Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Wikipedia policies and guidelines/Wikipedia:Spoiler warning/When is a spoiler appropriate?

When *is* a spoiler appropriate?
Looking at the above, these are the places it isn't:


 * 1) Anywhere under a Plot, Summary, Synopsis, Story or similar header
 * 2) arguably from this, anywhere the spoiler content should be under such a header
 * 3) Articles about fictional characters - no-one would look them up without knowing the stories
 * 4) Any article where almost the entire article would have to go under a spoiler
 * 5) Fairy tales, Shakespeare, classical mythology or similar cultural canon, under the proviso of "don't be stupid"

What's left? - David Gerard 16:21, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Excellent question. I'm curious myself.  --&mdash; Δαίδαλος  Σ  Σ  16:23, 17 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I do not see consensus above for "Anywhere under a Plot, Summary, Synopsis, Story or similar header" and i don't agree with "Articles about fictional characters" as an abdolute principle. In most cases this is true, but when a character is featured in multiple works and information on the cahracter page reveals a key plot twist in one of those (as for example info on the page about Hercule Poirot spoiling the novel Curtin) then a spoierl tag may be appropriate. DES (talk) 16:25, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
 * DESiegel makes such an excellent point that I think it bears repeating. Suppose a new fan of a work of fiction looks up a character in a series -- frequently, one of the first items in the entry will be when the character was introduced, as well as when that character was killed off.  But supposing the new fan hasn't gotten far enough into the series to know that.  Who wants to remove our ability to "cordon off" that information?  Otherwise, we must caution all WP users to only read articles about e.g. a TV show (or a character on a TV show) if they have watched every episode of the entire run, lest they ruin an ending for themselves.  Can anyone doubt that at least *some* people would stop reading WP about TV shows altogether?  Again, I cite WP:IAR -- clearly, any modification of policy that causes people to stop reading WP has a hard time making a case that it's "improving" WP. 144.51.111.1 16:36, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
 * By that argument we ought to tag all articles which contain potentially spoilery information, no matter how old the work is (indeed, I think I would have enjoyed Citizen Kane more the first time I saw it had I not known in advance what "Rosebud" was, even though it was ~60 years after the movie had been released that I saw it). Yet most if not all of the pro-spoiler-warning people here are arguing that classics/Shakespeare/the Bible/etc. should not be spoiler tagged.  How do you reconcile that discrepancy?
 * And no, I don't think avoiding spoiler warnings will cause people to stop reading Wikipedia. Having spoilers may cause people to stop reading Wikipedia, but there seems to be a broad consensus here that having the spoilers in the article is a good thing, it's just a question of whether they should be tagged as such or not.  Suppose we do eventually come to a consensus that spoiler warnings should be used.  And suppose that a reader hasn't seen The Sixth Sense and wishes to remain unspoiled for it.  What is that reader more likely to do: look up the article, saying to himself, "any spoilers will be appropriately tagged, and thus I can safely read untagged portions of the article?"  Or will he say, "even though Wikipedia has a spoiler-tagging guideline, some spoilers may not be appropriately tagged, either due to oversight on the part of the editors or to vandals," and not look up the article at all?  Spoiler-tagging parts of the article on The Sixth Sense isn't going to somehow attract readers who wish to remain unspoiled for that movie. Chuck 17:10, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
 * I've changed your bullets to numbers for our convenience in discussing them. I hope I haven't overstepped my bounds in doing so.
 * Re. 1: I don't see how one line under the plot header is such a bad thing, but I'll consider that most of us seem to have agreed on this.
 * Re. 1.1: I don't think I understand your phrasing.
 * Re. 2: I have nothing to contribute on this point.
 * Re. 3: I'm guessing this is the provision for The Crying Game and such?
 * Re. 4: I disagree with this at least in part, do not think that I am alone in this, and do not appreciate being called stupid. I'll go into more detail on this last point shortly, as I don't want to type too long and get another edit conflict. — The Storm Surfer 16:47, 17 May 2007 (UTC)  On second thought I probably won't. — The Storm Surfer 17:23, 17 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Off the top of my head, there are "Themes." The reader cannot know whether or not such a section has spoilers, and to what extent. It's feasible both with or without it. So's "Reception" - if, say, a particularily gory scene is fundamental to the splash caused by a movie, it has to be covered in discussion about reception, but other works have spoilerless versions of such sections. --Kizor 21:47, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

It may certainly be useful to divide the issue into a number of areas where spoilers have been used and then assess 1)where there is consensus that they should normally be used (if anywhere) 2) Where there is consensus they should not be used (if anywhere) 3) where there is no consensus either way. We might then be able to develop a policy that said:
 * 1) Spoilers should be used if.....(perhaps just released works, or this section may be empty unless there is a consensus that there are any such cases)
 * 2) Never use spoilers on (e.g. Shakesphere, fairytales, English literature?, works over x number of years old?, where it is obvious that the plot is gong to be described.)
 * 3) What you should do where there is no general consensus. Which probably means discussion on case-by-case with those working on the article - but no outside 'enforcement' either way. An AD/CE style truce.--Docg 16:39, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I think part of the problem with #4 is an (understandable) concern of, shall we say, vertigo. That is to say, it is simply more jarring to have a neologism like "spoiler" tossed onto Romeo and Juliet than it is to have it tossed on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. "Spoiler" isn't part of the language used to discuss these older texts, and there's something.... fundamentally uunnerving about seeing the word used on texts that old. Phil Sandifer 17:15, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

And as for when spoilers should be used, I can see a good justification for using them for articles on television series currently airing, movies still in wide release, etc. Though even then, I am fundamentally uncomfortable about the neologism... Phil Sandifer 17:15, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

I support the use of soilers directly before reveling the twist-ending/shocking fact, the spoiling of which would likley cause substantially diminishment the enjoyment of the reader, of fiction within a short but arbitrary time period after the initial-release of said movie or book. For example, mentioning that Snape Killed Dumbledore is fine now, but would have required a spoiler tag for, lets say, 2 months after the english language release of the book (english because we are en). There. 2 months, twist/shocking only, fiction only, would likley cause substantial diminishment. We have a guideline. Next? Hipocrite - &laquo; Talk &raquo; 17:45, 17 May 2007 (UTC)


 * "Soilers" (sic) I love it.--Docg 18:18, 17 May 2007 (UTC)


 * THAT I can agree with, to a point. I am fundamentally against inserting something that will only serve a function for a short-term period, but this is perhaps the first proposal aside from outright deletion that I can accept.  --&mdash; Δαίδαλος  Σ  Σ  17:53, 17 May 2007 (UTC)


 * BTW: "Snape kills Dumbledore" is not that much of a spoiler. Why he does, how he does and (this is a spoiler) whether he in fact does may well be - David Gerard 22:52, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

Be careful
I suggest that spoiler warnings be used if there's a good chance that someone reading the article doesn't know about the spoiler and doesn't want to hear it.

If you adopt that rule, we could delete the warnings from articles like The Three Little Pigs or Romeo and Juliet, while not making any changes to articles like Valen. From the discussion, both here and on the wikien mailing list, I get the strong impression that people who want to remove spoilers want to remove them from examples that are a *lot* more controversial than Romeo and Juliet and are choosing their examples carefully to make their position seem more moderate than it really is.

I caution everyone not to interpret a consensus at removing spoiler warnings from My Pet Goat as a consensus to remove spoiler warnings from everything more than a year old. Ken Arromdee 17:55, 17 May 2007 (UTC)


 * I support the removal of the ugly tag from Valen and believe that my proposal directly above makes that perfectly clear. This series ended more than 2 months ago, there is no "twist," and users who are spoiled are not "substantial[y] diminish[ed]." Hipocrite - &laquo; Talk &raquo; 18:07, 17 May 2007 (UTC)


 * What if a series is playing at different times in different countries?-- Nydas (Talk) 18:15, 17 May 2007 (UTC)


 * 2 months after it's first release in english. If there's a border case where the guideline isn't adapting to a unique case, WP:IAR. A series that ended 10 years ago isn't a border case, it's right down the center. Hipocrite - &laquo; Talk &raquo; 18:18, 17 May 2007 (UTC)


 * Why should the place where it's released first get the privilege of spoiler protection? It's better to work on a case by case basis than pull time periods out of a hat.-- Nydas (Talk) 19:55, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Its not the place, its the language. Of course there are cases where you could argue WP:IAR and say that since English speaking country X is getting the work released 1 month later then our guideline states, and that would be ok. I mean its more or less just using common sense, once its nolonger new there is no need to have these tags. Trust me, I know that Snape kills dumbledore by now... and I never even read it (I knew from in real life). There just is a point where its just no longer a spoiler. An arbitrary number like 2 or 3 months sounds about right.


 * I mean if we really want rules to cover every case, you could come up with something like, spoiler tags go off 2 months after first release, OR 1 month after last release in an english speaking country, but the total time is never to exceed a year. Tweak those numbers as you see fit. This would work for games that are released first in europe, and then take 3 months to make it to the states (U.S.). That would be 4 months our article would have the spoiler tag on it. ——  Eagle 101 Need help? 20:28, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Oh... and please keep these tags out of obvious sections such as plot. Thanks. ——  Eagle 101 Need help? 20:35, 17 May 2007 (UTC)#
 * Plot sections don't 'obviously' contain spoilers because not everyone is magically aware of how Wikipedia works. If one saw a plot section in a newspaper, magazine, film website, company website, or press release, you would not automatically know whether it contained spoilers.-- Nydas (Talk) 07:38, 18 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Valen's identity certainly is a "twist". It's one of the biggest twists of the whole series; just because it doesn't come at the end doesn't mean it's not a twist. Ken Arromdee 23:57, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Babylon 5 popularized what's known as a "Wham Episode", a sudden change of course in mid-plot. Twist? Very definitely. --Kizor 03:37, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

What is the rationale for 2 months other than "I don't like spoiler warnings so I want to see a time limit that lets me get rid of most of them"?

Not everyone watched Babylon 5 when it first aired. There are people watching it for the first time now, and they won't know who Valen is, and will not *want* to be told ahead of time. There's no reason to put any sort of time limit on spoiler warnings. Snape killing Dumbledore is an unusual case because Harry Potter is so high profile and that's such a big event in the series that even non-fans will have been exposed to some spoilers about the series. You can't go from Snape kills Dumbledore to spoiling the identity of Valen. Ken Arromdee 23:41, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
 * Please re-read what I said, the numbers are changeable, its the idea. Those numbers can be 6 months, and 3 months respectively with a 4 year limit. Frankly its just an idea :) Thanks. User:Gnome (Bot)-talk 23:58, 17 May 2007 (UTC)
 * 6 months is still too short for Babylon 5. If you need to compromise on a limit, how about "so old that it is not chiefly read as part of popular culture"?  That would be 50-100 years, and would still prevent people from putting spoiler warnings on Hamlet. Ken Arromdee 00:04, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

The issue with Valen seems to me not to be a matter of whether the revelation is still surprising - it's a damn fine twist. The issue is that the revelation is the heart and soul of the topic. Any lead section of Valen that does not mention who he really is just isn't doing a good job of introducing the article. It's misleading to introduce the topic without the spoiler in this case. Ergo the spoiler warnings is inappropriate, not because the show is X years old, but because the vast majority of what there is to say about the topic depends on the spoiler. Phil Sandifer 04:18, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Regarding Spoilers
As someone who's recently had something spoiled for myself, I'll weigh in. I recently picked up Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, and after playing for a few hours I hopped on to Wikipedia to do some editing. After puttering around here and there, I decided to check the KOTOR article and had a fairly important plot point spoiled for me. I can only blame myself for doing that, which is why I don't support Spoiler tags in most cases.

Regarding spoiler tags in plot summaries, they're ludicrous. Silly. Patent nonsense. I can use several stronger words, but you get my point. By the very nature of the section, a plot summary should not have the spoiler tag.

Most media, however, should NOT contain "spoiler" information within the lead unless it is the defining characteristic of the media in question. The Sue Dibny article works under the defining characteristic I've outlined. Media for which the "spoiler" elements are not the defining characteristics should not contain these elements within the lead. It would be bad form for the Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince article to begin with the lead:


 * Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, released on July 16, 2005, is the sixth of seven planned novels in J.K. Rowling's popular Harry Potter series. Set during Harry Potter's sixth year at Hogwarts, during which Snape kills Dumbledore.

I agree, however, that relatively recent items should have spoiler tags, just in case someone is foolish. While we're trying to build an encyclopedia here, we're also unlimited by space, storage, and temporary structure during the release of new information. It's only fair to not go out of our way to possibly spoil the enjoyment of someone's reading of recent material in the interest of professionalism when we can simply wait. Cheers, Lanky ( YELL ) 20:26, 17 May 2007 (UTC)


 * That reminds me of those ads which say things similar to "Vitamin C is important, so eat Florida oranges today". The inclusion of the word "Florida" is gratuitous and bears no logical connection to anything else; the ad could just as well say "Vitamin C is important, so eat oranges today".
 * What's wrong with "It's only fair to not go out of our way to possibly spoil the enjoyment of someone's reading of material in the interest of professionalism"? Just end the sentence there without the gratuitous references to recent material and waiting. Ken Arromdee 01:47, 18 May 2007 (UTC)