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Tabs MOD Since: Jan, 2001
MichaelKatsuro Since: Apr, 2011
2019-11-26 09:23:59

I don't see the relation between expired copyright and okay to spoil. For instance, if Agatha Christie's stories become copyright-free then it's still poor manners to spoil a Hercule Poirot mystery.

XFllo Since: Aug, 2012
2019-11-26 10:05:56

^ It's part of our spoiler policy though, and has been for years. It really looks silly to spoiler-tag very old works. Everybody should know already even by Pop-Cultural Osmosis. If people are worried about getting spoiled, they should A) read the work first B) not read the example section of the work page or its character sheets or ymmv/moments pages.

Dratewka Since: Sep, 2018
2019-11-26 10:42:41

What if someone never read The Odyssey? What? You gonna spoil them every single detail, just because it's at least 2600 yeas old?

WarJay77 (Troper Knight)
2019-11-26 10:47:51

Yeah, exactly. Spoilers don't care how old a work is- not everyone reading TVT has read or seen every older work, and it'd be rude to spoil it for them.

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
bwburke94 (Y2: Electric Boogaloo)
2019-11-26 11:00:53

There is absolutely no reason to keep spoiler tags on works over a century old.

2025: the year it all ends?
WarJay77 (Troper Knight)
2019-11-26 11:01:24

^ Er, there is, and we just gave it.

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
Dratewka Since: Sep, 2018
2019-11-26 11:12:54

@ X Fllo // And if they by any means didn't get them, including the ever-present Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure, then I guess screw those people, right?

Edited by Dratewka
XFllo Since: Aug, 2012
2019-11-26 11:19:41

What if someone never read The Odyssey? What? You gonna spoil them every single detail, just because it's at least 2600 yeas old?

I hope this is meant to be sarcastic. If someone doesn't want to be spoiled for Odyssey and they don't know the story by the time they find TV Tropes, they should go grab the books and read the myths first. Then they can come to the TV Tropes page.

From Spoilers Off: If the copyright has expired, or if it predates the very concept of copyright, it's probably free to spoil. In the vast majority of countries, this roughly coincides with anything Older Than Radio. The cat is out of the bag for all of William Shakespeare's plays.

Edited by XFllo
XFllo Since: Aug, 2012
2019-11-26 11:22:31

@ X Fllo // And if they by any means didn't get them, including the ever-present Pop-Cultural Osmosis Failure, then I guess screw those people, right?

Yes, that's exactly what I meant.


WarJay77 (Troper Knight)
2019-11-26 11:26:20

I mean, it's just sort of what it comes off as, though: while I get it might seem unnecessary to spoiler-mark such old works, what's wrong with being courteous? Not saying we should go and mark everything on the page, but to at least hide the biggest twists? Why isn't that a reasonable thing to do for people?

My main concern isn't even the work pages themselves, as I do think it's a little self-defeating for people to go read the page for a work they don't want to be spoiled. But other parts of the site, such as examples on trope pages? It only seems fair to mark those, as someone is much more likely to stumble upon them by accident. With the exception of course of Spoilers-Off trope pages, where this is a moot point.

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
XFllo Since: Aug, 2012
2019-11-26 11:52:22

Ok, so if many tropers disagree, we can have a conversation about spoilers for very old works, preferably on the forum. But for now that's what our policy is: works with expired copyrights or works predating the concept of it don't get to be spoiler-tagged.

I can understand that people don't want to be spoiled for a contemporary work; especially if it's a detective story or mystery or something known for twists or "subverting expectations". But books like Odyssey? Jane Eyre? Huck Finn? Are ya all gonna be angry at your literature teachers that they "spoiled" these books for you? I hope not.

I mean, TV Tropes is about analysing fiction. We catalogue tropes and story elements. And we don't want our articles to be completely blanked. And theoretically, any example is also a spoiler. If some folks are that sensitive, they probably should be reading just descriptions; these are supposed to be spoiler-free.

WarJay77 (Troper Knight)
2019-11-26 11:59:09

Erm, what literary professor's have you had that just gave away the ending to these classic works? Fairly certain that being forced to read these stories doesn't count as having them "spoiled", which seems to be what you're implying people think?

Like I said- I get it for most examples, but why can't we at least spoiler-tag the big twists? You're strawmanning us a little by acting as though we want articles to be white walls of spoiler tagging, when we don't. We just want classic works to not be ruined by people by mistake, when they could've easily been hidden behind spoiler markup.

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
XFllo Since: Aug, 2012
2019-11-26 12:06:10

I don't think I'm straw-manning anything. I merely copied the first paragraph from the spoiler policy administrivia page.

If others want to vote on this issue and change the policy, they are allowed to do so.

In the same vein, I wonder what kind of literary professors other people have if they are worried to be spoiled on The Odyssey. Spoiler alert: Odysseus does make it home. ;-)


[down] You're just coming off as overly sensitive. Sorry if I offended anyone. I made my opinion clear, so I won't just repeat it over and over again.

Edited by XFllo
WarJay77 (Troper Knight)
2019-11-26 12:11:57

You're just coming off as a little rude here, is all. I know it's policy, but what we're saying is that the policy should change, or at least allow for these works to not be completely spoilers-off. Making fun of people for apparently having bad literature teachers doesn't help anything.

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
Tuvok Since: Feb, 2010
2019-11-26 13:06:42

Yes. Look honestly if someone is planning to read the book later ( or at all) then they may not want to be spoiled. If they do want to be spoiled then they can easily turn spoilers off. Personally I think better to err on the side of caution.

bwburke94 (Y2: Electric Boogaloo)
2019-11-26 13:14:10

The policy is what it is for a reason.

2025: the year it all ends?
AegisP Since: Oct, 2014
2019-11-26 14:21:30

Ironically Im at odds with myself on this.

Because I dont really have the time to experience many works on my own I like to read about them on TV Tropes. So I dont mind spoilers. In fact, just today I WANTED to know about the ending to the City Lights film by Charlie Chaplin and hated that everyone just says the ending is sad instead of having actual context about it.

From this I learned that not many read actual classics but I do want actual context and meat to examples and that sadly requires spoilers.

EDIT:X Filo you should be more polite and considerate of others. Not that many are into classic works as you think they are. There is a thing called Mainstream Obscurity you know.

Edited by AegisP As long as this flower is in my heart. My Strength will flow without end.
XFllo Since: Aug, 2012
2019-11-26 14:41:03

^ I honestly don't know what's so impolite in my replies. I was sarcastic once and I potholed it to Sarcasm Mode.

Again, I'm sorry — my apologies to all of you. It seems to me it's over-sensitive to care about spoilers from ancient works, but noted. I'd also assume (and I might be wrong) that if you don't care about the work, you won't care about its spoilers. Literature education where I come from is obviously different from the American one (and others). So truly, I'm sorry for assuming majority of people will be familiar with myths and classics, or assuming that people wouldn't mind reading the gist of the myths and legends here for the first time.

I really think this should fall under caveat lector (let the reader beware)

Still, that's what the policy is for now, and it's valid until it gets changed.

Edited by XFllo
AegisP Since: Oct, 2014
2019-11-26 14:49:16

Not everyone lives in America either, I live in Paraguay and have never read that many American books, many books I've read that are super old and you wouldnt know a line of it, and other books you may assume are super mainstream arent. Sure the Odyssey indeed has Pop-Cultural Osmosis but that's just one of many.

To be fair, Im not being quite polite either and I apologize. And I do see your point. If we are to create meaningful examples spoilers are to be expected.

Edited by AegisP As long as this flower is in my heart. My Strength will flow without end.
Tabs MOD Since: Jan, 2001
2019-11-26 14:55:14

We can continue to discuss policy on Wiki Talk. But right now, Twain's works get no spoiler tags.

Speaking of caveat lector, we often include spoiler warnings for moments pages as polite practice, despite moments pages being spoilers off. So place a warning atop the page as long as the policy stands: Since this is a work that has fallen into public domain, all spoilers on this page are unmarked, per policy. You Have Been Warned.

Edited by Tabs
AegisP Since: Oct, 2014
2019-11-26 14:56:15

I agree only with Wiki policy so if that's the way it is fine.

As long as this flower is in my heart. My Strength will flow without end.
Brainulator9 Since: Aug, 2018
2019-11-26 16:36:39

Honestly, I take fundamental issue with how we go about spoilers, but that is a discuss that is better served for another date.

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WarJay77 (Troper Knight)
2019-11-26 18:14:45

I don't know. I personally keep spoilers unmarked just because I don't typically care. I just think it's only fair to let the people who do care protect themselves, even if what they don't want to read is something everyone else already knows. Pop-Cultural Osmosis can only work so much, and as established, everyone here has different experiences when it comes to these works— and a work that one person has known everything about since high-school may be a work someone else has only ever heard about in passing.

Basically, different people have different standards. And while I'm usually on the side of "the less spoiler mark-up the better", I just don't see why we should treat older works differently from newer ones, as the assumption that "it's old so everyone knows what happens in it" has been proven wrong in this discussion. IDK, either we should treat all spoilers the same (with the exception of Spoilers Off pages, of course), or just not have spoiler tags at all. That's what makes sense to me, at least.

Edited by WarJay77 Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
HighCrate Since: Mar, 2015
2019-11-26 18:24:03

I'm a little fuzzy on what is in Huck Finn that would be considered spoilerable in the first place. It's not a mystery novel where part of the enjoyment is to guess who the killer is, or the sort of story with a big reveal or twist that could be ruined by foreknowledge.

The age of the story, in my opinion, is less important than what kind of story it is.

Playing_with_boy Since: Jun, 2018
2019-11-26 19:28:13

I think no, because I can check the spoilers online, because it's not the public domain.

MichaelKatsuro Since: Apr, 2011
2019-11-27 09:41:29

What I don't get is, what's the supposed connection between out of copyright and spoilerable?

Sure, works like Romeo and Juliet have famous endings, but the vast majority of Shakespeare's plays and Dickens's novels are neither mentioned at all in literature class nor part of the public consciousness. At least 29 people out of 30 know absolutely nothing about Martin Chuzzlewit or Cymbeline. The copyrighted move The Sixth Sense, though, is extremely famous for its ending.

In short, I genuinely don't understand why copyright's got anything to do with it. I've had exactly the same amount of time to read every book that came out before I learned to read, regardless of when it was released.

nombretomado (Season 1)
2019-11-27 10:12:50

Getting kind of long, folks. Someone want to take the initiative and make a thread for it?

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