On Nov 19, 2007 6:28 PM, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
There were so many, and in so many patently absurd places, that it does look rather as if someone or group of people originally set out to do what David and Phil did, only in reverse.
I mean, who in their right mind would include spoiler tags when writing an article about a Shakespeare play, the Iliad or Dickens? The kinds of editors who write those articles are typically not the kind of people who would even think about a spoiler warning, in my view.
The old version of the spoiler guideline, before mid-May, was written and interpreted so as to support this wide proliferation. There was even a small flap on the talk pages of various articles about Shakespeare plays, fairy tales and the like. Entrenched custom, I think.