Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 13:06, 2 July 2007

For Misplaced Pages guidelines regarding warnings in general, see Misplaced Pages:No disclaimer templates (WP:NDT).

This page documents an English Misplaced Pages style guideline. Editors should generally follow it, though exceptions may apply. Substantive edits to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on this guideline's talk page.

Shortcuts WP:SPOILER WP:SPOIL WP:SW

This page is the subject of a current discussion. Please feel free to join in. This doesn't mean that you may not be bold in editing this page, but that it would be a good idea to check the discussion first.

This page in a nutshell: Misplaced Pages contains spoilers. If you want to warn about a plot spoiler, obtain consensus that this is necessary. Only put such warnings in articles about fictional subjects.

A spoiler is a piece of information in an article about a narrative work (such as a book, feature film, television show or video game) that reveals plot events or twists.

Spoilers on the Internet are sometimes preceded by a spoiler warning. However, it is unusual for scholarly reference works (of the sort that Misplaced Pages aspires to be) to warn for spoilers when discussing fictional works. If they do, they often avoid terms such as "spoiler". Because of this, spoiler warnings should generally be avoided.

Concerns about spoilers should play no role in decisions about the structure or content of an article, including the article's lead section. When adding a spoiler in the lead section, remember that Misplaced Pages is written from a real-world perspective; what is exciting in the context of a fictional universe is almost certainly a standard plot device in literary construction.

If a spoiler is added as trivia, and does not contribute to the article in any meaningful way, that information can be removed. However, the rationale is that the information was removed not because it was a spoiler, but because it was trivial or unnecessary.

Spoiler warnings

When spoiler warnings should not be used

• Spoiler warnings must not interfere with neutral point of view, completeness, encyclopedic tone, or any other element of article quality.
• Spoiler warnings are usually inappropriate in articles discussing classical works of literature, poetry and theatre. Some films may fairly be described as classics, but there is far less agreement on this. Fairy tales should never have spoiler warnings. In grey areas, editors placing spoiler templates should use the article's talk page to discuss the matter.
• Spoilers and spoiler warnings should be avoided in articles on non-fictional subjects. If explicit spoilers are mentioned in non-fiction articles (e.g. articles on authors, real-life locations in which (a) fictional text(s) is set, or literary concepts like climax), consider whether the spoiler improves the encyclopedic quality of the article. It may be better to remove the example.
• Spoiler warnings are usually redundant when used to cover an entire "Plot" or "Synopsis" heading, or fictional "History" headings of any sort in articles whose subject is fictional, since spoilers are to be expected in a plot summary. Spoiler tags may be permissible in a subsection of a "Plot" heading, where there is consensus that the spoiler is particularly significant.
• Spoiler warnings should not be used when they can be replaced by more accurate heading information. If a "Themes" heading starts with a plot description, the best thing to do is break the plot description into a separate heading. If there are no headings, it is usually better to add them.
• Articles about fictional characters, objects, or places can be expected to include significant elements of the story. They should not typically need global spoiler warnings.

When spoiler warnings may be appropriate

• Spoiler tags may be appropriate when information appears in unexpected places, such as a "Character" heading, if there is consensus that this is necessary. But spoiler tags shouldn't be used in lieu of organising information properly.
• Spoiler tags are more likely to be appropriate in newer works than in older works. Movies currently in first release, TV shows that haven't aired in all major markets, and books that have only been released in hardcover are more likely candidates for spoiler tags than a film from 1935, though exceptions may exist on either side. Note that this does not imply that spoiler tags become redundant shortly after the work of fiction reaches market.
• Very rarely, a spoiler warning may appear in the article lead. If this can be justified, the warning should be placed at the top of the article. The presumption should be that the article lead should not need to warn about plot spoilers that are significant enough to appear in the lead.

How to add or remove spoiler warnings

• Where it is appropriate, a {{Spoiler}} tag can be used to mark spoiler sections, with {{Endspoiler}} to mark the end. Whether one is adding or removing, be sure to do both. Do not improvise such warnings in plain text, always use the templates.

Use of section naming to indicate presence or absence of spoiler content

Certain section names imply the presence of spoilers. Care should be taken that these names only be applied to sections which do, in fact contain spoilers.

• Sections such as "plot" or "history" are considered to be expected to contain spoilers.
• Sections containing background information about the story, but which do not contain spoilers (such as might be found in reviews or book jackets), should be put under a heading such as "background information", "themes", etc.
• Sections containing information on characters are ambiguous, and may reveal plot twists to readers unexpectedly. Where plot twists are revealed in a character history, background or other similar section, spoiler tags should be used.

Unacceptable alternatives

The following methods should never be used in relation to spoilers:

• Deleting relevant and significant, neutral and verifiable information about a narrative work from an article about that work "because it's a spoiler".
• Structuring an article around spoilers or confining them to a particular area of the article (e.g. under ==Plot==) when unnecessary or in a way that decreases article quality.
• Making "spoiler free" parallel versions (content forks) of an article about a fictional work. Since Misplaced Pages content is available under the GNU Free Documentation License, creating parallel versions outside of Misplaced Pages is acceptable.
• On Internet forums, a widespread convention is the insertion of blank (or virtually blank) lines before a spoiler (which removes the offending text from the reader's view, until the reader scrolls to the next page). Obviously, this is unacceptable in a general-purpose encyclopedia.
• On Usenet and sometimes elsewhere online, a popular method of concealing spoilers and offensive material is ROT13 encryption. This is unacceptable in a general-purpose encyclopedia.
• Another common method of hiding spoilers from readers is to set the text and background colors to the same color using HTML, then have the reader highlight the now "invisible" text in order to read it. This method is unacceptable both for the reasons above and for reasons of accessibility.

Notes

1. Examples include GameFAQs, Television Without Pity, and TV.com.
2. Macnab, Geoffrey. "BFI - Sight & Sound - The Lives of Others (2006)". Retrieved 2007-05-28.
3. An explicit spoiler mentions the work of fiction concerned.

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