[WikiEN-l] Deleting over 45000 items

[Ray Saintonge]

Tony Sidaway wrote:

>I think this was a case that cried out for mass removal.  The
>opposition to the indiscriminate sprinkling of spoiler tags, often on
>grossly inappropriate locations such as on the biography of Roger
>Bacon and the article "Ultimate fate of the universe", which is
>primarily concerned with eschatology, was considerable, and most of
>the spoiler tags place on legitimate articles of fictional subjects
>immediately followed a self-explanatory section heading like "Plot",
>"Plot summary", or "Synopsis".
>
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. :-)

>Only a purge was acceptable in those circumstances.  The consensus for
>the purge can be measured by the fact that 45,000 spoiler tags died
>almost unmourned, and the former proliferation of spoiler tags can now
>be kept under control with ease  under the new guideline, which does
>permit them to be placed where it is reasonable to do so.
>
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.

>Finally we *are* an encyclopedia.  These trappings of the Usenet
>origins of many of our early editors are unfit for an encyclopedia and
>badly needed to be pensioned off.  Good riddance to them and, to those
>who did it, warm thanks for a job well done.
>
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