[WikiEN-l] So what was the outcome of the spoilerwar?

[Matthew Brown]

On 5/31/07, Steve Bennett <stevagewp at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 5/31/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Net outcome: If your article needs {{spoiler}}, it's defective enough
> > it may as well be tagged {{cleanup}}.
>
> Is that a change to the guideline, or just your reading of the
> apparent consensus on the talk page? I'd obviously rather remove my
> own toenails than read the entire discussion, but I don't want to be
> totally ignorant.

David is exaggerating.  However, many of Wikipedia's articles on
fiction go into mind-numbing plot detail, thanks to an army of
contributors each of which has a little bit more to add (or, in some
cases, one obsessed fan).

> It's a real pity that I feel so strongly at odds with consensus. That
> hasn't happened for me with Wikipedia before. I do feel that there is
> a place for spoiler warning tags on most articles about fictional
> subjects, and I don't accept that "a plot summary inherently contains
> spoilers so don't read it if you don't want the spoilers".

For me, the convincing argument is that such warnings are nigh-on
never used in reference works elsewhere.  Spoiler warnings everywhere
were AFAIK a Usenet invention.

Of course, we're not necessarily bound by precedent, but that
precedent does make me believe that spoiler warnings have to justify
themselves rather convincingly.

-Matt