Wikipedia:Spoiler warning/RfC

This is a request for comment (RfC) on the use of spoiler tags. This RFC aims to gather community opinion on the Spoiler warning guidelines and its companion templates: spoiler, endspoiler, spoiler-about, spoiler-other, spoiler-blank, magic-spoiler, Solution, sgspoiler, Spoiler-season and Spoiler-solicitation.

Previous discussions

 * Templates for deletion/Log/2006 May 4
 * Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject Computer and video_games
 * Wikipedia talk:Spoiler warning/Guideline status &mdash; (discussion of guideline status in June 2006)
 * Wikipedia talk:Spoiler warning/Guideline status2 &mdash; (discussion of guideline status in July 2006)
 * Wikipedia talk:Spoiler warning &mdash; (present discussion and establishment of this RfC)

Older discussions

 * Wikipedia talk:Warn readers about spoilers/Archive 1
 * Wikipedia talk:Warn readers about spoilers
 * Wikipedia talk:Spoiler warning/Archive
 * Wikipedia talk:Spoiler warning/Archive2
 * Template talk:Spoiler

Examples of current usage

 * Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (contemporary book and upcoming film)
 * Beowulf (epic poem)
 * Stargate SG-1 (contemporary TV series)
 * Iron Chef (TV series)
 * The Breakfast Club (classic film)
 * Citizen Kane (classic film)
 * Jack O'Neill (fictional character)


 * The Matrix (contemporary film)
 * Three Billy Goats Gruff (fairy tale)
 * Beauty and the Beast (folktale)
 * Sawing a woman in half (magic trick)
 * Final Fantasy VII (game)
 * Codename 47 (game, usage of both spoiler and Solution)

Arguments for and against
This is a very brief summary of the major arguments for and against the use of spoiler tags. Note that this is only intended to be an extremely brief summary, and all substantive reasoning of arguments can be found on this page's discussion page.

For:
 * Useful and helpful to some editors and readers; can aid in article navigation
 * A convention/practice that readers (and prospective future editors) would expect
 * Discourages exclusion of spoilers by some editors
 * Can be seen as a neutral label such as "Theme" or "Genre"
 * Avoids needing to restrict information to specific sections (such as "Plot details")
 * Choosing to add the tag or not is similar to other decisions in the editorial process
 * Are consistent with Wikipedia's mission and policy of being informative

Against:
 * An informative section header and Wikipedia's content disclaimer are enough
 * Violation of Wikipedia's "Neutral point of view policy", or "NPOV" which should cover content exclusion and inclusion
 * What is or is not a spoiler is subjective
 * Violation of Wikipedia's "Wikipedia is not censored" policy
 * Unprofessional and unencyclopedic
 * Organization issue; presents the notion that spoilers must be contained "inside the box" of begin-spoiler and end-spoiler templates

RfC discussion
All new discussion should be directed to this page's discussion page, where arguments and suggested solutions are discussed. Discussion should not be added below.