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Pending new draft

My proposed draft has received some support, enthusiastic or partial, from nearly everyone who has commented on it. I'd like to open this as a space for further comments; if there appears to be consensus that the new draft is strictly better than the current draft, even if you see particular problems with it, I'll replace the page tonight, after the draft has been up for 48 hours.

When commenting, consider that 1) the proposed draft is clearly cleaner and easier to follow than the current version; 2) it reads more like a style guide (i.e. a firm suggestion) than the current version; 3) it encourages editors to create clear section titles in preference to adding spoiler tags (i.e. "Tony-style" articles) — if wikiwide consensus is indeed against spoiler tags the guideline will allow them to continue to deproliferate — while offering some leeway to local editors; and 4) if we can come to a consensus we can all hang up our gloves and go home. ;) --Jere7my 18:55, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

The draft has improved, in my opinion, since the previous version I read. It has a couple things that could be resolved once it's here, but in general it's fine with me. A few points:

• The lede should include the word "limited" somewhere, in case someone takes it as a license to insert the tags liberally.
• Every article should have sections; the bullet lower down that suggests otherwise is confusing. Articles that have so little content that they don't have section titles are best improved by expanding them.
• The section headers have names that make it hard to find things easily with the TOC.
• The draft mentions "local" editors; all editors have equal standing.

I'm sure these sorts of things can be resolved with normal discussion and editing if the draft is copied here. — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:21, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

All good suggestions. Thanks! I noticed the poor interaction of the question-and-answer format with the TOC; that's definitely something to work on. --Jere7my 20:01, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Also, Carl: is "certain plot details" close enough to "limited" in the lede? "Certain" implies "not all" and even "not most", which is all that "limited" would do, I think. --Jere7my 20:50, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

There's a lot more jargon there. What does "those who are likely to be spoiled" mean? Could we say "those who are likely to be surprised", if that's what is meant? Also wherever the draft uses the term "spoiler", it should probably follow the far more encyclopedic "plot detail" or "significant plot detail", or even "plot twist". The term "spoiler", as we've discovered over several months, is so vague as to be almost impossible to pin down, whereas a "significant plot detail" is obviously any plot detail that should be in an encyclopedia on the subject. --Tony Sidaway 20:12, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

"Those who are likely to be surprised" is fine by me. I think replacing "spoiler" with a multi-word equivalent everywhere is going to be unwieldy, though it could well be a good idea in some spots. The opening sentence makes it clear, I think, that spoiler = significant plot detail, and it seems clear from context in some other places: in "Alternatively, the unexpected plot detail may be marked off with spoiler tags. (Remember that those who are likely to be spoiled are those who are unfamiliar with the work, so they may not know where to expect spoilers!)", for instance, it seems clear that the final "spoilers" refers to the plot details we've been discussing. And since the title of the page uses the term spoiler, additional uses seem unlikely to make the page appear less encyclopedic!

Alternately, how about changing the opening line to "...certain significant plot details ("spoilers") in articles..." with the parenthetical being a link to Spoiler (media)? That should clarify it for the whole page. --Jere7my 20:35, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I made that last change, the "surprised" change, and changed one "spoiler" to "plot detail". That last line was lifted verbatim from the current version, though, and it contains most of the references to spoilers, so it shouldn't be adding to the overall jargon level! --Jere7my 20:41, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

It looks like a vast improvement to me, especially the part about the difference between 'plot' and 'plot summary'. I've been logging the change in spoiler warnings over the past few days, and the vast majority are in plot sections- although as has been noted previously 'plot' is a little too ambigious, so being the more explicit is the better. David Fuchs 20:52, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I remain unconvinced about the difference between "Plot" and "Plot summary", but if there is a difference I think we can resolve it by recommending much more strongly than we already do that the first thing to do on seeing a "Plot" section containing elements of plot should be to change the section heading to read something that spells out the word "plot" more clearly. If that means replacing the single word "Plot" with "Plot summary", which to me seems almost a "null edit", then do it. I've been replacing "Characters" with "Character histories" for months now, when I found such a section, simply because it is conceivable that somebody reading the article might expect the "Characters" section to be a mere dramatis personae. Misplaced Pages being what it is, many such sections acquire their own narrative dimension, and should be labelled more explicitly. --Tony Sidaway 22:26, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I'd like to steer clear of "recommending much more strongly" in general, since this is after all only a guideline. I was trying to echo the tone of WP:TRIVIA, which encourages a less-disputed (though not undisputed!) practice of "fixing" trivia sections while still managing to gently suggest: "it may be", "a better way", etc. The proposed WP:SPOILER draft currently suggests section-renaming as the first of several suggestions, which seems to nudge people in that direction without dictating it.

As for "Plot" being unclear, I see where you're coming from, but I think we've observationally determined that, for some people, "Plot" just isn't specific enough. I think this reflects spoken English to some degree: "What's the plot?" can mean "Summarize the story for me in detail," "Give me a back-of-the-book teaser," or "Is it boy-meets-girl or man-vs.-nature?" I think "Plot Summary" is pretty clear, and I think in the end we agree on that, and it seems to have some support behind it (though I still prefer "Synopsis" — I think it's better to offer multiple options). --Jere7my 00:16, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Not trying to rain on the wonderful parade, but you've failed to mention the lead section at all. Other than that, it looks vastly improved. Kuronue | Talk 21:07, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure I follow — what should I mention about the lede? Carl made a suggestion about the lede, and in return I asked him if "certain" would do as well as "limited"; I also added the "exception to disclaimers" bit Tony wanted. Was there something else I missed? As written, the lede seems concise and descriptive to me. Oh, I see — you meant it doesn't address the question of spoilers in the lede! As I see it, this guideline should address the placement and presence of spoiler tags, not dictate how articles should be written. The guideline does make the suggestion that the lede is a good place for a "back-of-the-book" style overview, and suggests moving spoilers in unlabeled sections to a better location, both of which provide avenues for de-spoilering the lede, but it's agnostic on how the lede should be written. That seems the purview of local editors. --Jere7my 22:19, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Anything about contents of the lede should refer to the Lead section guideline (aka WP:LEAD), likewise nothing in this guideline can supersede Misplaced Pages:Manual of Style (writing about fiction) (WP:WAF). We can provide some pointers that echo those very well established documents (we should for instance remind editors that they should be writing about the real-world significance of the subject, not their favorite bit of plot detail), but we probably don't want to pre-empt those guidelines too much. --Tony Sidaway 22:37, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

The issue is that the guidelines isn't called "Spoiler tags", it's called "Spoilers" - thus it should dictate when and where spoilers, spoiler tags, and the like are appropriate. Spoilers in the lede seem to fall under the category of both spoiler and lede; if there was anything about spoilers in WP:LEAD, there wouldn't need to be anything here, but as there is not, it's kind of our responsibility. Kuronue | Talk 22:43, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

No. This guideline cannot dictate anything. In particular, this guideline cannot overturn the Neutral point of view policy. --Tony Sidaway 23:11, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

If the guideline can't dictate _anything_ it can't dictate where spoiler tags are placed. It can't overwrite policy, is all, but nobody's saying it should. Bah, whatever, the draft is still better than the current guideline, so let's get it implemented and then worry about details like that later. Kuronue | Talk 23:36, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

You're getting there. It's a guideline. It can't dictate anything. --Tony Sidaway 23:42, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

Then it can't dictate that spoiler tags are inappropriate in plot sections, and in the absence of any policy saying that they're inappropriate there, then spoiler tags are appropriate in plot sections, in which case, should I start adding them back? Perhaps dictate was the wrong word, but certainly it has RULES. Kuronue | Talk 23:58, 14 September 2007 (UTC)

The proposed draft actually does say that spoiler tags might sometimes be used within Plot Summary sections under certain circumstances, and doesn't totally preclude them anywhere if you can achieve a consensus for their inclusion. --Jere7my 00:16, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Kuronue, I think you're beginning to understand. A guideline can only describe the way things are. If you believe that "in the absence of any policy saying that they're inappropriate there, then spoiler tags are appropriate in plot sections", you don't understand Misplaced Pages.

Spoiler tags may sometimes be appropriate in plot sections (I could name a few and have placed such tag in plot sections). No guideline can ever prescribe behavior. That's why we have guidelines rather than policies on some matters.

Jere7my I thank you for your work. I think we're basically on the same page. --Tony Sidaway 00:42, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

If you can dig up a few concrete examples, I would appreciate it. The discussion of spoiler tags in plot sections has been somewhat abstract so far. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:04, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

One that springs immediately to mind is my use of a spoiler tag for Last of the Time Lords. But that was actually me saying that the Master's regeneration was important enough to appear in the lead and therefore we should put the spoiler tag in at the top of the article. Not a good example of the precise thing you're asking for, but certainly for the brief period when this was hot news it might have been a good idea to have a spoiler tag in the plot even if the news hadn't been worthy of appearing in the lead.

I also accepted (and changed to a spoiler template) a spoiler tag in the plot section of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on 23 July ,. The novel had been released on 21 July.

The "current fiction" template, placed at the top of an articles, seems to have taken over that function lately, and I don't disagree with that. That's why I now believe that the spoiler tag is essentially dead. --Tony Sidaway 01:43, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

"A guideline is any page that is: (1) actionable (i.e. it recommends, or recommends against, an action to be taken by editors) and (2) authorized by consensus." Therefore, the Spoiler Guideline should recommend or recommend against action with regards to spoilers. So are we recommending or recommending against having spoilers in the lede? Really, the semantics are getting old. We're recommending against putting spoiler tags, but yet when I bring up something unrelated to tags themselves, suddenly we get caught up in my "not understanding" wikipedia. Kuronue | Talk 01:50, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

The proposed draft is largely agnostic on the subject of spoilers in the lede, though it suggests moving them to a clearly labeled section. It provides a means by which people may remove spoilers from the lede if they wish to, and suggests the lede is a good place for a "back-of-the-book" overview, but in practice it'll be up to local editors to find a consensus: no spoilers in the lede, unprotected spoilers in the lede, or tagged spoilers in the lede. As I wrote it, it's a style guide for spoiler tags, not a guide for writing articles. --Jere7my 03:00, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

We can't recommend that spoilers be kept out of the lead section without going against Neutral point of view. --Tony Sidaway 20:46, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Can you explain in detail? NPOV does indicate re-arranging an article is bad, but it adds the qualifier that rearranging the article "based solely on the apparent POV of the content itself" or "Arrangements of formatting, headers, footnotes or other elements that appear to unduly favor a particular "side" of an issue". How is a spoiler a POV, considering it's factual information about the subject of the article in question? Then again, it's probably a stupid question since I "don't understand wikipedia" Kuronue | Talk 13:50, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

If an aspect of a subject is important enough to appear in the lead section it should appear there. Removing it on the sole grounds that it is a "spoiler" necessarily destroys the balance of the article. For instance, our article on the Aesop fable, The Boy Who Cried Wolf, largely comprises the following description of the plot and theme:

The protagonist of the fable is a bored shepherd boy who entertained himself by calling out "wolf". Nearby villagers who came to his rescue found that the alarms were false and that they'd wasted their time. When the boy was actually confronted by a wolf, the villagers did not believe his cries for help and his flock perished. In some versions when the villagers ignore him the wolf either kills him, and in other versions the wolf simply mocks the boy saying now no one will help him and that it serves him right for playing tricks. The moral is stated at the end of the fable as:

"Even when liars tell the truth, they are never believed. The liar will lie once, twice, and then perish when he tells the truth."

Were this to be removed to a labelled section because it is a spoiler, the chief reason for which the tale is one of Aesop's most commonly referenced fables (to the extent that "to cry wolf" is a common English phrase almost universally understood) would be lost, and the lead section of the article would be unbalanced.

Actually even with the plot summary, the lead section is unbalanced, because it still does not record the cultural significance, as found in the likes of Brewer and Webster . But that's a different matter. --Tony Sidaway 14:35, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I see that, but things like "Tia dalma is revealed to be the goddess Calypso" - she's notable for being Tia Dalma for all three movies, and outside the third film, she's not particularly notable as a goddess, so I figure that's along the lines of "and then character X shot character Y!" - a development in their history worth noting, but not the main reason for notability, thus not lede-worthy outside of the fact that "OMG no wai!!!!! Most important plot twist EVAR!!!" fancruft reactions. So a clarification might be in order. Kuronue | Talk 23:35, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Spoilers, schmoilers. This is an encyclopedia. --Tony Sidaway 02:38, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

An edit to the lead section

I have made the following edit to the first sentence of the guideline, for reasons that should be evident from the history of the past four months:

Before:

Misplaced Pages uses spoiler tags to mark off certain significant plot details ("spoilers") in articles about fictional works

After:

Misplaced Pages very occasionally uses spoiler tags to mark off particularly significant plot details ("spoilers") in articles about fictional works.

In the above, I have used bold to indicate words removed from the original or added to the new version. This emphasis does not of course appear on the guideline itself. --Tony Sidaway 20:42, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Tony: I have toned down your edit, for two reasons. One, the change from "certain" to "particularly" is ungrammatical with respect to the parenthetical — "particularly significant plot details ("spoilers")" is defining a spoiler as a particularly significant plot detail, which disagrees with the wording in the tag, whereas in "certain significant plot details (spoilers)" the word "certain" modifies "significant plot details ("spoilers")", so the definition matches the parenthetical. I'm not sure I'm explaining that well, but hopefully you can puzzle the meaning out. :) If you can find a way to word it that equates the tag phrasing with the parenthetical, go to!

I also removed the "very", since I think one of the problems with the previous version was intensifier escalation. It makes the guideline more insistent at the expense of encyclopedic tone and "guideline tone", imho. I'm happy with "occasionally", as I left it, or alternately you could move the " often they necessary at all if the article is well-structured" from the third paragraph to the end of that sentence, which I think might convey your intent even better. (Please delete the second occurrence if you do, to avoid duplication!)

I'm not going to make many edits here — it was taking too much of my time! — but I may cavil now and then. --Jere7my 02:10, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Your edit sits well with me. It seems to keep the sense of my original edit while answering your own concerns. --Tony Sidaway 20:21, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Looks like an effort to establish quotas on the number of spoiler tags permitted, rather than judging the cases on an individual basis. If the number of 'permitted' tags grows too high, it will be too difficult for the spoiler police to personally oversee every tag, and it will actually be up to the community.--Nydas 21:27, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

You've got a point there. Obviously a number of responsible editors, myself included, want to avoid the situation again becoming so bad that we have to perform a mass removal of redundant tags.

I'm sure that we all agree that there were indiscriminate uses of spoiler tags prior to the discussions of May, 2007. Comparisons to the Wild West seem to have struck a chord between at least two editors who haven't yet been accused of being involved in some nefarious plot to subvert consensus , and the original MFD, before it was changed to a RFC , showed quite strong opposition to the old tag-permissive guideline. Editing history of articles since then has shown that, where editors actually take an interest in the problem, the tags are kept to a bare minimum and article quality improves. Overlarge plot summaries are tagged, poorly marked sections are renamed, unnecessarily placed tags are removed. All we need for a guideline, really, is to document what good Wikipedians have been doing all along: making Misplaced Pages better. --Tony Sidaway 23:53, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Removing spoiler tags sacrifices functionality for moralising, neutrality for 'fans only' and a worldwide view for a US-centric one. It makes Misplaced Pages worse.

The editing histories show that people who have added at least one spoiler tag outnumber the people removing them by at least a hundred to one. These are good Wikipedians doing what comes naturally; ensuring that the articles are fair-minded and balanced, rather than fans-only fansite extensions.--Nydas 09:02, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

You will find this is so with many Misplaced Pages guidelines and policies. For instance, the number of people uploading unauthorized copyrighted images vastly exceeds the number of editors removing them. Misplaced Pages's anyone-can-edit approach means you have a lot of novice editors showing up and doing whatever strikes their fancy. That doesn't make it right. It doesn't make it wrong, either. It's just a random factoid that contributes nothing to the debate. Marc Shepherd 15:59, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

Only copyright stuff and WP:BLP come anywhere near, and even then, they're 'Wild West' compared to it. Nor do they have quotas.--Nydas 19:14, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Where is there a quota in the spoiler guideline? I seem to have missed it. In any event, the fact that people frequently add spoiler tags is no evidence that they are "good Wikipedians...ensuring that the articles are fair-minded and balanced." It's not any evidence of anything. Every day, the number of edits reverted for vandalism probably exceeds the number of spoiler tags removed by a factor of 100,000 to 1. (Vandalism accounts for about 6% of all edits; see here.) So the frequency that something happens shows only that it happens frequently; nothing more. Marc Shepherd 19:45, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

The quota is a de facto policy adopted by the anti-spoiler police. As the number of spoiler tags rises, they make it more and more difficult to add one, regardless of the merits of the case. I agree that the popularity of spoiler tags is not evidence, so I outlined their intrinsic benefits.--Nydas 06:41, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I disagree that it contributes nothing. Unlike vandalism or copyright removal, this is not a 'settled issue'. We're arguing over whether the guideline has consensus, and what the consensus actually is on the issue. As such, the number of people who are adding spoiler tags _is_ relevant. It's not solely of relevance, but it is relevant, as it helps to illustrate consensus. With vandalism, nobody seriously claims that vandalism is right for wikipedia. Copyright rules might have a few people opposed to it, but it's a matter of obeying the law. In these cases, it's not usually a matter of the violators being opposed to the overarching issue, it's about them either not knowing or being willfully disruptive. But here we're forging a guideline, and people claim that there is no significant opposition to the guideline as justification for it. So, the number of different people who are adding it, compared to the number of people 'enforcing' it _is_ something to consider. They have a voice in the debate too, and their voice is made at least in part by their edits. (Wouldn't it be lovely if, instead of just edit summaries that assert the guideline as a rule, the anti-warning patrol included a "help us find consensus at the issue over at Wikipedia_talk:Spoiler!" link, but since that's unlikely, we should go at least look at the numbers). Wandering Ghost 11:36, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

<outdent> I think such an edit summary is a very good idea. It'd be nice to get 'new blood' here as it were. Maybe we'll stop going in circles. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 12:04, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

Hang on! Nydas, Wandering Ghost, didn't we just get a completely new guideline written by a party who has not yet been accused of being a member of the "spoiler police"? Didn't the new one pass muster with almost everybody who commented on it? The old guideline to which some editors persistently objected is gone. And you're still complaining! --Tony Sidaway 12:11, 18 September 2007 (UTC)

I was addressing a point, made by someone I thought made an incorrect assessment, in an effort to improve things. Perhaps the fact that you have confused it with 'complaining' explains why you have so often been unable or unwilling to address points yourself. But while I'm on the topic, since I haven't said it yet, I do think the current guideline, on the whole, is better than the last, although there are still systemic problems thanks to the uneven editing playing field. Wandering Ghost 11:20, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

The guideline as it stands is OK. The problem is the enforcement. The guideline states that murder mysteries may have them, but we can rest assured that this will not be permitted.--Nydas 15:49, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

You cannot be sure until you have discussed the possibility with respect to a relevant article. Don't complain until you've had a good go at it. --Tony Sidaway 02:35, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

A not so brief and (slightly) scientific survey of spoiler tags on the mainspace

I attempted a sort of 'spoiler survey' over the last week, parts of which I have excerpted below. Others have done a little less meticulous surveys on specific types of articles, but I was only paying attention to the occurrences on Wiki mainspace as a whole. Keep in mind that while this is a fairly good sample, it's only itended to suggest usage/removal trends. However I do believe in terms of usage this is more useful than personal anecdotes. Over the course of eight days I did 26 checks at random times (the majority, however, occurred very roughly at 20:00 UTC and in the span before and after). I logged the total number of spoilers, and for new additions noted where they were added; for removals (those that were not clear violations of the current WP:SPOILER guideline), I noted who removed them. Some conclusions, with minimal conjecture:

• There are no significant edit wars over spoiler warnings themselves, although I did notice one incident over content itself, which incidentally was marked with tags. Whether or not this is because editors are discouraged upon removal is an impossible hypothesis to prove, so we'll disregard cause and instead focus on measureable effects.
• An average of 4.1 tags are on en.Wiki mainspace at a time, with a median of 3 tags at any given point. There were no times logged when there were no warnings on Misplaced Pages.
• Of all the warnings put on Misplaced Pages, 84% are removed within one day. Only about 8% of spoiler warnings can be expected to remain for a longer period (in this case, a week).
• Only 13.5% of all notices were in places other than sections marked 'Plot', 'Plot summary', et al.

{{Spoiler}} linkage

Overall:: less than 2000 occurrences, all spaces.

Talk: 300-400, often as a banner on top of the talk page.

User: 600-700, used rather randomly (see User:Ich; incidentally, Ich believes we are "fascists" for removing spoiler tags. huh.)

Samples of logging

Mainspace: 2007-09-11 19:26 UTC: (2) -- Sosuke Aizen, Miles Edgeworth Sosuke Aizen's warning is used in the lead, and was left after discussion; the reason being that the episode will not air in a market (US, I think) until December.

Edgeworth's spoiler is used in one of the appearances section, for no apparent reason.

2007-09-12 1:55 UTC: (3) -- Now You Know (Desperate Housewives episode) (not-yet aired season premiere) link

2007-09-12 11:31 UTC: (2) plot section of Desperate Housewives removed, no edit summary.

2007-09-12 19:27 UTC: (2) Miles Edgeworth one removed, one added before the lead to Akira (character). Editor's explanation on talk page.

2007-09-12 20:42 UTC: (3) First Love (novella): Added in specially marked section 'Conclusion'

2007-09-13 19:55 UTC: (2) Previous spoilers gone, two newcomers: Slade Carter, which was a serious CSD A7 bio, and I thus deleted; and Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, in the plot section.

On Sosuke Aizen, the spoiler was replaced by a {{Current fiction}} tag by Kusma, reverted and replaced with maitenance tags by JzG. I reverted to the spoiler in lead (leaving the in-universe tags) due to local consensus.

For Akira, the tag was removed by Marc Shepherd as per WP:SPOILER, added back in, and removed by Kusma per the content disclaimer.

2007-09-13 22:16 UTC: (2) back to Aizen, along with Interbang (used to mark the plot). The warning was removed by user Kweeket. Perhaps worth noting the spoiler was added by an anonymous ip.

2007-09-14 00:51 UTC: (3) Added to the mix is Atonement (film), an as-yet-unreleased film (in NA); the spoiler appears in the section titled 'differences between film and book' and seems more reasonable as there is no plot section above it, although one could still argue that plot must by necessity be mentioned.

2007-09-14 11:22 UTC: (6) The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, My Sister's Keeper, and 28 Weeks Later added. My Sister's Keeper has tags in the plot summary, ditto with TFTF, same thing with 28WL. However, in the latter the spoiler tags are in a section marked 'Plot'; in MSK, it's in "Plot Summary". All the tags were added by anonymous editors; the latter two were added by the same ip, and were that contributer's sole edits.

2007-09-14 19:41 UTC: (1) Back to Aizen. TFTF tag was removed by Tony Sidaway, as was My Sister's Keeper; 28WL removed by user Geoff B - (note, evidence of edit warring on the page, but not in relation to the spoiler warnings.)

2007-09-14 22:52 UTC: (2) added to William Birkin.

2007-09-15 16:28 UTC: (13) a slew added, in varying places. For example, on The Departed, it's used in the cast section (the table has a 'killed by' section; the cast comes after plot). Added by User:Ferengi. In Final Destination, it's used after plot in a 'deaths' section. The Last of the Mohicans (1992 film) used it in a clearly-marked 'Synopsis' section. Also used in plot sections of two Stargate Atlantis episodes, plot summary of Owlflight, and Sati (book).

2007-09-15 19:37 UTC: (2) In Aizen again as well as Chak De India, in the Synopsis section.

2007-09-15 21:36 UTC: (5) An editor added tags to the plot section of unreleased Desperate Housewives episodes.

2007-09-15 23:59 UTC: (3) Aizen, Saint Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman (in 'Plot summary') and Chak de India.

2007-09-16 18:43 UTC: (6) Aizen, Match Point (again), Akito Sohma, From the Corner of His Eye, Bridge to Terabithia (2007 film), and, most perplexingly, List of cliffhanger endings. You'd think that one would be enough explanation in itself. Spoilers were added by IPs, except Match Point, which was added repeatedly by YellowTapedR.

2007-09-16 21:25 UTC: (3) Others removed, except Aizen and Bridge to Terabithia; Fracture (film) added; used in 'Synopsis' section marking off the bottom 3/4th of plot; appears that the unmarked portion is the "off the box" plot summary (possible copyvio?)

2007-09-17 20:00 UTC: (6)

2007-09-18 22:03 UTC: (8) Ayreon (I removed, as it's not a fictional subject), Before Sunset (used halfway through the plot summary). Mata Nui (Great Spirit) (for only one line?), Toa Inika/Toa Mahri, (also randomly added, this page should prolly get deleted anyhow), Colby Granger (wouldn't need a spoiler prolly, if it was expanded.) Oh, and La Vie En Rose (film) (used in entire 'Plot' section).

2007-09-19 21:43 UTC: (5)

Discussion

Just an FYI, the tag on Edgeworth was because at the beginning of the game it's mentioned that Edgeworth is "gone" and you don't find out what's happened to him until almost the end of the game. It's irrelevant now, but you mentioned there was "no apparent reason", so I supplied a reason. Kuronue | Talk 23:32, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

Your log is interesting, but only a little more useful than an anecdote. I respectfully object to any suggestion of its being even a slightly scientific survey. I see such suggestion as a failure by your science teachers to convey a basic principle of science: one cannot measure anything without affecting it, so the next best thing is to thoughtfully minimize variables introduced by the observer.
What you actually have is a spoiler police log, or in more neutral terms, a log of activist personal journalism. More useful than previous personal anecdotes? Perhaps, but not by much.
Since you participated in the editing you observed, your log is improperly called a survey. It's not even a typical unscientific one as found in web newspapers, which lack statistically random sampling, but are otherwise unparticipated in by the editors. It's also too biased to call a sample. I'm likely to object to anyone citing the averages and percentages you provide, as being numerical junk. However, I think some things can be cautiously learned from it.
If you want to do this again without personal participation, your work will be far more credible.

"see User:Ich; incidentally, Ich believes we are "fascists" for removing spoiler tags. huh." For the average person the most prominent characteristic of fascism is rigid central control of the details of everyday life, with odious enforcement. While the spoiler guide is undergoing change, it still reflects an unpopular and unnecessarily authoritarian ideology. The clique's May 2007 takedown of 45,000 spoiler tags without local consultation, and with abuse of central due process, is quite properly described as fascist. Milo 02:22, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

To the actual data; there's a reason I put 'slightly scientific'. But above logging actions on Misplaced Pages, I was editing to make pages conform to guidelines. Besides, as I am part of the Misplaced Pages community, I might as well include myself- not doing so discounts a factor in spoiler warning usage/removal. The percentages are entirely valid- especially the 13.5%, which is based off every page I visited and doesn't change even if I removed a tag. The vast majority were in 'Plot' and 'Plot summary', and I removed those which were explicitly against the guideline, and left ones in other sections where their use would be more murky. Similarly, the 4.1 and 3 tags on mainspace are valid, since they are from a mean/median of recorded numbers. I affected personally less than five spoiler warnings, one of those cases being reinsertion on Aizen. That means I affected less than 13% of the pages I logged. David Fuchs 11:43, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Well, Milo, if you find David's study so deeply flawed, why don't you do one yourself? You could show us how it ought to be done. Marc Shepherd 15:12, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

The time commitment would be greater than I have available. However, what I'm doing here as a peer reviewer is useful and indeed necessary when there is a suggestion of (even slight) science. Also, I needn't demonstrate since the details of David's observing methodology aren't the obvious problem.

I'm disappointed that David didn't take the scientific method point of avoiding the observer effect (also see double blind). One useful definition is found in the section on information technology, "the observer effect is the potential impact of the act of observing a process output while the process is running." The scientific method requires diligence to reduce the observer effect if possible, and certainly do nothing to increase it.

David believes that he can adequately discount for his own participatory edits. This gets into presumptions of systemic linearity (like flat earth theory), when systems are defined by, and unexpectedly curved by, feedback loops. In any given instance I may be persuaded that David's participatory-editing discounts are true enough, but such a persuasion is not even slightly describable as based on science. Milo 18:31, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

You have carpet-bombed this page with buckets full of assumptions, none of which you've bothered to substantiate. It may well be that you don't have the time commitment for real analysis, and therefore, can do no more than share your personal impressions, which are probably infected with more biases than David Fuchs's study. But until someone comes along and does a better study, David's analysis—however imperfect though may be—is the best we have. Marc Shepherd 18:51, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

"none of which you've bothered to substantiate" You are wrong. You should have understood my posts before commenting on them; that way you would have avoided losing your credibility. If you couldn't understand them, you should have kept silent. In my review of David's log and followup, I explained the problem, cited two Misplaced Pages articles, and quoted from one of them. That is substantiation.

Speaking of your lost credibility, I'm still waiting for you to delete the personal attacks in #Disputed guideline message box, where you called me and Nydas trolls. Milo 01:42, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Milo, check out WP:TROLL. Whether you like it or not, you do have a tendency to come off as "trollish". Many of your comments on this talk page can be construed as "deliberately inflammatory", however this doesn't make you an outright troll. The essay in question states that "people who passionately believe in what they are writing also sometimes behave in a way that may make them appear to be a troll" so I suggest that editors give you the benefit of the doubt until they have reason to believe otherwise. —Viriditas | Talk 04:33, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

I've moved this subthread back to the scene of Marc's official policy offense at #Disputed guideline message box. Milo 15:27, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

I didn't add spoiler tags "repeatedly" to Match Point. I added it once when I thought the revised guideline allowed it. I thought it was appropriate because the surprise is rather high up in the plot section, which readers might be checking out just to get a gist of it. After I was reverted, I didn't re-add it because it's not worth the effort. If you go to The Crying Game article, you'll see I recently reverted an edit where twist was taken out of the lead.--YellowTapedR 06:17, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

According to the page history, you added back in a section containing spoilers, and then did so once more. So argue about 'repeatedly', but you evidently did so twice. David Fuchs 11:43, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Oh, I see what you're saying, I said you added it repeatedly the second time. Sorry, I misconstrued your action there. David Fuchs 11:45, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

It's perhaps worth noting that the recorded removal of the plot section from Now You Know (Desperate Housewives episode), although recorded as "2007-09-12 11:31 UTC: (2) plot section of Desperate Housewives removed, no edit summary.", had been discussed by myself and Pjar (the remover of the content on September 12th) on 3rd and 4th September . The unsourced plot summary of an as-yet unbroadcast episode had thus been restored against apparent consensus, without discussion. --Tony Sidaway 17:17, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

You guys really don't have to defend yourselves. There was no edit summary, but I never said it wasn't discussed at other times (I'm pretty sure you removed the entire section at least once explaining that without a source it was useless.) David Fuchs 21:24, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Ownership of articles

Per Ownership of articles, I have made the following edit:

In a work that is uncommonly reliant on the impact of a plot twist or surprise ending — a murder mystery, for instance — a spoiler tag may be appropriate even within a properly labeled "Synopsis" section, if local editors agree. These should be sourced when possible (e.g., by citing a professional reviewer who describes the impact of the surprise).

In a work that is uncommonly reliant on the impact of a plot twist or surprise ending — a murder mystery, for instance — a spoiler tag may be appropriate even within a properly labeled "Synopsis" section, if there is consensus. These should be sourced when possible (e.g., by citing a professional reviewer who describes the impact of the surprise).

This has been discussed before. The concept of "local editors" is absolutely alien to Misplaced Pages's "anyone can edit" principle. --Tony Sidaway 17:07, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

"concept of "local editors" is absolutely alien to Misplaced Pages's "anyone can edit" principle" Nonsense. If you show up to edit, you are local. The implied point is you do have to show up. Milo 20:09, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

Then there's no need to mention it.--Nydas 17:53, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

"Then there's no need to mention it" I disagree. "Local" is about where decisions are to be made, not who makes them. The point of mentioning "local editors" or "local consensus" is to establish that certain things are to be decided on the article's local talk page, and thus will not be decided centrally by the guide.

The analogy is to unnamed states' rights and people's rights being explicitly mentioned as reserved to the states and the people in the U.S. Constitution. The framers knew that failure to mention the equivalent of local rights will result in an erosion of those rights. Milo 19:48, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

The issue is that "local editors" has no more meaning than "editors". — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:52, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

At one time that might have been true, but until Tony's circular reasoning of consensus decided elsewhere than the article and its talk page is completely refuted, it currently needs to be made explicit. Milo 20:09, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree with Carl and Tony. There are no "local editors," and there is no "local consensus." Marc Shepherd 20:34, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

There may be no "local editors" or "local consensus," but Milo still has a point. If the language is the issue, why don't we just say that consensus should be established on the article's talk page? Postmodern Beatnik 21:03, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

I'll explain precisely why the term "local editors" is a very important one in the context of this long, long discussion:

• 20:51, 12 June 2007 Wandering Ghost:

  If the consensus truly is overwhelming, the local editors will make sure to keep them out.

• 12:42, 18 June 2007 Wandering Ghost:

  It has been noted that there is a tendency for people who are vehemently anti- or pro- spoiler warning to show up to spoiler warning tag discussions on talk pages or articles they're uninvolved with, and in numbers which overwhelm the local editors, in an attempt to push their view that spoilers should be rarer or more common. These people should be ignored where there is a strong local consensus one way or the other.

• 22:59, 29 June 2007 User:Jere7my:

  A small handful of admins and senior editors are stomping out brushfires of spoiler tags wherever they arise, usually against the wishes of local editors. It's not cool, man. It's way far away from the spirit of Misplaced Pages.

• 12:23, 30 June 2007 User:Jere7my:

  As I said on the mediation page, since the anti-spoiler folks think there's broad consensus that spoiler tags are bad, granting more leeway to local editors shouldn't (in their eyes) lead to a lot of new spoiler tags.

• 22:33, 6 July 2007 User:Philipreuben:

  I can agree with this, provided it involves rewording the guideline to make clear that certain issues are contentious and therefore left entirely up to local editors.

• 12:35, 7 July 2007 User:Wandering Ghost:

  ...and often outright claim consensus for removal because the page isn't watched by many people except one or two local editors and the people who decide they need to personally approve or deny every spoiler warning.

• 19:42, 18 July 2007 User:Postmodern Beatnik:

  Are we (by which I mean local editors) up to the task? We better be. Otherwise, we're not doing our jobs.

] is right, when he says that "the implied point is you do have to show up" and "there's no need to mention it." Yes.

User:Milomedes says: The point of mentioning "local editors" or "local consensus" is to establish that certain things are to be decided on the article's local talk page, and thus will not be decided centrally by the guide. I think what he says is right, which is why I include the phrase "if there is consensus." Obviously consensus here has its usual meaning of informed consensus resulting from discussion of the issue in context, and has the same sense of "you do have to show up" that NydasMilo mentioned, and does imply the requirement for discussion. Blind revert wars are not how we decide consensus. If there is opposition we must always decide it by discussion at the most immediate point: the talk page of the article in question.

But my reason for avoidance of the term "local editors" in this context is that, historically in this debate, it has been used to distinguish those who simply turn up from those who might for whatever reason have performed more edits to that article, or to that type of article. It is because that concept has attached itself to the term "local editors" that I would avoid using it in this guideline. If it simply and unambiguously meant "editors on the talk page, making decisions subject to the broader consensus and the sense of Misplaced Pages policy", then I'd probably go along with it. --Tony Sidaway 01:29, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Sorry Tony, I split my post after writing it, and without a second set of tildes, my emphatic remark (you do have to show up) got attributed to Nydas. I've taken the liberty of making attribution corrections to your post of which I hope you approve. If not, they are at least a guide to your further re-edit corrections and rethinking based on the facts. Feel free to just delete-edit and rewrite it without the strikeout mess that I inadvertently caused.

Several of the quotes use "local editors" in a meaning for which I would use "regular editors", since local refers to geography (in this case virtual geography). In my edit to the guideline, I used the term "local consensus" which I think avoids the problem of confusing "local editors" with "regular editors". There may be another way to describe the same locale.

"if there is consensus" does not make clear enough that certain things should be decided on the article's talk page. Since Wikiprojects are now claiming consensus jurisdiction over articles, a clear distinction of where a decision should be made may help avoid bureaucratic disputes over who has to get consensus permission from whom before doing what.

I'd say that if Wikiproject editors want to exert control over article consensus, they too have to show up just like everyone else. Milo 06:32, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I am not sure where this obsession with "local editors" and "local consensus" comes from. Obviously, in a sense, every article is edited locally: someone has to show up and edit it. But because that is self-evident, those intent on adding "locality" to the guideline must mean something else. I'm guessing here, but I think some folks are trying to distinguish the subject-matter experts who create most of the content, from generalist editors who work all over the place.

I don't think it works that way. The generalist editors have a role to play, too — for instance, in recognizing recurring patters, and making pages look consistent. Decisions accumulate one page at a time, but it's perfectly natural to add or remove a spoiler tag, because similar articles have added or removed it. Consensus, therefore, is not always decided locally in one article. Marc Shepherd 15:16, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I think the term "local editor" is pretty obvious. It's someone who has the article in his watchlist and fixes vandalism occasionally, or who writes or edits some content for it, or who just returns there from time to time. On the other hand, I would say someone who monitors large number of articles by bot (where large means more than he could handle himself) or changes an often used template is not a local editor in the affected articles. Of course, the category is fuzzy, but many categories are. There are maybe 200000 articles about fiction (just a wild guess), so people who care about SWs on all of them are not local editors by any definition. Also note that this doesn't goes against ownership of articles - everyone can become local editor of any article he wishes to. Also, to prevent misunderstandings, I don't think that some editors should have say over another. I think "consensus by local editors" in this sense means that there will be no editors going around those 200000 articles and telling other editors (who care more about article in question) how should they place the spoiler tags. I want to discourage such behaviour. Samohyl Jan 18:36, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

I agree with your definition of "local editor," but what has it to do with the guideline? Does any other guideline refer to "local editors" (as opposed to other kinds of editors)? On Misplaced Pages, no one needs to become "local" before they can edit. The consensus process doesn't work any differently for spoiler tags than it does for other stylistic matter. Marc Shepherd 19:09, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

As I said above, I don't want to guideline prefer any editor over another (being democrat and anti-elitist, I don't even consider it right), I just want to discourage certain behaviour. Just like WP:ENGVAR (rather gently, imho) tries to discourage people from going around and change the English variety on articles. Samohyl Jan 00:01, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Ah, but it _does_ work differently for spoiler tags than for some other stylistic matters. Because of the editing imbalance. Because a) consensus is not clear one way or the other in this case, and b) one side has an overwhelming advantage in editing their POV.

Let's look at it this way. On some page, Z, there is naturally disagreement about whether a spoiler tag is appropriate. Say in general, X people think it is inappropriate, and Y people think it should be there. How do people in X get to the page? They search for uses of template Spoiler, and once they get there, they remove it. How do people in Y get to the page? They have to already be there. Otherwise they don't know there's a debate going on. They might not even know the page EXISTS. So even if Y is equal to or greater than X, because people in X can easily find the edit on Z they don't agree with, they can win there (and if there is no such edit, they have already won). And then move on to Z', where there may be just as much disagreement. And Z. In essence, _ADDING_ spoiler tags is _already_ restricted to 'local editors'.

If there was a bug that prevented people from searching for words in American spellings, but not for searching for words in British spelling, then it would likewise be very possible for some determined group to remove British spelling from most pages - they might be fought on a page by page basis, but if there were enough of them and they kept vigilant, they could do it.

I still feel strongly that _something_ needs to be done to

address this. If not specifying a preference for local editors in this case, then agreeing on limiting the number of solely spoiler-related edits in a certain time frame (say 3 per day), to prevent people from going on patrol (the rule would apply to either adding or removing spoiler warnings, but in this case would have more effect in one particular area), or a "do not make your only edit the addition or removal of a spoiler, only add or remove a spoiler warning as part of a larger edit", or the creation of a 'disputed spoiler' tag, invisible on the page, but that people can search for and add their point of view, and suggest that when removing a spoiler tag, you should replace it with the disputedspoiler tag. Or something else that I haven't thought of that can help address this. Wandering Ghost 12:01, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

It's not about specialist versus generalist, it's about not encouraging people who don't give two shits about a particular article, who won't help clean it up or write anything or verify anything, coming along to insist that it's of utmost importance that the article have or not have a spoiler tag; if a handful of editors do so on a number of articles, no matter WHICH side they're on, then vanish once they win, is that really consensus or just subtle spoiler-POV pushing? Kuronue | Talk 21:24, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Here's an example of the situation in which the people who visited the page to remove the spoiler tag never visited it before and haven't visited it since. Have a look at the talk page as well.Garda40 22:27, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

How can you know they never visited it before or after? You don't have to edit anything to look at it. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 23:27, 21 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for providing me with a good laugh seeing you quibble about the word visited .Garda40 00:26, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

That's precisely the reason why such behaviour cannot be explicitly banned, but should be discouraged. Samohyl Jan 00:03, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

You're saying it should be discouraged to not make some edits because others won't be made too? I for one have a number of pages I watch but have never made an edit to. You speak as if there's something horridly wrong with doing that. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 01:46, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

No, I was referring to behaviour I and Kuronue described above, obviously. Samohyl Jan 07:50, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

The very reason we have a wiki is to enable anybody to edit. If we get to the stage where we are discouraging edits by known, trusted editors, then we might as well give up. --Tony Sidaway 01:57, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

If we get to the stage where we encourage people to go from article to article pushing their POV, we're doomed. It's the same as people coming to, say, all pregnancy- and abortion-related articles saying "We should use the terms "mother" and "baby" and "father" and "womb"" because that fits their pro-life spin (and this is an actual case going on now, mind). We should encourage people to IMPROVE WIKIPEDIA, not to POLICE SPOILER TAGS. Kuronue | Talk 02:52, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

It takes all kinds of editing to improve Misplaced Pages, and what you refer to as "policing spoiler tags" is only one of them. I (and I'm sure the vast majority of all Wikipedians) would characterize your reasoning as a false dichotomy. we've been here before. On 27 August, I explained the situation as follows :

But that being so, what am I doing to improve Misplaced Pages? Chopping out tags that some people find useful? Not a bit of it. Mostly I remove redundant tags from sections with names like "Story", "Plot" or "Synopsis". As I've stated above, it's not acceptable in an encyclopedia to write about such matters without covering what most reasonable people would consider spoilers. But that's not all I do. I change the names of sections, or add section names where they do not already exist, so that the reader will not be misled. Don't misunderstand me: I don't create corraled areas of spoiling content. Rather, I create structure in the article that shows the casual reader that this is an encyclopedia and not a fan site, that its mission is to inform and not to conceal. I am performing an essential function in the construction of an encyclopedia: making an infrastructure that permits all significant elements of a subject to be covered, and removing elements that make such coverage difficult to provide in an integrated manner. We shouldn't be dodging in and ou of "spoiler" areas dictated arbitrarily by random editors. Rather we should always feel free to refactor any article to improve the delivery of information.

In short, I'm very happy with the work I've done on Misplaced Pages, and you have yet to show that it does anything but good to the encyclopedia. --Tony Sidaway 02:24, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not saying it's a bad thing to correct structure of articles; I'm saying it's generally a bad idea to promote that being the only thing you do in all of wikipedia. Nor am I claiming it's the only thing you do, but really. There're FAR larger problems than this one, and nobody should be encouraged to do nothing but police the spoiler tag issue, hunting down every last instance to eradicate it. That's rather WP:POINTish. Kuronue | Talk 23:08, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Yes you're right to state that there are other problems that need to solved. I think it would be an extremely short-sighted person who claimed that's the only thing I do on Misplaced Pages. Blind might be a better word (see this which I've already quoted from at length and which is consonant with my extremely long contribution history). Please read Do not disrupt Misplaced Pages to illustrate a point (aka WP:POINT). It's very important to understand what it means. It definitely doesn't mean "don't try to improve Misplaced Pages's content with each and ever edit you make.."

I know I or some other experienced editors asks someone to read and try to understand WP:POINT just about every time it's cited, but there's a good reason for that: it's often cited in a quite baffling manner that it impossible to connect in any way to that text or the sense of that guideline. --Tony Sidaway 23:23, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm blind? Nor am I claiming it's the only thing you do, from the post RIGHT above yours. I'm stating a WORST-case scenario, not trying to say that it's done. If all you do is start edit was about spoiler tags and force your own personal agenda - claiming consensus is with your side - then that is disrupting wikipedia to prove a point. It's a good thing nobody's that bad -- yet. I'm worried that it might happen in the future, and the way to prevent that would be to avoid advocating monitoring spoiler tag usage across all of wikipedia - the temptation to then bring your own personal agenda, for or against, is rather great. Kuronue | Talk 23:35, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

Okay. As long as we all understand that you absolutely were not talking about the current implementation of the guideline, but only about some hypothetical person who might make considerable efforts to keep spoiler tagging under control.

Starting edit wars by removing spoiler tags, whatever one's personal opinion of the matter, would of course be extremely disruptive, we agree on that. We definitely shouldn't do that. It isn't anything to do with WP:POINT, however. Please do read and try to understand that guideline. Please also stop abusing the word "agenda". The way you use it above, it seems to be absolutely meaningless. "By going to the toilet, Smith was pursuing an agenda of voiding his bowels". Utterly without sense. --Tony Sidaway 23:48, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry my meager command of the english langauge is not up to your standards, m'lord. I'll refrain from bothering in the future. I've stated my point, anyone can here read it, for better or for worse. I'm done defending it at this point in time. Kuronue | Talk 23:55, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

"Local editors" use and misuse

Getting back to the issue of what is meant by the phrase "local editors" —

The problem I observe here may be use of a slang meaning of "local" as incorrectly confused with "regular". If so, editors who don't use the dictionary aren't likely to agree on anything with those who do use the dictionary.
Here are the first two definitions of "local" at m-w.com "local":

1 : characterized by or relating to position in space : having a definite spatial form or location

2 a : of, relating to, or characteristic of a particular place : not general or widespread

"Local", the adjective, means a place in space, in this case cyberspace. Articles on web pages have an address known as a URL (Universal Resource Locator). If one wants to navigate there, a URL is placed in the address bar, and the Go button can be pressed to load the page at that location. When one is at that locale, one is local to it. Whether one has been there many times or only once, one is always local while there, but not necessarily a regular visitor.
Here is the 3rd definition of "regular" at m-w.com "regular":

3 a : ORDERLY, METHODICAL <regular habits> b : recurring, attending, or functioning at fixed, uniform, or normal intervals

and in the inverse, the 4th definition at m-w.com "irregular":

4 : lacking continuity or regularity especially of occurrence or activity <irregular employment>

The confusion of "local" with "regular" may partly arise from informal use of "local" as noun at American Heritage "local":

4. Informal A person from a particular locality.

(Note: I switched dictionaries because m-w.com and COED used the adjective to define the noun.)

In ordinary understanding, a "local" is informally someone who seen regularly in a certain place. When there is confusion, an encyclopedia must default to formal language — but — there seems to be a second stacked-on problem of an informality used as slang. The phrase "local editors", as misused, positions "local" as an adjective, yet it's meaning appears to be that of the informal noun (rhetorically understood as a person seen regularly in a certain place).
So, while I can figure out what Samohyl Jan and other editors mean in a discussion, their apparent usage of an informal noun in a formal adjective position, isn't what is found by consulting a dictionary. Their usage is therefore slang that is not only incorrect for use in a guide, but is usage impossible of consensus.
If my analysis is essentially correct, the simple answer to more closely approaching consensus on this point is for those who are speaking/writing incorrectly to educate themselves, since education is the underlying purpose for which they are working. Milo 01:33, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

Seriously Milo, shut up. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 01:46, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

This discussion wouldn't be the same without you, but it sounds like you need a music-intensive Wikivacation to nice up. Milo 02:35, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

I don't particularly understand this obsession with the term "local" or "local editors", but Misplaced Pages has been making use of {{maintained}} since December of 2005. This template identifies articles that are "being actively monitored and maintained for quality and factuality by identified users." So the terms in use would be "monitors" and "maintainers"; "active users" or "active editors" would also work. "Local editors" is too much of a neologism and ambiguous to be helpful. —Viriditas | Talk 03:39, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

I have to say I've never come across {{maintained}}. It's certainly not typical for policies and/or guidelines to distinguish "maintainers" from other types of editors. Marc Shepherd 03:15, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Misplaced Pages is a big place. :) {{maintained}} is being used on ~1600 articles or so, but that's not very many considering we have more than two million. Looking at my comments above, you're right in that Misplaced Pages doesn't use the term "maintainers", however, the term "active editors" does show up quite a lot in discussions, although I've only seen it used on the WP:COI behavioral guideline and in the essay, WP:1RR. If you search the talk and project namespace you'll find the term "active editors" used quite a bit, and "local editors" very little. —Viriditas | Talk 05:35, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

I've always been somewhat uneasy about the "maintained" tag, but it's pretty clear that it's accepted as long as the people listed are understood to be there (to quote the template) "to help with questions about verification and sources." --Tony Sidaway 02:30, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure the idea of preferring local editors is a good one. However, I do think there needs to be a distinction between people with some level of involvement with a work of fiction, and those who are on spoiler patrol. There are some edits that are fairly noncontroversial, and for which the spoiler patrol is suited. (For example, there seems to be consensus that spoiler tags shouldn't be used in Plot sections.) For spoilers in other sections, having read (watched, played, whatever) the work is probably necessary to determine how significant the spoilers are. — PyTom (talk) 14:47, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

"there seems to be consensus that spoiler tags shouldn't be used in Plot sections" No, that's just an illusion due to anti-consensus, uncompromising majoritarian force being used on the spoiler guide.

It's the return of the plot=spoilers fallacy. There are many kinds of plots; some plots have spoilers, some don't. The 40+% of readers who want spoiler notices have said that they do attempt to read plot sections that don't have spoilers. This is a habit ingrained in them by publishers' blurbs (a type of "plot"), and that habit among readers arriving at Misplaced Pages from a Google search isn't going to change. Deliberately spoilering these readers just makes Misplaced Pages into a "spoiler site" that has been condemned in the external world.

Currently the anti-taggers' position is that sections labeled "Plot summary" means that the section might contain spoilers – but that doesn't help readers because a section just labeled "Plot" or even "Synopis" also might or might not contain spoilers.

The readers who like narrative suspense want to know for sure (in the art jury consensus opinion of local editors using the non-slang meaning of "local"). The anti-taggers don't want to tell these readers for sure, because their principle agenda is to punish and drive away this entire class of readers from Misplaced Pages. If you haven't been following this five-month million-some byte debate, yes, the proof has been published here. Shocked? If so, you should be.

Please tell other editors what's going on here. If this driving-away-readers agenda can be firmly disconsensed, then the hidable spoiler tag compromise on the table can satisfy all of the legitimate issues. Milo 20:25, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Compromise package including showable spoiler tags

"Hideable tags" is not a compromise, it is the point we started out from five months ago. Kusma (talk) 20:29, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

I deleted that fact in the interest of shortening my post, but thanks for making my point. Hidable tags remain a valid compromise since they were never rejected for technical cause. Quite the opposite, hidable tags were dismissed because they would work, citing ad hominems based on unprovably vague fears against attracting supposed "internet culture". Had it not been for the previously hidden agenda of driving an entire class of readers away, which was eventually smoked out in debate, the elegantly workable hidable tag compromise could have and would have been consensed within a few weeks. Milo 21:45, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Hidable tags are a valid compromise only if a consensus can be built for them, and so far that has never happened. Whether you agree with the reasoning, the fact is that the idea has been consistently rejected. Marc Shepherd 21:49, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

Actually, tags are still hideable and have been for years (this has not changed, so I don't quite see what it has to do with "compromise"). See for example here for the instructions. What we were discussing was not that people didn't want to see spoiler warnings (it was already possible to turn them off); people didn't want others to see spoiler warnings on articles that do not need them (yes, the tired Bible and Shakespeare examples). Kusma (talk) 14:11, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I proposed tags hidden by default as a compromise, which is significantly different than what was previously, ie. shown by default but hidable. But I have to wonder - why are some opponents of such compromise so interested in controlling what *other* people can see? What happened to good old (internet) libertarianism? Samohyl Jan 17:30, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I can't vouch for other people's reasoning, but here's mine. My feeling is that if something belongs in the article, then everyone should see it. That's how the rest of Misplaced Pages's content is presented, and I see no reason to make an exception. On the other hand, if something doesn't belong, it doesn't acquire legitimacy by making it invisible to the objectors.

Since no one needs permission to edit Misplaced Pages, constant oversight is the one and only way that our content maintains whatever good qualities it may have. A hidden spoiler tag isn't necessarily a good spoiler tag. These tags, just like everything else in Misplaced Pages, can be misused — either due to misunderstanding, lack of perspective, stupidity, or just plain vandalism. Hiding them simply means that the mistakes will not as readily be seen and corrected.

So that's why I am not a proponent of hidden tags. Marc Shepherd 20:43, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

why are some opponents of such compromise so interested in controlling what *other* people can see? -- wouldn't hiding the tags be doing /exactly that/? ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 20:54, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

It may be that this terminology isn't clear; "hidden tags" does not quite express the idea. These would be optionally visible or hidden, according to a preference setting for each user, similar to the way each user can choose the way dates are displayed or how many items appear on their watchlist.

So in reply to your question, no, preference-based optionally hidden/visible tags would not control what others would see, they would increase the control of each reader to determine what they see, without affecting what others see.

To me this seems like an excellent solution. It's very easy to implement technically, so that's not an issue. It would increase the attractiveness of Misplaced Pages, and its readership, by making it more friendly for people who want to avoid spoilers, while at the same time, allowing people who don't like the notices to turn them off so they don't have to look at them.

Eventually, whatever is decided in this discussion for the short term, it seems to me that something like the optional hide/show tags will probably happen. It may take a few years, but as web content becomes more and more personalized, Misplaced Pages will need to participate in that evolution. There are many other applications for optional hide/show content notices as well, so some may consider this idea a slippery slope. And maybe it is. But it might not be possible to avoid it forever. --Parsifal _Hello 21:39, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I have no data, but I'll hazard a guess anyway. My guess is that the overwhelming majority of visitors to this website do not customize the display. If spoiler tags were hidden by default, 95% of readers would never see them. If they were visible by default, then it would be the opposite. Marc Shepherd 02:26, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Red herring — If 95% don't customize the display, then 95% wouldn't need to. 40+% of spoiler averse readers do need to. Milo 05:13, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I would certainly remove tags that were intended to remove information from the article on the basis of certain stylistic choices by individual users, simply because the user already has an option to read the article or not to read it. I seem to recall that we went into the metadata discussion in my early days on Misplaced Pages, and we decided against. The basic principle is that Misplaced Pages is an encyclopedia, and it shouldn't be permissible for editors to turn it into something else by tweaking variables. --Tony Sidaway 01:53, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

I'll tell you what young turk editors frequently tell me: "Consensus can change". You'll probably have to compromise for non-tweakable content per language — not format, boilerplate, or notices.

Anyway, by the time the customizable next encyclopedia is fully implemented here, I hope you'll be too busy tweaking Misplaced Pages articles into pretzels, while making a half vast fortune in the advertising department at Wikia. :) Milo 05:13, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Oh, appeal to tradition. We are encyclopedia, behold! Tell me this: Is Misplaced Pages a general encyclopedia or a set of interlinked specialized encyclopedias? Because, at the beginning, it was certainly intended to be the first. So we should delete all of those very specialized articles, then? If not, it can certainly evolve further from "encyclopedia that looks the same for everybody" to "encyclopedia which allows customization". Samohyl Jan 05:51, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Please feel free to make your point for the deletion of articles that should be deleted (if you think this is not allowed, you may yet need to re-read the guideline known as WP:POINT, Which is more properly known as "Do not disrupt Misplaced Pages to illustrate a point", and most emphatically does not outlaw making a point). Please don't fall into the trap of arguing that rubbish cannot be removed because Other shit exists. --Tony Sidaway 06:13, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

The thing is, Misplaced Pages is a web-based encyclopedia. It's obviously different than a paper encyclopedia, and as such it's acceptable to do things differently. Hyperlinks, resizable images, and cleanup templates are all things an paper encyclopedia doesn't have... why shouldn't spoiler warnings be another? After all, because , "we can give more thorough treatments, include many more relevant links, be more timely, et cetera." The first and third of these means that spoilers will occur more frequently. Since there are at least two reasons people may read articles about works of fiction (to find out about the production and to find out about the story), it makes sense to (at least optionally) indicate spoilers.

To put things in perspective, most of the articles with spoilers in them are things that aren't even covered by Brittanica. We have encyclopedic content on works of fiction that finished airing Sunday. That's not a bug... it's a feature. — PyTom (talk) 06:46, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Parsifal (21:39) wrote: " "hidden tags" does not quite express the idea .... preference-based optionally hidden/visible tags ... would increase the control of each reader to determine what they see"

Good observation; there does seem to be a public relations (PR) problem with the name of the "hidable/hidden spoiler tag compromise". Kusma didn't distinguish this default ambiguous name for the tag-hiding technique from the systemic-solution compromise package named after the hidable/hidden tag feature. Kusma was also unaware that there are other features in the compromise such as the local consensus art jury, where "local" means "at the article's talk page" (and "local" is not slang for "active", "maintaining", or "regular" editors).

"Hidable" is Phil's term — as he correctly spelled it with no middle "e" — but he was talking about the old tags that are visible by default.

Ok, since they are now to be hidden by default, it's become the

" Showable spoiler tags compromise"

However, this name still doesn't communicate the other features of the systemic-solution compromise package. This bundled compromises package name is an unsolved problem.

This name does pass Melodia's question which is also about the PR of suggestion, not just logic. Logically, the name is ok either way, but in PR language unrelated to logic, if one is hiding something, that sounds bad; if one is showing something, that sounds good. Substitute "showable" into her question thus:

Samohyl (17:30) wrote: "why are some opponents of such compromise so interested in controlling what *other* people can see?" (I substitute:) "-- wouldn't showing the tags be doing /exactly that/?

I answer "no" to the logic, and "sounds good" to the PR suggestion.

I suggest thinking way ahead to a short phrase that might someday be allowed at the top of tagged articles or in a tag menu, and be nicely instructive for Google arrivees. Also consider the generic solution to turn on a tag menu for all kinds of tags using a top menu tab, like the | + | tab that only appears on talk pages menus. The latter may be obvious, | tags | , but what phrase might be used in a menu of tags which the clicked tab turns on (or appears on a button without the menu)?

• For menu pairs, "watch/unwatch" suggests "tag spoilers/untag spoilers", which renders:

| Tag spoilers | alternating with | Untag spoilers |

but that doesn't suggest a catchy public interest marketing name, say, like the USA grade school concept "Show and Tell". Parsifal mentions "hide/show", that suggests

Misplaced Pages's Hide'nShow spoiler tags

• Which then renders a menu pair of:

| Show spoiler tags | alternating with | Hide spoiler tags |

Feel free to join in brainstorming. Milo 07:23, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Reduced usefulness

Hi. I just wanted to post how disappointed I am at the removal of spoiler warnings from Misplaced Pages, as it's made the site far less useful. Misplaced Pages is still the site of choice for looking up almost anything: places, historical figures, mathematical formulae, and random things like Toucan crossings or Caravanserai. But there's now a massive category of exceptions: anything fictional that I haven't seen but might want to.

Obviously I can safely look at the page for a film I've seen, or for a book I already know I won't want to see. But for anything in between those categories – any anime, computer game, film, book, or TV series that I might or might not want to see, as well as for random characters like the Dread Pirate Roberts where I might not be able to remember what fictional work they're from – Misplaced Pages is no longer safe for me to use.

This is a pity both from my point of view (looking something up on Misplaced Pages is simply more useful and reliable than googling it) and from yours (because I always make a point of fixing any typos or grammatical issues in WP pages I visit, and contributing new content if I can, even though my wife mocks me for it). --AlexChurchill 09:24, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Well there's a HUGE archive of discussion that talks about why they were removed, the good, the bad, and everything in between. Your comments are pretty much a retread. If you want, go read a bunch of the discussions. But the main problem? WP was *NEVER* 'safe' as you put it. Before the large mass revomal, there were still MANY articles without any spoiler warnings (almost any Final Fantasy and any Opera page, for instance). In fact, I'd say it's MUCH better now -- think about it, if you're expecting a warning (like you seemed to have), and it's not there, then it's worse than it not being expected in the first place.

As for 'safe'? Well, a lot of people would consider a number of photos and articles on profanity and other issues to be 'unsafe', but yet there's near-universal agreement about keeping those as they are. Why should spoiler warnings be any different? ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 11:50, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply. I've read a lot of the archive, but it is rather overwhelming in volume and hard to filter down to the actual points. It seems to me that individual pages which are missing spoiler warnings can have them easily added (as people keep doing to pages even now), and it's a matter of what the policy should be. And as for safety of other topics, the point is it's very easy to include the spoiler warning template, it can be easily skipped over by those who don't require it, and it provides immense service that makes the encyclopedia far more useful. It seems like in the same way that everyone knows Misplaced Pages's bad at webcomics, the reputation of Misplaced Pages's coverage for all of fiction is going to drop rapidly. (The first few pages of Googling for "Misplaced Pages Spoiler-warning -site:wikipedia.org" suggest that the majority of the internet wanted spoiler warnings and disapproves of their removal.) And this will be sad, because I like Misplaced Pages, and I'm sad to see it go this way.

But I'm not expecting anything to change because of this one comment. I'm just surprised that the actions of a vocal minority have been allowed to set the new policy, and just wanted to log a vote for reinstating them when the matter next comes up for discussion. --AlexChurchill 12:32, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

For the heck of it, I just did such a search. Outside a reference to WP spoiling HP Deathly Hollows in the first line (before the book was out, mind you), the first reference to WP spoiling was in the 21st entry, and all it says was "Its the dang Misplaced Pages that spoils things for me ". It's not until the 23rd that a truly relevant link comes up, to a forum, which pretty much rehashes this page, including such wonderful comments as "There's a big hole in my life. I guess I'll have to fill it with alcohol. Thanks a lot, Jimmy Wales. Ass.", and from the other side "People who care about spoilers and spoiler warnings enough to moan about something like this could do with a visit from the clue doctor to give them a few shots of HOLY SHIT I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT A PERSON COULD HAVE SUCH FUCKED UP PRIORITIES AND SUCH A SHELTERED EXISTENCE."...so yeah. But a bit down, a VERY interesting comment that says things perfexctly, IMO: So maybe wikipedia is trying to be more -pedia and less what wiki- has become. I can't honestly blame them. If they hope to remain relevant, they can't become so user influenced that all objectivity is lost.

But anyway, that seems to be about the only real place there's any discussion within the first 50 or so entries. So I'm not quite sure what you're getting at with that. Spammy post, but eh... ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 13:28, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

Melodia offered a good summary, but I would add a couple of points.

The premise that spoiler warnings were deleted by a "vocal minority" is very much disputed. There is anecdotal evidence for and against that assumption. Before the so-called "mass removals," there were warnings on about 45,000 articles, which is less than half of the articles that theoretically should have had them. This is certainly one piece of evidence that the majority either opposes the warnings or doesn't care either way, as otherwise they should have been much more prevalent.

One unsolved problem is that every reader has a different perspective on how much of the plot is allowed to be disclosed without "spoiling it." For episodic fiction (TV shows, webcomics, serial novels, film franchises), some editors believe that only the most recently-disclosed plot details need to be spoiler-protected. In an article on a recurring character, the warnings might surround only the latest events in that character's fictional life. But this is helpful only to readers who are caught up to the exact point in the story that the editor predicted. Those who have gone beyond that don't need the warnings, and those who've gone less far are going to have earlier parts of the story spoiled. Marc Shepherd 15:51, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

There's no evidence that there was a theoretical deficiency of spoiler warnings. Take away stubs with no spoilers, and 45,000 is about right. As for the reduced usefulness for researching new fiction, it's irrelevant to the anti-spoiler camp; they prefer their self-invented definition of 'encyclopedia'.--Nydas 21:20, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

There's no evidence that 45,000 was the correct figure, either. Marc Shepherd 12:20, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

So maybe wikipedia is trying to be more -pedia and less what wiki- has become. I can't honestly blame them. If they hope to remain relevant, they can't become so user influenced that all objectivity is lost. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 21:54, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

What do have SWs to do with objectivity? They're no more related to NPOV, verifiability or accuracy than a choice of spelling, article structure or headings. To Alex - I agree with you, I feel same way; in the meantime, you may consider having userbox template on your user page like this: {{Userboxtop|Userboxes}} {{User:Kizor/User spoilertags}} {{Userboxbottom}} Samohyl Jan 06:35, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Ironic, Melodia, considering that that comment falls under the umbrella of user influence. Oh no, a paradoxical conundrum! Misplaced Pages will crumble under it's own weight! Whatever shall we do? ~_^ Kuronue | Talk 13:32, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Hi AlexChurchill, it's difficult to summarize a million-some bytes of disputatious debate into a nutshell. As I've put the story together from the pro-tag view:

In May 2007, a reasonable good-writing manifesto intended to prevent spoiler notices from influencing the structure of articles, got carried away into a bigoted vendetta against mostly young consumers of narrative suspense (which spoilers break), evolved into a majoritarian do-it-because-we-said-so force, overrode compromise consensus while editing the spoiler guide, and was then enforced by ongoing search-and-destroy operations against spoiler-tags, as justified by the majoritarian-forced editing of the spoiler guide. There has long been a workable compromise on the table of good article-writing structure, combined with using spoiler tags hidden by default (you would need to turn them on), but it's going to take a long time to balance out the majoritarians with compromise consensus.

"Notices"? Oh yes, it turns out that spoiler tags aren't "warnings" or "alerts" by dictionary definition, because spoiler disappointment isn't dangerous or unsafe. The opponents have seized on that hyped "warning" misusage to distract from a compromise using the "no disclaimers" (of danger) policy. Correctly calling them "spoiler notices" (a type of content notice like the disambiguation notices) makes that debate distraction go away.

By poll, about 40+% of readers/editors want spoiler tags. This is a large minority, but as a minority rights issue it's only of middling importance. I've estimated that the public issue to restore spoiler tags is only five months into a one to two year campaign. Two external wildcards are that big publishing/Hollywood profits and perhaps a million web posters indirectly support the use of spoiler notices. The SanFrancisco Chronicle has already declared the immorality of spoilers, which hints that moral citizens might not want to donate money to "spoiler sites".

I agree with Samohyl Jan that the {{User:Kizor/User spoilertags}} is a useful way to express your disappointment at the loss of all but a few temporary, token spoiler notices. Tell your friends too. Milo 15:31, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

It was a deletion debate

Milomedes states, inter alia:

In May 2007, a reasonable good-writing manifesto intended to prevent spoiler notices from influencing the structure of articles, got carried away into a bigoted vendetta...

Milomedes has his facts wrong. The change in the spoiler tag guideline came from a deletion debate about the old spoiler tag guideline, which for policy reasons was changed into a Request for comment on the guideline. .

Milomedes's central allegation, that "a reasonable good-writing manifesto intended to prevent spoiler notices from influencing the structure of articles, got carried away" is thus difficult to interpret unless you think that deletion of the old spoiler warning guideline was simply "intended to prevent spoiler notices from influencing the structure of articles." But that is again contradicted by the facts. Phil Sandifer's proposal shows his declared intention in listing the guideline for deletion:

The worst instance I've found yet is The Crying Game, where the twist ending makes the film a major film for anyone interested in LGBT cinema. Spoiler warning says that can't go in the lead. Misplaced Pages: Lead section says the lead has to function as a short article unto itself. WP:NPOV says all major perspectives must be mentioned in an article. You can pick any two of the policies and successfully apply them to The Crying Game. Since we can't get rid of NPOV, either spoilers or lead sections need to go. .

Since that proposal in mid-May, David Gerard's suggestion of "severely restrict to very recent or unreleased fiction. has been more-or-less fulfilled, and this has taken place in the context of a rewrite of the guideline that sets far more reasonable criteria for their use. --Tony Sidaway 18:14, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

What about the aggressive trashing of NPOV with 'fans-only', 'out in the US' or 'everyone knows'?--Nydas 19:19, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

That's more of a systemic bias, really. ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 19:59, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Possibly. But actually I've no idea what Nydas is referring to. What does the phrase "'fans-only', 'out in the US' or 'everyone knows'" mean? --Tony Sidaway 20:18, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Nydas thinks that the current spoiler-tag policy makes Misplaced Pages a "fans-only" environment, presumably because fans are the only people who already know the plot, and therefore are in no danger of being "spoiled." As usual, he is selective about his facts, but we've come to expect that. Marc Shepherd 20:50, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Ah, thanks. If that's really what he means, that doesn't seem to be a serious argument, it's all of a piece with Milomedes' talk of "a bigoted vendetta against mostly young consumers of narrative suspense", which seems to me more an attempt to talk up a minor issue into something that sounds more terrible. --Tony Sidaway 05:08, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

It's not a vendetta against the young, it's against non-fans. The aim of the anti-spoiler campaign is to punish or 'burn' them, and you have stated that they are perverse halfwits or have 'demons'. Spoiler warnings aren't a big issue in themselves, but the mentality of the anti-spoiler campaign is symptomatic of larger problems.--Nydas 07:24, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

The real situation is actually the opposite.

Some of the editors most passionate about adding spoiler tags are editing articles on serial fiction (TV series, comics, etc.). Do you know what they do? They spoiler-protect just the most recently-disclosed plot events. The only readers who benefit from this strategy are the fans who've seen every episode but the most recent one(s). Readers who are farther behind, or who are non-fans, get no benefit whatsoever, because the articles are full of un-tagged spoilers.

Indeed, the presence of spoiler tags in these articles may lend false comfort. Readers may think that the untagged portions of the articles do not disclose "significant plot details," but this isn't the case. If the template were called {{spoiler of the most recent episode}}, it would be more accurate. Marc Shepherd 12:27, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

How is that the opposite situation? The editors most passionate about removing spoiler tags are most likely to pause over franchises they like or consider important. The people you describe are just trying to live up to guideline as written.--Nydas 18:02, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

I am talking about the people who add the tags, not the people who remove them. And what I observe is that the people adding them are often doing so from a fan-centric, in-universe perspective. In other words, they are making the articles more fan-focused, not less. This is precisely the opposite of what you have always suggested that spoiler tags would do. Marc Shepherd 18:56, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

It is impossible to add spoiler tags from an 'in-universe' perspective, unless someone is worried about the fictional characters reading the article. It's not fan-focused, it's just an effort to add a spoiler tag according to the guideline as written. They're probably under the impression that the spoiler police adhere to the wording of the guideline.--Nydas 09:39, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

When I refer to an 'in-universe' perspective, I am referring to editors whose definition of "spoiler" is what they believe hard-core fans would know.

You repeatedly assert that editors who add tags are being influenced by the current guideline (however much they may disagree with it). You have no proof of this; it's simply what you'd like to be true.

In fact, when a new {{spoiler}} tag is added, overwhelmingly the most common placement is right at the top of the "Plot" section, with {{endspoiler}} (if present) right at the bottom of it. Since the current guideline explicitly discourages this, it seems doubtful that these editors have read the guideline. Marc Shepherd 21:24, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

The guideline does not explicitly discourage this.--Nydas 06:35, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I find it interesting that many of the editors involved in the spoiler tag removals (User:JzG, User:Misza13, User:David Gerard and myself, for example) do not happen to be from the US and do not have a strong editing background in "fan" articles. I wonder what it is that makes Nydas think we edit US-centric and fan-only. I get the impression that we have moved away from a heavily US-influenced Usenet idea of warnings for things the US population considers "spoilers" to a more neutral way of editing. Kusma (talk) 08:13, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

You don't have to have to edit fan articles to have a fan-centric worldview. It's a fair bet the editors involved will favour anime and video games over spy novels and historical romances. Hence the solitary 'permitted' spoiler tag being on an anime character awaiting translation. The situation is the same for Russian mystery novel Coronation, or the Last of the Romanovs (no spoilers yet, but it may gain some), though the chances of it getting spoiler tags are non-existant.

It's ironic that you mention USENET given that this campaign was basically decided on that anachronism, the Misplaced Pages mailing list. Spoiler warnings are used occasionally in the online mainstream media, it's not the preserve of USENET any more.--Nydas 18:02, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Tony (18:14) wrote: "It was a deletion debate" – "Milomedes has his facts wrong" Hm, if you are suggesting that a manifesto somehow can't keynote a deletion debate, that would be your rhetorical misunderstanding, not my wrong facts. COED "manifesto":

noun (pl. manifestos) a public declaration of policy and aims.

"Phil Sandifer's proposal shows his declared intention in listing the guideline for deletion: 'The worst instance I've found yet is The Crying Game...' " Tsk, tsk, you selectively quoted Phil's second paragraph with an expanded example, instead of the first paragraph where lies the original manifesto. You also didn't do enough research to discover that Phil re-edited his original one-paragraph manifesto. That second paragraph didn't exist until after ThuranX (21:36) & David Gerard (21:38) had posted in reply. Here is Phil's original, single manifesto paragraph:

Misplaced Pages:Spoiler warning 21:31, 15 May 2007 Phil Sandifer wrote: "This policy is a flat contradiction of the much more important Misplaced Pages:Lead section, and, worse, is used to justify actively bad article writing where key aspects of a topic are buried outside of the lead. In its worst manifestations, such as The Crying Game, this is used to bury entire perspectives on the movie (i.e. LGBT perspectives) outside of the lead where they belong. The entire policy encourages writing articles in a way that is organized around spoiler warnings instead of sensible portrayal of information, and has gone egregiously wrong (highlights including spoiler warnings on Night (book), The Book of Ruth, and Romeo and Juliet). The policy is overwhelmingly being used to make articles worse, not better, and for that needs to go." "Phil Sandifer 21:31, 15 May 2007"

Ok, now that we're working with Phil's original source text, let's align your skewed reasoning to it.

Tony (18:14) wrote: 'Milomedes's central allegation, that "a reasonable good-writing manifesto intended to prevent spoiler notices from influencing the structure of articles, got carried away" is thus difficult to interpret unless you think that deletion of the old spoiler warning guideline was simply "intended to prevent spoiler notices from influencing the structure of articles". But that is again contradicted by the facts.' Oh? Let's examine the facts of what Phil wrote in the first sentence.

Phil (15 May 2007, 21:31) wrote: "This policy is a flat contradiction of the much more important Misplaced Pages:Lead section, and, worse, is used to justify actively bad article writing where key aspects of a topic are buried outside of the lead."

Milo (15:31) wrote: "intended to prevent spoiler notices from influencing the structure of articles." While Phil and others "got carried away" with intentions beyond "simply", Phil substantially did intend to prevent spoiler notices from influencing the structure of articles – the lead component in this case – so my central allegation is fact-based in that regard. "Got carried away" being a metaphor does requires interpretation, but by your own analysis will not be difficult to interpret.
Q.E.D., Phil's manifesto reads as I summarized it. Milo 13:33, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Phil's second paragraph was visible for almost the entire deletion debate, which was started with the intention to delete Misplaced Pages:Spoiler (that is why the debate was at Misplaced Pages:Miscellany for deletion/Wikipedia:Spoiler warning). Your decision to concentrate on the first paragraph seems quite arbitrary. Kusma (talk) 13:58, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

"Your decision to concentrate on the first paragraph seems quite arbitrary" Not at all arbitrary, since the first paragraph contains a statement of principle for the manifesto, where one might expect to find it in any persuasive writing.†

A manifesto is an activist statement of philosophical principle. In writing, principles are top-level statements that hierarchically determine the suitable choice of subsequent analyses, examples, rules, proposed actions, and other supporting details. For example, consider the following simple manifesto:

(hypothetical quotation:) In principle, all humans are created equal. Slavery makes humans grotesquely unequal. Therefore slavery is unprincipled. Therefore slavery is bad. Therefore we shall break bad slavery laws to free the slaves.

One writes the principle(s) first, because people are more likely to understand and be persuaded by the details if they already understand the big picture. If the details of breaking slave laws were placed first, and the principle last, fewer people would be persuaded that breaking of slave laws is principled, and therefore is a morally-justified civil disobedience.

†Sometimes preceding the statement of principle, there is a preamble describing a compelling belief or experience which motivates the manifesto, but a preamble is technically unnecessary (and Phil did not use one). This top-down writing structure is also the basis for most persuasive writing including encyclopedia articles. Milo 23:42, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

It was a deletion debate. --Tony Sidaway 23:50, 27 September 2007 (UTC)

Interesting footnote....

Since The Crying Game has come up a lot about 'ingrained into pop culture' and all that, what I find VERY interesting, is how The Simpsons thought it was OK to spoil that plot point a mere half a year after the movie came out -- in the episode Marge in Chains (here has the quote). Just a bit of a curveball...♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 19:16, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

The Simpsons is a show that built a reputation on pushing the envelope and being edgy (even if it has been overtaken in that regard by other programs). So what's analogous here? Postmodern Beatnik 02:51, 30 September 2007 (UTC)