[WikiEN-l] Have we ever had a reader complaint of a lack of spoiler tags?

[Phil Sandifer]

On May 19, 2007, at 7:44 PM, Steve Summit wrote:

> That's a good point, but it's not the sort of thing I can imagine
> people complaining about.  (And in any case: we *do* generally
> have the warnings!  "See how good it works?"  This isn't a case
> of elephants in cherry trees.)
>

Nah. We only ever had spoiler tags on 45,000 articles. Trivia  
sections and fictional subjects make up far more than 2.5% of our  
articles.
>

> Conjecture isn't necessarily fallacious.  We are all, most of us,
> readers as well as editors.  The people who like spoiler warnings
> and argue for their retention are all, presumably, people who
> appreciate spoiler warnings in the text they read.  The set of
> people who appreciate them (and would mourn their passing) is
> clearly not empty.

I would have thought this, except everybody's arguments for spoiler  
warnings have been remarkably phrased in terms of hypothetical  
readers. Nobody has said "Actually, I would be surprised to find a  
spoiler in a section on the plot" or "Actually, this spoiler in this  
article ruined Buffy's finale for me." I do find this telling.

-Phil