Wikipedia talk:Spoiler/Archive 6

This is an archive of past discussions about Wikipedia:Spoiler. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.

Archive 1

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Archive 4

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Change guideline tag to proposal

According to Wikipedia:Policies_and_guidelines, "A proposal is any suggested guideline, policy or process for which the status of consensus is not yet clear, as long as discussion is ongoing.". Clearly discussion on this policy is still ongoing, and consensus has not been reached. I don't know if consensus was actually reached at some point in the past (in which case I would appreciate if someone could provide a link to the relevant section of the talk page). Just looking at the amount of ongoing discussion on this issue, however, it seems quite clear that the proposed guideline does not reflect consensus, and that it should not be tagged as such.

This is not to say that work shouldn't be done to try and reach consensus, but it looks like we have a long way to go on that. -Kieran 13:40, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I think the "controversy" here is mainly that the handful of people who doggedly oppose this guideline haven't gotten bored, whereas most of the people who saw this as sensible have better things to do than repeat the same points for over a month. There is, in reality, very litttle opposition to this guideline, and less thoughtful opposition. Phil Sandifer 13:43, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I wasn't talking about "controversy". Just looking at the number of names of people who are unhappy with the guideline, I would say that there are more who are unhappy with its current form than are happy. There are also a large number of unresolved RfCs. For a guideline to be considered policy it needs to have consensus. This one doesn't. -Kieran 14:01, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I think that's Phil's point. There seems to be a silent majority at work here (or to be more precise, a loud minority, dunno if there's any term for that). Those unhappy with it are the ones speaking out, while those who are happy either left the discussion, or never came in the first place. The issue, though, is that it seems with the way things have gone, there either can't be consensus, or there already is and a few people are just blasting words to try and fight it (I still don't understand how consensus is formed in such situations...it seems as if it's impossible if there's simply a few outspoken people on one side, even if the large majority agrees....but eh.) ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 14:23, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

However, it does seem that this page has gone through a few proposed -> guideline - > proposed - > guideline cycles before, and that the productive thing will be to rather try and modify it to reflect consensus. While it's under dispute, though, I'm going to put a disputed tag on instead. -Kieran 14:05, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

"others claim it was Nixon's way of dismissing the obvious protests going on around the country, and Nixon's attempt to get other Americans not to listen to the protests." Silent Majority seems wholly appropriate here, no? Kuronue 15:17, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Piffle. We've moved firmly into the realm of asking the other parent here. There is no consensus for widespread use of spoiler tags and, from the lack of outcry in their removal, not even much opposition. A few dogged opponents of this guideline continue to protest here in the hopes that eventually the majority, which was not, in fact, silent at the time this guideline was discussed, will wander off and they can quietly change it back. Phil Sandifer 15:22, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

There's plenty of opposition, although the anti-spoiler brigade will never admit it, since they've been hiding behind a dodgy 'consensus' since day two.--Nydas^(Talk) 19:09, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

While I hide my righteous indignation a bit better, I have to agree. The rewrite of the spoiler guideline started after two days on an RfC on a "consensus" that evaporated as soon as public announcement was made (and taken down two days later, with the edit summary "get on with your lives".) Since then we've had more of a 60-40 situation, and the hardliner sixties have steadfastly refused to budge an inch. --Kizor 19:30, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I've restored the state of this guideline to its state prior to the recent silliness. --Tony Sidaway 21:58, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Why did you remove the guideline dispute tag when there is a guideline content dispute? Milo 22:15, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

There is no significant opposition to the guideline. --Tony Sidaway 22:18, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

The "silent majority" argument (most people would act against the guideline) is a thin ice. By this logic, before May, there was a consensus by silent majority to have spoiler warnings in lot of articles, plot sections, etc. for like 3 years. So why it did changed so suddenly? Actually, I have reasons to believe it didn't. SWs were added by many editors over time, but removed by only a few, and almost simultaneously, this guideline was set up. And some people even complained they couldn't participate in the discussion before this was changed from proposal to guideline (it happened in one week). Samohyl Jan 05:32, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Match Point

I added a spoiler tag to the Inspiration/Adaptation sction of this article which I belive met all the criteria in this guidline but it has been repeatedly removed. Perhaps some of the contributors here would like to comment on this. Tomgreeny 21:23, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

If you're putting it in but other editors are removing it, possibly the argument for inclusion isn't very compelling. --Tony Sidaway 22:27, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Ah. A spoiler tag may be justified with compelling reasons. How can you tell which reasons are or aren't compelling? Easy: removal of the tag means that they aren't. --Kizor 15:50, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

By george, I think he's got it! --Tony Sidaway 08:11, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Sakura Wars

I've archived this copy of the discussion but the discussion continues on Talk:Sakura Wars. If you disagree with my archiving, please feel free to undo it, but I think it's best to keep discussions together and in the appropriate place. --Tony Sidaway 15:15, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

Incidentally, Tony, why did you revert my change on Sakura Wars when I added the spoiler warning back? You seem to be using circular reasoning here:

1) because people won't put the spoiler warnings back, that shows consensus for the rule that says they should stay out.

2) because there's consensus for the rule that they should stay out, anyone who does put one back is violating the rule and should be reverted.

If consensus is determined by whether people put the warnings back, you have to *let* them put the warnings back. It's doubly wrong to determine consensus because people don't put back warnings that you don't let them put back anyway. Ken Arromdee 13:56, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

I was the one who removed the warnings, soon after the policy was rewritten. (Sjones23 removed the warnings, I stand corrected. Must be another page I'm thinking of, which also hasn't changed). It's been like that since June 1st. Noone objected, noone reverted, yet there were at least a few edits since, including some non-content cleanup style editing. You came and added them in, with simply the word "Sheesh" as your edit summery. It sounds to me like you're doing exactly what you're accusing him of doing. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 14:17, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

If you don't mind, I'll take this to Talk:Sakura Wars because if we discussed every style guideline issue on the talk page of that guideline the pages would get very noisy. --Tony Sidaway 14:54, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

While I answered this on Talk:Sakura_Wars, I think it bears mentioning here too. The problem has nothing to do with that page in particular, the problem has to do with the circular reasoning about how policy is applied. You can't justify the policy by using the lack of reverts and then justify stopping reverts by using the policy. This is true for any page, not just Sakura Wars--if "nobody has reverted yet" is used to claim the policy has consensus, you must allow reverts. It's silly to claim that nobody has reverted yet when the reason nobody has reverted yet is that you don't let them.

And the reason it's been unchanged since June 1 is that I'm not using AWB. I only read the page again and noticed the spoiler warning was removed just now, I'm not actively searching for articles that need spoiler warnings put back.

PS: "Sheesh" is shorthand for "you know very well why I'm reverting this", and hoping nobody would try to Wikilawyer me by demanding I explain it yet again. Ken Arromdee 21:13, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

And to repeat again what I said there, since it's relevent to the whole issue - you're not the only other person that looked at the article. There've been a few edits, and surely a number of other visitors to the article that didn't think the warning was nessesary, for almost a month. There's gotta be something said there.

And the evidence is clear. I don't know how much is because of Tony's continueing insistence to remove them, but the number of articles that actually has the warnings is TINY. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 21:37, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Being hammered by insufficient sleep and unable to participate in the discussion at the moment is killing me. Just for the record. --Kizor 21:59, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

When you say "I'm not using AWB", are you under the impression that I am? "Sheesh" was unenlightening. I could not tell why you placed the tag back into the article. --Tony Sidaway 02:33, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia Farm

Note: An Animal Farm ending spoiler follows

(Quotes from #Bionicle)

"All you're doing is repeating and elaborating the "deities" charge. There are no deities here. We're all equal. --Tony Sidaway 20:43, 17 June 2007"

"We're all equal." (background laughter) Lessee, where have I heard that concept previously deconstructed? Ah, yes, George Orwell's Animal Farm: "All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others." Milo 04:12, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

"... There are some 45,000 articles that until recently had spoiler tags and now do not. There is clearly no substantial pressure to replace those, or else there'd be great waves of the things, a hundred and more at a time. That's how it is. --Tony Sidaway 21:15, 17 June 2007"

Not every anti-consensus reaction will be a pro-userbox-like revolt. A disappointment reaction may well be long and slow like rising tides, rather than great crashing waves. Sometimes the response can be subtle, as follows.

In a touch of research irony, it turned out that Animal Farm twice had it's spoiler tag placed and removed, without further talk discussion:

13:02, 16 May 2007 Zoney (36,971 bytes) (Synopsis - remove "spoiler warning", change heading to "Synopsis of plot and ending")

02:48, 31 May 2007 Counterstrike69 m (37,027 bytes) (Synopsis of plot and ending -{{spoiler}})

03:06, 31 May 2007 Bongwarrior m (37,015 bytes) (removed spoiler warning, redundant per WP:SPOILER)

At least a section title compromise was put in place. That gave WP:Spoiler's redundant-in-plot guide some meaning that it otherwise objectively lacks. (==Plot== sections may or may not contain spoilers.) Such compromise is more enlightened than the clique's response to "a few editors" guideline objections here.

Note this is a book named by Time 100 Books as one of the 100 best English-language novels from 1923 to the present. The notion that somehow classics can't be spoiled was addressed and explained by a reader in an Animal Farm spoiling complaint that preceded the present controversy. [ Milo 04:12, 18 June 2007 (UTC) continues below ]

(Wow, what a formatting mess) Yeah, I looked at the article at the time of the complain, if the IP's diff was correct. It was a pretty good lead, and the complaint would be akin to complaining if The Fellowship of the Ring mentioned that partway through the book a fellowship is formed. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 11:42, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Elitists who know the classics seem not to care whether the next generation can get full enjoyment from the surprise/plot-twist genius of classics' authors. Do I detect a contempt for youth, to parallel that anti-spoiler contempt for children that I previously mentioned?

As that spoiling-complaint discussion suggests, the flip side of readers expecting spoiler tags is readers expecting teasers, because that's the way fiction marketing is universally done.

The position of Wikipedia elitists that 'Britannica doesn't do it that way' is newly irrelevant (March 22, 2007). Readers who don't know or can't afford Britannica, don't care about Britannica. Elite, well-heeled readers who do want Britannica, will consult Britannica, because Wikipedia will never be authoritative like Britannica. Academia has made a harsh judgment:

Wikipedia will never be as Britannica, period.

With the Britannica dream ended, Wikipedia's only remaining choice is to become what web readers want. That certainly includes teasers and spoiler tags, as well as other reasonable expectations of the internet culture that nurtured it. Non-spoiling fiction teasers are easy to accommodate with a click-here hidden box or down-page jump link. All that's needed is for elitists to adjust to the new Wikipedia reality with compromise.

And if the elites fail to adjust? Oh, following Wikipedia:The Great Fork I assume they would eventually be overruled by people in suits who sell advertising. Milo 04:12, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Who are these fellows, Zoney, Counterstrike69 and Bongwarrior? Certainly not known to me. I thought we were supposed to be a small clique! --Tony Sidaway 07:06, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Uh....only academic newbies use encyclopedias as sources. They are for background/introduction to a topic and good sources. I am never allowed to use any ancyclopedia as a source. — Deckill er 10:57, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

Encyclopedias are nonetheless widely used by high school students and college undergraduates. "Newbie" refers to someone not yet working to expected standards, while most students below the graduate school level are expected to cite encyclopedias, as part of a standard curriculum to progressively learn academic research skills. Milo 18:54, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

That encyclopedias are not widely used for academic citation does not mean that they are unacademic. Textbooks aren't generally cited either, but they are clearly academic projects. Phil Sandifer 14:27, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

The Britannica dream ended? When? Phil Sandifer 14:27, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

As it says in the post text above "March 22, 2007". Also it's in the Wikinews link above with other details which you auto-inserted into your edit summary:

14:27, 18 June 2007 Phil Sandifer ([http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/March_22%2C_NBC_Nightly_News._Wikipedia_charged_with_%22bad_information%22.%22_%28Breaking_news%2C_yet_to_air_during_6:30-7PM_EDT%29 '''''Wikipedia will never be as Britannica, period.'''''])

With academic backing, NBC thoroughly trashed Wikipedia on the national evening news. While NBC's story was sensationalistic, the core facts of unpredictable unreliability are inherent to the project model. Wikipedia's tentative previous status as a citable reference of record will never recover. Milo 18:54, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I think you've misunderstood the story you're quoting. Wikipedia would never want to be used as a primary academic source. Encyclopedias are not useful for that purpose. --Tony Sidaway 18:59, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

"Encyclopedias are not useful for that purpose" Teachers think and lesson plan otherwise. I would be surprised to learn that you did not cite encyclopedias in writing high school papers. To the best of my knowledge that is a universal U.S. public school practice. As inferred from the NBC and Wikinews academic sources, it is also an expected practice of college undergraduates.

Two or three years ago I heard a news story about high school teachers teaching students to not cite internet sources generally. Wikipedia has turned out not to be an exception. Milo 20:12, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

If we cited an encyclopedia as a source, the teacher would take 10 points off. That actually happened to me in 11th grade (I received a B instead of an A because I cited Britannica). — Deckill er 19:25, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

"I received a B instead of an A because I cited Britannica" That's a graduate school standard. If applied in high school, the issue is partly one of available homework time, partly one of what study depth is the subject of the paper, and partly the quality of research library available.

If your school was a prestigious New England academy, with a huge private library or access to a nearby university library, I could understand such academic rigor. If, however, you were a public school student with access to only an average high school library, I would judge that you were down-graded for no pedagogical reason valid for your grade level. Milo 02:08, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Also, it should be noted that the NBC reporter, Lisa Daniels, vandalized the site during her "study". — Deckill er 19:26, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

"Lisa Daniels, vandalized the site" Yeah, even if she repaired it later, I recall being shocked that Daniels wasn't shown fixing her own vandalism. NBC's example became 'it's ok to vandalize Wikipedia'. Milo 02:08, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

She didn't even fix it, although she did make a few minor edits some time later. Ironically, she also failed to mention that her vandalism was reverted within 30 seconds. — Deckill er 17:25, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

"her vandalism was reverted within 30 seconds" wow, that fact would have put a crimp in NBC's trashfest of Wikipedia. Can you provide a diff URL for that?

I'm assuming that Daniels didn't know that at the time, but I wish I had known it so I could have added it to the Wikinews story. It also would have made for a small but interesting complaint to Center for Media and Democracy which is wiki-based. I think I recall there is or was another such news story fairness investigation organization, but it didn't pop up on Google. Milo 19:35, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Dispute resolution: Mediation Cabal page

Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2007-06-27 Spoiler

This has been rolling around without going anywhere for a while. I've started a mediation cabal case (see top of page) to try and get a neutral third opinion in here, and move towards some kind of a solution. Please put your names on the case page if you feel you are involved, and feel free to add points to the ones I raised. -Kieran 17:28, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Good work. I added my name, other issues that I recall, and edited for clarity and correctness (for example WP:Spoiler is technically a guide, not a policy). I added the process violations of controversial close of MfD, TfD, and failure to investigate the AWB misuse charges.

If there are other process violations I've forgotten or were before my time, those should be added. I think there are also dissent-crushing issues that haven't been mentioned.

I think it's important to list the activities of each involved group editor next to their name, which will insure that that their names really should be listed. For example, Tony at one point minimized his involvement in mass removal because he didn't run AWB. Milo 23:02, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Recently released media

Does anyone else find it disturbing that as discussion is still going on about how often the tags should be used, the spoiler policy keeps being re-written to remove any and all justification? I DID notice when it was removed "for recently released media", though nobody bothered to discuss it here. Kuronue 14:02, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Check this section of the discussion: Wikipedia_talk:Spoiler#Spoiler_warnings_may_be_temporarily_added_for_very_new_media. It was decided by consensus that the clause, as it stood, was meaningless, and that, even if such a clause were included (to apply a "freshnesss date" to spoiler warnings), that would be arbitrary and not desirable. Feel free to join the discussion, though -Kieran 14:18, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

That was resolved? It looked like everyone just randomly stopped talking. the last few posts seem to indicate re-writing, not removing entirely. Anyway, I could care less what that portion says, it just snuck up on me. Kuronue 14:25, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

The best way to notice consensus on WP is that everyone stops talking about an issue. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:30, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Usually they agree with each other first. Anyway, I see the post I missed where Kieran mentioned s/he was going to remove the sentence and nobody disapproved, so we're good. Kuronue 14:33, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't mind if that's in or not, but do notice Phil Sandifer's comments on the matter. In short, a blanket rule like that may not be appropriate. In some cases the period mentioned is ridiculously long, in other cases (such as mange and anime not to be translated for the English-speaking market for some time to come) it's much too short. However the principle is sound. If these warnings mean anything at all they apply mostly to material that is new to just about everyone. --Tony Sidaway 14:34, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

At present, though, there is no consensus that spoiler warnings should have an "expiry date". Regardless, you and Phil Sandifer have accepted no other "compelling reason" for templates, thereby disregarding consensus and forcing your POV conditions through via a loophole. (The fact that "compelling reason" is deeply subjective is incredibly problematic, and has been used as the justification for the mass removals: We don't find it compelling, ergo it is not, and we will war with you to remove the template until you give up and stop using them.) -Kieran 14:55, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Please do forgive my bluntness, but that's bullshit. Look at the actual debates that I have engaged in on talk pages regarding spoiler warnings. I have agreed to spoiler warnings in a number of cases - some short term, some longer term, some for newer works, some for older ones. If you look at articles that currently have a spoiler warning, you'll find several I debated on, and in none of them are my arguments in any way capricious or arbitrary. I am frankly offended that you would suggest otherwise, and respectfully suggest that you'd get much further in this discussion if you were willing to turn the debate on spoiler tags into something other than a referendum on Tony and me. Phil Sandifer 20:14, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

OK, let's have a look at the history for Basilisk_(manga), the article that got me into this whole debate. It's not an article about a specific character in the manga, and "characters" sections are not included in the "Plot", "Synopsis" or (fictional) "History" list of sections for which spoiler warnings are considered redundant. I put a spoiler warning on the characters section, because it begins by giving innocent and general information about a few characters, then moves on to more or less explain the entire plot through character histories (since most of the plot is when and how each character dies.) Not long after, David Gerard removed the template, giving the reason "rm superfluous template; not justified with "compelling reason" on talk". So, I saw this a while later, put the reasoning on the talk page and restored the spoiler, with an edit comment to see the talk page (note that I don't think it's in the spirit of the guideline to require that every spoiler tag inserted be justified by a detailed explanation on the talk page, but I guess that isn't David Gerard or any of the removalists POV). 2 days later Phil Sandifer arrived and removed the template, leaving a comment on the talk page that clearly indicated that he hadn't even bothered to read my justification. I re-inserted the template, mentioning the reason again, and calling for discussion. This time, less than 2 hours later, Matthew removed the template again, with the summary "rm. redundant {{spoiler}} per WP:SPOILER as no compelling reason is given for inclusion." There was no discussion of the reasons I had given on the talk page, just a drive-by removal. I put the template back in, a third time now. This time Tony Sidaway reverted it 7 minutes later, saying only "Matthew is right here." He at least bothered to comment on the talk page, although all he said was "This doesn't seem to be a coherent reason for placing a spoiler warning. I'm going to remove it again." At no point did anyone try and point out how the spoiler contravened the guideline, or engage in actual discussion about that. -Kieran 01:33, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

As for turning this into a "referendum" (I think you mean forum? "referendum" implies voting) on you, Tony, David and any of the other drive-by removers: I think that's a bit late. Reading this page it should be obvious that people disagree with your behaviour. There is a degree of arrogance involved, too. For instance "A user-education issue." -Tony [1] ; "Per a comment above, that's probably a sensible idea ... but clicking the button has provided amusement while sleep deprived and getting covered in baby puke. Back to work tomorrow!" -David [2]

The impression being given off is that there are a group of you, with a strong POV, who strongly believe you are right, and the rest of us are wrong because we lack your "level of education", and that, to a certain extent, you're doing the drive-by removals because it amuses you. -Kieran 02:02, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Alternate template proposal: {{current fiction}}

I think one reason some people dislike {{spoiler}} is that it seems unprofessional. And one reason some people like it is that they don't wish to affect people's enjoyment of recently released fictional works. So here's a compromise: {{current fiction}} gives this box:

This could be put at the top of the article, like {{current}}, to clearly warn the reader that the article may give secrets away. But it doesn't force us to keep things out of the lede, either. Comments appreciated. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:37, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

While I sincerely appreciate the attempt at compromise, I think this is a problem in that it makes the spoiler warning exactly what many on the anti-warning side have a problem with - that it's essentially a blanket content disclaimer. For that matter, I don't think most pro-warning people want that either. I think most pro-warning people want targetted spoiler warnings, ones that are clear where they are, so they can feel free to read sections they want, and not the ones they don't. This works both for people looking to avoid spoilers, and for those looking to _find_ spoilers. On many occasions I've gone to a wiki page and scrolled down to find where the 'spoiler begins here' page is, and I can't believe I'm the only one who does that. They say compromise is the art of coming up with a solution that nobody is happy with, I think in this case it goes a bit too far in that. ;) Wandering Ghost 22:10, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I am one of those who dislikes blanket disclaimers. The point here would be to have them only for recent works, when the claimed potential for damage is the greatest, and not have them for older works, where there is an even greater expectation of professional, encyclopedic coverage. In the few cases I have seen where a spoiler tag is actually justified, part of the justification is that the work is very new. — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:18, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

This is good but it needs work. How about

This encyclopedia page documents a recently released work of fiction.
It may not yet contain full information on the characters and plot of the work of fiction it describes.

Notice the subtle difference of emphasis, which in my opinion makes it more suitable for an encyclopedia. The first version seems to be apologizing for including information the reader may not yet know. My version adopts a "glass half full" approach, apologizing for the article not yet being complete as it should be.. --Tony Sidaway 22:54, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Both versions are far more unsightly than the original spoiler tags, and the wording is extremely poor, like the guideline itself. Use the word 'spoiler' instead. It is, after all, no more a neologism than 'fandom'.--Nydas^(Talk) 08:19, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree that it's ugly and even more intrusive than the spoiler tag. The language is better, though, because it treats the reader as if he came to the article to learn something, and not despite a perverse wish not to learn something. --Tony Sidaway 08:34, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

The language is worse because it's verbose and redundant. Your cries of 'perversity' are as rude as they are irrelevant.--Nydas^(Talk) 09:15, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

I think it's a bad idea to write any controversial part of this policy into the template. Once the template says that spoiler warnings only go on recent material, that makes it very hard to change the policy to remove the reference to recent material. It also risks forming another fake "consensus": "this template is used thousands of times and nobody's complained about limiting it to recent material. Obviously the part about recent material has consensus."

I also think the argument about a "perverse wish not to know something" is absurd. People may want to know something, yet not want to know some other thing. It isn't all knowledge or none.

Moreover, this tag has another big problem: it refers to pages and can only really be used to warn about an entire page. The tag doesn't make sense if the spoiler is halfway through a section and the spoiler warning best goes in the middle of the section. A spoiler warning at the top of the page is only appropriate if the spoiler is in the lead.

And I think this is one of the persistent misunderstandings by the anti-spoiler crowd: the idea that a spoiler warning can't be specific. No, spoiler warnings aren't redundant in plot sections; a spoiler warning can mean a spoiler's at a particular *place* in the plot section. No, the presence of the word "encyclopedia" isn't enough warning that there is information; spoiler warnings say that certain information exists *in a specific place*. And no, a spoiler warning that can only be used on a whole page is not acceptable; spoiler warnings may be used in specific places, not just on whole pages. Ken Arromdee 17:55, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually, "fandom" has a first use dating back to 1903, making it less of a neologism than "spoiler," which still isn't in the OED, by any definition. Phil Sandifer 12:58, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

...according to our article on fandom. It derives from sports, and I bet that's the definition still used in the OED.--Nydas^(Talk) 16:01, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

However, the literary sense goes back to the 1930's. (Our articles would indicate the late 30's or 1940, but I think we've missed some things.) Nevertheless, I find {{spoiler}} less intrusive than any box. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 18:05, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

It does indeed derive from sports, but the OED does not treat them as separate concepts: "The world of enthusiasts for some amusement or for some artist; also in extended use." Phil Sandifer 18:28, 21 June 2007 (UTC)

(←) I don't find it more intrusive than a spoiler tag. I'm conditioned to ignore lots of boxes at the top of an article, as a result Category:Cleanup templates. I'm not conditioned to ignore random warnings interspersed with the text of an article.

The word spoiler strikes my ear as unprofessional as it is used here strikes my ear as amateur, and I would really rather not see it in any text we produce.

Tony Sidaway, I think your proposed language is too clever. If the point of the box is to warn the users about content (ignoring for the moment whether that is necessary), the warning shouldn't be disguised. Example: "Warning: the voltage on this fence might not yet be high enough to kill you if you touch it."

Also, I have learned of {{future film}}, and I think this complements it nicely. — Carl (CBM · talk) 12:45, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not trying to be clever, but to remove damaging assumptions from the tag. As it stands it seems to assume that people come to Wikipedia to avoid learning something. That there exist some people who do indeed do this doesn't give us an obligation to pander to them by warning them of those (hopefully very common) situations in which they might learn something they didn't know on Wikipedia. As an encyclopedia we should not apologise for, or warn about, the fact that we're in the business of disseminating information. The word "encyclopedia" at the top of the page is quite enough. --Tony Sidaway 16:44, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree we should never apologize for that. I tried to make the wording as neutral as possible – it doesn't say the details should be avoided or sought out, only that they may be present. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:12, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

When you imply that nobody comes to Wikipedia to avoid learning something, you're lumping together all "somethings" into one category. Once you realize that "something" can be specific, yes, people do come to Wikipedia while trying not to learn certain things. They come to learn *other* things--there are two categories of "something", some of which they want to know and some of which they want to avoid.

Moreover, a spoiler warning is more specific than the word "encyclopedia". "Encylopedia" just means "this contains information". A spoiler warning means "this contains a particular type of information in a particular place". One cannot substitute for the other. Ken Arromdee 17:41, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

People who come to an encyclopedia to avoid learning things should probably be discouraged, because they're coming to the wrong place. --Tony Sidaway 18:22, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

The encyclopedia is the wrong place to come if you want to know nothing at all.

But who says the encyclopedia is the wrong place to come if you want to learn some things but not other things?

You're continuing to confuse these two by using the phrase "avoid learning things" to describe them both, even though they are very different. It's obvious that if someone wants to learn nothing at all, an encyclopedia is the wrong place, but it's *not* obvious that if someone wants to learn some things but not others, the encyclopedia is the wrong place. Ken Arromdee 02:02, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Certainly I understand what you're saying. I'm saying that it's the wrong place to come to, and rather than put silly tags all over the place we should just ensure that people who come here don't mistake Wikipedia for an information source that is geared towards conniving with them in their wish to remain selectively ignorant. --Tony Sidaway 02:19, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

(←) There are other areas where that claim could be made. Wikipedia is not censored, and we include lots of information that people might like to avoid. We have images which might be considered obscene or pornographic. We have images of things that several major religions find offensive or sacred. We have articles describing private aspects of religions. We have information on illegal drugs and suicide methods. None of these things carries a warning that the reader might want to avoid it, because there is a reasonable expectation that an encyclopedia will cover things in a thorough, neutral manner. Warnings have been proposed many times but never accepted by the community. In comparison to truly sensitive and controversial topics such as these, "spoilers" are extremely inoffensive and unimportant, and there is no reason for them to carry general disclaimers. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:08, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh no, that's exactly why we MUST have the warnings! They don't do any harm, see! Whereas, the other pages, people can just forget about, while finding out the ending to Romeo and Juliet will spoil people's lives forever and ever and ever! (and ever!) ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 19:32, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Melodia, please note how spoiler-favoring editors are refraining from mocking you or yours. Neither are they trivializing opposing arguments off-hand, using what have been repeatedly and quite unopposedly stated to be extreme examples, or disregarding attempts at discussion in favor of inane gobbledygook. They are also not gloating in their apparent victory. Thank you. --Kizor 14:45, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Attempts at discussion? I haven't seen anything new on the table in days, if not a couple weeks. Sure, people keep discussing, but they say the same thing over and over again. I'm sorry if you were offended by my sarcasm, but if I have to read about those 45,000 edits one more time... ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 16:14, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

...then please work out your frustration by going to yell at a houseplant, which will enjoy the carbon dioxide. --Kizor 16:51, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Actually, informal polls indicate spoiler warnings are useful for a lot of people. I am not sure if the same can be said about the obscenity warnings (it should be obvious from the lead section what the subject is about). Usually, if people find something offensive, they want to censor it from other people too, not just themselves (some could for example set up filtering software to filter pages containing such warnings). Spoilers are special, because by having spoiler warnings (or avoiding spoilers at all, but nobody wants this Wikipedia to do, I think) you are giving user more freedom, not less. Also, I read the discussion about general warnings a little, and the common problem here was to define what exactly is objectionable. But in 99% of cases there is a consensus about what constitutes a spoiler. Samohyl Jan 21:05, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

What about people who want to keep possibly obscene or sacred material from themselves (personal preference) but don't care if others see it? That would give them "more freedom, not less" but we would never accept a warning message for obscene material. In fact, your argument would be even more compelling for obscene material than for spoilers, but it's routinely rejected in that context. As you say, the lede section and title are enough warning – spoilers are no different. You're right that obscenity warnings are rejected partly because once they exist everything ends up tagged. It appears that's exactly what happened, unnoticed, with the spoiler tag. — Carl (CBM · talk) 21:17, 22 June 2007 (UTC)

Proposal to correct misnamed spoiler "warnings" as spoiler "notices"

"What about people who want" Here we go again with the "warning" red herring. Let's put a stop to this irrelevant sideshow debate. There are plenty of genuine disputes — this isn't one of them.

Spoiler tags aren't true warnings, they are just named that way for dramatic promotion of fictional surprises. Bone fide warnings are primarily defined in relation to danger:

"...:a notice or bulletin that alerts the public to an imminent hazard (as a tornado, thunderstorm, or flood)" (m-w.com)

Even though religious extremists persist in a belief that obscenity is a danger rather than a cultural competition, and so claim obscenity warnings are needed at Wikipedia, none of those same extremists would claim that spoilers are dangerous to anyone, anywhere.

The maximum risk of reading a spoiler is that one may become disappointed by learning a surprise detail too soon. Disappointment is not dangerous, therefore spoiler tags aren't warnings, therefore spoiler tags are logically unrelated to Wikipedia warning policies.

I propose that supporters of spoiler tagging agree to stop using the term "warning", work to remove the term "warning" from the spoiler guide (except to dismiss the term as confusing), and remind any future poster who uses the term here that 'Spoiler tags should not be called warnings — everyone agrees spoilers pose no danger.' Milo 00:34, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

If spoiler tags aren't warnings then they're simple clutter and should be removed on sight. --Tony Sidaway 00:39, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Not relevant, but it's a humorous extremism. Anyway, I laughed. Milo 03:29, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Well they're warnings. If they don't perform a warning function they're valueless. --Tony Sidaway 06:46, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

"Well they're warnings" If you dispute the dictionary's definition of a common word, then that's your private language not permitted in Wikipedia.

"don't perform a warning function they're valueless" 40+% of editors/readers disagree with you that spoiler tags are valueless, even though they don't give notice of imminent danger and thus can't be warnings.

Either way, your extreme positions are isolated and irrelevant. Milo 14:56, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, Carl, if there is an evidence that significant number of people want to censor obscenity from themselves, not others, and they can actually agree what is obscene, then I may reconsider my opinion on "no disclaimers in articles". IMHO, the generalization of rules by analogies shouldn't go too much against usefulness. Also, I would like to see a significant user case for this, ie. at least several tens of articles containing both objectionable content someone would like to censor from himself and other content he could find useful. But I am afraid that history shows that people who care about obscene and sacred things usually want to censor it to others. Spoiler warnings don't have these problems. Samohyl Jan 05:58, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

"Spoiler warnings don't have these problems" That would be because they are not warnings — there is no danger. Milo 14:56, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

What function does a spoiler tag perform? --Tony Sidaway 19:20, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

A spoiler tag, not being a true warning or a caution, is a notice. Wikipedia routinely uses notices in articles.

In the attention centerhead/sidehead hierarchy of technical writing:

Warning flags danger to humans (e.g., laptop computer batteries that may catch fire);
Caution flags non-dangerous malfunction risk to equipment and software, or potential loss of something of value (such as key entry labor preceding a program crash); and
Notice (or Note, or just the bare notice text) flags every other information text that's worthy of centerhead/sidehead or boxed attention.

Specifically, a spoiler tag is a forward-looking content notice, categorically similar to the boxed table of contents notice and disambiguation notices.

A spoiler notice functions inversely similar to a disambiguation notice, since a disambiguation notice primarily informs the reader of what will not be found in the article — a 'non-content' notice — although they often mention what will be found in the article as well. Milo 21:13, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

The fact still remains, though, that all other meta-templates (that is, words about the content rather than the content itself) are meant to be temporary, outside of the disambig notices and redirects at the tops of articles. Why should spoilers be different? As for warning vs notice, one could EASILY say. "Notice: Nude photo follows" or "Notice: Curse words follow", etc etc. ? Melodia Chaconne ? 21:25, 23 June 2007 (UTC)

"outside of the disambig notices " Spoiler tags should have the same status as disambig notices because, along with the contents box, they are all content notices.

"Notice: Nude photo follows" The only people who demand to say that also claim a danger; and danger requires a warning, not a notice. Milo 19:26, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

It's amazing the poor arguments that get used here. www.m-w.com has one definition of "warning" as "something that warns"... and then the definition of "warn" includes

c : to call to one's attention : INFORM

A spoiler warning informs people that a spoiler is present; contrary to the person who referred to www.m-w.com above, that dictionary does classify spoiler warnings as warnings. Ken Arromdee 02:02, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

You apparently missed reading or didn't understand "Bone fide warnings are primarily defined in relation to danger". "To warn" necessarily includes a secondary element of "to inform", but "to inform" does not necessarily include an element of "to warn".

"To warn" has a primary meaning of communicating danger. Demoting the critical importance of "to warn", by promoting its secondary included meaning of "to inform", is rhetorically inaccurate and potentially a cultural threat. The corollary misusage of promoting a notice text to the status of a warning is an equivalently inaccurate exaggeration.

While "spoiler warning" is a phrase relating to a fictional context, I think a sense of rhetorical dishonesty is one of the several identified reasons why it is viscerally disliked. The cure for this reason is to cease use of the inaccurate term "warning" for text which is merely a notice. Milo 19:26, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

Yet there is general agreement that we don't warn people about genuinely offensive content – obscenity, pornography, heresy. Why should we leave those things unmarked but mark many spoilers, which are much less serious? — Carl (CBM · talk) 02:19, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

My theory is that spoiler warnings are different because they're also useful for people seeking out information. You don't generally have people who look would come to wikipedia to look for obscenity related to Doctor Who. Or who would come here for nudity that relates to Doctor Who. Or for heresy which relates to Doctor Who. (Or, for that matter, any of those warnings for any non-fictional topics that might apply). However, you do have people who might want to read spoilers as they relate to Doctor Who, and, for that matter, only that. They might also want the reverse, things about Doctor Who which are not spoilers. For this, the spoiler warnings are a useful tool, to find the specific information they seek quickly. We can't use subject headings (which also allow people to learn some things and not others. Screw you if you're not interested in someone's 'Early Life!', the biography should have no subheadings. Hell, there shouldn't be a heading, that way you've got to read the whole damn article to find what you're looking for, and learn as much as possible!) , everyone knows and pretty well agrees to that, so this a compromise state that's existed for a while. We tag the areas that are spoilers with a notice that can be seen while scrolling. I know it's helped me.

Also, generally speaking, the other warnings are all-or-nothing warnings, or CYA warnings. You put them at the top of a page and a person who's potentially offended with either go away (I don't want to see nudity, so I'm not looking at this article), or if they do, they've consented to not be offended. People won't say "Oh, there's a nudity warning, so I'll just read everything up to the nudity and I'll be okay." Or "Hmmm, it says there might be content that offends me. I'll just stop reading when I might get offended." That's just not how people generally use the other warnings. But it _is_ how people use spoiler warnings, because they're best used targetted. Large numbers of people be perfectly willing to read much of the article up to the spoiler part. For those who wish not to know spoilers _but DO WISH TO LEARN OTHER THINGS_ about the subject at the quality wikipedia is capable of, rather than feel compelled to go to another site that has spoiler warnings, it's courtesy and helps them get information they want. The fact that some people think it looks ugly or unprofessional is far less relevant to me. Wandering Ghost 12:38, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

(←) If people want a review, or an advertisement, or a trailer, then going to another site is appropriate. They should only come here if they want an encyclopedic article on the subject. I think it is perfectly reasonable for people, for example, to look at an infobox but not read the plot section if they don't want to learn the plot. Dr Who is not the best example, by the way; all the spoiler warnings seem to have been left off those articles for several days. — Carl (CBM · talk) 13:17, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Telling users what they should do is the best way to alienate them. Samohyl Jan 13:50, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

If they're alienated, does that mean they'll choose a more suitable source of information? --Tony Sidaway 14:23, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia has a number of advantages that other sites do not--multi-mythos content, for one. I, for one, have been using Wikipedia as my one-stop source for information on everything from Heroes to Blackadder. It's saved a whole lot of time. Wikipedia also has more detailed character profiles and a vastly superior interface than any other site out there. As a regular user, I'd like to go on the record as supporting the use of spoilers tags. I don't have the time to spend putting them back in--if I had that kind of time, I'd ditch Wikipedia for sites with better spoilers policies--but I just want to make my voice heard.

76.198.204.224 05:50, 30 June 2007 (UTC)[Just a regular user]

Are you going on record as wanting to alienate users who come to Wikipedia seeking non-spoiling fiction information? Milo 19:26, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

I would like the potential reader to accurately assess Wikipedia as an information source for works on fiction and act accordingly. This means that people who come here expressly not to learn something should look elsewhere for a website that is willing to connive with them in their quest for ignorance. --Tony Sidaway 08:10, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Bludgeoning of the anti-template POV

I had the question: "Is there any single article left in Wikipedia that has a spoiler warning on it?" I've tried a quick quick google search, and of the articles I sample from those results, not a single one had the template. Checking What links here for the template, I could count on one hand the number of articles that I could find that weren't talk or user pages. The fact is that spoilers have, for all intents and purposes, been removed from Wikipedia.

This suggests that either:

a. A group of users are going around removing every spoiler tag they find (with about 3 exceptions in the whole of Wikipedia), in violation of the consensus on the use of spoilers (which at least suggests that they should be used a little more often than "almost never"). Users opposed to this policy simply can't be bothered to engage in edit wars with these users, who have shown a great willingness to engage in edit warring.
b. There is a new consensus in Wikipedia that spoiler tags should be removed completely.

Personally I think option a better describes the situation, but the removalists seem to be arguing for option b. If option b were the case, then why does the current guideline not reflect that? -Kieran 11:02, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Not quite. The argument is that because the number of editors in group (a) is so small and underworked, clearly we're close to (b). However the guideline does not require (b) at all. We're only close to (b) because there has been so little opposition. --Tony Sidaway 11:08, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, since you believe there is consensus that spoiler tags should not be included in WP. Why don't you edit the guideline accordingly? -Kieran 11:33, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't believe that to be the case, so I won't. --Tony Sidaway 11:53, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Also, I have a question. You say that the spoiler tag is a "thing of the past ...for most fiction projects". Do you have statistics to back this up? 45000 uses of the tag suggest that for an awful lot of fiction projects it was anything but a "thing of the past" until the mass-removals. -Kieran 11:43, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

The statistics I have to back me up are the tens of thousands of spoiler tags that aren't there any more because, for the most part, nobody misses them enough to put them back. I'll watch one or two TV show articles that are due to be broadcast for the first time over the coming week, and see if any of them acquires a spoiler tag. If they do and the tag stays by consensus of the editors of the article I'll update my opinion. I do this kind of monitoring every week. --Tony Sidaway 11:53, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Following your suggestion, I have rewritten the guideline, it now says that spoiler warnings are no longer used. This describes current practice better than the old compromise guideline, as talk page arguments justifying spoiler warnings were extremely rare, and only very few warnings were added recently. Kusma (talk) 11:54, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Doesn't seem particularly workable to me, frankly. There may be legitimate uses (I wouldn't object to any use on a TV show that hasn't been aired in all major markets, for instance, and Phil has suggested the same of mangas and animes that have not yet appeared in English speaking markets). It's a fine nuance, however. --Tony Sidaway 11:58, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

The advantage of "no spoiler warnings, period" is that it is far simpler than the case-by-case justification that is so rarely given. It would also put an end to the "consistency" debates. But anyway, WP:BRD... Kusma (talk) 12:02, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

And I have been reverted already, without discussion so far. Perhaps we need a better rewrite than my half-baked attempt to merge David'd translation of the German guideline into ours. Kusma (talk) 12:21, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

While there are a few people moaning about it, I think the current guideline has the advantage that it's stable and easy to enforce. --Tony Sidaway 12:47, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

"Tended to find themselves outnumbered by up to six editors removing tags against one restoring." : This is the reason it's easy to enforce. Argumentum ad baculum: Your POV is right because your group has more editing power and motivation to enforce it. -Kieran 13:43, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, six people against an entire wiki wouldn't get anywhere. Six people against the odd edit warrior is a different matter. --Tony Sidaway 13:53, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

You're twisting the language here. You mean six edit warriors patrolling the wiki against one edit warrior trying to protect an article (s)he cares about, but not really wanting to engage in an edit war with the six patrolling edit warriors. The fact remains that there are people (yourself included) who are roaming the wiki looking for articles they have no interest in, and engaging in edit wars with the regular contributors to those articles over the usage of spoilers. Most regular contributors can't be bothered to fight back, and anyway starting edit wars is poor wikiquette. -Kieran 14:22, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

One person's spoiler tag reverted by your "appeal to authority" "Per WP:SPOIL" will maybe glance at the policy to verify that it has, indeed, changed, but then assumes there's consensus and, sighing, yields to the greater consensus. This is how wikipedia works: if something has consensus, people arn't supposed to edit war over it just because they dislike it. Furthermore, six editors all saying that it's useless are quite intimidating. But several people have noticed the same pattern across many, many articles, and more and more are flocking to this page looking for answers as to why this was changed, where the consensus is... and are finding no consensus. I, for one, feel cheated. The system only works as long as nobody tries to take advantage of people by doing something like claiming consensus where there is none. Kuronue 14:30, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

(←) Issues don't "have consensus" or not in some permanent way, and policy describes and lags behind practice. The evidence for consensus about removing spoiler tags is not the discussion on this page, but the practice all over the wiki, where very few editors have added spoiler tags to articles since they were removed, and the articles without spoiler tags include all recent major films. These articles are maintained by thousands of editors, so if there were a lot of pushback about the tags it would be impossible to miss. Imagine if someone tried to remove every instance of {{fact}} - that is what would have happened here if there were strong support for spoiler tags. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:53, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

That's fallacious: Certainly all the fictional articles in wikipedia are maintained by thousands of editors, but any given article is maintained by a handful of occasional editors. Whenever a spoiler tag goes in, it attracts up to half a dozen anti-spoiler tag patrollers who bludgeon it out of existence, unless it complies with their very narrow interpretation of the (highly contentious) style guideline. That's not "a few editors versus wikipedia", that's "a few rabid fanatics versus one or two casual editors". In most cases the regular editors just give up after the first few reverts. -Kieran 15:07, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

If the removal of the "fact" tag were accompanied by an official-looking edit summary like "rm fact tag under WP:FACT redundancy policy" and re-instated by a group of drive-by editors and admins working in concert to evade the three-revert rule, I bet a lot of necessary fact tags would be erased. --Jere7my 16:55, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Certainly, if we're starting from a situation of zero spoiler warnings on Wikipedia, a handful of zealous editors on fire patrol can quickly extinguish any little sparks or flames leaping up here or there. It would be hard for anyone to stand up in the face of multiple editors rushing in, demonstrating that spoilers are hardly ever used, removing the templates, and pointing to a guideline that largely dismisses the use of spoilers. But in a situation where thousands of articles may have spoilers, and each of them is watched by several editors, it would be impossible for a tiny minority of editors to directly remove the templates and get their change to stick. The only thing I could conceive of, that might bring about the removal of thousands of templates, without the tags coming back in droves, would be if the majority of wikipedia editors were actually swayed to the opinion that spoiler warnings are generally not needed. That does indeed argue in favor of consensus. The existence of this guideline, of course, can be quite influential in turning opinion on the subject. zadignose 17:05, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

For myself I would like to say that my decision not to oppose the removal of spoiler warnings (by David Gerard) on two fiction articles I have in watchlist *was* influenced by the existence of this guideline. I think there is a custom (or maybe even a policy) "discuss first before mindlessly reverting". Samohyl Jan 17:33, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

zadignose, I think you are underestimating the influence a brief, official-looking edit summary can have on a casual editor. There's a tendency to say "Oh, well, that's the way it is now"; most people will not bother to check WP:SPOILER to see if they agree with it. It's not evidence for consensus; it's evidence for the tendency of people to accept authority. Casual editors are also not willing to engage in edit wars with the spoiler patrol. --Jere7my 17:39, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

So, are you standing by the idea that the reported tens of thousands of articles that had spoilers removed were all directly edited by about six or so editors, and the other editors who are more directly responsible for the creation of these articles, including those who originally placed the spoiler warnings, were either fooled or intimidated into accepting the changes? zadignose 00:09, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't know what happened with all of the thousands of other editors. I can only speak for myself, and I saw an official-looking notice attached to a minor edit saying something about a redundant tag — I assumed it was a typo correction, not part of a sweeping purge of significant structural elements. I do believe half a dozen editors could have made those changes, particular since some (cf. Kusma on the Ghost Dog article) used scripts. --Jere7my 00:16, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, yes. You weren't around here to see the purge while it was going on, but there's been no dispute from either side that a tiny group of editors removed the lion's share of all spoiler warnings, most using AWB (though one made a script of his own) - "about six or so" sounds about right - nor about the peak number being some 45'000 tags. Please, let's not start one now. --Kizor 08:48, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I see. I had misunderstood something, as I looked at histories for some of the editors named above, but failed to check out David Gerard's history. The fact that the massive purge happened very recently makes it hard to draw a real conclusion from the reaction/lack of reaction of the majority of editors. Certainly, one would have expected to see a lot of warning templates put back in, if they were broadly supported by editors accross Wikipedia, but then the place could be in a kind of state of shock, so to speak, and whatever reaction may simply be delayed. I see the point regarding official sounding edit summaries which make it appear that there are no grounds for opposing an edit. Certainly it seems disingenuous to mark the bulk of the edits as "minor" edits, which should only be used for completely uncontroversial edits such as correcting a typo. But putting that aside for the moment, maybe it's better to discuss what the guideline should be, and how to proceed from where we are, rather than fuss about how we got here. zadignose 09:24, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Well then. Thank you for having the patience that allowed us to come to a peaceable and satisfactory resolution. Around these parts that's invigorating by its rarity alone. We must definitely work out where to go from here (I've been working on some suggestions, but I'll have to be lucid consistently instead of intermittedly before I can get them to a posting condition. Ain't student life grand?), but how we got here remains highly important for determining our present status. Whee. --Kizor 00:31, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Spoiler warnings...

... are not the big deal here. I, personally, don't care about whether it's ultimately decided to use or not use spoiler warnings. The big deal is that a few editors--who shall remain unnamed--are walking all over Wikipedians and Wikipedia policy, and getting away with it. AWB misuse, a guideline with significant loopholes in their favor, and gang-like behavior are the problems--not the cause they're being used to represent. Take, for example, Talk:Halo: Combat Evolved. I helped bring this page to featured status, so naturally I have it on my watchlist and like to keep an eye on it. The first few times I tried to add a spoiler warning to a section that was not clearly marked, I was reverted without explanation. Once it was brought up on the talk page, however, anti-spoiler users crawled out of the wordwork to support their cause, with most of them never taking interest in the page before that. The "case-by-case basis" only exists so that the debates end up like this--one user against many, because the "many" patrols Wikipedia searching for disputes like these. Worse still, as User:Nydas has pointed out, a "compelling reason" is whatever the anti-spoiler editors want it to be. Since the case-by-case basis means that the only editors you'll ever end up arguing with are part of the gang, you're going to have to deal with several editors who claim that all of your reasons are "baseless", simply because they can. This has to stop.

I recommend that everyone on both sides take part in the Mediation Cabal discussion on this issue, as it pertains to the actions of the anti-spoiler users, and not just whether it's "right" or "wrong" to use a spoiler tag. JimmyBlackwing 17:11, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Bull. Subjectivity is not a problem with the guideline. And there are no editors who are unpersuadable - I know that both Tony and I have come to be persuaded by several spoiler warnings. The issue is that people need a reason beyond "I think this twist is the most awesomest thing evar," which is frankly what 99% of the spoiler defenses are on the case by case level. Which is what is so infuriating about the pro-spoiler folks here - the general defense of spoilers has so little to do with what's going on in the actual article space. Phil Sandifer 20:11, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

And I know that you and Tony keep saying things like "I've even added a few spoiler warnings myself", or "I've been persuaded before". The thing is, though, that I have yet to see any instances of this. Would you mind providing examples of a few? JimmyBlackwing 20:54, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Phil was quite reasonable in my conversation with him about the spoiler warning on Sōsuke Aizen. --tjstrf talk 21:07, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the link. It still looks like "compelling reason" needs a solid definition, though. I mean, I agree that the article deserved a spoiler warning, but what does that mean? What convinces one editor might not convince another; nothing so subjective can have universal support. It's too big of a loophole to remain like this--eventually, someone's going to abuse it. JimmyBlackwing 21:23, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't say he was reasonable. Your core "compelling reason" for keeping the tag was that English viewers hadn't watched it yet. He was using "compelling reason" as a proxy for freshness of the spoiler tag, which is nowhere mentioned in the guideline. -Kieran 01:10, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm new to this discussion, but let me point something out that I've observed in other disputes. Oftentimes it happens that an editor wants to approach an article in a particular way, but they suddenly find themselves opposed by several other editors. Frequently, such an editor claims that the dispute has been caused by a group acting together in a bullying way. They generally are not receptive to the idea that, just possibly, the several editors have drawn the same conclusion independently because the conclusion itself has merit. That is, they are not necessarily "acting together," in any sense beyond the fact that they just happen to agree. This can be misrepresented as a small group of aggressive edit warriors who are somehow bullying the whole of the Wikipedia community. You should not suppose that several editors who act in a similar way, or support a similar approach to editing, are biased or abusive, but should consider what are the underlying reasons to support their perspective. You should also consider that, on a big scale issue that affects thousands of articles, it's not possible for a handful of editors, no matter how determined, to act against the consensus of thousands of editors. Perhaps each article has its own "handful of editors," and all those thousands of handfuls actually add up to a significant widespread consensus against the use of spoiler warnings. zadignose 00:29, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Except that the same few names keep coming up time after time, page after page, where they make no edits but to remove spoiler tags, and once the tag is left off, promptly abandon the article. Kuronue 00:48, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Exactly. Also, through use of scripts, it is completely possible for a handful of editors to remove spoiler tags. User:David Gerard was using AWB to remove spoiler warnings in mass quantities not too long ago, for example. JimmyBlackwing 00:50, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

You should also consider that, on a big scale issue that affects thousands of articles, it's not possible for a handful of editors, no matter how determined, to act against the consensus of thousands of editors.

It is possible when automated tools are being used and anyone who attempts to restore spoiler warnings on a wide scale is threatened. Thousands were restored, but were unthinkingly removed again by the AWB steamroller.--Nydas^(Talk) 07:44, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

OK, my thoughts

I think one of the reasons this debate is so heated is because there are two kinds of people out there: People who get upset if they find out the ending of a movie or book before reading it, and people who prefer to know the ending of a book or movie before seeing it. So, for people who prefer knowing the ending before seeing a movie or reading a book, it can be very confusing why it is some people get upset if the ending of a movie is revealed to them.

So, for people who don't mind knowing the ending of a book or movie, please try to understand that there are people who get very upset if someone reveals the ending of a book or movie before they see it. Try to understand that people feel this way and try to understand why it is such people want to have some warning so they don't accidently know the ending of a book or movie before reading/seeing it.

Wikipedia is not a battlefield. If people could have more compassion, I think we can resolve this issue in a civil and polite manner that makes everyone reasonably happy.

For people who are against the spoiler tags, please try and explain to me why the tags are bad. I will try to be compassionate towards your position.

Samboy 21:18, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

Honestly, and no offense, but I doubt that the issue is half that simple. The anti-spoiler crowd seems well aware that people prefer not to have things spoiled in many cases- their thoughts, however, seem to be that those people should "find a more appropriate source" (NPOV for "bugger off") because warning people is "unencyclopediac" and "condescending" Kuronue 00:50, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

You know, I hope the anti-spoiler crowd is more compassionate to people feelings than that. It is notable that none of the anti-spoiler people have replied to this message. From where I am standing, it looks like the anti-spoiler crowd has a bad case of SPS and needs to compensate by being bullies. However, I am probably wrong here and it is against WP:FAITH to think this way. So, I'm trying to follow WP:FAITH. Could someone in the anti-spoiler crowd explain to me what is so important about removing spoiler tags that its worth making the encyclopedia less enjoyable for some people over? Samboy 21:32, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Stop using terms like "anti-spoiler crowd" and you may get an answer. --Tony Sidaway 09:30, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

It seems like a reasonable and non-offensive term to me, especially given the highly polarized state of the debate. Of course, my outlook might be different if it applied to me. --Kizor 12:18, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

"I will try to be compassionate towards your position..." Well, clearly you failed on that point pretty quickly, and took a mere day to start flinging "small penis" comments. As for polarization, I'm somewhat undecided on the spoiler issue, but terms like "anti-spoiler crowd," and the apparent polarization of this debate is threatening to very quickly "polarize" me right into the supposed "anti-spoiler crowd." So, thanks anyway for all the talk of compassion.

Meanwhile, personally I do get upset if I find out the ending of a movie or book before seeing/reading it, and yet I don't see a very compelling argument for using spoiler warnings on Wikipedia. If I plan on seeing Seven Samurai (assuming I hadn't already seen it), then I'm simply not going to read an encyclopedia article on the subject before seeing it. If I'm considering reading a book, then I might skim an article until I've become sufficiently intrigued to decide I will read the book. At that point, I'm not going to read anything more about the book until I've read the book itself. If other people want to read a complete article including plot points about a literary work they haven't experienced directly, then that's their business. Among the lot of us, we can choose what information we want to receive, and what articles we want to read, and it doesn't take spoiler warnings to achieve this. So which of the two kinds of people am I?zadignose 01:48, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

The disputed tag and the 3RR?

I don't know all the ins and outs of Wikipedia policy, but Tony Sidaway has removed the disputed tag at least six times in the last 50 edits, according to the history. Wouldn't that be a violation of the three revert rule? --Jere7my 07:47, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

No. See three revert rule. --Tony Sidaway 10:27, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Oh! It resets every 24 hours? I see. Still, I think you're in violation of "Rather than reverting multiple times, discuss the matter with other editors." I didn't see any discussion yesterday about the disputed tag, just your words in an edit summary, and you seem to be in the minority about wanting it removed. --Jere7my 17:22, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I've discussed it at length here. --Tony Sidaway 09:29, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

The 3RR rule only applies to edits in a 24 hour window, but WP:EW applies to edit warring in general. The interpretation of WP:EW is done on a case-by-case basis and doesn't have a bright line like 3RR. — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:50, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Removal of 'compelling reasons'

I have removed 'compelling reasons' from the guideline, inserting a statement that spoiler warnings may be used on recent fiction. This is the only 'compelling reason' that the anti-spoiler brigade accept. If there are other 'compelling reasons', they should be listed, rather than shrouded in mystery. We have plenty of clear guidelines about fiction, there is no reason for this one to be different.--Nydas^(Talk) 12:25, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

This is not true - of the spoiler warnings that are relatively stable right now, two are for recent works, one is because a section of the article on a television show from season 2 of something talks about how stuff in season 10 of the show expanded on the episode, and one is on stuff that has been out for years but hasn't been translated to English yet. Recent works are a major reason, but they're not the sole reason. Phil Sandifer 12:33, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

So add those examples to the guideline. Editors wishing to add spoiler tags should not have to grope around in the darkness for what a compelling reason might be. It should be possible to assemble a list of common ones.--Nydas^(Talk) 13:01, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

If a compelling reason exists, they won't have to grope around in the dark for it. Being compelling, it will present itself with urgency. --Tony Sidaway 13:03, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I really do fear that would be counter-productive. I would not have thought of the extremely forward-looking statement from season 2 to 10 of a show, or of the t.ranslation issues initially. They're very compelling reasons, but they're not ones I had, prior to them coming up in discussion, thought of. I would hate to make a list of reasons and, in doing so, implicitly discourage someone from coming up with new persuasive reasons. Phil Sandifer 13:07, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Furthermore, I'm not sure the "recent works" line actually helps carify things, as there are more factors than just that. The spoiler on List of Matoran is probably sensbile for a few weeks yet, because book release schedules are odd and not entirely predictable. The spoiler on Utopia (Doctor Who) was rightly shorter-lived, as that main revelation was on magazine covers within days. There's not a formula that's used for the compelling reason test - it's much more fluid and subjective. Phil Sandifer 13:18, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Guidelines are not set in stone and 'recent works' is not a hard rule or a formula. Your concern about hard rules does not seem to extend to all the hard rules governing where spoiler tags may not be used.--Nydas^(Talk) 13:37, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Nydas. There are plenty of bright-line cases in the guidelines as they now stand — they're just all anti-spoiler-tag. All of the flexibility is on the pro-spoiler side. I think it would be helpful — and since this is just a guideline it would be clear that we're not attempting to cover every base — to offer some suggestions for when spoiler tags should be used. "Spoiler tags are never necessary, but you might consider using them in these cases..." Then list spoilers in unexpected places (like in a Character or Setting section), spoilers that are particularly significant (such as movies with major twists), etc. We can make it clear elsewhere that spoilers within a "Plot" or "Detailed Summary" section don't need to be separately marked, provided the article also provides a spoiler-free "Overview" or something similar. Yes, this requires judgment, but everything about writing an encyclopedia article requires some judgment, if only about what details to include — it's not a violation of NPOV to say "I think this is important", since that's part of the very essence of writing an article. --Jere7my 17:34, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I think you've misrepresented what has been said (and is your use of the term "the anti-spoiler brigade" really a sensible way of conducting a discussion?) I'm restoring the original text until you can justify the removal without misrepresenting the views of others, hopefully in more collegiate language. --Tony Sidaway 12:35, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I'll add that the reason I think the original language is better is because we don't know what we'll find compelling until we see it. This is a guideline, not a policy document. In general guidelines set out broad criteria rather than bright line cases, and guidelines gain their power from this flexibility. --Tony Sidaway 12:39, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

'Recently released fiction' is a broad criteria. 'Websites that have won an award' is a broad criteria. 'Bands that have gone on international concert tours' is a broad criteria. There's room for discussion, but they're fairly clear and straightforward.

'Compelling reason' is not a criteria at all, since it's entirely subjective. It could mean everything, it could mean nothing. --Nydas^(Talk) 13:19, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

No. It could not mean everything or nothing - it has a very specific meaning - a reason that presents itself as vital and important on its own merits. Something that anybody who will grant the premise that at least one spoiler warning on Wikipedia should exist should accept. The meaning is not unclear at all. What is very much open for discussion is what these reasons might be. But the meaning of the phrase is obvious. As for your examples of bands and websites, it should be noted, those are, to my mind, some of the worst guidelines on Wikipedia. Dreadful, inflexible things that cannot adapt to individual circumstances to save their lives. Phil Sandifer 13:30, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

That is a circular definition. A compelling reason is no more obvious than an obvious reason is compelling. Since anyone disagreeing magically renders a reason 'uncompelling', the effect is to give the anti-spoiler brigade a veto over spoiler tags. It would be same for any guideline which had its meaning stripped away.--Nydas^(Talk) 14:22, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Not all recently released fiction needs a spoiler tag. What do you want to call the reason given why a specific article does need one? A "special" reason, an "important" reason, a "compelling" reason, no matter what it's called, is needed to justify including the spoiler tag in an article that, by its nature, it meant to discuss the plot details of the work of fiction it describes. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:39, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Why shouldn't all recently released fiction have a spoiler tag? I don't advocate inserting them in every recent fiction article, but if there is one, it shouldn't require your permission to be there.--Nydas^(Talk) 20:13, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, the guideline could easily be abused by somebody who opposes spoiler tags in all instances who proclaims no reasons compelling. This would, A) Be in bad faith, B) Be needlessly disruptive and rude, and C) Be shot down by more reasonable editors. In practice, on a number of pages, consensus has been reached about spoiler tags in specific cases. So for all of your fears that the guideline has no meaning and exists only to mass-remove spoiler tags, that hasn't played out in the article space. In fact, the only such discussions I've seen be totally unfruitful are the ones where people from this talk page have plowed in and thrown around personal attacks while insisting that no reason is needed. Those discussions have generally gone pretty badly. Phil Sandifer 15:39, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

But you, and most, if not all, of the anti-spoiler brigade do oppose spoiler tags in all instances. You said: Nuke the spoiler template. Nuke all "spoiler" policies. [3] Perhaps you have softened your stance, and consider 'compelling reasons' a compromise. But it is a very poor compromise, considering it was written by the anti-spoiler brigade, grants them veto power and has no support whatsoever in the pro-spoiler camp. You admit it could be abused easily, which should be reason enough to be rid of it, regardless of your rosy view of it working in practice.--Nydas^(Talk) 20:37, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Yep. And that was pretty much what we did when we excised the desperately malignant use of spoiler tags on Wikipedia. And the change has been met with minimal opposition, and less from actual editors of the articles. Over and over again, discussions on the article pages have gone very well until you or Jeremy have plowed in with your incivility, personal attacks, and hysteria. And yet you continue, bafflingly, to insist that there is some sort of meaningful controversy. There's not. Consensus doesn't equal unanimity, and there will always be dissent for any policy on Wikipedia. But there is not meaningful dissent for this one - never has been, actually. All there's been, throughout the entire discussion of spoiler warnings, has been incivility, personal attacks, and the occasional outburst of complete and utter stupidity.

And now that is done, and the cat is quite firmly out of the bag. And I, like most of the other people involved in the decision to curtail the use of spoiler tags, am going to move on. You can feel free to continue to rail against the injustice of it all here, but I, at least, am done with discussing spoiler policy. The current guideline is good, I support it. I oppose all attempts to increase the use of spoiler tags beyond what it currently advocates. You can consider this a comment added to every further discussion on the matter. But honestly, that seems stupid. Look at your contributions since this mess began - you've barely touched the mainspace. I'm hardly much better, especially when you ignore edits removing inappropriate spoiler tags. This is absurd.

So I, at least, am going to go write a fucking encyclopedia. You are welcome to help. Phil Sandifer 21:03, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, Phil, but you're being a silly sausage (and an ANGRY sausage!). If you think Nydas and I are the only ones opposing the new spoiler regime, you can't count very well. This is a major policy change, made about a month ago, and repercussions are slowly filtering out through the rest of Wikipedia — of course this is attracting attention, of course you no longer have consensus, and of course the controversy is meaningful. If you'd implemented your policy change and let it trickle down to individual articles, over the course of years, you might have gotten exactly what you want in the end. But you were impatient, and you overreached. David Gerard used scripts to delete tens of thousands of tags, and that has drawn significant notice. (I'm pleased that you are agreeing with me now that that was abuse.) A small handful of admins and senior editors are stomping out brushfires of spoiler tags wherever they arise, usually against the wishes of local editors. It's not cool, man. It's way far away from the spirit of Wikipedia. --Jere7my 22:59, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Incidentally, I just looked at the history of this page. To say "there is not meaningful dissent for this one - never has been, actually" seems...well, disingenuous. This talk page has been a forum for vicious dissent for years. I don't think you can take a snapshot of one moment of resolution and call that permanent consensus. (Not that I could actually find that moment of consensus you claim — it seems like the same battles have been going on for a looooong time, without resolution.) --Jere7my 23:25, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

No need to act like a dick. If you think using the f-word on a public forum makes you seem intelligent, then more power to you. The small group of editors bent on ridding Wikipedia of all spoilers is apparently monitoring The Crying Game article, where the introduction gives away the surprise twist. They claim to know what every reader who uses the site's intentions are when they seek out articles. Other editors keep on changing their revisions, but the group claims they are in the majority. --YellowTapedR 22:12, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I'd be a lot happier if "compelling reasons" was defined in the article, perhaps by including examples of what is and isn't compelling. Then we'd know what we're discussing. --h2g2bob (talk) 00:51, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Phil's swearing aside, the justifications for 'compelling reasons' are weak. The 'no hard rules' doctrine seems to be a personal philosophy of Phil and Tony which is not followed on any other guideline, and especially not on the hard rules of when not to use spoilers. Phil admits it can be easily abused, but says that reasonable editors will step in to prevent this. It is far from certain that this will happen, especially on articles with a small number of editors.--Nydas^(Talk) 09:36, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

How about a compromise. Replace most of the rules for where a spoiler warning should not be (save perhaps for the obvious 'pretty well everyone agrees' cases like fairy tales, which keeps getting brought up as a bogeyman as though the pro-spoiler people specifically want to slap all fairy tale pages with them), with 'compelling reasons must exist for removing a spoiler warning'. If the reason is compelling enough, it will convince those who edit the page, and you won't need to line out specific places where it shouldn't be. Being compelling, they will present themselves with urgency.Wandering Ghost 13:58, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Nobody needs a compelling reason to remove a misplaced style tag from a wikipedia article. --Tony Sidaway 14:01, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Nobody needs a compelling reason to add a template to a wikipedia article. If I have to have a compelling reason, you do as well. It's only fair.

(I swear I signed that.... above was me) Kuronue 14:49, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

The real reason for the spoiler tag

I'm sorry if this had been mentioned already, but I'd just like to say something. The real reason for the spoiler tags' existence was never to warn people that there would be spoilers in the plot section. It was to tell people that all other sections are safe to read! Now that the spoiler tags have been removed I'm afraid to read articles about upcoming books and films because I don't know which section will have a spoiler in it. What ends up happening is that I often don't read them at all. And doesn't that defeat the point? (after all, the point should be to provide a comfortable reading experience for the public) Esn 18:28, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

All of our articles are safe to read. --Tony Sidaway 18:39, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Esn's point, I think, is that eliminating spoiler tags as a general feature of Wikipedia limits Wikipedia's utility. Removing the spoiler tags from Fictional Item What-Have-You makes it useful only to those who are already familiar with it and those who don't care about being spoiled. Other users — and this could encompass huge numbers of casual users — who do not want to be spoiled and have not read or heard or seen the work in question would not be able to use Wikipedia to learn about it. They would not even be able to glance at the page to find out if it's safe for them to read, because major spoilers (according to the policy) may very well appear in the lede. I would personally rather make Wikipedia more useful than more attractive or more "encyclopedic." Limiting article access is heading in the wrong direction.

If I may head off the response, I am aware that my argument could be applied to "offensive" images and other content. I think a utilitarian analysis applies here as well — most people would expect an online article about penis piercing to have an illustration, and most people would expect an online article about a work of fiction to be spoiler-tagged (or indeed not spoil the work at all). A reasonable person seeing a legitimate article about penis-piercing will avoid it if they're easily offended; my putative reasonable person seeing a legitimate article about Harry Potter VII will not expect it to contain unmarked major spoilers. People choose what pages to avoid based on those expectations. It's not a hard-and-fast distinction, but I think we'd be better off figuring out how people want to use Wikipedia rather than determining a priori how they "should" use it.

I think a better parallel to spoiler tags might be audio — many Wikipedia pages feature audio samples, I think, but none (that I'm aware of) auto-play the audio when you load the page. An argument could be made that we shouldn't "protect" users from the sound of Kodo drums, but of course it would be disruptive to suddenly have drums blasting out of your speakers when you load the page. People don't expect to find auto-playing audio in an online encyclopedia. --Jere7my 19:28, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

To follow up to myself, here — I could envision a customizable Wikipedia browser that would allow people to collapse or expand the content of spoiler tags, or even make the tags invisible, as they wished. It seems that permitting this kind of customization would be a user interface boon, in an ideal Wiki-world, and without spoiler tags it would be certainly less trivial to implement. (The same could be done with image tags, incidentally — tag the images with words like "nudity", "penis", "Mohammed", "Cookie Monster", and let the user decide whether and how to filter images based on their tags.) --Jere7my 19:40, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't think you understand. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. --Tony Sidaway 20:31, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Agree with Tony here. We could have autoplay music, we could have hidden text for spoilers... but wikipedia is an encyclopedia, meant to provide critical reaction and the importance of a work, not (just, or mainly) its plot. David Fuchs 20:36, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Again with the dismissive "You don't understand" stuff, Tony? Tsk tsk. Anyway, Wikipedia is not like any encyclopedia I've seen. Encyclopedias don't generally include detailed plot summaries of current fictional works, nor do they include up-to-the-minute updates. That makes Wikipedia sufficiently different from a traditional encyclopedia that "It's an encyclopedia" doesn't pass muster as a general argument. --Jere7my 21:51, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Jere7my. Tony, you're trying to reduce Wikipedia's utility to a lot of people, for no real purpose. Why take away a very useful functionality? Wikipedia can have sections devoted to "critical reaction and the importance of a work, not (just, or mainly) its plot," for the benefit of those who like that sort of thing, but it can also have spoiler tags so those of us who want to get some, but not all, information about a particular mythos can do that. Wikipedia can be more things to more people than you're letting it be. 76.198.204.224 06:01, 30 June 2007 (UTC)Just an ordinary user

The same argument has been rejected, with good reason, for tags warning about obscenity, sacrilege, etc. I have yet to hear a strong answer for why we should have warnings about spoilers - which are truly inconsequential - but no warnings about topics that are truly divisive and sensitive. — Carl (CBM · talk) 06:05, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

If you think "Because that will make lots more people find wikipedia useful" isn't a good reason, your priorities for this site are different enough from mine that I don't think we can usefully argue. Who is Wikipedia being developed for? The public at large or the egos of the editors?76.198.204.224 14:43, 30 June 2007 (UTC)Just an ordinary user

OK, the anti-spoiler crowd brings bringing up this "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia" nonsense without supporting their statements. Tell me, what does a real encyclopedia, such as the encyclopedia Britannica say about, say Star Wars. Or what does Microsoft Encarta say about it? Samboy 21:26, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

The more pertinent question is, is there a single plot spoiler notice in Encyclopedia Britannica? — Carl (CBM · talk) 05:28, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Is there a single plot spoiler in the Encyclopedia Britannica? And I don't consider Shakespeare spoilers; just new media. Kuronue 00:00, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Does the Encyclopedia Britannica allow any random person to alter its contents? JimmyBlackwing 06:10, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Is that a non sequitur? — Carl (CBM · talk) 06:15, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't find the "Wikipedia is like no other encyclopedia, therefore our articles need X" argument convincing, and I don't think most reasonable people do either. It's a non-sequitur. --Tony Sidaway 07:51, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't find the "Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, therefore it should never have spoiler tags" argument convincing, and I don't think most reasonable people do either. It's a non-sequitur. Kuronue 00:00, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

See how easy this game is, folks? Kuronue 00:00, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Well put, Kuronue. Most people probably believe that most reasonable people agree with them. --Kizor 12:12, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Another possible compromise

Here is another possibility: The spoiler warnings may be added at will (within the limits of the old SW guideline), but they would be disabled in CSS by default (so they wouldn't show up). This page would also describe a way how to enable them, for people wishing to see them. Would this be an acceptable compromise to anti-spoilerists? Samohyl Jan 12:01, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Strange guideline wording

Spoiler tags may be appropriate when information appears in unexpected places, such as a "Character" heading, if there is consensus that this is necessary. But spoiler tags shouldn't be used in lieu of organising information properly.

This is strange, considering this section of the guideline:

"Articles about fictional characters, objects, or places can be expected to include significant elements of the story. They should not typically need global spoiler warnings." -- so articles about fictional characters shouldn't use spoiler tags, but sections about them are just fine?

I also found fault with this bit:

"Spoiler tags are more likely to be appropriate in newer works than in older works. Movies currently in first release, TV shows that haven't aired in all major markets, and books that have only been released in hardcover are more likely candidates for spoiler tags than a film from 1935, though exceptions may exist on either side." -- Where is the consensus for this? I haven't seen any agreement that time matters in regard to spoiler warnings.

I wrote that bit — I was trying to sum up arguments I'd seen on both sides by creating a big gray area between movies that came out this week and Citizen Kane. Individual movies within that gray area would be spoiled or not by local consensus. --Jere7my 18:10, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I see. While it does make sense, it seems to me like it opens the door for more "consensus" loopholes, but I might just be paranoid. It gives the guideline clearer definitions, though. Now that you put it that way, it should be okay unless someone starts finding loopholes in it. JimmyBlackwing 18:47, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

One final thing I just noticed: "Spoiler warnings are usually inappropriate in articles discussing classical works of literature, poetry, film, theatre, and other fields." Who defines "classical film"? I've never even seen the term used before. Is this referring to Metropolis, King Kong or Casablanca? Apocalypse Now, The Godfather or E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial? Some people consider Fight Club and Fargo "classics", so why not those, too? And what about films based on historical events, like Lawrence of Arabia? Lawrence dies. Is that a spoiler that could be tagged? "Other fields" is even worse--who decides what these other fields include? Maybe they include "classical facts", or "classical baseball cards". I'd change these myself, but there is so much dispute over this guideline that I know I'd be reverted instantly. JimmyBlackwing 17:35, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Well if you go to an article about a fictional character or characters, you expect to get a pretty full treatment of the character and that will necessarily discuss the plot--there is nothing else to write about them.

On the other hand you might encounter a list of characters in a novel, in the article about the novel. It's conceivable that there might be something unexpected in there, for instance if a key plot element hinges on the undisclosed identity of a major character. It may not be obvious to the reader that this section will give away the plot. --Tony Sidaway 17:47, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Hmm... that's a good point. It would be nice if the guideline was that clear, as it looks somewhat contradictory right now. I don't know how it could be managed, though. JimmyBlackwing 17:58, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I'd agree with removing film from that list — I think that guideline is supposed to cover obvious things like Shakespeare and Aristophanes, and it's redundant with the timeline guideline. --Jere7my 18:10, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I made some minor changes, not in regards to the above, but in other cases where clarity wasn't obvious. I also reworded the last bullet of adding/removing section, as editors don't *have* to check the page, they can be bold, but to avoid issues checking for consensus is pro'lly a wise choice. Feel free to change the last sentence, 'cause I'm not sure it's well-constructed syntax wise. David Fuchs 18:50, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

A couple of additions by User:Kierano

Kierano changed the nutshell to imply that consensus only applied to certain limited cases. I removed this because obviously consensus applies to all edits on Wikipedia.

Kierano also introduces the following section:

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

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

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

This is of course far too prescriptive: "Care should be taken that these names only be applied to sections which do, in fact contain spoilers." Why on earth?

Obviously normal commonsense can be used to give sections good names. "Character histories" is preferable to "Characters" for instance because it distinguishes a section containing plot elemenets from mere list of names.

I've removed the section because, in its current form at least, it's very unhelpful. --Tony Sidaway 13:14, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

"May not be used"

Doesn't it seem to anyone else that that phrasing conflicts with "it is not set in stone and should be treated with common sense and the occasional exception"? "May not" sounds pretty set in stone to me. How would we feel about a phrasing that uses "discouraged" instead of "may not"? --Jere7my 23:35, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

All WP policies should use "should" phrasing instead of "must" phrasing, I agree. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:31, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Definitely. Self-contradictory guidelines are not exactly the display of professionalism Wikipedia means to attain. JimmyBlackwing 06:35, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I've changed the name of the section to say "should not" instead of "may not". The wording that implies that spoiler tags must not interfere with our core policies is correct, and so I've left that as it is. Obviously a style element must never compromise article quality in any way. --Tony Sidaway 07:49, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

On Tony's advice above, I've made a few more edits, to remove the "may" permission language and to make the policy more neutral. As I said on the mediation page, since the anti-spoiler folks think there's broad consensus that spoiler tags are bad, granting more leeway to local editors shouldn't (in their eyes) lead to a lot of new spoiler tags. Please consider my edits seriously before reverting — I think they're representative of a broader compromise. (Essentially, I tried to tone down the "You have this option — but you really shouldn't do it" language.) --Jere7my 12:23, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Tony, if you're going to revert my edit, leave the "might" in there — "may" implies that people need someone's permission to add spoiler tags. As for the rest of it, if you believe that there is widespread consensus against spoiler tags, my revisions won't lead to "indiscriminate sprinkling" of tags — they won't survive the consensus. --Jere7my 12:34, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I think "may" and may not" are pretty plain, but feel free to move it back. Widespread consensus or no, simple entropy will put them back into articles about fairy tales if we're not careful. I've popped some wording in to make sure that consensus rules. No automatic popping of spoiler tags in "because I think this ending is particularl significant." --Tony Sidaway 12:45, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

From what I've heard, the only fairy tale spoiler tag was inserted as a joke by an anonymous IP (in Three Little Pigs). It went unnoticed for a long time, but I don't think we actually need to worry about fairy tales acquiring spoiler tags. If it was more widespread than that, let me know. --Jere7my 17:57, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Incidentally, I appreciate you taking my edits seriously, and I agree with your consensus language. I do think the "history headings" and the "fairy tales" bits are overspecifying — sensible editors should be able to figure them out on a case-by-case basis, and I think they only still exist because of historically isolated cases. I don't expect them to come up very often, and including them may give the impression we're trying to cover all bases. But *shrug*. --Jere7my 18:05, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Many, many fairy tales had spoiler tags on them and if you look at the discussions over the past month you'll even see people openly advocating this practice. Until about mid-May some editors were adding spoiler tags to newly created articles about fairy tales. --Tony Sidaway 14:36, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Old version of this page as a compromise

I would like to know if the old version [4] of this page (last version from month before this furious discussion and changes) would be acceptable compromise for anti-spoilerists, now that they argue that the spoiler warnings should be discussed on the appropriate talk pages (and most of them have been removed). This version takes completely neutral approach to spoilers, and even shows how to turn them off (in Tony's words, it's just an user education issue ;-)). So looking back, why is this version unacceptable, if it still is? Samohyl Jan 19:38, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

The old version looks good to me, after a cursory skim. I might find things to quibble with, but I like it a lot better than the current version, which seems kinda punitive. Even if we went back to the old version, I would still be unhappy with the script-powered mass deletion of spoiler tags, though; as I said elsewhere, people who approve of spoiler tags are in a position of having to build on scorched earth, which is a de facto victory for those who dislike them. I would say that the spoiler guidelines should make it clear that people shouldn't use scripts to mass-delete spoiler tags, but that seems so obvious to me that I expect it's covered by some other policy. --Jere7my 19:46, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

A change to the earlier version of the guideline would be absolutely and completely unacceptable. The current version reflects reality and keeps spoiler tags from every again becoming a serious problem. --Tony Sidaway 20:28, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree that reverting to the old version is pointless. We had beatings and bashings and verbal tongue-lashings over this already. And the new revision better reflects consensus. We had literal dozens of polls at RfC, and this was hammered out. Just because some people still don't want to accept that doesn't change the fact that we already tread this ground, and recently, and some people are just trying to worm out their own acceptable consensus. David Fuchs 20:39, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Reverting to the old version is an excellent idea. If anti-spoiler brigade truly believe in their consensus, then a neutral guideline should have no effect on the already completed mass removal.--Nydas^(Talk) 20:49, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

The old one that started a mass revolt and was well on its way to getting nuked via WP:MFD? Yeah. No way in hell. Phil Sandifer 20:50, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

Had the MfD run for a week and been advertised on the spoiler tag itself, as would be normal and fair, then there would have been substantial majority in favour of keeping it.--Nydas^(Talk) 10:17, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Consensus isn't a permanent thing, right? If you achieved a consensus before, you clearly don't have one now. So, hey, look, we're trying to achieve consensus again. The fact is, a major change was made to Wikipedia, and it was implemented using questionable methods (scripts should not be used to change tens of thousands of articles at one go). Word is getting out about the change, and people are not going to be satisfied being told "No, we already achieved consensus, go home." Casual Wikipedia users of my acquaintance have reacted with bafflement to the spoiler tag removal — they all assumed it was some local oversight, not a global purge. Returning to the previous status quo seems like a good starting point to me. --Jere7my 21:57, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

The old status quo was absurd - spoiler tags on fairy tales! — Carl (CBM · talk) 05:30, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, but this is not what the new guideline is about. The new guideline removes the SWs from most of the articles, because most articles on fiction will have spoilers in their Plot section. I understand the arguments of anti-spoilerists, but the guideline as it is written now is dishonest, because as it is written it means "no spoiler warnings except few very special cases and/or for the limited time". Samohyl Jan 07:52, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree with you on the effect of the guideline, but why is that dishonest? Isn't it possible that spoiler tags are simply not needed? The sheer absence of the right now certainly seems to be extremely strong evidence for this. --Tony Sidaway 09:28, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Count me as another one who feels that spoiler tags greatly increase Wikipedia's utility, and that this is the most important argument. My problems with the way the policy has been changed are: 1. Mass removal of a tag using scripts is completely unacceptable. Even if it were, consensus should be reached before this kind of change. 2. Wikipedia is nothing like other encylopedias in all sorts of ways. I see no particular reason that such a big deal should be made out of this one. 3. The argument that spoiler tags make Wikipedia unencylopedic, and that this is a negative point, is completely arbitrary. This small extra amount of metatext does not interfere with the integrity (what little it often has) of the article content itself.

In short, I think making Wikipedia useful - something with practical value - is more important than making it "encyclopedic", a property that in this case provides no benefit in and of itself. (Contrast to the encylopedic practice of providing sources, which is of clear benefit.) The fact that the anti-spoiler group won't even an accept a compromise where the user chooses their preference tells me that their priorities are far beyond skewed. I have no idea if my opinion is shared by the majority, but this article should be reverted to the version before any of this took place until something resembling a consensus can be reached. Philip Reuben 23:03, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Not that I particularly disagree with making Wikipedia useful, but frankly, it doesn't matter at all what you think Wikipedia should be. Wikipedia is purposefully limited in scope because otherwise it is abused. The perennial example: a list of my personal contacts and telephone numbers would be useful, but then Wikipedia's servers would be bogged down by personal interests and porn. Order is required, and that is why wikipedia has a list of things it's not. David Fuchs 23:12, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

You're all-too-eager to place this issue in the same box as the others listed on WP:NOT. There are several differences here. The first is that spoiler notices are not a significant change to the way an article is worded; they do not affect the mentality with which one has to write and edit an article. They are a small amount of added text that will benefit some and can be easily ignored by others, while in no way modifying the information itself. Honestly, I doubt they even affect anyone's perception of Wikipedia beyond the few of you who have forced this change. It's not spoiler tags that the media have pointed to as representative of Wikipedia's unencyclopedic qualities, it's the far more glaring issue of inaccurate information amid constant vandalism. (As others have pointed out, this means that Wikipedia will never be encylopedic, though that's an aside point.) Furthermore, looking at WP:NOT, it seems to me that an argument could be made for any of the points there that there is an inherent benefit to users in the rule's existence, which is not so in this case as far as I have seen from this talk page. Maybe I'm being presumptuous in assuming that the entire point of wanting Wikipedia to be "encyclopedic" is to make it a more coherent and useful source for a specific kind of information, and not merely the lofty yet arbitrary (and unachieveable) goal of making Wikipedia respected as an encyclopedia alongside Britannica. Finally, the obvious point that there is no clear consensus here. WP:NOT is a Wikipedia article, and anyone is free to change it provided there is suitable discussion and consensus about it beforehand. Since that was clearly not the case here, the article should be reverted for the time being. On that note, I would very much like a response to my point #1 from above. Philip Reuben 23:40, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually, if you go back to the very reason this whole thing began you'd notice that, in fact, one of the major points for wanting the guideline to change was BECAUSE writing around warnings was causing worse articles. So, you're wrong about modifying the info -- by using the tags, people write to keep certain info within the tags, which hinders the quality of the articles, tags there or not. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 00:32, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

That's a problem with the way spoiler tags are implemented, not with spoiler tags themselves. The ideal method is to write an article, decide what's worthy of being deemed a spoiler, and tag it. I could accept a rule to that effect far more comfortably than a rule that effectively prohibits all use of spoiler tags no matter how appropriate and unintrusive. However, I do feel that major spoilers should never be included in the lede; examples like the Tia Dalma article are ridiculous. How does this fit with your view on "writing around" spoilers being a detrimental force? Philip Reuben 00:51, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

The real problem here is that so far nearly all designations of this or that plot element as a spoiler have been fundamentally contrary to the neutral point of view. I read Lord of the Rings, a three-volume epic in six books, in the following order: 5, 6, 1, 2, 3, 4. Star Wars was filmed and shown in the order: 4, 5, 6, 1, 2, 3. Before a single reel of Episode 1 was filmed, we knew that Luke was the son of Annakin, that Annakin would one day kill his master Obi Wan, and so on right up to the climax of the epic, which had been filmed nearly two decades before. Everybody knows that Rosancrantz and Guildenstern are dead, everybody knows that Don Quixote is just a silly old man.

So who decides which bits of knowledge must be surrounded with these scare quotes?

My point is that artificially isolating part of an article and treating it as if it needed "don't go there, you might learn something new" stickers around it is insulting, demeaning, annoying, and most of all, completely unnecessary. I would hope that every single thing in every single one of our articles will come as a surprise to many people. Who knew that the estimated population of Madagascar had grown by 50% in just over a decade? Who knew that both Americans and Canadians celebrated the War of 1812 as a great victory? This is all new stuff. This is why people come to Wikipedia. If they come here expecting us to cultivate their ignorance, they have come to the wrong place.

Spoiler tags are simply style tags. As such, their existence in an article is subject to the existence of consensus for their presence. In the past, they overran much of Wikipedia, some 45,000 articles. Now they're back under control. Which is to say that they're present on a few articles. --Tony Sidaway 01:40, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

People who are familiar with the work and sensitive to the the concerns of those unfamiliar with it while also not too heavy-handed with spoiler tags. In other words, editors acting in good faith to enact reasonable guidelines. It's no more POV than it is to determine what information is important enough to go in the lede.

The difference is so obvious that I can barely believe I need to write it. People want to be able to learn certain types of details about items of fiction without having to learn other types of details against their will. It's really as simple as that, and clearly doesn't apply to such hyperbolic examples as the population of Madagascar. Someone who wants to learn things from Wikipedia without reading spoilers is hardly expecting Wikipedia to "cultivate their ignorance"; the only reason they have come to Wikipedia is to learn information. On the other hand, if the article is useless to anyone who is (a) spoiler-conscious and (b) not familiar with a work of fiction, and they therefore decide not to read Wikipedia's articles about fiction, that's Wikipedia cultivating their ignorance. Again, it comes down to the fact that Wikipedia is more useful, more informative, with spoiler tags than without. (I also feel the need to note that, as someone who is generally spoiler-conscious, I don't find spoiler warnings insulting or demeaning in the least. I find them useful, unintrusive and easy to gloss over in cases where I am familiar with the subject matter or not concerned about spoilers.)

I, and many others in this talk page and the other discussions that have been scattered around, feel that they should be present in more articles than they are now. No one is disputing that they were in too many before, but the idea that there is consensus for their virtual lack of presence is laughable, and as such I still feel there should have been no mass removal (especially so soon after the discussion began in May) and that the current guidelines are inappropriate. Philip Reuben 02:03, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Before a single reel of Episode 1 was filmed, we knew that Luke was the son of Annakin, that Annakin would one day kill his master Obi Wan, and so on right up to the climax of the epic, which had been filmed nearly two decades before. Everybody knows that Rosancrantz and Guildenstern are dead, everybody knows that Don Quixote is just a silly old man.

This is an anti-worldwide view. Only somebody who was heavily suffused with 'encroaching Internet culture' could believe that 'everyone' knows who Darth Vader is. There are millions of people who've never seen the Star Wars films. How many women over 50 will know? How many Africans or Indians? --Nydas^(Talk) 07:25, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

People without contact to Internet culture will not expect spoiler warnings. Wikipedia doesn't need to be the first place where they encounter them. Kusma (talk) 07:40, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

They won't expect a lot of things. Whether that includes spoiler warnings is questionable; the concept is used in TV and newspapers.--Nydas^(Talk) 11:31, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Any particular reason why not? Spoiler warnings (or, more broadly, being considerate of people's desire not to be spoiled) are standard practice on the internet, of which Wikipedia is a part. They will have to encounter them sometime, and in using Wikipedia they may (like many internet-savvy people) prefer to find out information about popular culture they're not familiar with without finding out the ending in the process. Philip Reuben 08:11, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

One could say the same about ANY warning though. A lot of places online warn about NSFW pics or whatever else. But the question is, why SHOULD Wikipedia be like other internet websites? I have to wonder if some of you on the pro-warning side have ever read the five pillars of just what WP is supposed to be. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 11:02, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

You could say that about any warning. The difference is that nobody is, because (to the best of my knowledge) there is clear consensus that a lack of NSFW warnings is beneficial to Wikipedia. To my mind, spoiler tags are as much a crucial part of Wikipedia as hyperlinks - they have been here for years and are fundamental to the way people use Wikipedia. Furthermore, insisting that "encyclopedias don't have spoiler tags, therefore Wikipedia shouldn't have spoiler tags" is sticking the letter of the law but not the spirit: The first of the five pillars gives a detailed list of things that are inherently unencyclopedic, and they are of an entirely different calibre than spoiler tags, which (as I have said) ideally have only a bare minimum effect on the article's content if at all. I don't see that the five pillars bear any but the barest relationship to this issue. Philip Reuben 11:44, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I think this says it all: The difference is so obvious that I can barely believe I need to write it. People want to be able to learn certain types of details about items of fiction without having to learn other types of details against their will.

Wikipedia does not exist to aid people in their quest for ignorance--rather the reverse. We should not impose changes on the format of encyclopedia articles to satisfy a perverse quest for ignorance. --Tony Sidaway 11:19, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

I would appreciate a response that takes my arguments into account rather than ignoring them. As I said, there is no quest for ignorance on the part of those who come to Wikipedia but still want to avoid spoilers; by definition, you come to Wikipedia to inform yourself even if you nonetheless want to avoid spoilers. There is no inherent disadvantage in giving these people the choice by clearly labelling which information is a spoiler and which is not. As I see it, you are the ones engendering ignorance by artificially making perfectly good articles useless to a large group of people. Philip Reuben 11:44, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Also, you seem to have missed the key point of what you quoted. I was countering your slippery slope/strawman argument that adding spoiler tags on fiction articles is somehow equivalent to putting spoiler tag on an article about Madagascar. It is entirely different and should be treated as such. Philip Reuben 12:00, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Technical compromise

I realized that Funpika is right: the fundamental problem here is that some people want spoiler warnings and some people don't. So here is a possible technical compromise I would accept, and think it is acceptable even to the most hardcore opposers of spoiler warnings:

The spoiler warning template will use a special CSS style, which will make it invisible in default CSS (invisible by default), but it will be possible to turn it on.
Anyone can add spoiler warnings anywhere in the article, within the limits of the old guideline (April 2007).
The massive removal of spoiler warnings will not be reverted in any way (I don't think it's possible anyway), but no one will patrol articles to remove spoiler warnings in the future.

So if you don't like spoiler warnings, you will not see them at all. If you want them, there will be a way how to enable them. Samohyl Jan 06:23, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

- While this would be the best way, I just don't see it happening. Spoiler warnings would have to become so embedded into Wikipedia that they wouldn't even be user-added any more. It would involve site reprogramming that, frankly, I don't think will happen. JimmyBlackwing 06:58, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

In April 2007, there was a howto in the guideline how to switch the spoiler warnings off. So if it was possible then, it should be possible now. Samohyl Jan 07:21, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

The problem with this, especially from the pro-spoiler point of view (which if you've been paying attention, you know I am not included in this), is that it would defeat the purpose of having the warning at all. Why? Well, one of the major objections to no spoilers is that the "average person" would expect a warning. My turning them off be default, this doesn't help said average person. So it ends up being a pointless extra that few will use, and take up more resources than needed -- not to mention, with so few using them, few will be added in the first place. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 11:47, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, Melodia, it's a compromise (before April, it was possible to switch warnings off, but people like you didn't like it). Those who want spoiler warnings will just turn it on (you turn it on Wikipedia-wide, so you will not need to read the article containing spoilers before that), and then they can browse happily. So it doesn't defeat the purpose. To Tony - as I said - it's a compromise. I don't understand why it should be unacceptable for you - you won't see the warnings. How's that incompatible with providing free information for everyone? It seems that you are more interested in imposing your own will to others (removing spoiler warnings to others) than your own interests (not seeing the spoiler warnings). Samohyl Jan 13:07, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Did you read my comment at ALL? ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 13:53, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand what you don't like in my answer. If you would be completely selfish, you wouldn't have any problem with my compromise, and me neither, and that's the point. But you say not many people would use the feature or that it's not useful, I disagree. You cannot really tell how many people want it or judge usefulness of something for them. Many people added spoiler warnings before this guideline, and they obviously have read the spoiler before doing so. If this would be accepted, maybe there will be a group of people who will turn it on and start adding spoiler warnings for the others, won't step on freedom of anyone else and that will be it. Samohyl Jan 14:34, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Well I'll say it again. One of the main arguments for the pro-spoiler crowd is that a lot of people come across Wikipedia through a search engine (try Googling a number of terms -- WP is near or even on top a LOT). Much of the argument is that "people don't expect to be spoiled, because it's online". They don't read the content disclaimer. Etc. Thus, if the warnings are off by default, all these people won't know about them in the first place . While it's true that yes, it's clear some people would love to be able to choose, the knowledge of the ability has to be there in the first place. With what you're proposing, it's not all that likely. So as I said, it's a waste of resources (possibly, I don't know what would have to be changed) for something that would very likely work worse. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 16:01, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Still, when you get a result on Google it clearly identifies itself as coming from Wikipedia. Then you follow through to it, and you get the article. Even if you haven't read the content disclaimer, you should, by this point, know that you're on WIkipedia. I think we've reached the point where most people know, bascally, what that means. There may be some who get spoiled once or twice because they don't realize that Wikipedia doesn't have spoiler warnings in general, but I expect these people of being capable of learning. Phil Sandifer 16:14, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

If you want to look at it from the perspective of someone who actually uses SWs, look at it this way: The current guideline means no spoiler warnings at all. So even if they have to be enabled, the users of SWs will be better off with this compromise. Samohyl Jan 16:49, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

The bottom line is that this is still a proposal to further clutter our encyclopedia with encumbrances that have no place in an encyclopedia. People who come to Wikipedia expecting us to connive in their wish to remain ignorant are suffering from a fundamental misconception about what kind of project this is. They should be gently discouraged from trying to use our website in a way that is incompatible with our mission. --Tony Sidaway 12:33, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

I see your problem, Tony. You believe that Wikipedia's credibility is somehow dependent on the fact if there are the spoiler warnings or not. But we could likewise say that its credibility depends on how many articles about Starcraft or Doctor Who is there. But the people are not as stupid as you think - they will judge the credibility by other factors, such as if the information here is true or not, and not by stupid criteria such as "contains spoiler warnings" or "contains articles about Star Trek". After all, if they really do this, they deserve their error in judgment. Samohyl Jan 13:18, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

It isn't about credibility, but rather, another attempt to inflict self-referential clutter upon Wikipedia content without good reason. --Tony Sidaway 13:46, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, and secondarily, it's still remarkably out of line with precedent in other areas. Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy has no warning or disclaimer templates. This is, empirically, some of the most potentially upsetting content we have on Wikipedia, since people have killed each other over it. If that does not merit a disclaimer or warning tag (and I think you'd be reverted in seconds if you tried to add one) then it is ridiculous to suggest that the plot of a random Smallville episode does. Phil Sandifer 13:31, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

It has been argued many times before why this is different. I really can't understand people wanting to censor themselves from nudity or religious things, because I don't have this need (and frankly, I believe most of them want censor others for power). But I can explain why I am willing to self-censor myself (not the articles, mind you!) from spoilers - because I want ultimately to know that information, not from Wikipedia article, but from the original source (though I still may want to read the plot in Wikipedia later). I think this is the reason why SWs are special case. Samohyl Jan 14:44, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

It seems to me that wanting warnings to aid in self-censorship for the things you support self-censoring yourself from, but not for things you "can't understand" is much more of a power grab than the position of "Let's just not get into the censorship business." Phil Sandifer 15:53, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't see how that is a power grab? From whom? Myself? I am talking about self-censorship, not censorship. I just said I cannot comment on people who want to censor other things, therefore, to me it is not the same thing, because the while I cannot understand the self-censorship from nudity, I can understand the self-censorship from spoilers. You probably don't understand neither, and that's fine, as long as you are willing to admit there exist people who want to be self-censored. Samohyl Jan 16:49, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

If someone wanted to self-censor for religion, or to make Wikipedia safe for their kids, etc., we would never add tags to allow it. Why should we do so with spoiler tags but not for issues that are truly divisive? Recall WP:ISNOT#CENSORED. — Carl (CBM · talk) 20:02, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

I keep asking people that myself, and the only answers have been odd senseless mishmash about "since hiding the other warnings would be bad, but not the spoiler warnings, the spoiler ones are ok!", or "it's not censorship, it's informing!". ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 20:48, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Spoiler tags don't hide anything. The sole reason we don't have other tags is that the vast bulk of our 'objectionable' content is on the level of something you'd find in an art gallery or sex education booklet. We don't even have any photos for sexual intercourse.--Nydas^(Talk) 21:26, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm Talking about this bit of sillyness. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 22:38, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Can you answer the question that the thought experiment poses?

I've noticed that some people call things silly when they refuse to take an obvious point, but can't think of a logical response. Milo 02:52, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Melodia, it's really simple. Like the law cannot fit into a single rule, the Wikipedia rules also cannot fit into single rule, because the world is complex. You're trying to generalize something that is by many considered two different things, that's it. You may think it's not logical, and it may be true (although I explained the reason why for me it is different), but that isn't an argument for not having two rules. The laws for people are not laws of physics and may cover different cases with different inconsistent rules, if the rules fit the general "feeling" of the people better. Samohyl Jan 03:54, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

(←) A tag at the top of articles with pictures of Muhammad wouldn't hide anything, either, but such tags have been soundly rejected here. Why is it that spoilers warrant a tag but images of Muhammad (which sparked a global controversy and have the potential to spark riots and murders) do not? — Carl (CBM · talk) 22:04, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Our article on the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy uses reduced size images of the cartoons (i.e. it censors them), apparently for copyright reasons, although it's pretty obvious that every one of those cartoons is fair use. Our articles on Muhammad and Bahá'u'lláh have their pictures shunted down so as not to offend anyone.--Nydas^(Talk) 18:14, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

As the above-linked thought experiment demonstrates, there is no danger, so spoiler tags are not bone fide warnings. That's dramatic hyperbole. They are actually a content notice like disambiguation notices and the content box.

The incorrect term "warning" is long gone from the tag itself, and needs to be removed from the guideline, to be replaced by the accurate term "notice". Then the debate can stop getting sidetracked by this "warning" red herring.

The subject was the technical compromise. The objections have come down to 'we don't like the way spoiler tags look when they are default visible' and 'we think they might not be used if they are default invisible'. However, apparently 40% of editors/readers would like to use them. They are probably several ways to make the 40% aware that spoiler tags can be activated. But then the objection is 'we want those 40% to not use Wikipedia because we don't like the image spoiler tagging gives to readers'. What image is that? Basically, the Wikipedia-as-Britannica illusion that died on March 22, 2007:

March 22 NBC Nightly News. Wikipedia charged with bad information.

Also see Wikipedia will never be as Britannica, period.

The Wikipedia-as-Britannica illusion blocks spoiler tag technical compromise, in order to get rid of unwanted readers. Milo 02:52, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

It;s more like 40% of people who ended up at a page more likely to be frequented by those who want them to stay. If they wanted them gone, or didn't care either way, there's a far less chance they would have gone out of their way to goto that page, now isn't there? And I don't see what the NBC thing has any relevence to all this. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 03:38, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

"don't see what the NBC thing has any relevence to all this" As I gather it, the original goal of Wikipedia was to become a reference encyclopedia as respected and authoritative as Britannica. So that meant doing things the way Britannica does them. Britannica doesn't have spoiler notices, so that motivated the clique to get rid of them.

The NBC story was a watershed announcement: Academia is in process of concluding that Wikipedia is too unpredictably unreliable to cite in academic research, even for college undergrads who are otherwise allowed to cite encyclopedias. Unpredictable unreliability is inherent to the Wikipedia project model. That means Wikipedia will never become a citable reference encyclopedia as respected and authoritative as Britannica.

Prior to the March 22, 2007 watershed, the as-Britannica modeling made some kind of sense, even if one thought spoiler tags weren't a significant problem. Now, intensely modeling Britannica is just a futile pursuit of a vanished dream. Therefore, there is no longer any realistic it's-not-like-Britannica reason to prevent the use of spoiler tags at Wikipedia.

The even weaker justifications for not allowing the technical compromise of hidden tags has exposed an as-Britannica clique elitism of wanting only some supposed better class of readers. That better class may have flirted with Wikipedia for a few years, but they will now be heading back to Britannica. Milo 06:52, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't see a connection between Wikipedia's reliability (or lack thereof) and spoiler tags. "Wikipedia is worse than Britannica, so it doesn't matter if it is made even worse by using silly tags" doesn't seem to be a good argument for spoiler tags any more than "Wikipedia is less reliable than Britannica, so we don't need to spell correctly" is one against spellchecking articles. Kusma (talk) 08:17, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

"I don't see a connection between Wikipedia's reliability (or lack thereof) and spoiler tags." The hoped-for 'better class' of Wikipedia-as-Britannica readers, that were presumed to not want spoiler tags, are departing back to Britannica due to WP's unpredictable unreliability. So as-Britannica elitism is obsolete as a reason to oppose open or hidden spoiler tags.

"we don't need to spell correctly" Statistical 0% of editors/readers want misspellings. On the other hand, 40%+ of 'declasse' editors/readers want spoiler tags which they believe are not silly and do not make Wikipedia worse. So serve them something, even if they have to turn on the hidden tags that you will not see. Milo 18:16, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Fine. So is this proposal acceptable for you or not? You will not see the silly tags. Samohyl Jan 17:09, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Re Milo: I think you are confused about the goal of WP, which is still to produce a top-quality encyclopedia. The fact that WP can't be cited as a source is nothing new – no encyclopedia can be cited as a source in college courses, including Brittanica and WP. Nevertheless I personally see researchers who use WP as a source to start reading about things. Reports of WP failing are exaggerated at best. In many technical areas, our coverage is much better than Britannica.

Re Samohyl Jan: The CSS method used to hide data is disfavored because it doesn't work with complete reliability across various platforms, screen readers, and such. Moreover, it wouldn't work for unregistered (IP) users, who can't set preferences. — Carl (CBM · talk) 18:00, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Default CSS would hide them, so unregistered users wouldn't see the tags. True, the platforms incapable of CSS would render the spoiler warnings, but they are really a tiny minority (3% perhaps?). I believe that even modern PDAs/mobile phones can handle basics of CSS. Samohyl Jan 18:55, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

"no encyclopedia can be cited as a source in college courses You must be confused — the March 22 Wikinews article [5] cites sources that state otherwise.

"In many technical areas, our coverage is much better than Britannica" That's not the academic issue. Basic fact reliability at WP is unpredictable, no matter how brilliant is the coverage here and there. I guess WP could be renamed "The encyclopedia of jackpot better coverage."

"the goal of WP, which is still to produce a top-quality encyclopedia" Three questions are: (1) top-quality for whom?, and (2) if WP is inherently unpredictably unreliable, is "top-quality" now meaningless in the WP context?, (3) if meaningless, what are the new goals?

Draft answers are: (1a) whoever is left that wants to read Wikipedia; (1b) the dreaded declasse "encroaching internet culture"; (2) "top-quality" and unpredictable unreliability are mutually incompatible; and (3) "WP should be good enough for background research and infotainment reading".

"The CSS method" Those are technical issues that can be resolved following consensus. Start with using what's available, then set a goal to gradually implement technical improvements that will work for any user. Milo 19:19, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

As a college instructor who teaches a number of writing courses intended to introduce students to the nature of scholarly research, a couple of things to note here. First, the biggest problem most of us have with citing Wikipedia is not that it leads to errors but that it leads to laziness. Students who cite Wikipedia often do so to the exclusion of other sources, including primary sources, and often don't look at article history or evaluate the Wikipedia article as a living document. Since, at the college level, our job is to teach critical thinking skills and careful research, it tends to be beneficial to forbid Wikipedia, not because it's inherently unreliable, but because we want to force students to move beyond it. And, indeed, a number of high profile academics have endorsed using Wikipedia in various ways - Alan Liu has written a very thoughtful document on how students should use Wikipedia, for instance, and Nick Montfort has, tongue only slightly in cheek, suggested that Wikipedia can be used if you cite all of the authors fo the article by handle - a sort of social reinforcement that I, at least, find quite clever.

In any case, my point is that it's far from clear that the Middlebury College history department ban on citing Wikipedia indicates the death of any sort of dream, or that it's even particularly significant. Our goal remains academic respectability, and that goal is something we've made great progress towards. Phil Sandifer 20:24, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

"Middlebury College history department ban on citing Wikipedia ... that it's even particularly significant" As opposed to rank partisan debate skills, I hope you don't teach critical thinking by example of the misleadingly-selective source minimization in which you just engaged. The Wikinews article mentions not just Middlebury College history department, but also "individual professors at other schools, including UCLA and the University of Pennsylvania"[6]. Their MSNBC source (The word on Wikipedia: Trust but verify) also indirectly quotes a journalism professor at Columbia University: "And for students whose research will be graded by real, honest-to-goodness experts in the classroom, that is probably too big a risk, said Sree Srinivasan..."

Furthermore, the article lead reads, "Many professors at universities throughout the United States have recently adopted policies prohibiting Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia, from being used as a primary source in reports." Are you claiming this lead is unreliable reporting? If so, Wiki project reporting may be too unpredictably unreliable to cite even within Wikipedia itself, eh? Milo 22:34, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

The MSNBC article makes clear that the UCLA and UPenn policies are mirrors of the Middlebury policy. In all cases, the motivation is likely to be similar - an attempt to force the students to use better and more challenging sources. Virtually all academics I have ever spoken to or read about note that Wikipedia is usually reliable. But in college classes we tend to ask our students to adhere to standards similar to those we adhere to in our own research. We would never cite Wikipedia. Nor should they. That Britannica and other sources are seen as acceptable is unfortunate - but it's less praise of Britannica than an unfortunate caving to the fact that the least common denominator of student research has shifted. It used to be that lazy students used Britannica. Now they use Wikipedia. In all cases, the goal is the same - forbid the laziest approach to encourage better ones. Phil Sandifer 22:41, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

"less praise of Britannica than an unfortunate caving" My research agrees with your position on this point. I found that the Middlebury History Department doesn't allow citing encyclopedias by long-standing policy. Stunning as it seems to me, they weren't enforcing it; Wikipedia just slipped in through the cracks.

While you do not, the rest of the world seems to think this story is significant. Prof. Neil Walters wrote about his Wikipedia banning resolution:

"The history department always has held students responsible for accuracy, and does not consider general encyclopedias of the bound variety to be acceptable for citation either. But Wikipedia seemed worth mentioning by name because it is omnipresent and because its "open-source" method of compilation makes it a different animal from, say, the Encyclopedia Britannica." --The Middlebury Campus Issue date: 4/11/07 Section: Opinions

(and Walters continued as to how his 6-minute resolution became #1 news in online hits at NYT, then global news).

That pushes the Wikipedia vs. Britannica comparison down to the high school level. There was only one hint about that in The Middlebury Campus:

"'Wikipedia's not a citable source,' said Peter [surname omitted] '09. 'I knew that in high school.'" --The Middlebury Campus Issue date: Issue date: 1/24/07 Section: News

Peter would have been a high school senior circa 2005, and around that time I recall news of high school teachers warning students to not cite the internet. In Peter's high school class, Wikipedia was apparently no exception just because it is called an encyclopedia.

Here's an unscientific survey about Wikipedia reliability linked to the Daniels/MSNBC story:

MSNBC Live survey (web accessed 2007-07-03)
Do you trust Wikipedia? * 4101 responses
Yes. Millions of contributors means the truth eventually emerges.
18%

No. It's too easy to slip falsehoods onto the site.
34%

Pretty much, but only as a starting point on the way to more credible research.
49%

Not a scientific survey. Click to learn more. Results may not total 100% due to rounding.

This survey doesn't suggest that anything like academic respectibility for Wikipedia exists, and given the unreliable unpredictability of the project model, I have no reason to believe that it ever will. That you and the clique believe otherwise, I can only label a dream or illusion.

Is Wikipedia good enough for the typical non-academic use? Surely so, so why not spoiler tags?

Should Wikipedia serve the "encroaching internet culture"? Ultimately, I doubt that there is a choice. Milo 04:10, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Samohyl Jan, I think your compromise is fine. Please, somebody, anybody, launch a COMPROMISE. I'm so tired of various participants in these debates sticking to their guns and refusing to budge. David Spalding (☎ ✉ ✍) 19:34, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

OK. Although anybody didn't strictly opposed this, I think it will be resisted, but I'll give it a shot anyway. Samohyl Jan 01:48, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Tag move

It's been requested this non-encyclopaedic template be moved. Matthew 10:25, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, yes, it's been requested, but the discussion there is running about 3:1 against the move, so consensus to move seems unlikely. The claim that the tag is non-encyclopaedic has come in for some strong opposition there too. Andrewa 02:19, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Absurdity

Ummmm

So people keep dropping by Memories of Matsuko and remove the spoiler tag with various and assundry reasons not listed in the WP:SPOILER policy.

Sethie replies, pointing this out, then they don't reply, Sethie waits a week, puts the tag in then another person comes by and does the same thing over again. Sethie replies, pointing out that they are not listing reasons contained within the policy. they are silent, then another user comes by.

So Sethie's request of the wikipedia community is:

Will someone re-write this policy so it is actually workable- whether to include or exclude spoilers?

Will some people who are neutral on the whole spoiler thing- come by the Memories of Matsuko page and help us decide what to do. This is getting old! Sethie 01:43, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

Meh, it's a moot point for that page. Just removed the whole section due to copyright violation. --- RockMFR 02:19, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

It's not a good idea to discuss individual cases on this page. Discuss problems pertaining to an article on the talk page of that article. --Tony Sidaway 13:15, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

First, the point is not moot. There is now a summary which doesn't violate copyright, and the same issues of the spoiler warning remain. Second, I for one am interested in seeing how this guideline, and the actions of various editors are impacting real articles. It's not just an academic debate. Third, the editor on that page has a valid point. We actually don't have a guideline that clearly calls for the removal of spoiler tags on that article, and the editors who have come in to change the article don't have any real interest in the article or the film it describes. They simply want to remove all spoiler tags. The best approach would be to first establish a viable guideline, then get articles in line with the existing guideline.zadignose 01:16, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Sethie agrees with Tony, this the page to discuss the large issues. Sethie still would like to see any NEUTRAL people (people who are on the fence about spoilers) to come to the Memory of Matsuko page and discuss the application of this policy there. Sethie believes he is following the policy and believes those who are removing it are not... and he would like further opinions. Sethie 01:47, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

I dropped by Memories of Matsuko. Am I NEUTRAL? No. If you review my comments here and on other arbitration/mediation/brawl pages on the issue, you'll see that I'm still in favor of judiciously positioned spoiler tags. But I'm getting soft on the arguments against them, and now favor on the side of withholding them in Plot sections except in extreme cases. Take a look at The Yakuza, there are some surprises towards the end that spoil the tension at the outset, but still, a Plot section is intended to divulge storyline developments, and not hide anything. Remember please, that WP is not a fan site, nor advertising, so we're discouraged from "hiding" plot details as you would in an advertisement or subjective review. In the case of your page, I think the spoiler warning is not justified. And I think some of the edit summaries for removals were unnecessarily terse; I still feel that those removing the tag are obligated to specify the reason (not just "per guideline"), as those reinstating it are obligated to give compelling/persuasive/supportable reasons for restoring the tag. I hope I've helped there.... If you wish to respond to me on this issue, please do so on the article's talk page -- David Spalding (☎ ✉ ✍) 21:41, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

The arguments are set out in the spoiler guideline. I suppose they could be cut'n'pasted into the edit summary or onto the talk page each time ... or just link to the page - David Gerard 22:47, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

Or, in theory, you could actually think about the article you're removing tags from.zadignose 00:00, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Or, let me make that more explicit, you could actually think about the article you're editing. Here you are espousing the editing of an article without looking at it, and simply cutting and pasting some "argument" from a guideline that shouldn't be full of arguments, but actually should be clear and explicit on the matter. If a guideline states explicitly "no one should use spoiler warnings," then yeah, you can just point to it when removing a spoiler warning. But if the guideline doesn't explicitly forbid the use of a warning on a particular article, and an editor has posted a defensible explanation as to why a warning should be used, you can't just shrug your shoulders and point to an ambiguous guideline to justify your edits. It's time to think about the edits your making, or get a better guideline.zadignose 00:07, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

It's not always necessary to point to a guideline - in the case of that article, the general principle that a plot section shouldn't need a spoiler tag has been brought up several times, and nobody seems to have a strong argument why that article is exceptional. The guideline reflects this argument, but in the end guidelines are never written with no exceptions, wikilawyering is not well respected, and it's up to editors on an article-by-article basis to decide on the content, following site-wide consensus. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:46, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Whether or not it is always necessary to point to a guideline, in fact this guideline is being pointed to as the reason for an article edit (or perhaps tens of thousands of edits). As I pointed out in the article talk page, this guideline offers absolutely no guidance on what would constitute an exception to the "usual" case where warnings are considered redundant, and it's not explicit enough on when such "redundancy" is grounds for removing a spoiler tag. As for the idea that "guidelines are never written with no exceptions," if that's the case then I think it's time to remove the text "fairy tales should never have spoiler warnings." As for "wikilawyering," I'm not sure what you're referring to, but I don't think that's a good description of what I see as asking for clear guidance. Regarding decisions made by editors on an article-by-article basis, this seems a strong argument against edits made by automated process, or maintained by editors who haven't even begun to consider the individual merits of the articles they are editing.zadignose 04:28, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

As for the idea that "guidelines are never written with no exceptions," if that's the case then I think it's time to remove the text "fairy tales should never have spoiler warnings." - I concur with this statement from zadignose. By way of illustrating the problem with that part of the guideline: Who decides if a particular story is a fairy tale or not? For example, Peter Pan is a novel, not a historical fairy tale. But parents tell it to their kids like a fairy tale. So, which is it, fairy tale or novel? Who decides? --Parzival418 _Hello 00:53, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Only put such warnings in articles about fictional subjects.

I'm wondering why the nutshell banner says Only put such warnings in articles about fictional subjects as this is inconsistent with the text of the page, which only says they should be avoided (whatever that means) in articles about non-fictional subjects. — The Storm Surfer 19:49, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Both wordings mean that we really don't want to go back to having these silly tags on articles about non-fictional subjects. --Tony Sidaway 23:12, 4 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, it doesn't seem inconsistent to me. "Should be avoided" basically sounds like "don't do it."

Disputed tag (started 9 June)

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

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

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

I reinserted tags when I noticed them missing and it was reverted within a short time and I was reprimanded. 213.39.198.154 15:26, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Well I just put one back, hence showing my lack of support for this. Tony, how does not immediately putting all these masses of spoiler tags back count as "consensus"?Tomgreeny 02:31, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

You need a diagram? From the first paragraph of our Consensus policy:

The basic process works like this: someone makes an edit to a page, and then everyone who reads the page makes a decision to either leave the page as it is or change it. Over time, every edit that remains on a page, in a sense, has the unanimous approval of the community (or at least everyone who has looked at the page). "Silence equals consent" is the ultimate measure of consensus — somebody makes an edit and nobody objects or changes it. Most of the time consensus is reached as a natural product of the editing process.

Apply an edit to 45,000 pages, most of which are being watched and edited regularly, and you have a huge number of people looking at an edit and deciding to leave it. And that's how we know we have consensus for removing spoiler tags. --Tony Sidaway 02:56, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

That's a simplistic analysis that does not prove consensus. As has now emerged in a number of samples, editors who want to put the spoiler tag back are deterred by other editors who claim violation of WP:Spoiler. Since you are claiming WP:Spoiler guide consensus based on lack of tag restorations, it's circular reasoning. Therefore your analysis is a manufactured consensus claim. Milo 05:58, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Let me explain the error in your reasoning. We (mainly David Gerard I believe) performed tens of thousands of edits. Nearly every single one of those edits prevails. Now either there are many, many people going around removing tags when they're replaced, or there are only a small number of replacements every day compared to the tens of thousands of articles originally edited. I can assure you we don't have a robot scooting around and removing tags as they appear. It's all being done by humans, as it should be. And not solely by a small, tight group. The decisions are being made organically. You can see this rather graphically on articles about recently released films such as the Silver Surfer and Oceans 13. Different people add and remove tags. There is very little mention of any spoiler guideline. People just use their common sense. And, extraordinarily, their common sense feelings seem to favor removing the spoiler tag even from articles, such as those two recently released films, where I myself would be happy to permit them if the decision were up to me alone.

Each of these articles is still out there, with its edit history and its absence of spoiler tags. At any one moment there may be hundreds or even thousands of people reading one or those articles. For recently released movies the figure is going to be very high, and popular movies and TV shows such as Oceans 13, Doctor Who and the like will have more than a dozen editors in attendance. And yet the spoiler tags aren't coming back and sticking. In the relatively small proportion of articles where tags have been put back, no consensus is emerging to keep them. In the vast majority of cases, no attempt is made to restore them. That's consensus for removal, according to our very own Consensus policy. --Tony Sidaway 07:22, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Your group has been reverting hundreds of people every day for the past few weeks, sometimes with just an edit summary of 'no'. Anyone can examine the contribution and edit histories to establish this for themselves.--Nydas^(Talk) 07:47, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

What is my group? Let's assume, for the sake of argument, that you mean every single editor who has ever supported the removal of spoiler tags on this page. Let's see, that's:

Tony_Sidaway (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Kusma (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Phil Sandifer (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
David Gerard (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
JzG (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Ned Scott (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
Vassyana (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)
TheFarix (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Oh and this fellow whom I've seen around and about:

CBM (talk · contribs · deleted contribs · logs · filter log · block user · block log)

Now let's see what they're actually doing. I'll take Monday as an example day. I omit names of people who performed no tag removals:

User:Tony Sidaway 26
User:CBM 4

So that's a total of about 30. Maybe I've forgotten some fellow who is performing hundreds of tag removals. If so, perhaps you could name him. Or maybe you're out by an order of magnitude. Or maybe there was a huge amount of reverting at some point but now it's died down.

But if it's as it appears, with just 30 tags restored (and then reverted almost single-handedly) in the course of a whole Monday, then when you consider that there were formerly 45,000 or more articles with tags, it does appear to me that there is a very substantial consensus. When people read these many thousands of articles articles, as they must do every day, they don't suddenly think "this article needs a spoiler tag." --Tony Sidaway 08:21, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

And if you take the Monday before last, it's:

That's about 166 removals, presumably what you meant when you said 'that's only happened in a tiny number of cases' two days earlier. Since anybody who was willing to reverse the removals on a significant scale was threatened, and the numbers and time periods used for judging 'significant resistance' are arbitary, it's no surprise that a 'consensus' has been reached.--Nydas^(Talk) 10:03, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, only 166 out of 45,000? I thought it was more. In any case we would have seen many, many hundreds more than that had there been any serious problem.

You say "anybody who was willing to reverse the removals on a significant scale was threatened", but I think what you're referring to is the warnings, and sometimes blocks, given to those very, very few editors who edited disruptively. It isn't allowed, you know.

Did you mean to count David Gerard twice, or did you mistype the username of another involved user? --Tony Sidaway 17:55, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

166 in one day is a lot. If we generously assume two reverts per user, that's eighty people overruled by four admins. The 'very, very few editors' who mass-restored tags are about the same in number (probably slightly more) as the six or so admins systematically removing tags. One group is disruptive, the other is bold.--Nydas^(Talk) 18:37, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

The disruptive editing was, I seem to recall, singleton editors edit warring against multiple editors, and involved egregious and undeniable breaches of Wikipedia policy (such as the three revert rule). This is why those editors were blocked.

We'll have to agree to differ on whether 166 is "a lot". It's certainl not compatible with your claim, made just a few hours ago, of our "reverting hundreds of people every day for the past few weeks". Now this Monday was down to 30. Consensus. The stragglers are slowly learning, by example and not edit warring, that they don't have to insert those spoiler tags. --Tony Sidaway 18:48, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

The numbers creep up the further back you go. It's taken a full month to bludgeon through the 'consensus' your faction has been claiming existed since day two of the debate. The current situation doesn't prove anything, aside from the gross power disparity between a tiny group of admins and a small group of normal editors. One is bold, the other is disruptive. Breaches of policy have been made by both sides, but no-one is going to enforce 'don't use the AWB for controversial edits' or WP:POINT against a bunch of senior admins.--Nydas^(Talk) 20:08, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I take exception to this use of the term "bludgeon". Editing articles in full compliance with all of Wikipedia's policies is not bludgeoning. I'm unsure of what you mean by "the 'consensus' your faction has been claiming existed since day two of the debate."

You say "One is bold, the other is disruptive." No. Only the disruptive editors, as defined by Wikipedia's policies and three revert rule in particular, have been described as disruptive.

You say "Breaches of policy have been made by both sides." Well you haven't demonstrated this. "You have made edits I disagree with" is not a credible allegation of breach of policy.

You say "no-one is going to enforce 'don't use the AWB for controversial edits' or WP:POINT". Please read WP:POINT. Please explain how the 45,000 edits were controversial. They were hardly noticed. --Tony Sidaway 20:27, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

The anti-spoiler admins have insisted since the beginning of the mass removal campaign that there was a consensus for their actions. It began by using the arbitarily closed MfD, but the 'lack of significant resistance' line was started not long after. Neither was grounds for consensus. 'They were hardly noticed' is a variation on the 'lack of significant resistance' line. It's unsupported by facts and cocooned in vague and arbitary measures. Since there wasn't a consensus, policy was not followed.--Nydas^(Talk) 21:12, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Well, as I've already said quoting from Wikipedia:Consensus, absence of opposition is usually taken as a sign of consensus. I have to say that I think I've probably been editing articles to remove spoiler tags for over a month now, and with the exception of some early disruption by edit warriors I've had virtually no opposition, and where I have encountered disagreements I've had no problems discussing and reaching consensus on talk pages. It's been some of the easiest, most trouble-free editing I've been involved in since I first edited (under the username User:Minority Report) in November, 2004.

This is a very, very small part of what I'm doing on Wikipedia at the moment. I feel that I'm paying far more attention to educating a few people on this talk page than to other, more important things. If you're unhappy about what we've done, if you think we've done anything at all wrong, please pursue dispute resolution. --Tony Sidaway 23:48, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

All you are saying is 'it wasn't bludgeoning, because I think it wasn't bludgeoning'. It is obvious that this situation would not have come about were it not for the gross power disparity between a miniscule number of admins and a small number of normal editors.--Nydas^(Talk) 08:51, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm saying it isn't bludgeoning because it's only editing. You refer to a "gross power disparity" that exists only in your mind. I am not an administrator and I do not use any automated tools. The main source of complaint--bulk edits by David Gerard--are well within the capability of any editor with publicly available software, David's patience and a reasonable amount of care, subject to adherence to Wikipedia's policies and guidelines and the conditions of use of the tool. --Tony Sidaway 16:57, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

It's 'only editing' when your side does it, whereas it's disruptive editing by 'a few stragglers' when the other side does it. Even Ed Fitzgerald, who broke no policies, was threatened. As I have stated before, your interpretation of policy not being breached depends upon the mysterious shifting definition of 'significant resistance'. Rather than going by what is straightforward, obvious and fair (is the issue being discussed?), you make such judgements based on vague, subjective criteria like 'I've had no problems' or 'hardly any have been reverted'.--Nydas^(Talk) 19:13, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

It's only disruptive editing when the editing pattern matches Wikipedia's definitions of disruptive editing. You refer to a "mysterious shifting definition of 'significant resistance'". This shifting definition exists only in your own mind. If there were significant resistance then there would be many spoiler tags on articles. This is an objective measure. --Tony Sidaway 19:33, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Your comments can be examined to see your definition of 'significant resistance' changes constantly. Typically it's either vague ('hardly any') or circular ('obvious'). At one point you said 'A significant amount of resistance might be, for instance, hundreds of editors restoring tags'. Hundreds of people have been restoring tags; this can be confirmed by examining the edit histories. The fact that they have ceased doing this is simply down to fact that anyone attempting to restore them in large numbers was threatened, whether they violated any policy or not. The threats are justified by the consensus, the consensus enforced by the threats.--Nydas^(Talk) 20:19, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm not seeing hundreds of editors restoring spoiler tags at all. I'm seeing diminishing numbers of editors doing any adding of spoiler tags, as the habit of routinely adding them slowly dies out. The only time in recent days when the number of pages with spoiler tags on them has exceeded 20 was when the spoiler-season tag was deleted. Those were dealt with in a few hours and now only one Star Gate episode remains of that lot. There really are only two or three editors systematically removing spoiler tags now, and those of us doing it are not taxed in any way. By comparison we've got massive backlogs of articles for tagging, improving, deletion and so on. This is small beer. --Tony Sidaway 12:56, 24 June 2007 (UTC)

What's more, I decided to go look. It's not just that, this Monday, Tony reverted 26 articles. He reverted the edits of almost 20 separate _people_ all presumably acting in good faith. If he did that on one article, he'd be accused of going against consensus. Or, of WP:OWNing the article. Which is what I suggest the anti-spoiler people are doing. They are in violation of the spirit of WP:OWN, by declaring that they have the right to decide what spoiler warnings should and should not exist, and others are not qualified. Of course, it's not one article, it's several.

But let's scale it upwards. Let's say there are 10 editors out there who are on 'spoiler patrol'... whether or not they're in cahoots or acting singly, it doesn't _really_ matter. Each of them seeks out pretty well any spoiler, and reverts them. Let's say they all revert about the same amount in a day. It's a hypothetical leap, but let's go with it - Nydas has shown that there were times when the numbers were pretty high. By these numbers, that's about 200 people. But that's being too generous to my side. Let's say about half are completely unjustified. So we're down to 10 people overruling 100. Oh, okay, and let's say again that there probably will be some duplication. So let's say that about half are accounted for by people doing the spoiler thing on multiple articles which have to be removed by different people (I'd think that's being extremely generous, considering the previously described severe inbalance in speed and ease of removing spoiler tags compared to adding them). So, 50 different people overruled completely. By 10. Lovely consensus there.

But maybe my numbers are wrong. I after all, haven't been the one to claim that it's easy to see the amount of opposition. So, I ask again. Will anybody who claims to be able to monitor the level of opposition please answer me 1) how many different editors have removed spoiler tags in the last month, and 2) how many different editors have added spoiler tags in the last month. Or if nobody can, please admit that you're not monitoring the amount of opposition, only the amount of spoiler tags themselves.

Keeping in mind again that before about a month ago, when the guideline was more spoiler-warning friendly, nobody has reported to me that there was a wide-scale revolt to remove spoiler tags (since they remained in large numbers), which suggests, by Tony's logic, that there must have been consensus.

Maybe the 'consensus' from the lack of so many wide scale reverts is to 'follow the guideline whatever it is'. That does not equal consensus for the guideline as it stands, especially since the guideline as it stands is pretty disputed on this page, for the guideline. So let's change the guideline to get consensus. Wandering Ghost 13:19, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

I think you're misrepresenting a lot of statements here. Of course we don't see every tag insertion and removal. All we see is the result: that at any given moment there aren't a lot of articles with spoiler tags. If somebody we don't know about is adding them at a great rate, it follows that somebody else we don't know about is removing them at an equally great rate. On balance I'd say that either seems implausible because if it were happening there would be big fluctuations owing to one chap working while the other one is offline. I think we've probably accounted for the main methodical removals, which are a few dozen. Less evidence of a massive campaign to subvert consensus, more evidence of a few stragglers who haven't yet heard that they don't need to insert spoiler tags.

You reason that the former guideline had consensus "by Tony's logic." Clearly it did not. 45,000 tags were removed without pain. --Tony Sidaway 17:55, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Frankly, I'd have put spoiler tags back on a dozen pages by now, but instead of trying to brute-force my way to consensus, I'm sitting here talking about it trying to REACH a consensus to be enforced. If we reach a consensus that spoiler tags are OK in some instances, I'll go add them to the articles I watch. However, what's the point adding them when someone on spoiler patrol will just remove them? It'd violate WP:POINT. I suspect others feel the same, hence the lack of mass addition. Consider: User X notices the lack of spoiler tag on Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone, for instance. User X remembers there being a tag here, checks edit summary, finds that apparently spoilers are no longer kosher and are being removed. User X then goes to edit several other articles with tags being removed and does not bother to add them again, having seen for himself that there are people activly removing all spoiler tags on wikipedia, so it'd be pointless to add them. Thus, User X gets discouraged and gives up on spoiler tags altogether. This is consensus, the Tony way: people are intimidated by numbers like 45,000 tags, and thus figure, well, there must be consensus on a page I'm not aware of. Kuronue 18:49, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

Well if you don't agree that your edits would have consensus, I suppose it is at least logical that you don't perform the edits. But the guideline doesn't stop you putting spoiler tags where you think they're needed, indeed I've inserted a few myself over the past few days, though they seem not to take. The guideline has gone "viral", in other words.

I don't understand your reference to Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point (WP:POINT). Performing an edit that you think directly improves Wikipedia isn't covered by that guideline at all.

I don't think the "intimidated by numbers" or "finds that apparently spoilers are no longer kosher and are being removed" are plausible, really. Maybe one or two of our more timid editors might think like that, but it's hardly likely to work in great numbers. No I think editors are simply unlearning a bad habit.

You refer to someone thinking "there must be consensus on a page I'm not aware of". Firstly the guideline is often, though not always, referred to by link in the edit summary. Secondly an edit that is considered unsuitable can be reverted and discussion can arrive at consensus as to the suitability of the edit. The guideline (like all good guidelines) recognises this and explicitly allows for it. If we're not seeing spoiler tags emerging in any great numbers, it's because hardly anybody seems to be interested enough to argue for their use on any given article. --Tony Sidaway 19:11, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

If it didn't have consensus, the week _before_ the deletion spree happened, by your logic, a significant number of editors would have removed spoiler warnings. Since it didn't happen, a week before the deletion spree, there was consensus to keep spoilers, up until the deletion spree happened. There was no groundswell of support to delete them, and as David Gerard demonstrated, it would have been easy to do so in an automated way. Let's go back two months. Same situation? Now keeping spoilers have a month of "consensus" over the current policy. So you must admit by then, if there's consensus to keep the warnings out now based on the lack of them, that there was broad consensus to keep the warnings only a month ago. What changed, pray tell, in so short a time?

And I'm glad you're finally admitting you're not monitoring the amount of opposition, but rather the amount of spoiler tags at any given time. Now, let's keep on that logic train. Do you acknowledge that it's _much_ easier for a person to delete a _lot_ of spoiler tags, than it is for anyone to add a _lot_ of spoiler tags? Do you from that acknowledge that a small number of editors who decide to remove virtually all spoiler warnings to overrule a much larger number of editors who decide to add spoiler warnings where they feel them appropriate? Please tell me where in the train of statements this fails for you. I'll even throw you a bone. You can continue to believe, even after accepting all of this, that the guideline has broad consensus. It just becomes much harder to prove it. 74.121.182.101 01:14, 20 June 2007 (UTC) This was me - didn't noticed I'd been logged out. Wandering Ghost 01:15, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Not sure what you're getting at in your first paragraph. The degree of consensus is apparent, though we didn't realise until we tried it. Consensus results from action, observation and consideration. Here the consideration seems to have played an overwhelmingly important role once we became bold enough to perform the requisite action.

I also have problems with your statement that I'm "admitting I'm not monitoring the amount of opposition." As I obviously am monitoring very closely, and am still astonished at the lack of it, I cannot agree to your statement. I've indicated clearly why I think it's extremely unlikely that there is a hidden opposition out there placing tags with an equally strong and opposing group removing them at the same rate so as to cancel them out and remain undetected by me. Even if they were running in lockstep for hours at a time, one of them would have to sleep at some point and I'd notice.

I strongly agree that it's easier to remove inappropriate spoiler tags than it is to decide where they are appropriate. I'm still rather astonished that so few people seem motivated to place them. --Tony Sidaway 03:34, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Again, you're dodging the issue. There doesn't _have_ to be "a hidden opposition out there placing tags with an equally strong and opposing group removing them at the same rate so as to cancel them out and remain undetected by me." When did Wikipedia become a warzone, where in order for one side to hold a policy stalemate they had to be comparable in weapons and fanaticism? Consensus is determined by people. If there are people out there who creatively use various tools to overwhelm the majority and are so determined to remove spoiler tags that they push for removal in nearly every case, they shouldn't _win_ just because it's easy and they've got the drive. If the other side is significantly larger but they are _unable_ to add spoiler tags at the same rate (hey, in the spirit of open debate and finding the truth why not be fair and suggest ways for an individual person to add spoiler tags at the same rate as an individual person can remove them?), and are forced by circumstances to only add one page at a time where they see fit, that doesn't mean they're not still larger and not still consensus. If you can't tell me how many different people are removing spoiler warnings and how many people are adding them, you're not monitoring opposition. You're monitoring the number of spoiler tags. And that number can be kept down by superior firepower. If the anti-warning crowd and pro-warning crowd were exactly equal in numbers, the anti-warning crowd could still keep spoilers down to a minimum, so long as the pro-warning crowd wasn't organized enough to get together and fight battles together on each page. Wandering Ghost 11:37, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

If it is easier to remove spoiler tags than to justify their replacement, it follows that there is no broad consensus for spoiler tags. --Tony Sidaway 17:00, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

C'mon Tony, now who's being a silly sausage? You know that it's easier to remove than to recreate, to use AWB than operate in a decentralized manner, and to use Special:Whatlinkshere to see where the tag is included rather than Special:Recentchanges to see where it has been removed. Also, some people have the radical concept of discussing before acting broadly in an edit war, which is why this talk page has exploded. -- nae'blis 21:03, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

The difficulty is exactly why there is no broad consensus for them. I'm glad that there have been few edit wars. That is a good thing, too. --Tony Sidaway 23:05, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

That is yet another of your non-answers that don't make any logical sense. Because it's, technically speaking, easier to remove 40,000 spoiler tags in the course of a few days by one man than it is for one man to replace them, it proves there's no consensus? To retreat to that nonsensical position, I can only assume I've made points you can't argue against, and instead of conceding the point, you just fling out another absurdity in the hopes that somebody reading might fall for it. I'd like to say I'm surprised. But then, what should I expect, from the person who claims the lack of tags prove consensus and the fact that there's consensus proves that they should continue to force tag removal, in some cases threatening people who do. Or the person who continues to say 'rm per WP:SPOIL' when he removes spoilers of a large number of people, when the guideline's in dispute. The same guy who reverts dozens of different people every day on one topic, who claims to have consensus but won't back down from removing spoilers when he finds them, in the confidence that the spoilers will be removed by someone else. No, you continue to argue in bad faith, and so there's no point to responding to you anymore. To those of you, even those vehemently anti-warning, who continue to argue in good faith, I salute you. I'm just sorry that you have someone on your side who does you have such a disservice, since I think that without him and a few like him, it might actually be possible to reach a compromise satisfiable to a large number of people. Instead, bring on the next step in dispute resolution. I may continue to respond to others in the debate, but I can't keep banging my head against the brick wall of people behaving in bad faith (and in this, I suspect I'm feeling the same as many people who put spoiler warnings in and were ganged up on, and so have stopped), so my contributions will be substantially reduced. Don't mistake that for consent to the policy as it stands. Wandering Ghost 21:48, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

No, forget about the removal of the spoiler tags in the first place, it's what is happening now that shows the state of play. They're just not going back and staying back. That's consensus. Yes, you can always claim this or that, but the only way to refute my claim of consensus would be to show that there were many, many spoiler tags on Wikipedia. And there are not. --Tony Sidaway 23:05, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

I came to this article to try to find out what the template was for inserting a spoiler tag because I couldn't find it on any page relating to the TV series LOST, Battlestar Galactica or Grey's Anatomy. All three of those have character and episode pages which reveal a huge amount of information about episodes at the end of the series and I have had to be very careful about which pages I view, since I haven't seen all the episodes in any of them. I think the removal of spoiler warnings is a mistake, and I think the average Wikipedia reader would suffer without them, so much to the point that they would quit reading the encyclopedia for details about those TV shows (or, eventually, with any article at all). I hope this helps you form a consensus. Cumulus Clouds 01:47, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

Similiar experience here, also when reading about fictional characters. I can understand not putting it in in sections marked "Plot Summary," but apart from that, it's often really convenient. Encyclopedic articles on fictional characters aren't there for the fun of making them, they're there as a reference. Many people who look up a reference on an element in a fictional work are currently in the process of reading/watching it. Purpose is important in any website, but in Wikipedia it sometimes gets lost. Cayafas 15:40, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Disputed Dispute tag poll

(Copied from #Change guideline tag to proposal)

"Why did you remove the guideline dispute tag when there is a guideline content dispute? Milo 22:15, 25 June 2007"

" There is no significant opposition to the guideline. --Tony Sidaway 22:18, 25 June 2007"

The Help Desk told me that only one editor with a talk page explanation is needed to place a dispute tag, but that there are no formal rules for such things. Therefore, the editors who have placed the dispute tag have as valid a claim as Tony's claim of "no significant opposition to the guideline". This calls for a poll, to determine whether or not there is a dispute with the Wikipedia:Spoiler guideline to be indicated by a Dispute tag. Milo 00:38, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Poll question: Is there a taggable dispute?

Putting aside your opinion of the guideline itself, do you agree that there is a Wikipedia:Spoiler guideline dispute and that a guideline Dispute tag should be in place?

Agree, a dispute exists and a dispute tag should be placed. Milo 00:38, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Duh Hello? Dispute about whether disputed or not = dispute. BTW, Look at the this talk page! Sethie 01:20, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Duh This, that we're participating in, is a dispute. The real question is, what does Tony have to gain by suppressing that information? Kuronue 01:21, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, obviously. This page used to be archived once per year, and look at the last month. Samohyl Jan 05:24, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, of course. Though I doubt if even tagging it will stop certain people from 'enforcing' the guideline anyway.Wandering Ghost 12:01, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, good grief. Call me a member of the "silent majority", I came here via http://forums.xkcd.com/viewtopic.php?t=6424 and read through the above debate. If that's not a dispute, I don't know what is. Though I could be persuaded to take the opposing view, as it really looks to me like Tony Sidaway against all comers, which isn't really a debate. The imp 13:03, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes and I second the Duh. Ken Arromdee 13:24, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes If there is a dispute over whether there is a dispute, then we can pretty safely say that there IS a dispute. Tomgreeny 14:38, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, naturally. Kizor 20:47, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I strongly support the use of spoiler tags. 76.198.204.224 05:54, 30 June 2007 (UTC)Just a regular user

Enough with the polls. The guideline has been working very well for weeks. If you think it needs to be changed in some way, change it and we'll see if there is consensus for your change. --Tony Sidaway 00:43, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Unfortunately, one part of the dispute is about what constitutes consensus. If anyone changes the guideline, you'll just insist "there are tens of thousands of spoiler warnings removed and few put back, so there's consensus for the guideline. I'm changing it back." It's impossible to "change it and see if there's consensus" when the definition of consensus is being warped in this way. Ken Arromdee 13:24, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

Polls are evil and anyway, the problem that the supporters have by this point gone on to other useful things isn't going to disappear with a poll. Phil Sandifer 01:39, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
- You got what you wanted and I supported it. Why don't you go on to other useful things? Do you have that jargon condition of "Sore Winner Syndrome"?

Btw, polls are not evil, and should not be confused with voting. George Gallup said polling was the only way to truly know the will of the people. Milo 10:07, 27 June 2007 (UTC)

I don't think the guideline itself is in opposition, but clearly the mass warning removal has opposition. In other words, how people are applying the guideline, not so much the guideline itself. I was hoping that we'd be able to ease people into this, but the change was too much and too sudden. This would have gone a lot smoother if the warnings were not removed via scripts. There is a dispute on how people are handling spoiler warnings. Originally I was opposed to tagging the page as disputed, but I'm not sure where else we would note the dispute. -- Ned Scott 02:32, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
- I can't believe there is a dispute going on about if there is a dispute on this page or not. Can't we all just play nice and build an encyclopedia? Darthgriz98 03:01, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
- Reading template:disputedpolicy I see that for templates such as this where there is dispute about how the policy or guideline should be expressed the best template to use is "underdiscussion". So I've changed it. Hope nobody minds. I think we're all agreed that we need a guideline on spoiler tagging, but we're not agreed on its content. The tag I've put up explicitly directs readers to this discussion page. --Tony Sidaway 14:00, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
  - There is a dispute. The "underdiscussion" tag doesn't mention a dispute. Milo 10:07, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
Yes. If this isn't a dispute, what is? There's even a dispute on whether there's a dispute or not. Cayafas 12:03, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

How can a Guideline trump Policy?

Here's something to consider: Let's say we gain consensus that the guideline will state that spoiler alerts are to be minimized and we list situations where they are not wanted. We update the guideline and remove the page headers that say the guidline is disputed, ready for all to refer to the page as a style guideline.

Does that give the right to editors not involved in a particular article to remove the spoiler alerts without discussion? Certainly, we can be WP:BOLD and do so, but if an editor on that page reverts it and puts the spoiler tag back, then we abide by policy of WP:CONSENSUS, which trumps the guideline. Before continuing to re-delete the spoiler alerts, discussion and consensus on that article page is needed. The discussion can refer to the guideline, but the consensus determines the result - for that one page anyway.

In fairness and respect, it seems to me that whatever is decided about the guideline, editors not familiar with an article should not visit to remove a spoiler template without at least saying hello first and talking about it. For example, a boilerplate note could be placed on the talk pages, such as

Request for Comment on Spoiler Alert

There's a spoiler template on this article page that in my view does not conform to the guideline at WP:SPOILER. I plan to remove the spoiler alert in one week unless editors here do not agree. So please enter discussion here. If there is no discussion, I'll remove the template in a week. If there is discussion, I'll wait to find out what the consensus is for keeping or removing the tag. Please review the guideline and enter comments here.

Or, to automate it, we could handle it like the {{PROD}} template. Put it at the top of the article and track for follow-up by category, like the {{PROD}} template does. If an article editor removes the tempalte within 5 days, then discussion about the spoiler alerts can take place before removing them. If the spoiler-alert deletion notice stays up for 5 days with no contest, then go back and remove the spoiler alerts, fair and square.

Just some thoughts... comments invited. --Parzival418 _Hello 01:03, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

While I agree with this proposal wholeheartedly, the current guidelines require consensus before a spoiler tag is added (and almost no articles currently have spoiler tags), rendering it somewhat meaningless. It would have been useful a few weeks ago when Tony Sidaway and co. were using their own brand of "consensus" to remove all reinstated spoiler tags. Philip Reuben 01:10, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I would also like to note my support for the reinstated "disputed" tag. The article is clearly still under dispute. Philip Reuben 01:15, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I concur with keeping the disputed tag on the guideline page until a clear consensus emerges for removing it.

Even after the guideline is clarified, whatever it states in the consensed version, the editors on any given topic page have the right to create their own consensus about how or if they will include spoiler alerts, according to Wikipedia core policy. --Parzival418 _Hello 02:29, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Good point. Philip Reuben 11:41, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Where to go from here

It seems to me that this guideline is deficient. Perhaps some of you agree. I can only see two reasonable ways forward from where we are:

A) We can simply abolish the use of spoiler warnings. This approach is consistent, and easily maintained. Most of the arguments as to why spoiler warnings are inappropriate in an encyclopedia actually suggest this categorical approach.

B) We can offer guidance on where spoiler tags are appropriate. Currently the guideline completely fails on this point. It is clear in opposing spoiler tags on non-fictional subjects, and fairy tales. It tells us several cases where tags should not be used. It generally seems to suggest that spoiler tags are not a good thing. But it also suggests that there are cases where tags are appropriate, and tells us how to add the tags, without giving any guidance as to where they can or should be used. It's been suggested in some of the discussions above that the guideline needs to give good examples of where the tags are appropriate. I think that's obvious. Unless, or course, we go for option A, and simply rule against all applications of the spoiler tags. What is not appropriate is to hint that there are places where the tags can be used, without offering any guidance whatsoever as to where these places are.zadignose 01:18, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

What about the technical compromise I described above? I also would like to remark that current guideline mostly abolishes spoiler warning because "no SWs in plot sections or such" covers 99% of use cases. Samohyl Jan 01:40, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Doesn't it seem like a method requiring regular readers to seek technical solutions would end up not being used by the regular readers? Maybe I'm not understanding your idea... ?? --Parzival418 _Hello 03:01, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

The proposed technical compromise doesn't seem correct to me, as it's really just a content fork. I think the most important consideration is what to do with this Wikipedia, the one that everyone sees.zadignose 03:57, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

It may be true, but for people who actually want the spoiler warnings, I believe it's better than to have no tags (which is, I think, what the current guideline is about). It's a compromise, so it has shortcomings. And btw, I wouldn't oppose more customization of the Wikipedia in the future, I consider it as a good thing, as long as it doesn't hurt the performance too much. Samohyl Jan 07:13, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

We can simply abolish the use of spoiler warnings. I don't believe this is possible. We can abolish the template and we can state in the guideline that the use of spoiler alerts is deprecated, but the editors writing articles about fiction they personally care about are sure to insert spoiler warnings anyway. If we delete the templates from the pages, which we can do by searching for them, or if we blank the template content to remove its display on the pages, the spoiler alerts will resurrect themselves in plain text or custom warning boxes, because the editors of those pages will want to protect the stories.

I'm not making a judgment on this, I'm just expressing the pragmatic idea that it will happen anyway, whatever we decide to write in this guideline.

We can offer guidance on where spoiler tags are appropriate. Currently the guideline completely fails on this point. I concur. The best we can do - in my humble opinion - is to come up with a guideline that co-ordinates how the editors use the spoiler alerts so we have a consistent look and feel across Wikipedia.

The most effective points that I see in the guideline as it now appears are these:

Omit spoilers in articles about non-fiction works - that seems self-evident to me.
The section titled "Unacceptable alternatives" - I agree those methods should not be used - technical tricks like hiding text by making it white, etc... Especially, this I feel is an important point that should stay in the guideline:

One should not be Deleting relevant and significant, neutral and verifiable information about a narrative work from an article about that work "because it's a spoiler".

Otherwise though, my recommendation is to focus the guideline on helping editors format the spoiler alerts in the most effective way, so there is minimal disruption of the articles and Wikipedia looks good and easy to read. If we tell editors not to warn readers when spoilers are approaching, it won't work, they'll do it anyway, and the articles will get messy. --Parzival418 _Hello 03:01, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

The idea that people who have edited an article in the past have any precedence over other editors is wrong. They may know more about the article than other editors, and if they do they can bring that knowledge to bear in the discussion. But they don't, no really, they don't, have more say in editing than any other editor. --Tony Sidaway 03:30, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

To further Tony's point, see WP:OWN. Though I'm sure some of you will think certain people in this discussion violate that. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 03:33, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't see what this relates to. Where was it suggested that people who have edited an article in the past have precedence over other editors? Or was that from another section of this discussion?zadignose 04:02, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I think they thought that's what I was saying about the articles where the tags were removed. But that is not what I meant. I'll clarify... --Parzival418 _Hello 04:42, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I agree - prior editors on an article do not take precedence. I am familiar with WP:OWN and was not implying that should take place. Maybe I did not word my comment clearly.

I meant to suggest: it might be better to approach with politeness and respect for the people at those articles, in that they may have already put a lot of thought into whether or not the article should have a spoiler alert, and that they might be more familiar with the topics and have based their choices on that knowledge.

I was not implying that one must comply with a prior editor's demands, only that it might be better to discuss the issue first before deleting the spoiler alerts they placed; ie, to bring it up with the people editing the articles to see if they agree about removing the tags, to attain consensus about it. I was not saying this "must" be done, only that it might be a more positive approach. --Parzival418 _Hello 04:42, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

changes to the nutshell

I changed the nutshell from this:

This page in a nutshell: Wikipedia contains spoilers. No spoiler warning should be used for articles on non-fictional subjects. In the case of fiction, you should demonstrate consensus that a spoiler warning is necessary if you intend to include a warning in the text.

to this:

This page in a nutshell: Wikipedia contains spoilers. No spoiler warning should be used for articles on non-fictional subjects. In the case of fiction, consider style and readability when placing spoiler alerts. If there is disagreement among editors about whether or not a spoiler alert is necessary in an article, discuss the issue on the article talk page in accordance with Wikipedia core policy WP:Consensus.

I made this change because there is no policy that requires editors to "demonstrate consensus" in advance of making an edit, except perhaps in the limited situation of an edit war or RFC or other special circumstance under ongoing discussion. We are encouraged to edit boldly, then discuss for consensus if our edits are reverted, not the other way around.

If anyone disagrees with this approach, please elaborate. Thanks. --Parzival418 _Hello 07:19, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

changes to the second paragraph

The second paragraph included what seemed to be a biased claim that the word "spoiler" is not used by respected publishers of reviews and synopses, so I added an additional example to show that both forms are used. The example I included in the reference is IMDB, the world's largest database of movie summaries - they use this phrase to alert about spoilers:

View full synopsis. (warning! may contain spoilers)

Now that we have references that respected sources do use spoiler alerts, the conclusion of the paragraph needed to be modified as well. I added there a wikilink to Wikipedia policy on consensus. --Parzival418 _Hello 07:19, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

IMDB and Wikipedia have different goals, though. While a "teaser" summary could be acceptable there, it is obviously bad for an encyclopedia. Kusma (talk) 09:21, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Absolutely, I agree. IMDB and Wikipedia do not have the same goals. Maybe I did not word my note above clearly. The quote I put there, View full synopsis. (warning! may contain spoilers) - was not on a teaser summary, it was a link by itself and until you click the link you don't see the story at all.

But that was not my point. My point was that they use the word "spoiler" and they warn you before you read the synposis. I only added IMDB as a reference because there was another similar database listed as a reference, supposedly to show that the word "spoiler" is not used. I'm not suggesting that Wikipedia should follow the customs of IMDB - only that there is no clear consensus among reliable sources that there is anything wrong with using that word to announce that there will be a spoiler coming up. And: that is what was written in the guideline before, based on the other similar reference, so I only added IMDB to balance that fairly, with a real world example. --Parzival418 _Hello 10:22, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

It HAS been suggested by some people that editors who "never participated in the page" before shouldn't be allowed to remove the warnings. Which is clearly against WP:OWN. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 11:37, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

But don't you feel that it's against consensus, a far more important guideline IMHO, for a few people to travel to every spoiler debate and voting no, to add one (or collectively add several - again, I'm not alleging conspiracy here, but whether or not they collaborate the effect is the same) 'no' votes for any individual page, and, in effect, shouting down lots of individual editors on individual pages? In this way, 10 people can overrule hundreds on the implementation policy as a whole. I mean really, this seems to be fairly basic, and so far you've seemed to argue in relatively good faith, can you concede that? What do you think is an appropriate remedy for that? To me, putting some sort of guideline against that is the only fair and sensible way to do that. Without some sort of guideline, the only thing I can think of (before giving up meekly towards the technical superiority of those who want to quash spoilers), is for the pro-spoiler crowd to organize. Have each of us tackle one anti-spoiler person removing it, and have an assignment to counteract them, following their edit history reinstating spoilers where they remove it, voting yes where they vote no, to exactly balance out their negative impact and allow a true consensus to form. But to me, that seems against the spirit of wikipedia. At the same time, I'm getting a little weary of being on the side that obeys the spirit while those who don't trample over people. Please, why not reach some kind of sensible agreement on this issue? Wandering Ghost 11:48, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to quote the nutshell of WP:OWN: If you create or edit an article, know that others will edit it, and within reason you should not prevent them from doing so. I think this case is outside of that "within reason", especially since (once again) the actual text of WP:OWN says nothing about this kind of situation, making it a tenuous link. Consensus policy is being abused to allow a small number of editors to override a large number of editors of different articles who are in agreement but whose voices don't count as a collective. In this situation, existing editors of a page should have precedence in deciding on spoiler tag placement purely to level the playing field. Philip Reuben 13:28, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

While I agree that an existing consensus should override someone passing by, to a point, people were proposing to actually put IN THE POLICY that, essentially, "don't add or removes the tags if you never participated", which would make the policy pretty much void, not to mention certainly DOES go against WP:OWN. If the consensus truly IS to keep the warnings (or keep them off, even), then perhaps people should add inline comments to the effect . It's what often is done to keep external links stable, not to mention Final Fantasy VII for this pecific issue. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 14:07, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm not clear on what you mean by "inline comments". Could you give an example? Philip Reuben 14:34, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Also, is there any chance you could offer an opinion on the key idea that it is not really consensus if a small group of editors override a much larger number of individual editors on different pages over the same issue? Philip Reuben 14:45, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Lack of consensus

The logic here can be used against the anti-spoiler crowd easily. Spoilers have been on many articles on Wikipedia for years now. Isn't the fact that they weren't removed for so long consensus for them? Many editors do this on and off. Many editors also don't necessarily read/see every little edit to a page (my watch page scrolls by somewhat quickly), so they didn't notice it. I came here because I noticed on one page (the first I checked in fact), that it was reverted on the basis "it was removed before so we're keeping it this way" (paraphrased). Many editors don't want to get into a revert war, especially with this clique.

I have a simple way to see if there is true consensus. I'm posting this to Slashdot to get the word out and link to the relevant pages in the dispute to see where the consensus really lies. Nathan J. Yoder 08:36, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I also checked a random big mmovie page (The Matrix) just now to try to reinsert a spoiler, but apparently there is a user there who has reverted people reinserting the warning multiple times. Can someone point out to me a big movie where this hasn't happened? Where's the evidence that it isn't actually being reverted in so many articles? Nathan J. Yoder 08:59, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

First, consensus can change, and this is an example where it has. Second, what does the consensus of the Slashdot crowd have to do with Wikipedia consensus? Third, the guideline does allow for spoiler warnings if there is a good justification why the individual article should carry an (otherwise generally accepted as redundant or bad) disclaimer template. Kusma (talk) 09:02, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I would not try to start campaigns on Slashdot, though it might be interesting if spoiler warnings on Wikipedia were given a story there. Njyoder is correct that the consensus against spoiler warnings doesn't exist.--Nydas^(Talk) 09:12, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I am pretty sure that consensus against spoiler warnings exists in many cases (you know, the Bible, fairy tales, operas, Final Fantasy). There does not seem to be any consensus that spoiler warnings should be generally used in some classes of articles. Kusma (talk) 09:19, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

When were spoiler tags on the Bible?--Nydas^(Talk) 09:34, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Here is one. Kusma (talk) 09:48, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

That one that lasted for 15 days on a relatively low traffic article. In general, biblical articles have not had spoiler warnings. It's an unrepresentative example.--Nydas^(Talk) 10:39, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

1. It's never been established that it was changed. Heck, it would seem that there are many users here arguing that there isn't such a change and there are only a few arguing against it. The actual number of pages for which it was reinserted hasn't beeen presented. The current estimate is "how many pages for which the anti-spoiler side won the edit war" and that's like saying "there is a revert war where the one side has more energy" is consensus. Until you can establish that it's a well known change or even give the percentage of articles where it was _not_ changed back at any point, that inference doesn't hold. Would you be opposed to a straw poll? It's certainly better than all of this guesswork based on "some indeterminate number haven't changed it back."

2. I'm posting to Slashdot to raise awareness, because it's not even clear that more than a few know about this change. A huge number of Slashdot readers have edited Wikipedia. 3. The spoiler warnings were removed wholesale regardless of justification and just from my quick check re-insertions in very legitimate places (like in The Matrix) are being reverted, so I don't see why you'r arguing about that aspect of the guideline. This isn't an argument over whether or not certain types of articles shouldn't include them, it's an argument over whether or not spoiler warnings should exist in the first place. Nathan J. Yoder 09:23, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Please read the RfC and its archives (several hundred K of discussions including multiple straw polls). These discussions established the change of consensus, and resulted in the new guideline. The discussions there clearly show that the old status quo was unacceptable and not supported by consensus (and violated a couple of more important guidelines (WP:LEAD) or policies (WP:NPOV). Kusma (talk) 09:31, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't see any straw polls there on the _existence of spoiler warnings all together_ (they were removed wholesale, without regard to guidelines), which is what is being argued above. Furthermore, those polls don't even seem to have consensus for what they're saying. Consensus isn't the same thing as having simple majority support either (large and continued disagreement is antithetical to consensus). Guidelines can't really violate other guidelines--they're the same "level" and they're guidelines for the very reason that they don't have to be applied. If they're inconsistent, you choose which is most suitable given the circumstance. I just looked and it seems the user User:Alientraveller is patrolling multiple articles to revert any attempt to reinsert spoiler warnings, which shows even further lack of consensus (his edits are challenged, but people just don't want to spend as much energy as he in an edit war).

What's interesting is that even without consensus, new things were inserted into the article like not using spoiler tags in 'plot' sections in spite of no consensus. The closes thing I see to demosntrating conensus is a simple majority, but even that straw poll is worded poorly. It equates "plot" with "synopsis," which clearly aren't the same--plot doesn't have to summarize at all and likewise, it could just include a non-spoiler summary; there's no official guideline dictating that a section titled 'plot' must be one way or the other. Nathan J. Yoder 09:46, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

This is one of the first times anyone has asserted that the RfC reached a consensus. It doesn't make much sense, though, since the mass removals were started one day into the beginning of the RfC. Up until now, the 'consensus' was supported by the lack of 'significant resistance'. The closed-after-a-day MfD was used for the initial justification, but has since been quietly dropped as a rationale.--Nydas^(Talk) 10:39, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Nydas, could you please just explain what you're talking about? The RfC started more than a month ago. Were Tony and his "anti-spoiler brigade" removing the warnings on May 22? You're not really being clear with that. The MfD was closed because deletions shouldn't set policy. In other words, rather than put the warnings under the guillotine, you have a sensible discussion through regular channels. David Fuchs 13:02, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Yes, they were. Mass removals started in their dozens on May 15th and switched to AWB in their thousands on May 18th or 19th. The specific times are in Gerard's edit history [Will cause browser strain] approximately 28'000 contributions back. This was after WP:SPOILER was rewritten (by one side, etc., etc.,) but well before it had become a "guideline" instead of a "proposal." --Kizor 13:30, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm glad we have this detail cleared up. It seems hard to argue that RfC showed consensus for a large-scale change at the time the change was made. Philip Reuben 14:53, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

"I don't agree with this policy so I'm posting about it on Slashdot" is certainly a novel idea. I don't think it's likely to have much effect either way, however. Slashdot is not Wikipedia. --Tony Sidaway 12:06, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

More like "I don't think enough people are aware of this policy, so let's publicise it in a forum that may have a lot of Wikipedia editors present". It might make a difference, it might not. I have strong feelings on this subject but only discovered a few days ago that there was even a controversy, thanks to a friend complaining that he accidentally got spoiled on something. How many others out there like me are there, who would weigh in if only this issue had been better publicised (such as on the spoiler tag itself before the mass removals)? Who knows! Philip Reuben 12:14, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I find posting it on slashdot a strange variation, but the point is that he wants attention to this issue, so that you can get a clear view of how the community as a whole sees it, as opposed just to those violently interested in the Spoiler issue. Most users of wikipedia aren't active wikipedia editors who take interest in such things. Cayafas 12:15, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

The mass changes were carried out over a period of about four weeks. There has been absolutely no significant opposition before, during or since. --Tony Sidaway 16:41, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I'd hope that most of us see through your rhetoric on this point by now, having seen the huge amount of argument during and after (in the MfD, RfC, RfM, spoiler template talk page and this talk page both recently and in the archives - I'm too lazy to hunt for links to all these right now, but you've certainly seen them all), as well as the many pages where editors reverted the changes made during this time (only to have them reverted again by the same few editors, of course). Philip Reuben 18:19, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

"Absolutely ... no significant...." (David Spalding (☎ ✉ ✍) falls out of his chair, laughing himself to tears.)

No spoiler tags on anything? What an excellent idea!

So this is why I had the movie Die Hard partially spoiled for me before I realized what I was reading. Because some people think that spoiler warnings aren't needed!

Thanks, Wikipedia! Eztli 09:32, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Warning: Wikipedia may contain information. If you do not wish to learn, do not read it. >Radiant< 10:36, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Warning: People may want information other than the plot of a work of fiction. Cayafas 12:07, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Every post like this is further evidence that Wikipedia users prefer the use of spoiler tags. Philip Reuben 12:11, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Not really. For all anyone knows, there could be ten others who encountered the same thing and shrugged it off. They AREN'T going to goto any page and say "Hey! I learned something! Thanks for not trying to warm me off!". You're basically trying to proove a negative here. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 12:17, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

It may seem unbelievable to some, but going to a WP:Spoiler page to complain about the cause of spoilertag-deletion is not a basic instinct. That fact that we see people doing this DOES say something. Every complaint actively made here is positive proof of discontent. Cayafas 12:21, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Whoever comes here is indeed in the minority. But we can't prove anything by casual users coming here and saying "I didn't like it", because as Melodia pointed out its hardly a good sample of any reliability. In other words, don't try and use statistics when the pool isn't surefire to begin with. The data and thus the conclusions will be erroneous. David Fuchs 12:52, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Hence the need to get this issue out to the general public. Because frankly, these polarised discussions by a few people aren't a really good sample pool either - and neither were the polls that stood at the base of this policy. That being said, each and every post of this DOES illustrate the pro-spoilertag group's point: There is very likely to be a sizeable portion of the population who dislikes WP:Spoiler. The only way to check if this is indeed a silly, vocal minority, or just the tip of the iceberg of a large, silent majority - is by getting attention to this issue. Cayafas 12:59, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

While I said evidence rather than proof, I do feel that each of these comments holds more weight than simply "one person disapproved". Most Wikipedia users don't edit Wikipedia, many who do will keep their complaint silent rather than writing it down, and for all we know some of those might put their complaint in that article's talk page where none of us will see it rather than actively seeking out the non-linked article about spoiler tags. Also, if the numbers are large enough, some who would fall into the latter category will inevitably have been lucky enough so far to avoid unmarked spoilers. I agree with Cayafas that publicising this issue to get a better perspective on the numbers is very important. Philip Reuben 13:09, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Several of you have succeeded in changing my perspective on the Plot/synopsis/storyline sections, that is, spoiler tags are indeed redundant. I put on a "usability" cap and found that a diligent reader landing on a film article (my own area of interest and active participation) will likely expect to have the plot, down to surprises and twists, discussed in in a NPOV voice, IN THAT SECTION. Anyone with a moderate education can scroll past that section if s/he wishes not to learn about plot turns. Case in point, last night I watched Blood Diamond (film), and found the trailers did not adequately prepare me for the suspense and ambiguity about the characters' (Donny, Maddy(?)) motivations and goals. The film held me in suspense. But the Plot section of a WP article will probably provide the action points (and not make OR suppositions about character motivation or intentions). I still remain convinced of the spoiler tags validity in other sections where a casual (not regular) WP reader might not expect to find plot details or surprises.

I say this to a) add some moderate perspective to the continuing issue, and b) reassure some of the anti-spoiler parties that you can, and do, make compelling arguments to your POV so long as such arguments are not backed up with radical and controversial editing actions. ;) David Spalding (☎ ✉ ✍) 15:31, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

"Warning: Wikipedia may contain information. If you do not wish to learn, do not read it." What use is information if it is unwanted? How does a spoiler warning reduce the availible information?

Explanation of reverts

Due to an unusual flurry of ill-advised edits during what's the night over here, I've had to largely revert the last eight or so edits. A couple specific reasons.

The change to the nutshell does not reflect what the guideline says, and is an attempt to alter the meaning of the page away from the version that has consensus.
The removal of "Wikipedia aspires to be a scholarly reference work" is simply in error. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Encyclopedias are scholarly works.
Scholarly works do not warn about spoilers in online journals either.
IMDB is not a good comparison here. For one thing, we do not publish reviews, and so the comparison to publishers of reviews is immaterial. For another, IMDB is a fan/industry publication, not a scholarly one. Sight & Sound remains the relevant comparison here.

I did keep Nydas's reworking of the "other methods" section, and some of the nutshell reworking, including the removal of the suggestiont hat consensus must be obtained before making an edit. WP:BOLD says otherwise, and if nobody objects no consensus is needed. Phil Sandifer 13:34, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

That edit seems good to me. The loss of focus due to last night's edits was palpable. The guideline should reflect actual practice and correctly describe the nature of our project. Comparing it to the likes of imdb in particular is inappropriate. --Tony Sidaway 13:58, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Out of general interest, didn't you say days ago that you'd be leaving this discussion and "go write a fucking encyclopedia"? --Kizor 13:38, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm not clear on what makes Sight & Sound a "scholarly work". As far as I can tell from the website itself and the Wikipedia article, it is a magazine that publishes reviews. Philip Reuben 13:50, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Sight and Sound is a magazine dedicated to serious commentary on film, published by the BFI, which (like British universities) holds a Royal Charter. Incidentally we should probably remove the lists of films from our article on that magazine, because the BFI probably owns the copyright.--Tony Sidaway 14:06, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm looking at the article for Royal Charter and finding nothing than inherently suggests a work published by an organisation with a Royal Charter is scholarly. The BBC has a Royal Charter, but that doesn't mean Doctor Who or (to give a publication) the Radio Times is a scholarly work. This leaves the suggestion that it deals with "serious commentary on film", which is an entirely POV declaration both in itself and because it suggests that any "serious commentary" is necessarily scholarly. The Sight & Sound page calls it a magazine that publishes reviews, and it should be treated as such on this page as well. Philip Reuben 14:20, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I didn't make my point clear. That Sight and Sound is a serious publication is evident. A more appropriate BBC comparison would be with the now-defunct magazine, The Listener. Radio Times is merely a listings magazine. --Tony Sidaway 14:49, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I don't see that you're making a point at all. Which of these new items suggests that Sight & Sound is a scholarly work? Philip Reuben 14:54, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

That it is a serious work is evident. I won't entertain quibbles about the applicability of words like "scholarly". --Tony Sidaway 15:07, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Accordingly, I've changed the word "scholarly" to "serious" in the guideline. --Tony Sidaway 15:12, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

You edited before I made my reply below. I still take issue with the idea that Sight & Sound is exempt from the "reviews" clause (though you're free to disagree with Phil Sandifer's original statement that "we do not publish reviews, and so the comparison to publishers of reviews is immaterial"). Also, I feel that the word "serious" is a vague and far-reaching term of little relevance to Wikipedia and its goals, and find it much less suitable to the article than "scholarly". I propose that it should be changed back. Our priority should not be rewording the article to justify an unsuitable reference. Philip Reuben 15:19, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

It's not a quibble, it's crucial to whether the reference is included in the article or not. It's only a relevant example to the sentence:

If [scholarly works] do [warn about spoilers], they often avoid terms such as "spoiler"

if it is actually a scholarly work. Also, Phil Sandifer says that "we do not publish reviews, and so the comparison to publishers of reviews is immaterial", and both Wikipedia's Sight & Sound page and the Sight & Sound website state in no uncertain terms that Sight & Sound publishes reviews. The comparison to Sight & Sound is therefore immaterial by his logic (and I am inclined to agree). Philip Reuben 15:16, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

As I say I think this is just a petty quibble. The wording makes perfect sense. It shows a serious publication that, while it does warn the reader, does not employ a silly and ugly neologism in doing so. --Tony Sidaway 15:19, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

You're not going to like my further argument over a single term here, since I only just noticed that the sentence in question states almost outright that Sight & Sound is a reference work when it is not, but in any case I still think this is a pertinent discussion about the content of the article.

The thing is, I don't object at all to the statement that "scholarly reference works (of the sort that Wikipedia aspires to be)" generally do not have spoiler tags. (And I still feel that "scholarly" is more appropriate than "serious" for this statement.) You would be hard-pressed to find a print encylopedia that has spoiler tags, even if the details and implications of that are open to debate. However, the statement following that is nonsense. It groups Sight & Sound into the category of "scholarly/serious reference works (of the sort that Wikipedia aspires to be)" when it is clearly neither, making it irrelevant to the point the paragraph is trying to make - that reference works treat spoiler tags a certain way, and that we should treat spoiler tags the same way as reference works. (I also object to the weasel word "often" when only one example is given.) Philip Reuben 16:04, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Check the cited page. It's clearly a work of reference, giving a full synopsis and production credits. --Tony Sidaway 16:20, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

BTW, the cited page clearly reads, Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists. So I'm unclear on what you're asserting here. That SIGHT & SOUND is a scholarly publication that DOES use spoiler notices, of a sort? David Spalding (☎ ✉ ✍) 17:14, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Well, providing that information about a film doesn't on its own make it a reference work. If you're saying that all that information about various films being collected in a manner that can searched for makes it a reference work, that applies to IMDB as well (in fact, I think it applies moreso to IMDB). IMDB, Wikipedia and Sight & Sound are all nothing alike, but it seems that all are reference works. What makes Sight & Sound "serious" while IMDB is not "serious"? Once again, I find the word "serious" to be vague, POV and inappropriate to this Wikipedia article. Philip Reuben 16:38, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Gentleman, perhaps we can soften the argument by comparing WP with other periodicals in which film theory articles (with reviews as garnishnig) are published like ... Film Comment, early-days Cinefantastique, and online sites published by the American Film Institute, The Criterion Collection essays, et al. WP is not like Rotten Tomatoes, clearly, and less a repository of data like IMDB. Just my two cents.... David Spalding (☎ ✉ ✍) 16:15, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm not so sure we can, since I don't see how any of those are relevant to the topic of "we should treat spoiler tags the same way as reference works" either. Philip Reuben 16:38, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

It's not that hard. Unless I'm distracted, the issue is whether scholarly works contain spoilers, and the general assumption is NO. Fetching examples of that is what we've digressed into. ... If you read a REVIEW of a Frank Capra film like American Madness, Meet John Doe, It's a Wonderful Life, you can reasonably expect that the critic will not divulge surprises. The purpose of the review is to get someone to see (or avoid) the film based on quality. But a scholarly article about Frank Capra's routine themes of degradation, despair, and redemption, will certainly include tidbits about the twists and turns that Longfellow Deeds and George Bailey endure. I believe the assertion is that WP articles on films fall into the latter camp, as film articles are discouraged from being "fan pieces" or "reviews." Film Comment and Cinefantastique are two periodicals that, back when I subscribed, discussed ALL plot points and did not feature ~~spoilers~~ spoiler warnings. -- Getting any clearer? David Spalding (☎ ✉ ✍) 17:09, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

No, that's not what I'm taking issue with at all. We're agreed that scholarly works don't use spoiler tags, the issue is whether the rare scholarly works that do include spoiler tags use the word "spoiler" when doing so. I see no evidence either way for the latter, because I don't see that the one example presented (Sight & Sound) is a scholarly work, or indeed a "serious reference work" (at least any more or less than, say, IMDB). Also, as a nitpick but something that I wish people would understand for the sake of clarity: "XYZ does not contain spoilers" means the opposite of you think it means. You mean it does not have spoiler tags (or warnings, notices, etc.) Philip Reuben 17:20, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I see you realised your error before I even finished my reply =) Philip Reuben 17:21, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I shouldn't be surprising anyone by quoting the guideline heading, "When editing this page, please ensure that your revision reflects consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on this page's talk page." Any edits which change the substance of the guideline (particularly in the opening nutshell) ought to be traced to Talk page discussions. For the most part they have. This topic has had enough hoopla over bold edits and bold actions (including outrage over article edits based on changes to the guideline that farflung editors hadn't been aware of),... it will be served well by a modicum of restraint and collaboration. Thanks,... David Spalding (☎ ✉ ✍) 16:06, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I'm going to object and say I think those edits belong.

While in some sense Wikipedia "aspires to be" like something else, that means Wikipedia aspires to have some general things in common with it. It doesn't, and can't, mean that Wikipedia aspires to be like it in every last detail. Using "Wikipedia aspires to be like these other works" to justify something as specific as "Wikipedia should not have spoiler warnings" is wrong--"Wikipedia aspires to be like..." is a general statement and doesn't have that level of specificity. It's like saying "Wikipedia aspires to be an unspecialized encyclopedia" and "unspecialized encyclopedias don't have articles about the Drake Equation". Or "Wikipedia aspires to be an encyclopedia" and "encyclopedias are sold by door to door salesmen for $500".

(And in fact, to say that Wikipedia aspires to be anything is poorly worded. Encyclopedias aren't people; they don't have aspirations. The people creating it do--but not all of those people aspire for it to be exactly the same thing, and quite a few do aspire for it to be something with spoiler warnings.) Ken Arromdee 17:49, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Where was the discussion about the inclusion of the WP:SCHOLARLY fluff? It looks a lot like personal wikiphilosophy masquerading as an established standard. As far as I can tell, it was dumped on the guideline without any discussion. [7]--Nydas^(Talk) 18:01, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I have re-removed the scholarly aspirations paragraph. As well as being devoid of support on this talk page, the only arguments being presented are the non-existent consensus and idiosyncratic opinions on what Wikipedia aspires to be.--Nydas^(Talk) 22:03, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

And I've reverted. Encyclopedias are scholarly. Whatever we may have revolutionized about encyclopedias, lowering their standards isn't one of them. The fact that the paragraph stood through multiple versions of the page and for a month suggests a level of support that merits more serious engagement than "nobody talked about it on the talk page." Phil Sandifer 22:05, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually, that particularly paragraph has been changed and removed quite a few times, if I remember correctly. --- RockMFR 22:10, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

It's pretty standard to discuss the desire of a written work in this fashion in literary studies - the exmaple that springs to mind most readily is W.J.T. Mitchell's book What Do Pictures Want. I agree that it's an odd formulation, but it's not an unreasonable one - particularly for a work like Wikipedia, where it's not entirely clear to me that it's sensible to talk about the aggregate desires of the editors as equivalent to what Wikipedia is doing. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. It aspires to be a good one, and part of that is a level of scholarly decorum. Phil Sandifer 22:24, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

My serious engagement is this; you are offering personal opinions with no basis in policy. Ken Arromdee is correct, it's no different from saying that 'scholarly works don't have hyperlinks' or 'encyclopedias don't have edit buttons'. The paragraph belongs on an essay or your user page, not passing itself off as some sort of established fact. There is no WP:SCHOLARLY.

The reason the paragraph has stood for so long is that you own the guideline; after all, you see no problem in reverting someone's good faith edits as 'ill-advised' or 'don't be dense'. There has been scant discussion of this part of the guideline, and your claims of 'silent consensus' have little weight. You could justify anything with them.--Nydas^(Talk) 22:33, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Nobody is suggesting that Wikipedia is identical to Britannica. But quality standards are not one of the things we changed about encyclopedias. There's no WP:SCHOLARLY because it's unnecessary and obvious. Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Encyclopedias are scholarly. The end. Phil Sandifer 22:37, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

I present this link that can be found on Wikipedia's encyclopedia page. Apparently, a scholarly encylopedia is a specific type of encylopedia (more specialised in a field), whereas according to this source at least, a general encylopedia like Britannica is "remedial". Philip Reuben 22:42, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, "scholarly encyclopedia" is an odd term, since all encyclopedias are scholarly in the sense that they adhere to basic scholarly standards of the fields they cover. (Which a remedial course in something would as well.) Certainly remedial is not the opposite of scholarly. Phil Sandifer 22:45, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

The standards and 'scholarliness' of Wikipedia do not magically entail an effective ban on spoiler tags. There is no policy claiming otherwise, and the paragraph should be removed as being misleading. If you want WP:SCHOLARLY to be a policy, write it up and get it accepted.--Nydas^(Talk) 07:52, 6 July 2007 (UTC)

I concur with the above comment. Also, as there is no consensus that the alerts should not be used at all, let's compromise and say it's recommended their use be minimized.

In Wikipedia articles, for purposes of style and clarity, it is recommended that the use of spoiler alerts be minimized, though they are acceptable when the editors working on an article have consensus for their inclusion.

That's a way we can say it without the WP:SCHOLARLY question, and based in policy. --Parzival418 _Hello 09:33, 6 July 2007 (UTC)