On 5/20/07, David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
Summarizing a plot line from an outside source or re-writing it in one's own words also affects the meaning, and listing the outside source it was based on does not necessarily make it any the more objective. I know we make the distinction, but in practice the distinction when applied to straightforward description is a little artificial; even when direct quotes are used, the selection of the quotes can be used to change the intent.
Well, yes, but that is editorial judgment - any synthesis of secondary sources is such. Adding extraneous information not found in the sources goes beyond mere editing and becomes creative writing - which may be beneficial, but runs foul of [[WP:OR]]. How do we determine what is a spoiler and what is not? It is purely a subjective judgment call (rather than actual editorial judgment, which assumes there is a source to base our editing on) unless there are sources which explicitly consider particular information to be spoilers.
Johnleemk