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