On Nov 19, 2007 6:28 PM, Guy Chapman aka JzG
<guy.chapman(a)spamcop.net> wrote:
There
were so many, and in so many patently absurd places, that it does
look rather as if someone or group of people originally set out to
do what David and Phil did, only in reverse.
I mean, who in their right mind would include spoiler tags when
writing an article about a Shakespeare play, the Iliad or Dickens?
The kinds of editors who write those articles are typically not the
kind of people who would even think about a spoiler warning, in my
view.
The old version of the spoiler guideline, before mid-May, was written
and interpreted so as to support this wide proliferation. There was
even a small flap on the talk pages of various articles about
Shakespeare plays, fairy tales and the like. Entrenched custom, I
think.
For the most part I don't think editors read the guidelines, they just
read the text of the template. The key mistake was making a template
which said "plot details follow". People see that and think they're
supposed to put it in front of anything which contains plot details.
Yes, that includes Shakespeare.