On Wed, 16 May 2007, Daniel R. Tobias wrote:
In fact, saying that Bruce Wayne is Batman is a
spoiler... of the
original Batman story in Detective Comics #27 (May 1939), "The Case
of the Chemical Syndicate", in which that fact is not revealed until
the final panel.
We need a policy WP:COMMONSENSE.
It's extremely unlikely that anyone would begin reading Batman stories while
1) not knowing Bruce Wayne is Batman and 2) starting their reading with
Detective #27. On the other hand, it's far more likely that someone would
begin watching Babylon 5 not already knowing who Valen is, and that they'd
watch it in a way that the revelation is a surprise. It's *possible* that
either the Batman or Valen article could spoil someone, but one possibility
is vanishingly unlikely and the other isn't.
This is another case which proves that robotically applying a rule is bad.
But that doesn't mean the rule itself is bad. It just means that it needs
human judgment to use.