Talk:The Mystery of the Stuttering Parrot

confusing plot summary
If the parrots have "vanished into thin air," then how do the investigators know what their messages were?

At the end, "the picture" is in the lead pipe. What picture???

(I read this book as a kid, but don't remember it well enough to improve this confusing summary.) 141.157.47.163 (talk) 06:06, 17 December 2007 (UTC)


 * Then you need to RESIGN your job immediately and re-read the entire series. Basket Feudalist 12:28, 14 January 2013 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by You Can Act Like A Man (talk • contribs)

Spoiler!
Well! This article is about as big a spoiler as I've ever seen on Wikipedia for any book - and I do wonder if it should be prefaced by a spoiler warning, as used to be common on Wikipedia.

I know Wikipedia simply gives information, and it's not censored for obscenity, offensiveness, controversy, or for spoiling the crux of novels. Fair enough - I accept that, and don't think the information should be removed. But perhaps it could be guarded by a spoiler warning before the crucial points, so that whose who don't want it spoilt can stop reading. If I hadn't already read the book and knew how it ended anyway, this would have *totally* spoiled it for me.

I know this has been raised before on other pages, and the usual response is that you shouldn't be reading the Wikipedia article on a book if you don't want to find out immediately all the relevant facts about it, including the ending. They say you are simply *asking* to be told the end if you read the article, that you must expect to find this information in an article about the book, so just stay away if you don't want the book spoilt, and it's your own fault if you go ahead and read the article and then have the book spoilt.

Well, maybe... but I can also see how some people might come here not wanting or expecting to have the main plot points spoiled, but may instead be looking for a review-type article that discusses things in more general (and non-spoiling) terms. Well, they may be simply wrong, and may be understanding the nature of Wikipedia wrongly - but, nonetheless, some readers may understand book articles thus, whether rightly or wrongly. I am very interested in reading books (largley science-fiction and related genres), and if I am not sure whether a book interests me, I myself often look for reviews to tell me a bit more about the book, but without spoiling it. Most reviews do not spoil books, and Wikipedia is very much out of line with normal practice in giving spoilers, especially without any kind of warning.

There is a well-established and -accepted convention against giving spoilers, or at least labelling spoilers that *are* given, and I really do think Wikipedia might consider changing its current policy, and reverting back to the policy that used to be common of labelling spoilers.

I guess one opinion has little chance of changing the entire policy of Wikipedia on such a point. But all the same, reading this article just prompted me to state my thoughts here. I think this would be a very good idea, and I cannot think of any significant drawbacks to it. M.J.E. (talk) 12:06, 10 March 2013 (UTC)

Sherlock's address
I forget if this is covered in the book or not (I read it many years ago), but the parrot's quote of "222B" is of course one off from Sherlock Holmes' address of 221B, both on Baker Street, though Sherlock is of course in London, not California. (Also - "California" is a big place, I'm sure there are many potential Baker Streets there. Seems like they'd need a little bit more info there.)  I feel like the address reference should be mentioned somewhere. Not sure why it's one-off, but it's clearly intentional. Lurlock (talk) 19:13, 2 February 2014 (UTC)

No references?
I just added one - but yes there should be more! :: Kevinalewis  : (Talk Page) /(Desk)  17:07, 23 December 2015 (UTC)