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