On 22 May 2007 at 14:29:38 +1000, Mark Gallagher m.g.gallagher@student.canberra.edu.au wrote:

I wouldn't look at Wikipedia if I wanted to avoid a spoiler, whether there was a spoiler warning or not. The warning is not effective. It doesn't assist those who you think will want it, and it serves only to annoy those who don't want it.

I, for one, avoided all Harry Potter related Wikipedia articles (and all other Potter-related things on the Internet) in the time from when the last Potter book came out until I was finished reading it, and was cautious about such things even for the few days prior to the book's release due to some early leaks of spoiler info. I expect to do the same with regard to the upcoming final book. In the book before that, I had actually been foolhardy enough to look at a thread in an online Potter web forum (that, as I recall, *did* have a spoiler warning in its title) and got a major spoiler for that book before I was finished reading it.

There were enough vandals putting Potter spoilers at the head of its article at the time that avoiding the whole section was the best idea for avoiding getting spoiled.