Lost in Space
As a moderator and a troper, I am of mixed feelings, but we need to have rules that can be interpreted easily enough that every situation doesn't require some sort of intervention or judgment call.
I've been hit with spoilers more than once while browsing (and moderating) the wiki, and this is always upsetting, but my rule of thumb is that if I care about spoilers for a work, I will simply not read any articles or forum threads about it. That isn't a perfect remedy; for example, trope articles can contain spoilers for the unwary, and people can mention spoilers in topics unrelated to the work in question. It's unavoidable. If you want radio silence, you need to get off the Internet entirely.
What it comes down to is a couple of fundamental principles.
- This wiki is intended to convey useful information to readers. Spoiler tags actively interfere with this purpose.
- Readers are assumed to be responsible for their choices. In other words, if they read an article for a work, they must accept that they may encounter spoilers.
- Given the above two principles, spoiler tags are a courtesy to prevent unintended spoiling of modern works.
The idea that we owe it to someone not to spoil fucking Romeo and Juliet is absurd. (They both die.) Thus, public domain works are automatically Spoilers Off. I see no reason to change this rule. If it bothers you, don't read the article.
Edited by Fighteer on Nov 27th 2019 at 9:49:36 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
That makes sense for Romeo and Juliet, but what about some of Shakespeare's more obscure works? Classic murder mysteries? Old movies or shows with a twist ending?
The one thing a majority of us agree on is that any work, even ones that people "should" know, can still be considered a spoiler for others. The question is not if these works can't be ruined for people despite their old age, the question is where we draw the line and how we enforce it.
I still stand by the statement that every spoiler should be treated with the same standards and rules, with no arbitrary limit based on age.
Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
And if it's a mystery? Some of Agatha Christie's works are in the public domain.
(Sorta ![[nja]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/user_ninja_2074.png "[nja]"){kind=small}
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Edited by Twiddler on Nov 27th 2019 at 6:56:59 AM
Lost in Space
Except that is not our policy. So you need a better reason to change it than "I don't like it".
Like I said, my personal method for avoiding spoilers is not intentionally seeking out information about works that I intend to consume.
The same goes for Agatha Christie. If I am really concerned about experiencing one of her books organically, why the hell would I read our wiki article for it? I know a lot of people read wiki articles to see if a work is something they might like, but that's a fraught exercise even in the best of circumstances.
Edited by Fighteer on Nov 27th 2019 at 9:58:00 AM
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
I'm of the opinion that a person takes on such a responsibility in going to a work page, but trope pages are dicier. I remember distinctly a kerfuffle when Avengers: Endgame came out and someone was crosswicking examples from the work page to the trope page on opening weekend, I believe without spoiler tags.
On the other hand, I really don't want to see trope pages swiss-cheesed there and back again. It's an interesting question.
Lost in Space
Trope articles are a different matter, as I mentioned above. For certain kinds of articles, like Death Tropes, spoilers are omnipresent and inevitable, so they should come with a "Here there be spoilers" warning and be untagged. The same applies with plot twists and similar inherently spoilerrific tropes.
Otherwise, one should generally extend courtesy to readers and tag spoilers, regardless of the status of the work.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
We've been giving reasons, such as:
- The more time that passes, the more works get created and the more works fall into the Public Domain. At some point, it'll be impossible to expect anyone to have read or seen or heard most of these works, no matter how old and classic they are.
- It's completely arbitrary. Why only Public Domain works? Why should Agatha Christie be spoiled, but not Clue or The Hound of the Baskervilles? Why set a limit based on age at all, and not, say, the type of work it is? You can't spoil Romeo and Juliet for someone because the story tells you how it ends anyway, so that's an unfair comparison- that'd be a work that needs no spoiler tags. Other genres, like mysteries, dramas, and anything with a twist ending, are ruined for people if they know how it ends, regardless of how old the work is. Again, why draw the line based on age?
- You said it yourself: spoiler tags make it harder to get information. So in that case, wouldn't it be more reasonable to go with RedRobin's suggestion? Allowing a handful of works to go spoiler-free doesn't fix the general "too many spoilers" problem. What we need is to set better boundaries as to what should and shouldn't be spoiler-tagged and enforce it, not just decide some works don't get tags and others do.
Again, my main concern is also trope pages, where spoilers are a lot easier to stumble upon by accident. But the current policy gives the impression that these classic works are never to be spoiler-tagged, allowing someone to learn the twist in a story just because they were reading a new trope page.
Edited by WarJay77 on Nov 27th 2019 at 10:04:29 AM
Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
As reasonable as it may seem to say "OK, everyone knows what happens with [Work X]", there's really no measurable threshold to say when a work reaches that level of knowledge, and I would dare say that public domain works are a poor threshold to balance it on if we have to choose one, for some reasons already cited (more works enter public domain with each year, copyrights vary, etc.).
A simpler, more easily understood, more easily applied criteria would be something like - work pages don't have spoiler tags, trope pages do, except in cases of death/twist tropes. Obviously, there would still be some room to discuss individual situations, but the essential principle has a firmer foundation.
I mean, it's easier to spoil yourself on a public-domain work.
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
Forgive if I'm sounding blunt, but most of your posts on this thread have been...well...a bit nonsensical. I still don't see your point, and you still haven't answered the question I keep asking you: What about the people who DON'T WANT TO BE SPOILED on the endings of these PD works? All you've proven so far is that you can be spoiled on them. But you haven't explained why these things should be spoiled, and posting only one-sentence responses doesn't really help your argument.
Edited by WarJay77 on Nov 27th 2019 at 10:27:33 AM
Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
Actually...playing with boy has just been repeating their one argument without even saying what side they are on and or what should be done at all.
Discord: Waido X 255#1372 If you cant contact me on TV Tropes do it here.
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
Their first post began with "I disagree", so I've been assuming they're against the changes we're suggesting.
NaNo 4328 / 50,000
is already public domain, having had to enter it twice:
There's already a mistake in this thread, and that's ignoring copyright-infringing derivatives, which is an entire class of works that we post examples of. It isn't reasonable to expect tropers to be experts on copyright, but choosing that as a metric means we are expected to be experts that don't need correction. Drawn-out legal battles about copyright means that we cannot expect that policy to be interpreted easily enough. Link to TRS threads in project mode here.
Just drop a note that I already remove spoiler tags from Adventures of Huckleberry Finn according to our current policy (as well as comment out ZCE and two tropes entries ...including a very impressive "Two Tropes Divided by Slash: Might be example of neither."), feel free to put it back if the policy change.
Personally, I like the current policy enough. Partially because mental image of me adding spoiler tag to The Bible is just too dumb.
Edited by Kuruni on Nov 27th 2019 at 8:23:22 AM
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
The Bible is another one of those "unfair argument" cases. Of course you wouldn't spoiler-tag The Bible. It's not a work with plot twists, unsolved mysteries, or a shocking ending. You'd be hard pressed to even really classify it as a work of fiction. If you wouldn't spoil-tag an autobiography, of course you wouldn't spoil-tag a work like The Bible. Putting it on the same level as Agatha Christie is utterly ridiculous, and ya'll know this.
Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
First of all, I'm a Buddhist. And I did spent some free time in my youth reading the Book of Revelation like it's a fantasy book without being aware of Rule of Symbolism back then. I don't known if you learn it all from church, but as someone who pick the book without context (the younger me learned about Jesus in class, but they never teach about Christianity beyond that in school) but as an outsider, I can say that it has both plot twist and unsolved mysteries (but the ending is Foregone Conclusion indeed).
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
And I'm an Atheist. I wouldn't call The Bible a work of non-fiction, but I wouldn't refer to it as fiction either, as I do believe a lot of the events in it are either just myths and fables, or versions of real historical events. Either way though, it's a religious text to tell people what to believe, not something we should treat as a storybook with spoilers.
In any case, that wasn't my point. My point is that you guys all know The Bible isn't the sort of work that requires or even has spoilers, so using it in this argument is silly.
Edited by WarJay77 on Nov 27th 2019 at 12:21:58 PM
Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
Yes, I said that in my early post too. Just to be clear, that staement isn't argument, I just use it as an extreme example of how silly it can be.
Edited by Kuruni on Nov 27th 2019 at 9:27:23 AM
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
Eh, I think someone else mentioned it as well. I just felt like I had to point out why The Bible is a different case.
Edited by WarJay77 on Nov 27th 2019 at 12:35:03 PM
Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
I just want to repeat a few points to keep in mind:
1. Sheer lack of time means that people who don't want classics spoiled can't just find them online and read them. Not in practice. To quote the great Shakespeare, "ain't nobody got time for that!"
2. Loads of classics haven't been translated into English.
3. It's one thing with writers whose work you know about, like Shakespeare, and could have read if you wanted to. But some writers, like Plautus, are too obscure to know about, so it's not like people made a choice not to read him—they never knew he existed to begin with.
Hmm... maybe keep the work pages spoiler-off but allow spoiler on trope pages?
If you don't want to be spoiled but accidentally seen it while browsing trope examples is indeed unfortunate. But doesn't want to be spoiled yet go ahead and reading the work page (instead of using that time to, you known, reading the work) is just stupidity.
But once again, that begs the question of why it would be better to have even the biggest spoiler about a work unhidden on the work page when it takes so little effort to hide it. Being able to choose for themselves whether to have spoilers shown or not is obviously better for the readers.
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
I'd agree... if the existence of spoiler tags hasn't lead people to be overzealous and excessive when adding them, often ignoring spoiler policy, sometimes just so the most basic "twists" will be hidden. People have the issue of thinking any little plot point is a spoiler, or that the events of their pet work are just so shocking and important that they have to keep it all hidden.
And what advantage is there to going on a work's page, if you aren't willing to run into spoilers?
Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
...Take a step back and losing a mile...
In that case, I agree with previous page. It's better to not use spoiler tag at all. Too troublesome and just annoying.
In that case, it might just be better to have a general list of things that we're not spoiler tagging anywhere, on a case-by-case basis.
I only brought up removing the markup because it would solve the problem from a different angle.
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