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

[K P]

On 5/21/07, Skyring <skyring at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> 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



"It's entirely unclear how a fear of knowledge suits editing an
encyclopedia.
The whole thing is a spoiler"

Nicely said.  But it is the way of the web, or so it seems.

"WARNING: May contain information."

Even better.  I'm going to post this one on my lab partner's textbook--he
recently discovered that by reading the text he scores very high on all of
our tests, the tests being based mostly upon the text.  He was a bit
surprised by this....

KP