[WikiEN-l] Workable spoiler solution?

[Chris Howie]

Steve Summit wrote:
> Chris Howie wrote:
>> John Lee wrote:
>>> I like a related idea someone else brought up but was dismissed,
>>> though - find a way to mark information as spoilers, and display
>>> this information unless the user sets his preferences otherwise.
>>> (Or, alternatively, we could make the default of your proposal
>>> to display spoiler tags, and to hide them only if a user edits
>>> her settings accordingly.)
> 
> That's exactly what I was talking about.  The thing to be hidden
> is the spoiler warning tag, not the spoiler information itself.
> (And, yes, the default would be to display the spoiler warning tag.)

The text that I was replying to (see above) would permit hiding of the actual
information.  Not by default, but still.

>> Let's also put some tag around all profanity, because some people
>> might not appreciate that.
>>
>> Wikipedia is a place to get information.  It's not a babysitting
>> service, and it's not our job to decide what might offend or upset
>> our readers and what might not.
> 
> Sure it is.  There's no hard line between "babysitting service"
> and normal human politeness.  Some people -- even some of the
> people who edit here -- use the word "fuckin" in speech as often
> as others use "um" and "y'know".  So if it's not our job to
> decide what might offend or upset our readers and what might not,
> there's no reason we shouldn't use "fuckin" and "um" and "y'know"
> liberally in our articles.

Well that's somewhat of a stretch.  Hiding of information (as in the message I
replied to, not your proposal) seems quite different to me than simply not
using gratuitous profanity.

>> I can think of a few policies that could be read to both reject
>> this user-preferences notion and having the tags altogether.
>>
>> * [[WP:NOT]] censored.  We don't remove information from articles
>> because people don't like it,
> 
> And yet you're arguing for removing spoiler warnings because some
> people don't like them.

Information, not meta-information that can be used by people to censor the
content themselves.  Sure they could make a copy of the document and edit it
out themselves but we'd basically be making it easy for people to censor a
certain type of information in their own browser.  Of course we still provide
the information, so the project isn't being censored exactly, but it's pretty
close in my mind.  Censoring content and providing a simple avenue for people
to do so for themselves is not that different, and it borders on editorializing.

>> and this includes removing information by default despite
>> some setting that could be used to show it.
> 
> Nobody's talking about having the default flipped that way.

Fair enough, but even having it available seems wrong to me, as per the last
paragraph.

>> * [[WP:NOR]].  Whether something is or isn't a spoiler is purely original
>> research.  Sure it's a clerical tag.  But who decides what is a spoiler
>> and what isn't?  There's no source we can really point to on that topic.
>> (Yes, I know, common sense and all...)
> 
> Exactly.  Common sense and all.
> 
> NOR and RS are very nice tools for getting rid of stuff we don't
> like, but they don't apply to *everything*.  As Ken Arromdee was
> just pointing out in another thread, "Original research has
> nothing to do with meta decisions about article content."

When the meta-information being added has the strong potential of appearing to
be an editorial, that seems to me to fall into the bounds of original research.
 Who's to say what might be a spoiler... I mean some things not in spoiler tags
might upset some readers, but other tags readers might think are stupid to even
be in the article.

I guess what I'm saying is that even having spoiler tags around is going to
create many edit wars, especially with people removing them right now (which
I'm not exactly against, but I've been holding back on doing so myself for
now).  I'm wondering how much of this drama it will take before enough people
concede that these tags aren't worth the fuss.

>> And as a side note, we don't have a disclaimer on all of the medical
>> articles stating that information might be inaccurate.
> 
> Well, if you want to sling precedents, WP:WAX.

I thought these policies didn't apply to meta-discussions.  :P

But seriously, I'm just asking where our priorities are.  Averting people's
eyes from the juicy plot twist or not having people drinking the stuff under
the kitchen sink because some vandal at [[Flu treatment]] said it would cure it.

-- 
Chris Howie
http://www.chrishowie.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Crazycomputers

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