This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
There is a quite popular opinion that anything than can be spoiled is rotten from the beginning. In other words, if a work of fiction becomes bland and useless after you know the plot - it was worthless from the start. Classics, OTOH, can be and are enjoyed without the lame 'what is next' tension necessary for low enterntainment pieces. So yeah.
DomaDoma: I humbly suggest that any Potterites reading this swear off the Internet starting July 14th and ending not until they finish Deathly Hallows.
Janitor: Pulled out And we're not talking the "Kramer talks to Seinfeld about a movie about a comatose woman next to Jason Alexander" kind of spoiler either. ... pending some clarification of what, if any, distinction is being attempted.
Ungvichian: The type we emphasize here is the kind that appears in the mass media (as opposed to someone talking about the show to someone and mentioning a plot point).
Janitor: I see. I suppose if someone had seen the Seinfeld episode it would be a little more plain. It's a bit murky as-is. I'll take a stab at fleshing it out.
Ungvichian: I actually meant that the method was demonstrated in the Seinfeld episode.
Random832: Is there a name for people complaining about spoilers for something that really doesn't spoil anything? If not, I'm thinking maybe call it The Boat Sinks At The End.
Ununnilium: The Ship Sinks is punchier and easier to get.
Random832: On reflection, I think there's a whole spectrum of degrees of spoilage - from The Ship Sinks to Rosebud Is The Sled to Bruce Willis Died At The Beginning and this deserves to be documented.
Seth: Should we mention that most people put a statute of limitations on spoilers. For example someone i know complained that i spoiled the end of Scream and we all just laughed at him.
Sean Tucker: Is this page Made Of Win or just annoying?
Seth: The Doctor Who Spoilers and Torchwood Spoilers pages annoy me, purely because you guys never bother spoiler tagging a series as it airs in America like say Smallville Gilmore gilrs, Heroes, supernatural ect. Pretty much every program on right now which if i wasn't a pirating bastard who downloaded episodes would have everything spoiled. Yet Doctor who which airs here first i have to tip toe around making examples of because you guys dont get it for a few months. I think the page should be abolished with the basic rule of thumb, if you dont want to read a spoiler on a show, don't read its entry in a wiki which documents plot points. That or you know create a Supernatural Spoilers, Gilmore Girls Spoilers Heroes Spoilers, Ugly Betty Spoilers, South Park Spoilers... and you get the idea. Double standards suck.
Silent Hunter: This is an American website and so we go by American airing time. At least that's how I see it. I understand where you're coming from- I've been minorly spoiled for 24 here.
Mister Six: Speaking as a fellow Brit, I do find it kind of annoying but put it down to the majority's prerogative. If this were a UK-based wiki it might be different. Besides, there are only about three shows (Who, Torchwank and Hustle) that are popular enough in the US to warrant that kind of thing, whereas creating non-US spoiler pages for US shows would result in dozens of new, pointless pages and plenty of confusion as people try to work out when a show is being broadcast in the UK - or even if it is being broadcasted in the UK.
And while telling people not to go on the Who page is theoretically a good solution, they still risk being spoilered when reading the "examples" sections at the bottom of each trope page. Believe me, I was biting my metaphorical tongue when compiling the Time Travel Tropes. At the end of the day, I'm fairly certain that the number of UK tropers on this site are minimal compared to US tropers and while making articles nation-neutral is fine, expecting everyone else to duck and dive through the site to avoid spoilering themselves isn't.
That said, I just had a thought - wouldn't it be okay for people to completely spoiler Who tropes that haven't been shown in the US yet? Like so: BLAHBLAHDoctor Who[[BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH SPOILER!]]?
Until this is sorted out, I won't spoil anything for anyone. But I will say this: "Blink" totally F**KING ROCKS.
Robin Goodfellow: It seems to me the whole spoiler problem is largely a result of the vast information the internet has made available. While it's not cool to give away the surprise, at least some of the blame surely lies with a rabid fan of something who hungrily searches for every tidbit he can find...but then cries foul when he finds something he didn't want. It's a bit like the old lady who calls the police to complain that she can see naked people on the nude beach — when she looks down there with her high-powered telescope. If, as was snarkily said, "Staties will talk," then that's only a problem as long as Britties will listen.
With that in mind, surely a reasonable balance can be reached. A few contributors here seem to take the spoiler thing too far, to the point where they have redacted so much of an example that it doesn't actually have any value as an example unless you read the spoiler part. Surely something like "In Ballistic Detergent Princess, Miko is clearly The Brothers Keeper, even though it later turns out that he was really a secret agent" is reasonable, blocking the twist but still making a meaningful point. It's doesn't seem necessary to make it ""In Ballistic Detergent Princess, Miko is clearly The Brothers Keeper, even though it later turns out that he was really a secret agent," or, even worse, "In Ballistic Detergent Princess, Miko is clearly The Brothers Keeper, even though it later turns out that he was really a secret agent." How 'bout this rule of thumb: if you left out the spoiler entirely, would the example still be worth including? If not, then maybe it's not a good example.
I just this minute ran across this real example:
- Asakura Ryouko from Suzumiya Haruhi No Yuutsu is a sweet, popular Class Representative... who doesn't lose her smile as she traps Kyon in a classroom, calmly explains how she's going to kill him, then dashes at him with a knife. Psychotic — and the smile on her face as she does it makes it even creepier. One theory is that her persona is, in fact, merely a complex simulation; in reality, she is just as coldly emotionless as Yuki. On the outside, she seems to be a cheerful, sweet person. Inside, she has no emotions at all. An alternative interpretation is that she has emotions, but by self-admission doesn't understand the concept of death. So to her, there's really nothing wrong with killing Kyon. She's just really cheerfully trying to kill him.
- Eddard Stark from A Song Of Ice And Fire. Despite being one of the few truly good characters of the series, his rigid code of honour and loyalty to his dead friend lead to his downfall.
Citizen: The Haruhi spoiler looks familiar; I think I came across that example and removed it (Okay, something's not right; did someone revert the edit, or was this example used elsewhere?). As for the rest, I can't really say whether the spoilerizing is excessive without knowing the context. The A So Ia F example is a little too blanked out and could be worded better to have some of the second part in the open, but its presence still serves a purpose. It says that this series has an example of this trope, and if you want to remember who, look at the spoiler.
I also wanted to explain my use of spoiler for the anti-I Just Want to Be Normal example in my YKTTW, where I summarize book 4 of the Haruhi novels. Yes, it made my post a big spoiler block, but I used it because I couldn't come up with any other examples, and the spoiler specifically illustrated the idea that I had in mind.
All that being said, I try to rewrite excessive spoiler blocks for stuff I've seen, when I come across them.
Travis Wells: I changed the Macrochan image link to a macrochan page link not to get myself massive amounts of advertising cash (ahem...) but because it didn't actually work. It triggered the anti-hotlinking which made the link kinda useless.
Doctor Worm: Nixed the spoiler for the killer in The Mousetrap. Seriously, don't spoil that one. I'm a traditionalist on that.
