On Sun, Aug 29, 2010 at 6:29 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
I ask again: if the case came to you that one side was saying "we must do this to the article because someone with a financial interest asked us to" and the other was saying "we are an encyclopedia and this is an NPOV issue", what would your thinking be on the matter?
Sure, there may be a financial interest, but there can be an altruistic motivation as well. I agree we are an encyclopedia and need to include the ending, but I'm not convinced that spoiler *notices* are a NPOV issue because NPOV applies to the article text, not to disclaimers. For both the Stig issue and this one, there is (or will be, depending on a court case) coverage of this in reliable sources, so presumably the articles now mention this in some fashion, and that will serve as a de facto spoiler warning within the text of the article (as long as it appears before the ending or identity is revealed). In both cases, there has been independent commentary and coverage of the "secrecy" aspect of this, so saying within the article that XYZ have objected to the ending/identity being reveled, is a requirement of NPOV.
Carcharoth