Wikipedia talk:Spoiler/Archive 9

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current AN/I report - spoiler issue

If anyone wants to check it out, here is a current AN/I report regarding a spoiler issue. Its heading is "Users pushing personal agenda", but the topic is spoilers. It's not about notices, it's about content removal, based on "popular opinion" as a justification. --Parsifal Hello 09:36, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

And hopefully no one here is suggesting the user was correct in removing content of a spoiler nature just because it was a spoiler... David Fuchs (talk) 12:53, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Or the citation of "by popular demand" as a legitimate reason to remove any kind of content. --Farix (Talk) 13:16, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand either of those replies. And I don't know what, if anything, anyone else might be suggesting.

To be completely clear: I was not suggesting anything at all about that report.

All I did was post the link here because it points out that the issue of spoilers, and this guideline, is important and contentious enough in the wider community that it has made its way onto the admin noticeboard. --Parsifal Hello 02:59, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

No one is judging you, Pars. I meant (and believe Farix does) that we hope the people here beating their heads against the wall arguing the guideline realize that justifying a template by "popular demand" does not validate it-- and that removing content for the sole reason of it being a spoiler is wrong. David Fuchs (talk) 13:14, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
The only reason it when to WP:AN/I was because it was turning into an edit war. It actually had very little to do with "the spoiler issue". --Farix (Talk) 13:54, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

OK, thanks to you both for your clarifications. All is cool. I just thought it would be of interest that it popped up there, in that it shows the level of emotional charge on this topic with some people. --Parsifal Hello 06:44, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

All right

The problem is not the guideline itself, but the way it is enforced. So, how about keeping everything the same and adding something along the lines of:

Editors should seek consensus on the article's talk page before removing spoiler tags, unless they are in areas where spoilers are expected, such as plot, themes and character sections.

--YellowTapedR 22:47, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Um, I'm pretty sure its says to obtain consensus already. David Fuchs (talk) 22:51, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Um, it says obtain consensus to place a tag on an article. This would require consensus to remove them. --YellowTapedR 22:56, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, since no one's objecting, I'll take it to mean I have consensus. --YellowTapedR 02:20, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

No, you don't. You need to wait more than 3 hours before declaring nobody is watching the page. — Carl (CBM · talk) 03:17, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I was actually joking, using the same rationale that you guys use.--YellowTapedR 03:19, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Were these edits valid?

It's perfectly relevant to discuss the editors who have appointed themselves as the Spoiler Police. They're the ones who are making it impossible to actually abide by the guidelines unless it's how they see fit. --YellowTapedR 22:26, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

It's even more relevant if you can produce a list of edits that you believe, based on the current guideline, should not have been made. We can then discuss the edits, rather than the editors. Marc Shepherd 22:30, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

All right, here's only a few that I can think of. I don't have the time to sift through edit histories looking for more examples:

The Crying Game, where the major twist is given away in the introduction. The anti-spoiler crowd says the tag in the lead is ugly and the film is old enough that everyone going to the page already knows what happens. The guideline, however, says tags in intros are permissible in out-of-the-ordinary circumstances.

Match Point, where the twist is given away in the “thematic antecedents” section. Anti-spoiler editors say people viewing the article should know the twist will be given away in the section, and one editor says since it’s a Woody Allen film, the twist isn’t what’s important.

Sleepaway Camp, where the intro recently gave away the ending, but included a spoiler tag. I included the twist because I thought it was important, given that it’s the only thing most people remember about the film, but I included a warning because it’s gaining a cult following and a sequel is in the works. That means not everyone who wants to see it has. The plot twist has since been deleted by another editor.

If you look at all of the talk pages, it's the same old editors making the case against spoiler tags. --YellowTapedR 22:43, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

The Crying Game's plot twist is not what I would call a spoiler because knowledge of that plot twist is so wide spread. As for Match Point, I think someone already mentioned that the section was original research, so in that case the spoiler tag is a mute issue. And looking at the section before it was removed by Axem Titanium, I'll have to agree with the OR assessment until a secondary source is provided. As for Sleepaway Camp, it's a forgettable slasher film from the 1980s and I don't think there is much spoiler potential there to begin with. But the "spoiler" sentences about it was "considered by many viewers to have one of the most disturbing endings of all horror films" had issues with verifiability and original research as well as being weaselly worded. So again, the spoiler tag was a mute issue. --Farix (Talk) 23:07, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Farix, your comments about The Crying Game's plot point/spoiler being well-known and Sleepaway Camp being "forgettable" are personal opinion. It seems that the spoiler tag guidelines (such as they are) would be better applied if personal opinion was left out of the decision process. It would be chaos if every editor here went through and decided that some movies "deserve" tags and others don't. I've read through the archives (after inadvertently stumbling into this mess because I added a spoiler tag to Match Point) and confess I'm not even sure the guidelines, as they stand, can be modified. If so, is there room here for suggestions about the guidelines? Clockster 08:27, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Then you will agree on the point that an objective and verifiable criteria to determine plot details are spoilers and when exception can be made is necessary to make any progress on the guideline? --Farix (Talk) 12:41, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Yes, there does need to be an objective and verifiable criteria. Progress on this issue can't be made if we're arguing personal opinion about spoiler tag usage. Currently, there's a big problem of time and effort being wasted, not only in this discussion, but when new editors add spoiler tags. Editors find these newly-added tags and remove them without fully explaining why, which causes plenty of scuffles in individual articles. Everyone's time and energy would be saved if some solid criteria were in place, and the policy now is neither solid nor accurately enforced. Clockster 20:09, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Please stop using derogatory terms such as "the anti-spoiler crowd" to refer to people with whose opinions you disagree. Clean up your act. --Tony Sidaway 01:05, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
It's not derogatory in North American English m-w.com (click on crowd{2,noun}). That's a British connotation (COED "crowd") "often derogatory" but not always. Tourists can easily step into this spot of trouble, since I can't find mention of it in a British-North American dictionary. Milo 06:35, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Please stop using mother-esque phrases such as "clean up your act" when you talk down to people. There is nothing "derogatory" in saying "anti-spoiler crowd." It's just a lot more concise than saying "people who are against placing spoiler tags in articles."

To address The Farix's points:

  • You've given no evidence that the twist in The Crying Game is widespread enough that people reading the page already know what happens. I often go to wikipedia articles about movies I haven't yet seen to get an idea of whether I should waste my time/money on them. I'd never expect being spoiled just from reading the introduction.
  • I didn't realize that the section in Match Point had been deleted. So, yes, the point is moot. But, theoretically, if the section were to remain I would stand by my opinion on the need for a warning. I do not believe tags should be placed under "plot" sections, but in that case, it wasn't clear.
  • As for Sleepaway Camp, it's not up to you to decide whether the film is insignificant enough that it doesn't matter whether people are spoiled. I'm not the one who wrote the part about it being considered one of the most disturbing endings; I just elaborated. What would be your stance if it were like this?:

‎Sleepaway Camp was a 1983 horror movie written and directed by Robert Hiltzik—who also served as executive producer—about murders at a summer camp. The film came at a time when slasher films were in their heyday.

{{spoiler}} It is notable for its twist ending, during which it's revealed the killer is what seems to be a little girl. In the last shot, it's revealed the killer has a penis. {{endspoiler}}

But, looking at the Match Point article, I've learned something interested from Marc Shepherd:

"As of this moment, no movie article on Wikipedia has a spoiler tag. None. Nada. Marc Shepherd 21:55, 21 August 2007 (UTC)" —The preceding unsigned comment was added by YellowTapedR (talk • contribs).

--YellowTapedR 01:29, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

How exactly does this improve Wikipedia as an encyclopedia? Girolamo Savonarola 01:53, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Because you're supposed to serve the reader, not just cater to snobbery. What do spoiler tags do to harm Wikipedia as an encyclopedia?--YellowTapedR 02:01, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Yes, but that's a huge assumption on your part regarding the readers. The encyclopedia exists to serve verifiable knowledge on an article topic. It has no POV as to what the reader wants to read. Girolamo Savonarola 02:21, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Alas, WP must now get rid of those POV disambiguation notices. Oh, wait, they can stay because Britannica has them, right? Milo 06:35, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Hey, more offtopic conversation, great! The real world has forced encyclopedias to have disambiguation issues for hundreds of years. Paper encyclopedias have to choose what to list first (how do you order the meanings of Mercury?), online encyclopedias have to create links and decide whether to show the reader a topic page or a disambiguation page. If you think a no-spoiler warning policy necessitates that {{dablink}} and {{redirect}} may not be used, you should go and move Washington to Washington (U.S. state) (where it belongs) and Paris to Paris, France (where it doesn't belong). Happy editing, Kusma (talk) 07:15, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
1) It is on topic — I've discussed this point a number of times that you've missed.
2) Perhaps you are responding literally to an ironical construction? Milo 11:22, 22 August 2007 (UTC)


I'm not sure I get your reasoning. Wikipedia should strive to be useful to readers. Using spoiler tags allows for complete analysis of any given work while also giving readers who don't want to be spoiled a heads up. Most encyclopedias don't offer blow-by-blow plot descriptions, detailed articles on characters or video games, etc. --YellowTapedR 02:40, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

So you're saying that Britannica online doesn't have spoiler warnings bc they don't provide deep enough coverage? I'm not saying that we have to parrot EB, but let's be honest here: encyclopedias generally are spoiler-neutral. Why should we be the exception? (Note that this has nothing to do with "Wikipedia is not paper", which is a capacity statement. I'm tired of hearing that defense for the wrong situation.) The main objections to the spoiler warning are 1) that it has nothing to do with what would normally be considered encyclopedic standards as applied by all other mainstream encyclopedias, 2) it violates a neutral treatment of all information in the article, and 3) it has no containable measure of what qualifies for being spoiled (and potentially could be used for non-fictional elements too). Personally, I don't think that the hypothetical reader can even be addressed as an issue until these outstanding problems are resolved first, since they involve concepts and policies. There will always be users objecting to one thing or another - the first question is do the policies and guidelines allow for it? If not, how much needs to be radically re-structured to accommodate, and is there a broad consensus for it? But without evaluating the non-human element first, you're appealing to the logic of a hypothetical group which has no definitive size. Girolamo Savonarola 02:56, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
As far as useful, I quote a comment from the original RfC: Useful things are only part of our objective in so far as they directly contribute to the objective of being an encyclopedia. As said many times, useful things are not inherently placed in an encyclopedia. This includes phone books, [as well as] any number of things that might be based on POV. Plenty of useful things out there. Not all of them conform to the principles of an encyclopedia, though, which is our only basis for what goes here.' Ryu Kaze 20:05, 17 July 2006 (UTC) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Girolamo Savonarola (talk • contribs).
That's all nice, but you shouldn't forget the practical perspective. If there is significant minority that finds the SWs useful and not unencyclopedic, then, if you ban them, you will always have a lot of contention. I don't think it's worth that. Samohyl Jan 05:37, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
From the looks of the archive, there's going to be contention either way, so that doesn't really argue for either side. Girolamo Savonarola 06:14, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Spoiler warnings are not banned. Where we have consensus for them, they can be placed in an article. --Tony Sidaway 11:53, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
They are effectively banned, given the ever-shifting and often contradictory definitions of consensus. At the moment, the guideline hints that they are sometimes allowable, encouraging good faith editors to waste their time placating the half-dozen anti-spoiler admins on patrol. It's intellectually dishonest.--Nydas(Talk) 13:51, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
In the vast majority of cases, the removed warnings are placed on the entire plot. Like it or not, the guideline as currently worded says that you should not do that. Marc Shepherd 13:58, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
It says 'usually'. And it's a guideline. Any addition of a spoiler warning will trigger an identical response, there's nothing to suggest that not putting them over the entire plot has any effect on the draconian enforcement of this 'guideline'.--Nydas(Talk) 14:48, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Well, let's try this hypothesis: The problem is that the guideline is too vague. It says "usually," but there's insufficient criteria to allow people to reliably distinguish when the warnings they belong, and when they don't. The solution is to recommend changes to make clearer the kinds of circumstances when an exception is warranted. Marc Shepherd 15:12, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
I'll also say that blanket tagging an entire section or article or even a large part of one should never be done. If an entire section/page or even a large part of it is spoiler tag, then either the tag is unnecessary to begin with or the section or article needs to be retitled. --Farix (Talk) 15:34, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
I've tried adding spoiler tags only at the point where a massive plot twist is revealed: [1] it just gets reverted immediately by the usual suspects. Tomgreeny 15:22, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Can this be ended now? I suggest that we just let YellowTape chat on into an empty void. These points above he keeps raising have been brought up ad nauseum. He can read the archives, and there will be that much less crap on this page. David Fuchs (talk) 13:11, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
The Crying Game has already been beating into a bloody horse-shaped spot. The other two had problems other then "spoilers" and trying to use them as hypothetical cases is absurd. --Farix (Talk) 14:06, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Fuchs, I will shut up then. We wouldn't want the talk page to be ugly after all. An administrator really shouldn't be acting like such a dick. --YellowTapedR 15:28, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I am not being a dick. I am pointing out that this discussion has been had several times; the content and arguments on both sides never change. So read the archives, and there is less repetition on Wikipedia. David Fuchs (talk) 19:55, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Without agreement, I think David Fuchs has been nice enough to at least listen to my points. Thanks.
What's amazing is that David isn't listening to himself. Here he is strenuously arguing that that other editors should go away because the debate here is repetitive. If he really believes that, why is he here arguing?. If he really believes that, he should go edit an unrelated article, watch YouTube, or turn off the computer and go outside. Everyone and everything here that he seems to be claiming as unimportantly repetitive will disappear. I suggest David is here arguing against arguing because he senses there is something important at stake, even if he's not quite sure what it is.
I, on the other hand, don't have to guess about what's at stake. I know. Consensus versus clique control of Wikipedia is at stake, not absolutely, but in balance of power terms.
Over the course of this long debate there have been changes, but they are subtle and require reading between the lines. One of things that the clique has learned is that they can't get away with making a 45,000 articles change without having to personally pay for it in lost debate time and some degree of notoriety.
Of the million-some bytes written here, let's say each side wrote half, and maybe Tony personally wrote half of the anti-tag side. In addition, he's putting a large amount of time into the spoiler vigilantes. Carl thinks he'll get help, but Tony may be committing a significant fraction of his entire life to work that will evaporate when the next generation arrives and changes consensus. Will he sign on as spokesperson for Phil Sandifer or David Gerard's next Wiki-wide crusade against the young? I don't know, but surely the prospect of just reading another million bytes of repetitive debate would give him severe pause.
Penultimately, opposition to the next generation's tastes is what this spoiler-tag guide smoke-and-mirrors logic is really about. Ultimately, such opposition is futile, probably because consensus paradigm shift will eventually sweep away vigilante persecution of spoiler tag editors. Or, worst case, the clique will somehow hold on to many such paper-worshiping practices, and force a showdown resulting in a gigantic fork migration — after which the clique will become masters of an irrelevant low-bandwidth backwater site, while still bowing daily in the general direction of Chicago. Milo 04:00, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, Spiderman! :) Girolamo Savonarola 04:26, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Enough

This stuff about the anti-spoiler crowd claiming to have consensus is nonsense. If you read through the archives of this page, the majority clearly supports keeping them. Now they'll say that wikipedia isn't a "majority rules" organization, but that doesn't mean that everything must be decided by the MINORITY. The pro-spoiler crowd needs to be more bold and just edit the damn guideline. --YellowTapedR 23:59, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your comment regarding this proposed compromise... Girolamo Savonarola 00:22, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Current wording is biased against spoilers

  • The current wording of this guideline is far too biased against spoilers. We need to return to an environment where spoiler tags are respected and welcomed as useful tools. As a common sense guideline, any plot details that one would not expect to read in a newspaper film review should be placed behind spoiler tags. Johntex\talk 04:54, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
    • This is an encyclopedia, not a film review; the standards used by newspapers don't translate. Moreover, there has been an enormous amount of discussion on the matter. I suggest you read the May archives of the wikien-l mailing list. It's remarkable how much that discussion (that I had no role in) mirrors the current practice. — Carl (CBM · talk) 05:33, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
    • Along that line, here is a quote from JzG, May 31 [2]. "As it stands, there seems to be broad support for the idea that spoiler tags are redundant in plot / synopsis sections, absurd in articles on older and especially classic works, a substitute for {{original research}} in articles on future or forthcoming films, and possibly defensible in a small number of cases for new releases where knowing the plot twist is identified by external sources as a spoiler for the subject." — Carl (CBM · talk) 05:39, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
The "newspaper review" standard might not produce the outcome you expect. Some people, for instance, thought that the newspaper reviews of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows disclosed too much. I know many people who avoid newspaper reviews before they've seen a film, because they feel that critics routinely give away more than they should. I have yet to see a clear definition of what someone who wants to remain "unspoiled" would be willing to be told. It seems to vary from one individual to the next.
In the Harry Potter context, I noted that virtually all critics assumed that they could freely discuss the plot of the first six books. You see this in other contexts too. A critic reviewing a new play won't give away the ending. But a critic reviewing a revival of Hamlet doesn't consider himself to be under the same constraint. There is very clearly an unwritten rule that, at some point, critics no longer feel obligated to protect the reader from plot details. Marc Shepherd 17:04, 25 August 2007 (UTC)



Informal request for comments

I wonder if it would help discussion here if we focused on actual ongoing activity rather than ancient history.

I'll present my own spoiler-related activities over the past week as an example. As I begin write this, the time on the clock is 1440 GMT, 18 August, 2007, so I'll take 1440 on 11th, exactly seven days ago, as my starting point. That doesn't rule out discusion of my other activities related to spoiler tags since the start of the discussion on 15 May, but I thought it best to concentrate on what we're all up to now.

Of course we all know that I and some other editors occasionally take a peek at Whatlinkshere in article space for Template:Spoiler and remove stuff that doesn't seem to be appropriate. I won't go into detail on that here because that kind of editing seems to have been well discussed.

But also as was mentioned in Ken Arromdee's second application for arbitration I run a bot of sorts. I have described how it works here, The results of running this bot over the past week are publicly displayed at this page history. After running the bot I examine each article carefully to see if I think it's appropriate or not, then I may edit the article.

Examples of this are:

  • 22:23, 11 August 2007 Dear Frankie, "Remove home-made spoiler warnings. 1) use "{{tld|spoiler}}{" and 2) not in sections like "Plot" that obviously discuss the plot." removing section headings that said "==Spoiler warning==" and "==Spoilers end here==" after a clearly marked "Plot" section heading.
  • 23:09, 11 August 2007 Goodbye Charlie Bright, "Remove home-made spoiler warning. 1) use "{{tld|spoiler}}{" and 2) not in sections list "Plot" which are obviously going to discuss the plot.", removing tag that said "*Warning - Contains Spoilers*"

All other examples, which I won't give in detail, are as follows. I tried to use the templates template:col-begin, template:col-3 and template:col-end to make this list more compact on the page, but I'm sorry I can't seem to get it to work. If a kind magician should be reading this, I would welcome some help.


Comments on this output are welcome. There are thirty-odd edits so this activity amounts to about five edits a day. --Tony Sidaway 15:56, 18 August 2007 (UTC)

I spot-checked about 25% of the examples above, and all of them appeared to be appropriate edits, and consistent with the existing version of the guideline. I realize that there are some editors who don't like the existing version, but that is a different issue. Marc Shepherd 16:43, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
I think it would also help to see just who is adding the spoiler warning. In most causes I've encountered the person adding the warning is an anonymous editor, many with no other edit history. Registered editors tend to add them far less frequently. --Farix (Talk) 16:48, 18 August 2007 (UTC)
Good point. I have edited my list to use the "la" template, which gives links to article history, talk page, etc. --Tony Sidaway 10:33, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
Looks fine to me. I'd only suggest taking more care not to bite the n00bs in the edit summary, particularly when they're being quite stupid, e.g. "Remove text spoiler, and not in plot section - see WP:SPOIL" or similar - David Gerard 14:53, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
Okay no more references to "Z0MG SP01L3RZ!!!11!!" even when the warning is quite OTT. --Tony Sidaway 15:38, 19 August 2007 (UTC)
The only comment I have is that this list includes removing spoiler warnings from plot sections, something that (a) we don't seem to have consensus for and (b) is done on the base of an illogical argument, my refutation of which was never responded to. As I have stated, I am neutral on spoiler tags in general, but of course I am all for eliminating abuse of the spoiler tag. Still, I think we should have consensus here before we go making encyclopedia-wide edits. Just call me old-fashioned that way. Postmodern Beatnik 18:57, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
The current guideline says that spoiler warnings are usually redundant in plot sections. There are many Wikipedia guidelines that say "usually" (or "generally"). Indeed, it is the norm, since most rules have legitimate exceptions. An editor who believes the warning does not justify an exception is entitled to remove it. The burden is then on the editor who favors retaining it to explain why the situation is unusual.
I've been saying for a long time that the guideline needs to do a better job of explaining what constitutes an unusual situation. At some point, one of two things will happen. Either we will find a few examples that justify the exception, and then add them to the guideline. This will have the effect of making the bare adjective "usually" more clear as to its scope. Or, we will find that the exception is never justified, and "usually" will be removed.
Incidentally, I believe most of the examples above were "home-made" spoiler warnings, and didn't use the {{spoiler}} tag. This provided a second reason for their removal, since the guideline says that the template should be used, and this rule is not hedged with "usually". Marc Shepherd 19:57, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
It seems you are trying to disagree with me, but you did not actually do so at all. I agree that most of the above examples were "home-made" spoiler warnings, and you'll notice I didn't object to their removal. What I objected to was that Tony still seems to think that the mere fact of a spoiler tag appearing in the Plot section of an article is a sufficient reason to remove it. There is no consensus for such a view, as you highlighted by noting that it is only usually the case. Postmodern Beatnik 21:05, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

The "Other" compromise

Hiding the spoiler tag is not a real solution because all it does is hide the problem. Editors will still add "home made" warnings because the spoiler tag will not be visible. The real solution would be to establish objective criteria to determine when a plot detail is a spoiler and when it can receive a warning, much like how the notability guidelines work.

Also it is absurd to say that spoiler tags can be added without discussion but it needs to be discussed before it can be removed. We don't discuss if unverifiable information is unverifiable before removing it, do we? But if editors disagree with the removal of a spoiler tag, then they should discuss it on the articles talkpage to obtain a consensus.

Also, why go back to a version of the guideline that was clearly rejected by consensus (see previous MfD and subsequent RfC). It's much better to amend the current version with its vague consensus and find ways to improve that consensus then to go back to a rejected version. --Farix (Talk) 12:47, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

OK, I appreciate constructive argument. Hiding the spoiler tags maybe won't help problem you describe, but we don't actually know, if it's a problem at all - what will be the behavior of people if we do that. At least, it will be possible to see SWs for those who want them, and it won't make problem with making homemade warnings worse. And I would certainly revert homemade warning if there already would be a (hidden) warning, but I would probably save that effort in the current situation. So maybe editors will behave differently in a good way too, and this won't be a problem. The point is, we won't see until we try.
Regarding the second point, I actually prefer perfect symmetry with respect to additions/removals, it's just the situation we are in that results in asymetry you describe. There is a problem: if someone stumbles upon a page without spoiler warning, it is not obvious that it isn't there because nobody cares, or because nobody wants it (unless there was a discussion on talk page). So it is sane to assume that no-one cares, and add it (if he wants it) spoiler without discussion. In reverse, if the page already has spoiler warning, and there is no discussion of it already, it is obvious that the author or other people wanted it, so its removal should be discussed. So there is a natural asymetry from the fact that you cannot always detect rejection of SW, but can always detect acceptance of SW. This asymetry is further emphasized by the fact that almost no articles have SWs now.
As for the third point, I don't think the consensus was clear, but this was already debated to death. The reason why to return to the previous guideline is because it takes completely neutral stance - SWs may happen, and are subject to local consensus, and that's it (there were few non-contestable points such as no removal of content etc.). It was so neutral that it survived for several years without much controversy. So maybe there was consensus that better policy is needed, but I don't see much consensus for what such policy should be (except maybe no SWs in fairy tales, which is really a side issue). In fact, even editors such as Tony now talk more about return to local consensus. And also, it contained description how to switch SWs off if someone really found them offensive. Samohyl Jan 17:48, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Who determine when a plot detail is a spoiler? The problem with your system is that it reduces the definition of spoiler to its lowest common denominator—that of any plot detail. As show in the RfC, such a position is unacceptable. So we do need some sort of standard to determine what is and what isn't a spoiler.
Your statements also indicate that you prefer a system where there are no hurtles to add spoiler tags, but put up hurtles for those who want to remove them. The author adding the spoiler tag to identify and argue that a warning is necessary, but it is up to those removing the tag to argue that the plot detail is not a spoiler or does not need a warning (see negative proof). I'm completely opposed to such a position and think the burden of proof should be on editor(s) adding the tag instead of the one(s) removing the tag.
Of course, anyone adding or removing the tag should check the article's talk page. But 99% of the time, the inclusion of the spoiler tag is never discussed. --Farix (Talk) 20:14, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
For every Wikipedia style issue I'm aware of, local consensus occurs within a "ring fence" established by site-wide guidelines. The only exception would be style issues that, by their nature, apply to only a small subset of articles in a specialist area, a situation clearly not applicable to spoiler warnings. I support the "local consensus" idea, but first there needs to be a site-wide guideline that covers the mine run of typical cases.
It's not really true that the previous guideline "survived for several years without much controversy." Spoiler warnings have been a continuously controversial subject, at least for the few years that I've been around. Marc Shepherd 18:30, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
If the controversy would be measured by amount of discussion, then the current guideline is several times more controversial than the previous one. And it's not surprising - the previous guideline was rather neutral, while current one more or less bans most of SWs. As for the argument that site-wide guideline is needed first, it obviously wasn't there for several years. If you want to create guideline ex post in such situation, you cannot ignore (then) current practice, which is precisely what happened. Anti-spoilerists ignored the actual practice (that many people want, use and add SWs), removed SWs from many articles, and the resulting guideline is thus even more controversial. Samohyl Jan 19:37, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
Because less then a half-dozen editors are keeping the issue alive by complaining about the May-June removals of the spoiler template, that certain editors are somehow "bad" for systematically removing the template from articles, and that certain MediaWiki tools also give them the advantage. In fact, very little of the discussion has been about the guideline itself. If that effort has been put into improving the guideline, then we would have had a much clearer consensus by now and most of the "discussion" wouldn't have taken place. --Farix (Talk) 20:14, 21 August 2007 (UTC)
OK, as you can see, that's what I am doing. Obviously, there are people who find SWs useful and not unencyclopedic. So what parts of this guideline would you be willing to give up in order to have a compromise with them? It's nice words about improving the guideline, but if your points are non-negotiable, then it's just a fluff talk. Samohyl Jan 05:43, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
For example, if there were clear guideline what is a spoiler, would you give up "no SWs in plot section"? Samohyl Jan 05:48, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
I don't really see anything fundamentally wrong with the current restrictions. But if there are to be spoiler tags in the plot section, then it needs to be extremely limited—in other words not the entire plot section or even most of it—and with a clear TTL. Contrary to the belief of some spoiler proponents, spoilers do age and become less relevant over time.
However, the real issue that needs to be settled is trying to objectively define a spoiler. Mainly because what people thinks is a spoiler differs from person to person. --Farix (Talk) 13:00, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
That may be, but your "who determines when a plot detail is a spoiler?" argument is a red herring. The kind of reasoning that says "the line is blurry, so let's erase it and not have to think about an actual solution" is an appeal to laziness. Our job is to be editors. We make tough decisions. If you can't deal with the heat, get out of the kitchen. Postmodern Beatnik 19:09, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Unless there are objective and verifiable criteria to determine what is a spoiler, then spoiler tag because it will invariably violate Wikipedia's polices on WP:NPOV and WP:V. But since there is a significant minority that wants spoiler tags, a method of establish "spoilerness" is a fundamental requirement. The more we can eliminate editors' personal POV about what plot details are spoilers, the better off we are as a whole. --Farix (Talk) 19:57, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
I don't understand this: Why should anyone care if SW is NPOV? The people who want to see it probably don't care, and those who don't like to see it will see it regardless where in the plot it will appear. Also, there is no exact criteria for sections in biographies, nothing like "early life is up to 25" or something like that. In fact, if we had the precise criteria, we would solve problem for all articles, so coming to such criteria is no easier than to argue each page separately, as I suggested. Samohyl Jan 20:57, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps, Farix, but you tend to assume that there are no such criteria rather than argue for such a conclusion. I called you before on your improper use of the Sorities paradox, and you never responded. I believe that there can be consensus over what constitutes a spoiler. Reasonable people can see which views are too lenient ("The movie begins on a Friday? I didn't want to know that!") or too strict ("Jack and Tyler are the same person, but don't worry—it's not a major plot point, unexpected twist, or anything like that.") and find that golden mean. Have some faith in your fellow editors. Postmodern Beatnik 21:18, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
(deindent) Because WP:NPOV and WP:V are non-negotiable policies that applies to defining spoilers just as they apply to any other article content. --Farix (Talk) 12:36, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
I don't think spoiler warnings are content (spoilers are something different). It's editor's decision, not content. There are many things in articles like that, such as layout, style and so on. I don't see why would we want NPOV or verifiability on things like that. I think you are just interpreting rules here in formal manner, without any common sense. Samohyl Jan 20:37, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Spoiler warnings are not the same as a section headings, it is a content disclaimer and falls under the same rules as content. Otherwise, there is no point in putting spoiler warnings on articles to begin with. --Farix (Talk) 21:29, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Please, Farix, use common sense. How differs a POV placed SW from an NPOV placed one? How can one verify SW by sources? Give me an example, if you can. These questions don't make sense, because it's just an editorial decision. If Wikipedia had content disclaimers, you would not need to come up with a source that article about an illness is really about an illness. To want that is just silly. Samohyl Jan 05:46, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

A compromise

As much of this page is stuck in the usual doldrums of rehashing old arguments, I thought I'd launch a new sub-topic with a fresh approach. These are my views on the spoiler warning controversy. Please note that I have managed to draft this section without ever once suggesting that editors who believe differently are acting in bad faith.

1) I think that spoiler tags are strongly favored by a significant minority of the Wikipedia community. Because the pro-tag contingent is a minority, the site should not go to great lengths to cater to them. But because they are significant, some accommodation is reasonable. I suspect that most Wikipedians don't much care either way.

2) No one yet has proposed a compelling, widely-accepted definition of "what is a spoiler." The reasons for this problem are easy to explain. The whole premise of spoiler tags is that some readers want to be told a little — but not too much — about a fictional work (film, book, video game,). But no one can say how much is "too much." Every reader will have his or her own limit.

3) Spoiler tags embedded in the middle of an article are disruptive, unencylopedic, and only sporadically helpful. That they are disruptive is unarguable. The tags are meant to disrupt the reading process, to give the reader a chance to decide whether he wants to continue. That they are unencyclopedic is also unarguable: just look at other encyclopedias. Their helpfulness is harder to prove. But intra-article placement depends on editors being able to guess how much other readers will want to know. Such guesswork is inherently tricky, so inevitably editors will get it wrong. One also finds that spoiler-sensitive editors make specific decisions about structuring articles, to concentrate spoilers in just a few places. Thus, the structure and flow of the article is influenced by someone guessing what readers would prefer to avoid.

4) I therefore conclude that, in those articles that merit spoiler tags at all, the tag should be at the very top. The reader is then properly forewarned that, somewhere within the body of the article, significant plot details are discussed that could "spoil" the work. It is not up to us to guess how much a reader wants to know. With warnings at the top of the article, editors are free to structure the prose as they see fit, without trying to confine spoilers to one or more specific sections.

5) I think there is an overwhelming consensus — this does not, of course, mean unanimity — that at some point, a fictional work becomes part of "world culture," and people writing about it no longer feel constrained to provide a warning before discussing significant plot details. This does not mean that everyone in the world knows those details. It just means that an intelligent reader researching that work would not be surprised to find the plot openly discussed. Any literature search will quickly tell you that, the older the work, the less likely you will find anything resembling a "spoiler warning." Precisely how old a work must be before this happens is open to reasonable debate, but it's probably somewhere between 1 and 10 years after the work debuts.

6) In light of the above, a reasonable solution is to routinely tag every article on a fictional work that is, say, less than two years old. The tag would explicitly use the word "spoiler," because that is the commonly accepted term, and is unambiguous. The tag would go at the top of the article, because no one can guess which text readers want to see. The wording would be something like: "This article discusses a recently released [work of fiction/film/video game/comic book/...]. It may contain significant details, including spoilers." Such a warning could be made relatively discrete (to avoid offense to the anti-warning crowd), but conspicuous enough that no one who cares should miss it.

7) This proposal represents a middle ground between editors who want to tag every fictional work ever created, including the Three Little Pigs; and those who never want to see spoiler warnings under any circumstances. It offers a bright-line rule that would eliminate most of the judgment-calls, and would put warnings on most of the works that the pro-warning crowd feel most strongly about. It also marks the entire article, thereby sparing editors from guessing which parts of an article would "spoil" the story for some hypothetical reader.

I am not terribly troubled by the guideline we now have, but I do think the above proposal should give the pro-warning crowd a considerable amount of what they want, in an innocuous way that the anti-warning crowd could conceivably accept as minimally disruptive. Marc Shepherd 13:21, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Two years is pushing it IMO. I suggest instead the use of a {{current fiction}} or {{future book}} (or another tag from Category:Temporal templates) - it's larger and, by being immediately obvious in its meaning and applicability, doesn't encourage the proliferation of spoilers elsewhere. It's also (a) more specific (b) visually larger - David Gerard 13:34, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
A very well written, calm, and simple explanation and proposal. I like it -- it's temporary, it doesn't look heinous, and it helps the ignorant know exactly that. David has a point, but there's no reason we can't change one of the above templates to incorporate the idea -- we're a wiki, after all. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 13:38, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
I have supported this compromise for some time. I made the template {{current fiction}} for exactly the purpose you have proposed. It has been used on the Harry Potter book and some other new releases with little opposition (or comment, really) from the people editing the article. The fact that there was no little comment seems to indicate that the point of the template is clear enough that people see why it's there. It helps that it resembles the template for a future work of fiction and the template for current news events, which are also widely used. I'll put a copy below. Rather than making a new template, just edit that one. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:52, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
This article documents a recently released work of fiction.
It may contain detailed information on the characters, plot, and ending of the work of fiction it describes.
Indeed. The stuff in Category:Temporal templates makes {{spoiler}} largely redundant - David Gerard 17:05, 23 August 2007 (UTC)


"A compromise "..."proposal represents a middle ground " In general, you can't propose a compromise unless you clearly understand the positions of all sides. You don't understand the pro-spoiler-tag positions.
This proposal is not only not a compromise, it's actually more anti-spoiler-tag than the current guide, since it would ban internal spoiler notices theoretically permitted now. Its essence seems to be to copy the general spoiler notice at the top of all fiction articles for two years after release. That's not different in practice than the present situation with no tags, because in either case readers want to read some or all parts of the article that are spoiler-free; they can't do that unless spoilers are identified by location within the article.
The central flaw in your reasoning is that editorial judgments about spoiler identity and placement or age of the work can somehow be replaced with any simple rule set. They can't, partly because one of the functions of art is to creatively break rules about art.
The genuine compromise is to allow these spoiler identity and tag placement judgments to be made easily (using a menu of real examples such as those used in standarized essay grading) by the local consensus art jury, and to hide the results from editors who don't want to see them. The compromise by the anti-tag side is that hidden tags get freely made and placed anywhere. The compromise by the pro-tag side is that newbs are going to get spoilered until they learn how to turn on the tags before reading. Milo 18:11, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Well, I thoroughly expected an ad hominem attack from the usual suspects, and Milo has not disappointed me. It's a classic diversionary argument to suggest that the proposal should be disregarded because the proposer allegedly doesn't understand the problem. I'm not sure Milo understands it either, given that he has not moved one millimeter off of the position he's previously stated dozens of times.
Milo suggests that we need "a menu of real examples such as those used in standarized essay grading." If that's your approach, then you need to start drafting the menu. It's not going to come into existence by magic. Marc Shepherd 18:22, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
"the proposer allegedly doesn't understand the problem" That very response is evidence of my point. I didn't write that you didn't understand the problem. I wrote "You don't understand the pro-spoiler-tag positions." "The problem" and "positions" are not synonyms. When you can't accurately restate what other people tell you, you don't understand their positions, and you are unlikely to be successful in proposing compromises.
"I'm not sure Milo understands it either, given that he has not moved one millimeter off of the position he's previously stated " You seem to be saying that if I understood the problem, I'd naturally change my position. If so, that's a classic beginner's notion — negotiation and compromise don't work that way. Understanding the problem, and moving of positions, are complexly related by an informational and political calculus, which IMHO, you have not mastered.
"classic diversionary argument to suggest that the proposal should be disregarded because the proposer allegedly doesn't understand the problem" There's nothing logically wrong with doing that. A proposer who doesn't understand the problem is like a blind squirrel hunting for nuts.
But maybe you are mistating the ad hominem fallacy? The classic ad hominem logical fallacy is to disregard the argument because the proposer is some kind of objectionable person. (#Ad hominem as formal fallacy) For the record, I don't think you are objectionable as a person, and I think that you mean well, which disposes of all your ad hominem charges.
"attack" You weren't attacked. You were criticized for well-explained cause, and behavior is commentable. Notable work as a mediator, Marc — see the mess you provoked below with ill-chosen and inflammatory language. Perhaps you should not pursue negotiating as a career. Milo 23:59, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Milo, I am not suggesting that if you understood the problem, you'd change your position. But I am suggesting that if you understood the problem, you'd be willing to explore alternatives, instead of just saying the same thing over and over again. It is rare that progress is made that way, and it sure doesn't seem to be happening here. It's nice to know that I don't understand the "political calculus." I didn't realize I had joined a political site. Thanks for clearing it up. Now, back to nut-hunting. Marc Shepherd 00:53, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
Pay no attention to Milo. He has repeatedly demonstrated that he is not interested in discussing the issue in good faith with his ad hominem attacks. However, one of the problems I do have with your proposal is the use of the term "spoiler". Because it is all too often a value judgment, it is a very ambitious term. And since one of the general goals of an encyclopedia is to be an academic work, I think the term should be avoided unless it is used within the context of source being cited. Using the {{current fiction}} as a base and renaming it to {{recent fiction}} will give it a longer TTL period then it currently has. But as an academic work, we do need to have a clear cut-off point as to when the template should be removed. --Farix (Talk) 18:56, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
"ad hominem attacks" Pay no attention to that phrase. Marc can't tell the difference between an attack and being criticized for flawed debate reasoning.
"in good faith." Impugning my good faith is a personal attack WP:AGF#Accusing others of bad faith. Unless you are willing to repeat that at AN/I with documentation, please delete that second sentence in your Farix 18:56. I'd also like an apology, but I suppose that's asking too much of you. Milo 23:59, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
I do like the idea Milo mentions about having the option to place a spoiler tag within the article instead of always at the top of the article. While I like Carl's template a lot, I think its placement should be fluid. If it's at the top of every article that's under, say, 2 years old, it will very quickly be overlooked by everyone. The eyes will scan right over it without registering its meaning. Also, I wish there was a better criterion to use than age of the work of fiction, but I don't believe there is one. Clockster 20:29, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
"idea Milo mentions about having the option to place a spoiler tag within the article" Not my idea, it's currently allowed in the guide, and Marc thinks pro-tag editors should compromise by agreeing to remove that option, yet get nothing useful in return. Go figure. Milo 23:59, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Well, in exchange the pro-tag editors would be able to tag hundreds of articles, with a clear guideline permitting the tags to remain in place for a considerable amount of time. I do not object to tags within the articles as well, provided examples offering clear guidance for their use can be devised. For some odd reason, those most in favor of this never actually propose anything.. Marc Shepherd 00:53, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
"in exchange the pro-tag editors would be able to tag hundreds of articles" That's not an exchange because a general spoiler notice tag at the top is useless, except for scorning readers who complain, which serves only the antis. But then of the additional, useful in-article tags, the local spoiler tag vigil-antis would say 'no way, you have a tag at the top'. Therefore, it would be a mistake for the pros to accept any such false compromise. Milo 07:28, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
The difficulty with intra-article tags is that no one yet has suggested a workable standard for when and where they're appropriate. I'm open-minded, but I think the editors most in favor of them need to propose what the guideline should be. And no, "local art-jury" does not, on its own, suffice. Even juries need standards to guide what they do.
Consider the multitude of Harry Potter articles on Wikipedia: 279 of them, most of which refer to the plot. To someone who's read the first 6 books, any surprise from the 7th is a potential spoiler. To someone who's read the first 4, any of the surprises from Books 5–7 are potential spoilers. To someone who's read none of it, the whole plot from Book 1 onward is a potential spoiler. I don't know how intra-article spoiler tags are supposed to be structured in such a case.
Nor is the Harry Potter example unique. There are many series of Wikipedia articles where you have a continuing story that unfolds over multiple episodes or volumes. How much you can disclose without "spoiling" it depends on how much the reader has read or seen so far. Marc Shepherd 14:17, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
"And no, "local art-jury" does not, on its own, suffice. Even juries need standards to guide what they do." The essay-grading type examples will provide the standards. Anyone involved in college-level English education knows the method works. No, I'm not going to waste my time writing them now. That's way too much into details when the two sides are so far apart on the central versus local control issues.
"I don't know how intra-article spoiler tags are supposed to be structured in such a case." One ideal way would be to use a tag hiding system with multiple options. Click the names of episodes one has read (or levels mastered), and the proper tags turn on. But that kind of problem is best handled by solution-seeking principles within the art-jury standards, and modular examples based on the current tool set. The tools and examples periodically change, but the principles mostly don't change.
"The difficulty with intra-article tags is that no one yet has suggested a workable standard for when and where they're appropriate." Some editors may believe this is a significant issue but I don't. Technical method issues are just a red herring which distracts from the real clique agenda, which is to prevent youth culture from morphing Wikipedia toward youthful expectations of how internet sites should work. Spoiler tags merely happen to be the current flash point of this intergenerational conflict.
As nearly as I can tell, agreement on the principle of tag hiding is the keystone to agreement on the other issues. If the clique doesn't have to look at the tags, then their other objections all summarize to variations on 'the world is changing and I don't like change, nor the young people who arrive bringing about change'. Milo 11:24, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
These "young people" whom you mention. Are they aware they've appointed you their spokesman? --Mark H Wilkinson (t, c) 11:47, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
Tsk, tsk, it sounds like you are trying to suppress the Human Right to Organize. [3]. Anyway, consider yourself opted out. Milo 22:08, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
Am I? Grief, good of you to let me know. And there I was, simply thinking I was underlining someone's tendency to cry that there will be wolves due sometime soon. --Mark H Wilkinson (t, c) 22:46, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
{ahem} Mr. Wilkinson, let me introduce you to the red herring. Oh, I see. You two are already well acquainted. My apologies. (And before you object, perhaps you could explain to me just how it matters that Milo is sticking up for those may not be aware of his support for them. Should I stop promoting freedom for Tibetans simply due to the fact that they are (by and large) unaware of my support for them? When debating whether or not to pull the plug on a comatose patient, is it sufficient to note that the patient is not aware of the debate and thus we can pull the plug without further debate? I rather suspect you will have a hard time coming up with a relevant answer.) Postmodern Beatnik 22:51, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
It's simple enough: Milo has imagined a position that those young people have, and is now defending it. Like his story of film and television industry heavyweights who are due to pull out the rug from under Wikipedia, it's a work of not the real. In other words, he's crying wolf. --Mark H Wilkinson (t, c) 23:16, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
"In other words, he's crying wolf." You are confusing a forecast with a prophecy. You have simplisticly misrepresented my multiple options business forecast, carefully circumscribed with if/when/not conditionals, as "crying wolf". It isn't my position that the wolf is coming for sure, since that depends on whether big publishing/Hollywood can afford to hire a wolf; so, your "cry wolf" claim is a straw man fallacy.
"Milo has imagined a position that those young people have" Mass movements of young people aren't positions, so I'm not sure what you think I imagined. Milo 06:58, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
Mr. Wilkinson, I see that you have not actually answered my question: why should I stop supporting a free Tibet just because Tibetans don't know about my support? That is, your comment rests entirely on the implied objection that there is something wrong with Milo supporting the interests of people without their being aware of his support. That, or you actually had no point at all and just wanted to blow off some steam with a quasi-witticism. But I prefer to assume that you had an actual purpose in commenting. Postmodern Beatnik 21:24, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
Feel free to call me Mark, hardly anyone does. I'll keep it brief: I'm less than convinced that Milo is looking after those young people's interests. Which makes the case somewhat distinct from your patronisation of Tibetans. --Mark H Wilkinson (t, c) 21:30, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
Well, Mark: have you considered that Milo and I might be some of those young people? (Besides, the point was not truly about age as it is about people who are pro-change vs. people who are anti-change.) Postmodern Beatnik 16:39, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
How about a guideline for all plot points and/or spoilers to be placed under the Plot heading only, and if a spoiler tag is needed, it goes along with the Plot heading? That would be less intrusive but visually different than the "regular" Plot heading, and thus less easily scanned over by a viewer used to seeing the same heading on every article.
As for other sites that use or don't use spoiler tags (reference your comment below), almost every film site I go to -- blogs, reviews, forums, TCM, Usenet, etc. -- uses some kind of spoiler notice, even if it's a cursory notice somewhere in the FAQ. Most reference materials like World Book or Britannica don't go into enough depth on single films that they need to worry about spoilers. That said, many film-specific reference books contain spoilers galore. They don't have spoiler notices; film buffs like me just learn that film encyclopedias and such will possibly spoil you. The same goes with biographies and autobiographies. The problem is that the general user thinks of Wikipedia as an Encyclopedia Britannica kind of reference, not a Leonard Maltin's Movie Encyclopedia type reference. It certainly clouds the issue. My opinion is to err on the side of caution and keep spoiler tags and develop a clear guideline for using them. Clockster 09:45, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't think this is a good compromise, but I appreciate the try. I don't explicitly disagree though, I just think it misses the point. The people you are trying to compromise with want spoilers because they use them. But there are no data available about how old the works they use them for are. There is simply no evidence at all that large majority of uses of SWs is (or would be) related to works no older than 2 years. If it would be true, I could agree with such compromise, but if it isn't true, then it misses the point. At least, I think it is not true for me, because, I used SWs often on movies that were from 70s, or on something that just went on TV. In fact, I think I more prone to get to know the ending of recent works from other sources than Wikipedia (because of the marketing), rather than obscure works I look up. I would like to see it backed up with some research. Samohyl Jan 20:53, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I started with the premise that the older the work, the lower the likelihood that you'll find spoiler tags employed on other reference sites. You needn't trust my judgment on that. Feel free to survey the landscape for yourself. Choose a number of works of widely varying genre and age, google them, and see where spoiler warnings are found. Or alternatively, search for spoiler warnings, and take note of the age/genre of the works covered.
Now then: If you find that other sites (outside of Wikipedia) have frequently employed the warnings in certain situations, it's evidence that the warnings are widely seen as useful. If you find that the warnings are largely absent in certain types of situations, then it ought to make you think twice about why we need them on Wikipedia. I do realize there are some people who think it's irrelevant what anyone else has done. But an argument without any external reference point is doomed to go on without end.
And I think I'm being pretty generous about my criteria. Some people think we should look only at what other encyclopedias have done. In that case, the discussion would be over with, because I've never seen an encyclopedia with a spoiler warning. I think we should be broader minded, looking generally and broadly at what other reference sources (broadly construing the term) have done. But I do think you need a reference point.
The two-year bright-line rule is simply an attempt to find a compromise between never and forever. It doesn't much matter to me if the line is at one year or five. If I'm wrong about the temporal nature of it—and there's evidence of that—then I would change my views. But I think you'll find that people worry a lot more about spoiler warnings on a film released yesterday, than on the plays of Sophocles. Marc Shepherd 21:34, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
"two-year bright-line rule is simply an attempt to find a compromise" Any such hard-limit rule is not necessary, or practical, except to prevent the marginal use of spoiler tags. Therefore it's not a compromise with pro-tag readers and editors.
"I've never seen an encyclopedia with a spoiler warning" How quickly we forget — Wikipedia was the industry leader with 45,000 of them. Oh, that's right, you don't have a rear-view mirror. Milo 07:28, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
Yes...and it was all by itself. And when others suggest that you find external precedents, you do not do so. Is it that you can't be bothered? Or is it because you fear the data will not support your position? Just wondering.... Marc Shepherd 14:17, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
"when others suggest that you find external precedents, you do not do so. Is it that you can't be bothered? Or is it because you fear the data will not support your position? Just wondering.... " Apply Occam's razor — I simply see through it and need do nothing. External precendents aren't necessary to justify a feature Wikipedia use to have in great quantity, with consensus, and popularity. Milo 11:24, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
Spoiler tags are favoured by a majority of Wikipedians (probably 70%), hence the extraordinary measures taken to remove them. These measures are still continuing, with the spoiler police and anti-spoiler bots. Were there consensus, these arrangements would not be necessary, just as there is no anti-trivia section patrol. The guideline, as written, currently tricks good faith editors into wasting their time arguing with the spoiler police.
No-one has offered a compelling, widely-accepted definition of 'early life' for biography articles, why not get rid of those as well? Editors can be trusted to make reasonable judgements about what constitutes a spoiler, just as they can be trusted to use wikilinks or see also sections.
The 'spoilers are unencyclopedic' argument is an illogical mix of semantics and conservatism. It's like a caveman insisting that all tools must be made of stone or wood, and metal tools are untool-like. Spoilers tags are not any more disruptive than section headings or tables, or any other way of presenting information. Their helpfulness is rooted in being a general reference work with a worldwide audience that gets new people coming in every day.
The anti-spoiler editors have a tough time taking a worldwide view, consistently adopting a US and fan-centric perspective. Early on, I asked how many women over 50 would know who Darth Vader was. The response was that they won't be browsing anyway. A thoroughly unwikipedian outlook, and old-fashioned too. As for entering 'world culture' after a set period of time, what about re-releases or remakes?
There are a few occasions where spoiling information in the lead is OK, but in the vast majority of articles, it's unnecessary and leads to bad, in-universe writing.--Nydas(Talk) 20:59, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
Spoiler tags are favoured by a majority of Wikipedians (probably 70%) — Ok, whence came the percentage and in what sense is the term "favoured" being used? I'm in "favour" of spoiler tags in the sense that I can think of circumstances under which they might be appropriate... --Mark H Wilkinson (t, c) 21:12, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
The figure probably comes from an improperly conducted straw poll in the last RfC in May/June. First of all, the poll never had any relevance to the discussions of the proper placement of spoiler warnings nor did it contribute to the discussion. It was simply an attempt by a couple of pro-spoiler warning editors to "score points". And second, the poll has never been closed, invalidating any potential incite it may have given. --Farix (Talk) 21:36, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
After reading the archived talk page, I'm reasonably sure there was no actual consensus. Since many spoiler tags are being added by a relatively large number of people but then removed by a small group of people, I can see where one could assume that tags are indeed favored by the majority. Personally, I feel the needs and wants of those who use Wikipedia -- even if they don't edit or contribute -- should be considered. I agree with Nydas on that. It's my understanding, however, that Wikipedia is "not a democracy" and it doesn't matter what the majority opinion is. If that's the case then we need to stop arguing about who's the majority and instead focus on some kind of workable spoiler tag criteria. Clockster 23:13, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
"workable spoiler tag criteria" That would be local consensus decided, but freely-placeable hidden tags. It's win-win: pros get to use them, but antis don't have to look at them. Milo 07:28, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
Every Wikipedia guideline is constantly violated by large numbers of people, only to be reverted. In light of this general trend, it does not appear to me that violations of the spoiler guideline are extraordinarily common. Feel free to show otherwise, if you can. There is no conceivable Wikipedia guideline that will not require monitoring. Marc Shepherd 00:53, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
I'm not saying that guidelines don't need monitoring, just like I never said Match Point should have a spoiler tag because other film articles do. My point is that an inordinate amount of time and energy is being spent on the spoiler tag issue, in part because of the constant reversion of good-faith efforts made per existing guidelines to add a tag. Take Match Point for example. Anti-tag editors removed the tags for reasons that seemed like nothing more than personal opinion, and their comments contained little real information. At one point, discussion turned positively cryptic when an editor showed up just to tell us we were all wasting our lives. No mention of a larger spoiler tag issue was made until someone from the pro-tag side showed up, hoping to get allies to join their cause here. At that point it became obvious that editors from both sides of the issue are bounding into all sorts of articles they don't usually work on just to further an agenda. I'll be honest: I find all this agenda-based arguing silly and unproductive. If the issue is so heated that a relatively simple guideline will be impossible to agree to, then it's not worth my time to worry about it. Clockster 10:52, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
If you want to help cut through the agendas, talk up consensus for hidable tags. With that feature agreed in principle (ignore technical red herrings) then the other agenda-based issues can be resolved without your involvement. Milo 11:24, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
Farix, are you claiming that the actual usage of SWs has no relevance to the discussion if it's good to have them or not? I would say it's very relevant. And by the way, when I started that poll, I was not involved on any side (though I had an opinion). It was just attempt to get information. The poll was never closed, because it was basically boycotted by the anti-spoiler people with the argument you give (I don't think 2 days is a reasonable time for such a poll). And for the record, I hate all that "Wikipedia is not a democracy" thing. I understand reasons behind that (there is no easy way to fight sockpuppets, so we need a catch like this), but unfortunately, if you won't respect majority opinion (of real people), what you will get will be either anarchy or dictatorship. Samohyl Jan 05:59, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
The current fiction template is tested, neutral, and effective. I was also an observer of the HP7 page in the last week prior to release, and the template greatly helped. I agree with this proposal. Girolamo Savonarola 21:52, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
First, Marc, I'd like to start off by saying that thus far I've considered you one of the standouts of the anti-spoiler side. I mean that in a positive way. Even when we disagreed, you've been patience and showed willingness to change your mind, so I'd like to applaud that.
That said, I do not consider this a good compromise. It's another in a string of compromises that really only advance the anti-spoiler side. As others have mentioned, it amounts to a ban on spoiler warnings. I should also point out it does something that is apparently one of the arguments of those opposed to warnings consider a bad thing: it's a content disclaimer. And that's all. Saying something is current fiction and you may be spoiled is absolutely no different than saying 'there's nudity in this article', except that the current fiction notice will eventually expire, and, in effect, is only useful to people who want to know about spoiler warnings if they're willing to give up ALL other information on the topic that wikipedia can provide. Targetted spoiler warnings have uses beyond that, uses I have argued elevate it above just a content warning, and into something more like a section heading (but not exactly, because it won't go in a table of contents). One can decide they don't want to read someone's early life section (which, I agree, is just as much a 'NPOV judgement call' as whether something is a spoiler), because they're only interested in the end of their life. Similarly, one can decide they want to read enough of the plot to get an idea of it, without knowing the major events of it. Or, they can do the opposite... they can decide they just want to know the twists, and the spoiler warning helps them find that quickly. A label at the top has none of these uses.
I'd also state that different media seem to naturally have different thresholds of spoilerability, at least to me. Books, for example, (cases like Harry Potter are an exception) are much less likely to be read within 2 years before their contents are widely known. Comics much less, at least within their community, probably much more outside of it. Movies can keep for a long time before becoming 'classic'. I'm not even sure if it's possible for music or say paintings to have spoilers.
Beyond that, I'll not reiterate the arguments made by others in the section, except to say that I agree strongly with Clockster's comments about a lot of people who are biased one way or another in the spoiler debate jumping into articles they otherwise have no interest in. In the light of the lack of any consensus on what the guideline itself actually should be, this is not good policy. Ideally, we'd generate a good guideline with room for exceptions and leave it to UNINTERESTED parties to enforce it on the articles they happen to come across. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: If a guideline has consensus, it doesn't need anyone to make a _mission_ of enforcing it (and deciding, for each article, whether a particular case is an exemption or not), because a strong population of the editors will agree, and enforce it locally on their own articles. Maybe not right away, but gradually, and over time, like the rest of wiki is improved (if indeed that's what it is to remove a spoiler warning). Why _should_ we be in a damned rush over it? What is so harmful about a spoiler warning that some people feel they must regularly watch to see if one's being added, and immediately stamp it out? If only these people used such zeal to improve articles in other, less controversial things that already had consensus. Wandering Ghost 14:01, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
"it's a content disclaimer" No, it isn't. That's one of the hype warning fallacies.
1) A spoiler tag is not a disclaimer because it can't pass the hidden warning tag test, because there is no danger.
2) Since it's not a disclaimer, and there is no danger, it can't be a bone fide warning.
3) It also can't be merely called a warning, because then everyone thinks it's a disclaimer — but a disclaimer can't exist without danger, or at least a claim of danger.
4) Since it's also not an alert (to danger), that means it's a spoiler notice, which is a content notice like the disambiguation notice and the hidable Table of Contents notice, which no one confuses with disclaimers.
Milo 11:24, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
Sorry Milo, no matter how many times you beat that drum, I don't think that majority of people buy it, nor do I really think it's relevant... and I'm strongly pro-spoiler warning. Because I don't think there's any danger in nudity, or coarse language, or more other things there's been a potential disclaimer about (violence may be an exception, because of PTSD sufferers), but it's still a content disclaimer if we point out that an article has nudity, or coarse language, or other controversial stuff in it. However, the spoiler warning is different, and should be an exception, because a) people want it, and consensus does not exist to keep it out like it does (I assume, I've not looked into the issue extensively) the others, and b) because it's not _just_ a content disclaimer. It has other uses, and those elevate it beyond one, and closer into something like a section heading, which, yes, might disclaim what kind of content you're about to read, but its utility outweighs that. However the 'current fiction' template removes those other uses and it become _just_ a disclaimer, and a rather pointless one.
(As an aside, Nydas and others have brought up, while arguing about the _other_ disclaimers, that even though we've agreed not to use things like graphic sexual content disclaimers, the actual amount of graphic sexual content is low - most sex-related articles don't have pornographic-type images, for example. I wonder now if it's at least partly the same effect as what I warned and have seen taking place... because of the lack of the ability to warn about spoilers, people will be more shy about including spoilers at all, or to remove spoilery sections. On lower-trafficed pages, this can become a problem, because the anti-spoiler patrol will watch that nobody adds a warning, but won't be watching every page to see if someone removes content. To me it would be better to allow a spoiler warning to go unremoved even where it might violate the guideline than to allow the much more important principle of "do not remove or keep out information 'because it's a spoiler'" to go on being violated, because that's what some people will do in the absence)
Anyway, the content disclaimer's like a blanket spoiler warning over plot, if you like, which the anti-spoiler side railed against as being redundant. They had a point that it's redundant when you put it over the whole plot section. But when the compromise is agreed to and 'whole plot spoiler warnings' is tossed out, for targetted spoiler warnings are harder to justify as being 'wrong'. Top-of-the-article disclaimers are _easier_ to justify as being wrong, for both sides, and so the compromise should not be going in that direction.
As to Marc's point about ongoing series... yes. That's a problem with spoiler warnings, but I don't think it's an insoluble one so long as the compromise allows targetted spoiler warnings. It's also not really corrected by the Current Fiction blanket disclaimer, either. If you take it this way, every TV series that is ongoing (and has been off the air for less than 2 years) would now have a blanket disclaimer on its main page. Every character page should likely have one, if they're a character in one of those series (or in a multi-book series that is ongoing). Okay, I'll give that most anti-spoiler people would probably not want these on character pages, but I think they're as appropriate there as on the main article pages, because otherwise you assume people reading will know that the character is fictional, and already know everything they appear in. If a character dies in book X, but makes a surprise reappearance in book X+N that just came out, people who've only read X would feel comfortable reading the page about that character, and get spoiled. So IMHO you can't leave out associated pages. Sorry, I digress again. Back to the pages which'll need current fiction warnings... Comics, sure. Comics have been running uninterrupted for decades, but they're still current fiction. Gotta slap a disclaimer on them if they might contain spoilers, like what happened in the current issue. They're current fiction. The compromise's bright lines shine a lot farther than you might expect. Personally, I'd much rather see targetted warnings where spoilers actually exist, than see a redundant warning over almost every fictional article I'm likely to read. Both are likely to mean a fair number of such warnings exist, but targetted ones at least have a lot more utility. Wandering Ghost 12:11, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
As far as I can tell, graphic sexual content is non-existent, anatomical articles aside.--Nydas(Talk) 19:26, 25 August 2007 (UTC)


"I don't think that majority of people buy it" That would be an invincibility myth. An external majority doesn't buy the current misuse of "spoiler warning"; only 49% do based on Google test. "Spoiler alert" is also misused at 49%, while a little under 1% correctly use "spoiler notice".
"no matter how many times you beat that drum" That would be a hopelessness myth. With two incorrect language contenders almost equal, that's a significant PR campaign opportunity for the correct language to prevail.
"nor do I really think it's relevant" We can agree to disagree about that, but I have the logic necessary for consensus. My analysis of relevance is based on the numerous times otherwise valid spoiler tag debating has been sidetracked or derailed, by the invalid claim that 'spoiler tags aren't allowed because they are a disclaimer'. That's an incorrect statement in a WP environment obeisantly dedicated to correctness, while WP is strongly criticised for correctness unreliability by academia. Once that point has been learned by editors here, it's self-defeatingly hypocritical not to fix it in the spoiler guide. Most importantly, if you think that a negotiated compromised should at least be attempted, this incorrect language matters because it's a removable obstacle to negotiation. Milo 22:08, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

What do those still discussing on this page hope to achieve?

In the wake of a Miscellany for deletion discussion that changed into a Requests for comment process, this guideline underwent substantial change in late May and was last edited in late July, just over a month ago. During the period mid-May to 10 June, some 45,000 redundant spoiler tags were removed from Wikipedia.

As I write this, only one spoiler tag has remained on Wikipedia for any substantial period of time: on Sōsuke Aizen where there is consensus for the tag after discussion.

A monitoring process run by User:Misza13 has run every six hours since mid-June, and examination of the few interactions over spoiler tags on articles listed in the history of that page seems to show very little opposition to the current guideline.

Attempts at mediation, and a complaint about early use of an automated editing tool have failed. No less than two attempts at bring some grievances to arbitration failed abjectly.

Discussion on this page can be summarised by looking at the sections and their main topics. In archive8, which became the main archive about three weeks ago:

And on this page currently:

  • Archiving: Another metadiscussion about archiving.
  • Let's have a guideline: "Nydas, here's a radical thought: do you actually have any ideas about spoiler warnings? You have plenty of ideas about archiving, NPOV, censorship, "cabals," and edits that took place three months ago. But I have yet to see a proposal from you about the actual topic of this page. Do you have one?" User:Marc Shepherd
  • Current wording is biased against spoilers: "The current wording of this guideline is far too biased against spoilers. We need to return to an environment where spoiler tags are respected and welcomed as useful tools. As a common sense guideline, any plot details that one would not expect to read in a newspaper film review should be placed behind spoiler tags." -User:Johntex
  • A problem with local consensus: "have found the perfect example of why creating a walled garden of local consensus is bad: Wikipedia:Manual of Style (Harry Potter-related articles)." -User:David Fuchs
  • A note on the use of the word warning: 'Everyone I am quoting is pro-spoiler-tag. Everyone I am quoting believes that spoilers are dangerous. Ergo, everyone that I am quoting believes that spoiler tags are "warnings."' -User:Ethan Mitchell
  • Informal request for comments: "I wonder if it would help discussion here if we focused on actual ongoing activity rather than ancient history." -User:Tony Sidaway
  • Hans Brinker: "You are looking a lot like the nameless fictional character popularly known as Hans Brinker. How long can you hold your finger in the spoiler tag dike?" -User:Milomedes
  • The "Other" compromise: "Hiding the spoiler tag is not a real solution because all it does is hide the problem. Editors will still add "home made" warnings because the spoiler tag will not be visible. The real solution would be to establish objective criteria to determine when a plot detail is a spoiler and when it can receive a warning, much like how the notability guidelines work." -User:TheFarix
  • current AN/I report - spoiler issue: "If anyone wants to check it out, here is a current AN/I report regarding a spoiler issue. Its heading is "Users pushing personal agenda", but the topic is spoilers. It's not about notices, it's about content removal, based on "popular opinion" as a justification. -User:Parsifal
  • Were these edits valid?: "t's perfectly relevant to discuss the editors who have appointed themselves as the Spoiler Police. They're the ones who are making it impossible to actually abide by the guidelines unless it's how they see fit." -User:YellowTapedR
  • All right: "Editors should seek consensus on the article's talk page before removing spoiler tags, unless they are in areas where spoilers are expected, such as plot, themes and character sections." -User:YellowTapedR
  • A compromise: "As much of this page is stuck in the usual doldrums of rehashing old arguments, I thought I'd launch a new sub-topic with a fresh approach. These are my views on the spoiler warning controversy. Please note that I have managed to draft this section without ever once suggesting that editors who believe differently are acting in bad faith." -User:Marc Shepherd
  • Enough: "This stuff about the anti-spoiler crowd claiming to have consensus is nonsense. If you read through the archives of this page, the majority clearly supports keeping them. Now they'll say that wikipedia isn't a "majority rules" organization, but that doesn't mean that everything must be decided by the MINORITY. The pro-spoiler crowd needs to be more bold and just edit the damn guideline. -User:YellowTapedR

The problem is that these discussions don't really tell me what, if anything, should be done to the current guideline as it stands. No concrete changes likely to command consensus have been suggested throughout the three weeks.

So why does discussion continue? What concrete changes are we each hoping to achieve? --Tony Sidaway 17:36, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

It's misleading to say that changes occured in the wake of the discussion. The discussion was completely ignored.
As for now, the discussion does not need your personal permission to continue. Unlike spoiler tags, which do.--Nydas(Talk) 19:26, 25 August 2007 (UTC)
Could we stay on topic, please? What do you hope to achieve through this discussion? --Tony Sidaway 19:27, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

A very smug way of telling people to shut up. I have suggested that the burden be put on people wishing to remove spoiler tags, unless they're in redundant spots, to show why they should be removed. I got no response.

If you look through the archives, you'll see that the pro-spoiler crowd clearly has consensus. There is only one spoiler tag on wikipedia because you and others have made it your obsessive mission to systematically remove them all.

Team Anti-Spoiler has been fillibustering on the talk page for months. I say it's time to stop letting the minority control everything. That's what I'm hoping for by continuing the discussion--YellowTapedR 21:33, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Is anybody actually interested in addressing my question? What concrete changes does each editor in this discussion hope to achieve? --Tony Sidaway 00:19, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I think that many people here want SWs back, in some form. It shows that there is no actual consensus about the current guideline. Tony, you seem to think that the fact almost no one is trying to add the SWs back shows consensus, are you serious about this? Because, as an admin, you should understand that people respect WP:POINT, and prefer discussion here to edit wars with your bots. Samohyl Jan 09:35, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Well here's the thing. I've mentioned this before, but one of the main problems -- especially now that it's died down as a shifting issue and turned into a lingering one -- is that anyone coming in NEW to the discussion is likely going to be one who wants a change, so a lot of the talk here is 'weighted' on the pro- side. If there were a watch list notice (which won't happen, as this issue isn't nearly large enough), then we would probably see a far more true summation of what people /actually/ want. But here's the thing -- and I don't know what it really means -- but almost every admin I've seen in this discussion over the whole months of it has been on the anti- side (no I won't say all, just most of them to my memory). I realize admins don't have any more weight in their opinion, but what they DO have is a certain knowledge of WP needed to even be granted admin in the first place. Does that say something? No idea. But it might be something to think about. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 11:32, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
I was hoping to get past the repeated personal attacks and false accusations (note above for instance, among other false accusations, that Samohyl Jan falsely implies that restoring spoiler tags would entail edit warring with bots!) At the risk of sounding like johnny-one-note, I'll try to drag this back to the subject: what concrete change do those discussing here hope to achieve? Arbitration isn't going to happen, mediation failed, there don't seem to be any outstanding conduct issues, the false accusations aren't working. What concrete changes can we make to the guideline, that are likely to gain consensus? --Tony Sidaway 12:27, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
The people who most strongly favor spoiler warnings (or tags or notices, or whatever you call them) seem to fall into four somewhat overlapping groups.
In the first place are those who feel that the current guideline and its enforcement were arrived at by illegitimate means. They believe that a "clique" of a few "senior admins" is all that's standing in the way of what the rest of the Wikipedia community overwhelmingly want. I don't know what they think they'll gain by continuing to bring this up. But they keep doing it.
There are some who want a very different guideline. The most commoonly expressed view is that headings like "plot" or "synopsis" do not automatically convey that significant plot details are going to be given away. This implies that an explicit warning conveys a useful independent purpose. Those with this opinion hope to achieve consensus that spoiler warnings (or tags or notices, or whatever you call 'em) should be liberally employed. This seems to me a perfectly legitimate intellectual position, and while I'm not sure they'll win their argument, I have no quarrel with the concept. Where I fault them, however, is that they haven't moved beyond this concept to a more detailed proposal—one that would produce a practical guideline for what types of plot details merit spoiler tags.
LThen, there are those who object that the current guideline seems, on its face, to suggest that spoiler warnings ought to be appropriate in some circumstances. Yet, in almost every actual case, editors remove them on sight. I agree that this situation is somewhat contradictory. If it keeps going that way, at some point it would be sensible to acknowledge that, as a practical matter, spoiler warnings are all-but banned on Wikipedia. But here too, although this position is a very reasonable one, most of those pointing it out have not moved onto details.
The last faction, again somewhat overlapping the above, consists of those who want spoiler tags to be optionally hidden; or, in the alternative, hidden by default, but optionally visible. The people arguing for this viewpoint seem to think if only the tags were capable of being hidden, the anti-tag faction would go away. "Out of sight, out of mind." The problem with this approach is that I think everyone here, regardless of his or her position, actually does care about the content of the encyclopedia. There's no other example where Wikipedia hides content because some editors think it does not belong. If the tags belong, then everyone should see them. If the tags do not belong, then no one should see them. So I think the "hidden tags" idea is doomed to go nowhere, but a few people keep banging that drum. Marc Shepherd 18:32, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I don't think Sidaway is actually reading the discussion, because people are answering his question. --YellowTapedR 02:34, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

You can call me Tony. If people are answering the question, you should be able to say what concrete changes have been proposed to the guideline in the past few weeks that might gather consensus. --Tony Sidaway 02:38, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I can't say what might get consensus because I'm not a psychic. I think some editors think "consensus" to mean agree among everybody, which is impossible to obtain in just about any issue. So, why, I ask, do the outcomes always have to fall on the anti-spoiler side?

What I suggested, I think, would be a significant change. It would suggest that editors seek consensus on a talk page to remove warnings, unless, of course, they are in spots already deemed redundant. I think people reading a section called "plot" should know there will be significant details, especially if they are lengthy; many are way too long, but that's a different discussion.

If your stance on warnings has "wiki-wide consensus," then surely consensus would be gained in most cases, right? So, what's the problem?--YellowTapedR 08:35, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Maybe I'm reading you wrong, so I apologize if so, but it sounds to me you want to force consensus to delete the warning, but not to add it. Why should one be allowed to add it but not delete it? Though granted, it's somewhat the opposite situation now...which contrary to what some people here state, the policy of which was arrived at with quite a large number of people contributing to its creation.
To sum it up, basically now -- discussion must be had to justify the warning be there - which isn't happening much if at all. What YOU want is for discussion to justify it NOT be there -- what makes you think THAT will happen too? ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 11:32, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

It would be different, I think, because there aren't people patrolling wikipedia adding spoiler warnings, only deleting them. It wouldn't prevent anyone from removing warnings from redundant places, but would encourage discussion for removing them in other places. You're right, you don't need consensus to remove something from an article, but you don't need it to add something either. Why should the anti-spoiler editors get the upperhand then when they're already at the advantage?--YellowTapedR 17:21, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Your use of the word "advantage" couches this like a kind of competition, where one side has been given an improper edge. We're all simply trying to build an encyclopedia. Periodic scans for spoiler tags are simply one of numerous scans that run all the time, looking for patterns that warrant editorial attention.
In the overwhelming majority of cases, where you find a spoiler tag, the editor has just slapped it on the entire "plot" section. As you know, the current guideline says that spoiler tags in such situations are generally not called for. An editor does not need prior authorization to modify an article that goes against a Wikipedia guideline, and the spoiler guideline is no different.
Like any Wikipedia guideline, exceptions are allowed...with reasons. An editor who disagrees with the removal can re-insert the tag. It's appropriate to write in the edit summary, "Re-inserting spoiler tag; see talk page." The talk page can then explain the editor's view of why that particular situation is different enough to justify an exception. This, by the way, is no different from what an editor should do in any guideline-exception situation, whether it was a spoiler tag or something else. Marc Shepherd 17:47, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
I've no problem with the requirement that a spoiler tag cannot be removed without consensus. In fact that's what I follow right now, with a lot of success. All edits on Wikipedia, with some rare exceptions such as copyright and defamation, are subject to consensus. --Tony Sidaway 18:02, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
I don't think that's what YellowTapedR meant. He's suggesting that you obtain consensus before removing the tag. What you've been doing, I believe, is to boldly remove the tag if it appears to you to be wrong, per the guideline. (That's not a criticism; just a statement of what I believe the process to be.) If that decision is challenged by another editor, you will of course abide by the consensus process. But you don't wait for a consensus to develop before initially removing it. Marc Shepherd 18:15, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
The problem is that 'consensus' means pretty much whatever the anti-spoiler warning admins wish it to, hence no spoiler tag existing without the unanimous approval of half a dozen people.--Nydas(Talk) 19:32, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

The word "advantage" wasn't the right one to use. Like I said before, it wouldn't prevent anyone from removing a spoiler tag in an inappropriate spot, but just in the out-of-ordinary sections that, admittedly, are rare. Why does it say that consensus should be obtained to place a tag anyway? --YellowTapedR 21:06, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

In response to Nydas, obviously if there is substantial opposition to an edit it will be reverted and will not prevail. Removals of spoiler tags have succeeded perhaps more spectacularly than any other edit apart from reverts of obvious vandalism.
In response to YellowTapedR, of course consensus applies to all Wikipedia edits (with rare exceptions such as copyright and defamation). --Tony Sidaway 21:19, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
The reason they have succeeded is that those who added them were threatened or banned, and those who removed them used automated tools. How much opposition is needed to overcome admins with bansticks?--Nydas(Talk) 06:50, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Can you even give one example where someone was banned for adding a warning? ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 11:33, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
User:Killer Poet was banned indefinitely for adding spoiler tags, though it was reversed.--Nydas(Talk) 13:53, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
I can't find any evidence that he was "banned indefinitely." From the comments on his user page, it appears he was blocked for violating WP:3RR, which will get you blocked no matter what the subject matter. Marc Shepherd 14:03, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Discussion about the ban on the admin noticeboard.--Nydas(Talk) 15:05, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
This example presents an isolated case as if it were the norm...which it isn't. It appears to me that this case deserved a block, though not an indefinite one. The incident illustrates, however, that the process worked as it should: another admin came in and overruled the first admin who had abused his authority. Marc Shepherd 15:25, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
Not banned but blocked for adding back spoiler tags kizor here also PaddyLeahy and User_talk:87.189.124
Those are examples I was able to find in about 5 minutes .Garda40 22:21, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
To put it briefly, those who have edit warred and acted disruptively were blocked. One account that was suspected of being a single-purpose sock was blocked indefinitely. There have been from time to time accusations that threats and bans and blocks were used to browbeat good editors into accepting the policy. These accusations are categorically false. Of all the alleged victims ever listed, nobody who did not edit disruptively has been blocked. --Tony Sidaway 23:18, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
These accusations are categorically false. That's a fairly common type claim made by constructive systems of oppression operating under the radar in well-regulated environments. In practice, the extant examples of blocks are systemically reinforced with some threats and much aggressive behavior acting together and known as a chilling effect.
I was spoiler-tag chilled in the early days. I arrived here at Talk:Spoiler looking for answers after David Gerard's AWB run removed my tag, followed by a street-tough "enforcer" editor re-removing my tag with clearly no intent to discuss the issue. His re-removal was so aggressively hasty and thoughtless that he actually removed some of his own work and had to revert part of his own edit. I think he was "spoiling for a fight" in the classic sense. Rather than involve myself in mud wrestling, I came here to find out what gave him that kind of uncompromising, unconsensing, 'my way or highway', boss-of-Wikipedia, WP:Own attitude.
The answer turned out to be a simple law of hierarchy:
The attitude at the bottom reflects the attitude at the top
A rude customer service department reveals the real attitude of a superficially glad-handing company president toward customers (calls them "turkeys" in private). The hierarchy clique's attitude is collectively the same as that of the unvarnished "enforcer" editor. The method of enforcement is primarily the chilling effect. Milo 07:05, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
Removed whose tag? (WP:OWN) - David Gerard 08:16, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
Do you know what gave me my "uncompromising, unconsensing, 'my way or highway', boss-of-Wikipedia, WP:Own attitude" to spoiler tags? Oh, it came from day to day experience of editing articles on popular fiction: someone puts "SPOILERS!!!" next to the title of the plot section, it gets removed, there's no warring involved; very rarely, someone will try to remove material because it's a spoiler.
That's the reality of spoilers on Wikipedia.
Right, I'm off to do the actual editing thing. --Mark H Wilkinson (t, c) 08:28, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

Rediah's view

I've read parts of the archived discussion and I think I understand now where people are coming from. However, I must disagree on quite a few grounds: - I've been told that I'm "stupid" for looking at a wikipedia article of a work that I don't want to be spoiled, because I shouldn't be looking at it if I don't want it to be spoiled. That's a circular argument. We could easily fix this by adding spoiler tags. Then the article would be safe to look at. Believe it or not, there is other content in a wikipedia article than spoilers. - I've been told that I shouldn't be looking at a plot summary if I don't want the plot given away. I agree completely, except that there is a difference between plot and story. As I mentioned earlier, if I ask a friend what a movie is about, they typically don't include spoilers. It is common courtesy in our culture to mention the fact that what is upcoming might include spoilers. I have legitimate reasons for wanting to read the article, and not wanting spoilers in my face: - I might want to read about it to find out if it sounds interesting to me. - I want to know information such as the author, actors, etc - As for the plot sumamry and not wanting spoilers, I probably want to know how the movie/book begins - the introductory premise, and a vague explanation of how it resolves. However, I don't want details about certain large events such as a chacter dying or something. I find the indication that users who read wikipedia articles of works they do not want spoiled are stupid to be incredibly closed-minded and offensive. I want to read the article; however, I do not want it spoiled. This is normal in our culture. Do you understand this? As for users who think that if we learn our lesson by being shocked by the spoiler in one plot summary we won't do it again, of course, I won't do it again. However, it narrows the usage of the article. It makes it accessible to less people. And it makes it unusable to those who do not want it spoiled. And users who do not want it spoiled have valid reasons for wanting to read it, as I explained above. Don't say we're stupid. Isn't it a BAD thing to make an article available to less people? -- Rediahs 22:00, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I want to read the article; however, I do not want it spoiled. This is normal in our culture. Given how strongly you feel about it, would you be willing to do a little research? Do a survey, and take note of where "in our culture" spoiler warnings typically are found, and where they are not. For a change, we would have some real data that might help inform where those warnings belong in Wikipedia. Marc Shepherd 22:12, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
Adding spoiler warnings removes nothing. It doesn't harm the article. It's a courtesy. It works well. It's considered polite. I understand this is an encyclopedia, but we've never had an encyclopedia quite like this before. Can't our wikipedia be polite? -- Rediahs 22:40, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
On the contrary. It causes information to be 'shuffled' between the tags. It's ugly. It potentially violates WP:NPOV. And wouldn't it be polite to say that Irrumation has a drawing of a sex act (I've never even heard of the word, so following a link to it I'd have no idea)? Or how about a warning that something might be harmful if tried/consumed? Yet we don't have THOSE warnings. But this is all rehash of the arguments. Read the archives. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 22:55, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
"It's ugly." Not if the tags are hidden by default. Milo 07:52, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
It causes information to be 'shuffled' between the tags. That could be an effect, but in what way is that a problem, as long as the resulting text is well-written and according to policy?
It's ugly. One might consider that beauty (or its opposite) is in the eye of the beholder. For example, I find spoiler notices pleasing if they are well-done and well-placed.
It potentially violates WP:NPOV. That may be so. But there is no policy against "potential" violations. If in a particular situation, a spoiler notice violates NPOV, that should be addressed and fixed, in that particular article where it happened. --Parsifal Hello 23:20, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
But then, why do you resist doing the research I suggested? If it's "a courtesy" and is "considered polite," presumably you can find other sources that provide a similar courtesy. We might learn something by observing what they did, and the way they did it. Once we've seen what kind of works receive spoiler warnings in other sources, and the wording/placement of those warnings, we'd have some hard data to go by, instead of just dueling personal opinions. Marc Shepherd 23:42, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
Come on, Marc! It's already been discussed at length that (a) most websites (of which Wikipedia is one, as well as being an encyclopedia) have some sort of spoiler warning for the sake of courtesy, (b) that authors (such as JK Rowling) have denounced spoilers as rude, and that (c) newspapers routinely avoid including spoilers in articles or reviews about a book/film/etc. It's pretty clear that spoilers are considered rude and that some sort of notice would be considered polite when they are to be included. That it is a courtesy is pretty much beyond question. The issue is whether or not it is a courtesy we wish to extend to the members of the Wikipedia conclusion. And while that may come across as a loaded question, I do not see it as such. It seems perfectly reasonable to me to debate the answer. I would just appreciate if the debate were as reasonable as the question. ; ) Postmodern Beatnik 15:36, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
Sure, there's widespread understanding that many websites—I don't know about most—employ some sort of warning. But what sort? Wikipedia already has a site-wide disclaimer, as do some other sites, but many on the pro-tag side don't think that's good enough. Some sites put a warning at the top of any page that contains spoilers, but many on the pro-tag side don't think that's good enough.
Some of the analogies don't really wash. J. K. Rowling complained about sites that gave away the plot of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows before the book was released. She is not complaining about those sites now. Just visit any HP fansite to see how they handle the earlier books. Newspaper reviews don't hide spoilers behind a warning; they just don't include them. But that rule is generally limited only to very new works. A typical review of the third Spiderman film would refer to events in the two earlier films without any kind of warning.
So I think there is some value to surveying what other reputable sources actually do and how they do it. Not that this data would determine the answer, but it would inform the debate with hard facts. Marc Shepherd 17:25, 29 August 2007 (UTC)
Visit any HP fansite. Wikipedia shouldn't copy fansites, but the anti-spoiler people seem to view our fiction articles as an extension of them.--Nydas(Talk) 07:09, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
And it isn't copying them, nor am I suggesting it should. I was simply replying to an earlier post that used J. K. Rowling as a purported authority on spoiler warnings (which she isn't).
As for the claim that the anti-spoiler people "seem to view our articles as an extension of" fansites, I am utterly baffled as to where you get that. But as I've said dozens of times, the way to prove (or disprove) this is with evidence, and you haven't offered any. Marc Shepherd 10:47, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
There's Phil Sandifer's belief that certain articles are 'fans-only'. Early on in the debate, Memory Alpha was cited as an example of what to aim for. Doctor Who, Final Fantasy and other franchise fiction is regarded as representative and typical, even though most of our fiction articles are about standalone works.--Nydas(Talk) 14:46, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
The people who are opposed to warnings aren't a uniform bunch who have identical views. Phil Sandifer saying that doesn't mean that everyone would agree. Anyhow, he apparently said that "certain articles" are 'fans-only', not that all of them are. (I think it's true that some articles, by their nature, are so detailed and specialized that only fans of the subject matter are likely to care about them. This is neither a pro-warning nor an anti-warning observation, and should not figure in the guideline.) Marc Shepherd 15:01, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
"people who are opposed to warnings aren't a uniform bunch who have identical views." Yes and no. Mostly anti-taggers are hierarchists, but not fascists who must repeat exactly what the cult leader says. Hierarchists and their fellow travelers† are typically free to criticize the means but not the goals of the prevailing revolutionary theory (including USA's). As with all hierarchies, outside the ruling elite core there are expanding as fading social connection rings, which I visualize like Newton's rings [5]. These rings including secondary gainers (classically wives and crony profiteers), enforcers (classically paid workers), illusioned intellectuals (classically religious, academic, or self-educated idealists; more recently including junk scientists), and dupes† (classically 'Youth for...'). Feel free to suggest categories I've missed. (†Generically borrowed from J.E. Hoover's political classification scheme [6] #4 and #5, without implying communism.)
"Phil Sandifer saying that doesn't mean that everyone would agree." If you think that, (consider the absolutes here softened), you don't understand the clique hierarchy or who they salute. Phil is the revolutionary cell theorist behind the Spoiler Tag Coup of May 2007. Anyone who intends to keep their place in that hierarchy, can't or at least won't, disagree with Phil's announced goals, or his vague fears and unprovable axiomatic beliefs over which the hidable tag compromise is currently stalled. Somewhat conversely, anyone who disagrees with his announced goals probably never was a core hierarchist — though a hierarchy schism ("Meet the new boss, same as the old boss") has precedent at Wikipedia.
Early on, I decided Phil was philosophically correct about the article writing standards. While a pro-tagger I openly supported him in that regard, but I noticed that he just could not be satisfied with that significant and reasonable achievement.
It took me months to determine that Phil had indirectly incorporated an anti-youth culture agenda (a.k.a., Tony's "internet culture") into the revolutionary theory of the Spoiler Tag Coup. The clique's implementation of this agenda is to passively-agressively discourage, or actively drive away this class of young persons from either editing or reading Wikipedia's fiction articles — via inflicting spoiler disappointments on them whenever possible, and chilling editors who try to add new spoiler tags.
The core and outer hierarchy amplifies and enforces this youth culture exclusion philosophy with every edit they make. Therefore, it is this discriminatory philosophy itself which needs to be vetted, challenged, and disconsensed, because Phil's rejection of the hidable tag proposal has proved that such a philosophy inherently prevents compromise.
Said more simply, the anti-tagging position is just a fig leaf for a selective anti-young-people philosophy. Milo 07:52, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
First off, WP:CIVIL. You're REALLY treading the line there. Secondly, 'anti-young'? How young is young? I'm not 30 yet, that's still pretty young to a lot of people. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 11:04, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
"'anti-young'? How young is young?" Teen-agers probably, but at least young enough to be a current or former l33t-speaker is my current estimate. l33t-writing "SP01L3RZ!!!" is the kind of thing that sets many English teachers like Phil on edge. I understand his attitude, and being a writer of formal English as needed, I even have some sympathy for it. However, I happen to believe in the power of education more than he seems to, like friendly Wikiguide instruction on why l33t isn't appropriate except for the l33t article, and how to identify spoilers and tag them properly to avoid offending good article writing. One does not set a good teaching example by trying to suppress and exclude the very generation who will take over most editing at Wikipedia in the next 10 years.
"WP:CIVIL. You're REALLY treading the line there." You are 100% wrong. I've reread my post as well as WP:Civil, and I wrote not a word of incivility. Your disagreement with, or dislike for, my political analysis which tells truth to power, is not an issue of incivility.
Aside from being completely wrong (and unfair), think clearly about the political effect of your accusation — you are supporting the perceived accuracy of my analysis by giving the appearance of trying to chill me for anti-tag political gain. Milo 21:51, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
Oh my fucking god? Poltical effect? What the hell kind of drugs are you on? (and yes, I know that's uncivil, but my god, it's like talking to a robot.) ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 22:24, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
I'm sorry you're upset, that certainly wasn't my desired outcome. WP:Civil suggests that I should delay any specific response. Milo 23:06, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
There is no cabal!! Really!! Kuronue | Talk 18:17, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
Agreed. The anti-spoiler-tag hierarchy clique is not operating in secret, nor have they displayed the shrewd politics of a classic secret society. Word of the cliqueocracy is getting around. In the last few days I found an unrelated discussion about another Wikipedia hierarchy "clique", using that term.
If Wikipedia has a hierarchy boss system, or a cliqueocracy, and the Wikiguides say if you want to edit here you have to obey the boss or the clique, at least what you see is what you get. But I don't like it when saying and doing don't come together, and seeing good editors being pushed around in violation of falsely-claimed or corrupted due process.
Suppressing a large class of editors and readers has consequences. Until the May 2007 Spoiler Tag Coup made me wonder what was really going on here, I'd never heard of the critic sites, Wikipedia Review, Wikitruth, Wikipedia Watch, maybe others, nor had I any previous interest. I think the tabloid personal criticisms of several famous Wikipedians there tend to be petty and unfair. On the other hand, the recent revelations of alleged massive abuse of oversighting, and alleged failure of Arbcom to correct those abuses struck me as incredibly important to limiting formal corruption at Wikipedia. Milo 21:51, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps we should have some kind of Godwinization principle on this talk page. If someone accuses someone else of being a member of a gang, clique, cabal or other group intent on imposing their will against consensus, all useful discussion on the thread can be considered to be over and we can safely archive it. --Tony Sidaway 20:38, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
I wrote the above responses before I saw your post after an edit conflict.
Hehe, clever. I would not mind if you would unilaterally apply such a principle to yourself and gracefully depart. :) Milo 21:51, 1 September 2007 (UTC)

Plot doesn't necessarily indicate a spoiler.

When you ask a friend "What's this movie about?" they usually tell you the plot, without giving away the important and surprising aspects of the story.

This is how I expected plot summaries on wikipedia to be - unless otherwise indicated (with a spoiler alert), plot summaries would not give away important or surprising aspects of a story. However, I guess I was wrong, judging from all this - it seems most people see "plot" as being synonymous with "spoiler". I can't be the only person who finds this false.

I am quite distressed, since I decided to look up a book that I've been wanting to read for ages, and decided to read the plot summary since there was no spoiler sign. Bad idea. I was shocked to find that it described a vital plot twist. Now the story that I've been waiting years to read has been spoiled for me. If you are wondering, it is Sati, by Christopher Pike.

It seems that other people have been editing the page to include the obvously needed spoiler tag, but they keep getting removed and this page is cited as the reason for removal. I highly object to this. When I see a heading indicating "Plot", I don't think that it's a spoiler unless it's marked as such. Rediahs 16:30, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I would direct you to the lengthy discussion on this point in the archives. I don't think anything else needs to be added. David Fuchs (talk) 17:19, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
It has always been the stated aim of the anti-spoiler people to 'burn' those who expect spoilers, until they learn otherwise. They see you as stupid and at least some of them consider you an aesthetic pervert for liking narrative suspense.--Nydas(Talk) 17:47, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
There's a lesson in this: if you don't want to find out the plot of a book, don't read the plot section of its Wikipedia entry. --Mark H Wilkinson (t, c) 17:55, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
In other words Don't use Wikipedia .Garda40 18:22, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
Nydas, Phil wrote that email. I didn't. I have not been subscribed to the Wikipedia mailing lists for some time (I did when I was trying to resolve a dispute regarding the Hebrew Wiki) and in any case never noticed anything about spoilers. In any case, I am not trying to 'burn' Rediahs, only prevent pointless iterations of the same arguments over and over again. That's the point of archives, history, whatever. David Fuchs (talk) 18:32, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
I suggest you resist the urge to prevent discussion.--Nydas(Talk) 21:39, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
Indeed. I don't use Wikipedia if I don't want to learn something. I use Wikipedia a lot. --Mark H Wilkinson (t, c) 18:46, 26 August 2007 (UTC)
I'll just sidestep Mark's snide implication that those who don't want spoilers are uninformed, and answer Garda40 on a personal level: I do a lot of research on movies for various reasons, and no, now that I know Wikipedia actively discourages the use of spoiler tags, I won't use it for research anymore. There's no reason to use Wikipedia if the content can include spoilers but readers get no warning of this. As for what I was hoping to accomplish, well, it's pretty obvious most here don't want to accomplish anything. The anti-tag people are too busy being smugly self-righteous, and the pro-tag people keep thinking life should be fair. Clockster 13:22, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Other websites that use some kind of spoiler notice

Previously, Clockster wrote: "almost every film site I go to -- blogs, reviews, forums, TCM, Usenet, etc. -- uses some kind of spoiler notice, even if it's a cursory notice somewhere in the FAQ." If "a cursory notice" is sufficient to permit you to use a site for research, Wikipedia already has it. Many of the pro-warning crowd say this isn't good enough, even though apparently some of the other sites you refer to employ a similar warning technique.

You could really move the debate forward by surveying some of those other film sites and reporting back how they handle spoilers. Is it just a general notice on the site, or does it appear on every page? Is it at the top of the page, or embedded in the middle of the text? Marc Shepherd 15:13, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I've surveyed six. Here's what I have:
1. IMDb: User-submitted synopses and external reviews which have spoilers. I was unable to find their policy on spoilers, but I don't have an account there so I may not be able to reach their policy page. I listed it here though because the IMDb is notorious for spoilers, and there are scripts out there you can download and use to block spoilers.
2. The rec.arts.movies.past-films FAQ (at http://www.faqs.org/faqs/movies/faq/past-films/): SPOILER should be used in the subject, header, or text to indicate a spoiler. I can testify to this; I've been a member there for over a decade and have been chewed out a few times during heated discussion for not labeling an item as a spoiler.
3. allmovie.com: Spoilers in plot synopses, no policy listed. I've never been to allmovies before, though, so someone more familiar with allmovies may have different info.
4. Netflix: No spoilers. Per their guidelines: "Don't spoil a plot by giving away endings or key plot developments."
5. Amazon: No spoilers. Per their guidelines: "No spoilers! Please don't reveal crucial plot elements."
6. TCMdb: I was unable to find their policy and have emailed them. However, it appears they have a segment called Brief Synopsis, with no spoilers, and later a Full Synopsis, which is a detailed account of the whole movie, spoilers and all. You have to click on a link to get the Full Synopsis, which I believe serves as their warning. As I said, I have emailed them to clarify.
Of the six listed, 3 clearly have a no spoiler policy and 1 has spoilers "hidden" behind a link. Two have spoilers without any kind of warning: the IMDb and allmovies. Clockster 14:06, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
(edit conflict) Of course, Usenet is a hard case to gouge. People can post anything, and the for the most part the worst thing that'll happen is others will killfile those who they don't like the posts of. FAQs for Usenet, in a way, are kind of like WP policies - they reflect consensus of the regulars who post there. Unlike with the websites mentioned, once it's there, there's no real way to take it down for the most part -- all this means is that, regardless of what people want, people CAN easily violate it without any true repercussions. Just for the record. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 14:24, 30 August 2007 (UTC)


In the first place, I want to thank Clockster. I've suggested numerous times that real data would be helpful, and he's the first person who actually went out and did something about it.
I think it's notable that, of the 3 sites that "clearly have a no spoiler policy," two are sites that are mainly in business to sell or rent DVDs. Of the 6 sites listed, they are perhaps the two that are least similar in their aims to Wikipedia.
Of the 3 that are most similar in their aims to Wikipedia, at least 2 "have spoilers without any kind of warning." I visited TCMdb, and didn't see how their spoilers are "hidden behind a link." For example, here are their pages for Casablanca and Psycho. It's true that there's a "brief synopsis," followed by a full synopsis further down on the page, but I couldn't see how the spoilers are "hidden behind a link." Marc Shepherd 14:20, 30 August 2007 (UTC)
It's hard to tell by the nick, but I'm a she. Anyhow, I confess the TCMdb threw me as I'm not familiar with the new (to me) layout. You're exactly right, you don't have to click the link on the left menu to get to the Full Synopsis section, it's on the front page of a movie entry. I think we can conclude 3 of the sites have prominent spoilers with no warnings: IMDb, allmovie, and TCMdb. The other 3 have definite no spoiler policies: Usenet, Amazon, and Netflix. It's pretty clear where the dividing line is between the two types of sites. The 3 databases with no spoiler tags (IMdb, allmovie, and TCMdb) are much more similar to Wikipedia than the other sites. Clockster 14:12, 31 August 2007 (UTC)
I looked and it seems to me that IMDB has spoiler warnings ([7],[8]), and allmovies.com seems to be some sort of domain parking site, so it's not really relevant. Anyway, even if majority sites wouldn't have spoiler warnings, I don't see how this is relevant. Why not take the majority of users instead of majority of website owners? If people want them, let's have them. Samohyl Jan 07:22, 1 September 2007 (UTC)
I apologize, the site is allmovie.com - no "s". I have changed it in my entries above to avoid confusion for anyone who comes across this at a later date. As for the IMDb, did you find a definitive spoiler policy? I was unable to, and since the IMDb is user-generated content I suspect there's no way to accurately enforce spoiler tags. While the "Plot Synopsis" section automatically says "warning! may contain spoilers", I found no other examples of a spoiler tag. Spoilers can appear on the trivia section, user comments, goofs, memorable quotes, and probably other sections. An actual spoiler policy from IMDb would be nice to know. (I'm still waiting on the TDMdb to answer my inquiry.)
Don't get me wrong, I want spoiler tags. However, in reviewing other websites I see that many don't have spoiler tags, and those that do have spoiler tags don't enforce their proper use. I'm speaking only about films here; I haven't looked into any aspects of spoilers for books, tv shows, and other situations. Clockster 18:27, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Tony's view

The plot summary in an encyclopedia must discuss all significant elements of the plot. That is what it is there for. A plot summary that omits significant elements is not potentially but actively in breach of the neutral point of view policy, assuming that the plot is ata all significant (which it usually is--I can't think of an exception off-hand. Perhaps some articles about specific soap opera episodes, otherwise unimportant, where something significant happened to a member of the case or production team).
So we have a case where every plot summary, synopsis or other plot-related section, including every article about a fictional character and object, must describe everything worth knowing about the item in question. Wikipedia must, by its very mission, become a neutral purveyor of all relevant information.
Some people feel betrayed if they obtain access to information about a work of fiction through a route other than sitting down and reading a book or watching a television program or film. Their feelings, which I'm sure are deeply felt and genuine, are not compatible with Wikipedia's mission. It would be nice to try to accommodate those people's feelings into our mission if at all possible.
What to do? Until mid-May, we had sporadically sprinkled spoiler warnings on some 45,000 articles. And we had put home-made warnings on perhaps 1,000 others (the latter is my estimate because I found and removed most of them in June/July). The obvious problem with this is that, in a wiki of some 2,000,000 articles, Wikipedia must have many more than 45,000 articles about fictional subjects. Even when we had that many spoiler tags, the odds were that when you visited an article about a fictional subject at random you would not see a single spoiler tag. And yet every single article about a fictional subject must, perforce, be a revelation to the reader who visits it in ignorance. And if "significant new information about a fictional subject" is not a good candidate definition of the word "spoiler", I don't know what is.
So it's actually a pretty difficult decision to make, because the obvious, pragmatic solution has been tried and failed, only resulting in useless clutter. But although it's a difficult decision, it's an unavoidable one: we have to be more pro-active about spoiler tags: each time somebody adds one, they should be able, at least in principle, to explain why it's necessary. And Wikipedia being consensus-based, they should be able to demonstrate consensus for that tag. And conversely, we shouldn't be afraid to remove a spoiler (whether tagged or not) that isn't necessary. Our current guideline allows both of those options. We don't tag spoilers unnecessarily and we don't include information that, while it's trivial in the current context, may not be what the reader is expecting. If we have an article about buckets, it would be unnecessary, and really rather silly, to include in that article some information to the effect that the climax of a certain Harry Potter novel involved creative use of a bucket, ten inches of post office string, and a stick of sealing wax.
And that isn't a new thing. That's the way Wikipedia works. Or at least, it's how Wikipedia is supposed to work. You can't just stick something into an article without consensus.
But that being so, what am I doing to improve Wikipedia? Chopping out tags that some people find useful? Not a bit of it. Mostly I remove redundant tags from sections with names like "Story", "Plot" or "Synopsis". As I've stated above, it's not acceptable in an encyclopedia to write about such matters without covering what most reasonable people would consider spoilers. But that's not all I do. I change the names of sections, or add section names where they do not already exist, so that the reader will not be misled. Don't misunderstand me: I don't create corraled areas of spoiling content. Rather, I create structure in the article that shows the casual reader that this is an encyclopedia and not a fan site, that its mission is to inform and not to conceal. I am performing an essential function in the construction of an encyclopedia: making an infrastructure that permits all significant elements of a subject to be covered, and removing elements that make such coverage difficult to provide in an integrated manner. We shouldn't be dodging in and ou of "spoiler" areas dictated arbitrarily by random editors. Rather we should always feel free to refactor any article to improve the delivery of information. --Tony Sidaway 01:48, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
I doubt your claim that Wikipedia must have 'many more' than 45,000 fiction articles is correct. Your editing patterns trick you into thinking that the situation with Doctor Who, Star Wars, etc is 'typical'. How many fictional franchises have more than 50 distinct articles? Not many.--Nydas(Talk) 12:20, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
If I'm reading this right, there are 28,795 articles with a WP:Film banner, and 18,009 with a WP:CVG banner. Granted not all of these are fictional topics, but that doesn't even get into books, fairy tales, plays, songs, and other things that often had the warnings attached to them. And furthermore, even at the time, none of the Final Fantasy articles or the opera articles had them, by consensus of their respective projects. Final Fantasy VII was a featured article before it happened, and the warnings were kept off it. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 12:56, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
If a fair quantity of films are either non-fictional or are stubs too short to contain spoilers, and many (probably most) video games don't have plots, then the 'many more' claim is without merit.--Nydas(Talk) 16:52, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
Here's another anecdote. Long ago, editors on WikiProject Opera decided that spoiler tags were never appropriate on opera articles. New editors would come along and add the tags, and veterans would remove them. I cannot think of a principled reason why opera articles omitted spoiler tags, when they were present on fairy tales like Three little pigs. It was simply a case of one group of editors reaching a decision that was the opposite of what other editors preferred. There are hundreds of opera articles on Wikipedia.
So I agree with Tony that the former practice was highly inconsistent. When reading about fictional subjects, there was no real rhyme or reason as to whether you would encounter a spoiler tag or not. Marc Shepherd 13:04, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
Instead of resorting to the fairy tale strawman, what about the novel mentioned in the beginning of this section? Is it 'highly inconsistent' to have spoiler warnings on novels but not on operas?--Nydas(Talk) 16:52, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
Three little pigs isn't a strawman, because it had a spoiler warning for a while, and there were editors who argued quite strenuously that it was appropriate. Yes, you could argue that it is inconsistent to have spoiler warnings on novels, but not on operas. There are also differences between the two, which some editors find significant. Marc Shepherd 17:03, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
Another way to look at it... the previous state of 45,000 fiction articles with warnings, and a somewhat unknown number without _already_ constituted a compromise between the pro-warnings group and the anti-warning group. Granted, a sloppy one that probably could have used some refinement and consistency applied to it, but one that nevertheless was apparently quite tolerable for most people.
Let's say we reach a valid compromise on where spoiler warnings are appropriate, and it leaves, let's say, 1000 warnings up. (This is wildly optomistic, considering how few warnings are getting through the spoiler patrol). What's to stop, a few months down the road, the vehement anti-spoiler side demanding yet another compromise, permitting even _fewer_ spoilers? Because right now it seems, at least in my view, the pro-spoiler people have been doing most of the giving in the give and take of compromise. So, since the question's been asked about what concrete changes the pro-spoiler side wants to make that they think can get consensus, let me turn it around. For those who are anti-spoiler, what compromises are you WILLING to make? Hopefully something beyond simply "we can allow them if they demonstrate consensus", which, again, can't happen so long as there are even a small number of determined anti-spoiler people digging in and deciding in every case that comes up their answer is 'no' (thus making consensus impossible to get). Because if you _can't_ offer compromises, then I see no point in trying to either, and might as well revert my policy from one of compromise to being extremely pro-warning, because it's more likely to get me action in the direction I want.
As to your example on what WP:Opera did... I've actually considered that this might be a good idea, as policy. Let individual projects determine for themselves what their spoiler policy is. Different projects will decide different things, but different pages within their project will hopefully be consistent, and at least it would seem to reflect a better consensus, and would address certain things like "does this count as too old to need a spoiler warning" (which might for a comic be a few months, and a book a few years) in the other bright-line policies. Of course, the major problem here would be in handling overlap of projects. Wandering Ghost 14:02, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
Well, as you know, I'm fairly anti-warning, but I proposed that spoiler tags should be routinely employed on all articles concerning fictional subjects, where the work in question is fairly new. I suggested two years as a good dividing line between "new" and "old", but I wouldn't be unhappy with three or five. In my experience, the vast majority of the complaints affect works that are new. This would therefore give the pro-warning side a good deal of what they want, and would lead to spoiler tags on thousands of articles. Whether you like this compromise or not, you can't say that the anti-warning side is unwilling to compromise.
I am also fine with the idea of allowing each project to customize the guideline. This is how Wikipedia works. But you get the best results when there is a higher-level guideline to provide the "guard rails." A project team can decide how the guideline applies to their specific situation, but can't ignore the guideline or make decisions that lead to wildly inconsistent results). Marc Shepherd 14:25, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
The two-year compromise you propose is actually what I implemented on the Doctor Who episode articles. I went through and removed all spoiler tags for older episodes, and retained the newer ones, adopting May, 2005 as my cut-off point. However when someone else removed the remaining spoiler tags they were not restored, and new articles about Doctor Who episodes soon ceased to carry spoiler tags. So the compromise I implemented proved to be too far over to the "include tags" side to survive for more than a few weeks. --Tony Sidaway 15:44, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
And did you tell anyone about your compromise? If you didn't, then people just behaved according to current guideline, so there is no proof how much of them disagreed with it. Samohyl Jan 19:09, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
You can see that I commented several times on the relevant WikiProject talk page as I progressed through the task, particularly here, where I had covered everything from William Hartnell to Peter Davison (1963-1984), and here where I announced that I had completed all removals up to The Empty Child, which was broadcast by the BBC on 21 May, 2005. On the last comment I said "Comments and edits welcome, please take the trouble to examine and revert if you think I've gone too far." As you can see from this revision of the talk page over three weeks later, there do not seem to have been any further comments on the matter. --Tony Sidaway 19:31, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
Where did this two year figure come from? Even with more popular media, such as movies, numerous people will watch movies that are over two years old for the first time, as most people aren't avid movie watchers. When you take less popular media, such as books, then you have books that go unread by people for decades or even centuries. Even with just more recent books, far too many are published for any except the biggest bookworm to keep up on and read all within two years. This two years figure seems arbitrary and doesn't comply with the period of time most people would be exposed to media that they wouldn't want to be spoiled about.
Anyone proposing numerical figures should specify the philosophical underpinning for that decision. I don't think age of the work should be a factor at all. Ultimately, the reason for spoiler warnings to exist is because people who want to enjoy a work of fiction, that haven't read it, don't want to have their experienced ruined.
So what factor(s) that are universal to the populous regarding a given type of work would make it so that someone either a) already knows the spoilers and/or b) isn't interested in the type of work by the time they'd be of an age where they'd be checking Wikipedia for these kinds of summaries? I can only think of two things off the top of my head: highly ubiquitous works told to kids (e.g. three little pigs) and works targeted towards a much younger audience, causing them to lose interest in it. The former is the only one I can see real validity in, because so many people know it that it's pointless, but then again, this relies on cultural assumptions regarding the stories so it's not universal. The latter varies--many works of fiction for kids, especially movies, are still interesting for adults--consider many Disney films. Shrek, which is both a fairy tale and a work for kids is a good example of something adults wouldn't want spoiled. I'm for making compromises, but I don't know of one that really has an objective basis, yet.
That said, I can't really think of much in terms of objective reasons to not include spoilers. While an article should certainly explain all significant plot elements, there is no reason why an encyclopedic article couldn't include markers for the spoiling parts. Some people have poo-pooed a technical measure, but I really think it would be useful for this and other purposes. A general mechanism for having tags that you can turn completely on/off for all articles would be quite useful. Hell, you wouldn't even need tags per se, you could have it "black out" the spoiling parts until something to reveal them is clicked. It wouldn't be preferable, but a CSS hack could even be made that implements enabling/disabling this "blacking out" mechanism Regarding the consensus thing: keep in mind that the vocal/energetic minority can easily win out over a less energtic/vigilant majority, forming a faux consensus. -Nathan J. Yoder 06:48, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
I suggested the two year period for Doctor Who as a pragmatic choice, because at the time the revival of Doctor Who was almost exactly two years in the past. Having said that, there was absolutely no objection to the choice, and after that every single spoiler tag was removed from all Doctor Who articles, and there was no controversy over this. --Tony Sidaway 08:30, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
Tony, the consistent problem with your analysis is the mistaken notion that "Plot" is synonomous with "includes spoilers." While I agree that Plot sections must include spoilers, if there be any, and that to not do so is in violation of WP:NPOV, it is not the case that a spoiler notice is never appropriate for such sections. Not all plots can be spoiled because not all stories contain the sort of surprises or "plot twists" that are the very making of spoilers. There is a difference between Bridget Jones Diary/The Lion King and Fight Club/The Sixth Sense that is obvious to anyone with an appropriately moderate view on the matter of spoilers. That is, if we exclude the extreme views ("nothing is a spoiler!"/"who cares about narrative suspense?" at one end and "everything is a spoiler!"/"O-M-G, the main character doesn't appear until fifteen seconds in? You've ruined everything for me!" at the other), we make the task of deciding when a tag is or is not appropriate quite tractable. Postmodern Beatnik 03:33, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Actually I agree with you that there may be instances where a spoiler tag is appropriate in a plot section. When we encounter such instances we can agree to add the tag. That's what our guideline says. --Tony Sidaway 04:18, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
I am glad to hear you agree, Tony. That has not come across (to me, at least) in previous exchanges. And it seems that at times you have tried to interpret the guideline in an overly stringent manner. But see? We're coming closer to consensus every second! :) Postmodern Beatnik 16:14, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Two year compromise

On the two-year "compromise": I came up with this independently, not realizing that Tony had suggested something similar for the Dr. Who articles. I also mentioned that two years was somewhat arbitrary, and it could quite reasonably be three, or five.

The basis for it was the empirical observation that most of the complaints/concerns about spoilers occur when a work is relatively new. The older the work, the less likely that you'll find any kind of tag on other reference sites, or that you will encounter complaints from someone whose reading/viewing experience was purportedly "spoiled." You'll also find that where {{spoiler}} tags are added on Wikipedia, it's usually on articles describing fairly new material. You needn't take my word for any of this. Do the research yourself, and this is what you'll find.

The two-year window is a proposed compromise between the people who'd prefer to see no tags under any circumstances, and those who want to tag Three little pigs. A number of people associated with the "no-tags" faction said they could live with this. Surprisingly, the "pro-tags" faction turned it down, although it would have resulted in spoiler tags being added to thousands of articles. Marc Shepherd 14:49, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

Where are those people who want spoiler warnings on the three little pigs?--Nydas(Talk) 15:08, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
Here is just ONE example of it being added to that article. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 15:15, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
There were multiple editors who felt rather strongly that Three little pigs and similar articles ought to have spoiler tags. In mentioning that example, I am merely framing the outer limits of the debate—the other extreme being those who oppose spoiler tags under all conceivable circumstances. Marc Shepherd 15:34, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
Four or five editors. Two with logins. One of which was a new contributor, but was blocked indefinitely without warning. Framing the debate with them is misleading.--Nydas(Talk) 16:02, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
If you want to know why that editor was summarily blocked as a troll, look at his only other edits. --Tony Sidaway 19:03, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
Which means they should have been banned on the 2nd of May if they were going to be banned .Garda40 20:08, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
Their other edits are harmless [9]. Of the five, there are two sandbox tests, two talk page tests and one spoiler tag restoration.--Nydas(Talk) 19:31, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
See Wikipedia:Keyspam for background on this. Such spamming became something of an internet fad for a month or so in the spring. --Tony Sidaway 19:48, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
They removed it from their talk page themselves, and it does not seem serious.--Nydas(Talk) 20:01, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
This kind of spamming, "keyspam", was widely discussed at the time, and this discussion on spoiler tags is not the place to rehash the discussions. --Tony Sidaway 23:24, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
The point is they put them there. So either they thought it needed to be there, or you must admit that they fell into the trap of "WP articles contain spoiler warnings, so I'll add them when I find ones that don't have them." I for one believe this happened a LOT -- I know I accepted them at first as a status quo, not particularly thinking they were needed or unneeded. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 16:06, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
Isn't this dredging up the past, as I have been accused of doing?--Nydas(Talk) 18:58, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
You can't seriously believe that's the same thing, can you? ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 20:40, 2 September 2007 (UTC)
Marc - why is that surprising, when you yourself admit that 2 years is an arbitrary number? The issue isn't "how many spoiler tags can we get on articles," it's about what makes sense for what encyclopedia readers would expect. I think people are not asking the critical question if we are to take the years based approach: what time limit would make sense for the vast majority of readers for spoiler tags and why would it make sense? I'm not for making compromises for the sake of compromise; a compromise that is made should be based on some sort of objective criteria.
At 2 years, there are still numerous works of fiction that people will check that they wouldn't want to have spoiled. Add to that translated works and its even longer. If we judge just based on film and TV, 10 years would be a mark where most works of fiction that interest them would have been seen by the Wikipedia readers. Other works, like books, the period of time would go back more decades. I think at least 10 years would be good, because that's at least when most TV/movies would have been seen that are interesting to the reader in question. Perhaps 20-30 years for books, beyond that it's mostly classics that are required reading in academia that are read. I would suggest just one standard for all fiction to simplify things, but if necessary, we could divide it up based on work of fiction, because the "reader dynamics" of them are different.
I'd also like to ask what the reason is for not putting spoiler tags on Three Little Pigs, as opposed to other works? There are Fairy Tales/Fables/etc that are appealing to adults (e.g. Shrek). If we are to exclude them for that, it would only make sense based on how ubiquitous is--almost everyone knows it, at least in the cultures we're in (should cultural bias be considered?). So there could be a rule based on ubiquity for people in the culture(s) that would read that language version of Wikipedia in question (e.g. English Wikipedia). -Nathan J. Yoder 09:04, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
I was surprised because it was a compromise proposal that many of the "anti-warning" crowd said they could live with, which is not easy to come by. If it were implemented, the two-year period might eventually start to expand. If you are "pro-warning," you have to think strategically: take a victory where you can get it, and grow from there.
If it's about what makes sense for what encyclopedia readers would expect, then those expectations need to be established somehow. Where do those expectations come from? It's not as if there are 10 other encyclopedias, 8 of which have spoiler warnings. If you are making the argument that people "expect" spoiler warnings, you should try to establish the truth of that statement through comparisons with what other reference sites have done. For a particular class of works, if you find that spoiler tags are generally absent in most or all other reference sites, then it becomes awfully difficult to argue that the tags are necessary because readers have come to expect them.
The two-year limit is, in fact, based on asking the critical question: for what types of works are readers generally most likely to expect spoiler tags to be present? Overwhelmingly, it is for works that are fairly new. If you can find a number of reference works that put spoiler tags on 30-year-old novels, then it would bolster your position, but I don't think you're going to find much evidence of that.
Addendum: Another useful data point comes from watching User:MiszaBot/spoilers (which is updated whenever {{spoiler}} is included in an article). The articles where it shows up are overwhelmingly describing fairly new works. Marc Shepherd 12:06, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
To be honest, the 'two year compromise' may have been disagreed with for by at least some on the pro-tag side because of side elements to the main issue. For example, 1) that is wasn't actually a spoiler tag, but a 'current fiction' tag (at least, as I recall currently, my memory may not be working at full capacity at the moment), and 2) that it was a blanket tag over the whole article. If we agreed that articles within a certain timeframe (the exact date is negotiable, but let's say for the sake of ease of conversation, 2 years) could have a more or less free use of the spoiler tag (presumptively pro-spoiler tag). After the 2 years are up, articles become pretty well where we are now - presumptively no-spoiler tags, with the possibility of exemptions in specific cases, I, as an pro-tag person, could probably accept that compromise, (I'd strongly prefer that it's not a blanket warning, but rather targeted at specific sections that spoil). Of course, much depends on the exact wording - I've already seen cases where what looks like a decent compromise gets worded in such a way that they really aren't. Wandering Ghost 15:55, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
Your two caveats are pretty much correct. I did suggest using a version of the {{current fiction}} tag—with comparable tags to be developed for other genres. However, I thought that it should be modified to explicitly use the word "spoiler," which the current tag does not.
I also suggested tagging the whole article, because no one has ever suggested a workable definition of "spoiler" more narrow than that. Here again, the empirical evidence offered by User:MiszaBot/spoilers is instructive. Most of the time, when people use {{spoiler}}, they apply it rather indiscriminately to the whole plot. Editors can't seem to agree how much of the story you're permitted to give away without "spoiling" it for somebody. Marc Shepherd 20:48, 3 September 2007 (UTC)
The anti-all-spoiler crowd is in the minority, so I wouldn't take a compromise just because it's a compromise. It's not so much "expect" as it is "prefer," specifically in terms of those wanting to enjoy a work of fiction, looking to read a summary. Obviously there aren't opinion polls on this, but you can search for spoiler warnings on popular sites with Google (e.g. IMDB) using the "site:" keyword and/or with Google Blog Search (or bloglines, technorati, etc) to see how common they are. "spoiler warning" -wikipedia itself gets 450k hits. If you're clever you might be able to figure out a way to search certain classes of fiction and if not that, you can just do 'case studies' for specific works.
In my experience, when it comes to internet posts about new fiction, especially very popular fiction, you'll usually see spoiler warnings added to the spoiling parts or to mark the entire thing as containing spoilers. It's not safe to assume that the pro-spoiler-warning crowd wants an all inclusive, as opposed to fine-grained, spoiler warnings. Personally, I'm for only the fine-grained variety, as it should be obvious that encyclopedia articles will strive to include all important details about a work of fiction, but it is not obvious which [sub-]sections of that work will contain the actual spoilers.
As for your statement regarding them tending to be on new works, that's simply because newer works are the ones that tend to be the most popular at any given moment (in terms of people actually viewing/reading it at the time). Articles on less popular subjects (at any given time) will get less attention. Plus, with newer works, you get far more people who haven't viewed/read the work of fiction, making it more likely for someone to feel compelled to add a spoiler tag for that reason. You need to take that statistic in proportion.
If, for example, the percentages of new vs. old fiction at any given time being viewed/read was 95% for new and 5% for old, then you shouldn't expect more than 5% of spoiler warnings to be added to articles on old works. In addition to that, people will also be more likely to assume that others have read/viewed an older work by that point, so they won't bother with spoilers unless they know otherwise.
As for a working definition of spoilers, I have seen people describe it off-hand, but I can attempt a more (semi-)formal definition. A spoiler is an element of the plot that would be unexpected from someone who has learned the basics elements of the work's beginning (basic premise, initial setting, initial [especially main[ characters, etc) and would ruin the enjoyment of the work by virtue of the spoiler being given away (it was intended by the author(s) to remain a mystery until later in the work). Something you wouldn't expect to learn from an official summary/preview of a movie, for example. -Nathan J. Yoder 06:59, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
I disagree that editors will not be able to agree whether something is a spoiler. Yes, there may be a few wild cases (and probably for especially popular fannish things especially), but for the majority of things, if you put on a basic guidelines (such as including that it's usually not appropriate to put spoilers around the whole plot), people will agree on a standard that's probably pretty close to what Nathan just posted above. For me, the perfect example of this, in non-wiki terms was 'The Sixth Sense'. When the movie came out, people seemed to do a remarkable job of agreeing to self-spoiler-watch. They might talk about the movie, and elements of the plot and some might say that there is a twist ending, but few people seemed to say it out loud - at least, I know the first time I heard anybody describe it without warning and making sure others around have seen it, was at least a year after it came out. Everybody seemed to know what the spoiler of that movie was, and they danced around it. (I'm speaking only from my own experience, so this is all anecdotal). In Wiki terms, that would have been a spoiler warning on the last section of the plot.
I think one of the reasons people blanket-spoilered the whole plot was 1) thinking that was just policy, the way to do it (I started that way myself), combined with 2) the fact that 'plot' just _isn't_ a heading where it is completely intuitively obvious that it will spoil everything (it's been pointed out by a number of people that, in common discussions if you ask someone what the plot of a movie is, you're generally not interested in the spoilers), which might have lead to 1.
Now, blanket labelling a whole article by pointing out that it's current fiction I feel removes utility for not much gain - most people searching wikipedia will probably have a rough idea that something is within the length of time of required for it to be 'current fiction', and they want _some_ information anyway. A blanket warning therefore just forces them to choose 'read this and maybe be spoiled, or don't read it' - which is absolutely no different from the choice they have on any other page, except it's in their face (in actuality, it would be more useful to have a blanket warning on _older_ works, such that 'this work is considered 'old fiction' and as such spoiler warnings are not included', since that would actually _warn_. I'm not advocating for that it, I'm just saying that would make more sense to me than the current fiction blanket). Targetted warnings let them know what sections can be read, which is what most people want.
As to the use of a current fiction tag rather than spoilers - using the spoiler tag specifically has a side benefit, one I see as very helpful, that probably a number of the anti-warning group don't even consider. It helps break up the spoiler patrol without trying to force a policy. Because it means a fair number of pages will legitimately have the spoiler tag, it's harder for them to search for all uses of the tag and try to force them out. The 'border cases', the exceptions that we always hope local consensus will determine, will be more free to have that local consensus develop and won't be so plagued with people who have an axe to grind and decide to vote nearly every case down. Wandering Ghost 11:52, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

I miss the spoiler tags

I miss the spoiler tags. I've been editing Wikipedia since 2004 and been reading it since I don't know when. The spoiler tags are very non-intrusive in their design so I don't get why some people have such an aversion against them? I mean, look at this: {{Spoiler}} Spoiler tags are a feature, not a bug. Is it really so disturbing to your eyes that you want to remove a feature that is very useful to many of us? Don't you think that is a little begrudging of you? Using spoiler tags shows that Wikipedia cares about its readers. {{Endspoiler}} Of course we could use thinner borders and less margin if that makes you feel less queasy. And I really think that the "note" link should be in italics too. Oh, and that link is a self reference. It should probably link to Spoiler (media) instead.

Well, that was my 10 cents on the subject.

--David Göthberg 22:41, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your comments, however I expect you will find all the response you need to your sentiments in the archives. David Fuchs (talk) 22:47, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
What's the point of looking at the archives if he wants to make a statement .Garda40 22:59, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
What's the point of making a statement if it's been said in the archives? David Fuchs (talk) 23:15, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Please point me to where David Göthberg made that statement in the archives or are we now banning people who only spot the spoiler tag issue at his point from adding in their views .Garda40 23:40, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
David Göthberg (22:41) wrote: "I miss the spoiler tags" Would you accept the compromise of getting spoiler tags back, but hidden by default, so you would have to click around to make them show up? Milo 23:29, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
The "hidden by default" proposal has failed to win many adherents, and I doubt it ever will. Nowhere else does Wikipedia hide content because some editors would rather not see it. The proposal is also laden with cynicism. Its underlying premise is that the anti-spoiler-tag faction will "go away," once they no longer have to see the tags themselves. But this misses the point, because the anti-tag faction consists primarily of people who actually care about the encyclopedia. They're not going to stop caring just because content they object to has been hidden from their view. It is much better (and more intellectually honest) to propose the conditions where the tags ought to exist, and when those conditions are satisfied, to leave them in plain sight. Marc Shepherd 00:21, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
Let's see what Mr. Göthberg's answer is. Milo 01:12, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
I didn't know he was assigned the tie-breaking vote. Marc Shepherd 12:33, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
My wikilinks must be broken: WP:DON'TASKQUESTIONS still comes up red. Kuronue | Talk 17:55, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
Marc, I proposed "hidden by default" because one of the major arguments of anti-spoilerists was that spoiler warnings are condescending to the reader and also that Wikipedia somehow loses credibility, if it has them. So yes, it assumes that people who are against SWs find it condescending, therefore they wouldn't see it. Same for the people who will not seek them, will not see them, therefore encyclopedia will be more credible. I don't buy that argument about credibility - I believe if someone judges Wikipedia by the existence of SWs, then it's his own problem, and cannot be helped. So the premise wasn't that anti-spoilerists will disappear, it actually addressed some of their issues. And, if the anti-spoilers care so much about Wikipedia, why don't they care about actual audience? I am sure there is a lot more loyal fans that appreciate SWs than there is university professors of literature that are offended by them. Samohyl Jan 18:03, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
Well, you could argue that if someone judges Wikipedia by its lack of SWs, then it's his own problem, and cannot be helped.
I do agree that the solution to the spoiler debate is to tailor the encyclopedia to the expectations of the audience. But the only way to do that is to actually survey what other reference works have done. If most reference sites that discuss recent video games have spoiler tags, it's safe to guess that readers of Wikipedia articles about recent video games might expect them too. If most reference sites that discuss Shakespeare's plays lack spoiler tags, then it's safe to guess that no rational reader would expect Wikipedia to have them either.
Yet, to date, only one contributor to this thread has actually tried to demonstrate reader expectations with any kind of empirical evidence: Clockster did a survey of movie sites. There were some methodological flaws (Amazon.com and usenet forums aren't really comparable to Wikipedia), and she only looked at movie sites. But still, it was a very significant step in the right direction. We need a lot more of that. Marc Shepherd 19:07, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
This is not true, I did a poll among people on RFC page, how much (if at all) they use SWs, but it was interrupted. Samohyl Jan 19:23, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
Spoiler warnings that are hidden by default are unlikely to work because editors will add handmade spoiler warnings that they can see instead of spoiler tags that they cannot see any result of (from their point of view, it would appear that the spoiler tag is broken). — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:29, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
Is it not possible to add some sort of instruction to the tag template?--Nydas(Talk) 18:38, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
Every Wikipedia guideline and policy is constantly violated. Compliance is possible only with perpetual vigilance. This is true of the current spoiler guideline, and would be true of any revision to that guideline. So I think we should concern ourselves with what the guideline ought to say, not with the fact that it will be frequently ignored, because all guidelines are frequently ignored. Marc Shepherd 19:07, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
I don't see how this differs from the current situation, when the SWs are effectively banned. So this is not a good argument. Samohyl Jan 19:16, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Other sites

I did some searching, but couldn't find any encyclopedic web sites dedicated to entertainment. Most of the sites out there are fan-based, retail-based or places like imdb.com. But Britannica does not even have articles on individual works, so you can't use them as a comparison either.

The way I see it, it's reasonable to assume readers will know the a work will be spoiled for them if there is a plot section more than two or three paragraphs. But when there is only a paragraph or two, they're more likely to assume it's just a snapshot of the plot similar to what's printed on the back of DVD cases and books. In some cases, though, the ending is given away in just one paragraph. Like here in the Death Wish 3 article (I was being quick and couldn't find a better example):

"Paul Kersey (again played by Bronson) returns to New York City to visit a war buddy from the Korean war, only to find his friend brutally murdered by a gang led by a reverse mohawk-wearing Manny Fraker (Gavan O'Herlihy). Soon afterwards, the police coerce Kersey into attacking a criminal riot in a dangerous neighborhood as a way of exploiting his freedom from legal restraints. In the film's climax, Kersey mows down many of the criminals with a Browning M1919A4 machine gun, then obliterates the criminal leader with a mail-ordered rocket launcher." --YellowTapedR 00:49, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

What's weird about that plot summary is it's incredibly simple and concise, yet full fo incredibly pointless info (a Browning M1919A4? Do we need to know exactly what make and model of gun used?) David Fuchs (talk) 01:03, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I only used that example because it was the first one I could find by typing in a few semi-obscure films. (If you look at the Browning M1919A4 article, you'll see it isn't any ordinary gun). My point was: If spoiler warnings are not allowed in plot sections, what, if anything can be done about articles that give away everything in just a paragraph? I don't know the answer. Just putting it out there. --YellowTapedR 01:10, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

You can expand the plot summary to an encyclopedic length. Readers shouldn't expect the non-summaries that appear on DVD covers. Those non-summaries are intended to conceal the plot, while our articles are intended to include it. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:25, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Allow spoiler tags for two years

I'd suggest some slight changes to the original suggestion... allow the spoiler section tags throughout the text (and on all character sub-articles and the like) during the 'post release' period. Yes, they look bad... which is why hiding them was the first thing I did when I found out about user .css pages. Yes, they break up the flow and design of the article. Et cetera. I agree with all the arguments against them. But I can live with it as a temporary measure. Two years seems a reasonable span to me... movies get the most viewing in the first few weeks and usually make it to the cable channels and video stores within one year. Highly anticipated books are generally read within a month of release by most fans. Thus, by the time two years have passed anyone who cares to will have had ample opportunity to already read/see the story. I'd even be fine with allowing series of movies, books, TV episodes, et cetera to leave the tags (or put them back on) pages where info more recent than two years are mentioned... thus the Luke Skywalker page could have had a spoiler about Vader being his father for two years after 'The Empire Strikes Back' came out.
So, for two years after new fiction is released Wikipedia looks like some kind of web-review site with spoilers and the like. Then they come out and we get to make it look like an encyclopedia. I can live with that. --CBD 13:37, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
"Yes, they look bad... which is why hiding them was the first thing I did when I found out about user .css pages" If I correctly understand your position, do you agree that optimally implemented hidable tags will eliminate all your objections to spoiler tagging? Milo 21:34, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
No, not at all. I can (and do) hide the tags just fine now. That doesn't stop people from contorting the article into illogical arrangements to isolate all the 'spoiler' information into a particular section or sections. Ultimately the spoiler tags have to go away. By their very existence they push for an article design which is more 'movie fan site' than 'encyclopedia'. I see no value in them whatsoever (if I didn't want to be spoiled about a book/movie/tv show the very last thing I would ever do is go read an encyclopedia article about it) but obviously some people do. Since the biggest objection is to spoiling things for the large number of people who haven't seen/read it yet when it first comes out I'd be ok with letting them have their spoiler tags for some reasonable period of time (and I think two years is plenty reasonable)... and then the tags go away and the articles start to be updated to look like encyclopedia entries. --CBD 23:24, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
wow, David Fuchs is right — you need to (somehow) read the archives. You seem to operating on way-old info or experience. Your issue was quietly consensed by both sides last June-ish. AFAIK, both sides agree with Phil Sandifer's original manifesto that article writing should not be compromised by specific considerations of where to place spoilers. In other words, write the best article first, art jury local consense where the spoilers are located, and only then hidden-tag them by actual location. (As an aside, hidden tags remove a motivation for contorting the article.)
Ok, now that we have that misunderstanding out of the way, I'll ask again about a proposed consensus compromise principle (irrespective of your current .css practice or whether you like or dislike spoiler tags). With the article properly written, do you agree that optimally implemented hidable tags will eliminate all your non-personal objections to spoiler tagging? Milo 00:21, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
I don't believe that idea (i.e. 'write the best article with no thought to the placement of spoiler tags') is possible. To illustrate, any reasonable article on 'Darth Vader' should state in the lead that he was famously revealed to be Luke Skywalker's father. It is easily the most enduring cultural legacy of the character... to the point of having become a near universally known cliche. Yet, if the logic of 'spoiler warnings' holds we then either have to place a spoiler warning in the middle of the lead or move this highly significant fact about the character out... either of which results in an inferior article. Again, by their very existence spoiler warnings 'compromise article writing'. You say that there has been a consensus for over a year that article design should not be influenced by spoiler warning considerations, but the edit and talk page history of Darth Vader show that things were still being moved around in consideration of spoilers long after that. Indeed, the page is still organized on a philosophy of 'isolating spoilers' in a particular area. Many of the arguments against merging it with Anakin Skywalker (which has had similar fighting over spoiler inspired re-design) still come back to spoiler concerns. If you have spoiler warnings in an article, people are going to want to put anything and everything they consider a spoiler in that section and that section only. Seems plainly obvious and clearly borne out by the example. So again, no... I don't see how any system of 'hiding warnings', even doing so by default and making people 'opt in' to the warnings, can prevent redesign of the articles based on 'spoiler concerns'. Keeping spoiler warnings indefinitely is not an option IMO. --CBD 11:17, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
"You say that there has been a consensus for over a year" No, I didn't; you misread what I wrote. The current postings are dated September 2007 so my statement of "last June-ish" meant three-some months ago.
"I don't believe that idea (i.e. 'write the best article with no thought to the placement of spoiler tags') is possible." The question was not about your opinion of possibility; but, you have now made it clear that you refuse to answer the question as stated which was: With the article properly written, do you agree that optimally implemented hidable tags will eliminate all your non-personal objections to spoiler tagging? Milo 05:28, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
No, I answered that question. Repeatedly. You might as well be asking me, 'what would your view on spoiler warnings be once we make all humans omniscient?'. My answer is that it isn't going to happen. It's a practical impossibility. Sure, if spoiler warnings could be used without impacting the article writing at all then there would be no problem... and if all humans were omniscient then they'd know the plot already and warnings would be pointless. It's just the small issue that those things aren't possible. --CBD 21:24, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
If anything, I think you've argued persuasively against a two-year gap. Given that, as you point out, the window on books and movies is far shorter than that. (I point out that Spider-Man 3 did 25% of its worldwide business in three days, with diminishing returns after that. It was well past 50% of its world business by three weeks.) Television, obviously, has a similr window, due to a lack of reconsumption. Books probably have a slightly longer window. But if anything, this seems to me to be an argument for a window of no more than two weeks. And even this assumes a readerbase who does not quickly learn to just expect spoilers and avoid Wikipedia articles on subjects they care not to be informed about. Which seems to me, still, the preferred goal. Phil Sandifer 14:05, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
Hm, I thought you were opposed to bright-line rules in gray areas? Given the many examples of ecological diversity† in published fiction-based works††, specific time frames you and others propose to mandate top-down are anti-ecological. (†N.B., to editors not familiar with this concept; Professor Phil knows that ecologies and the laws of ecology exist in non-natural environments. See Gregory Bateson's Steps to an Ecology of Mind.) (††For only one example mentioned at Talk:Spoiler, a foreign edition published over a decade later.)
In imposing arbitrary rules of conformity, one can not necessarily predict the specific negative consequences of reducing diversity, but generally such excess conformity reduces survivability of the conformed venue in unexpected ways. By exact analogy, growing mono-genetic hybrid grain crops is not practical without pesticides. Yet, who would have predicted that decades later farmers would be getting Parkinson's Disease from pesticide contaminated well water, due to pesticide runoff into the water table? Without the farmer, the hybrid crop does not survive. And, the chain of problems never ends, because excess conformity fundamentally violates a law of ecology.
No, I don't know what bad thing might happen at Wikipedia by imposing anti-diversity spoiler tag time-limit rules top down, as opposed to allowing the local consensus art jury to diversely do this bottom up. The opera editors don't want any, and that's ok with me. Bionicle editors apparently do want them, so that's also ok with me.
I do know that wise, well-educated people don't tempt fate by unnecessarily violating known natural laws – like, say, keeping pet tigers or dinosaurs in the back yard using impenetrable, electrified fences. But 'noug said. Unlike you, I don't want to spoil the Jurassic Park trilogy for those teens who haven't seen the greatest family movie of narrative suspense ever made. (hehe, ok, pile on now) Milo 21:34, 4 September 2007 (UTC)


I argued that most people will experience the new fiction shortly after its release. Most. Not all. A minority, but still sizable, percentage will wait and do so later. I, for instance, am waiting for Spider-Man 3 to come out on the cable/satelite channels or DVD. Haven't seen it yet. Haven't read the Wikipedia article on it either... because I don't want to be 'spoiled' and I know that NO system of 'spoiler warnings' can entirely prevent that. If you don't want to know... don't read the article. Seems obvious to me. Others disagree and think we should try to separate out 'spoiler' and 'non spoiler' information. Hence we have a big mess. But there is no point to this fight. Tons of stuff in Wikipedia doesn't begin to look like a halfway decent article until it has a few years worth of updates to it anyway. Let them have the spoiler tags for two years. Yes, it's a somewhat arbitrary dividing line. Yes, there will still be the occasional 'new fan' who is 'spoiled' on something that came out 'two and a half years' ago (or ten years before they were born) and which they haven't seen yet... but attempting to prevent any possibility of 'spoiling' leads to the kind of nonsense where we had spoiler warnings on centuries old nursery tales. Two years is plenty for anyone who is a 'big fan' who really really wants to see it to have done so. It is enough time that newspapers and television shows and that guy on the street have been openly talking about and referencing the 'spoiler' information for months... and there is probably at least one parody movie out by then. It's enough time for the books to have made their way to the library and into paperback editions, the movies to be released on cable/dvd, and the television shows to have been shown on re-runs and/or be released on dvd... all of them will have gone through and finished their 'second round' of marketing by two years. I say two years because the arguments for keeping them after that point become vanishingly small... basically just the possibility of some 'new fan' not realizing that people openly talk about things which have been around for a few years. Which, frankly, isn't very plausible as (for instance) I've heard a fair bit about Spider-Man 3 just riding the elevator at work. We all know that the 'secrecy' around these things has a 'shelf life'... and two years is past any reasonable expiry criteria that might be cited. Up 'til then each group can decide what spoiler warnings they want (or not), but after two years they can be removed. --CBD 23:24, 4 September 2007 (UTC)
I don't agree with this suggestion to allow unfettered use of spoiler tags for two years after the release of a work. It's true that we have a long time to get things right, but there's no reason to intentionally allow our articles to suffer for two years. The original suggestion, a current fiction tag for two years, already seemed excessive to me. I wold go along with a current fiction tag for a short period of time (and that's why I created the current fiction template in the first place). We still have very few examples of places where spoiler tags are justifiable, which makes it hard to see why they need to be liberally allowed on a large number of articles. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:28, 5 September 2007 (UTC)
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