For the record, I don't have any strong opinions about spoiler warnings either way. However, this puzzled me: Brock Weller wrote: What if our readers find it useful to be able to read about something without having it spoiled for them? For example, long ago an otherwise forgettable writer named Merle Kessler gave away the secret at the heart of Citizen Kane as part of a minor joke. There was no warning. When I finally saw that movie, it was a restored print at the glorious [[Michigan Theater (Ann Arbor)]]. Every time Welles hinted at the central secret of the movie, all I could think was how amazing an experience it would have been -- had the movie not been ruined for me. Now I could imagine wanting to know something about Citizen Kane before seeing it, but without having the central mystery given away. Happily, [[Citizen Kane]] does a good job of that through careful writing. The article makes clear that a mystery is central to the plot, and the plot summary only gives away the goods at the end. You are unlikely to hit the secret accidentally. I think that careful work could legitimately be called coddling our readers, and I think that's great. The internet already has plenty of information. What we have is a well-organized and useful service to our readers. Going out of our way not to spoil Citizen Kane for them strikes me as just as valuable as not spoiling their lunch by including the actual shock materials on our [[Shock site]] pages. William

The film was written in such a way as to keep the fact secret until a particular point. If you already know the secret then you are seeing the film in a way other than that which the writer intended. If the film wasn't spoilt by knowing the secret early, why would the writer have bothered to keep it secret?

I wasn't talking about spoilers in Wikipedia. I was talking about the simple fact that spoilers do spoil stories. The email I was replying to wasn't just saying that Wikipedia shouldn't have spoiler warnings but that spoilers don't spoil stories, which is, quite frankly, complete nonsense.

Sure, but would the first time have been better had you been simply told the ending? Watching a film a second time and watching it for the first time having been told the ending are very different things.

Anthony wrote: I think that's a great thing for you to decide for yourself, and I have no issue with that. Some have expressed a view that we should decide that for all our readers, against the obvious wishes of the artists whose works we cover. I think that's a mistake, and a large one. William

Stan Shebs wrote: If I were suggesting that, it would indeed be foolish. Instead, I'm saying that the if Orson Welles thinks the best way to tell the Citizen Kane story is to create a mystery, we should not casually reveal it just because somebody thinks, as a couple of people on this list have suggested, that it's just as good either way. If that were to somehow make it impossible to write a decent article, sure, the artist can get lost. But at least in this case, good organization of the article and some careful writing is enough to keep somebody from accidentally having the mystery revealed. I'm not saying we should spoiler-safety on a pedestal above all else. But I am saying that some significant fraction of our readers haven't seen Citizen Kane but will, and would rather not accidentally learn the secret. If we can honor that, we should. Especially when the cost is a little extra elbow grease. William

On 6/21/07, William Pietri <william(a)scissor.com> wrote: You can create an article for those who haven't read the book (or watched the movie) and don't want to know the details about it. Or you can create an article for those who have read the book, plus those who don't plan to read the book, plus those who want to know more about the details before they read the book. You can't, in my opinion, create a good article that suits everyone.

=2E=20 The artists' obvious wishes are that you do not read an encyclopedia article on their work before you watch it. If they so wished, they would have provided one. --=20 Sean Barrett | No, Grasshopper! Carry hibachi by handles! sean(a)epoptic.com |

On Thu, 21 Jun 2007, Ray Saintonge wrote: I don't view a lot of 1941 films, so I don't know. I'd leave it to the people who do know, such as the people writing the articles about such films. And if anything, you're really arguing for no year limit at all. Yeah, it's from 1941--and that makes little difference in the existence of lots of people who haven't seen it.

I thought the whole point of Citizen Kane was that the meaning of "Rosebud" has absolutely nothing to do with the movie. It could have been anything and the movie would have been exactly the same. But maybe I just don't know what I'm talking about. "It seems to me that we can write a perfectly good encyclopedia while still respecting the both the artist's intent and the experience of readers." Frankly, I disagree. If you want to experience a movie the way the author intended it to be experienced for the first time, *don't read an article on the story beforehand*. To write a "perfectly good encyclopedia" article about Citizen Kane, or even about the movie's impact on society, without first making sure the reader knows the ending, is ridiculous. The only spoiler warning I'd support when it comes to something like Citizen Kane is one at or near the top of the article which says something to the effect of "IF YOU DON'T WANT TO READ SPOILERS ABOUT A MOVIE, DON'T READ WIKIPEDIA ARTICLES ABOUT THAT MOVIE". Anthony

If you just want the background, all you need to do is not read the summary. But if you are looking for a critical discussion, that would presuppose knowledge of the plot. On 6/21/07, William Pietri <william(a)scissor.com> wrote: -- David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.

Tony Sidaway wrote: Actually, I think a good encyclopaedia is capable of catering for all levels of literacy. This seems like a good time to trot out my usual mantra, with a little twist to it (see, I spoiled you there ;): "You don't read an encyclopaedia to learn stuff you already know: you read to learn stuff you didn't already know." What we have to bear in mind is that there are still a huge number of people---including but not limited to those younger than yourself, Tony, and indeed myself---who will not have seen "Citizen Kane". In fact I have not seen it myself; I cannot now see it in an "unspoiled" state because I have read our article. It would be a shame if we were to make a practice of deliberately ruining young people's "growing-up experience" by telling all the endings before they even get a chance to find out for themselves. I see these sarcastic lists of "well-known endings" and I wonder whether the writers realise just how stupid they are being: maybe they *are* obvious to anybody over a certain age. but before you ever reach that age, you've got to be younger first, and if all the mysteries are spoiled for you already, what chance have you of enjoying them? I have to say that some of the comments on this thread smack worryingly of the mean-spirited bastards who undertook the "Snape kills Dumbledore" campaign, driving past queues of people waiting to buy the book, deliberately giving away the "shock ending". We have to bear in mind that some items, like books and films, are not available to everybody at the same time: someone visiting our article on a book yet to be published where they live should not have the story thrust down their throats in the lede. We also have to bear in mind that if someone's first experience of Wikipedia is to ruin their enjoyment of something to which they were looking forward, they might well be unlikely to return. If you are the kind of person whose reaction is "good riddance" then I think you need to reconsider your attitude very carefully. -- View this message in context: http://www.nabble.com/Deleting-over-45000-items-tf3952544.html#a11256482 Sent from the English Wikipedia mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

On Wed, 20 Jun 2007, Anthony wrote: The spoiler warnings were added individually, by people creating articles and specifically deciding where a spoiler warning goes in that article. The spoiler warnings were deleted en masse by one or two people using automation software without reading the articles they were in. You don't see any difference between these two activities?

On Wed, 20 Jun 2007, Brock Weller wrote: Changing articles without reading them looks encyclopediac, while changing articles after reading them is silly? No offense, but if that's true, we're better off with silly.

On 6/21/07, Ken Arromdee <arromdee(a)rahul.net> wrote: Just to point out that tarring all folk with the same brush is not a good idea, I was one of those who spoke out in favour of removing most spoiler tags, but never endorsed automated or autopilotmated (is that a word?) removals. All removals of spoiler tags which I made were done after reading the article in question; I personally think a "hunt and destroy without thinking" approach is horrid for anything other than blatant vandalism and bad faith editing. Johnleemk

On Wed, 20 Jun 2007, Skander - wrote: I've already made the arguments for spoiler warnings in plot sections: 1) Not every plot element is a spoiler; it's entirely possible for a plot section to contain no spoilers. 2) Even if there were a spoiler in every plot section, spoiler warnings don't need to be put at the top. If the spoiler is at the bottom, put the warning inside the section near the bottom. The presence of the warning may be redundant, but its location isn't. 3) Good user interface design requires some redundancy. I could design a calendar that only names as many days of the week as the user can't figure out (i.e. only one day). I could design a deck of playing cards that doesn't have any numbers on it; after all, the user can count 7 clubs; why does he need a separate 7 and club symbol to tell him what he already knows? But these would be stupid.

es and e ation It is entirely untrue that "spoiler warnings were deleted en masse by one or two people using automation software without reading the articles they were in." Until that /doubtless-inadvertent certainly-completely-innocent/ error of fact is corrected, this discussion will have little or nothing to do with reality. --=20 Sean Barrett | Portions of this message were sean(a)epoptic.com | composed using a computer.

Ken Arromdee stated for the record: It was not done by "one or two people" -- there were dozens if not hundreds involved. It was not done by "people using automation software" unless you broaden "automation software" into meaninglessness -- I used a tabbed browser. It takes far less than one minute to determine that "Three Little Pigs," "Thousand Nights and a Night," and "Hamlet" do not need spoiler warnings. Using a more reasonable estimate of six seconds to scan an article to determine if the spoiler tag is there to protect some revelation on the order of someone dying in one of Shakespeare's tragedies, we find that 45000 articles can be corrected by 100 editors in (gasp) 45 minutes. There is no truth in your statement quoted above, and no point in further discussion. -- Sean Barrett | The complete list of sean(a)epoptic.com | everything on the Web: | 0 | 1

On 20/06/07, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote: I note also that although I tried not to hit any article twice, I did inadvertently in some cases, and those who wanted the spoilers on were not reluctant to tell me so on my talk page. These were erroneous and I did and do apologise for such cases. - d.

Tony Sidaway wrote: There's something to be said about putting a spoiler note on the ultimate fate of the universe. Since the death of Douglas Adams there's not likely to be many of us who know how it all ends. :-) The notices do remain in a number of places outside the article namespace. Notably, a lot of user pages use a tool box which includes the spoiler warning templates. Removing it from that tool box could avoid encouraging newbies from starting to add it all over again. Thanks. The ones that I removed were all done the old-fashioned way, but I never felt inspired to read through the endless cruft of old TV episode plots. Tolerant as I may be of others' cruft, I balk at the thought that it may be required reading. Ec

On Wed, 20 Jun 2007, Tony Sidaway wrote: I've argued against this like, I don't know, 20 times? Plot sections -- do not always contain spoilers -- when they do contain spoilers, may contain spoilers only in some places, so it makes sense to put a spoiler warning partway through the section (making the warning non-redundant since it provdes information about the location of the spoiler in the section) -- should contain spoiler warnings anyway merely for user interface consistency. I can just imagine you at Microsoft saying "everyone knows that you can close a program by clicking on the X in the corner, so take out that File/ Quit option."

Good plot summaries do. It's not much of a plot summary if it doesn't summarise the plot, is it?

True, but determining which are spoilers is very subjective, and those that are spoilers will be mixed up with those that aren't in any well written summary. Yes, you could put a spoiler warning half way through the summary allowing people to just read the beginning and not spoil the ending, but what really is the point? How many people are likely to want to know the beginning of the plot and not the end? (And people trying to decide if they want to watch the film don't count - they are looking for a blurb, not the first half of a plot summary, they serve very different purposes.)

On Jun 21, 2007, at 10:17 AM, Ken Arromdee wrote: Depends on your definition of spoiler. To the most spoiler averse, any plot element is a spoiler. I've been bitched out by people for revealing publicly available casting information about episodes of TV shows. What level of spoilerphobia do you want to accommodate? -Phil

On 6/20/07, Ken Arromdee <arromdee(a)rahul.net> wrote: I think you're mischaracterizing the activities. I for one have been removing spoiler warnings whenever I come across them for well over a year.

On Wed, 20 Jun 2007, Thomas Dalton wrote: But one of the problems is that if you're deleting tens of thousands of them at once, you're *not* going to be reading the article. It's not just that someone slipped up once and didn't read an article, it's that people consciously chose to avoid reading the articles so they could delete en masse. It's just not *possible* to delete tens of thousands of spoiler warnings and still read the articles, and anyone who deletes that way damn well knows it in advance. If it was just a slip up rather than a calculated action, it wouldn't be so bad.