[WikiEN-l] "Wikipedia committee member"

[Carcharoth]

I think the default should be what we get now, completely open and
everyone sees everything. But there should be nothing stopping people
adding stuff to give readers options on how they view the content
using customised interfaces. Within reason, of course. If things are
properly semantically labelled, it is easier to give people that
choice.

About plot summaries, I agree that scrubbing plots is
counter-productive, but poor plot summaries are bad as well. Writing
about fiction is something that needs to be done well, not just to
provide a synopsis. And withholding information should never be done
unless there is a good reason. Trouble is, such discussions get bogged
down because people look at the extremes and think (rightly in some
cases) that even allowing a little bit of flexibility would be
starting down a slippery slope.

Carcharoth

On Tue, Aug 31, 2010 at 2:53 PM, Nathan <nawrich at gmail.com> wrote:
> The idea that we should hide or withhold obviously pertinent
> information - like the plot of a novel, movie, play, etc. in an
> article about same - has always struck me as anti-encyclopedia.
> Personally, I often look up articles on these subjects just to find
> out details of the plot... are you considering my needs as a reader
> when you make the paternalistic decision to scrub these articles of
> "spoilers"? I'm frustrated to find, on a regular basis, articles of
> this type stripped of all but the most general plot information -
> reduced, essentially, to the marketing blurbs put out by whoever
> publishes the content. Often you can find the plot information in the
> article history, and I've restored several of them, but who knows how
> many readers have come to the article hoping to see the plot and been
> disappointed by its absence? Encyclopedia articles ought to be
> comprehensive, and we rightly shoot down proposals aimed at the
> opposite.
>
> ~Nathan
>
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