It seems that all people have to do is abuse a system for something it wasn't supposed to do to have it deleted. (WP:PAN, WP:ESP, etc) After trawling half the discussion I found the following exchange in the MFD.
We did discuss organizing articles around spoilers, and everyone thought it was a bad idea... It gives undue weight, it can restrict the format, etc. *A misuse of the spoiler template does not speak for the concept itself.* -- Ned Scott http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ned_Scott 05:20, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
- Which is why, notably, I nominated the policy instead of the template. There may well be something useful that can be done with a spoiler template, but a policy mandating that spoilers be hidden after templates, outside of section headers, etc. is a policy mandating that articles be written badly. Phil Sandiferhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Phil_Sandifer05:25, 16 May 2007 (UTC) - But I'm pointing this out more in response to some of the other comments I've been reading, and not so much on the one you've brought up. And also, I have no problem with continued discussion. -- Ned Scotthttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ned_Scott05:22, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
I have to wonder. Isn't Phil scared deleting the policy/guideline is going to open up the issue to more abuse? Instead of deleting what we have, I think it would make sense to attempt to alter the page. "Sensible lead writing thrumps protection against spoilers." should definitely be kept in there, but we should somehow list the useful uses of the template. Plot summaries are very likely to reveal important plot details, lists of characters less so, so those could use a warning template if those are included. Having them doesn't insult the reader if they're used correctly (as per my example) and it isn't censoring either. Instead of putting all of these possible examples in one pile, try finding proper uses and rewrite the guidelines around that.
Mgm