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

[Skyring]

On 5/20/07, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:

Surely one would expect ==Plot summary== to contain plot elements in
an encyclopedic manner.

It's entirely unclear how a fear of knowledge suits editing an encyclopedia.
The whole thing is a spoiler. If I turn to an article on a World Series
game just concluded, I will see the result because some enthusiastic
editor/fan has just put it there, even if I have it recorded the game for my
later consumption and delight, and merely turned to the article to get the
lineup.

Cliff's Notes, texts on Shakespeare, even reviews of current films and
novels, all contain plot details, with never a spoiler warning in sight.
Reviews in newspapers and magazines might OMIT key items and outcomes so as
not to ruin plot twists, but they never put up spoiler warnings for the
details they give away.

On my own head be it if I look up a film and find out that the butler did
it, or that Hamlet dies in the final scene.

I have encountered spoiler warnings in online discussion groups about
current television series of the opus of an author, but in such groups, many
participants have not seen or read all the material, and (more to the point)
a warning is placed so that they don't open or read a post, when they might
read many others from the same source.

What person, I ask, what thinking person is going to go to an article on
Harry Potter and the Order of the Boot and be surprised to find plot details
freely given away? Surely they would expect the plot to be described and
would be righteously indignant if we didn't describe it. Are we writing an
encyclopaedia for cretins?

-- 
Peter in Canberra