[WikiEN-l] {{spoiler}} vs. writing a goddamn encyclopedia

Todd Allen toddmallen at gmail.com
Fri May 18 20:37:08 UTC 2007


On 5/18/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 18/05/07, Matthew Brown <morven at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > True consistency would have every article on Wikipedia having a
> > spoiler warning, just in case, and a half-dozen others as well.
>
>
> Literally every page on Wikipedia has a link to [[Wikipedia:General
> disclaimer]], which links to [[Wikipedia:Content disclaimer]], which
> proclaims in big letters at the top:
>
> WIKIPEDIA CONTAINS SPOILERS AND CONTENT YOU MAY FIND OBJECTIONABLE
>
>
> - d.
>
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And that's all we need. We don't have warnings to say "THIS ARTICLE
CONTAINS ANATOMICALLY CORRECT IMAGES OF HUMAN GENITALIA", and we don't
need any to say "THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS A SPOILER." If you go looking
for information on a work of fiction -anywhere- besides sites which
you clearly know avoid spoilers, you may get a faceful of spoiler.
That's true whether it's Wikipedia, a forum, or anything else. Our job
is not as a film-review or film-recommendation site, it is as an
encyclopedia. And those discuss works of fiction in full without
spoiler warnings.

-- 
Freedom is the right to say that 2+2=4. From this all else follows.



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