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DracMonster Since: Jan, 2001
2015-03-17 19:11:19

Does spoiler tagging even work on folder names?? I didn't think it did.

EDIT: Yeah it does, huh. Anyway, I'm all but certain it's going to be ix-nayed under the general policy of "As little spoiler tagging as possible"

Edited by DracMonster
CrypticMirror Since: Jan, 2001
2015-03-17 19:36:54

I think the general rule is that once Spoiler Tags start getting awkward to use then you slap a "Spoilers Ahead" warning at top of the page and fly without using them.

Kayube (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
2015-03-17 20:21:30

I think there are some places where in cases like that the spoiler aspect of the character is treated as a separate character, with a spoiler-tagged note under the non-spoiler aspect of the character advising readers to look down at the spoiler character section for information about the secret.

Fighteer MOD (Time Abyss)
2015-03-17 21:15:44

Do not ever put spoiler tags in folder names or in character descriptions. If you can't write a page to follow these rules and still conceal the identity of an important character, then untag everything and put a spoiler warning at the top of the article. Readers should not have any expectation that they will not encounter spoilers while reading a work article or its subpages.

"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Candi Since: Aug, 2012
2015-03-18 00:48:09

Spoilering a folder name kind of defeats the point, anyway. Heck, even saying "spoiler character" does. In either case, the person needs to highlight or click to see what is being spoiled, and that defeats the purpose of the spoiler markup. It's like an all-white entry: No context means not being able to tell whether you personally might consider it a spoiler or not.

For instance, someone who recently started archive bingeing The Order of the Stick (as an example) might have a different idea of what constitutes a character spoiler than someone's who's read all the way up to the beginning of the journey to the fifth gate, and both will have a different perspective of someone who has only reached the paladin-protected gate. (And man, there are some twists.)

So you have reader #3 deciding that Alice constitutes a spoiler by their appearance/reappearance, and spoil out the folder name. Reader #1 doesn't know which character it's about, looks/highlights, and finds out something they haven't reached yet. Meanwhile, Reader #2 is cheesed off because they knew that already, but couldn't tell because of the spoilering.

It's just a big mess. Top-of-the-page warnings work much better.

Edited by Candi Coming back to where you started is not the same as never leaving. -Terry Pratchett
sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
2015-03-19 09:40:15

If it's possible to re-word the entry to remove the spoilers (or make it less spoilery anyway) then I would say try to do that. For an example of my own:

I've run into a similar situation in One Piece, a critical backstory character is "Gold Roger", the pirate king. Offhandedly mentioned a few times is his full name is "Gol D. Roger" (as in main character Monkey D Luffy and others with a D middle initial). While this is known to readers relatively early (after the sixth of currently nine crew members have joined up),between it's being mentioned very infrequently, having yet to be given a full Internal Reveal to the main cast (only the historian among them knows of it), and the mystery of the D initial being a major part of the Myth Arc, I generally consider it a spoiler when people just slap "Gol D Roger" in a trope entry somewhere unless there's a specific reason to do so. Fortunately in that case it's just a simple matter of replacing "Gol D" with "Gold".

Edited by sgamer82
bwburke94 (Y2: Electric Boogaloo)
2015-03-20 04:02:22

In the specific case of Reverse Flash, it was leaked a loooooong time ago that Wells isn't who he says he is.

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