On Fri, 8 Feb 2008, Ben Yates wrote:
We decided against spoiler templates
Correction: The people who cared about spoiler templates decided against spoiler templates. The people who thought it was a nonissue didn't participate. It would be hugely dysfunctional to act as though that particular instance sets a binding precedent towards all future instances, even ones that -- like this, and decidedly unlike spoiler templates -- are important.
Spoiler templates were removed the same way as characters and episodes: Make edits to contested policies, and then use de-facto bots to remove tens of thousands of whatever the deletionist objects to, while avoiding meaningful discussion. Since deletion is far easier to automate than adding, and since the volume is so high that nobody could just reverse it, they won.
The result will probably be the same for characters and episodes too, of course, regardless of the outcome of the Arbcom case.