films that fictionalize a historic event don't really need spoiler warnings' also too absolute? It surely depends on the film; some will be so thoroughly fictional that a spoiler warning will be in order. Once again, I don't beleive that we should be making judgement calls as to what people 'ought to know' about films before we see them. The end result is an encyclopedia undermined by fannish beliefs that everyone knows the ending to Harry Potter or the Asimov novels.--Nydas^(Talk) 10:10, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Compelling reasons doesn't have to reside on the talk page, though it does help. But you can include your compelling reasons can be put in the edit summery. Help:Edit summary even encourages us to make compelling reasons, i.e. explain why we made the edit, for all edits. --Farix (Talk) 10:33, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

It's still a magnet for edit wars and biased assumptions about what 'everyone knows'. Why we couldn't have some of the more common 'compelling reasons' listed here, as they will be the same in most cases?--Nydas^(Talk) 10:10, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Most recent fictional works probably won't get a spoiler warning, simply because the kind of people who edit the articles don't have the "spoiler warning" culture that is only really common on the internet. Films like Harry Potter have a large number of internet-acculturated fans and those people may well expect such warnings. This is a compelling enough reason for recent releases, in my opinion. There may be other compelling reasons but I can't think of any. The thing about a compelling reason is that nearly everybody will agree with it. This is how you know that it's compelling. --Tony Sidaway 11:02, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

So why not say 'if everyone agrees' on the guideline, rather than the compelling reason mumbo-jumbo? Your suggestion implies that anyone can veto spoiler warnings in an article, which strikes me a thoroughly unwikipedian.--Nydas^(Talk) 07:34, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

Template:Magic-spoiler

What to do with this template. I really don't really see a need for it and it falls under WP:NDT. It's not a "spoiler warning" in the way that spoiler has been traditionally defined. I also see a lot of redundancy with how this template is used.

The justification behind the template has more to do with protecting the content from magicians who want to keep their trade secrets...well...secret, then to warn the reader. It also gives editors of magic articles an excuse to violate WP:NOT#HOWTO. Both of these makes it a bit harder to go out and delete the templates outright like we are doing with various spoiler and solutions templates.

Bottom line, the template is more a disclaimer then a "spoiler warning". But spoiler warnings are also a form of disclaimer, so I guess that point is moot. The question is, does the infrequent exception for spoiler warnings also apply to magic secrets? --Farix (Talk) 19:40, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

I'd say replace the warnings by a ==Method== header and delete the template. Kusma (talk) 09:36, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

In all instances where Template:Magic-spoiler was present with no subsection, I replaced it with ==Method==. There where a couple of instances where I removed it because the template didn't make any sense. All other instances I left it alone. But in the end I've sent the template to WP:TfD for evaluation. --Farix (Talk) 15:43, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

And I though spoiler warnings on fairy tales were bad...

...but these two just takes the cake:

Yes folks, we have spoilers on amusement park rides. It would be somewhat amusing if it wasn't down right ridicules. --Farix (Talk) 02:29, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

You didn't see the spoiler tag on Roger Bacon, then? --Tony Sidaway 02:51, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

For some reason, I'm not that surprised about Bacon. But the amusement park rides made me scratch my head.

Of course, on of my favorite absurd uses of the spoiler templates was the use of {{spoiler-blank}} to replicate {{spoiler}} or something like, "Plot follows." after the plot heading. {{spoiler-about}} was also used in similar ways. --Farix (Talk) 03:23, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

It does make sense to me, some rides can have stories or surprising endings. When a new ride is opened, I don't want to see a video of it, I want to experience it myself, I don't want to be told of what happens. --blm07 03:15, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I guess its hard for some people to understand that theme park rides and films can actually have a story. --blm07 20:56, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Yet another complaint

I'm sure there are a lot of these complaints here now concerning the removal of spoiler warnings from plots. But give me a minute to express my views anyway:

AAAARGGGHHH!!!! The stupidity of it hurts! You're seriously going to drive people away from Wikipedia just because you want to act professional? NO!

Look. I know that encyclopedias don't have spoiler warnings. But since when do you look up a book in Britannica and get a whole plot summary? Wikipedia is beyond the point where it should try to emulate other encyclopedias. What is the point of imitating them, anyway? I'll tell you: it's to establish ethos. You can't gain the public's respect for an encyclopedia if it's written informally. But Wikipedia has long since gained much of the public's respect. And if you're trying to attract the doubters by sneaking ending details onto them when they don't want them, it's a bad idea. Let me repeat: IT'S A BAD IDEA!!!!! I am obsessed with Wikipedia. I don't contribute much, but I use it for every question I have. And now, I promise you, I will never, ever look up anything that has a plot in it if I haven't read/watched it. Often, there's something I hear allusions to all the time. Star Wars, for instance. Believe it or not, I've never seen anything but Episode IV. It's clearly a huge part of pop culture. I tried to learn a little about it, without spoiling anything (I plan on watching it some day), and I hit a spoiler in the first paragraph! What am I supposed to do? What about things other than movies, which are easy enough to watch? What if someone wants to know the whole big deal about Harry Potter, then finds out that Dumbledore dies before they even start reading? It would ruin so much for them. The entire purpose of Dumbledore is that he is infinitely powerful and wise. How would it be to read the series knowing, all along, that he really isn't so infinitely powerful, and that he's going to end up dying? This is driving me away from Wikipedia, and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Clearly, you can tell that I'm angry. I'm reminded irresistibly of a friend of mine who always tries to act professional. He does ridiculous things, just because he's seen the pros do it. For example, when he pitches (in baseball), he nods and shakes his head at the catcher, as if he's getting signals on what to pitch. It's ridiculous! And now I see Wikipedia--Wikipedia!--following in his footsteps.

Tell me, please, what the purpose is of explaining a plot to someone who doesn’t want to know it. The answer: nothing. Now, tell me, please, what the purpose is of explaining a plot to someone who already knows it. The answer? Nothing! You’re driving away the people who could benefit from some details, but not all, and you’re giving unnecessary information to people who already know the plot! Wikipedia is becoming Cliffs Notes! No use to people who have read the book, dangerous to those who haven’t and care about it. The only people left are those who don’t care about the book. That makes enough sense to fill a buckyball. And no more.

Let me copy and paste from the FAQ page, with emphasis added: What is Wikipedia? Wikipedia is an online free-content encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales has described Wikipedia as "an effort to create and distribute a multilingual free encyclopedia of the highest quality to every single person on the planet in their own language." Wikipedia exists to bring knowledge to everyone who seeks it.

Again: Wikipedia does not exist to imitate Britannica. It is not an attempt to make an encyclopedia that’s almost as good as Britannica, but free. It’s something completely new to this world. It is, as Jimbo has said at other times, an attempt to bring all of human knowledge together in one place. This is done in encyclopedic form, but this does not mean we’re trying to copy other encyclopedias. Britannica, World Book, and so many others exist to give a brief overview of a topic. Wikipedia goes the next step and gives in-depth information. So why, why, are we saying that “it is unusual for scholarly reference works (of the sort that Wikipedia aspires to be) to warn for spoilers when discussing fictional works”? An encyclopedia doesn’t have the kind of spoilers Wikipedia has, because it doesn’t have the depth. Literary journals don’t have spoiler warnings, because it’s assumed that the readers of literary journals are going to be well-read, and they aren’t going to be going to a journal to learn about the cultural impact of a book; they’ll only be going to read analyses of a plot they’ve already read. So why are we trying to pretend to be one of these “scholarly reference works” when aren’t one of them? We’re different, and we shouldn’t pretend that we aren’t. Remember this: Be bold! Twilight Realm 00:33, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Additionally, if someone could point me in the right direction of where to debate this further, I'd be quite thankful. Twilight Realm 00:41, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

If you are that naive to not understand that a section called "Plot" will contain spoilers, then you deserve to be spoiled. Wikipedia is not a fansite and has never been obligated to give spoiler warnings. If you want to minimize your exposure to spoilers, then I suggest that you avoid reading plot sections or anything else where the section title indicates that it may contains spoilers. Context clues will also help, that is if the article is properly written from an out-of-universe perspective. --Farix (Talk) 01:26, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

But that's really not fair to someone who is naive. I agree, having so many spoilers is ridiculous, like on the roller coaster ride. But I do think that spoilers should be placed on some articles. I find them useful. --myselfalso 01:51, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I understand your point of view, Farix. But that's the elitist attitude that causes so many problems in so many places: people always assume others will be logical. But if you look around, it's clear that logic has little to do with what people do. Many got airbags disabled once they were mandated, because a few hundred people were killed by them, despite the fact that thousands were saved. And that's just the one example that leaps to mind.

Everyone's an idiot sometimes. There's no such thing as someone "deserving" a spoiler. I almost never read a Wikipedia article top to bottom. I skim it for the relevant information. If I miss a heading while doing so, do I "deserve" to be punished? What good does it do to punish idiots? Think about that. Even if someone does bring a problem upon themself, does that make it not matter that there's a problem? If someone is an idiot and doesn't wear a seat belt, then gets fatally injured in a car crash, sure, they brought it upon themselves, but does that make it okay that they're going to die? No!

Anyway, just look. This page says that "Concerns about spoilers should play no role in decisions about the structure or content of an article, including the article's lead section." That is not the plot section. Yes, some spoilers in the lead section may make the article more useful in some ways--by summarizing important plot devices used, and other analysis--but completely nullifies other uses of the article, by eliminating everyone from the readership but those who have read the book/watched the movie/whatever. Let me quote from the article on encyclopedias: "Works of encyclopedic scope aim to convey the important accumulated knowledge for their subject domain. Works vary in the breadth of material and the depth of discussion, depending on the target audience." Wikipedia is not a literary encyclopedia. Its target audience is the entire world, not just the part that is well-read.

Two last things. First, what does not being a fansite have to do with anything? Is a site not allowed to warn people of things like spoilers unless it is a fansite? And finally: I agree, Wikipedia has no obligation to give spoiler warnings. So what? Wikipedia has no obligation to exist! Tell me, what is its purpose? I thought it was to provide as many people as possible as much information as possible. I need hardly add that sneaking spoilers upon people is not going to make this a more user-friendly site. User-friendliness is not, of course, an obligation. It is simply a method of distributing knowledge more effectively. Are the wikilinks necessary? Of course not. They simply make it easier for the lazy. Should we eliminate them?

Do you disagree with me? Has Wikipedia obtained a new purpose that I am unaware of? Is it supposed to be useless to anyone but those who don't need to read it, such as the people who write it? Please, tell me. What is your concept of the purpose of Wikipedia? Twilight Realm 02:06, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh yeah, and one more thing. Once you've finished explaining your view on the purpose of Wikipedia, can you please explain how a spoiler warning could actually hurt? Twilight Realm 02:14, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

That's pretty much it, Twilight Realm. Thanks. --Kizor 04:21, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Good grief. We're *still* saying things like "If you are that naive to not understand that a section called "Plot" will contain spoilers, then you deserve to be spoiled," when that has been addressed over and over again?

First of all, it isn't true that every "Plot" section will contain spoilers. Not every plot element is a spoiler. A plot section that contains only non-spoiler plot elements would need no warning.

Second, a spoiler warning doesn't have to go at the top of a section. Even if every plot section did contain spoilers, putting a spoiler warning in them would be useful--since if the plot section has the spoiler at the end, we could put the warning near the end of the section and people who don't want to read spoilers will know they can read the first part.

Third, even if every plot section contained spoilers, consistency of user interface design may require redundancy. It makes a lot of sense to put spoiler warnings on everything that contains spoilers, even if the user could already figure that out for some of them, because using the same format (spoiler warnings) for the information everywhere, rather than a different format (spoiler warnings outside plot sections, section titles in plot sections) simplifies the user experience. We don't remove the word "Tuesday" from the calendar on the grounds that everyone who reads a calendar can already figure out that the day after Monday is Tuesday. Ken Arromdee 04:48, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

The belief that plot sections in an encyclopedia will always contain spoilers is not an a priori truth, despite the beliefs of some of the anti-spoiler crowd. It's only 'obvious' to people who spend very large amounts of time on Wikipedia. An ordinary person with little experience of Wikipedia coming in on a search engine simply cannot determine if a plot section contains plot spoilers or not. And no, the small print of the content disclaimer is not good enough. The deplorable 'they deserve it' attitude simply has to stop.--Nydas^(Talk) 13:33, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Reading the plot section of an article will not always spoil enjoyment of the work. That is actually only true in rather limited circumstances, so there is no need for a warning in every plot section. Kusma (talk) 13:42, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Narrative suspense is a key ingredient of the vast majority of modern fiction. That a handful of the anti-spoiler people find the concept aesthetically objectionable is irrelevant.--Nydas^(Talk) 17:22, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

Unless I'm mistaken, I consistently see the word "should" used by the spoiler-tag removal cabal. That's a big clue. The aforementioned example of a new (to Wikipedia) user finding a movie page on Google, reading the plot, then suddenly finding out "Darth is Luke's father!," "Holland is dead!," "the girlfriend is really a guy!," may be caught unawares of the detail, before enjoying the film. A classic example is the dreaded review New Yorker by Pauline Kael of Planet of the Apes, in which she divulged the surprise ending (Taylor finds the Statue of Liberty, indicating that he's not on a distant planet, but back on Earth, and the "ancient, destructive civilization" was his own). Many scorn Kael for having leaked this surprise, thereby (ahem) spoiling the surprise for anyone who hadn't seen, but wanted to see, the film. The same standard, IMHO, applies here. Describe the work in a real-world perspective, but if we divulge surprises in the interests of complete coverage, do the reader a courtesy of alerting that "reading further will spoil surprises." Stop applying made up rules about what WP "should be," or "ought to be." Those are personal agendae, and have no place in a "anyone can edit" community. Off the soapbox,.... David Spalding (☎ ✉ ✍) 14:34, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand your objection to the word "should"? Every time someone makes an edit to Wikipedia, they are making a statement about what it should be. Pro-spoiler tag people think it should warn about spoilers; others think it shouldn't. All rules on Wikipedia are "made up" by editors. This doesn't make it a personal agenda. --D. Monack | talk 21:20, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

What I meant (and probably didn't make clear) is that "should" applies to what WP should be, that is, be like a paper encyclopedia (which it is not), or should not be like other Internet resources which preface disclosure of plot twists with a spoiler warning. What bothers me was the rapidity with which some parties asserted a change to the guidelines, then rampantly edited film articles based on this perspective, while the discussion was ongoing. Clearly disruptive editing to prove a point, in my view. David Spalding (☎ ✉ ✍) 13:52, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

First of all, as Kusma says: "Reading the plot section of an article will not always spoil enjoyment of the work. That is actually only true in rather limited circumstances, so there is no need for a warning in every plot section." I'd like to reemphasize that. I don't know what Kusma's intention was of saying that, but it seems like a good argument to me that, indeed, it makes sense to include a spoiler warning when necessary, or else you will drive people away from reading any and all plot sections, even in those with no danger of spoilers.

I'm going to say something that I hope won't be taken wrongly. I respect frequent Wikipedia editors and admins a lot. I think they are doing a lot of good. But I think that, in this case, they're doing harm to Wikipedia because they care a lot about it. They're the ones who take it seriously, so they are the ones who, 1) would want it to seem as professional as possible, and 2) who would vote in the polls (because apparently there have been votes on this). They forget that the average user of Wikipedia (virtually all of them) check it only once every few days or once a week, and see it as no more than a huge database with whatever information they may want in an easily-searchable form. Now, that may not be how editors see it--they may prefer to see it as a true encyclopedia--but that is not how virtually everyone else sees it. And for a project such as this, paying attention to the average user is extremely important. The whole purpose is to get information out there to whoever wants it. The best way to achieve this is to make Wikipedia popular, even if it is at the "cost" of breaking tradition. Anyway, since when is tradition supposed to bind Wikipedia? We broke the one unbreakable rule of encyclopedias, or indeed any reference work--or indeed, anything ever in existence. Just try to imagine how loud the laugh would have been if you had gone to the board of directors of Britannica 5 years ago and suggested that every one of their volumes come with a phone number on it, and that Britannica should take all suggested additions and add them to their articles, without even reading them first? The entire concept of Wikipedia is, frankly, ridiculous, but it works amazingly well (I've only ever reverted 5 vandalisms or so in all my time of using Wikipedia). So, apparently, there will be some people who will be doubtful of Wikipedia because, for all reasons, it uses a neologism such as "spoiler"? I'll grant you that maybe one hundred people in the world might be turned off by that word enough that it will tip them from semi-trusting Wikipedia to distrusting it. But I can only imagine how many people will be unhappy because some significant plot twist is revealed to them. And I can virtually guarantee you that if you put a poll on the main page of Wikipedia, so that everyone, not only the very active editors, would vote, the results would be overwhelmingly in favor of spoiler warnings. And, though I know Wikipedia is not precisely a democracy, I think we should listen to the average user, not the elites.

I have yet to hear another objection to what I have stated. I have asked some questions for which I am still waiting for an answer. And, indeed, in skimming this page, I haven't seen anyone but Farix counter people's objections. I'm too busy to take this issue up elsewhere, but in a week and a half, I'll have plenty of time to go seek out the right place to argue this and hopefully get some answers. Or better yet, get something changed. The best way to get this issue resolved would be to find out what book each of the admins is currently reading and tell them the ending, which would surely get them to understand that spoilers are a bad thing, but as this isn't quite a realist plan, I'm going to just have to hope that they listen to logic. Twilight Realm 00:01, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Spoiler is scarcely a neologism anyway. The paragraph mentioning it is bad even by the standards of this guideline, and should be removed.--Nydas^(Talk) 08:37, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

Your belief in reason and the force of your arguments are both invigorating, but I don't know if there's anything to come back to in a week and a half. --Kizor 19:28, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

I've removed the tortured 'spoiler is a neologism' paragraph. Its dubious claims and implausible logic served no purpose whatsoever.--Nydas^(Talk) 20:05, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

It was added again without the word 'neologism', which doesn't really help, so I've deleted it again. It still included the dubious claim that it's unusual for "scholarly reference works of the sort that Wikipedia aspires to be" to include spoilers. What Wikipedia aspires to be is not given anywhere in enough detail to know whether Wikipedia aspires to be something with or without spoilers. (And spoiler opponents taking out spoiler warnings and spoiler policies and then making claims about Wikipedia aspirations based on the absence of the material they took out is, well, circular.) Ken Arromdee 14:56, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

It's been added back again. Aside from the points that I have already made, which I do not think need repeating, I'd also like to comment that citing one "scholarly" source to prove what they all do is absolutely ridiculous. Twilight Realm 18:09, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Disputed

Will someone at least put a disputed tag on this? I'm not sure which tag to use. Ken Arromdee 15:06, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't dispute with policy itself, but rather massive removal of spoiler warnings from Wikipedia by a small clique of editors. But I believe, since this is a bad move and a people's encyclopedia, that this will eventually be uphill and useless battle on side of those who decided on this policy (I believe most users actually want the spoiler warnings). Samohyl Jan 17:07, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

If they wanted them, they'd insert the spoiler tags when they were removed. This only happened in a tiny number of cases. --Tony Sidaway 17:37, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Someone else please field this. Ken? Nydas? Just now I'm far too weary. --Kizor 19:26, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Few people have the fanatical mindset to make hundreds of edits an hour to repair the damage inflicted by the anti-spoiler squad. With a substantial number of admins in the squad, they can presumably block anyone that tries to use the AWB.--Nydas^(Talk) 20:22, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

Tony DOES have a point though. If people aren't reverting them then either 1) They aren't watching the page anymore/never did or 2) Don't care to put them back. Granted, one assumes that a lot of pages will have a small number watching them, but if there was really that few that had them readded, then I think it's a good possibility that either they DON'T care, or at least accept that the guideline has changed and feel it's not worth it to change it back. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 20:52, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

I personally have 2 pages about fiction on my Watchlist (one is article I started). Both of them had templates removed in the last 2 days, and seeing fanatical people here, I don't really feel like arguing with them. But if someone will add the SWs back in the upcoming months, I will support it. I believe the general public (and casual editors) will react much slower to this. It'll be like Iraq war - ultimately tiring and bothersome to the victors. Samohyl Jan 01:11, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not in the habit of watching pages so I didn't know there was a wholesale removal in progress of all spoiler flags. (I occasionally write a new article, but mostly I just correct blatant misspellings and fix broken links, where I can). After reading the high-handed & sarcastic reasons that people have been giving for removing spoilers (e.g., "they mess up our articles", "they annoy me", "this is an encyclopedia and you might learn something new"), I will happily start being bold and put them back where I think they belong. Aelfgifu 12:30, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

I too came here when tags were mass-removed from one article I started. I put them back, and they were removed by another editor so hastily that he removed some of his own edits — had to partly revert himself. Not the sort of behavior that suggests a talk page discussion will be useful. (He also lacked knowledge of the article subject.)

Unfortunately, former visionaries can become fanatics, though some may just remain seriously illusioned as the future becomes the unrecognized past. Still others are just saluting and enforcing the clique-led coup; majoritarian enforcers are difficult for average editors to oppose.

But if a valid hypothesis, why the fanaticism or illusioning? I suggest three of several possible explanations are:

(1) a widespread contempt for fiction-reading adults as being "children" (further parseable into contempt for both non-reality and children);

(2) a Hollywood dramatic exaggeration that spoiler tags are "warnings", when in fact they are just a "caution" or even a mere "notice";

(3) a persistent illusion that the shattered dream of Wikipedia being like Britannica in credibility, is still attainable (cue zombie parade with forward-stretched arms: 'obliterate ... non ... Britannica ... feature'.) Milo 08:12, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Per Melodia- Sethie agrees- the lack of putting them back could very well show support for the policy..... and Sethie has a few questions: -How often were they put back and then removed again? (That behavior brought Sethie to this disucssion) -How many people read the edit summary and just assumed that the editor was in the know? "removed as redundant per WP:SPOILER." It does sound pretty official. -How many people missed what was happening, because David Gerard undid all of the spoiler tags as "minor" edits (and we are talking about 10,000+ edits here!)?Sethie 22:11, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Ironic rationales

This entire debate seems pretty silly. Spoiler warnings seem like one of those "what does it hurt?" things. It does nothing to detract from an article except for those who have issues bordering on the obsessive about such things while on the other hand it's a nice "heads-up" that the work of the artists involved is not damaged. Something I think most don't take into consideration, that beyond a readers "enjoyment" is the fact that these articles discuss works of art and their creators' rights should be respected.

But past that is the hysterical (to me at least) notion that people are arguing what is encyclopedic over articles that would NEVER find their way into most. And to top the entire thing off with an ironic cherry on top, is the notion that if you really want to split hairs most encylopedias are not written and edited by folks hiding behind handles or strings of IP addresses. If wikipedia can be an encylopedia written by the masses, then it can also be the one that loosens it's tie enough to say "Hey, it might not be according to Hoyle correct, but we don't get our shorts in a bunch if you want to give someone the heads up that they might not want to know that it was Maggie who shot Mr. Burns" (sorry if you haven't seen that Simpsons episode yet, but you will notice there is a spoiler warning on this entry...)" RoyBatty42 22:39, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

I have not yet read much into this debate, but so far I have only seen one person defending the removal of the spoiler template. I think that those of us who feel that it is a good thing should work together to get its removal reversed. Twilight Realm 18:25, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

The problem is that there are a handful of admins with the means and mentality to make hundreds of edits an hour to enforce their point of view. Since they've taken to using the 'lack of opposition' as 'consensus', they'll just keep overriding thousands of ordinary wikipedians.--Nydas^(Talk) 21:24, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Now I really have to laugh - to be cute and avoid charges of being a hypocrite, I placed a spoiler warning on my thoughts above because, yes, the Simpsons tidbit was a spoiler. And some anal-retentative actually removed it. Fucking priceless! RoyBatty42 17:33, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Proposed Policy Change

Sethie proposes we remove "Spoiler warnings are redundant when used in "Plot", "Character history", "Synopsis", or other sections that are self-evidently going to discuss a plot or similar."

On a commonsense level Sethie proposes we remove this sentence because plot and spoilers are two different things. Plot is the plot or synopsis are... plots and synposis, overviews of the subject. Spoilers are introcate details and "surprises" with movies, books, etc. which are left out of synopsis and plot summaries.

Sethie proposes it be removed because it is not redundant. People may see plot and expect to see a broad overview of the movie/book, etc., the kind of thing you would read on the inside cover of a book or the back of a video, and not be expecting the intricate amount of detail that wikipedia provides. Sethie 22:33, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually, a Wikipedia overview of a story will and must still reveal major spoilers. We're not an advertisement service, so we don't just give readers a "taste" of the first chapter. — Deckill er 23:23, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

True. No other general-level encyclopedia has the resources or the manpower to cover the details of works of fiction much beyond Shakespearean levels of fame. In addition, spoiler-free plot descriptions, character overviews, episode lists and the like are entirely feasible if they better suit their particular articles, and are on Wikipedia in considerable numbers. The sentence Sethie quotes seems to say that removing spoiler tags doesn't limit the information available to a spoiler-avoiding reader - but it does, since he then has to automatically assume that such sections have spoilers. --Kizor 00:05, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

In a lot of fiction articles, we only give a readers a version of the information on the back cover. The only way to tell for sure is with a spoiler warning. I suppose that the anti-spoiler crew will insist we should be making guesses based on the amount of text.--Nydas^(Talk) 07:44, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I'd need to see a very, very strong rationale to support a return to the routine use of warning tags. Here Sethie describes spoilers as "intimate" details. Such intimate details should not normally appear in the encyclopedia at all, but I don't think those are what people mean when they use the term spoilers. They're major plot points which are revealed in the course of reading the book. And in some cases, they're points external to the original work (because we don't discuss a work in isolation). An example of the former is that, in The Sixth Sense, the ghosts don't know they're dead. An example of the latter is that Gollum's ring in the Hobbit, which Bilbo steals, turns out to be the most important magical object in Middle Earth. --Tony Sidaway 10:33, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

The rationale would be the lack of consensus to remove them. The 'redundancy' was barely discussed at all amid the endless nonsense about the Crying Game and nursery rhymes, yet it was the only motive used when the mass edits began mere hours into the debate.--Nydas^(Talk) 11:46, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

In a lot of fiction articles, we only give a readers a version of the information on the back cover. --- such cases should be expanded then, not used as a rational for "I don't know which type it will be!". WP is supposed to have comprehensive coverage, without getting overly detailed. A short summery is not comprehensive. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 12:18, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

That's impossible for works of fiction that haven't been released. With differences in release dates in different regions, it may not be obvious to the reader. Then again, the anti-spoiler brigade probably think people are obligated to scan for release information before reading a plot summary.--Nydas^(Talk) 19:28, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

"Such intimate details should not normally appear in the encyclopedia at all" well.... they do. If you wish to change that Sethie proposes you head over to a policy which deals more with content. This is a policy for dealing with the fact that initimate details and VERY comphrehensive tellings of the stories do appear in wikipedia. Sethie 15:44, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the proposed policy change. There's a difference between plot and spoilers. I'd also like to propose, instead of or in addition to 'In grey areas, editors placing spoiler templates should use the article's talk page to discuss the matter.', "Editors wishing to remove existing spoiler templates on an article should use the article talk page to discuss the matter," as there seem to be a number of cases where a few people who have no connection to the particular articles they're editing are systematically removing spoilers without even bothering to look if there's been justification or suggested justification." I'd like to see just as much onus put on them as the other side.Wandering Ghost 19:02, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

a few people who have no connection to the particular articles they're editing are systematically removing spoilers without even bothering to look if there's been justification or suggested justification.

That's definitely happening .I have seen one mass remover of spoiler warnings remove them from articles that met Tony Sidaway's conditions for a 2 year limit and speed on --Garda40 19:51, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I propose we do nothing of the sort. If the ==Plot summary== fails to contain spoilers, it is arguably deficient - David Gerard 19:10, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I just want to point out that not all spoilers are plot spoilers. Sometimes it turns out that character X is really character Y, which is a huge spoiler typically revealed in the title of the article or in the lead. Examples (WARNING, spoilers): Tia Dalma is really the goddess Calypso (I put it back under Tia Dalma because she's called that for 2/3 of the movies and it is a valid name for her), the ending to The Usual Suspects, et cetera. EDIT: forgot to sign. Kuronue 20:20, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Does this really qualify as a guideline?

A lack of consensus regarding spoiler use is self-apparent and noted by many people. Considering the lack of consensus, this guideline should be deprecrated. Guidelines are supposed to be supported by the consensus of the community. If the community cannot form a consensus allowing spoilers an exemption to WP:NDT, then this page should be marked historical. Vassyana 19:40, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

From my own observations, there doesn't seem to be any real consensus on the matter. All but a handful of mainspace transclusions of spoiler templates have been removed, but in situations where editors want to use spoiler warnings, this "guideline" does absolutely no good. This guideline does absolutely jack shit in terms of outlining when to use spoilerwarnings. --- RockMFR 20:24, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually, there seems to be a consensus that the guideline should be here. The problem is the meat of the text, not its existence. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 20:41, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Even if there is consensus a guideline should exist, there is no consensus for this guideline. A number of failed policy and guideline proposals were attempts to fill a niche recognized by the community as existing, but they failed to generate consensus. If someone wished to create an appropriate guideline they believe would generate consensus, they are welcome to do so. {{proposed}}, WP:VPP and Category:Wikipedia proposals all exist for that purpose. Consensus that a niche exists and there is community desire for an established guideline is not the same as the community endorsing a specific solution to that need. Vassyana 21:20, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

There are more ways to process than process for making process. In fact, that's arguably the worst way - David Gerard 21:33, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

About four weeks ago, there were about 45,000 articles with spoiler tags. Now I think there are about five articles left on the wiki with spoiler tags, and one of those is Oceans 13. This guideline has overwhelming consensus. --Tony Sidaway 21:29, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

You mean this guideline has overwhelming bot support! Sethie looked at David Gerard's edit history.... This user removed 10,000 spoiler tags in about 5 days time, with maybe more, Sethie just got bored at looking. Oh, and all of the edits were marked as "minor."

Bots do not equal consensus. People not checking in on minor edits does not equal concensus. Sethie 02:50, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. (The other four of those are so badly written the spoiler tag doesn't noticeably make a bad article worse.) Leave it to cook for a while and see if there's substantial disagreement in practice. The previous situation, where people put spoilers on Anagram, kiss and fairy tales, was utterly unacceptable; if spoilers are not kept on a firm leash, you know we'll get back there - David Gerard 21:31, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

That a few people used admin bots to remove every spoiler they could find is supposed to suggest some sort of actual consensus was reached on this subject is your argument? I mean, seriously?? Well, fuck me, let me and some other like-minded folks use bots to remove every instance of word "peanut butter" from wikipedia because apparently that will prove that some sort of consensus was reached to bar its use in Wikipedia.

BTW - this is exactly why many people have thrown up their hands and decided to stop dealing with Wikipedia. You just get so tired of some folks thinking that "to edit" is to argue minor points to death. I keep coming across far too many user pages from people who used to be happily active that have notes that say in some form or other "Life is too short to deal with this shit and those that sling it." RoyBatty42 22:54, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't wild about the mass spoiler tag removal being so automated, but I would like to point out that we don't have things like "admin bots". No admin access or tool was used in the process, so the user being an admin or not was not a factor. Back to your point, like I said, I generally agree, it is a bit heavy handed in appearance. However, only a few times did I actually disagree with the removal of the warning tags. The majority of spoiler tag use seems to be there because people thought they were supposed to add it, rather than coming to the conclusion that it was really needed. It's hard for me to be upset about something that was removed without much thought, when it was added without much thought. -- Ned Scott 23:01, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Exactly. I said it a number of times -- I'm positive a LOT of the warnings in place are there not because people thought the page needed the warning, but because they thought that was the correct thing to do stylistically on WP. Which is why it'll be interesting to see what happens now. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 23:11, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I think you underestimate the editors here. Maybe they saw spoiler tags in other articles, and thought it is a good idea? In fact, you cannot really tell, which is the case. Samohyl Jan 06:14, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I was told that spoiler tags are no longer being used, therefore deleted the ones that I added to a recent article that seemed to need them. I think that might be why there are no more spoiler tags- if you tell enough people who are unaware of the debate not to use them, and go around removing them, and then try to claim that clearly the no-tag policy is consensus.... As far as I can tell, there's a no consensus ATM, and there needs to be a tag on the guideline page stating that. Kuronue

Hnmmm A group of editors running around with bots removing all the spoiler tags shows that .. "This guideline has overwhelming consensus." looks like WP:CON needs some work as well! Sethie 21:55, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

A definition of 'substantial disagreement in practice' would be handy. Otherwise it's just another vague rule of thumb from the anti-spoiler admins.--Nydas^(Talk) 22:01, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

"Substantial disagreement in practice" would be pretty obvious if one removed 45,000 templates that were felt to be necessary. Hardly any of them were put back. That's consensus. --Tony Sidaway 22:17, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Hardly any of them were put back

That might have something to do with this [22] and I didn't even go looking for that example .I stumbled across it when I went to that Users page to check something else .Garda40 22:46, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

As might this [[23]]. Here is a case where it was taken out, and put back, and the same user, using a bot (do you even have to sit at your computer to do this?) went through and removed it again. [ Sethie 02:50, 12 June 2007 (UTC) [24] ]

Yes, it is true that edit warring has been used in attempts to restore spoilers. But in very few isolated cases. The guideline provides for consensual decisions to place spoiler tags, on the basis of compelling reasons. --Tony Sidaway 23:00, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Do you have any evidence that is the case? Since I doubt you're checking page histories or talk pages in your mass-removal sprees, it would probably be very easy to miss a few thousand ones where the spoilers had been replaced. If one could find a thousand instances of it being replaced, would that count as 'substantial disagreement in practice'?--Nydas^(Talk) 22:32, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, it would. But they have not. --Tony Sidaway 23:01, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

There's about fifty in your recent contribution history. And your efforts pale compared to David Gerard's. Please, stop pretending that your 'consensus' is anything of the sort.--Nydas^(Talk) 23:25, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm one of the cleaner-uppers. As such I not only perform manual removals, I am also on of those who pick up what piddling few restorations there have been. The small number I've had to deal with, and incidentally editing manually because I don't use scripts, is testament to the overwhelming success of this new guideline. The number of people who have cooperated with us in reverting tag restorations has enabled us to overwhelm those few people who have engaged in kneejerk restoration. --Tony Sidaway 06:09, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Since it is not possible to determine whether a spoiler tag is a 'restoration' without inspecting the page history or talk page, there is no reason for you designate yourself a 'cleaner-upper' as opposed to David Gerard's mass edits. One only needs to look at the contribution histories to see it is very likely that thousands of wikipedians have had their edits undone by a handful of fanatics. Vague claims about 'small numbers' and 'piddling few' mean nothing, since we have no idea what you mean by them. Just like 'substantial disagreement in practice' and 'compelling reason'.--Nydas^(Talk) 08:33, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

It might also have something to do with this or this (search for 'stop or be stopped'). Not only do spoiler adders lack anything close to the tools spoiler removers use, but using what they do have in an effective manner is punishable. --Kizor 04:32, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, this seems to be one of the problems. The other is that it's much easier to use bots and the like to completely remove a spoiler space than to properly insert it. As such, a determined, small group of anti-spoiler editors has a significant advantage whether or not consensus exists. To me, it seems that what the determined anti-spoiler crowd (who, to be fair, probably have a fair chunk of the population who support them, even if it seems like only a handful are doing all the work) did was remove spoilers on masse, pointing to this guideline as though it was already consensus, to claim the spoiler warnings they deleted were against policy to convince people not to change them back. If people did try to change them back, they reverted them again, using bots. Then, in the argument about what the spoiler policy should be, they used the fact that most of the removals haven't been reverted as evidence that there's consensus on the issue. This strikes me as deeply unfair, almost circular reasoning.

How about the following compromise. Until we do actually have consensus, the anti-spoiler brigade only remove spoilers on articles they already routinely edit or read. No patrolling the whole site for spoilers to remove. No pointing to this guideline to prove to people their edits were wrong - if there's a disagreement, hash it out on the talk page like anyone else. Bots should not be used to advance a particular philosophy on wiki. Let editors, not bots, decide whether they feel spoiler warnings are appropriate for their articles, and maybe they can decide the issue for us. That is, after all, part of what consensus is, isn't it?Wandering Ghost 22:33, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

The allegation of using bots in edit wars is incorrect. As is also the charge of sing "admin bots", whatever those might be. The reasoning is hardly circular. Consensus was apparent early on when our first few thousand removals did not occasion substantial numbers of reverts. From then on it was plain sailing. Those few who have restored spoiler tags have found themselves overwhelmed, not by bots, but by the sheer number of people who removed them again. One fellow edit warred against two editors on one article, three on another, four on another, five on another, and a total of six on another. And all these who opposed him established editors, administrators for the most part. He had to concede that he was acting against consensus. --Tony Sidaway 23:07, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Let me clarify that when I say 'bots' I don't mean 'admin bots' (nor did I ever say that), but rather 'automated tools which make removing of spoiler tags extremely easy for people not otherwise involved in that article', things like AWB. I apologize for my unclarity. Still, when people use a tool that essentially lets them monitor solely the articles that have spoilers, which hey then go in and remove with the click of a button or two, while the other side has to manually go through articles that they may feel need spoiler space and add them, then it's _expected_ that a significant disparity should exist between the edits created and the edits reverted. It's part of the system. I don't think you can claim consensus based on it, any more than you can claim consensus on the fact that everybody must love the current political system of their country, and thus there is no need to change campaign finance reform, because if they didn't, it would changed. When the deck's stacked on one side, you need more than the absence of things suddenly changing to claim people are okay with it. As to your 'one person restoring spoilers vs 3-5 established editors', I'll have no choice but to take you at your word. I'm sure in some cases it's true. I'm not completely against revisind the spoiler policy with an eye to reducing the number of spoiler tags, my qualm is with the way it's done. And _if_ that 'one person restorying spoilers vs established editors' is actually a case of 'one person restoring spoilers on an article he contributes to vs 3-5 editors who do systematically remove them from all articles but aren't involved in the regular page' (which I grant may not be the case, but it seems to be in my case), then that's not consensus, that's a just a gang-up. In my perspective, if you're so sure you've got consensus, you'll let the market take care of itself so to speak, and no longer go on a tear looking for spoilers to edit - if you happen to see one in your normal editing and happen to want to remove it, fine, but don't make a crusade out of it - you've got better weapons than the other side, so it's not a fair fight. Wandering Ghost 23:22, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

People continue to forget that Wikipedia:Spoiler#Unacceptable alternatives has always had a clear consensus. Other elements, such as spoiler warnings shouldn't effect page layout, or NPOV, etc, also have a clear consensus. Personally, I think there is a consensus for the whole thing, but even if you disagree with that, tagging the whole thing as historical would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. -- Ned Scott 22:09, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

The existing guideline does permit the use of spoiler tags on recent and upcoming films and the like. This is sensible, so yes, let's keep it. --Tony Sidaway 22:17, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Agree, though personally I don't support the current flashy form of spoilers. The keeping also makes sense in terms of Manual of Style (writing about fiction) (WP:WAF) and Ignore all rules (WP:IAR). --Brand спойт 22:21, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

(1) I wholeheartedly agree with RoyBatty42 when he says that "this is exactly why many people have thrown up their hands and decided to stop dealing with Wikipedia." Having to compose a rationale to be able to get a slight chance to keep a spoiler warning where it belongs is an absurd notion.

(2) On the topic of "clear consensus", please see Wikipedia_talk:Consensus#.22Clear_consensus.22.

(3) A case in point is Tomorrow (novel), especially if you look at that page's edit history and of course its talk page.

(4) We shouldn't forget that spoiler warnings have a long history outside Wikipedia, that they are not our creation. I believe it was Billy Wilder who, during the credits of Witness for the Prosecution at the end of the film, asks the audience not to tell potential cinemagoers about the surprise ending of the film. A classic example of where a spoiler warning in a Wikipedia article makes a lot of sense, but nevertheless David Gerard removed it as "redundant".

(5) The root of the problem seems to be editors dealing with books they have not read—another absurd notion but quite common here at Wikipedia, as if the actual authors of an article could not be trusted. <K F> 04:35, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure if I understand you correctly. Are you saying what I referenced as a "clear consensus" is not a clear consensus? For over a year I've been an active part of this guideline and the discussions around it, and I can tell you with a reasonable degree of certainly, there is a strong consensus for Wikipedia:Spoiler#Unacceptable alternatives, and a strong consensus for spoiler warnings to not interfere with things like NPOV and even page structure (we wanted the tags to be flexible, so that people could put the spoiler where it made sense, then place a tag around it, instead of having to plan around spoiler tags). Do you even understand that I was not commenting on things like, should they be removed from articles, or how many tags there should be, or if they should be in plot sections or not? I specifically did not comment on those issues, to point out that there is non-controversial content in this guideline. -- Ned Scott 05:33, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Yours is one of the replies I do not quite understand. As far as I know, I was not referring to you at all. I just wanted to point out that elsewhere, i e on the appropriate policy page Wikipedia:Consensus, no one has given me an answer yet as to what constitutes a "clear" (or, as you put it now, "strong") consensus. (The example given there is the now deleted List of people by name.)

The things mentioned under Wikipedia:Spoiler#Unacceptable alternatives indeed seem unacceptable to me, but that's not what my comment is about. It is about the mass removal of spoiler warnings no matter whether the actual authors of individual articles object or not. And, by implication, it is about our common practice of five years or so of adding spoiler warnings which suddenly, it seems, is all wrong. <K F> 06:49, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Alright.. I guess it was just some confusion. It did seem you were referring to my comment, though, since only two people have said "clear consensus" on the talk page prior to your message (at this time, that is), one of them being the unindented message just above these ones. -- Ned Scott 07:08, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I would suggest that this page reflects how Wikipedia actually uses (or doesn't use) spoiler templates, rather than how some people would like Wikipedia to handle that. There has recently been an effort to remove superfluous spoiler templates under certain circumstances; this should be mentioned here. I think it'd be useful to indeed have a guideline on spoilers, because the issue comes up often. >Radiant< 08:07, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
- And a guideline to reform due-process fairness. Milo 08:40, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Spoiler#Unacceptable alternatives is easily covered by Wikipedia:No disclaimers in articles. In the absence of consensus regarding the inclusion of spoiler tags, should we really provide the loophole to that guideline? Vassyana 08:14, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, because those are about bone fide warnings, and spoiler "warnings" are only a Hollywood illusion — a dramatic exaggeration of a caution or even mere table-of-contents-like notice. Milo 08:40, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Incorrect. Wikipedia:No disclaimers in articles#What are disclaimers? explicitly includes spoilers. Vassyana 10:23, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

It explicitly includes spoilers as an exception to itself - and, it bears mentioning, did so much more forcefully until the anti-spoiler side of this discussion decided that it wins, and therefore gets to rewrite that. --Kizor 10:37, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Given the irregularities in the discussion, I would not say there is a consensus for any of this. For example, the MfD was cited as a basis for 'consensus', despite being closed after two days.--Nydas^(Talk) 08:49, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

If we remove it as a guideline, however, we are basically doing what the most radical of the anti-spoiler crowd is suggesting: remove it completely. You can't just delete a problem and make it disappear. I'm sorry if this comment is completely out of place; I can't read this whole discussion at the moment. But it seems like an inadequate solution to say, "well, we can't agree on whether or not to get rid of this, so we might as well get rid of it so there's no more problem." Twilight Realm 18:14, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Ah but that's the rub, isn't it? By your logic, it's ALSO inadequate to KEEP it, if there's no consensus. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 19:30, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Manufacturing consensus

(ref. "Manufacturing Consensus" (Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman, 1988; New York: Pantheon.)

(Copied from #Does this really qualify as a guideline?)

"Substantial disagreement in practice" would be pretty obvious if one removed 45,000 templates that were felt to be necessary. Hardly any of them were put back. That's consensus. --Tony Sidaway 22:17, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
"Hardly any of them were put back" ...

... As might this [[25]]. Here is a case where it was taken out, and put back, and the same user, using a bot (do you even have to sit at your computer to do this?) went through and removed it again. [ Sethie 02:50, 12 June 2007 (UTC) [26] ]

Memories of Matsuko history

20:00, 10 June 2007 David Gerard m (5,155 bytes) (Removing redundant per Wikipedia:Spoiler - using AWB)

15:30, 4 June 2007 Sethie m (5,166 bytes) (Synopsis - added spoiler tag)

21:05, 31 May 2007 David Gerard m (5,155 bytes) (Removing redundant per Wikipedia:Spoiler - using AWB)

Now if you were an average editor and this above happened to you, would you find out who David Gerard is? Would you decide he's an admin honcho, and back off from again re-adding spoiler tags? Especially seeing that he's in control of a tool (AWB), that is impossible to oppose? Smart money says average editors will kowtow. That's "manufactured consensus".

So, Tony Sidaway, having uncovered an overwhelmingly artificial source of your "incredibly little opposition", where's the bone fide spoiler-tag removal consensus? I'd say you have seen massive braking force, followed by halted inertia of a large system, and assumed it was consensus.

Though a majority paraded through the straw polls opposing spoiler tags in theory but not actual use, the way the decision process was conducted was suspicious and persistently railroaded. For the latest example, in the poll "Should spoiler warnings be placed on articles about historical and classical works of fiction?" When the poll gap began to close, Farix both lost a debate point and denigrated another user, due to lack of knowledge of the global success of Harry Potter, overwhelmingly proclaimed a global "classic" already. But he not only refused to apologize, he even more suspiciously closed the poll to inclusively cut off debate of his embarrassing mistakes. Now that we know the tags have been artificially suppressed, I call for that poll to reopen. No, 2-1/2 weeks isn't enough when there has been process tampering including successively moving the debate to three, four, or maybe five locations with little or no notice to the articles.

And I don't agree with David Gerard's remarks denigrating meta-process (creation of processes, like amending a constitution). I know despotic history, so I don't want to repeat it.

What I see is a few Britannica-Don-Quixotes with too many weak anti-tag arguments, leading a majoritarian crowd of the ill-informed (spoiler tags are somehow censorship), the prejudiced (contempt for fiction consumers), the compromise-is-weakness POV warriors, and the inevitable oppositional-defiant "aginers" of every idea. The only really good argument was Phil Sandifer's writing standards — ok, they are in the compromise on the table. Hiding the spoiler tags is not strictly necessary, but ok, compromise; it should satisfy the reasonable Britannica-clone illusionists.

Will the clique even discuss the compromise? Not so far. Why should they? They control so-called "consensus". "Consensus" is what they say it is. This debate is the best evidence I've ever seen. If they like the majoritarian position, then that's consensus. If they like the official "quality debate answer", then that's consensus. They decide what they like first and manufacture consensus to get it. Milo 08:40, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Wow. The List of people by name (see Wikipedia:Deletion_review/Log/2007_May_23 and Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/IncidentArchive250#List_of_people_by_name) is another good example I suppose. <K F> 11:50, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Milo, could you explain what it is about an edit made using AWB that renders it "impossible to oppose?" I'm really puzzled by this. The rest of your comment scarcely deserves a response, I fear, for it paints a completely absurd picture of despotism on a wiki with an open editing model. --Tony Sidaway 14:15, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Ken relieves your 'AWB is impossible to oppose' puzzlement below.

An "open editing model" as an antidote to despotism-by-clique doesn't rank up there with Let them eat cake, but it did cross my mind. I'd consider innocently posting your answer at one of the Wikipedia critic sites, but I don't want to endure the abject humiliation that would be sure to follow. Milo 22:26, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

While "impossible" may have been too strong of a word, it is certainly difficult for human editors to "oppose" a bot that will automatically revert one's edits almost as soon as they are made. If you deny this then you are being disingenuous. Regardless, I am going through your contribution page and reverting all of the edits made by AWB or otherwise, thereby invalidating your point. You asked for it. Killer Poet 20:09, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't use absolutes lightly. I wrote "impossible" once I realized there was a repeated AWB run to make certain opposition was impossible. Milo 22:26, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

One edit is not impossible to oppose, for an experienced Wikipedia editor (assuming it doesn't keep getting bot-reverted).

10000 edits *are* impossible to oppose. I'm surprised you need to ask why. The logistics of manually restoring 10000 edits are ridiculous.

And besides, not everyone is experienced. Someone who hasn't been following this will probably see a comment that AWB was used and assume that the policy has already been changed. The idea that by not reverting he's helping form "consensus" for the policy, rather than that the policy is a done deal already, won't occur to him. Ken Arromdee 15:05, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I concur. Also, even if counter-use of AWB were possible, note at WP:AWB, an admin must approve use registration, only for users with over 500 mainspace edits, requires significant local computing resources, and oh yes, "Don't do anything controversial with it". (Unless you are a member of the clique.) Milo 22:26, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

This "10000 edits are impossible to oppose" argument seems to be beside the point. 45,000 articles have been edited. A tiny proportion of those have been reverted, ever. This is extremely strong evidence that the guideline has consensus. If there were substantial numbers of article editors who thought the spoiler tags were essential, we would have seen a massive wave of reverts by many otherwise-unconnected editors. We saw nothing like that. Indeed, those of us who were anticipating some response and were ready to go in and reinforce and explain found that we had very, very little work to do. --Tony Sidaway 16:13, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

We only have your word that a 'tiny proportion' were reverted. It's not clear what you even mean by 'tiny proportion' - if it's anything like 'substantial opposition in practice', 'piddling few' and 'compelling reason', there's no hope of getting a straight answer.

How did you plan to track this 'massive wave of reverts' which you think would be so obvious? Your watchlist? Someone making machine gun edits with the AWB certainly isn't going to notice if they hit the same page two or three times. You've done fifty reverts today by yourself - I would not call that 'very, very little work to do'.--Nydas^(Talk) 17:14, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

AGF, I'm willing to take Tony's word for it that the opposition appeared tiny.

Anyway, now that we know how AWB was misused, how could there have been any more than tiny opposition? Milo 22:26, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, those of us who were anticipating some response and were ready to go in and reinforce and explain found that we had very, very little work to do.

This sentence bears repeating. Could you share some more details about this plan?--Nydas^(Talk) 17:48, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

There was no plan. We simply watched David's edits and expected that we might see significance resistance. We didn't. --Tony Sidaway 20:15, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Yet again you fall back onto meaningless phrases like 'significant resistance'. You said earlier that a thousand reverts would constitute 'substantial disagreement in practice'. At least a thousand (probably tens of thousands) did take place, just look at the contribution histories. In addition, how you 'watched' all these articles remains a mystery.--Nydas^(Talk) 20:46, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

No, it does not really provide strong evidence there is consensus. This has been pointed out time and time again. It could mean that a large proportion of editors are people who don't want to make waves against what they see as a top-down change in policy, whether they agree with it or not (this is somewhat the case for myself, before I actually looked into the issue and saw what seems to me a startling lack of consensus on the issue and people who seem to be unfairly enforcing their view anyway, which turned me even more pro-spoiler-warning). It could mean that they've witnessed people who've tried to revert it get beaten down by a few aggressive anti-spoiler editors, threatened (even so politely as you did to me) that continuing to try to add spoilers was potentially grounds for blocking, that they felt they didn't want to try it themselves. It could mean there are many fictional articles that are not monitored by very many people. It could even demonstrate consensus for a smaller subset of the policy. Like, say, if people generally agree that usually 'Character History' or 'Detailed Plot Synopsis' should be considered to have spoilers by default, but don't believe they should be absent from everywhere else. (This is also somewhat the case in many of the edits I watch but decided not to oppose, because I agreed that in that case the spoiler was probably not necessary). And again, those removing the spoilers have a technical advantage in that it's much easier to remove them with various automated tools. Spoiler warnings can be removed systematically. They cannot properly be added systematically, and a systematic process is a huge advantage. Even if an article has been edited in the meantime, you can just delete the spoiler warning, while those attempting to replace it would have to do it manually or lose intermediate edits. The whole event is full of ambiguity, because any one or any combination of the factors might be at play here and thus show nothing about consensus. You can't use the lack of reverts to prove there is consensus on the policy as a whole. And you especially can't claim the consensus shows that your removals are right and should be enforced, at the same time you use the fact that they haven't been reverted to prove consensus.

Let me put it this way. Before the recent big purge, by your argument, you'd have to say there was a clear consensus to PUT spoiler warnings in many articles. If not, they would have been removed. (And yes, you can make the same arguments about this side... maybe people only added spoilers in the first part because they thought they were necessary. That's my point, that the status quo proves nothing.) Sure, consensus can change, but I find it hard to believe your mass deletion spree changed all that many minds on the issue. So either this recent campaign has been startlingly effective at shaping public opinion on a mass scale, there was secretly a vast majority of people hating spoiler warnings for quite some time who were cowed before the awesome technical superiority of those who add them when they dare try to remove them, or there is no consensus on this issue. Or, possibly, that the anti-spoiler-warning crowd is actually a minority but browbeating their way to victory through mass edits and ganging up on people who try to revert. I'm charitable, though, so I'll only assume that the lack of consensus is the most likely option.

Once again, if you are so sure that this new policy has overwhelming consensus, then why don't you, David Gerard, and the other editors who do this agree to stop going patrolling for spoiler warnings to remove. Let the pages take care of themselves. If the consensus truly is overwhelming, the local editors will make sure to keep them out. You can help by editing pages you frequent, but not going beyond that to do so automatically on all the pages out there. I'll likewise give my personal guarantee I'll only edit spoilers into articles I already read and which I feel deserve it, but abide by consensus decisions for those articles. If you truly believe your consensus is overwhelming, you have no reason not to agree to do the same. If there is consensus, you've already won. I'm willing to abide by the decision of actual consensus, rather than a few people who've made it their mission in wikilife to cleanse spoiler warnings. It's only if you don't believe you have consensus but want your way anyway that there's any reason to go spoiler-stomping. At present, I can assume good faith that you actually believe you have consensus, but if you continue on a crusade to wipe them out whenever someone tries to add them, I'll be unable to do so for much longer. Wandering Ghost 20:51, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Comment—Tony and David are going to shoot up by 100 places during the next WP:1000 update :) — Deckill er 17:17, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Let's just be clear here, Sethie looked at David Gerard contributions for 4 days and counted 10,000 spoiler removals, and then Sethie stopped counting! He has no idea how many more were actually taken out by David Gerard's computer.Sethie 20:56, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

"extremely strong evidence that the guideline has consensus"; "we would have seen a massive wave of reverts" How could there be any more than tiny technical opposition to the automated AWB tool being used and reused as a weapon of mass destruction? (See "Memories of Matsuko history" above) And with lack of notice plus numerous other process abuses, how could many editors even complain? And if they somehow figured out how to complain, how many would oppose a power clique over spoiler tags?
By analogy, Tony seems to be convinced that the quiet following strafing runs over a city, is indistinguishable from consensus supporting the coup government.
Bottom line is that, considering the outright process abuses and other clique-tamperings still unfolding, neither Tony nor anyone else can be certain what consensus is until time has passed. Even after time, given how large the apparent spoiler-tag-supporting minority is, there may be no consensus. In which case, nothing should have done — 'keep' by due process.
But within the real Wikipedia, due process is a mere inconvenience to cliques who control the "open editing model". Milo 22:26, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

'Spoiler is a neologism'

I've re-removed this paragraph of unmitigated gobbledegook. Ken Arromdee puts it well:

"It was added again without the word 'neologism', which doesn't really help, so I've deleted it again. It still included the dubious claim that it's unusual for "scholarly reference works of the sort that Wikipedia aspires to be" to include spoilers. What Wikipedia aspires to be is not given anywhere in enough detail to know whether Wikipedia aspires to be something with or without spoilers. (And spoiler opponents taking out spoiler warnings and spoiler policies and then making claims about Wikipedia aspirations based on the absence of the material they took out is, well, circular.)"

Twilight Realm:

"It's been added back again. Aside from the points that I have already made, which I do not think need repeating, I'd also like to comment that citing one "scholarly" source to prove what they all do is absolutely ridiculous."

--Nydas^(Talk) 20:21, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Touche. If anything ever suffers from the delusion that wikipedia is ONLY a scholarly source, please see [[27]]. That does not mean to say that wikipedia isn't "scholarly" but the truth is, wikipedia delves into levels of detail that scholarly sources don't, and hence the need for spoiler tags. Sethie 20:59, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

The paragraph, which I have restored, does not describe "spoiler" as a neologism. --Tony Sidaway 21:03, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

It does, however, contain the problems identified by Ken Arromdee.--Nydas^(Talk) 21:12, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Ken might like to find a number of scholarly sources that use the term spoiler. Then we might discuss the accuracy or otherwise of the claim that "it is unusual for scholarly reference works (of the sort that Wikipedia aspires to be) to warn for spoilers when discussing fictional works." Sethie also mistakes "aspires to be" for "is". --Tony Sidaway 21:16, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Touche, sort of. That's partially why Sethie said "is ONLY" :) Sethie 21:55, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

The big problems with that section is not the definition of "spoiler" (so the use of scholarly sources with the term isn't really relevant), but the claim about what Wikipedia aspires to be. No official Wikipedia statement says "Wikipedia aspires to be the kind of work that doesn't contain spoilers". The closest you can find are some general statements, such as statements comparing Wikipedia to a print encyclopedia--but those statements don't mean "Wikipedia aspires to be like one in all ways". Ken Arromdee 15:21, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Disputed

There is an overwhelming amount of disagreement above regarding what should be in this guideline and when to use spoiler tags. We've pretty much gotten absolutely nowhere in coming to an agreement on anything spoiler-related. I've tagged this as disputed. --- RockMFR 21:04, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

There is a clear and overwhelming consensus for this guideline. A few people on this talk page who have a few complaints about what is massively accepted as current practice doesn't constitute a dispute, otherwise we'd have to pop a "disputed" tag on No original research, surprisingly one of our more controversial policies. If some elements of the guideline are disputed, by convention this doesn't mean the guideline as a whole is disputed. While there may be a few who have problems with the idea of limiting the use of spoiler tags, there cannot be any sensible people left who would wish to go back to the free-for-all that resulted in our having spoiler tags on articles about quantum physics, philosophers, football teams and the like. --Tony Sidaway 21:13, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

There is no consensus whatsoever for this guideline. Tony Sidaway has been claiming that there has been 'no significant resistance' for weeks, but anyone can look at the contribution histories to see that is manifestly not the case.--Nydas^(Talk) 21:21, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

There definatley is a clear and overwhelming concesus for this guideline somewhere, however, this talk page is not that place.

Isn't the talk page of a policy the only real place to determine concensus, not off in- "we did this, and they didn't do that, so we have concensus"-land? Sethie 21:57, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

No, the community is the determinant. There is overwhelming consensus, and no significant resistance. This page is simply there to document the guideline which has been followed with overwhelming success by Wikipedia editors over the past month or so. --Tony Sidaway 22:14, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

You still haven't explained how you managed to watch tens of thousands of pages to determine whether there was 'significant resistance'. You still haven't explained what 'significant resistance' is, aside from claiming that it is 'obvious'. You still haven't dealt with the fact that anyone looking at the contribution histories can see that thousands, possibly tens of thousands, of wikipedians have had their edits reverted by a tiny number of anti-spoiler editors. All you do is repeat the same baseless claims you have been making since day one.--Nydas^(Talk) 22:28, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

What is your basis for the claim that tens of thousands of Wikipedians have had their edits reverted? I don't think we have so many editors in the fiction articles. There was really surprisingly little resistance to the removal of spoiler tags from articles after people got the idea that "we've used them in the past" isn't a good reason to continue doing so. Kusma (talk) 22:33, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

If you look at the contribution histories (including your own) you will see plenty of reverts and trampling of local consensus. It is a simple inference that such incidents must number in the thousands.--Nydas^(Talk) 22:47, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm sure the complacency of the wider wikipedia population has lots more to do with discussions like this basically laying the smackdown on anyone who disagrees, and not due to any real consensus. --h2g2bob (talk) 22:40, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

The bizarre thing about that last comment is that I've never heard of these editors, Lemi4, Masem and Goldfritter. If they were part of some little minority laying down the law, or "laying the smackdown on" anyone who disagrees, surely I as one of the small band of wild-eyed fanatics would have heard of them? --Tony Sidaway 22:58, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Nydas says: You still haven't explained how you managed to watch tens of thousands of pages to determine whether there was 'significant resistance'.

That is a very odd statement. The normal Wikipedia site tools, available to all editors simply by clicking the usual links, can tell me this in an instant. A significant amount of resistance might be, for instance, hundreds of editors restoring tags. We did, after all, remove tags from 45,000 articles, so if there had been more than a handful we would have noticed. --Tony Sidaway 23:04, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

That would be very valid IF you actually kept track of how many pages were spoiler removed two or three times. One page I watch had the spoiler tag removed, by a bot, replaced by a user, removed by a bot, replaced by a user, and now personally removed by you. As I have said before the first two bot removals were marked as "minor" edits.

Since you are spinning hypotheticals how about this: a lot of the spoiler tag removals went unoticed because of David Gerard removing them as "minor" edits.

Here's another: a significant amount of resistance did occur and was either bot or personally removed sometimes 2 or 3 times.

Oh yeah, that scenario isn't hypothetical... it's what happened on Memories of Matsuko. Sethie 23:13, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Well 45,000 articles had their spoiler tags removed, and the number of articles with spoiler tags (for the moment) can be counted on the fingers of one somewhat maimed hand. There could be two dozen or two hundred tomorrow and it wouldn't make any difference to my point, which is that we got here, overwhelmingly, by unopposed removals. A very, very few tag removals have been reverted--in fact by far the largest tranche of work I've taken part in during this entire exercise was a manual search on the word "spoiler", when we finally had nearly all the spoiler tags out, to locate those "ad hoc" spoiler warnings that people had written into articles over the years

Yes, David's edits are marked minor. This is because they do not affect article content. I don't understand why you say that they would go unnoticed because of this. The default history, watchlist and recent changes displays all show minor edits, and all of his removals (that I've seen) were clearly labelled as such, typically "Removing redundant per Wikipedia:Spoiler - using AWB)".

In the Memories of Matsuko article you edit warred against three different editors. Those aren't bots, you know. They're real people who disagree with you. And moreover such opposition was quite exceptional. There's no way we could have removed 45,000 spoiler tags against any serious opposition. Just one editor on one article had the three of us tied up. --Tony Sidaway 04:50, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

That is a very odd statement. The normal Wikipedia site tools, available to all editors simply by clicking the usual links, can tell me this in an instant. A significant amount of resistance might be, for instance, hundreds of editors restoring tags. We did, after all, remove tags from 45,000 articles, so if there had been more than a handful we would have noticed.

The normal Wikipedia site tools do not tell you this in an instant (or if they do, you choose not to explain how). Inspecting the contribution histories in detail will show that hundreds of editors have been restoring tags. I have bolded this for your benefit, but I do not expect a response. This is a fact that any concerned editor can confirm for themselves.

For example, looking at Kusma's contribution history[28], between 10th June 18:55 and 11th June 13:00, there are 50 edits. Out of these, 46 are spoiler warning removals. Of these, 27 are removals where the spoiler tags had previously been removed and then restored later. Some of these were restored by Kizor, but the vast majority were restored by others. If just one low-ranking member of the anti-spoiler brigade can overrule around twenty people in just eighteen hours, then imagine what has been happening over the last three weeks.

When Tony Sidaway or another member of the anti-spoiler group says there was 'no significant opposition', this has no relationship whatsoever with the truth. Perhaps they didn't know - it's not obvious to someone making machine gun edits if they've hit the same article more than once. Perhaps they chose not to know.

From the botched discussion, to the mass edits, to the threats, to the idiosyncratic 'policy' of WP:NOSIGNIFICANTOPPOSITION, it is clear that this is not the way Wikipedia is supposed to work. Today it was spoiler warnings, tomorrow it could be British spellings or Wiktionary templates.--Nydas^(Talk) 07:42, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

The function of Kusma's edits in that pass was to pick up the handful of reverts. Out of the 45,000 articles edited, a tiny number, just as I said. It's simply false to say that my statements on this are untrue. I think I'd know if I'd been run off my feet doing spoiler reverts for the past month or so. Rather, we've taken it nice and easy.

To say that it isn't the way Wikipedia is supposed to work is also grossly incorrect. In fact, a large-scale edits with a minimum of disruption as in this case is regarded as an ideal to strive for, rather than something easily achievable. This was in every way a copy book exercise. --Tony Sidaway 07:57, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

If just one member of your campaign overrules twenty people a day three weeks after the campaign began, that means you are reverting hundreds of people daily. You have provided no reason to believe your claims that 'you'd know'. You have not explained how you would go about gaining this knowledge of tens of thousands of articles, aside for vague statements suggesting that anyone can do it. If it's so easy, please tell us how to do it. Then we can see for ourselves. At the moment, it is clear to anyone who wishes to examine the contribution histories that thousands of spoiler tags were restored. That you didn't notice is not surprising, the driver of steamroller is unlikely to notice a few thousand ants.--Nydas^(Talk) 08:18, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Attempting to return to Constructivity

Okay, I've gone over my objections to the way things have been done a number of times, and frankly, I'm getting a little irritated. So, to circumvent that, I'm going to try to be constructive this time around.

I think there are, regardless of how the overall spoiler debate turns out, a few changes are needed to the proposed guidelines as they stand. First, "Spoiler warnings are redundant when used in "Plot", "Character history", "Synopsis", or other sections that are self-evidently going to discuss a plot or similar."

This strikes me as far too vague. What counts as "other sections that are self-evidently going to discuss a plot or similar"? I don't think it's self-evident at all. I recently had a problem with the removal of a spoiler tag on Runaways (comics). The warning was not in the 'plot outline' section, 'Synopsis', or 'Character History'. It was in a simple listing of characters. The character listing did contain major spoilers about some of the major mysteries of series, so I objected. Tony Sideway and David Gerard (neither of whom, to my knowledge, are aware of the subject of the page, as I didn't see either of them in the edit history prior to the spoiler debate) reverted me. But is a character listing "self-evidently going to discuss a plot or similar"? I think the disagreement itself suggests that it's _not_ self-evident in some cases. If one goes to a movie page or a book page, under 'cast of characters' would one expect to see (I'm making my examples up because I dislike the "using a real spoiler to prove a point" mentality), "Bob Johnson as Joe-Bob, who is revealed at the end of the movie to be the Devil." One might argue it'd be better to remove the spoiler entirely, but in some cases that can't be done easily while maintaining the tone of the article. Or let's say in "Critical Reception", an article said something to the effect of "the violent death of Beth at the end at the hands of E. Ville at the end caused a huge amount of controversy, and sparked a successful campaign to have the character returned to life in a sequel." The critical reception might be after the plot section. But shouldn't it receive a spoiler warning? Someone might have skipped over the plot part just to find out how well people liked it. Likewise, a person might read a character listing expecting to get an idea of what kind of themes are being explored, but not necessarily expect to see major plot details. I think we should tighten up this section, and list specifically what sections should be assumed to contain spoilers, and by default, permit warnings for spoilers that are in other sections, without an automatic presumption of removal.

Secondly, what constitutes compelling reasons and who gets to decide? I think we should have a guideline on this, because as it stands, someone can insert a spoiler warning, Tony and David (or others with their views, but who aren't necessarily well versed in the particular topic) can jump into the debate on it, and claim the reasons aren't compelling enough, and both revert, overruling a particular person who is familiar. It's wholely a judgement call, so I'd suggest that the people doing the judging have some knowledge of the topic.

Some level of definition for 'classic' wouldn't be out of place either.

Onto the whole 'neologism' paragraph (whether it contains the word or not). I think it might be fair to say, at present, something along the lines of "Spoilers on the Internet are sometimes preceded by a spoiler warning.^[1] However, it is unusual for scholarly reference works (of the sort that Wikipedia aspires to be) to warn for spoilers when discussing fictional works. The following guidelines are an attempt to reflect consensus on the issue, which is that spoiler warnings do have a place on some Wikipedia articles, but should not be used as indiscriminately as they are in less scholarly article, and should be avoided where unnecessary or redundant."

Going beyond what I think needs to be done to improve the article as it is, and towards my own views on what it should be, I'm not fond of the blanket 'articles on fictional places and things should be assumed to have spoilers, always'. When you're looking on wiki, sometimes you don't know the context of the search. If you hear a name being referenced, and you don't know what it is, you might look it up, only to find a major spoiler about that. I still have no problem with spoiler warnings being redundant on 'Character biography' or 'Location History' for fictional characters on locations, but if the rest of the article contains spoilers, I'd feel they might require a warning. Since the 'Character biography' is an element that would be covered in the point immediately above it, I'd suggest this point be removed.

Finally, a pointer to WP:POINT might be appropriate to suggest that it is not okay to use automated tools to bulk remove spoiler tags, because it's much easier to remove a spoiler tag than it is to properly place one. As such, while editors are welcome to remove specific spoilers they don't think are appropriate, they should not be doing so systematically without regard to the reasons they may have.

Wandering Ghost 22:55, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Spoiler tags should still go on "Character Biography" and "Location History" and similar sections when needed. It's the same argument as the one about spoiler warnings not going on plot sections:

1) that type of section does *not* always contain spoilers. A spoiler isn't the same thing as a plot element, and if a character biography contains only non-surprising events, it might not necessarily contain spoilers.

2) spoiler warnings can be placed in the middle of the section if the spoiler occurs in the middle; even if all such sections contain spoiler warnings, they don't all contain them in the same place, and their placement provides useful information to the reader.

3) omitting the warning just because the user can deduce the existence of a spoiler without it is bad user interface design.

Ken Arromdee 15:39, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh, believe me, I agree entirely on this. I'm mostly talking about ways to try and improve the article and make it more agreeable as it stands, while the fuller debate over spoileryness continues. I completely agree. IMHO Spoiler warnings are information. Information a reader may wish to know. Wikipedia, in its policy of providing all significant information, should likewise include information on what sections of the article are spoilers, as that is significant to many people reading fictional articles.Wandering Ghost 23:56, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Then why can't be put warnings for pics of naked people, swear words, and other things that might offend? The reader may "want to know" THAT too. People accept that such warnings should be off WP, but not spoiler warnings. Why? I've yet to see a good reason for that. Most of the time it's either "yeah they should be there too" or "people can't forget a spoiler" -- which is silly, because a disturbing picture can do far more damage than a spoiled plot twist. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 02:27, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

"such warnings should be off WP" They are not warnings — they are just dramatically named that way. They are a Hollywood/fan exaggeration of table-of-contents-like information. Spoilers disappoint, not offend, since one desires to learn them in due course. Did you read the 'hidden warning tag test' thought experiment that I constructed just for you? Milo 03:55, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't see how a discussion about hidden warning is relevent to anything when we're discussing visible warnings. The idea of hidden ones as a default is pretty much universally considered unacceptable on WP, from what I've seen. And "Spoilers disappoint, not offend"? Shouldn't that mean that all the more so the warnings are less importent? You make it sound like offending people is ok, but disappointing them is a horrible thing. Does this sound backwards to anyone else? ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 11:39, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

• "I don't see how a discussion about hidden warning is relevant to anything when we're discussing visible warnings." The thought experiment demonstrates that if the spoiler tags are hidden, it becomes obvious that spoilers tags, hidden or visible, are not bone fide warnings.

• "People accept that such warnings should be off WP, but not spoiler warnings. Why?" Because "spoiler warnings" aren't actually warnings. Warnings are an advance notice of danger, and there is none, as demonstrated by the thought experiment.

• "hidden ones as a default is pretty much universally considered unacceptable on WP," That perception is about hiding the spoilers themselves. The proposal on the table is to hide spoiler tags.

• "And "Spoilers disappoint, not offend"? Shouldn't that mean that all the more so the warnings are less important?" Spoiler tags fit into a middle category - they are neither important nor unimportant. If the subject is notable, then its spoilers are also notable enough that a large minority of readers want table-of-contents-like information (tags) that spoilers lie just ahead.

• The compromise proposal on the table is to hide the tags so no one can claim format offense, yet all would have the option to avoid spoiler disappointments. Does this sound progressive to anyone else? Milo 15:20, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, I'm not involved in the debate on whether other warnings should be there. However, considering spoilers are explicitly exempted in certain cases under WP:NDT, that suggests that there's consensus that there is a difference between the two, even if people can't quite articulate what that difference is. But, just to give it the old college try, perhaps part of it's this: Generally, you don't expect anybody to reasonably be looking for nude pics on wikipedia. And you don't expect people to be looking for nude pics specifically related to another topic. Someone might deliberately search for that, but generally speaking, it's easier to find such things elsewhere. Similarly with coarse language, or 'offensive content' warnings. However, you can very easily conceive of someone looking for spoilers about something. I certainly do it. The tag, properly used, is then information - the main spoilers are here. On the other hand, I _believe_ typically pages which would have nudity warnings and offensive content warnings are usually going to be 'top of the page' warnings, because you can't exactly say 'Warning: Nude pictures coming right up here', followed by the pic, and in articles where potentially offensive content might be, it usually covers more or less the whole article. But spoilers are generally targetted, and many people want to look at a page and learn things about the topic except the spoilers, and this is feasible, by targetting spoiler warnings properly. Not a perfect comparison as some types of offensive content are textual and could likewise be targetted. Also, generally speaking, all works of fiction have a spoilery and non-spoilery component. You could, conceivably, do a project in which every single fictional book, character, place, etc, on Wikipedia, create two separate articles, one of which deals with non-spoilery aspects, and one which deals with spoilery aspects, and probably nearly every single article would have an article for both sides of the issue. Of course, nobody would, but it's useful as a thought experiment. With non-fictional subjects, only a tiny minority of articles would have a 'nude pics version' and a 'non nude pics version', or an 'offensive content version' and a 'non offensive content' version (and those that do, especially ones dealing with religious aspect, would likely have many _different_ versions of both). This suggests, to me, that where there are spoilers is key information in fictional topics as a whole, but where there is nude pics is not key information in reality topics as a whole. But as I said, I'm mostly thinking off the top of my head, so this might all be full of crap. ;) Wandering Ghost 03:14, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Not disputed

A show of hands, how many people came here to dispute the guideline, or how many people are just pissed at one of the guys doing mass tag removals? My point being, take it up with the guys doing the automated tag removal. I've always supported this guideline, but the tag removal seemed too heavy handed. I don't downright disagree with the removals, since I know a mass of tags have been added over the years without much thought, but when I saw it I knew people would be pissed. This guideline is not encouraging mass tag removal in this way. The guideline encourages individual cases me taken to the talk page when the need for a warning is disputed.

Like I said, I'm not going to say people are wrong to do the mass removals, but don't lump their actions with this guideline when the connection is simply their interpretation. -- Ned Scott 04:30, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I disagree with the massive spoiler removal, though I also dispute with forbidding spoilers under headings such as "plot" or similar, because it may not be obvious to non-native english speaking people (which are probably a majority here), to automated computer tools (which could in principle show/hide spoiler warning depending on user setting, as some people suggested), in special cases (such as "method" for magic or "solution" for famous puzzles and problems). Also, it's a bit sneaky way how to get rid of spoilers completely, because you can then argue: if they are not needed in the general case (if there is such heading), then they also are not needed in any special case. In my opinion, user experience is the key for Wikipedia, and having spoiler warnings generally improves it. Samohyl Jan 06:24, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

A lot is being said here at Wikipedia about "process", especially in connexion with requests for deletion and the "consensus" necessary for it, but also here. The underlying problem has been addressed in detail by Milo (see above), but, alas, subsequently largely ignored ("The rest of your comment scarcely deserves a response, I fear, for it paints a completely absurd picture of despotism on a wiki with an open editing model.") "Scarcely deserves a response"? Is this the GDR back in the 1970s?

Applying double standards by only referring to guidelines when, and if, they come in handy (eg the "three revert rule") and crushing opposition using phrases that could be interpreted as threats ("You've had your chance") and declaring afterwards there is no, and has never been any, opposition are not helpful to achieve a fair process. <K F> 08:58, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm a little of both. Really, I mainly got into the debate because of the mass removal. If everything was the result of a wide variety of editors applying a new, widely agreed on policy, I might not have fought at all. But when I noticed that it seemed to be only one person doing all the edits (at least the ones on my watchlist), and maybe 2 or 3 doing reverts, I looked into the matter. Then (although, admittedly, under the wiki model of discussion it is a little difficult to follow discussions like this through all the iterations on different pages), what I saw was a shocking lack of consensus on the policy itself, and the people who were removing the spoilers seemingly using their removal to justify the policy (that nobody's reverting it proves there's consensus!) and the policy to justify the removal and re-removal, and generally not playing fair. So, I got into the debate. As to my feelings on spoilers in general, I'm generally pro-warning. I'd like to see them everywhere appropriate. I agree with unacceptable alternatives, and that in many cases if a spoiler's in an unrelated article it can be removed, and the idea of not writing articles around spoilers, but want to include spoiler warnings. Mostly, in the policy as it stands, I disagree with two areas: 1) that spoilers are redundant in plot and character history and sections about fictional characters, because they should be assumed, and 2) that editors need to put _compelling reasons_ to add spoilers warnings. Those were the focus of my 'attempt to be constructive' and reach a compromise, because as of right now, they're seemingly badly abused by the anti-spoiler crowd. I could 'live with' (though I'd still prefer otherwise) a ban on spoilers on sections clearly labelled Plot Outline or Synopsis, so long as I can be convinced it actually does reflect a wide consensus, and so long the rules are better defined. Wandering Ghost 11:38, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Both, as those above, though I got here before the mass removal started. I understand your wish to keep the policy out of this, but I don't think it's unlinked. Not when the removals are justified by policy and the policy is justified by the removals. --Kizor 11:54, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Dispute current spoiler guideline, due process abuses, mass tag removals, premature or circular claim of consensus, and majoritarian failure to negotiate consensus compromise with a large (40%+) minority. Milo 13:51, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't remember how I got into this debate; I think I must have seen it on someone's contribution history. Even then, it was obvious that there was something wrong, with the fanatical admin group policing the very debate they were taking part in. As for the guideline itself, I have problems with the 'compelling arguments' gibberish, the nonsensical paragraph about why Wikipedia can't have spoilers and the so-called 'redundancy'. The claim that a consensus exists is absolutely without foundation, as shown above, with no evidenced counter-arguments yet provided. --Nydas^(Talk) 15:02, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I've been in this almost from the start trying to oppose the anti-spoiler crowd. They've consistently refused to listen to arguments (I must have rebutted "it's a Plot section, the readers already know it contains spoilers" several times (most recently in the middle of Wikipedia_talk:Spoiler#Yet_another_complaint), yet they refuse to listen. The fact that they then made 45000 changes and claim consensus because not all of the 45000 are restored only makes it worse. Ken Arromdee 15:11, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

A few things. I can't stress enough that Tony, David, whoever, are not some kind of official representatives of the guideline. They are two users who are applying the guideline in a way they feel it applies. They can be right or wrong, but the issue then is with them. I know all that jazz about no personal attacks, but to be blunt, Tony can be really condescending and disrespectful, and does say stuff like "you had your chance". Well, stop listening to Tony, or whoever else is saying junk like that. Now we have people that are needlessly in conflict mode, and now we have a "dispute" when people really just take issue with the actions of a few.

I'd like to think that I'm a bit in the middle ground. I don't want to see the tags removed completely, but I do agree that they often get out of control. I've argued for the existence of spoiler tags for over a year now, including the last year's RFC which generated a massive 1 MB chuck of discussion. I've seen all the "new" arguments from the current RFC, and all the stuff being talked about here. I can tell you guys this, trying to take the guideline hostage only makes you look stupid and hurts your own argument. It totally misses the point, and even if you find a mass of people who say "I disagree with X" you have to present a reason why that's a bad thing. We're not a democracy, and we don't do things on numbers alone.

I totally agree that the task of removing spoilers doesn't show a consensus about something, and that all guidelines are subject to ever-changing consensus and new discussion. But damn guys, it's so obvious that you're just taking your anger out on the wrong place and for the wrong reasons. You have to realize, we won't have spoiler warnings back in the numbers we once had them, and for good reason. Second, it was never a big deal, and never a necessity. The spoiler warnings have always been nothing more than a courtesy for the reader, so remember that before you fight for this thing tooth and nail. -- Ned Scott 19:18, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I can tell you guys this, trying to take the guideline hostage only makes you look stupid and hurts your own argument.

The anti-spoiler admins began rewriting this guideline mere hours into the discussion, implementing the 'spoilers are redundant' section and granting themselves veto power with the 'compelling argument' bit. I am not aware of any 'compelling argument' that has succeeded. That is because it is not meant to. If anyone has taken this guideline hostage, it is them.

Ordinary users can no more oppose the AWB juggernaut than a toddler can tackle a grizzly bear. The only option is to slow them down is at the source. You know as well as anyone that they won't accept any changes here either, like when I tried to insert concrete examples instead of 'compelling reasons'. All we get are Tony Sidaway's baseless claims about 'no significant opposition', 'less than we expected' and other such stuff.--Nydas^(Talk) 20:24, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I'll add my endorsement to Ned Scott's plea. I apologise if my style appears condescending and unhelpful; to a large extent I tend to be unaware of that while writing and I should make more effort to check my words before hitting submit.

On this stuff about an "AWB juggernaut", I think you have to realise that it was just one guy (or two guys perhaps, I seem to recall that it wasn't all David) going through a list of all articles containing the spoiler tag and removing them. The rate at which David worked using AWB is perfectly attainable by any other editor using a normal multiple-tabbed browser. It seems that he peaked at around 3 or 4 article edits per minute, which given the simplicity of the edits isn't a big deal. Had there been any significant opposition to his edits, we would not have been able to achieve this excellent and necessary work of removing the clutter from articles. AWB is just a browser with some built-in search-and-replace functions, as far as I'm aware. The editor still has to check the edit and press submit.

The new guideline sets out reasonable standards for putting spoiler tags into articles. All we have to do now is decide which of the articles now on Wikipedia requires them. This should be done on the talk page of each article, according to circumstances pertaining to information in the article and the requirements of maintaining balance, neutral point of view, readability and other elements of article quality. --Tony Sidaway 20:39, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

If this doesn't really matter, why people fight so much (using AWB) to remove them, now, after at least 3 years? You say they have been courtesy to the reader, and that they are gone for a good reason. To provide a courtesy for readers is certainly a good reason, but I fail to see what good reason there is in removing them? Samohyl Jan 20:45, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I speak from personal experience when I say that no manual editor can hope to match the speed of AWB. Certainly not when he's trying to undo the damage. With AWB, it appears to be "open article, mark as minor, submit, open article, mark as minor, submit." With a tabbed prowser and proficiency in its use, it's "open article history, look for the removal, look for all other removals of other surviving tags, compare all of them to the previous revisions to find the typo-fixes and other things that AWB did on the side, open undo on all of them, find the places of the typo-fixes and other things and meticulously add them in, mark all as minor, submit all, open article." This is not counting what happens if the edits involved can't be undone, nor the loading times or mouse movements or tab-switches. Neither does it take into account that the AWB-using remover gets an easy way to find all possible targets, the manual restorer has to find them as well first. Not possible. --Kizor 21:21, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

As for coming across as condescending and disrespectful, that is a completely accurate description. --Kizor 21:24, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Well... I don't think Tony is personally disrespectful. His Wikipedia career has been significantly involved with controversies, but I actually admire his public efforts to improve how he personally interacts with other editors. Milo 23:54, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Point. He tries. Just being all bitter and crabby, I suppose. --Kizor 03:57, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

On this stuff about an "AWB juggernaut", I think you have to realise that it was just one guy (or two guys perhaps, I seem to recall that it wasn't all David) going through a list of all articles containing the spoiler tag and removing them. The rate at which David worked using AWB is perfectly attainable by any other editor using a normal multiple-tabbed browser.

It is not attainable by any other normal editors because normal editors simply do not edit that fast. It is is especially not attainable when you threaten anyone that tries.

Had there been any significant opposition to his edits, we would not have been able to achieve this excellent and necessary work of removing the clutter from articles.

Until you explain what it means, the phrase 'significant opposition' will have to filed along with 'substantial disagreement in practice' as too vague to be understood. Putting aside the fact the anti-spoiler squad is still reverting hundreds of edits daily (presumably not 'significant opposition') you still haven't explained to how you measured resistance to your edits. Looking at the contribution histories, fiction articles with multiple removals of spoiler warnings are fairly common, contradicting your claims. Of those that don't, many have traffic lower than one edit a month, so can hardly be cited as evidence of a 'consensus'. You said earlier that it was possible to gauge resistance with common Wiki tools 'in an instant', I would still like to know how this is done.

The new guideline sets out reasonable standards for putting spoiler tags into articles. All we have to do now is decide which of the articles now on Wikipedia requires them.

Is there a single example anywhere on Wikipedia of one of the anti-spoiler admins accepting a 'compelling argument', as the guideline suggests can happen? If not, it's basically a veto, and should be removed in the name of intellectual honesty and offering false hope to pro-spoiler people.--Nydas^(Talk) 22:09, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

See List of fictional occurrences of broadcast signal intrusion. I think the argument given there is compelling and I did not oppose the installation of a spoiler tag.

The very few instances of repeated replacement of spoiler tags without proper discussion were disruptive editors who firstly found themselves overwhelmed by numbers and secondly were blocked for edit warring. There is of course still a small dribble of new spoiler tags and replaced spoiler tags placed by people who are unaware of the change in guideline. This absolutely isn't a problem. Where their replacement conforms to the guideline it will prevail. Where it does not, it probably won't. --Tony Sidaway 22:14, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

And what happened in the cases of very many instances of repeated removal of spoiler tags without proper discussion, then? You really show there was a double measure here. Samohyl Jan 22:43, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it's compelling, the spoilers on other lists of fictional things haven't been spared, why should this one? Your comment 'There may be people who come here not expecting to see a particular TV show, which is still running, to be discussed' applies to many of them. Your characterisation of thousands of reverts as 'very few' or hundreds of spoiler tags as 'a small dribble' is questionable. I am still awaiting your explanation of how to use common Wiki tools to gauge resistance to thousands of edits 'in an instant'.--Nydas^(Talk) 22:48, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually, I think in this case the argument for leaving the spoiler in is quite compelling. All that it shows is that in this case, common sense prevailed, whereas in many other equally compelling cases, it's being squashed. You should also take note - David Gerard's edits removed the spoiler again AFTER the compelling case was made. He didn't respond, or even look at the talk page. He just reverted. I think to improve this policy we REALLY need a blanket 'existing spoiler warnings should not be removed without prior discussion on a talk page'. The default position should not be REMOVE ALL SPOILERS, AND IF NOT, PROVE IT SHOULD BE THERE. It should be 'assume good faith (hey, anyone remember that guideline) that an editor who puts a spoiler warning in feels there is a compelling reason, leave it in, and then discuss it on the talk page until there is a wide consensus'. A wide consensus does not mean 'two people jump in, claim it's not a compelling reason, each reverting at the time'.) Only this can level the playing field between the semi-automated removals and people who have to manually put them back in..Wandering Ghost 23:53, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Dispute catch 22

Above (#Not dispute) Ned Scott asked "how many people came here to dispute the guideline, or how many people are just pissed at one of the guys doing mass tag removals?". Six of the seven responses included both issues, and six mentioned a guideline dispute.

Ned then removed the article disputed tag declaring (19:01 13 June 2007) "and you guys proved my point. you have an issue with Tony and the others far more than you have an issue with the guideline, which was a compromise to prevent total removal)". 1/7 more is not "far more", and certainly doesn't invalid the existence of a dispute (and thus a dispute tag) declared by six editors (as well as other disputing editors not polled).

Admin Heimstern suddenly appeared (19:05 13 June 2007), declared an "extensive edit warring" (I disagree; it was just routine edits and reverts) and protected the article with a tag which says "This page is currently protected from editing until disputes have been resolved."

Now how is that suppose to work? The dispute is about whether there is a dispute. Sethie already called that one (22:04 12 June 2007): "the fact that there is a dispute about whether there is a dispute kinda proves there [is] ..... *drum roll******* A DISPUTE!)"

The dispute tag isn't a content issue. Heimstern or some other admin should simply declare the obvious: yes, there is a dispute, leave the article dispute-tagged until the underlying content issues are resolved. Milo 23:54, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

OTT guideline intro

I came at this by chance having noticed comments about spoilers being removed. My general view is that they have been ridiculously over-used and that using them in such a way makes them completely pointless. However, I do see a place for them where particular plot elements may be considered critical. But my reason for creating this section here was reading the actual guideline after looking at some of the debate. One of the very best ways I see to avoid the need for a spoiler is to structure the article so that a reader can see ahead that something they may read will have more detail than they would wish. I absoluetly disagree with the notion that wiki, as an encyclopedia, should force knowledge upon people, whether they wish it or not. I am certain that very many people will happen upon a wiki page without understanding wiki conventions, or what is likely to be shown there. The structure of a page should inherently allow people to first get a broad grasp of a subject without being exposed to too much detail. I see this as an important aspect of writing any kind of article...it should have a more general introductory section.

The guideline (at this moment, anyway) says:Concerns about spoilers should play no role in decisions about the structure or content of an article, including the article's lead section. When adding a spoiler in the lead section, remember that Wikipedia is written from a real-world perspective; what is exciting in the context of a fictional universe is almost certainly a standard plot device in literary construction. Cobblers, mate. That is an absurd statement to make. No role? Come off it. The primary goal of an encyclopedia is to convey that information which the reader wants to know. It is not appropriate to presume that wiki is an elitist institution intended to be read solely by academics. It is beneficial to any article to bear in mind the needs and wants of people reading it. This includes taking into account whether they may be upset by discovering the ending, rather than the general overview they were seeking. I do not see that there is any excuse for placing a gross spoiler in the introduction of any article where the issue might be relevant, and this should most definitely be taken into account when structuring such an article. Such a statement is utterly the opposite of having too many spoiler warnings, and is equally unacceptable.

The structure of the entire article should bear in mind the desireability of not including unexpected spoilers. Note, not that spoiler information should be excluded, but people should most certainly think about its potential impact when they decide how to present it. Sandpiper 19:43, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

You seem to be saying that the article structure should be tailored to fit the expectations of someone who has come to read about a subject but specifically doesn't want to know all about it. I have to say, this doesn't sound very encyclopedic to me. An encyclopedia is supposed to tell you everything significant about a subject. That's what it's for. The reader may not know this at first, but I can't imagine him being surprised to find that encyclopedias do that. It seems unreasonable to me to tailor for those few readers who come looking for information they don't actually want. --Tony Sidaway 20:46, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

But likewise it's important to structure the information so that you would find what you *want* to know easily. Having spoiler warnings obviously doesn't contradict to not telling everything in the article (they don't censor in any way). It's not important what structure is encyclopedic or not (by any definition), but what structure the users actually want. And I tried to do a poll, and about a half of people participating actually uses spoiler warnings sometimes, so it isn't just a few people. Samohyl Jan 20:53, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

No. The structure should be encyclopedic. If the users expect something else then we have other problems, like that we don't explain what we are sufficiently. Phil Sandifer 20:57, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

But what is encyclopedic? Britannica doesn't have (for example) article history, so does this feature make Wikipedia unencyclopedic? The best definition of encyclopedic I can think of (with regards to presentation, not content) is what is actually useful for the reader. What definition do you, Phil or Tony, use then? Samohyl Jan 21:06, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, let's take a real world case. The Romeo and Juliet article says this in the lead: "Romeo and Juliet is a world-renowned tragedy by William Shakespeare concerning two young "star-cross'd lovers" and the role played by their tragic suicides in ending a long-running family feud." So there in the first sentence we give away the ending. Should we "restructure" the article by removing that from the lead? --Tony Sidaway 20:59, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't know. That's what the Talk:Romeo and Juliet is for. There will always be border cases. But that doesn't justify the general policy of removing all spoiler warnings (without a warning!). Samohyl Jan 21:06, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

The guideline allows for the introduction of spoiler tags where a compelling reason exists for doing so. The default position is that we're an encyclopedia and our articles about fictional subjects can be expected to contain all significant information about those subjects. --Tony Sidaway 21:18, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm unhappy with Romeo and Juliet as a real word case. Romeo and Juliet is a Shakespearean work, hundreds of years old, a cornerstone of English literature, a random person on the street can be expected to know the basics of its plot. It represents very little indeed other than itself, and it definitely doesn't represent one of Wikipedia's greatest strengths over classical encyclopedias - comprehensive coverage of recent and lesser-known fiction. I'd rather ask about Rogue Moon or Heroes (TV series). --Kizor 21:43, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

If you're not happy with Romeo and Juliet, how about The Crying Game (1992)? Just fifteen years old. Second paragraph, first sentence: "The film was notable for its dramatic plot twist, in which it is revealed that a seemingly female main character has a penis, and for a sympathetic portrayal of characters from often-reviled subcultures, presented here as complex and likable human beings." Should we restructure the article to remove one of the most significant facts about the film from the article lead? --Tony Sidaway 21:49, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

So, what, I object to one extreme case and you jump to another? Or do you claim that the majority of articles that until very recently used spoilers were such cases? How about the two I just mentioned? --Kizor 21:54, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

It's funny, it has been just changed by somebody to read: "The film was notable for its dramatic plot twist, and for a sympathetic portrayal of characters from often-reviled subcultures, presented here as complex and likable human beings." This version isn't much of a spoiler (because the what the actual plot twist is not revealed), and spoilers aside, I think it actually is better. But I still agree with Kizor, these are really borderline cases. Samohyl Jan 22:01, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

This brings us, at long last, to my point: removing significant information from the lead brings the article into conflict with the Lead section guideline (WP:LEAD). --Tony Sidaway 22:05, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Is it really that important information that main character (and not some other) has penis? I am not sure. But here's an idea: Why don't you look to what reviews of this movie said at the time? As was previously noted, film reviews usually do not contain spoilers, but I find it unbelievable they wouldn't contain mention that the film is about transgender issues. Samohyl Jan 22:11, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

It's a significant part of the film's fame and, if you like to use the word, "notability". Reviews of current films, as you correctly state, sometimes do not reveal plot twists. We're not a review website. --Tony Sidaway 23:59, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

The intro then states that it's notable for dealing with transgender issues, not for that main character is revealed to have penis (if is it the first movie ever that uses this plot device, this looks more like trivia to me). If the former is the case, you simply don't need to know that main character has penis (in the intro). Look - I don't know the movie and don't care. The point is, this is really a special case, that should be discussed on the talk page. In general, I object to not having spoilers in sections marked "Plot" and so on, and for the double standard applied to existing articles (spoilers removed without discussion, but putting them back requires discussion). Samohyl Jan 06:27, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't think this is a special case at all. Many books, films, plays and other narrative works are famous for their plot tricks. The lead section of an article should discuss these adequately, where important, without permitting article quality to be compromised by concessions to traditions imported from Usenet, blogs, forums and other new media. --Tony Sidaway 18:03, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

This is where our opinions differ. I don't think this compromises article quality at all. I agree that article should discuss everything. But if avoiding spoilers (or having spoiler warnings) is useful for some people, why not have them? This like saying that all articles should expect certain familiarity with the topic, because otherwise it compromises article quality. There will always be such compromises, because there are many different users of a particular article; but that doesn't mean that the quality of article is any worse if such a compromise has been made (since the target group has changed). Samohyl Jan 19:04, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, an article lead that omits something because some segment of the people reading the article might not want to know something seems perverse. An encyclopedia doesn't exist for the purpose of concealing information. Every single page of Wikipedia is headed with the words describing it as a free encyclopedia. If the reader stumbles upon a Wikipedia page falsely believing it to be some obscure area of Usenet, Blogs or web forums, he'll only make the mistake once. Subsequently he'll expect to find an encyclopedia article underneath those words. So the ugly, intrusive and, frankly, insulting warning is unnecessary. And so we have found. --Tony Sidaway 23:29, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

So, you feel that spoiler warnings should be removed because you personally find them ugly and intrusive, and you personally are offended by them. Man, if that's the standard wiki operates on, we've gone pretty far from the guidelines as I remember them. Speaking of guidelines, WP: Spoiler is now marked as disputed, and has been for several days. Yet judging by your recent contribution history, you seem to be continuing to bulk remove spoilers, using WP: Spoiler as a justification? If you really feel you must, then perhaps continue to remove spoilers, but don't you think it's a wee bit dishonest to appeal to the authority of a guideline currently in dispute when you remove spoilers? Why not stop removing them and discuss them on the talk page with the editors, or hell, why not invite them to join the discussion to help form consensus? But to remove them 'per WP: SPOILER' is misleading and could wrongly convince people that their spoiler warning is in violation of an agreed upon wikipedia guideline or procedure. Just a thought. Wandering Ghost 01:24, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Tony Sidaway, your doing it again: arguing for exactly the same fault as in this guideline. You are arguing that no account can be made of spoiler issues, and that is ridiculous. The debate above illustrates that it is possible to soften what is revealed in the intro without leaving out vital information. This is still not a good example, because it seems this issue is the most famous part of that film. If it is in reality only a side issue, the debate above is misleading anyway, and mentioning it could be left until later. What is unacceptable is the assertion that no account can be taken of spoiler issues, which is a logically untenable position and frankly would make for a worse encyclopedia, not a better one. I do not argue that articles must be written primarily to avoid spoilers. I argue that anyone with the teeniest bit of sense would think about whether this might be an issue for some readers, and would take what steps he could to reorganise the article to minimise this. It is one consideration, not the overriding one. The current guideline argues that it may not be considered at all, and therefore has to be changed. Sandpiper 10:36, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Aragorn has an introduction that fails to mention that he becomes King of Gondor and Arnor. From the point of view of encyclopedic knowledge about this fictional character, this is a very poor lead section. The only reason I can assume for this is that the author tried to avoid spoilers, and I don't see how this has helped make the article better. In fact, WP:LEAD says "The lead should be capable of standing alone as a concise overview of the article, establishing context, summarizing the most important points, explaining why the subject is interesting or notable, and briefly describing its notable controversies, if there are any. The emphasis given to material in the lead should roughly reflect its importance to the topic according to reliable, published sources. The lead should not "tease" the reader by hinting at but not explaining important facts that will appear later in the article." (Albus Dumbledore avoids spoilers by teasing, in violation of the guideline). How does this spoiler avoidance make a better encyclopedia if it makes it impossible to write good lead sections? Kusma (talk) 10:54, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

'Failing' to mention in the lead that Aragorn becomes the King of Gondor makes sense because he is a fictional character. His out-of-universe importance is tied to his appearances as a Ranger and Gondor's heir in a series of books and films. That he eventually became king is relatively unimportant. The Luke Skywalker article has the sort of thing you want in the lead. It's also a big ball of in-universe cruft.--Nydas^(Talk) 12:38, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

'Compelling arguments'

As of yet, no consistent definition of a 'compelling argument' has been offered. There is currently one article where a compelling reason has been accepted, because in Tony's words:

There may be people who come here not expecting to see a particular TV show, which is still running, to be discussed

This justification applies to any list of plot developments. Although I suspect efforts to bring other such articles into line with this one would be fiercely opposed by the anti-spoiler admins. Earlier Tony said that:

The thing about a compelling reason is that nearly everybody will agree with it. This is how you know that it's compelling.

This is in effect a declaration that any anti-spoiler admin can veto any spoiler in Wikipedia, regardless of opposition. It only takes one of them to disagree, at which point the reason magically ceases to be compelling.

I sugges that we replace 'compelling arguments' with actual cases where spoilers may be used, starting with lists of plot developments. Either that, or remove it altogether, since it gives false hope to pro-spoiler editors, encouraging them to waste their time trying to accomodate the whims of the anti-spoiler brigade.--Nydas^(Talk) 11:03, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

You might be right. My OED (Concise edition) defines "compelling" as powerfully evoking attention or admiration. Compel can mean "(1) force or oblige to do something." The statement from the current guideline, "...that knowledge of the spoiler would substantially diminish many readers' or viewers' enjoyment of the work..." works for me in the case of The Third Man, The Crying Game, Zardoz, The Other, The Prestige (which I just watched), etc. Even though someone can (and probably will) retort, "But the guideline says they're redundant in Synopsis sections," I'd say that a reader getting the secret of The Prestige before seeing it will have not just denouement surprise spoiled for them, but the entire movie's set-up. I concur that the word compelling is misleading, since the argument in support of the Spoiler tag may not oblige all editors to agree, but may clearly evoke the condition of use that I mention above. Thoughts? -- David Spalding (☎ ✉ ✍) 16:19, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

"Persuasive" would be an adequate, and perhaps better, term to use here. Individual cases should be argued on the talk pages. The reason no other articles have spoiler tags is that few people seem to be putting them back, and hardly anybody is arguing for their restoration on the talk pages. And it isn't as if I wasn't watching. --Tony Sidaway 16:28, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

This is absurd. There's no way for me to find out, but lots of people must have had exactly the same experience: They have a few books and/or films on their watchlist, see that someone who's never been working on a particular article (the root of the problem) has removed the spoiler warning, add it again, and their edit is immediately reverted. Obviously I didn't use the word "compelling," but I tried to argue my case in the edit summary of the very first edit of Tomorrow (novel) and also on the talk page of I, the Jury (where I even put red dots around the message)—both to no avail. Do you really expect any of the hoi polloi to start a fight? (Also, there may well be cases where they actually agree that the spoiler warning is superfluous—again, no way to find out.) They have no alternative to giving up the spoiler fight. The only alternative left to them is either to carry on editing elsewhere (more or less half-heartedly, due to a certain degree of addiction) or to leave Wikipedia for good. That this lack of resistance is still, after all those endless debates, being used as post factum justification for the mass removal of the spoiler warnings is unbelievable. <K F> 18:04, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

You know, Wikipedia editing tends to run on consensus. People discuss edits, and if there's consensus then the edit stays. If not, it's modified. I don't understand why anyone would feel that they had to go edit some other article just because they found someone who didn't agree with them. That isn't how we edit Wikipedia at all. We don't own the articles and we should always be prepared to discuss our reasons for performing our edits. --Tony Sidaway 18:29, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but this borders on doublespeak. Why are you lecturing me on how to edit Wikipedia articles? Who said they owned articles? Why are you sidetracking the issue? Best wishes, <K F> 19:07, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Except, isn't that what's just been done? Do you not go edit some other article because you found someone who doesn't agree with you? Is that not what jumping in for spoilers is? Nobody discussed the removal of all those spoilers on the talk page. Why shouldn't all of David Gerard's auto-edits be reverted, just on the principle that he didn't discuss the edit on the talk page.

Since you seem to be the one 'monitoring' the situation, and are sure there is no significant opposition, perhaps you can answer these questions: 1) How many different people, in numbers, are going around removing spoilers, in these 45,000 removals? 2) How many different people, in numbers, are attempting to re-add spoiler warnings? 3) How many of the pages that were not reverted have had edits to them in the past month before the spoiler warning was removed? 4) Of the ones that have been reverted, how many of them have you personally gone in to remove the spoiler warning again, whether after discussion or not? 5) How many of the 45,000 removed spoiler edits were rewritten under the new policy not to add spoiler warnings, but to remove spoilers themselves? This, incidentally, is one of the things that will be really hard to measure, I imagine, so I won't really expect an answer to this question, but it's something to think about. I've already seen it happen at least once. The anti-spoiler crowd claim that consideration of spoilers should not alter article content. However, it's easy to monitor when someone adds a spoiler warning. It's hard to spot when someone makes an edit aimed at preserving a surprise because there IS not spoiler warning. I feel that lack of spoiler warnings will actually lower article quality.

In any event, if you can't answer most of the above questions, I don't think you have any call to suggest that the fact that 'most' of the spoiler warnings have been removed shows anything. For that matter, I'm still waiting for an answer on whether the fact that, before this deletion spree, the fact that there _were_ so many spoiler warnings showed that there was consensus to have them. Wandering Ghost 22:08, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

We don't own the articles and we should always be prepared to discuss our reasons for performing our edits.

But you do not discuss. You repeat the same claims about there being little resistance, even after they were shown to be false. You intersperse these with platitudes like 'Wikipedia editing tends to run on consensus' or 'The new guideline sets out reasonable standards for putting spoiler tags into articles'.

Your suggestion to change the wording from 'compelling' to 'persuasive' is typical; it sounds like you are making a compromise, but it will not change anything, since the words mean practically the same thing. You have claimed elsewhere to not understand how this grants you a veto power over all spoiler tags, yet the only 'permitted' spoiler tag on Wikipedia is the only one with your blessing.

This guideline will only be worthwhile when it is possible to establish a consensus for spoiler tags on an article which you do not agree with. No more "Having read the discussion, reverting per WP:SPOILER" edits.

I am still waiting for your explanation of how you were able to determine resistance to the mass spoiler removal with common wiki tools 'in an instant'. This is the third time I have asked.--Nydas^(Talk) 19:23, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Nydas, I must warn you now against making personal attacks. Not because I'm offended by them, but because they're not going to get us anywhere.

Now you've repeatedly stated that I've made false statements concerning the lack of opposition, and you even purport to have shown that I have done so. I in my turn have rebutted those claims. We're still disagreed, and I maintain that the strongest evidence of the continued lack of any serious opposition to the guideline is in the editing histories of those 45,000 articles.

Neither "compelling" nor "persuasive" gives anyone a veto. This is a wiki with an open editing model and decisions are made by consensus. Neither I nor any other editor has magical powers to make an edit and have it stick unless there's consensus for it. Every single edit is subject to discussion and consensus. Those aren't platitudes by the way, they're how Wikipedia works. --Tony Sidaway 19:53, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Your only rebuttal was to suggest that 27 restorations reverted by Kusma in eighteen hours was a 'handful', and the repeat your longstanding claim that you would have 'noticed hundreds of editors restoring tags'. You have said that it was within your power, using ordinary wiki tools, to inspect these 45,000 articles for spoiler tags being restored, 'in an instant'. If you could give a brief explanation of how this was achieved, I would be very grateful.--Nydas^(Talk) 20:34, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

It's a pretty good rebuttal. Your persistent and wearisome requests for an explanation of how I know that there are very few spoiler tags in the articles are unhelpful. Please cease this pointless browbeating. --Tony Sidaway 20:42, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I did not ask how you knew there are few spoiler tags in use, that can be easily established by the 'what links here' link on the spoiler template. I am asking how you established that the number of spoiler tags being restored was sufficiently low to not constitute 'significant opposition'.--Nydas^(Talk) 20:56, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry I don't understand your question. --Tony Sidaway 21:01, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

The question seems quite clear to me. If you can't answer the question(s) without saying, I don't get it, or claiming personal attack, perhaps you should take a step back and let others continue the discussion ... and not make arbitrary edits to remove spoiler tags. ;) David Spalding (☎ ✉ ✍) 15:30, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I said: You still haven't explained how you managed to watch tens of thousands of pages to determine whether there was 'significant resistance'.

You said: That is a very odd statement. The normal Wikipedia site tools, available to all editors simply by clicking the usual links, can tell me this in an instant. A significant amount of resistance might be, for instance, hundreds of editors restoring tags. We did, after all, remove tags from 45,000 articles, so if there had been more than a handful we would have noticed.

What usual links did you click on to determine the amount of resistance on 45,000 articles?--Nydas^(Talk) 22:46, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I can't help feeling that there may be some other motive for your request other than to be told that, like you, I can press the buttons. Forgive me. I use the same tools you do. Could you explain what this is all about? --Tony Sidaway 23:21, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

What buttons did you press to tell you in an instant that hundreds of editors were not restoring tags? I simply wish to view the consensus with my own eyes.--Nydas^(Talk) 23:30, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

I think it goes without saying that many editors will add the tags out of habit until they realise they don't have to. That those who do so are quite happy to negotiate on the talk page, whether under the terms of this guideline or simply by reasoned discussion, is my experience. Thus there appears to be consensus for the guideline, which is intended for the purpose and fills it admirably. It has successfully killed the assumption that spoiler tags are, in some way or other, part of Wikipedia policy. They can be placed where there is a persuasive reason to do so.

That there isn't a huge upswelling of revolt is so painfully obvious that I'm surprised you haven't noticed it yourself. --Tony Sidaway 23:42, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Tony, you seem to be seriously dodging Nydas' valid technical question. I too was curious as to how you managed to watch tens of thousands of pages by using "The normal Wikipedia site tools, available to all editors simply by clicking the usual links, can tell me this in an instant."

I'm willing to assume that any editor really can do this, but that it requires the use of a procedure that is closely held by clique insiders like yourself. Perhaps you accidentally let the cat out of the bag, and now can't admit that this closely held technical procedure exists.

So why don't you just retract the statement, and the debate can continue without the presumption of "if there had been more than a handful we would have noticed". Milo 01:14, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't dodge anything. I have a watchlist, and I can check the links to a page. A comment on a talk page will show up in the watchlist. It's sort of puzzling to see that Nydas is making so much of this. I have said nothing that is not readily apparent to any competent Wikipedian. --Tony Sidaway 01:28, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

How can your watchlist and 'what links here' enable the inspection of 45,000 articles for 'hundreds of editors restoring tags'?--Nydas^(Talk) 07:51, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Just curious here, have you ever actually looked at your watchlist? Because that question seems rather odd to me as well. The watchlist gives article name, username and edit summary, and can be expanded in the url to show up to 5,000 entries at a time. What else would you need? Guy (Help!) 11:22, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Arbitration

Is there anyone who is willing to help set up a request for arbitration on this? Clearly, when someone is making 45000 deletions, we can't just revert them ourselves; I don't see any other way to resolve this. (And does anyone have a link to show about how many deletions were made by each person involved?) Ken Arromdee 20:25, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Why don't you try other methods of dispute resolution first? You're unlikely to get an arbitration case accepted unless you try and fail to resolve this by discussion. --Tony Sidaway 20:32, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Hm. Depends on why dispute resolution by discussion doesn't seem to get us anywhere. Could it also be because there are still a few questions you haven't answered yet? <K F> 21:11, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Ask the questions and we'll see how it goes. --Tony Sidaway 23:22, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Questions are really pretty much irrelevant. The problem is that you and your allies have removed over 45000 spoiler warnings while claiming that the fact that they haven't been reverted implies consensus for their removal. This is an utterly ridiculous position. So far, no discussion has convinced people to stop removing or to restore tens of thousands of spoiler warnings, or to admit that there is no consensus for their removal.

We've already tried to resolve this by discussion. The response is "no, I believe removing tens of thousands of warnings is appropriate, and I'm not going to stop." The discussion gets nowhere because your side simply ignores it and continues to repeat the questionable behavior. Ken Arromdee 04:31, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

He's quite right, that the fact warnings were not replaced does not prove very much, particularly if it is accompanied by the impression that a definitive consensus has already been reached, which plainly it has not. On the other hand, I would be inclined to agree that probably most of the tags removed were not very helpfull. But that was the opinion I started with, you havn't proved it. Especially since it would appear that tags have been removed repeatedly despite people putting them back. Taking them out one time, with an explanation, is fair enough and gets everyones attention. But persistently doing it is imposing a view. Have you debated with all those editors who reinserted tags as to why they felt they were needed? Sandpiper 10:54, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I will ask the people removing spoilers: Is there something I could say to convince you not to remove tens of thousands of spoilers before the spoiler issue is resolved? If the answer is "no," or if the answer is "the issue IS resolved already," then discussion has failed and we need to go to arbitration. Ken Arromdee 15:12, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I concur. The side-stepping rebuttals exhibited above indicate that discussion is failing. Editors have made widespread changes through WP, and then claim that the issue is resolve becuase other editors, using manual tools, haven't made "sufficient" reverts. Ridiculous. In most other issues, this kind of editing would be considered vandalism. Or edit warring (reverting edits that restore the tags without Talk page activity). I don't recall seeing widespread announcements on film article Talk pages along the lines of "I'm preparing to remove the spoiler tags." David Spalding (☎ ✉ ✍) 15:34, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

"reverting edits that restore the tags without Talk page activity" I agree. In fairness, the clique has negotiated the guideline at the margins, but is intransigent over the timing, scope, and methods of spoiler tag removal. Only clique members with wheels could have altered 45,000 articles without risk of being blocked, after so many procedural abuses, and now such a flimsy basis for claiming Wiki-wide consensus.

At the very least, any ordinary group of editors who did this would have been swiftly removed from the AWB registration list for violating the WP:AWB guides of "Don't do anything controversial with it" and "Abide by all Wikipedia guidelines, policies and common practices."

Want to demonstrate how the clique fix is in? Go to Wikipedia_talk:AutoWikiBrowser/CheckPageand leave a summarized and carefully-reasoned message asking for those who deleted the spoiler tags to be removed from AWB registration until an officially recognized decision on future such use has been made. I forecast that it won't happen. Milo 22:35, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

If people cared that much, the spoilers would be back already - David Gerard 19:39, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Quite. All the rest is wikilawyering. --Tony Sidaway 19:45, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

"If people cared that much, the spoilers would be back already" As has been repeatedly explained, you can't know that after crushing dissent with multiple AWB runs, combined with the lopsided ease of deleting tags compared with laborious difficulty of restoring them. That you won't even acknowledge the overwhelming nature of the electronic force you used, shows the need for arbitration.

A more subtle point is that spoiling disappointment is not among the stronger emotions. A 40+% disappointed minority may take a couple of years to restore the tags that need restoring, if they do so. I've said before that because process to determine consensus was abused so significantly, it may take a year to find out whether people actually care enough to do anything about the underlying tagging issues.

"All the rest is wikilawyering" According to Wikipedia:WikiLawyering: "4. Misinterpreting policy or relying on technicalities to justify inappropriate actions". Hmm, sounds to me like that's what your clique stands accused of. Whatever, lack of agreement on who is Wikilawyering further demonstrates the need for arbitration. Milo 22:35, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

As I've tried to explain, and tried not to labor too much because it's so obvious, there is no crushing dissent. Hardly any dissent at all. Once cannot remove necessary content or formatting from 45,000 articles in the face of even moderate dissent. Yet they were removed and there is no vast, or even moderate, or even more than piddling, move to restore them. Indeed most of the spoiler-related edits I've performed over the past day or so were removals of hand-made spoiler tags that have existed on Wikipedia for some considerable time, but were obscured by the vast number of {{spoiler}} I don't wish to play down the legitimate dissent of the few editors who have come here to complain. Please do feel free to pursue dispute resolution, the final process of which is Arbitration. This statement by me in itself constitutes part of that process, but if necessary a RFC on user conduct should be considered. I can provide advice to anyone willing to undertake this. Wikipedia:Mediation might also be of some use. I don't think arbitration is likely to be accepted at this stage. There simply isn't any evidence of disruptive activity or failure to communicate. --Tony Sidaway 01:43, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

We definitely need to go onto the next step, because we've reached past the point that simple discussion can manage. Multiple people have asked many times for Tony and David to answer questions which could demonstrate whether they have consensus. They've raised numerous valid criticisms of the '45,000 gone, very few restored' argument. They've attempted compromises on a number of accounts both in terms of their behaviour and in the spoiler policy itself. None seem to have had the slightest effect. What's more, even though the policy is marked as 'in dispute', Tony at least continues to remove spoiler warnings with the explanation 'removing per WP Spoiler'. This is an appeal to authority that does not exist, and serves only to bully people out of reverting the changes. Because of all of this, I can no longer assume they're arguing in good faith. In fact, the only reason I can think, given his steadfast refusal to discuss the issues or alter his position, that Tony suggested we continue to 'discuss' is because he feels that the longer we're locked up in discussion, the more weight his 'but very few have been reverted yet!' will carry, all the while they continue to pull all these dirty tricks. If there is an explanation other than that, please, I beg to be informed, but as you tend to have a history of ignoring valid questions, I can't hold up much hope. There are still those in the anti-warning crowd that seem to have more rational demeanors, but they don't seem to be around much anymore. We need to move on to the next step. In the meantime, I'm doing what I feel is right, which includes replacing spoiler warnings and adding them where I feel appropriate, whether or not they fall under the guidelines of the current, disputed, WP: Spoiler. I will not, unlike others, try to assert my will and move on, but instead invite other people to join the debate so we can actually figure out what consensus is. I recommend others do the same. Wandering Ghost 00:48, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Looks like (browsing policy) that we should attempt a mediation first? The issue I'm having when going to file either request is the "users involved". There're so many names on these talk pages arguing this case... Should I file with a note there saying "please see talk for WP:spoiler and the RFC for the policy" instead of specific names? Kuronue 01:35, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

I find it surprising that there are complaints that David and I haven't discussed the issue. We've done so at length. --Tony Sidaway 01:47, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree, with a minor exception or so, that you have discussed most issues enough to make your fixed positions clear. Milo 04:57, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

from what I can see you've repeated the same statements over and over and then ignored anything that directly attacks those statements, instead preferring to use your axioms to combat new arguments rather than counter the counter-arguments. Kuronue 02:37, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

"I don't like it" is a very old argument and needs no rebuttal. "There is evidence that you're ignoring" is an argument that needs support by evidence. None has been forthcoming. Meanwhile those pesky 45,000 spoiler tags remain unrestored. --Tony Sidaway 02:41, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

It's obvious nobody wants to leave the country, because if many people did want to leave the country, they would be crossing the border in large numbers. The fact that we have barbed wire fences and armed guards and drag people back who try is besides the point. Clearly nobody wants to leave our country, and so our prohibitions on leaving our country are for the good of all, because anyone who wants to must be insane. Wandering Ghost 02:45, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

For heaven's sake, do I have to go to your recent edit list and revert every single one before you admit that you're not the deciding say in this matter and that your thousands of edits do not indicate consensus among the whole of wikipedia?! Kuronue 02:49, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Wandering Ghost, you've misrepresented my argument. You claim there isn't consensus for some 45,000 edits. I say that the wide indifference to those edits, and overwhelming support for those edits in the few cases where those edits are challenged, establishes consensus.

Kurunoe, I did not perform those 45,000 edits. I'm absolutely not the deciding voice in this, but I've chosen to argue the case with the rump of editors who aren't yet on board. --Tony Sidaway 02:57, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

No, I say you can't prove that there is consensus based on the fact that edits haven't been reverted. It might be that people feel browbeated when their attempts to revert it were again reverted. It might be that there's wide acceptance for some of the guidelines, but not for others, and that the majority of the spoiler removals happen to fall under the undisputed parts. It might be that most articles on fictional subjects aren't actively watched by a whole lot of people. And, once again, it's so much easier to remove tags automatically than to properly add them. There are so many factors that you can't make any meaningful judgement based on the fact that the majority of edits haven't been reversed. What I do know is that the people who made the bulk removals and who continue to remove the attempts to replace them, are doing so in a poor way that is damaging to finding OUT the truth. If it's widely accepted, it'll be widely enforced. If a few narrow people are enforcing it on everybody, then it's impossible to tell if it's widely accepted. Especially notable since before about a month ago, spoilers were common and most people didn't complain about that, either. Shouldn't that prove that _that_ had consensus? Wandering Ghost 03:08, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

One month ago, the spoiler tag itself came that close to being deleted. A small group, however dedicated, could not enforce a fake guideline against consensus. --Tony Sidaway 03:14, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

The TfD was only allowed to run for a few hours before YOU unilaterally closed it. It had a 60% keep. The MfD had a 2:1 in favour of deletion but that was only allowed to run for a short time as well. The closed MfD was prominently displayed on the discussion page for some time, whilst the TfD was buried in an archive immediately. That both deletion debates were policed by admins with a vested interest and closed for arbitary reasons after arbitary amounts of time should be enough to completely discount them. Disturbingly, the prematurely-closed MfD was cited as evidence of a 'consensus'.--Nydas^(Talk) 07:35, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

That word "unilateral" again. In any case as I try not to labor too much, we've got ample evidence of consensus. --Tony Sidaway 08:05, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

"Wikipedia:Mediation might also be of some use" Because there is such profound disagreement as to interpretation of facts (like whether the inherent nature of your methods do or don't crush dissent), I question whether Wikipedia:Mediation is of significant value. To provide further context on the utility of mediation, it's accepted legal theory that agreements between parties of greatly disparate power are generally unsuccessful. By implication, mediation among parties of disparate power leading to such agreements is not likely to be time well-spent.

Wikipedia:RFC on user conduct It's an idea that's reasonable to consider. However, I've previously mentioned a visceral prejudice that many editors seem to bear against consumers of fiction. The problem is that the RFC commenters may well comment the editors' conduct issues based on their view of like/dislike spoiler tagging, rather than whether editors should gain extra firm consensus, and scrupulously follow established processes, before using mass editing tools to irretrievably change 45,000 articles.

Wikipedia:Arbitration ... "any evidence of disruptive activity or failure to communicate" Disagreement on those points, among others, would be decided by the arbitration case, if accepted.

"I don't think arbitration is likely to be accepted at this stage" Perhaps not, but IIRC, the case can be presented even if refused. The presentation by itself might be enough to set policy-making into motion that would at least prevent AWB from being used this way in the future.

OTOH, this is no ordinary editors' food fight. I'm not familiar with more than a few arbitration cases, but I have the feeling that only the userbox case has much similarity to this one. Even the userbox case surely didn't have a scope of anything like 45,000 pages. The possibility that other loose-cannon groups of editors might repeat this questionably-consensed behavior, might persuade Arbcom that this is a Wiki-wide metamorphic risk, that needs to be addressed sooner rather than later. Milo 04:57, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

If you want to bring this to arbitration, go for it. Do be sure to list me as one of the parties. Phil Sandifer 05:05, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Hi Phil, just to be clear, it wouldn't be me personally opening an arbitration case. I'm just helping to define the issues, since no one will benefit from a messy case. With a clean case, either Arbcom or the policy community is more likely to act on the top-level issue, which is the Wiki-wide metamorphic risk from loose-cannon editors armed with AWB. With that playing field leveled, then the spoiler tag issues are more likely to be resolved in a broad-consensus way, such as the compromise on the table.

You seem likely to be an issue winner here, so I'm a bit curious as to your exceptional interest in being an arbitration party. As near as I can guess, you won't need to make any statement, because I'm thinking that your position on article writing standards won't be at issue (or even mentioned). I for one, accept your general position and have incorporated it into the compromise on the table: your writing standards, interpreted by local consensus, with optionally visible spoiler tags — everyone reasonable should be satisfied. Milo 06:35, 16 June 2007 (UTC)

Question about timing of plot entries

The policy states Concerns about spoilers should play no role in decisions about the structure or content of an article. The next thought regarding this is: when *should* the full plot for a future movie/book/etc be posted? Obviously, information shouldn't be added without proper citations ("someone on the set told me this was the plot" isn't valid but the plot might become available months in advance through other legitimate means in other media). Advance film press screenings are done with the caveat that the press attendees can't talk about the film ahead of specific dates (a projectionist in Memphis, for example, was fired last week for discussing Fantastic Four on Aint It Cool News). Some of us do have access to advance or inside information, but wait until a "proper" time to add that info to WP as a courtesy to the creators. Others may not have the same restraint, deciding to post information regardless of whether they have the correct info or citations available (despite repeated warnings about not treating WP as a fan site). What is a good general consensus to go on? SpikeJones 12:22, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Verifiability is the key policy here. "Insider" information has no place on Wikipedia. This doesn't mean that general matters of plot cannot be discussed early on. For instance Steven Spielberg has a project, announced but perhaps never to reach fruition, to produce a Lincoln movie. IMDB says it's on hold until the new Indiana Jones movie is under way, and gives as the synopsis "The sixteenth President of the United States guides the North to victory during the Civil War". The writers cited are Doris Kearns Goodwin (biography) and Tony Kushner (screenplay). See Team of Rivals: the Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln (2005) ISBN 0-684-82490-6.

Our article on Lincoln (film) errs on the conservative side (which is good for an encyclopedia) by refraining from plot discussion (there isn't a published script to work from) but it could include references to Kushner's earlier work and to the Goodwin biography thus enabling the reader to glean perspective on the likely plot. We don't need to (and probably shouldn't) cite imdb, because it isn't really a reliable source. But its information leads us to reliable sources such as this Dreamworks/Amblin press release. --Tony Sidaway 22:48, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

^ Examples include GameFAQs, Television Without Pity, and TV.com.

[1] Examples include GameFAQs, Television Without Pity, and TV.com.

[1]

@@ Line 1,974: / Line 1,974: @@
 ::::::How can your watchlist and 'what links here' enable the inspection of 45,000 articles for 'hundreds of editors restoring tags'?--<strong>[[User:Nydas|Nydas]]</strong>[[User talk:Nydas|<sup>(Talk)</sup>]] 07:51, 15 June 2007 (UTC)
+::::::: Just curious here, have you ever actually looked at your watchlist?  Because that question seems rather odd to me as well.  The watchlist gives article name, username and edit summary, and can be expanded in the url to show up to 5,000 entries at a time.  What else would you need?  <b>[[User Talk:JzG|Guy]]</b> <small>([[User:JzG/help|Help!]])</small> 11:22, 16 June 2007 (UTC)
 == Arbitration ==