Direct from Administrivia.Handling Spoilers...
"Think about it. If you have to highlight and read it ... just to see if you want to highlight and read it, there is no point to the spoiler font."
It's Schmuck Bait. Spoilering out the trope name basically dares the reader to highlight it just to see what it is. (And that's not getting into the fact that Killed Off for Real is one of the most rampantly misused tropes on Characters/ pages anyway. It does not mean "This character dies." It means "This character dies, permanently, in a setting where death is frequently reversible.")
edited 21st Jan '15 11:12:59 PM by mlsmithca
So we'd rather have guaranteed spoilers than potential ones? Do a lot of people browse works they don't want to be spoilered on and start reading spoiler tags anyway?
Nah, we just don't want spoiler tagged trope names.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Elder statesman
There's also the fact that most readers of this site aren't fans of any given work, aren't likely to read/view/play it based on what they read here, and therefore don't care about spoilers. Write for the casual reader, not the fan who probably knows all the spoilers anyway.
In any case, Characters pages are inherently Spoilered Rotten, so people who don't want to risk being spoiled shouldn't be reading those pages in the first place. During the Fast Eddie era, rampant abuse of spoiler tagging nearly led him to disable spoiler tags on Characters pages altogether.
Bigotry in the name of inclusion is still bigotry.
Who does say that most people don't care about spoilers?
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Elder statesman
From the Handling Spoilers page: "Think about the casual reader, who doesn't care about spoilers."
Bigotry in the name of inclusion is still bigotry.
Siiiiiiiiiiiip
For the record, if you hover over a spoiler that has a link in it, the link will show up in some way, or you can tell there is a link to it. The spoiler itself is worthless on those since you know something important is there by default. Thus, there's never a reason to spoiler a link/trope.
...It's weird having so many websites and no way to properly display now, lol.
Lost in Space
Guys, please look for existing threads — there's a live one in Wiki Talk right now. We don't need lots of topics about spoilers. The policy is clear and will not change.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Maybe somebody could help clear this up for me, but why are trope names not supposed to be covered by spoilers even when the name itself is a spoiler (like Killed Off For Real or Back From the Dead on a character page).