Wikipedia talk:Spoiler warning/guidelines

message: I think we should use this guideline to at least mention that editors should not exclude spoilers for the simple sake of not spoiling something or to isolate spoiler information to one part of the article.  There are alternatives to this that would "decrease spoiler exposure" and not sacrifice the article.  For example, a detail about a character's fate could go under that character's listing, or under a summary heading. One could argue that character sections are about the character rather than a list of things the character has done, and that the information would be better placed elsewhere. This would cover a lot of spoilers, as typically things such as character inspiration by the writers, who was the actor, the basic info and personality of a character fit under a character heading, but things like "Bob found his mom's horrible secret vagina-time machine" doesn't actually tell you about Bob, just what Bob did.
I think such advice should be kept short and sweet, and clearly stated that "even when considering these options, never remove a spoiler simply because it's a spoiler". I know we can all imagine how such advice could go horribly wrong, but I'll try to write up some better examples and think everyone will be pleasantly surprised. But the big thing is to say not to exclude spoilers for the sake of excluding spoilers.-- Ned Scott 02:32, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, that should definitely be there. However, on the subject of what the character has done, their specific role in the plot is an important aspect of the character, so it should certainly be mentioned within an article about the character. Perhaps not in the "Characters "section of a work that has to detail several characters at once (Final Fantasy X, for instance, where things are kept short and sweet), but within that character's own page. Ryu Kaze 13:45, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Don't avoid spoilers for the sake of not spoiling

message: Another issue I think we should address is the number of spoiler tags we have. Should we "merge" some of them, simplify the templates, maybe use a standard template and a second variable message template?
 (a "sub" template to ), is being used by WikiProject Stargate and has even been considered for deletion and survived. I don't think templates like these are a problem, as long as there are some basic guidelines to them and how they should appear. I'm not sure how I feel on the whole image thing yet. On one hand I'd like to reduce the number of templates and make the process more simple, but on the other hand I see the argument for the SG spoiler as reasonable.
I do think we should evaluate all the tags in :Category:Spoiler warning templates, but I think it would be acceptable to have such templates as the SG one. ..As long as they have the "notice metadata spoiler" div tag around them, are listed somewhere on WP:SPOILER, and follow some form of basic style guideline for spoiler tags that are unique to a show or other work of fiction. -- Ned Scott 03:13, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Simplification of spoiler tags 

message: Even though there currently is a way to turn off spoiler tags, the instructions are not easily found. I think we should provide these instructions on the guideline.  Here's the instructions being provided by CWC (from Wikipedia talk:Spoiler warning/Guideline status2#Problem Solved):
Those who cannot tolerate spoiler warnings should use the following Cascading Style Sheets rule:
 .spoiler { display: none; }
Any web browser which supports CSS (as almost all do) will then hide the spoiler warnings. (You will still see them in the Wikitext when editing.)
There are lots of ways of doing this, especially for Firefox users. Here is one way. It has one big disadvantage: it only works if (1) you are logged into your wikipedia account and (2) you use the "monobook" skin (which most of us do — it's the default skin). On the other hand, this method is simple to explain.
#Log in to wikipedia.
#Bring up your user page.
#Click in the "location box", which should now contain "en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:YourUsername".
#Press the "End" key on your keyboard.
#Type in "/monobook.css".
::The location box should now contain "en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:YourUsername/monobook.css"
#Press the "Enter" key.
#Click on the link to create the page.
#Enter the line shown above.
#Save the page.
#Follow the instructions in Wikipedia:Bypass your cache.
#Enjoy your spoiler-warning-free version of Wikipedia!
Cheers, CWC(talk) 17:52, 7 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This, I definitely agree with (but I'll reiterate, I think the default should be to "spoilers on").  Is there a way for non-logged in users to implement this?  Does this apply to all spoiler templates? Darquis 05:12, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I believe this can only be used by a user who is logged on. Currently, it will hide all spoilers that are formatted like this:  Template message , which I believe includes all the templates in :Category:Spoiler warning templates. -- Ned Scott 05:22, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

text: The idea is fine, but I have a couple of (minor) issues with the text. ""Those who cannot tolerate spoiler warnings should use..." is a wee bit too strong, you don't have to be unable to tolerate spoiler warnings to want to turn them off. Perhaps change to "If you wish to turn spoiler warnings off you can use..." On a really purely subjective note I'm not keen on the final line "Enjoy your spoiler-warning-free version of Wikipedia!", like the "tolerate" line it strikes me (again, purely subjective) as being ever so slightly sarcastic. I'd prefer something simple, such as "Spoiler warnings will now no longer show up in articles". --Daduzi talk 16:46, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: This isn't the proposed text to be included, this is just the message that CWC left that had the instructions :) -- Ned Scott 22:10, 31 July 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  How to hide spoiler tags