This is discussion archived from a time before the current discussion method was installed.
Etrangere: But the spoilers in the Bible page are hilarious! On Buffy, I do actually know people who started watching it/watched it very recently. So yeah, some people are jumping the bandwagon only. Do the policy you want anyway, but that raisonnment is off.
(Fast Eddie: Désolé, nous n'avons pas de miséricorde pour les Français) ;~)
Tanto: I would dearly love to add some series to this list. What's our cutoff point?
Fast Eddie: Put it in. The policy will arrive out of the ensuing uproar.
Tanto: Put in a few; will add more as I think of them.
I am sorely tempted to try for a blanket ban of spoiler-tagging anything made before the turn of the century. When I transcribed the ten-year-old RPG Cliche Game earlier this week, I considered adding spoiler tags to it, but decided that all the games mentioned in it had been freely available for long enough that we shouldn't have to step lightly around them, and put them in unblemished. And that's just games, one of the newer mediums. I can't even feature spoiler-tagging a Greek play or a ninteenth-century novel.
My feeling is that the intent of the spoiler tags is to keep people from randomly being spoiled by new things that they might not have had a chance to see yet, but they've become overused. (Is it possible to be too polite?) The fewer examples with spoiler tags, the better; the only thing I am unsure about is how to treat series. My gut says that something mentioned ten pages into the book isn't a spoiler (which is why I insist on removing "OMG you don't play as Snake in Metal Gear Solid 2!" from It Was His Sled), but what about something ten pages into the sixth book?
Bob: Spoiler tags should be use in order to not give away vital plot points. I think that this list should be as bareboned as possible. Sure, The Bible, Shakespeare and Final Fantasy 1 through 5 doesn't have to be spoiler marked, but Cowboy Bebop and Final Fantasy 6 and beyond (except for Aerith) should be. I believe that telling people that it's okay to spoil any plot point they want just because a series is on this list and that if anyone is spoiled by it it's their own fault for not seeing it earlier would cause a lot of ill will.
Tanto: Oh, please. "Vital plot points" is kind of the purpose of this website. We can embrace them or cringe from them.
Besides, Final Fantasies VI and VII are far better known virtually everywhere than II, III, and V. Spoilering them is willful ignorance — who, exactly, cares even the slightest bit about Final Fantasy VII and hasn't yet played it, for good or ill?
Cowboy Bebop is one of the most famous anime arguably ever — the original Gateway Series. It's been running near-continuously on Adult Swim for ten years, and you can't throw a virtual rock without hitting a free fansub. Anyone who cares about anime, again, has seen it. Why are we pretending that they haven't?
Anyway, this isn't our rule, it's the world's rule. Some series are just open secrets now, and no amount of hand-wringing or ear-stuffing is going to keep that from being the case. Spoiler tags make the pages look ugly as sin. We can't deface the wiki for the benefit of the five people who are still behind the times.
Off with the spoiler tags' head.
Etrangere: Err? That was random. Never said those people were French. For what it's worth I agree with Bob. It's worth protecting some vital plot points, without overdoing it. It's not like having a spoiler space actually hurts someone, whereas some people do get very miffed at getting spoiled.
Trouser Wearing Barbarian: Sweet Zombie Jesus, is it that hard for some people to highlight a spoiler tag? Just because something is popular/well-known doesn't mean that everyone's seen it already, and I know this from personal experience.
Tanto: The problems with the spoiler tag:
- It's hideous.
- It breaks up the narrative. The vast majority of tagged examples put the whole meat of the example behind the tag, which renders it virtually useless. You should be able to get something out of every example on the site without ever clicking a spoiler tag.
- Every time this topic comes up, we get testimony from dozens of people who admit that they check all the spoiler tags regardless of source. They just don't serve a function in the vast majority of examples. The site is more interesting when we can talk about plots freely.
- I repeat, discussion of plot points is the damn point. How do you expect to learn anything if you're going to confine yourself solely to things you've seen and know about? Try telling your English professor to hold off on his lecture because you haven't quite gotten caught up on the reading and see what kind of response you get.
- It's hideous. Try heading to a page with heavy taggage and just look at the page. Don't click it away or anything. Look at it. It's terrible.
Bob: Nevertheless, it is often a necessary evil. A list such as this really shouldn't contain more than what is needed. I can accept Buffy The Vampire Slayer, the works of Heinlein, Asimov and Arthur C. Clarke, The Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy, and not spoilermarking The Bible and Shakespeare is pretty much obvious, but I'm less sure about Neon Genesis Evangelion and Cowboy Bebop. Anime is still a niche market in large parts of the world and I'd rather not ruin it for people who still hasn't experienced it. And the Final Fantasy series is one of the more plotheavy series in gaming and I don't think we should just say "go ahead and spoil it because everyone who's ever going to play those games already has".
Kaybor: This list is arbitrary as hell. The need for spoiler tags is best left to the discretion of the editor making the entry, not to someone else who thinks that everybody on the planet should already know everything about his favorite series.
Fast Eddie: History shows us that the Internet has none. Discretion, that is.
Hylarn: This should probably be restricted to what's in popular culture. The Bible , Shakespeare, and the like are fine, but most other media gets plenty of new readers/viewers. Also; Most parts of the world got to play Final Fantasy III after XII was released, so I'll have to protest that entry.
Meta Four: I think all the Bible spoilers are hilarious.
Fast Eddie: The Bible spoilers are funny, because hiding info from the Bible is silly. I don't think that anyone is suggesting that that kind of joke should be zapped.
Do we have to be this way? Do we have to have rigid parameters? Very well. I propose: Last publishing/airing/release date greater than five years past from the current date is ipso facto spoiled.
Tanto: Seconded.
Charred Knight: The five year thing is fine, its long enough for most people to enjoy it. Its a lot better than some people who believe a year is enough. For anime are we counting stuff as arriving in America or first airing in Japan?
Caswin: I got into Buffy the Vampire Slayer a few months ago, only recently started Cowboy Bebop, and Final Fantasy VII is on my radar. (Metal Gear Solid is more likely, but same argument.) As several others have attested, it is not a safe assumption that everyone who was going to see something has already seen it.
I can testify that I do not highlight all the spoiler tags I come across, far from it. Storylines and English lectures are two very different things. However, I do not consider the tags "hideous" as a result. (While I can't speak for the rest of the community, it sounds like Tanto and I have very different browsing styles.)
Granting some instances of too much being spoiled (I've had at least one example of mine receive a perfectly-executed edit of that sort), Internet users can decide what to spoiler-tag based on their own discretion. The only reason I see to worry about the Internet at large not doing so is if 4chan invades us, in which case we would have worse things than spoiler tags to worry about.
Tanto: That's wonderful and all, but I don't see why the wiki has to be held hostage to the desires of people who might get around to watching the show or playing the game someday. Maybe it's just me, but if you're die-hard about spoilers, it seems like the onus is on you to avoid them, not expect the rest of the world to rearrange itself so that you don't have to worry about it.
At the risk of violating the Rule Of Cautious Editing Judgment, it's like the free speech thing: Just because you have the right to believe whatever you want doesn't mean that everyone else has to just sit there and nod politely. You might be within your rights to get into things late, but don't be surprised if, once you do, the rest of the world has left you behind.
Charred Knight: Its whole lot easier to avoid spoilers, if you know their coming. Its like expecting people to stop for pedestrains. Common courtesy should be used at all times here, and before Fast Eddie says something yes what I just said was completely hypocritical coming from arguably the biggest asshole here. Also looking at the amount of spoiler material, this really doesn't change much. Most of the stuff that is under spoiler tags is under 5 years, and from what I have seen the most obtrusive stuff (i.e the things Tanto is complaining about) is under 5 months. Code Geass R2 is the worst offender with BLOCKS of stuff under spoiler tags. I just ended up deleting all of them from Break the Cutie since its not even a real example (the three cuties are never broken, and the two guys who break are not The Cutie). I moved one block to The Woobie so someone with better knowledge will make it look better.
Bob: It would be best if we could reach a compromise. First of, I think the suggested "five years back" idea is a bad one, seeing as how it would includeWatchmen (which I had hadn't heard about until I read about it here) and The Mousetrap (which we aren't supposed to spoil). I realize that a lot of people feel very strongly about this so I think we should just try to agree to disagree and reach a compromise. Personally, I think that we should make this list as uncontroversial as possible. Let me offer my personal opinion
- The Bible: Spoilermarks aren't needed, despite the suggested Rule of Funny. (Also, I can remember some cases of people taking it seriously.) Keep on the list.
- Shakespeare: I'm not a fan of Theatre, but I think those who are interested already know what happens. Keep on the list.
- Buffy The Vampire Slayer: Haven't seen it. Not sure if I'm interested. A lot of it is probably You Should Know This Already because of Trailers Always Spoil, but quite frankly, I think this wiki qould give away spoilers even it it wasn't on this list. Not interested enough to have an opinion.
- Neon Genesis Evangelion: Same thing as Buffy. Not interested enough to have an opinion.
- Cowboy Bebop: Haven't seen it, had never heard of it before this wiki, don't want to be spoiled, isn't the only one in this position. I won't back down from this one. Keep off the list
- Heinlein, Jules Verne, Mark Twain, George Orwell, Douglas Addams etc. etc. I haven't read all of the old classics, but I'm not particularly concerned about spoilers. Keep on the list.
- Final Fantasy: Let me put it like this, when I played Final Fantasy VII, I already knew about the It Was His Sled event. What I didn't know about was the next plot twist, which took me completely by surprise. I liked that sense of surprise. Yes, there is a lot in the series covered under It Was His Sled, but not enough to put the whole series under "go ahead and spoil it". Yes, there are many people who haven't played it. Many of them never will. But I still think we should consider the people who will. Keep off the list.
Charred Knight: My personal philosophy is that we should only spoil tropes that are either unimportant, or too well known. Aerith dying for example can be spoiled, Cloud being an MP who failed Soldier exam, but saved Tifa from Sephiroth, and believes he was in Soldier due to suffering from a massive Heroic BSoD due to the death of his best friend, and being injected with Jenovah cells is better left in spoiler tags. The 5 year thing is my view of a comprimise that is better than the people who think one year is a good time to spoil it.
Hylarn: Question. Does this mean people are going to be going around unspoiler marking things? Or is it just going to be the people that actually support this policy not bothering to use spoiler tags?
Fast Eddie: I think the answer to your first question is: Yes. People will be going around the wiki un-Swiss-cheesing it. The answer to your second question is also yes.
Andrew: Didn't the front page used to have a warning that we spoil everything but The Mousetrap? Where did that go? I'd propose reinstating that notice, or something to that effect, sticking it near the very top of our welcome page in big bold letters and doing away with spoilers for anything younger than five years old.
Charred Knight: That was a joke about the Mousetrap. I don't think we should base our spoiler policy on it.
Andrew: Fine. Then feel free to spoil the Mousetrap. I don't really care that much about it. The greater point is that we should add some kind of conspicuous spoiler warning on the front page so that people know what they're getting into. If they then choose to forge ahead, it's on them.
Nanani: Having just been burned by three spoilers in one day, I'd like to suggest that certain TYPES of spoilers, even for the series above, should still be tagged. Mainly major things like the DEATH OF A CHARACTER in the finale, which anyone who hasn't seen the whole thing will, of course, not know about.
Tzintzuntzan: Throwing my two cents in, I think the introduction of the spoiler tag encouraged a certain...laziness in many tropers (myself included, at times). It's possible to write very careful descriptions of some events that make a good trope example, without spoiling anything (for instance, by not using character names as a start). Now instead of careful phrasing, it's easier to just write "This show contains an example of A God Am I" followed by a paragraph-long spoiler tag. But not better.
About old shows, I know that when I came to TV Tropes for the first time, it introduced me to Eva..and having never seen it, I spent a rather painful period averting my eyes on certain pages, while I was still watching the show. No matter how old something is, it's always a first time for somebody. But that's still not a reason to keep the spoiler tags up...averting my eyes then wasn't as annoying as the fog that you see now.
Fast Eddie: That is just a super good point, about it being possible to write an example without getting into spoiler territory, if some thought is put into it.
Nexus: First of all, I think we can all agree that just about anything that falls under The Oldest Ones in the Book is probably okay to spoil. So are any famous classic movies and any work of literature that's so famous/well regarded that most of us were probably assigned to watch/read them for school at some point. AKA, anything that's "high culture". Oh, and the original Star Wars trilogy ought to be You Should Know This Already by now.
Other than these works and It Was His Sled stuff, I feel there are certain things that shouldn't get spoiled regardless of how old the work is, namely deaths of major characters, major plot twists, and endings. Anything besides those really shouldn't need spoiler tags in the first place anyway.
For example, something like, "Tifa and Scarlet get into a bitchslap fight" should be okay to spoil, imo. The plot twist thats revealed after Aerith dying shouldn't be. The thing is, most popular works are going to have a fairly constant influx of new fans as long as it's available to watch/read/play etc. Heck, this very wiki helps this along a lot, I think. For instance, I knew nothing about Evangelion before finding this wiki and had no interest in looking at it until finding out various things about it via browsing through various tropes here. I'm sure there are many other tropers here that discovered interest in many series' they otherwise didn't know about or had no way of getting introduced to it.
I feel like if we do the five-year rule thing, it'd be hard for some of us to go anywhere on the site without running the risk getting spoiled of a work we may want to see.
Admittedly though, wording it in a way that doesn't spoil, if at all possible, is far preferable than using tags in the first place, though.
The Bad Wolf: I only got around to watching Buffy recently and had to tip toe around the site to avoid having big bads and people's death spoiled. While it would be ok to not spoil, say, the series page, the random pages on the wiki are the ones that get you, for instance Psycho Lesbian spoils Willow turning into dark willow, and if you got rid of the tag would ruin the surprise of Tara's death which would pretty much screw someone over who finally got around to watching the show.
I think a rule of thumb is that shows pages can have untaged spoilers if their sufficiently well known, but trope pages should be spoiled, as long as the twist hasn't become so well known its part of popular culture (soylent green is people, it was earth all along, Dr. Jekyll is Mr. Hyde, etc) the test being if you were to remake the movie/make a movie of the book, if the twist is so well known you couldn't use it, then it would be ok to spoil it.
Tanto: That's dumb, and here's why: The series page is where you go if you're researching a series and want to know more about it — therefore, a series page littered with spoilers is going to ruin it for you. Random trope pages are more likely to be visited by people who have no interest in or concern for the series, so spoiler tags there just annoy them. It's a dumb distinction to make.
Again, if you're watching a show (or think you might watch a show) and are super-anal about spoilers, that's your business — and your responsibility.
Wulf I tend to highlight spoilers without discretion, but I would say that as long as blocks and blocks of text aren't marked, it's not too ugly. I realize, of course, that this is exactly what winds up happening, but, meh.
I would say that for the most part, we should remove spoiler tags, except for the MOST important ones. If, for example, a series was about two characters working against eachother, and neither is truly the main character, which one wins in the end should be spoilered, but not who The Mole on either of their teams is. If a series is about two characters working against eachother, but one of them gets an Artifact of Doom in the first episode, and is clearly the main character, and the series is only half over after the other dies, which one dies shouldn't be marked.
Shame we can't just have a feature that allows you to automatically mark or unmark all spoilers.
DomaDoma: Oh come on, who goes into a story thinking "gosh, I bet a pivotal character will die halfway through"? Especially (incidentally, this is probably the greatest flaw of the story under discussion) when the audience is presented no clear way for the story to continue without that character?
That said, he's making a lot of sense. Allow the option to blot out spoilers if you're the sort who cares; allow removal of the tags if you're not and those white spaces are seriously that ugly to you.
Technical considerations aside, I suppose the main controversy is: which shall be the default for the Great Unknown?
Wulf True, you don't go into a series expecting a major character to die halfway through, but it makes talking about the entire second half difficult when one does.
I would say tagged would be the default, so random visitors wouldn't be spoiled, and you would have no one to blame but yourself if you got spoiled, since you'd have to go out of your way to BE spoiled.
Carnildo: To avoid Sturgeon's Law, I tend not to watch things until they're at least a decade old. I figure that if people are still talking about something after ten years, it's either good, So Bad, It's Good, or So Bad Its Horrible, and it's hard to confuse the three. TV Tropes is pretty useful for this: if something's got a list of tropes as long as your arm, it's probably worth looking into. I appreciate the spoiler tagging: knowing that a book contains an example of Heroic Sacrifice is not the same as knowing that Jesus dies.
UBF: In general i don't have any understanding for this whole "spoiler" hysteria at all. After all what do you do when you're rereading a book or rewatching tv shows, movies or comic books? do you HATE them just because you still remember some of the details? In my experience there will always be a context in which some details will be as thrilling or surprising as with the first read/watch. and even when there was a scene i felt "massively" spoilered of i still was interested in the hows, the whys and the whens if in nothing else. I even make a habit out of reading at least the last paragraph of a novel before reading it at all as to be motivated to read in a single run, because i then WANT to find out what the frell they're talking about there :) So i'd say: make a very very harsh cut and just include Spoilers where the materiel wasn't commonly accessible for the period needed to be read by anyone taking the stuff serious enough to wait for publication. if anybody would have been really interested in it (s)he could have watched animal farm for about a million times up to now, even if (s)he was born decades after it's publication... nothing that's older than the internet should have any spoiler protection, as anyone still being spoilt has been at least lacking in enthusiasm to find out on his/herself.
Caswin: In that case, why avoid spoiling even the plot points that haven't been publicized yet?
casret: I tend to agree with the less spoiler tags the better. I think it's somewhat reasonable within a few months or a year of publication and airing, but after that you really aren't much of a rabid fan if you haven't bothered to clear your schedule to watch or read it. If you are discovering a new series or book through the wiki, it's also pretty easy to just NOT READ THE EXAMPLES, as most examples are correctly written to lead off with the series name. For instance, when I was introduced to Avatar through this wiki, I just avoided reading the examples. Also the spoiler font under Safari renders as white on baby blue when highlighted, incredibly hard to read.
DomaDoma: Nobody can be a rabid fan if they didn't hear about it when it first came out? Tell that to all the people I'm converting to Harry Potter and Firefly as we speak. Hell, tell that to me - I'm on a massive Gargoyles binge at the moment.
Trouser Wearing Barbarian: Seriously. It really bugs me when people say "oh, if you wanted to see it, you'd have seen it already!" Some people don't discover shows/movies/books that they love until years after they've come out. Plus, it seems like some tropers are ridiculously short-sighted about this - I've seen unmarked ending spoilers for movies that aren't even out of DVD yet on this wiki. Apparently, if you don't see something the day it comes out, you must not want to see it badly enough to extend any courtesy to. =P
Voodoo Master: Dunno Whats Going On, and I dunno if we're still talking about this, but I'd like to side with the usage of spoiler tags. Hideousness is not a good reason to get rid of something, particularly since they're not that hideous in my opinion. We made What Measure Is a Non-Cute?, after all.
I'd also like to point out my specific loathing of spoiler tagging the name of a series. I know, it's obvious, but I'm saying it anyway. It is really - fucking - annoying when people do that, especially when the work in question isn't linked so you can't tell what it is by mousing over the tags without highlighting them. Really, don't do it.
Oh, yeah. I'd also like to say that the "five-year rule" doesn't sound very sensible. Why? Well, assume that a book is published in 2009. Trough some miracle/curse, nobody on TV Tropes reads it. Not one. Anywhere. Five years later, 2014, one troper finds it and brings it to everyone's attention. It's plot-heavy and full of epic, tear-jerking sacrifices, as well as Xanatos roulettes-aplenty. Would the fact that it's five years old really change the fact that nobody here has finished it yet?
DomaDoma: I loathe spoilers, and it doesn't very well matter how old they are. In fact, older can be less widely known - take details about Gandalf in the decade before the movies came out. But I also know how to tiptoe around the surprise while demonstrating use of the trope. The thing is, I don't think everybody can do that, and if I happen to discover some great series through this wiki, but then realize when I watch it that one of the examples I read would have been a Wham Episode had I not read it... that's some serious dissatisfaction right there.
Finesse is preferable to a seven-line block of white any day - I'm just saying a little white could still come in handy.
Wulf- Personally, I would say to unmark spoilers for video games for consoles that aren't generally sold anymore. Basically, unmark spoilers for games on systems before Gamecube, PS 2, and XBOX. Anyone interested in them should probably know aboiut the major spoilers by this point. Yes, there are people who will go out and buy them at pawn shops or eBay and play them for the first time, but the fact that Sigma dies in Megaman X4 (PS 1) shouldn't need to be marked.
For movies, series that were released on VHS 10 years ago. Mufasa dying should be unmarked, for instance.
TV shows are difficult, since they air at different times on different channels in different countries... 4-6 seasons ago maybe?
Literature- Case-by case basis, since books can sit on the shelves for 40 years between readers. Granted, if they do that, it probably says something about the numhber of people who'd be spoiled...
Jack Butler: I know that its been pointed out several times that "Person X whom I know only started getting into The Example Show in the last five femtoseconds, so your assumptions that six centuries is long enough for spoiler tags to be removed isn't always accurate, but come on! If you're only just now watching a show that's been around since the first Bush administration, its no longer my responsibility to see that you are kept uncontaminated by the barest scrap of information from that show! This is a common sense thing, and if you've really waited around until last Tuesday to start watching Buffy, then any spoiler information you encounter is your own damned fault.
DomaDoma: We're not talking bare scraps of information, we're talking The Reveal, big shifts in the balance of power (Goblet of Fire doesn't count, if it mollifies you, Because Destiny Says So) and major character deaths. (As a matter of fact, I haven't seen Buffy and am showing visible signs of being inducted into the Whedon cult since giving my sister the Firefly boxed set for Christmas (and seeing Dr. Horrible), but go ahead and chant your "common sense" mantra all you want.)
Jack Butler: Then tell me, please, just how long I'm supposed to wait for you to actually get on the bandwagon and become aware of some of these things? Five years? Ten? Fifteen? Fifty? When does you being a Johnny-Come-Lately to the party become your problem and not mine, allowing me to talk about the cool thing I've known about since 1975 and if it spoils it for you, that's too bad?
DomaDoma: Ah, I see your issue. It's not about time, it's about common knowledge. If there's Popcultural Osmosis involved, or it's commonly discussed in English class, then no, it's not a spoiler. If it's not common knowledge, you'd get a better conversation talking about it to the people who actually know what you're talking about, and for the rest, big surprises in any piece of media worth its salt have no expiration date. This does not impinge on your ability to write examples for the work in general, just so we're absolutely clear.
Rebochan: I had to add Batman. You know why? Because someone was hiding his secret identity behind spoiler tags. And for that matter, anyone's comic book origin story? Not a spoiler. It's only a spoiler if the media adapting actually changed the circumstances, but then it's not a spoiler for the event, it's only a spoiler for a plot point in a movie. I.E. Gwen Stacey dies? Not a spoiler. Gwen Stacey dies in Spider Man 6 when Spider-Man accidentally drops a train on her at the climactic scene? That's a spoiler.
Pikawil: So by that lgoci, you're seriously willing to spoil the Batman milestone reached at the end of Final Crisis #6 (Batman dies. While killing Darkseid with a gun.)? Well, before the media frenzy gets to it.
DomaDoma: Read the main page. That's not what s/he was saying at all.
Bring The Noise: This should be extended beyond Batman, but I'm not sure where to draw the line. I mean, everyone knows Superman is from Krypton and Spider-Man is Peter Parker, but how much further down the line can we go?
Blork: The thing with these origin stories is that they're basically part of the premise of the series - "Spider-Man is Peter Parker" was never any more of a spoiler than "007 is James Bond". If it was never a secret to begin with it shouldn't be treated as a spoiler.
Haven: Took out this bit because You Should Know This Already is about fandoms and advertisements assuming that their plot points are more widely known, due to Fan Myopia; in my opinion, that's what we should strive to avoid.
- Pretty much anything on You Should Know This Already, courtesy of cultural osmosis blowing the surprises. Rosebud is a SLED.
G-Mon: Changed "You Should Know This Already" to "It Was His Sled" and re-added—the latter trope is about spoilers that are no longer spoilers, right?
Ironeye: Now that we have a spoilers on/off toggle (see this thread
), can we go ahead and take Evangelion, Asimov, Clarke, Heinlein, Buffy, Final Fantasy, Hitchhiker's Guide, and CSI off the list?
G-Mon: Botched up the syntax a bit there. Also, just for reference, the "Spoilers On/Off toggle is in your forum profile (every Known Troper has one). Now we just need a way to make these little options more easily accessible for people who don't use the forums much....
Roihu: Along with the original Star Wars Trilogy being worldly known, the second trilogy should be very close to that. Because, really, since everyone knows the first trilogy, nothing in the second trilogy is much of a surprise. (Actually, I got lucky with that aspect. The only thing in Star Wars that was ever spoiled to me was the fact that Darth Vader was Luke's father. And I watched all films in chronological order without any influence outside the actual films.) Also, Haruhi spoilers about her being a god are stupid, in my opinion. It's only the first volume that it's found out and the first couple episodes in the series show it easily. Plus, most people who watch the series know that Haruhi's a god... or at everyone on Youtube... or at least people I know...
