[WikiEN-l] Reflections on the end of the spoiler wars

[joshua.zelinsky at yale.edu]

Quoting Philip Sandifer <snowspinner at gmail.com>:

>
> On Nov 16, 2007, at 11:53 AM, joshua.zelinsky at yale.edu wrote:
>
>> Quoting David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com>:
>>
>>> On 16/11/2007, Ken Arromdee <arromdee at rahul.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>> If the whole thing was limited to removing spoiler warnings from
>>>> nursery
>>>> rhymes, I wouldn't complain.  The typical article with a spoiler
>>>> warning
>>>> removed is not about a nursery rhyme, and you have to know this.
>>>
>>>
>>> No, the *typical* spoiler warning was one that warned that the ==Plot
>>> summary== might reveal important details about the plot.
>>
>> I don't think anyone is defending the spoiler warnings ahead of plot
>> summaries
>> either. However, given that, I'm having trouble thinking of what
>> sort of
>> spoiler uses the defenders are still in favor of. Examples might be
>> helpful.
>
> I'm glad you asked. Among the arguments *in all sincerity* advanced by
> advocates of spoiler warnings:
>
> 1) Returning spoiler warnings to all plot sections, because it is non-
> obvious that plot sections contain spoilers

Ok, this argument is clearly bad.

> 2) Recoding Wikipedia to have spoiler tags that can be hidden or shown
> via user preference (as opposed to via an ugly monobook setting,
> presumably)

Hmm, I don't see what is wrong with this option. I mean, the developers have
much higher priorities, but I don't see what is fundamentally bad about this
idea.

> 3) Polling about spoiler warnings in the site notice.

Obviously not such a good idea, that would be a complete free-for all. 
However,
it might actually give us some better idea about what the actual consensus is
(which I'm not convinced is clear yet)

> 4) Returning to the use of handmade spoiler tags because the TfD
> result is obviously a consensus to do it that way, and anyway then
> people can't find them via "what links here"

Also clearly bad.
> 5) Including spoiler warnings whenever a reviewer can be found who
> uses a spoiler warning because then it's sourced information and it
> can't be removed

This is just wikilawyering as phrased. But it wouldn't be such a bad 
idea to use
reviews as a rule of thumb for whether something should have a spoiler. That
would give a clear line for when to use spoiler tags (and would cut down
presumably on ones like Hamlet and the Three Little Pigs (although I've 
seen at
least one review of something where it mentioned that Romeo and Juliet 
die as a
"spoiler"- but I think that was intended to be a joke).

>
> When I describe the utter repetitive frustration of dealing with this
> for six months, I am not exaggerating. Policy formation should not be
> that tortuous.

Well, yes it should be. See the whole notion of Madisonian gridlock. If 
we don't
have consensus we don't have consensus.

But what I'd really like to see is if someone who is a proponent of spoiler
warnings could give us a few examples of where they'd want spoiler warnings
where the warnings were not simply bracketing a plot section. Is anyone up to
that?