I suggest that we change the spoiler policy.

Sure, but what about readers without accounts? Most new readers will go through endless pages before creating an account.

The "show spoilers" switch in the sidebar still works if not logged in.

Even then, I feel like very few logged-out readers are going to care enough to check the settings. However, people who hate spoiler tags would care enough to turn them off. But are they really that much of a problem that we need them off by default?

They should be on by default. You can click on a spoiler tag to see what's under it, but you can't unsee it after the fact. I do think spoilers should be left unmarked on work pages since anyone who doesn't want to be spoiled on something really shouldn't be looking at a list of things that happen in it in the first place.

PSA: a cat is not a dog

That may work with shorter, linear works, like a one-off movie, but what about seasons-long shows? Is it fair to expect someone to be completely caught up? Or sprawling games with missable content?

And what about pages that are about multiple works? For example Gentleman Bastard - the page has examples from the first three books. I've read only the first book so far and the spoiler tags help me avoid spoilers about the next two (not always, but that's my own fault).

Which is exactly why work pages should retain spoiler tags.

I had a dog-themed avatar before it was cool.

In my opinion, such cases like Gentleman Bastard can be handled by splitting off pages for each book. For TV shows, each episode can get its own page within the Recap/ namespace. This then leaves the overarching work pages for elements common to or affecting multiple installments.

Contains 20% less fat than the leading value brand!

I'm not saying the work's audience should be completely caught up, I'm saying that our audiences should expect our pages to be completely caught up. Why would someone coming to the wiki expect our page to be out-of-date?

The page description should be completely spoiler-free, and pages in the Recap namespace can go into spoiler-y details. This doesn't change if the example list is spoilers-allowed or spoilers-forbidden by default. By keeping the description spoiler-free, audiences can see if the page is about just the first season/book/film, or about the whole Long Runner. The description should index any subwork pages (such as each film in a film franchise). This gives them a chance to decide if they want to continue reading details about events in the work before they see any details that might be spoilers (First Episode Twists excepted, if it is impossible to discuss the work without them).

Gentleman Bastard's description contains no spoilers that I can see, and clearly states that the page analyzes the methods of storytelling for the entire series. In fact, it indicates that it might have information from not-yet published material because it explicitly includes titles of novels that aren't published yet.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

While I agree completely, I have run into a problem because our literature fanbase here is a bit thin. There are a number of book pages that I've split into pages for individual books and then realized that absolutely no one but me is editing them. Which makes the whole affair seem like more effort than it's worth.

TBF, that's the deal with almost every page for a slightly more obscure work. It's only the popular works that get a lot of editors.

That doesn't mean it's worth splitting the pages, just that it shouldn't matter how many people would actually edit the pages.

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

:rofl: You mention that after the troper uploading works pages (requirement: 5,000 characters in length) for every work published by/for Isaac Asimov? Yeh.... I noticed... :rofl: Still, as long as works/creator pages are reasonably complete and free of errors, it doesn't matter how many people fail to edit them.

Edited by crazysamaritan on Jan 26th 2020 at 8:53:07 AM

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

Jumping in to say that I generally agree with the idea that all works pages should have spoilers allowed by default, and works pages of any age should be able in principle to have spoiler tags. Covering up spoilers is the default etiquette throughout the internet, and if you don't like them you can easily toggle Show Spoilers. I personally often read the TV Tropes page and browse the tropes list for works I am considering watching or are partway through, and while there is some risk there, I appreciate not having everything spoiled.

I also agree that spoiler tags are heavily misused- they should only be used to hide major twists, and comedy/slice of life works shouldn't have spoilers at all in most cases. But that has nothing to do with the substance of the policy, and everything to do, like most of our problems, with Fan Wank and people not reading/following directions.

Edited by naturalironist on Jan 27th 2020 at 11:32:56 AM

"It's just a show; I should really just relax"

I think I've come up with something that sounds like a reasonable rule of thumb: is the viewer expected to consume the entire work in one sitting? If so, it might make sense to have the page Spoilers Off.

For example, movies, songs, and short stories would fall under that category, since there are only three types of people:

1. Those who have watched the whole thing and have no reason to avoid spoilers.
2. Those who haven't seen it, but don't care about spoilers (whether because they're a Spoiler Hound, or because they're not interested in seeing it at all).
3. Those who are planning on seeing it and are avoiding spoilers (and therefore shouldn't be looking at the page in the first place).

With long-running TV shows, multi-hour video games, and big novels, someone could be in the middle of viewing the work, so it's reasonable that they might want to check if what they just saw was an example of a certain trope before they've seen the ending.

Edited by Zuxtron on Feb 9th 2020 at 10:50:53 AM

I think that there are use-cases for looking at a work-page before taking on the work, such as getting a feel for whether it's interesting (I find TV Tropes sometimes more reliable for this than IMDB, I think), or checking for the presence of a trope that one particularly likes or dislikes.

In all fairness, the former case may involve only the description, which I think tends to be spoiler-free anyway.

In addition, as others have pointed out, I think, from a reader perspective there's little real cost to having spoiler-tags: if they're present, people who don't want them can just turn them off. However, if they're omitted, then people who do want them can't just "turn them on".

(There is of course a cost in additional typing during editing, and arguably perhaps a small cost in additional storage space for the tags. The latter seems likely to be negligible, however.)

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Feb 9th 2020 at 10:24:58 PM

My Games & Writing

If that's the case, that the only people who don't want to be spoiled are those who shouldn't be reading pages in the first place, why have spoilers? What about those browsing random trope who come across a spoiler they didn't want. It happened to me and is bound to happen to casual and new viewers who wouldn't know which pages/tropes are prone to such spoilers.

The point of spoilers is so someone can look over the work to see if they are interested without so much info they're spoiled.

With that, I propose the only pages that should use spoiler tagging are Trope, Main, YMMV, Trivia, and maybe reviews. Any other pages go into a level of analysis/detail one who doesn't want to be spoiled wouldn't care nor go out of their way to check out. (Has anyone checked out a Character/Fridge/WMG page for a series you previously didn't care to check out that made you want to check it out?)

I proposed here character pages be spoilers off as the spoilers being put under specific characters makes hiding them futile and goes into details those who want to avoid spoilers wouldn't care for even if it wasn't Schmuck Bait. I think there was interest but the threat told to take the conversation here.

That feels disingenuous because the post you're replying to wasn't talking about trope pages, only work pages. I think your suggestion has some merit as discussion in this thread, but it seems to misrepresent the referenced post. Without the first paragraph addressing Z's post, your point still follows from previous discussion.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

In my opinion, if we don't want people annoyed by spoilers, we could have a rule to only put Death Tropes and other Ending Tropes that have spoilers in their title (such as Babies Ever After) on work pages as opposed to characters pages. If someone wants to skim a characters page on the main cast of a work they haven't experienced, they would be looking for basic characterization tropes (such as the Five-Man Band tropes, Genki Girl, etc) as opposed to plot twists and endings.

Rock'n'roll never dies!

Pretty sure those aren't supposed to be on character pages in the first place.

Character pages are for Characterization Tropes.

Per this, a mod has stated that Death Tropes shouldn't be under character pages.

At this point, I wonder if Character Pages should be like Trivia and YMMV, only allow specific examples that are not allowed on other pages. It's drastic but if there's such confusion over what should/shouldn't go under character pages. Or do we only allow Characterization Tropes on work pages if the work doesn't have a character page?

Is there a thread for such cleanup of character pages/tropes?

Edited by Ferot_Dreadnaught on Oct 19th 2020 at 10:25:57 AM

Yes, the Are these Character Tropes? thread.

Link to TRS threads in project mode here.

However, that thread has proven more or less useless as there's no accepted metric or standard- what counts as a Character Trope is entirely subjective.

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

So, this topic has been raised again over on the main Spoiler Policy cleanup thread.

Two questions drawn from those posts:

1. Is there any appetite to change the approach to Older Than Radio public domain works, which are currently generally Spoilers Off? The current rule may make sense for works like Oliver Twist and Romeo and Juliet, which are reaching It Was His Sled levels of cultural awareness, but for less well-known works, should tagging be used?

2. If a work is Spoilers Off due to age, should it still get a top-of-page spoiler warning to tell tropers that, and should we try to keep all spoilers out of the description and image above the line, as we would for other works?

---

For my part, I'm comfortable with Spoilers Off remaining the default for older works, but I see no problem with making exceptions for a particular work if there's a consensus to do so.

If we are considering a work to be Spoilers Off due to age, I think it should have a top-of-page warning explaining that.

On the other hand, if we decide to keep spoilers tagged for anything Older Than Radio, I think it warrants a comment to confirm that's a deliberate decision, link to the relevant forum thread, and warn tropers not to change it unilaterally.

Edited by Mrph1 on May 7th 2023 at 12:49:37 PM

I'd much rather just remove the policy all together, as I argued passionately about the last time this came up. It just seems... IDK... arbitrary to me? Like, why should Sherlock Holmes be spoiled just because it's old? Why expect tropers to already have read every Public Domain classic?

I understand many works - ancient myths, the Bible, fairytales etc, but those don't really have "plot twists" in the way we think of them, or have become ingrained in our culture beyond simply being a popular book.

But anyway, I think people had actually wanted a new thread, not to resurrect this one.

Edited by WarJay77 on May 7th 2023 at 7:57:02 AM

Current Project: Incorruptible Pure Pureness

Yeah, I think it's better to make a new thread as we don't want people to have to read through multiple pages. Also, we are talking about different things now.

Macron's notes