Or people, like me, who skim works pages to see whether they want to watch/read a work in the first place.
Exactly. If you don't like seeing swiss cheese, you can change that in your settings. If you don't want to be spoiled, that's fine too.
This is probably about the hundredth time I've seen people complain about us using spoiler tags. My response hasn't changed.
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
All I think is that we need better standards on when exactly spoiler tags are necessary, and when they aren't. The excessive overuse of them is a real problem, even if they can be useful, and this isn't a problem solved by arbitrarily deciding some works don't get spoiler-tags at all- that just makes it worse, as it sets a weird double standard that really isn't helping.
Even if you think they're good, you have to be able to admit- spoiler tags are extremely misused and overused, and there are a lot of pages that could only function well once they had their spoilers stripped altogether.
Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
So far, the biggest misuse of spoiler tags that I know about is how the entire description of the trope (and sometimes the trope itself) tend to get whited out. I was told on both the Character page clean-up thread and through reading the policy on handling spoilers that completely whiting out the description is against the policy. Take the character page for A Man of Iron for instance. There were many, many tropes that had their descriptions whited out entirely. The Night Queen had it worst since damn near everything in her character folder was blanked out. Since she was a Walking Spoiler, I just decided to leave all spoilers for her character unmarked in her folder and leave a massive warning at the top of her folder. What I'm curious on is how to properly solve the issue of "completely whiting out tropes".
Berserk Button: misusing Nightmare Fuel
I was under the impression that having the entire trope description whited out wasn't necessarily against the rules, so long as the trope name itself was still visible.
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
Technically it's still wrong; you ideally want to leave enough information so the reader knows if they can read or not.
People also keep trying to make "spoiler character" folders (against the rules), spoiler-mark character descriptions (against the rules), put spoilers on explicitly spoilers-off pages like moments (obviously wrong).
It's also those "all white spoilers" that convey no useful information. If the entirety of the trope is blank, except for the trope's name itself, it may as well be a ZCE to those with spoilers hidden.
Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
Well, in that case, I'll need to work more on the A Man of Iron character pages in that regard. There's probably more stuff that misuses spoiler tags (some of it I am to blame for, my apologies). Question, is this against spoiler policy?
Character A, aka Secret Identity
Because a lot of character descriptions in the A Man of Iron character page have this, and I think it may be against policy.
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
From Handling Spoilers:
"On Characters pages, do not ever conceal the name of a character in a folder or header. You can use descriptors where the character's name would be an inherent spoiler (example: "The Killer")."
Saying "The Man" is okay. Saying "SPOILER CHARACTER" is not. I'm not sure if having the character's name spoilered-out is allowed, though; it's technically an above-the-example-line spoiler:
"No spoilers in the main body of the description, above the "Examples" line. Just don't do it."
Edited by WarJay77 on Nov 29th 2019 at 2:41:47 PM
Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think the double exclamation edit is the header, so they probably shouldn't be tagged out. Also, there are some descriptions on the page above the example line that do tag out certain spoilers. I'm going to need to work on that later, possibly put a warning at the top of the page to alert for certain unmarked spoilers cause at this point, I think the page might need it. What do you think? I'd also appreciate any help you can provide in resolving the issue.
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
Well, if you want to give it a shot and then I can take a look later, that's cool with me.
Could we maybe get back to the main subject?
Friends forevermore
I'm not even sure what the main subject is anymore. Still on spoiler tags for old works?
Edited by bwburke94 on Nov 30th 2019 at 11:41:06 AM
I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
People are suggesting no spoiler tags as a solution to these kind of problems.
Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
Yeah, the main subject is that skipping spoiler tags for old works is a bad idea, since there are still lots of old works that aren't famous enough to be spoiled by pop culture osmosis, and due to time constraints, people haven't actually have the chance to read these works before just because the works can be found for free online a lot of the time.
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
People have actually had some very good points as to why spoilers are generally more problematic than they are useful. It's a drastic suggestion, but it's still a justifiable one.
And the more supported reason is to strip only work pages of spoiler tags, also supported with a lot of valid reasons.
I understand the reason for this thread's existence is to debate whether or not PD works should go spoiler-tag-free or not. I get that. But the conversation has evolved; people are seeing other problems with the spoiler policy beyond the single problem being discussed in the OP.
And frankly, if people are putting up such a fight about not spoiler-tagging these works just because they're "old", and "we've had time to read them", then honestly arguing for the removal of spoiler-tags in general is pretty fair. The only other solution (treat all works pages the same, regardless of age) is being fought against specifically because people think spoiler-tags are unnecessary. At this point we've had the same debate over and over again ("this work should have tags" "no it's old" "but there's still a twist" "just don't go to the page then"), so clearly something isn't working here.
Forcing people to stick to the one topic isn't going to help if that discussion has only been going in circles with no resolution. People are trying to find a solution, and those solutions are taking us in tangents, but they're still trying to fix the issue at hand.
Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
Friends forevermore
And I think stripping all work pages of spoiler tags is an absolutely moronic idea.
The discussion of new works is negatively affecting the discussion of old works.
I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.
"Absolutely moronic" is a slightly rude way of putting it. How about saying "gosh-darned silly" or "less than ideal" instead?
Edited by MichaelKatsuro on Nov 30th 2019 at 2:35:15 PM
Big Catch, Sparkle Edition
I mean, that's fine, but I seriously think there are valid reasons to consider it. It's the only other solution that'd work, if people absolutely refuse to allow spoiler-tags on PD works.
Either every work should have spoilers, or no work should. This is why we keep going back to this discussion- it's impossible to discuss adding more spoiler tags without also discussing the other side of the coin.
Edited by WarJay77 on Nov 30th 2019 at 8:33:41 AM
Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness
On-topic, let me point out that from the reader's perspective, using spoiler-tagging on work pages is always going to be better. Being able to have the option of choosing to have "Show Spoilers" on or off is always better than not getting to choose.
It's like buying ice cream—sure, you might not ever buy any mango ice cream, but it's still never going to actively improve things if they remove that flavor.
Disasturbator
One idea I've had to cut down on the cheese is to code in a limit for how much text can be hidden by spoilers,shall we say at least a paragraph?
New theme music also a box
Short-Term Projects herald
My problem is that if you're on a page that lists things that happen in a work specifically, then there should be an expectation of spoilers, marked or otherwise. If you're concerned about knowing what the work is beforehand, look at the official description. Read our description of the work before going into the trope list. Look at IMDB or Rotten Tomatoes or anything that gives reviews of a work.
When it comes down to the original purpose of this thread... well, the title says we're discussing changing the spoiler policy, and one way to fix the policy is to disable or prohibit the markup. And if you want something you can use as an example of something that shouldn't need spoiler tags, use The Three Little Pigs. The wolf can blow down straw and sticks, but not brick. The third pig has a boiling pot in his chimney that ends up cooking the wolf. Different adaptations may alter details such as character deaths. This was actually on Wikipedia.
Friends forevermore
It's important to note that your example was on Wikipedia. Past tense. Added by an IP editor in 2007.
The only spoiler tag on The Three Little Pigs is a for an adaptation.
As for the general case, many people (including some in this very thread) go to work pages to see what the work is "like" without wanting to be spoiled.
Returning to the original focus of this thread, I agree that very old works don't need spoiler tags. Public Domain in the U.S. seems like a fair line to set there.
Spoiler tags only interfere with "conveying useful information to readers" if all of the following are true:
If someone wants to risk being spoiled, that's their own decision. We shouldn't force spoilers off on all work pages, because that needlessly adds spoiler risk to someone who's only partially through the work and wants to check out its tropes list.
I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.