Major spoiler tropes and works pages

So the spoiler policy has recently been changed / clarified so that it is now against site rules to spoiler tag trope names on works pages. I'm not disputing this policy, but this does make it very difficult to list tropes like The Hero Dies and All Just a Dream on works pages. I think I have found a solution that does not violate the site's rules:

Make a folder on works pages titled Major Spoiler tropes and put those tropes whose very inclusion is a spoiler in that folder without any spoiler tags.

Am I right in thinking that this would be compliant with site rules?

I recall that some spoileriffic works should have its spoiler tropes moved to its own section. I can't find it on Handling Spoilers at the moment.

edited 19th Jul '13 5:52:04 AM by MikuruFan

The discussion on @2's thing.

Well then.

Wherever I found that statement, it may have to be removed.

The crowner's still open though, so maybe that discussion should be bumped.

edited 19th Jul '13 6:11:29 AM by MikuruFan

The thing is, since that discussion, the spoiler policy has changed so that instead of being a question of giving spoiler tropes their own section vs. spoiler tagging out spoiler tropes, it's now a question of giving spoiler tropes their own section vs. not including spoiler tropes at all.

Eddie said that we should not be spoiler-tagging the names of tropes, ever. That leaves the choices of including them and just dealing with it, or not including them at all.

While I do not have an opinion (yet) about how the policy should be, I wonder how we are going to keep examples from Spoilery Trope Name tropes off pages if we follow that approach.

Hmmm, de-spoilered tags in a spoiler section sounds best. Same could be done for character pages with each individual character separately.

Frankly, I remain of the opinion that if you don't want spoilers of any sort, you shouldn't be reading beyond the description of a work article, and especially not its character sheet.

One compromise which received a bit of traction on Ask The Tropers was that if you need to spoiler tag the trope name, don't put it on the character page, just keep it on the main page where its mere presence won't be a major spoiler. For example, the identity of a Big Bad Friend is usually a spoiler, so putting it on a character page makes it obvious who it is. If you put it on the main page though, you can just tag the name of the person and be fine.

The problem is that putting The Hero Dies anywhere on say, the Chrono Trigger page, is going to be a massive spoiler. There really isn't any way to include that trope without spoiling a piece of the ending.

(One would think that would be Spoilers Off by now, but just to be sure.)

edited 19th Jul '13 9:03:51 AM by DriftingSkies

The Hero Dies may be a spoiler, but context matters. When does he die? Does he come back? Which hero?

edited 19th Jul '13 9:12:40 AM by Fighteer

I'd love it if bullets of spoilery named tropes would just hide if you haven't set spoilers off.

While some sort of auto-spoiler would be kinda cool, I imagine it would be a bitch to program, and there are a lot of tropes that are not automatically spoilers, but are for a few specific works. The Omniscient, for instance, isn't a spoiler when talking about Dr. Manhatten or Uncle Time or the majority of examples on the page, but it is for a character who undergoes a massive power boost in the last five minutes.

A problem with that is that people who have read the work in question, but who have spoilers-on, would probably like to be able to uncover the spoilers for that work, which something like that would prevent.

I think having a spoiler section is a good idea.

Having a major spoiler like The Hero Dies is more useful for the Character Page anyway. Namely because it keeps it off the main page, where spoilers about characters are the worst to deal with.

Something being a spoiler on the subpage is fine as long as the top is marked "Has Spoilers" in some way.

I'm not against a Spoilers section, but it does seem more folders than needed.

...how are character spoilers harder to deal with on the main page?

Not everybody goes to the Subpages as is. However, a character spoiler is better off on the character page instead, where character tropes should usually be anyway. Character Pages are always read at your own risk anyway, so it makes them a far better place for character spoilers specifically. Plot spoilers for the main page, however, make sense.(assuming it's not a YMMV spoiler, which goes into the correct namespace respectively)

Curious. I had the same idea regarding a Spoiler Tropes folder for work pages on ATT, a method I've seen on several pages on the wiki before (and implemented some as well myself). So yes, I support the idea.

That's only a short time solution, really. Without a ruling about character tropes being placed only on character pages or both character pages and work pages (I'm personally in favor of the latter), they'll just be re-added when the next troper notices they're missing after reading the work page.

edited 19th Jul '13 4:53:20 PM by Morgenthaler

I really don't like the "move major spoilers to a separate section" idea. Too much YMMV in what counts, what doesn't, and soft-split pages are always a headache to add things to.

I think I made my opinions on this pretty clear in the prior thread (that I'm against special treatment for inherent spoiler tropes), so I'm not going to repeat my reasoning here.

One other problem I have (that I did not bring up before) was how to handle serial works like television shows, book series, webcomics, and so on. What may appear to be an inherent spoiler may change, since we can't predict how long such a work will run. I'd rather not have to come up with some sort of standard for this, considering we won't know how long the work will run or what the work will do.

edited 19th Jul '13 5:26:04 PM by TotemicHero

I find a soft split problematic, especially in terms of editing such a page. What goes where, as well as navigational issues.

I think I support Eddie's motion that "if the trope name seems to be too spoilery for the work, omit it. It is not like it is absolutely necessary to document every conceivable trope in a work".

^ Yeah, that's a reasonable idea to me too. Maybe leave a comment saying that yes the trope exists but we're not describing it because it's too spoilery.