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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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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)

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 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 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 Misplaced Pages entry. --Mark H Wilkinson 17:55, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

In other words Don't use Misplaced Pages .Garda40 18:22, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Nydas, Phil wrote that email. I didn't. I have not been subscribed to the Misplaced Pages 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 18:32, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

I suggest you resist the urge to prevent discussion.--Nydas 21:39, 26 August 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. I don't use Misplaced Pages if I don't want to learn something. I use Misplaced Pages a lot. --Mark H Wilkinson 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 Misplaced Pages actively discourages the use of spoiler tags, I won't use it for research anymore. There's no reason to use Misplaced Pages 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)

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, Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages.

Of the 3 that are most similar in their aims to Misplaced Pages, 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 Misplaced Pages than the other sites. Clockster 14:12, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

I looked and it seems to me that IMDB has spoiler warnings (,), 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)

IMDb has a written spoiler policy. Spoilers are limited to appear only in the "full synopsis" section, which is on a separate page with a spoiler warning headline. All links to that page also include a spoiler warning as part of the link text. Spoilers are discouraged to be added outside of the synopsis page, especially in the shorter plot outline sections, and if spoilers are added else such as the "Goofs" section or the message boards, IMDb requires the use of a spoiler warning, either a template they provide, or the word SPOILER: preceding the spoiler content. You can find this information by searching their help system for the word "spoiler" and also in their submission guide on the page for editing the plot synopsis. --Parsifal _Hello 19:10, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm glad you found the policy, as it certainly clarifies things. It can definitely be added to the tally of sites that require spoiler tags. Since then I've checked out a few more sites:

1. Yahoo has no spoiler policy and users have complained about spoilers being posted by Yahoo.

2. movies.com (which appears to be owned by Buena Vista) has articles with spoilers but they're marked as such . The same goes for the forums .

3. AOL's movie site has a blog at cinematical.com which labels spoilers in its articles . As for their movie boards, I wasn't able to find any policy about spoilers but their TV boards have specific spoiler forums which are clearly labeled .

4. MSN Movie Guide has synopses with spoilers (example here ) but their content is almost exactly the same as allmovie, and MSN indicates all synopses are from the "All Movie Guide". I think MSN and allmovie can be counted as the same thing and not two separate entities.

So this means of the 10 sites I looked at, allmovie/MSN, Yahoo and TCMdb have spoilers in their descriptions without any kind of warning, tag, or click-through. Yahoo has user complaints about their no-spoiler-tag policy. The other 6 sites -- IMDb, Netflix, Amazon, AOL, movies.com, and Usenet -- have specific spoiler guidelines. I know someone mentioned that Usenet doesn't count for anything, but even dismissing Usenet that still means most major sites use spoiler notifications.

I believe Marc and I were far too hasty in concluding that no spoiler tags is the norm. If others have movie sites I didn't include, or corrections, please contribute. Clockster 07:38, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

We are making considerable progress here, although I think the analysis calls for some refinement. Of the 10 sites you consulted, several are "fan forums" or sites where most of the coverage appears to be very recent movies. A couple of others (Amazon, Netflix) are in existence primarily to make sales. Their similarity to Misplaced Pages is tenuous, at best. Where the site is a general reference work covering movies of all periods, not a fan forum, and not a DVD vendor, the percentage including spoiler tags goes way down.

It's also notable that, where the warnings are present, they seem to be often placed on the entire page/post in question, a solution the "pro-tag" faction has consistently rejected as inadequate. Marc Shepherd 13:05, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

There's no film or movie site that I'm aware of that's similar to Misplaced Pages, so a direct comparison won't be possible. Also, most sites are either commercial in nature or contain user-generated content or both. Even the IMDb is owned by Amazon, and has links to Amazon products on many (or all) the pages. If we were to dismiss all commercial and fan forum sites, of the 10 I looked in to, that leaves only allmovie/MSN and maybe AOL's blog at cinematical.com. I'm not saying my survey is completely comprehensive, but I do believe these are the best examples we're going to get. Clockster 23:54, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages is arguably sui generis, but one can certainly identify other sites with similar aims — those that are primarily intended for information (rather than sales), edited, comprehensive, broad in coverage, and encyclopedic in tone. Among the movie sites you surveyed, allmovie/MSN seems to come closest. IMDB is a hybrid, in that there is a reference section, but user comments are also permitted, and there seems to be a different spoiler policy for the comments than for the main database.

Of course, Misplaced Pages isn't only a movie site, so a broader version of this study would look at sites dedicated to other genres. While Misplaced Pages is the only site that covers such a wide range of subjects, there are plenty of respected reference sites on the Internet that have the tone and comprehensiveness of an encyclopedia, although with a more limited scope. Marc Shepherd 12:42, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, maybe they are, but we don't know about them, because no one uses them, because they contain spoilers without warnings. :) Seriously, I don't believe there is some large specialized reference site dedicated to literary works, for example. To amass a critical amount of information requires lot of people, and it would probably be well known. IMDB itself has noncommercial origin in USENET database, iirc. Samohyl Jan 18:23, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

IMDb was originally owned by someone in the UK who kept it as a non-commercial database, yes. You could contribute to it by sending a specifically formatted email. I don't believe it had a USENET component or a way to contribute via USENET, although maybe I just wasn't aware of one. Anyway, the site was sold to Amazon and at that point it became largely commercial.

Before I forget, I found a spoiler tag on the IMDb that gives an example of how they're used in the Trivia section: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0052218/trivia Clockster 19:43, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I think IMDb is absolutely relevant. Obviously it is only one source, and it is limited to movies, but its aims are close enough to Misplaced Pages's to be considered comparable. Indeed, it's quite common to find Misplaced Pages articles that use IMDb as their source.

An example of a literature site is http://www.online-literature.com/. No spoiler warnings that I could see. One can quite easily find other sites dedicated to specific genres. Marc Shepherd 20:43, 11 September 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 Misplaced Pages. 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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? Misplaced Pages 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. Misplaced Pages shouldn't copy fansites, but the anti-spoiler people seem to view our fiction articles as an extension of them.--Nydas 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 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 . 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 #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 Misplaced Pages.

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 Misplaced Pages'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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages hierarchy "clique", using that term.

If Misplaced Pages 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, Misplaced Pages Review, Wikitruth, Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages. 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)

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. Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages'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, Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages works. Or at least, it's how Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages? 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 Misplaced Pages 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 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 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 Misplaced Pages.

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 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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)

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 Misplaced Pages, 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 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 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 . Of the five, there are two sandbox tests, two talk page tests and one spoiler tag restoration.--Nydas 19:31, 2 September 2007 (UTC)

See Misplaced Pages: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 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 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)

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)

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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages in question (e.g. English Misplaced Pages). -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 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 Misplaced Pages 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: Template: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 Misplaced Pages cares about its readers. Template: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 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 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages, 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages 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 Misplaced Pages), 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 18:38, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Every Misplaced Pages 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 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)

Spoiler templates proposal at WP:PW

As many people may/may not know spoilers are regulary entered into professional wrestling articles by IP's or other users, which are quickly removed. I have proposed several templates to help warn the user(s). The discussion is ongoing. If you wish to participate, click here. Davnel03 06:48, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Two recent edits reverted

I've reverted the two most recent edits to this guideline:

This edit by User:Jere7my, removed the word "completeness" from the following statement in the section "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.

The edit summary was as follows: '"Completeness" doesn't belong here — adding a spoiler tag doesn't remove any information, so it can't affect completeness, can it? Editing to remove spoilers could, but that's not what this describes.'

A good example of where using spoiler tags may interfere with completeness is where a very significant fact about the subject of an article is confined behind a spoiler tag in an inner section, causing it to be omitted from the lead section.

This edit, by User:Parsifal, changes the following statement in the section "When spoiler warnings may be appropriate":

Spoiler notices may be appropriate when significant plot revelations appear in unexpected places, if there is consensus that this is necessary (note it on the talk page).

The new version read as follows:

Spoiler notices may be appropriate when significant plot revelations appear in unexpected places. As with all content, if a particular spoiler notice is disputed, discuss on the talk page and abide by consensus with regard to including or omitting the spoiler notice.

The edit summary was: 'consensus is not required "in advance" to edit Misplaced Pages (WP:BOLD); consensus is needed when content is questioned (WP:CONSENSUS, WP:BRD'

I think that here the editor of the guideline has confused the concept of consensus and discussion. Consensus is required for all edits--those that don't have consensus are (eventually) undone. That an edit may be made without discussion is the essence of be bold, and this is true of removing or adding a spoiler warning if the editor believes he has reason to suppose that consensus exists for his edit.

The new wording is unnecessarily cluttered. It is moreover current practice, and not at all controversial, for editors to place spoiler tags where they believe they should be placed, so the version of the guideline to which I have reverted expresses current practice accurately without making a meal of it. --Tony Sidaway 12:57, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I concur with Jere7my's edit. The situation Tony described that might affect completeness is not addressed by the sentence he reverted, it's a different subject and is covered by a different part of the guideline. Adding a spoiler notice does not cause information to move to a different section and thereby be omitted. That would violate the part of the guideline that addresses that point.

Adding a spoiler notice "adds" something, does not remove anything, it adds the information that a spoiler is coming up in the text. If someone moved information out of the lead because it's a spoiler, that would be a different action and could interfere with completeness. But simply adding a notice that a spoiler is present does not cause information to move or be omitted. So Jere7my was correct to remove the word - we should use the version as he edited it. --Parsifal _Hello 18:47, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Parsifal. You've stated my point very well; that section, per its title, should cover whether or not to place spoiler tags, not warn about other edits that may follow from their placement. Tony's concern is covered in the lede — "...it should be placed with careful consideration to assure that it does not create a damaging effect on article organization..." — and could be added to the "How to add or remove spoiler warnings" section. (Also, I'm glad to see my "unexpected places" phrasing survives! :) ) --Jere7my 06:27, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Why not remove the reference about the need for consensus, since the definition of consensus you are using today makes it inevitable?--Nydas 18:26, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Nydas makes a good point. Actually that is exactly what I was doing. That sentence of guideline should say this:

Spoiler notices may be appropriate when significant plot revelations appear in unexpected places.

That's all that's needed, in the section for where they may be appropriate (There's plenty of "when not to use" reasons in the "when not to use" section).

The reason I added the second sentence when I made the edit, was as a concession in advance, knowing that the opponents of spoiler use would want some acknowledgment there may be a dispute and that discussion for consensus would then be needed. But Nydas is correct, based on Tony's argument above the second part is not needed and the simple direct version would be best. --Parsifal _Hello 18:47, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I consense restoration of Parsifal's edit, and concur with Nydas to omit the second sentence per Tony's reasoning. That combination correctly puts spoiler tag adding or deleting on a standard bold, consensus, and/if discussion par with all other edits. Milo 23:56, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

I also endorse these changes.Wandering Ghost 00:08, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't see why we should remove the reference to consensus, since that is what we're trying to drive home: that such edits, like any others, are not automatic (which until recently they sadly had become) but are subject to consensus.

Parsifal says:

Adding a spoiler notice does not cause information to move to a different section and thereby be omitted. That would violate the part of the guideline that addresses that point

Well, adding a spoiler notice, does cause information to move. That's the most insidious problem here. If somebody pops a spoiler tag before "Romeo, ignorant of the plot to fake Juliet's death, arrives at her tomb and commits suicide..." it amounts to saying "don't talk about the circumstances of Romeo's death anywhere else in the article, Which is bloody stupid, but we did actually have quite a tussle over that article. --Tony Sidaway 01:05, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Slippery slope fallacy, Tony. What you're talking about is not an abuse of the spoiler tag, but a failure of editors due to ignorance. It is not the tag's fault that people are unfamiliar with policy, and it does not cause anything. Place a tag in an article and have everyone leave it alone for three days. I guarantee you not a word will have moved. ; ) Postmodern Beatnik 03:39, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Removing spoiler warnings also causes information to move, and causes information to be removed, and a perceived lack of ability to add them causes information to be less likely to be added in the first place. Surely that is now cause to readd them. :) Wandering Ghost 12:48, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

As tony is the only one arguing that "completeness" is necessary, I've re-removed it. If he manages to convince people and consensus shifts, let someone else add it back in; I'm tired of "Tony disagrees, thus no consensus". Kuronue | Talk 01:23, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

• sigh* Not again...♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 02:49, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Care to elaborate, or are you content to only insinuate that we should abandon consensus as an official policy? Postmodern Beatnik 03:39, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm more than happy with Kuronue's alternate wording (in which he simply removes the words "if there is consensus that this is necessary (note it on the talk page)." As I've stated above, the consensus requirement is implicit in every Misplaced Pages edit. The problem that I had identified with Parsifal's edit, above, was "the editor of the guideline has confused the concept of consensus and discussion." Better to leave something unstated and implicit than to misrepresent.

On Kuronue's statement that 'tony is the only one arguing that "completeness" is necessary', that's obviously incorrect. User:Marc Shepherd has restored it twice in the past week. The term "completeness" first appeared in an edit to Misplaced Pages:Spoiler warning/draft at 01:41, 19 May 2007, made by User:Hipocrite, who has since then been renamed to User:DepartedUser. The wording of the draft was introduced to Misplaced Pages:Spoiler in this edit by User:Ned Scott after the old guideline had been marked as rejected. The wording has remained, despite occasional challenges, because it is evident that inappropriate use of this particular tag has in the past seriously constrained completeness and neutral point of view over time. For instance, the lead section of our Romeo and Juliet article used to read:

'' The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy by William Shakespeare concerning the fate of two young "star-cross'd lovers". It is one of the most famous of Shakespeare's plays, one of his earliest theatrical triumphs, and is thought to be the most archetypal love story of the Renaissance and indeed the history of Western culture.

Now that's fine as far as it goes, but it's very vague. This seems to be because discussion the actual plot was regarded as a "spoiler", and confined to the "Synopsis" section behind a spoiler tag.

Now let's look at the first paragraph of the lead in the current version:

''Romeo and Juliet is an early tragedy by William Shakespeare about two teenage "star-cross'd lovers" whose "untimely deaths" ultimately unite their rival households. The play has been highly praised by literary critics for its language and dramatic effect. It was among Shakespeare's most popular plays during his lifetime and, along with Hamlet, is one of his most frequently performed plays. It is considered by many to be the world's most iconic love story.

Still not perfect (the almost meaningless superlative "iconic" should be replaced by something more sensible, and "rival" doesn't pack the same punch as "feuding") but a great improvement over the older version, which dates from 13 May. The lead section is more complete. --Tony Sidaway 14:17, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

In 99% of cases revealing the ending in the lead is the result of lapsing into an in-universe viewpoint, acting as if it really happened, as is the case here.--Nydas 14:59, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree that it's usually inappropriate, and that is why we don't have words in the guideline saying "the plot must always be discussed in the lead. I don't think that is the case with the lead of Romeo and Juliet. It is not just a love story featuring two colorless ingenues. The plot contributes to its enduring significance, not to mention its popularity. Moreover the article tells us that it has been observed that "until this play romance had not been viewed as a worthy topic for tragedy" (Levenson, Jill L (2000) (ed.). Introduction. Romeo and Juliet. William Shakespeare. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 49–50. ISBN 0192814966.) The use of a tragic rather than a melodramatic form, and the serious treatment, contributed to the success of what was in essence a new form of tragedy. --Tony Sidaway 15:16, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

There's nothing there which makes revealing the ending necessary for the lead, especially since it has already said it's a tragedy. The part about uniting their rival households makes it sound like there's a sequel in the works.--Nydas 06:19, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

1) I'm a she. You'd think after all this time being on opposite sides of this particular debate you'd have bothered to stop by my userpage at least once >.>

2) Tony's the only one arguing for it. One other editor is merely reverting and not coming to the talk page to discuss. Neither of those facts, taken together or seperatly, indicates consensus. Those in favor of fewer or no spoiler tags talk a lot about consensus; I wish to verify that there is, indeed, consensus, before we add things to the guideline. In general, if we omit something that has consensus on accident, it's less detrimental than leaving something in without consensus and then forcing people to abide by it. Kuronue | Talk 02:21, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Completeness

I re-added "completeness," which has been in the article for at least three months, and as far as I can find, without any previous complaint. The full sentence is as follows:

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

Can anyone explain why, among the elements listed, "completeness" would not belong? Marc Shepherd 11:11, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I think it's already been explained, and agreed to by a number of editors - the addition of a spoiler warning _can't_ affect completeness. It does not remove information. Tailoring an article so that spoilers appear in one place might affect completeness (and that is described as against policy elsewhere), but a warning itself does not. As such, the word is unneeded. And something being in the article for at least 3 months without a problem isn't a particular endorsement of it, unless you want to suggest that any undiscovered error somehow gains added legitimacy the longer it remains undiscovered. ;) Wandering Ghost 12:45, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I just can't fathom why in the world there's an edit war over a damn relatively harmless word. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 13:02, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

As far as I can tell, Tony, Melodia and I all agree it belongs there. However, I've moved the entire sentence, so that no one can claim that adding a warning detracts from completeness. The addition of a spoiler warning wouldn't affect "neutral point of view" or "encyclopedic tone" either, so by the argument given they presumably should have been deleted too! Choosing "completeness" alone for deletion is incoherent. Marc Shepherd 13:18, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I'd certainly agree that adding a spoiler warning can't affect "encyclopedic tone", but that's been one of the anti-warning crowd's primary arguments for eliminating them, so I thought it politic to leave that in. I've also seen it claimed that adding a warning is not NPOV, because the editor is picking and choosing which information to "protect". (I don't agree with these arguments, but they are pretty common, so I tried to take them into account.) --Jere7my 17:35, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually, now that I think about it, isn't that whole sentence equivalent to "Don't violate Misplaced Pages policies when editing"? Isn't that redundant? I glanced at a few other style guidelines (e.g. http://en.wikipedia.org/Wikipedia:Accessibility), and didn't see "Making an article accessible must not interfere with neutral point of view, completeness, encyclopedic tone, or any other element of article quality." The closest I saw (in an admittedly cursory examination) was "Controversial articles, by their very nature, require far greater care to achieve a neutral point of view" — i.e., a sentence explaining why you should use care when editing such articles, not a reminder to follow the rules.

We've also let a "must" phrasing back in, when style guidelines should use "should"s. --Jere7my 18:46, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you that, in theory, if someone had really absorbed and understood all of the other guidelines, the sentence would be redundant. But no one needs to pass a test before editing Misplaced Pages, and many editors don't know all of the policies—even those as fundamental as WP:NPOV. It's fairly common that spoiler-sensitive editors allow their concerns to influence article content, so the point seems to be worth making. If you do a search, you will find that many other guideline/policy pages refer to each other. This certainly isn't the only place that it happens.

The word "must" appears to be correct in this instance, as I am fairly certain that these are non-negotiable points. "Should" would be appropriate if it were sometimes permissible to compromise completeness, NPOV, or encyclopedic tone due to spoiler concerns. Marc Shepherd 20:18, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

"Must" seems to run counter to the idea of a style guide, which after all begins with a block containing the words, "However, it is not set in stone and should be treated with common sense and the occasional exception." Anything strong enough to warrant a "must" is better explained elsewhere, and seems redundant here; a style sheet doesn't seem like the place to recapitulate "Intro to Editing Misplaced Pages 101." *shrug* --Jere7my 21:38, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Fan-use of spoilers

Looking at the whatlinkshere for {{Spoiler}}, I noticed that a great deal of them are people posting them on talk pages... we should probably sort this out, as I'm pretty sure it hasn't been discussed in length. David Fuchs 20:47, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Oh good grief .They're on the talk pages and what's probably more important they are historical (at least the 20 or some I clicked are and I can't see that would be different for most of them ) .Garda40 21:21, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I have to agree. Kinda silly to weed them out on talk pages. Considering part of the main arguments is that spoiler warnings are a "forum thing" and not an "encyclopedia thing" -- talk pages are forums. So what's wrong with them there? ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 21:32, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree as well...it's the least of Misplaced Pages's problems. Marc Shepherd 21:36, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Whilst use of tagging on talk pages probably feeds other inappropriate uses of spoiler tags to some extent, I don't think it's a big deal. I think "forum thing" is a blind alley because our talk pages are not forums in that sense. Nevertheless, it's a very low priority matter. --Tony Sidaway 16:58, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Spoiler tags are redundant in plot summary sections

The point of a section entitled "plot summary" in an encyclopedia article on a book or other work of fiction is to summarize the entire plot of the work, including all important details and the ending. This contrasts with copy on book jackets and newspaper reviews. These are intentionally not plot summaries. They intentionally leave out important details in the interest of selling books (in the case of book covers) or avoiding spoilers (in the case of reviews). Our goal here is not to sell books or to avoid spoilers - it is to be comprehensive in our coverage of all important aspects of any work of fiction for which we have an article. That's why spoiler tags are redundant on plot summary sections here. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:09, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Spoiler tags are not redundant in plot summaries. Readers often may wish to know the premise of a plot, and the initial elements, but still wish to skip over sections of the plot description that would spoil the experience of reading the book or seeing the film.

In the current guideline, it is stated that separate sections of articles should not be set aside for spoilers to be included. Therefore spoilers, if they exist in a story, will appear in the plot section. If we eliminate spoiler notices from the plot sections, then readers who want a plot summary without spoilers are out of luck and will visit IMDb instead of Misplaced Pages.

We can solve this by either accepting spoiler notices within the plot section, or by accepting that some fiction articles will have two plot sections - one that is a summary with no spoilers included, and another more complete plot section that does include spoilers.

Since there has been very strong opposition to the idea of accepting separate spoiled and non-spoiled plot sections, it seems that the best solution is to accept spoiler notices within plot sections when there is an important plot twist.

If we don't accept that, then many readers will simply avoid Misplaced Pages articles about films or books they have not seen or read. That deprecates Misplaced Pages by reducing readership; it deprecates the experience of those readers who would like to know more about a film or book before experiencing it, in that some advance knowledge can make the experience better in many ways; and it deprecates the work of those Misplaced Pages editors who are also enthusiasts of film or book fiction and who do not wish their work to spoil the experience of others. --Parsifal _Hello 02:31, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, readers who do not want to learn the plot of a fictional work should not read an encyclopedia article about the work, and certainly should not read a section entitled "plot summary" in an encyclopedia article about the work. — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:33, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I removed the edit which perpetuates the plot=spoilers fallacy. Some plot summaries have spoilers and some don't; that's a fact that falsifies an unqualified claim of spoiler tag redundancy in plot summary sections.

Garion96's edit summary weakly attempted to justify a connection between the two using the unqualified phrase "plot or plot summary is an excellent indication there will be spoilers", meaning he claims by probability that one is very likely to find spoilers in all the things or at least most of the things called "plot" or "plot summary" that exist in the publishing world. I doubt that's true because of the bias by publishers, fans, and reviewers, to avoid spoilers. Summaries by their nature leave things out. Since there is both a profit bias and a social disappointment bias to leave spoilers out, then logically spoilers will be left out far more often than other plot details, making it less likely to find spoilers in plot summaries. How much less likely is more difficult to say, but at the least it falsifies the claim of "an excellent indication". Until and unless proved otherwise, I assess Garion96's claim to be a notion.

Out of the many kinds of "plot" and "plot summary", I used the example of novel jackets because it was the largest and most simple example that would fit in the edit summary.

CBM wrote (02:33): "The point of a section entitled "plot summary" in an encyclopedia article on a book or other work of fiction is to summarize the entire plot of the work, including all important details and the ending." I agree that this sounds like a "Misplaced Pages plot summary", that being a particular type of plot summary heavily promoted on this page for months, but the article sections aren't being titled that way. The readers only see "Plot summary" and Misplaced Pages by policy does not uniquely decide the definition or restrict range of use of that or any other common-use phrase. There exist other types of write-ups that readers seem to think are plot summaries in a continuum ranging from many details with an ending, to the skeleton summaries printed in TV schedules. Are you saying all those readers are wrong? If so, can you prove it?

''CBM wrote (02:33): "This contrasts with copy on book jackets and newspaper reviews. These are intentionally not plot summaries." Intentionally not plot summaries? Can you cite a definitional source for this breath-taking claim covering the entire field of book and newspaper publishing? Milo 07:46, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

The empirical evidence contradicts what Milo is saying. When editors put {{spoiler}} on a page, the most commmon usage is to mark the entire plot, or in some cases the entire article. It would seem, then, that the average editor does not see it the way Milo does.

I do agree with Milo that the common-sense meaning of "spoiler" is not the entire plot, but some subset of it. But it's clear that, without better guidance, editors will continue to use the {{spoiler}} tag rather indiscriminately. Marc Shepherd 12:42, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

That's a good idea. I added an instruction in the "how to use" section of the guideline to clarify this. --Parsifal _Hello 17:01, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I did explain why it isn't right to compare newspaper/book jacket plot blurbs with plot blurbs in an encyclopedia. "They intentionally leave out important details in the interest of selling books (in the case of book covers) or avoiding spoilers (in the case of reviews)."

Let me expand on an earlier comment I made: any section here entitled "plot summary" should cover all significant points of the plot of the work, including spoilers and the ending as appropriate. If some articles don't do this, it's because the articles aren't done yet. In an ideal limit when every article has reached perfection, those incomplete articles would have longer plot summaries. The right solution to a plot summary that only has some significant details, but not all of them, is to add the rest when possible, not add a spoiler tag for the ones that are there. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:15, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

If mis-use of tags isn't good enough reason to delete them (there's discussion about the Trivia tag along the same lines, that people tag anything labeled "Trivia" even if it's appropriate to the article as per the guideline), then it's certainly not good enough reason to re-write the guideline. Just because people misuse spoiler tags, and misuse them often, doesn't mean there's never a proper use for them; misuse of fact tags doesn't mean you shouldn't tag anything as unverified, does it? I think we need to throw out this "people misuse them" argument and focus on the ideal - because isn't the guideline here to show us what, if all the tags were used properly, things SHOULD look like? Kuronue | Talk 20:17, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I would much rather discuss situations where the tags might be appropriate. There has been a lack of such examples. Would you suggest a couple test cases? — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:16, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, there was the spoiler tag over at Halo: Combat Evolved that was in the 'enemies' section, because it detailed the existence of the Flood. I suppose that some would try and put the spoiler in the plot section where it is talked about the appearance of this enemy- I know I removed one global spoiler on the page a while back. David Fuchs 16:38, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

2007-9-12

Please note that the sentence in the lede about spoiler tags being redundant in plot sections is not detailed below; the lower part has a weaker sentence. I tried to move the sentence from the lede to a lower section, to remove redundancy as D. Fuchs was trying to do, but my edit was reverted. — Carl (CBM · talk) 17:05, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Random deletion of guideline text, and how to deal with it

The ongoing and apparently knowing definitional misuse of the word "random/randomly" in this thread appears to be edging into private language, which at Misplaced Pages is a pernicious type of tendentious debating - an offense that has inclusively led to the community ban of at least one editor. This type of tendentious debating is a willful blindness toward using English words or neologisms in a way that obscures or collides with dictionary-defined or well-known extra-lexical word meanings. Usefully novel meanings for established words are classically placed within quote marks or otherwise explained, but it remains fundamentally tendentious to write "three" in a context where one intends the meaning of "seven" or "pudding". Milo 21:55, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

It seems that the trend lately is to randomly lop some text out of the guideline. The latest victim here is the following sentence:

There are additional considerations for deciding whether to include spoiler tags or not; for example, it is generally redundant to put the tags in sections marked 'Plot' or 'Plot Summary'.

Now if there is some problem about the placing of that statement, fine, but it's indisputable that when we've gone in and removed such occurrences of spoiler tags there is hardly ever any comeback. Actually there's hardly ever any comeback anyway, but in "plot" sections this is particularly noticeable.

We've been going on the current guideline now for three months or so, so perhaps we ought to start to write about our experiences in a historical mode. With actual editing data, we could actually corroborate with good fidelity the fact that removals of spoiler tags are seldom challenged. --Tony Sidaway 17:06, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Now we're asked to consider the following:

Before

There are additional considerations for deciding whether to include spoiler tags or not; for example, it is generally redundant to put the tags in sections marked 'Plot' or 'Plot Summary'.

After

There are additional considerations for deciding whether to include spoiler tags or not; make sure to review this guideline in full before making the decision to add or remove the templates.

I object to this because it blatantly ignores the history of spoiler tag removal. Nearly every single time a spoiler tag is removed, it stays removed, and this is especially true when the tag had been placed in a "Plot", "Synopsis" or similar section. If there was a history of editors arguing that a removed spoiler should be restored, I could understand that this might be a bit of a controversial point.

But no, I don't think we can realistically believe that this change had any basis in experience. Rather, it seems to reflect the opinion of an editor who hangs around on this page but does not involve himself in spoiler-related article edits and does not refer his changes to the history of such edits. What is such an opinion worth? --Tony Sidaway 17:30, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Putting your eyebrow-raising ad hominem toward another editor aside for the moment...

Your audacious claim of random text removal doesn't meet the eyeball test, and obviously isn't true.

The non-random edit under challenge was never logically valid, and only stayed in as an artifact incidental to circular reasoning. It and much of the rest of this spoiler guide history you are trying to prop up was installed by the May 2007 Spoiler Tag Coup force, not consensus. In three months time it has become abundantly clear that some, much, or all of this Misplaced Pages:Spoiler guide has no consensus - it is held in place by unconsensed and uncompromising majoritarian force contrary to Misplaced Pages policy. This guide is fallaciously justified by a bag of fingerprint-averting happenings, like article level 'enforcers' which are the natural outcome of controlling the guide, not a consensus for it, and my term of 'chilling squads' for groups of editors who reportedly seek out and pressure regular editors who want to add spoiler tags.

"believe that this change had any basis in experience" You're right about that. This change is about removing an illogical fallacy. Once they are noticed, all fallacies should be challenged, and none should be allowed to remain anywhere at Misplaced Pages except historically in talk space. Milo 21:55, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Your impugning the worth of my opinion is uncivil and I respectfully request that you comment on the content of the discussion and not on me as a person.

The reason I have not involved myself in spoiler-related debates on articles is that after reading many of them and testing the waters on a few of them, I decided my limited time would be more useful working on improving the guideline (not "hanging around" as you described it).

The first edit you noted above was not a random removal. It was done by at least three editors separately. It is also being actively discussed on this talk page in the section immediately above this one, in accordance with consensus process.

The second edit was my attempt to avoid reverting and instead add weight of careful consideration of the guideline for editors working on articles.

Regarding what the edit history shows on this topic: it does not imply consensus to that statement in the guideline that that removal of the spoiler notices from plot sections was not strongly contested, since the removals were based on this guideline that does not have consensus. That's circular reasoning, as has been stated in this discussion by others several times. The article editors who saw the guideline used as a basis for the removals had no way to know that the guideline was not stable or supported by clear consensus, so they "obeyed the rules" and backed down.

That sentence you quoted at the top of your post here does not have consensus for inclusion in the guideline. There is no consensus that plot sections and spoiler notices are redundant. Many editors and active participants on this page do not agree with that statement. That's why other editors removed that sentence as well. As you have said yourself on this page, consensus is required. Until/unless consensus for that sentence is found here, that text should not be part of the guideline. --Parsifal _Hello 17:49, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

We seem to have entered a new era, with members of the pro-spoiler-tag set just making random edits to long-standing passages in the guideline, to see what they can sneak in. Obviously WP:BOLD in a sense permits this, but such changes are likely to be quickly reverted. Marc Shepherd 17:53, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Wasn't there some suggestions fairly recently that, instead of arguing so much on the talk page, that the pro-warning group attempt to improve the guideline? Now when that's being done, we're trying to "sneak it in". Please. The changes made seem to be supported by at least a nontrivial number of people, and opposed by a nontrivial number of people. So, who's side do we go with?

Also I note that some of the 'random edits to long-standing passages' are actually edits to passages that have been slowly modified by the anti-spoiler group to become more anti-spoiler that are perhaps just now being noticed. The only reason they're "long standing" is because not many edits have in general been made since, with discussion focusing on the talk page. Now that edits are being made, the page as a whole are being looked at.

For example, the whole 'for example, it is redundant to put spoiler warnings in plot' segment _before_ the 'when they should not be used' section, seems to stem from a July 21st edit, where he suggests that proper section titling is often better than spoiler warning, and gives a fair amount of detail on the thought. Fair enough, and perhaps even a decent compromise. Then on August 28th, it's "condensed" and becomes "for example, spoiler warnings are generally redundant'. Except, that's harsher language than original, and, as it comes from the lead section, more likely to be read and just taken as gospel without reading the rest. It also leaves no room for exceptions. And, the warning about spoiler warnings being redundant, is ALSO redundant... because it's talked about in more detail later on. We don't need a "for example". The page isn't that long, they can see the examples that spoiler warnings are inappropriate all together. Why highlight that one? Why not highlight, "for example, fairy tales should probably not get spoiler warnings." So yeah, that was the basis of the edit of a section that had only been in that form for a few weeks. So, after noticing it being removed and replaced a few times, I removed it too. Eegads, what a change to a long-standing page.

I should also note that through a series of edits, each arguably seemingly plausible on their own, the wording has slowly been shifted less and less spoiler tolerant. There's the above case, there's the suggestion that spoiler tags might be better on newer works being replaced with a suggestion to use 'current fiction' tags (said proposal seems to lack consensus, but perhaps we didn't notice right off, it being snuck in while discussing other things). But when a shift is made to be slightly more warning-friendly (or even just less warning hostile), people jump all over it. Well, I see no reason for the pro-warning crowd not to continue making any changes we see fit, at any time. We're not being any sneakier than anybody else, but perhaps we're just not as on the ball on it. Wandering Ghost 16:37, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

• The edits are not random, they are thoughtful, and they are addressed to elements that do not have consensus. That's according to policy.

• There is no trying to sneak in changes. Obviously, we're all aware that every change will be immediately noticed and reverted. But a few people reverting every change is not consensus.

• Since the page does not have consensus, it's correct to modify it until it does, that's also according to policy. The ratio of discussion to editing on this guideline is absolutely huge. With so much discussion, a bit of editing seems welcome and appropriate.

• long-standing passages do not have more authority just because they've not been changed for a while. Consensus conveys the authority, not time. You know the "consensus can change" page, I don't need to link it for you.

• Please leave off the emotionally charged accusations of "sneaking" and "random" edits, or , implying that people who don't agree with you are not just as sincere as you are about improving Misplaced Pages. Just because we don't agree doesn't mean we should use impolite language when we discuss the issues. "Sneaking" implies that the person needs to hide because they're doing something wrong. That's simply not accurate, and not a polite way to collaborate. --Parsifal _Hello 18:19, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I call those edits "random," because any reader of this page would know that there is likely no consensus for them. Now, I realize that some people believe there's no consensus for the current guideline either. But a change from one bad version to another bad version is no improvement. The only pattern I've seen in the last couple of months of debate is that any suggestion is instantly shouted down. No sincere suggestion gains traction, regardless of which side it comes from. So the new approach is to just boldly change the guideline without discussion, to see what sticks. I can't say I blame you, as those actually try to gain consensus first are inevitably rebuffed. Marc Shepherd 19:22, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

Please see my warning at the top of this thread about edging into private language and tendentious debating. While I respect Tony as a debate opponent, and I admire his efforts to improve his relationships and performance at Misplaced Pages, he's only human. He has previously gotten himself into top-level hot water, and in this case has set a poor example which you would be foolish to emulate.

Put in the slightly blunter terms of power, the clique will probably save Tony if he is put in the dock. On the other hand, since your chosen position is to serve the clique, and servants are expendable, they probably won't save you. Milo 21:55, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

And any reader of this page knows that that particular sentence is under debate. It's under debate one section above this one. Scroll up literally one section. Yet if we try to edit it, here comes Tony with his "indisputable", with his "randomly lop some text out of the guideline", with his "What is such an opinion worth?". I swear to god, Tony, if you don't stop making smart-ass personal attacks against everyone who touches your precious guideline I'll haul your ass before the appropriate channels. Calm down, and stop trying to micro-manage every word that you disagree with, and Marc, chill out as well before you become just as bad as he is. There's more to wikipedia than this guideline; if other people editing shit bothers you that much, maybe you should see if some other encyclopedia is hiring. Kuronue | Talk 20:14, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

The "haul your ass before the appropriate channels" approach has, I believe, already been tried and got nowhere. Marc Shepherd 20:31, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

And I have to say your "I swear to god... haul your ass" comments seem much more vitrolic than anything Tony has said. You might want to sit down and calm yourself before knocking on others. David Fuchs 16:42, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

...an editor who hangs around on this page but does not involve himself in spoiler-related article edits. That's because they'll get banned. People aren't going to fall into that trap again.--Nydas 20:34, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

blah blah blah big scary anti-spoiler people who pick on the poor little pro-spoiler people who just want to make things good for the common good. blah blah blah. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 20:49, 10 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand what these comments of yours are meant to accomplish, other than inflame the situation or insult people you disagree with. No, you're not the only one who has made a heated comment here, but you're certainly the only one who has made a habit of continuously immature, insulting, senseless comments.

Nydas' point that people aren't adding spoiler tags to articles because they know what kind of "trap" awaits them if they do is accurate, at least in my case. After reading the discussion here and the archives, even though I have found two articles recently which I felt needed a spoiler tag, I'm just not going to bother. I don't think I'll be banned, per se, but I know it will just get reverted and, at best, just be used as a data point in this discussion. It's a waste of time to try to add a spoiler tag, even if they are ostensibly allowed in the correct situations. Clockster 20:05, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Clearly, there is consensus for the changes to the guideline. Team Anti-Spoiler should learn the difference between consensus and unanimity.--YellowTapedR 02:26, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

What consensus do you think you see? There may be a majority view that the guideline should be somehow different, but I haven't seen consensus for any particular substantive change. Marc Shepherd 02:33, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

It's really a case of disconsensus and removal of the baldly illogical plot=spoilers fallacy. Milo 21:55, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Enough filibustering. Consensus is clearly is favor of Parsifal's edits. --YellowTapedR 04:33, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

And what is the basis for this? Marc Shepherd 11:55, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

As I suggested above, the best way to deal with these random edits may be to investigate the history of spoiler tag removal since mid-June. My seat-of-pants feeling on this is that the investigation will show that there is extremely low opposition to such removals, and reverts and discussion on talk pages, while they do happen, are extremely rare. Claims that the current guideline lacks consensus would thus be shown to be fictional by any reasonably comprehensive evidence-gathering exercise. The facts arising, being facts and not just opinions, where significant could be added to the guideline to show that it enjoys very broad de facto consensus indeed. --Tony Sidaway 13:46, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Tony's analysis is spot-on. Most pro-tag editors have consistently resisted all suggestions to provide any kind of empirical analysis or research. As Carl noted, it would also be helpful to have practical examples of where the tags would be worthwhile, but the pro-tag faction seldom offers any.

As far as I can tell, most people on the pro-tag side want a return to the "Wild West," where editors add spoiler tags pretty much wherever they want, without the near-automatic removal that is the case today. No one on the pro-tag side has actually used the term "Wild West," but as none of them has been willing to propose guidelines that would at all limit or guide editors, this is the practical effect of their position. Marc Shepherd 14:12, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

"pro-tag editors have consistently resisted ... empirical analysis or research." I'd say what's being resisted is your transparent attempt to foist an "off-Wiki practice" philosophy I'd lightly describe as to the left of Attila the Hun.

"would at all limit or guide editors" That's your simple misunderstanding from failure to read the archives before becoming so eye-rollingly outspoken on this page. You appear to be promoting a thinly veiled conservatism when you don't even know what there is to conserve.

I made a statement early on that I accepted Phil Sandifer's good writing standards, which always was his principle complaint about spoiler tagging. AFAIK, no pro-tagger has disputed that principle that articles should be written as best possible, and only then consense spoiler tagging issues.

Once the article is well-written, spoiler tags can be reasonably placed anywhere the local consensus art jury decides that they are needed, and it does not affect the quality of writing. Anti-taggers are thus reduced to complaining about how the tags look. When tags are hidden by default they are left with nothing to complain about — yet they continue to complain. This is proof of a hidden agenda. On investigation this hidden agenda turns out to be no less than an attempt to exclude many of the next half-generation of young people from using and influencing Misplaced Pages. In the largest view, it is a pitiful attempt by fogeys, young and old, to hold back the inexorable process of change. Milo 21:55, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm still waiting for Tony to provide data about how many different people have been adding spoiler tags in the last few months, and how many different people have been removing them. That, I think, would be a wonderful peek on what consensus might be. I've asked that since the very beginning. He's claimed all along that the edits had consensus because there's been "no significant opposition", and said he's monitored that opposition, and yet he's provided no empircal data on that vital question. He's provided a few data points that might seem at first glance to back up his side (mostly seeming to revolve around things like 'well, if there WAS opposition, they'd be back by now'), but then several people have also done counts at the number of different people who've been reverted by Tony personally which seem just as damning the other way.

I still think one of the fundamental problems is that many on the anti-spoiler-warning group won't budge much on the question of spoiler warnings. We _have_ proposed guidelines, and they tend to be shot down. So we propose them again, and they're shot down too... because they fundamentally don't agree spoiler warnings should exist, and so any proposal that includes them doesn't satisfy. Whereas with the pro-warning side, yes, we fundamentally believe that spoiler warnings should be included, but we are naturally willing to compromise on the amount. So I'm still waiting for a anti-warning person to propose firm guidelines that will allow some non-trivial number of spoiler warnings to exist, that won't be shot down, because we're not psychic. We can't read your minds to see what you might be okay with. So please, all those of you who are opposed to them, come up with some firm guidelines that allow some to exist that you could agree with, and save us a lot of work of trying to guess. You (Marc)'ve come closest to doing so, I think, with your time-based suggestion (but again, I think without it actually being a 'spoiler warning' and using the spoiler tag, it's a non-starter), and I thank you for the effort, which is why I endorsed the compromise-in-theory (devil's always in the details). Wandering Ghost 16:37, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't advocate gunslinging and tumbleweeds, but it's interesting to see what WP:CONSENSUS says about the conditions under which guidelines should exist: "If we find that a particular consensus happens often, we write it down as a guideline, to save people the time having to discuss the same principles over and over." Does it seem like that situation holds for WP:SPOILER — that we're observing a consensus on spoilers that arises often and independently, and codifying it in a guideline?

I would be happy to offer limiting suggestions for the guideline, with phrases like "reasonable expectation that narrative suspense is a significant element in the appreciation of the work" to eliminate the fairy-tale tags, and "significant penetration into popular culture" to stop people hiding that Darth Vader is Luke's father, but honestly it seems like this discussion is too clenched to get any traction on real revision here. People are demanding bright-line rules for a guideline that depends on flexibility and individual judgment. There's a middle ground between grim rigidity and the OK Corral. --Jere7my 07:30, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

(Just to save us a bit of back-and-forth: to anyone whose first response is, "Who decides what's 'reasonable' or 'significant'?" I say, "The local editors," to which the response will likely be, "That's how we got into this mess — local editors putting spoiler tags on the Three Little Pigs," to which I'll respond "Then a more reasonable editor will be able to point to this guideline and ask, 'Don't you think the Three Little Pigs has significant penetration in popular culture?' and if that leads to an argument on the talk page then it has bigger problems than spoiler tags.") --Jere7my 07:38, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

"Wild West" is a bit dramatic, don't you think? The anti-spoiler team also fails to show empirical data other than saying, without backing it up, that no one is reverting, which is false. What you're really trying to do is prevent progress from being made on the guideline by changing the subject. I think a more worthy cause for the people who want to make wikipedia more encyclopedic is to nuke the trivia sections, but that's just me. --YellowTapedR 14:17, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Tony has, on numerous occasions, provided solid empirical data for his comments. He did not say that "no one is reverting." He said that there is "extremely low opposition to such removals." This can easily be seen by the fact that when instances of {{spoiler}} are removed, there is a fairly low incidence of them coming back again.

It's pretty clear that the pre-May standard was a "Wild West" (as far as spoiler tags went), with little consistency or guidance as to their use. If there's a middle ground that the pro-tag editors would favor, I'd like to know what it is. My own proposed compromise was summarily rejected—as, of course, I knew it would be—although it would have resulted in spoiler tags being added to thousands of articles. I'm not offering another one, as at this point I don't really know what the pro-tag faction wants, other than a return to the "Wild West." The pro-tag faction is much better at telling us what they're against, than telling us what they're for.

Now, here's a radical thought. Rather than beating their heads against a wall on this talk page, suppose the pro-tag faction actually chooses a few representative articles and adds spoiler tags in the manner that they believe is correct, then let us all know when they're done. Then we'd actually have something concrete to discuss. If Nydas, Milo, Parsifal, and YellowTapedR, and Koronue each pick 5 articles that are representative of their point of view, we'd then have 25 concrete examples to work with. Marc Shepherd 14:34, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

That would be really refreshing. I'd welcome that. --Tony Sidaway 14:41, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

"beating their heads against a wall" Interesting take, but a better metaphor is 'chiseling and undermining a wall protecting a house of cards'. My take is that Misplaced Pages is a correctness-seeking environment, pro-taggers are correct, therefore after a glacial-movement period of months to years, pro-taggers will eventually prevail when the larger community of editors rises up against this petty tyranny of incorrectness. Milo 21:55, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I provided research showing Kusma reverted 20 different users in 18 hours, suggesting that thousands of people have been reverted. I have advocated a variant of WP:ENGVAR as a basis for this policy, not the 'Wild West'. As it stands this 'guideline' is enforced more strictly than any policy, and is intellectually dishonest to boot. Tony's ideas of consensus are self-serving and incoherent, whilst Marc thinks off-Wiki practice should dictate our policies, over 5+ years of on-Wiki practice. --Nydas 14:52, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Once again, you're primarily focused on personal attacks and what purportedly happened in the past, rather than on what ought to be done about it now. If you made a concrete proposal based on WP:ENGVAR, can you kindly provide a link? I don't remember it.

I have never said that off-Wiki practice should dictate our policies. But an awful lot of Misplaced Pages policies are indeed analogues of off-Wiki precedents. If you are suggesting that spoiler tags ought to be used in certain situations, it's an awful lot easier if you can objectively demonstrate that numerous other sources, in similar situations, and in similar ways, have already done so.

On the other hand, if you cannot demonstrate objectively that numerous other sources have used spoiler tags in the way you are proposing, then it becomes an awful lot more difficult to argue persuasively that we are doing a disservice to the reader. It's not impossible to make that argument, but it becomes harder, and is more likely to be seen as an unsubstantiated personal preference.

In suggesting that you should back your proposed revision with objective facts, I am trying to make your life easier, not harder. If you do so, then it becomes something better than just "your opinion." Marc Shepherd 16:09, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

It doesn't make things easier or more difficult because your entire premise is flawed. It's the no true Scotsman fallacy. There's no point trying to find objective information (like porridge consumption statistics), since the definition you are using is incorrect. Maybe you could find sources from before May 2007 which state that Misplaced Pages is not a true reference work due to spoiler tags.--Nydas 16:48, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

What's the correct definition, then? As always, you tell us what things aren't, but don't tell us what they are. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Marc Shepherd (talk • contribs) 17:15, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't know, and it's not relevant. It's sufficient to note that few people consider not having spoiler warnings critical to being an encyclopedia. Just like you get cars with or without seatbelts, no-one would think that being a car was contingent on them.--Nydas 18:19, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Not a good example. You can't sell a car without working front and rear seatbelts in my country at least. I suspect this applies to the whole EU. No seatbelts, no car. A seatbelt-free car remains conceivable, and you can even have one and use it on your private property, but you can't keep it on the road or sell it. --Tony Sidaway 18:38, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

"Most states exempt vehicles not manufactured with seatbelts" Milo 21:55, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I'd go so far to say it's the perfect example AGAINST his case. Cars without seat belts are conceivable, and easy to manufacture, but put to actual use they go against common sense. For some people, similar reasoning could be applied to spoiler warnings on an encyclopedia. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 19:08, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Cars without seat belts aren't just 'conceivable', they exist, period. The point being that one can debate seat belts on their own merits, rather than insisting that car-ness is contingent on having seat belts in some platonic way.--Nydas 19:41, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Do school buses count here? They don't have seatbelts. Perhaps Misplaced Pages is a school bus. Now, can we pretend Nydas actually said "CD player" and move on? --Jere7my 07:44, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Can you find any that say it's good that WP has them compared other encyclopedias? ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 17:11, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Heck, I'm happy to look far more broadly than that—not just at encyclopedias, but at other edited reference works, whatever and wherever they may be. I am simply trying to suggest a way that Nydas's point of view can be taken out of the realm of pure unsubstantiated emotional opinion. Perhaps there are other ways....? Marc Shepherd 19:02, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

That's how I see your point of view. No organisation has decreed that encyclopedias cannot contain spoiler warnings. Misplaced Pages is an encyclopedia with or without them.--Nydas 19:41, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately the burden for giving reasons lies with those who want the guideline changed. Life's not fair that way. Yet, most of your posts are on peripheral topics: allegedly misbehaving editors/admins, fears of getting banned, or stating that the existing guideline is illegitimate in the first place. None of those points have led to a better guideline.

Saying that "Misplaced Pages is an encyclopedia with or without them" is weak, because it is neutral. If Misplaced Pages is just as good either way, then we might as well leave it the way it is.

I don't like the current guideline either, but my proposal for improving it was soundly defeated, and at the moment I can't think of a better one. I've given you two ideas, and you haven't pursued them. One is to survey what other reference sites have done. Another is to pick 5 Misplaced Pages articles and give us your proposal for how they should be re-edited for spoiler tags. Maybe someday I'll think of another method, but those are the two I can think of at the moment. Marc Shepherd 20:34, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand why the anti-spoiler side isn't required to presesent these hard, objective facts. The best I've seen is some anecdotal evidence given (e.g. "look at this history page right now, a tag was removed and it hasn't been reinserted yet.") That's not objective (see anecdotal evidence). The best proposal I've seen so far is my own, to take a rough statistical measure using search engines and from that it's clear that numerous spoiler warnings exist on many sites all over the internet (at least 503,000; around a million on IMDB; some forum software has special mechanisms for it; etc). "If Misplaced Pages is just as good either way, then we might as well leave it the way it is." -- this isn't what Nydas stated; Nydas simply said that it would still remain an encyclopedia either way, not that it would be a better or worse of one. Can you point out a similar type of encyclopedia that doesn't include spoiler warnings? That's the problem, if we are to follow the strict, traditional definition, we'd have to take down the majority of Misplaced Pages articles. 99.9% of the works of fiction (e.g. movies) that people would like to have spoiler warnings don't even exist in traditional encyclopedias. I haven't heard of anyone looking for summaries of anything other than classical texts (e.g. fairy tales) in encyclopedias--Misplaced Pages is different, many, many people do look up summaries of plots on Misplaced Pages.I agree though that sample articles with warnings would be good. At the same time I wish someone disagreeing with my definition would speak out against it (I specified it in my comment responded to by Ghost). -Nathan J. Yoder 06:04, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

The trouble is that most encyclopedias do not contain detailed plot summaries of modern works, and those that do are sufficiently narrow in focus that a reader who picks up the book will have a reasonable expectation of getting spoiled. (Nobody's going to pick up the Doctor Who Fancyclopedia who doesn't already know what happens in the episodes, for instance.) There's also a question of implementation — how would spoiler tags work in printed matter? Most encyclopedias don't have hyperlinks, either! It's been demonstrated here that most broad-topic internet reference sites (e.g. IMDB) do use spoiler tags. --Jere7my 07:52, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

It's rich to demand 5 articles each when we've probably not had 5 articles total where spoiler tags have done some damage.--Nydas 14:52, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it's a demand: more of a suggestion. If finding five articles in which you think spoiler tags would be appropriate would be too onerous, try a smaller number. --Tony Sidaway 15:11, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Exactly. Marc Shepherd 16:09, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Marc Shepherd wrote (14:34): "adds spoiler tags in the manner that they believe is correct " To me this is a red herring, because Marc's suggestion comes across as disingenuous. With the spoiler guide as written I'm not allowed to do this. Milo 21:55, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

That simply isn't true. Find an article, click the edit link, insert the characters {{spoiler}} where you think fit, and then click the "Save page" button. All editors are allowed to do this. --Tony Sidaway 11:58, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Milo has lost track of the objective. The idea is that Milo, rather than arguing in the abstract, would suggest some actual examples of where he thinks the tags are warranted, and how they would be placed. If he is concerned about editing the article namespace, he could provide the examples in his user space.

On top of that, if Milo would just provide the 5 examples, I would be happy to agree to a temporary moratorium on removing them, so that they could be adequately discussed on this talk page. If Milo is unable or unwilling to provide examples, it has to make me wonder just how important this is to him, or if he is just making a WP:POINT. Marc Shepherd 13:28, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

In terms of the requests for "hard facts", I've begun compiling spoiler additions and removals day in, day out, and randomly sampling any articles that consistently appear to fluctuate between having warnings and having none. When I've got a good chunk of time, I'll post the data here. David Fuchs 16:45, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

WP:ENGVAR

Nydas first raised the idea of an WP:ENGVAR-style guideline in this discussion on 18 June, and it was supported by User:Wandering Ghost. However the discussion degenerated into an argument over the meaning of Do not disrupt Misplaced Pages to illustrate a point (WP:POINT).

He mentioned it again in this discussion on July 27 and again in this one on August 10. The idea doesn't seem to have gathered any traction on either occasion, and perhaps this was because there was some doubt as to how it should apply to spoiler tagging. Perhaps now would be a good time to flesh out the idea. --Tony Sidaway 16:56, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks to Tony for that. Nydas did indeed propose: "The best compromise would be a variant of WP:ENGVAR, stressing that spoiler warnings are neither good nor bad, with clear indications of exceptions."

That's basically what we have now. Nowhere does the existing guideline say that spoiler warnings are good or bad. There are two sections with the "exceptions," describing where warnings should not be used, and describing where they might be appropriate.

What I assume Nydas wants is a different set of exceptions—something that would be more supportive of using the warnings in a wider variety of circumstances. What those circumstances would be is the open question, to which he has never yet proposed a solution. Marc Shepherd 17:24, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

It's nothing like what we have now. If WP:ENGVAR was like this guideline, it would contain 'On Misplaced Pages, however, it is generally expected that American spellings will be used. An article with strong ties to a particular English-speaking nation may use the spellings associated with that nation, provided that it does not interfere with clarity, conciseness and there is consensus for it.' Add in a group dedicated to using bots to eliminate non-American spellings, and it's easy to see what would happen.

What to take from WP:ENGVAR is the way in which it is enforced. There is no half-dozen admins devoted to eliminating all non-American spellings, it's decided at a local level. That's more important than the writing, although the WP:ENGVAR is far superior in this aspect as well.--Nydas 19:00, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

There are many WP guidelines with bots regularly checking for enforcement. There are also some pretty damned important policies with no bot patrol, because no one can think of a way of doing it. For instance, there is no automated check for WP:NPOV violations, but I'll bet there are far more edits every day for NPOV than for spoiler tags.

WP:ENGVAR is like WP:NPOV, in that there is no straightforward way to check for violations. But it's very easy to find instances of {{spoiler}}. Whatever the correct guideline may turn out to be, what's wrong with checking for the tag and modifying the article if it doesn't belong there?

I mean, I can definitely see your reasoning for wanting the guideline to read differently than it does today. But once the guideline is modified to your satisfaction—I still don't know what that would look like, but let's suppose it happens somehow—why shouldn't you want diligent editors patrolling to check that it is correctly followed? Marc Shepherd 21:02, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

I think Nydas is saying that guideline wording is always imperfect, so there will always be gray areas that require local attention by editors familiar with the subject. I.e., WP:SPOILER is more like WP:NPOV. --Jere7my 08:00, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I agree that guidelines are always imperfect. With 2,000,000 articles in English Misplaced Pages, every guideline is being constantly violated. But there are some well written guidelines that provide clear advice with solid, real-life examples. All I've asked of Nydas (and those sharing his viewpoint) is to suggest how that could work for WP:SPOILER, and he always refuses. Marc Shepherd 13:22, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Phil Sandifer and Tony Sidaway expressly forbade the use of clearcut examples. When I added a blurb stating that spoiler warnings might be OK on recently released films, they removed it.

A guideline would have a list of when spoiler warnings are appropriate (though not necessary) and when not appropriate. You say that this is what we have now, but only in the way the 1936 Soviet Constitution guaranteed universal suffrage. A simple list of articles that should not have spoiler tags would be fiction over 300 years old, poems, nursery rhymes, fairy tales, folklore, religion, music, cartoon shorts, operas and non-fiction. This can be changed as necessary. Otherwise it's up local editors. You call this 'Wild West', I call it 'Misplaced Pages'. In practice this will probably mean that spoiler tags will return to standalone fiction like Sati (book), whilst not to franchise fiction (which is dominated by powerful Wikiprojects).--Nydas 18:26, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Sati (book) in its present state is a perfect example of an article that does not need a spoiler tag. The book is 17 years old and the other sections are clearly labeled. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:41, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Cases of doubt?

In my view, a WP:ENGVAR style guideline would only mean that in cases of doubt, the original author decides whether to use spoiler tags or not. However, WP:ENGVAR is a bad comparison. What variant of English an article on Albert Einstein is written does not affect article quality. However, whether an article is structured around spoiler warnings does affect article quality. I think we should adapt the guideline to reality and declare spoiler warnings obsolete. Editors have moved to using {{current fiction}} instead and remove it quickly (it is no longer used even on Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows), and the less than 10 pages with spoiler tags and less than 20 pages with current fiction tags show that Misplaced Pages works pretty well without spoiler warnings. Kusma (talk) 08:57, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Spoiler warnings don't affect article structure or the writing. We might as well delete all 'see also' sections if someone puts one in the wrong place, or avoids mentioning something in the article so they can have it as a see also.--Nydas 18:26, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

The "original author" rule tends to apply in situations where a decision has far-reaching impact on the overall article. For instance, if an article has been written consistently with British English, a new editor should not change it to American English without a very good reason. But for a "tag" that stands alone, no particular editor has presumptive authority concerning its placement or removal. Marc Shepherd 13:22, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, I think that states the case well.

If one sentence in an article uses distinctively Australian spelling or grammar, and another is a style that is distinctively American, this does create problems of internal consistency. Misplaced Pages:Manual_of_Style#National_varieties_of_English (better known as WP:ENGVAR) proposes some sensible rules of thumb, with exceptions, to be followed in the interests of maintaining internal consistency and recognising that some topics have strong national associations (Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings in British English, for instance, Edgar Allan Poe (pled, not pleaded) and Moby-Dick (color not colour) in American English).

I don't think such considerations apply to spoiler tagging at all. Spoiler tagging should not affect how we write the article at all, and if it does we should remove the tag. --Tony Sidaway 14:00, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

So at this point...

Beating a dead horse of 'victory', perhaps, but I've noticed that through all this there's been very few new names added to the discussion. In the past month there's been maybe, what, three people coming in galavanting about how the warnings are needed. Maybe there's reasons for this (they see the debate and don't feel like getting involved, etc), but can anyone HONESTLY say that with such a low number of objections on the most obvious place to place them...that so many people care? (And for furthur ref, there's been pretty much nothing at all at Template talk:Spoiler).

I understand there are a number of impassioned people here that really want the warnings back in some fashion, but honestly this is really going in circles, and I have to wonder what, exactly, could even be done at this point? Both sides seem to to be pretty much sticking to their guns, and this results in the current guideline staying mostly static -- which, incidentally, was exactly the case with the old one before this all came up.

Now, if this is REALLY such a large issue, that should have true consensus of the community, perhaps it's finally time to let everyone know that? Obviously watchlist notices are few and far between, so it's likely going to be placed there (and if it is, I imagine we'd get a thousand straw polls and stuff again...), but since, seemingly, no 'new blood' has been brought in, maybe a note in a few well traveled spots about the debate still going on might be appropriate? I dunno. And one other thing, and Tony asked this before, what DO you pro-warnings want? Any proposal has been rejected (though true from the other side as well), and it seems, as Marc said, that you want to go back to the 'Wild West'...which if nothing else, definitely decreases over all article quality. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 11:48, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm beginning to think that some ostensibly pro-spoiler tag people editing this page don't actually want to edit Misplaced Pages articles to tag spoilers at all. They simply want to edit this talk page and repeatedly proclaim that they are being prevented from doing so, which having seen me and some others add spoiler tags to articles without any problems they must know to be false. --Tony Sidaway 14:03, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I think their position is that, under the current regime, adding spoiler tags is too steep a hill to climb. There's a fairly persistent band of "anti-tag" editors who remove {{spoiler}} on sight, practically whenever it appears. The remedy, for those who favor the tag, is to try to build consensus for it on the article's talk page. But that's a very arduous process, as shown by the fact that, over the last several weeks, only one spoiler tag in the entire English Misplaced Pages has endured for more than a few hours: Sōsuke Aizen. One could say (as some have done) that the template {{spoiler}} is practically banned on English Misplaced Pages.

Most of the pro-tag faction want to return to the good old days when editors added {{spoiler}} tags pretty much wherever they thought they were merited, and only editors highly steeped in the subject matter — in Milo's term, the local art jury — would challenge them (if indeed they were challenged at all, which would probably be rare).

I have to give Jere7my credit for proposing at least the beginnings of some very workable rules:

I would be happy to offer limiting suggestions for the guideline, with phrases like "reasonable expectation that narrative suspense is a significant element in the appreciation of the work" to eliminate the fairy-tale tags, and "significant penetration into popular culture" to stop people hiding that Darth Vader is Luke's father....

He is one of the few amongst the pro-tag faction to even make the attempt. Most of them do seem to prefer the "Wild West." Or at least, I have to assume that, because when pressed for any kind of limiting guidelines, they never offer any. Marc Shepherd 14:53, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the credit, Marc. I'd be happy to expand my thoughts into a new guideline that attempts to better reflect what little consensus we have, with the caveats that a) it will permit somewhat more local intitiative than there exists now, without a return to the OK Corral; b) it will be worded less punitively, to bring it in line with other style guidelines; c) it will be more compact; and d) it will permit more spoilers than the current guideline (but not on the Three Little Pigs!). At the moment, it does not read, to me, like a style guideline, but like a policy page that's been misfiled. --Jere7my 18:24, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Maybe you should draft your proposal on another page and show it to us? David Fuchs 20:47, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Okay — I have a draft proposal, but I'm not actually sure how to put it "on another page". Where does it go, if not this talk page or the project page? --Jere7my 01:09, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

A brief and unscientific survey of spoiler tagging in the top grossing movies of 2007

In practice discussions over spoiler tags seem to be surprisingly rare. For instance I would expect a fair amount of discussion about plot spoilers for recent grossing movies, but looking at the top ten of 2007 according to 2007 movies#Box_Office, I see the following:

Template:Standard table !Movie !US release date !Spoilers/tagging discussion? !Tags added/removed? !Tag edit war? |- |Ocean's Thirteen |8 June |None |Yes |No |- |Live Free or Die Hard |27 June |Briefly 1 July |Yes |No |- |Ratatouille (film) |29 June |None |Quite a lot |No |- |300 (film) |9 March |23 March and 7 August |No |No |- |The Simpsons Movie |27 July |25 July and 29 August |Yes |No |- |Transformers (film) |2 July |Extensively 2-8 July and also 3 August |Yes |No |- |Shrek the Third |18 May |Undated |Yes |No |- |Spider-Man 3 |4 May |14 June and 5 September |Yes |No |- |Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (film) |11 July |None |Yes |No |- |Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End |24 May |7 June, 2006 7 July, 2006, 29 May, 2007 and 13 June, 2007 |Yes |No |}

The methodology used here was quite simple. I searched for the word "spoiler" in each talk page and associated archive for the second column. I searched for the word "spoiler" in the article history for the third. For the fourth, I looked for signs of an edit war involving edit summaries containing the word "spoiler", and found none.

My impression from reading the discussions is that most of the concern by far was during the pre-release when so-called "spoiler" websites start releasing unauthorized details of the plot. Such details when they appear without proper reliable sourcing in a Misplaced Pages article should of course be summarily removed. After the first weekend, it seems, concern about spoilers diminishes considerably. --Tony Sidaway 16:07, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Just a point — my primary reason for including spoiler tags is to protect not the people editing the articles (who presumably are already familiar with the work in question!) but the larger number of visiting users. Local editors might not even notice spoiler tags being added or deleted, because they're not affected by them, whereas someone without an account who visits an article might be quite upset at the lack of spoiler notices, but not have the knowhow to add them back or click on the discussion tab to register a complaint. Misplaced Pages should serve the world, not just the community of editors. Even local editors who want the spoiler tags reinstated may be keeping mum until the firestorm dies down — I get the sense that there are a lot of pro-spoiler prairie dogs on local pages who don't want to pop their heads up. --Jere7my 18:39, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

The way Misplaced Pages works is that we decide article content by consensus arrived at through discussion. If nobody says anything then we cannot know whether it's because they don't have opinions or they have opinions that they don't want to express. --Tony Sidaway 18:48, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

That surely can't be applied wholesale to Misplaced Pages policy, though. "This would make the encyclopedia more useful for non-editors" seems like an important class of arguments that shouldn't be dismissed just because non-editors (obviously!) aren't speaking for themselves. To put it another way, we are all here to make the encyclopedia "better", which presumably means better for the users, not just the editors!

I also think reaching consensus requires encouraging reluctant editors to express their opinions, and creating an environment where they feel comfortable doing so; otherwise, it becomes a question of wearing down the opposition and "winning", not seeking consensus. --Jere7my 19:58, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

You're both right...in different ways. The population most likely to be upset about an unmarked spoiler is a non-editor—someone coming to Misplaced Pages to browse, and especially someone who has never used the site before. If anyone is going to be caught unawares, it will be these people.

Regular visitors and most editors will quickly realize—whether they like it or not—that Misplaced Pages articles aren't spoiler-protected. If they care about that sort of thing, they'll adjust their browsing habits to avoid articles where their enjoyment has the potential to be "spoiled."

I agree with Jere7my that there are probably some editors who would prefer to see the tags, but they accept that "the battle is lost," and they've moved on with their lives. Tony's stats purport to show that there aren't really many people who deeply care about this, while others have anecdotes that purport to show the opposite. Marc Shepherd 19:17, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure if the study even concludes that discussion about spoilers are rare, since it shows that most of the talk pages had some sort of discussion about them. And the movies used as examples aren't really known for their twists. --YellowTapedR 20:56, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

This study shows how editors write under the constraints of a guideline that they believe is not disputed. It does not show anything about how those same editors would write if the guideline were different. If someone removes a spoiler notice with an edit summary "removing per WP:SPOILER - no spoiler notices in plot sections", and the guideline says "no spoiler notices in plot sections", most editors will accept that. They are being good citizens, following the guideline. That does not show they like it or agree with it. --Parsifal _Hello 22:14, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

That's circular reasoning, isn't it? On Misplaced Pages, you're allowed to dispute anything. Every time an editor reads a guideline, and elects to follow it, it represents a decision not to go to the talk page and raise a dispute. Admittedly, there are probably some editors who believe disputing it would be futile, or who don't know that they're allowed to dispute it. But I have no reason to think that happens with WP:SPOILER any more often than it does with any other guideline.

Common sense would suggest, however, that editors who apply the guideline probably agree with it on some level. With all the myriad ways one can spend time here, people don't generally go around fixing violations of guidelines they personally disagree with. Marc Shepherd 22:53, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes, you have a good point that if someone doesn't like a guideline they can dispute it; though I'm not sure that if they apply it that means they agree with it. Most users have never edited a guideline, and I'd bet most have not even looked at a guideline talk page. While the guideline header template does indicate it can be edited, it makes a very official-looking presentation; a level of experience and boldness is needed to dive in and change a guideline or post on its talk page contrary to the guideline's current content, whatever that is - especially a guideline with as much tension and polarization in the discussion as this one. Imagine how this talk page would look to a less experienced editor reading it for the first time... --Parsifal _Hello 23:39, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Ocean's Thirteen is about a scam in which the target of the trick is concealed until late in the movie. Live Free Or Die Hard, it only emerges late in the movie, is about a complex trick to exploit a weakness in the US national defence system. In Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End there are several questions pending from the film's predecessor, and the close of the movie contains a significant revelation about the eventual fate of a major character. Similar revelations are made in Transformers (film).

Three of the ten seem to have no spoiler discussion at all, and in three others (Live Free or Die Hard, Shrek the Third and Spider-Man 3) the discussion was desultory, negligible.

Of spoilers in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, half the discussions were last year, concerning pre-release spoilers. The remainder were likewise desultory.

A complaint about spoilers in 300 (film) was resolved by removal from the Lead section of the statement "The sacrifice of the Spartans inspires all of Greece to unite against the Persian invaders." I've no idea whether this is a key part of the film but it's certainly a key part of the role of the event in Greek history. I suspect that if the same discussion took place today, instead of pre-May, we might place more emphasis on that historical context and the lead might well retain that contextual statement. It would depend how Frank Miller treated the story.

A comparison of the two discussion about spoiler tags in The Simpsons Movie (one before US release, the other a month after) demonstrates how shortlives the concern about spoilers can be.

Only in Transformers (film) has there been really extensive discussion of spoiler tags after the release of the film. There seems to be consensus that the events of the film radically change the structure of the "universe". There is no spoiler tag on that article, but searching the last 2500 edits, which takes us back to the release weekend, I don't see edits that strike me as having the stamp of the alleged "anti-spoiler gang". No, these chaps seem to have decided off their own bat that the article does not need a spoiler tag or warning of any kind.

Have I missed anything out? --Tony Sidaway 22:33, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I just don't understand how you can discussion about spoilers were "rare" in the examples you gave, since most of them did indeed have discussion. I maintain that they aren't the greatest examples because their strenghts aren't in the twists. And you should take into account that most discussion on talk pages are shortlived. Just because they don't go on for weeks doesn't mean there's consensus in your end.

Ocean's 13 is expected to have twists and turns, and therefore the viewer isn't really surprised. In Live Free or Die Hard, the plot isn't all that important, and the terrorists' plans are so convoluted that it's hard to understand them anyway. I zoned out during At World's End and missed Transformers, so I can't speak to those.

How about looking at 5 or so randomly picked films released in the past two years that do have significant twists. --YellowTapedR 03:17, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

disputed guideline message box

Since there is clearly a dispute in progress about the content of the guideline, the guideline page needs to announce that, just like any other page that has disputed content.

Otherwise, editors viewing the guideline will naturally assume it is stable and has consensus. It is not stable and does not have consensus, as can be seen by looking at the recent edit history.

How can it not be a dispute to have continual removing, re-adding, and changing a significant rule or definition within the guideline, by multiple editors, over a couple weeks?

If that's not worthy of a note at the top that there is a dispute about the content, then how much dispute would be needed for such a disputed-content notification to be used?

Until the guideline does not have significant dispute in progress, it is appropriate to inform readers of the guideline that the version they are looking at could be different in five minutes, so they can consider that when reading it.

I'm not going to revert it again myself and re-add the message box at this time, but I suggest that anyone who agrees there is a dispute in progress regarding this guideline is welcome to re-add the message box. --Parsifal _Hello 17:30, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Good luck. It took weeks to add it last time. You can expect the usual ever-changing definitions of consensus from Tony. His table above suggests that edit warring is a part of today's definition, although should you actually edit war, he'll seek to have you punished.--Nydas 17:48, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Nobody suggested edit warring. What Marc suggested yesterday was "Rather than beating their heads against a wall on this talk page, suppose the pro-tag faction actually chooses a few representative articles and adds spoiler tags in the manner that they believe is correct, then let us all know when they're done. Then we'd actually have something concrete to discuss." Why not try it? --Tony Sidaway 17:59, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Persistent false allegations of disputed content

The guideline has not changed significantly in function or wording since late July. It's time to start treating attempts to label this guideline as "in dispute" as trolling. No dispute has been demonstrated in months. The new guideline has worked flawlessly since early June.

It is for those who wish to claim that this guideline is disputed (and that doesn't mean "I personally disagree with it" to demonstrate that there is significant divergence between this guideline and on-wiki practice. --Tony Sidaway 20:10, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

3RR

By my count, Tony, you are in violation of 3RR. Since I'm not some rat, I'm not going to report you, but you are being rather uncivil for such a minor change. I don't know how you can say with a straight face that this guideline is not in dispute. The tag isn't saying the current version is bad, just that some parts are disputed. What's the problem?--YellowTapedR 20:18, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Tony does not have more than three reverts in a 24-hour period. Marc Shepherd 21:14, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Whack-a-mole

If a small group of editors plays whack-a-mole with spoiler tags long enough, eventually the moles will start keeping their heads down. This is not evidence of "consensus". (Also, Tony, could we not label those we disagree with as "trolls"? I'd like to keep the discussion civil. Thanks!) --Jere7my 20:14, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Take a look at the evidence I gave earlier. This isn't "a small group", it's Misplaced Pages consensus. Editors you and I have never heard of are applying the guideline and doing so with success, even on articles about very recently released high-grossing films. I don't think it's inappropriate to describe as trolling the behavior of those who persistently claim that this guideline is in dispute when every reliable statistical pointer we have shows that it's been working successfully for months.

In the end, one has to say of these counter-arguments against the evidence for consensus: "chilling effects", "whack-a-mole", "Misplaced Pages admins throwing their weight around" and so on that they lack evidential power. They amount to the statement: "I believe that there is no consensus for this guideline, but there are special circumstances that prevent it from manifesting." In other words, special pleading. --Tony Sidaway 21:31, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

By that argument, wouldn't the wild prevalence of spoiler tags that existed prior to May have been evidence of consensus for widespread spoiler tags? That was working "successfully" for years! How did they get there, if not through consensus editing? It's my feeling that the vast majority of editors are willing to go with the flow here, whatever the flow happens to be. Previously, pro-spoiler folks had a stick; now, anti-spoiler folks have a stick. Most editors without a dog in this race seem to think the whole spoiler debate is an unfortunate quagmire. --Jere7my 23:16, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

They got there because nobody thought about it. Now we've thought about it. That guideline, and the extent of spoiler tags in articles, reflect that rethink.

You say "By that argument, wouldn't the wild prevalence of spoiler tags that existed prior to May have been evidence of consensus for widespread spoiler tags?" No, we've already covered this. From well over one million articles, hundreds of thousands of which must have been on fictional subjects, only 45,000 or so contained spoiler tags or spoiler warnings of any kind. The Raven, Poe's great narrative poem, had no spoiler tag on May 15 . We don't know how many others.

See User:Tony_Sidaway/exclusion-lists/spoiler for a list of apparently legitimate uses of the word "spoiler" in Misplaced Pages articles--there are about 1300 of them, mostly related to aviation, automotive aerodynamics or politics ("spoiler" candidates). Others come from comics (The Spoiler was a DC comics character) or wrestling (The Spoiler was also the name of a wrestler).

What has changed, really, is the culture. There are people who are now aware that if they don't keep a look out for spoiler tags we'll end up with spoiler warnings on the likes of Romeo and Juliet, Pygmalion, Help!, and even biographies of real people like Roger Bacon. So we watch, and edit accordingly. --Tony Sidaway 00:27, 13 September 2007 (UTC)

Writing to an undisputed guideline?

Parsifal writes "This study shows how editors write under the constraints of a guideline that they believe is not disputed."

Well that's true up to a point, and it's a point worth investigating.

However I (and no doubt many other editors) have already shot his fox. We made tons of edits during a fourteen-day period when this guideline contained the same text that it is now proposed we restore, to wit: "The content of this guideline is disputed. Please see the relevant discussion on the talk page." Since the guideline was marked as disputed, I usually didn't cite it , but I don't think anybody reacted any differently. I simply said something like:

• "→Warning: Possible Plot/Ending Spoilers Ahead! - Removed. Fictional character biography can be expected to discuss the plot."

or

• " →Character history - and remove redundant warning)"

And of course life went on as usual. My edits continued to be accepted. There wasn't a vast swelling of the ranks of the disaffected, there were no complaints on my talk page about all of those edits.

I guess here you're seeing how Tony Sidaway "writes under the constraints of" a guideline that he believes may possibly be disputed.

Of course I wouldn't have made the edits if I thought they wouldn't be accepted. This is why, if we change the guideline text to read as above, I and most other editors will continue to use it as a guideline. A guideline is a document that is "is generally accepted among editors and is considered a standard that all users should follow", but it "isn't set in stone." It isn't a policy, which "has wide acceptance among editors" and no exceptions. You don't lose anything by accepting this as a guideline, you simply recognise that it's been applied a stupendous number of times with huge success, but that you, or anybody else, should look at the particular case pertaining in any given situation, and use your commonsense to make decisions, and discussion to resolve disputes by searching for consensus. Which is, of course, what I and a number of other editors have become quite good at doing over the past few months. --Tony Sidaway 23:13, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

I avoid citing this guideline if I remove a spoiler tag - I try to just say why I'm removing it. — Carl (CBM · talk) 23:14, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Damn the torpedos, once more into the breach, etc.

I've drafted a new spoiler guideline at User:Jere7my/spoilerdraft, which I am sure will be heralded as a model of fairness and tact that will obviate all further discussion on this talk page.  ;) It's almost a complete ground-up rewrite, but most of the central concepts remain; in large part, I'm just scraping off the barnacles and streamlining the hull. But not all the central concepts remain — I did introduce some policy compromises. I'm not trying to sneak anything in; I hope my proposal will be carefully examined!

In short, the changes I tried to make are:

1) Concision. I think my version of the guideline is clearer, briefer, and easier to follow; the current version has a lot of legacy phrasing, and the meat is buried in dense paragraphs of rules. There's also a lot of repetition — e.g., "it is generally redundant to put the tags in sections marked 'Plot' or 'Plot Summary'" and "Spoiler warnings are usually redundant when used to cover an entire 'Plot' or 'Synopsis' heading." I would advise against adding barnacles back to try to plug every hole — that just makes the guideline harder to read and follow. Special cases should be deduceable from the broad guidelines, and where they're not, sensible people will sort things out locally. Which brings me to...

2) Assuming good faith. The current guideline really does not assume good faith, which is one of my major beefs with it. It opens with a barrage of warnings and reiterations of basic Misplaced Pages policy, and scolds editors before they've had a chance to do anything wrong. (For instance, the syntax for adding a spoiler tag is one of the last things on the page!) I get the sense that the current guideline is written to continue the argument with editors who might read it; I feel that's not appropriate in a style guide, and some of the specific injunctions will appear dated once this argument dies down (or before — who uses ROT-13 anymore?). Mine, I hope, is more neutrally worded, is firm without being condescending, and reads like a style guideline. It doesn't explicitly draw as many boundary lines, but if we are assuming good faith, and not assuming a priori that it will be abused, they shouldn't be necessary. (I do include a line about consensus, but telling people that their edits shouldn't violate NPOV, for instance, seems redundant.)

3) Truth in advertising. This is my big attempt at compromise — my guideline encourages people to clearly label their section headings, to not usually mark spoilers in section headings that clearly contain them (like "Synopsis"), and to mark them in vaguely labeled sections (like "Plot", which apparently means different things to different people). If local consensus is for arranging the article so no spoiler tags are possible, that's a possibility, but there are other options as well for articles that don't lend themselves to that sort of compartmentalization.

4) Judgment. My guideline does leave more judgment in the hands of local editors, while constraining them more than the "Wild West" scenario. I tried to include a few tips for how spoiler judgments might be sourced, though, to encourage people to think along those lines.