Talk:The Hounds of Baskerville

Spoiler in lead section
I know Wikipedia policy is to be quite liberal with spoilers, putting completeness first. But, even with that in mind, I would say that putting the solution to the mystery of a whodunit in the lead section might be a bit too much. It read: "In the conclusion it is revealed that the hound was a hallucinogenic manifestation of a chemical weapon created by Henry's father's real murderer, Doctor Robert Frankland."

It's hardly unreasonable that someone might want to read the lead section of an article without wanting the ending spoiled - especially since the ending is not all that interesting in itself. Furthermore, the word 'hallucinogenic' is hard to miss, and reading it gives everything away - by contrast with, say: "In the conclusion Darth Vader reveals to Luke Skywalker that he is, in fact, his father", where one would have to read the whole sentence to learn anything. Dan


 * Regarding WP:SPOILER, the instruction appears to be: "It is not acceptable to delete information from an article because you think it spoils the plot. Such concerns must not interfere with neutral point of view, encyclopedic tone, completeness, or any other element of article quality (for example, the lead section). When including spoilers, editors should make sure that an encyclopedic purpose is being served."
 * Clearly, this is not a mandate to include spoilers everywhere in the article without some good justification - thus, on occasion, deleting a spoiler because it is a spoiler isn't necessarily wrong. For one thing, no information was deleted - the solution to the mystery appears in the Plot Summary as well. Nor is there any 'encyclopedic purpose' being served. For instance, if it were the case that in this episode, Dr. Watson were to die, it might be justified to include this fact in the lead section - someone might want to know that this is the final episode in which Martin Freeman will star, without being interested in the plot itself. By contrast, the fact that the hounds were hallucinations is of no consequence whatsoever outside the episode itself - they could well have been aliens without any great bearing on the series as a whole.
 * All in all, as far as I can tell, the spirit of WP:SPOILER is that spoilers should not be taken into consideration when improving and article - but for this to hold, there must be a genuine improvement. If I rewrote the Lead Section of The Sixth Sense as "The film tells the story of Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment), a troubled, isolated boy who is able to see and talk to the dead, and the phantom of a deceased man (Bruce Willis), who tries to help him", this would likely be quickly reverted, and justifiably so. Dan — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.83.183.130 (talk) 16:40, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
 * "It is not acceptable to delete information from an article because you think it spoils the plot." That explains everything. All your reasons involve "spoiling the plot". That's just your opinion and is not a good enough reason. Please provide a WP:NPOV reason. DonQuixote (talk) 16:47, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Thank you for posting here. For one thing, no, WP:SP does not explain everything. Your argument could be equally well used to support my proposed change to The Sixth Sense - would you genuinely hold that such an edit would be adequate?
 * But even leaving The Sixth Sense alone, let us consider whodunits in general. Take some at random, plus the source of this episode: The Hound of the Baskervilles, Curtain (novel), And Then There Were None, A Study in Scarlet, A Study in Pink. none have any spoilers in the Lead Section, with one notable exception - for Curtain, we are told: "The final chapters of the novel tell of the death of Hercule Poirot." Which would pretty much agree with what I proposed - Poirot's death is an event that has some general importance, whereas the identity of a particular novel's murderer is only relevant within the context of that particular novel.
 * Returning to WP:SP, the criterion for including a spoiler should be that it has some encyclopedic purpose. Now, 'encyclopedic' is a vague word, but if something is not found in the vast majority of Wikipedia articles, then surely it cannot be said to have an encyclopedic purpose. Unless, of course, you would hold that Wikipedia is severely defective, and this particular article is a shining beacon of truth in a sea of censorship and lies. I would find that rather absurd.Dan — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.83.183.130 (talk) 17:10, 29 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Again, this is all your POV and is subjective. Please provide a reason that is not subjective (WP:NPOV). Also, other articles (WP:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS) doing things a certain way is irrelevant unless those things follow a manual of style or other guidelines. Finally, the intro is for summarising the entire article, and it's fine as it is currently written, spoilers and all. Please provide a reason for removing a single sentence from a short synopsis of the plot that does not involve WP:SPOILER. DonQuixote (talk) 01:31, 30 December 2012 (UTC)
 * It seems to me that the citation to WP:Spoiler is about removing information from an article, and the debate here is about removing information from the lead that is still found in the article's Plot section. Is not this a case of talking past one another? DonQuixote is correct that the information should not be excised merely to prevent spoilage, but that doesn't seem to require that it be in multiple places and that the lead be one of those. Czrisher (talk) 01:56, 30 December 2012 (UTC)
 * DonQuixote, WP:OSE does in fact say that: <> As Czrisher correctly argues, WP:Spoiler does not give a clear answer in this case, since it is not about removing information altogether, but rather, about moving it around. Of course it is going to be based on subjective arguments, because we are all agreed on the hard facts - what the plot is - and we disagree about how this can be presented in the most elegant manner. There is no way whatsoever to escape subjectivity here. Quite reasonably, the first port of call should be the Manual of Style - and it says nothing about whether the entire plot should be summarised in the lead section. Arguing that this is a good idea seems rather bizarre, given that the very next section of the article is the Plot Summary. Then, the second port of call should be precedent - i.e. how this issue is approached in general, and in particular where such debates have already taken place. Watchmen (film) is an example of an article where it seems to have been agreed that spoilers be removed from the Lead Section - please check the Talk archives. Dan — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.83.183.130 (talk) 13:17, 30 December 2012 (UTC)
 * If the argument involves "how to present the plot elegantly", then that's something that can be discussed. Feel free to do so.
 * And I'm not arguing that such-and-such is a good idea, rather I'm saying that "spoils the plot" is a bad argument. And as for items being repeated in the lede, that's the purpose of the lede (short summary of the article proper), and thus can't be avoided. How to best summarise the article proper (including summarising the plot, etc.) can be discussed. Feel free to do so, keeping in mind that "spoils the plot" doesn't hold much weight.
 * Also, I can't seem to find the discussion at Watchmen (film), can you point to where it is? DonQuixote (talk) 14:49, 30 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Sorry, it was in fact the Watchman discussion archive. Meanwhile, I rewrote the plot summary, without removing any information save for the murderer's name. The reason being that the murderer's name is an entirely superfluous bit of information in the lead section, given that we are told nothing else about him until the plot summary.92.83.183.130 (talk) 21:45, 30 December 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the link. And, yes, that is a bit superfluous. DonQuixote (talk) 14:47, 31 December 2012 (UTC)

Poor grammar
The page has many instances of poor grammar, with a lot of it reading as if it were translated from another language.

Especially the background and writing part. Can anybody look into this?

Silent Nemesis2710 (talk) 12:01, 11 May 2012 (UTC)
 * Why don't you? Anyone can edit Wikipedia. The JPS talk to me  12:05, 11 May 2012 (UTC)

Movie sequences inside the movie
Is there a reference or copyright, where the three outtakes (Henry watching TV) come from? They look like other 'Hound of Baskerville'-productions. Skasperl (talk) 19:25, 30 December 2013 (UTC)

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