Wikipedia talk:Spoiler/Archive 6

message: According to Wikipedia:Policies_and_guidelines, "A proposal is any suggested guideline, policy or process for which the status of consensus is not yet clear, as long as discussion is ongoing.". Clearly discussion on this policy is still ongoing, and consensus has not been reached. I don't know if consensus was actually reached at some point in the past (in which case I would appreciate if someone could provide a link to the relevant section of the talk page). Just looking at the amount of ongoing discussion on this issue, however, it seems quite clear that the proposed guideline does not reflect consensus, and that it should not be tagged as such.
This is not to say that work shouldn't be done to try and reach consensus, but it looks like we have a long way to go on that. -Kieran 13:40, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think the "controversy" here is mainly that the handful of people who doggedly oppose this guideline haven't gotten bored, whereas most of the people who saw this as sensible have better things to do than repeat the same points for over a month. There is, in reality, very litttle opposition to this guideline, and less thoughtful opposition. Phil Sandifer 13:43, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I wasn't talking about "controversy". Just looking at the number of names of people who are unhappy with the guideline, I would say that there are more who are unhappy with its current form than are happy. There are also a large number of unresolved RfCs. For a guideline to be considered policy it needs to have consensus. This one doesn't. -Kieran 14:01, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that's Phil's point. There seems to be a silent majority at work here (or to be more precise, a loud minority, dunno if there's any term for that). Those unhappy with it are the ones speaking out, while those who are happy either left the discussion, or never came in the first place. The issue, though, is that it seems with the way things have gone, there either can't be consensus, or there already is and a few people are just blasting words to try and fight it (I still don't understand how consensus is formed in such situations...it seems as if it's impossible if there's simply a few outspoken people on one side, even if the large majority agrees....but eh.) ♫ Melodia Chaconne ♫ 14:23, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

text: However, it does seem that this page has gone through a few proposed -> guideline - > proposed - > guideline cycles before, and that the productive thing will be to rather try and modify it to reflect consensus. While it's under dispute, though, I'm going to put a disputed tag on instead. -Kieran 14:05, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

text: Piffle. We've moved firmly into the realm of asking the other parent here. There is no consensus for widespread use of spoiler tags and, from the lack of outcry in their removal, not even much opposition. A few dogged opponents of this guideline continue to protest here in the hopes that eventually the majority, which was not, in fact, silent at the time this guideline was discussed, will wander off and they can quietly change it back. Phil Sandifer 15:22, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There's plenty of opposition, although the anti-spoiler brigade will never admit it, since they've been hiding behind a dodgy 'consensus' since day two.--Nydas(Talk) 19:09, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: While I hide my righteous indignation a bit better, I have to agree. The rewrite of the spoiler guideline started after two days on an RfC on a "consensus" that evaporated as soon as public announcement was made (and taken down two days later, with the edit summary "get on with your lives".) Since then we've had more of a 60-40 situation, and the hardliner sixties have steadfastly refused to budge an inch. --Kizor 19:30, 25 June 2007 (UTC)

text: I've restored the state of this guideline to its state prior to the recent silliness.  --Tony Sidaway 21:58, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Why did you remove the guideline dispute tag when there is a guideline content dispute? Milo 22:15, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  There is no significant opposition to the guideline. --Tony Sidaway 22:18, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Change guideline tag to proposal 

message: I added a spoiler tag to the Inspiration/Adaptation sction of this article which I belive met all the criteria in this guidline but it has been repeatedly removed. Perhaps some of the contributors here would like to comment on this. Tomgreeny 21:23, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: If you're putting it in but other editors are removing it, possibly the argument for inclusion isn't very compelling. --Tony Sidaway 22:27, 23 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ah. A spoiler tag may be justified with compelling reasons. How can you tell which reasons are or aren't compelling? Easy: removal of the tag means that they aren't. --Kizor 15:50, 25 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  By george, I think he's got it! --Tony Sidaway 08:11, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[Match Point]] 

message: I had the question: "Is there any single article left in Wikipedia that has a spoiler warning on it?" I've tried a quick quick google search, and of the articles I sample from those results, not a single one had the template. Checking What links here for the template, I could count on one hand the number of articles that I could find that weren't talk or user pages. The fact is that spoilers have, for all intents and purposes, been removed from Wikipedia.
This suggests that either:
*a. A group of users are going around removing every spoiler tag they find (with about 3 exceptions in the whole of Wikipedia), in violation of the consensus on the use of spoilers (which at least suggests that they should be used a little more often than "almost never"). Users opposed to this policy simply can't be bothered to engage in edit wars with these users, who have shown a great willingness to engage in edit warring.
*b. There is a new consensus in Wikipedia that spoiler tags should be removed completely.
Personally I think option a better describes the situation, but the removalists seem to be arguing for option b. If option b were the case, then why does the current guideline not reflect that? -Kieran 11:02, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Not quite.  The argument is that because the number of editors in group (a) is so small and underworked, clearly we're close to (b).  However the guideline does not require (b) at all.  We're only close to (b) because there has been so little opposition. --Tony Sidaway 11:08, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, since you believe there is consensus that spoiler tags should not be included in WP. Why don't you edit the guideline accordingly? -Kieran 11:33, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

text:  I don't believe that to be the case, so I won't. --Tony Sidaway 11:53, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

text: Also, I have a question. You say that the spoiler tag is a "thing of the past ...for most fiction projects". Do you have statistics to back this up? 45000 uses of the tag suggest that for an awful lot of fiction projects it was anything but a "thing of the past" until the mass-removals. -Kieran 11:43, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  The statistics I have to back me up are the tens of thousands of spoiler tags that aren't there any more because, for the most part, nobody misses them enough to put them back.  I'll watch one or two TV show articles that are due to be broadcast for the first time over the coming week, and see if any of them acquires a spoiler tag.  If they do and the tag stays by consensus of the editors of the article I'll update my opinion.  I do this kind of monitoring every week. --Tony Sidaway 11:53, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

text: Following your suggestion, I have rewritten the guideline, it now says that spoiler warnings are no longer used. This describes current practice better than the old compromise guideline, as talk page arguments justifying spoiler warnings were extremely rare, and only very few warnings were added recently. Kusma (talk) 11:54, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Doesn't seem particularly workable to me, frankly.  There may be legitimate uses (I wouldn't object to any use on a TV show that hasn't been aired in all major markets, for instance, and Phil has suggested the same of mangas and animes that have not yet appeared in English speaking markets).  It's a fine nuance, however. --Tony Sidaway 11:58, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The advantage of "no spoiler warnings, period" is that it is far simpler than the case-by-case justification that is so rarely given. It would also put an end to the "consistency" debates. But anyway, WP:BRD... Kusma (talk) 12:02, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: And I have been reverted already, without discussion so far. Perhaps we need a better rewrite than my half-baked attempt to merge David'd translation of the German guideline into ours. Kusma (talk) 12:21, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  While there are a few people moaning about it, I think the current guideline has the advantage that it's stable and easy to enforce. --Tony Sidaway 12:47, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  "Tended to find themselves outnumbered by up to six editors removing tags against one restoring." : This is the reason it's easy to enforce. Argumentum ad baculum: Your POV is right because your group has more editing power and motivation to enforce it. -Kieran 13:43, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Well, six people against an entire wiki wouldn't get anywhere.  Six people against the odd edit warrior is a different matter. --Tony Sidaway 13:53, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  You're twisting the language here. You mean six edit warriors patrolling the wiki against one edit warrior trying to protect an article (s)he cares about, but not really wanting to engage in an edit war with the six patrolling edit warriors. The fact remains that there are people (yourself included) who are roaming the wiki looking for articles they have no interest in, and engaging in edit wars with the regular contributors to those articles over the usage of spoilers. Most regular contributors can't be bothered to fight back, and anyway starting edit wars is poor wikiquette.  -Kieran 14:22, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  One person's spoiler tag reverted by your "appeal to authority" "Per WP:SPOIL" will maybe glance at the policy to verify that it has, indeed, changed, but then assumes there's consensus and, sighing, yields to the greater consensus. This is how wikipedia works: if something has consensus, people arn't supposed to edit war over it just because they dislike it. Furthermore, six editors all saying that it's useless are quite intimidating. But several people have noticed the same pattern across many, many articles, and more and more are flocking to this page looking for answers as to why this was changed, where the consensus is... and are finding no consensus. I, for one, feel cheated. The system only works as long as nobody tries to take advantage of people by doing something like claiming consensus where there is none. Kuronue 14:30, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

text: (←) Issues don't "have consensus" or not in some permanent way, and policy describes and lags behind practice.  The evidence for consensus about removing spoiler tags is not the discussion on this page, but the practice all over the wiki, where very few editors have added spoiler tags to articles since they were removed, and the articles without spoiler tags include all recent major films. These articles are maintained by thousands of editors, so if there were a lot of pushback about the tags it would be impossible to miss. Imagine if someone tried to remove every instance of  - that is what would have happened here if there were strong support for spoiler tags. — Carl (CBM · talk) 14:53, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's fallacious: Certainly all the fictional articles in wikipedia are maintained by thousands of editors, but any given article is maintained by a handful of occasional editors. Whenever a spoiler tag goes in, it attracts up to half a dozen anti-spoiler tag patrollers who bludgeon it out of existence, unless it complies with their very narrow interpretation of the (highly contentious) style guideline. That's not "a few editors versus wikipedia", that's "a few rabid fanatics versus one or two casual editors". In most cases the regular editors just give up after the first few reverts. -Kieran 15:07, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

text: If the removal of the "fact" tag were accompanied by an official-looking edit summary like "rm fact tag under WP:FACT redundancy policy" and re-instated by a group of drive-by editors and admins working in concert to evade the three-revert rule, I bet a lot of necessary fact tags would be erased. --Jere7my 16:55, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Certainly, if we're starting from a situation of zero spoiler warnings on Wikipedia, a handful of zealous editors on fire patrol can quickly extinguish any little sparks or flames leaping up here or there.  It would be hard for anyone to stand up in the face of multiple editors rushing in, demonstrating that spoilers are hardly ever used, removing the templates, and pointing to a guideline that largely dismisses the use of spoilers.  But in a situation where thousands of articles may have spoilers, and each of them is watched by several editors, it would be impossible for a tiny minority of editors to directly remove the templates and get their change to stick.  The only thing I could conceive of, that might bring about the removal of thousands of templates, without the tags coming back in droves, would be if the majority of wikipedia editors were actually swayed to the opinion that spoiler warnings are generally not needed.  That does indeed argue in favor of consensus.  The existence of this guideline, of course, can be quite influential in turning opinion on the subject. zadignose 17:05, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  For myself I would like to say that my decision not to oppose the removal of spoiler warnings (by David Gerard) on two fiction articles I have in watchlist *was* influenced by the existence of this guideline. I think there is a custom (or maybe even a policy) "discuss first before mindlessly reverting". Samohyl Jan 17:33, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

text:  zadignose, I think you are underestimating the influence a brief, official-looking edit summary can have on a casual editor.  There's a tendency to say "Oh, well, that's the way it is now"; most people will not bother to check WP:SPOILER to see if they agree with it. It's not evidence for consensus; it's evidence for the tendency of people to accept authority. Casual editors are also not willing to engage in edit wars with the spoiler patrol. --Jere7my 17:39, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  So, are you standing by the idea that the reported tens of thousands of articles that had spoilers removed were all directly edited by about six or so editors, and the other editors who are more directly responsible for the creation of these articles, including those who originally placed the spoiler warnings, were either fooled or intimidated into accepting the changes? zadignose 00:09, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I don't know what happened with all of the thousands of other editors.  I can only speak for myself, and I saw an official-looking notice attached to a minor edit saying something about a redundant tag — I assumed it was a typo correction, not part of a sweeping purge of significant structural elements. I do believe half a dozen editors could have made those changes, particular since some (cf. Kusma on the Ghost Dog article) used scripts. --Jere7my 00:16, 29 June 2007 (UTC)

text: Well, yes. You weren't around here to see the purge while it was going on, but there's been no dispute from either side that a tiny group of editors removed the lion's share of all spoiler warnings, most using AWB (though one made a script of his own) - "about six or so" sounds about right - nor about the peak number being some 45'000 tags. Please, let's not start one now. --Kizor 08:48, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I see.  I had misunderstood something, as I looked at histories for some of the editors named above, but failed to check out David Gerard's history.  The fact that the massive purge happened very recently makes it hard to draw a real conclusion from the reaction/lack of reaction of the majority of editors.  Certainly, one would have expected to see a lot of warning templates put back in, if they were broadly supported by editors accross Wikipedia, but then the place could be in a kind of state of shock, so to speak, and whatever reaction may simply be delayed.  I see the point regarding official sounding edit summaries which make it appear that there are no grounds for opposing an edit.  Certainly it seems disingenuous to mark the bulk of the edits as "minor" edits, which should only be used for completely uncontroversial edits such as correcting a typo.  But putting that aside for the moment, maybe it's better to discuss what the guideline should be, and how to proceed from where we are, rather than fuss about how we got here. zadignose 09:24, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well then. Thank you for having the patience that allowed us to come to a peaceable and satisfactory resolution. Around these parts that's invigorating by its rarity alone. We must definitely work out where to go from here (I've been working on some suggestions, but I'll have to be lucid consistently instead of intermittedly before I can get them to a posting condition. Ain't student life grand?), but how we got here remains highly important for determining our present status. Whee. --Kizor 00:31, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Bludgeoning of the anti-template POV 

message: I don't know all the ins and outs of Wikipedia policy, but Tony Sidaway has removed the disputed tag at least six times in the last 50 edits, according to the history.  Wouldn't that be a violation of the three revert rule? --Jere7my 07:47, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No.  See three revert rule. --Tony Sidaway 10:27, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Oh!  It resets every 24 hours?  I see.  Still, I think you're in violation of "Rather than reverting multiple times, discuss the matter with other editors."  I didn't see any discussion yesterday about the disputed tag, just your words in an edit summary, and you seem to be in the minority about wanting it removed. --Jere7my 17:22, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I've discussed it at length here. --Tony Sidaway 09:29, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  The 3RR rule only applies to edits in a 24 hour window, but WP:EW applies to edit warring in general. The interpretation of WP:EW is done on a case-by-case basis and doesn't have a bright line like 3RR. — Carl (CBM · talk) 19:50, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  The disputed tag and the 3RR? 

message: Here is another possibility: The spoiler warnings may be added at will (within the limits of the old SW guideline), but they would be disabled in CSS by default (so they wouldn't show up). This page would also describe a way how to enable them, for people wishing to see them. Would this be an acceptable compromise to anti-spoilerists? Samohyl Jan 12:01, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Another possible compromise 

message: Kierano changed the nutshell to imply that consensus only applied to certain limited cases. I removed this because obviously consensus applies to all edits on Wikipedia.
Kierano also introduces the following section:
: Use of section naming to indicate presence or absence of spoiler content
: Certain section names imply the presence of spoilers. Care should be taken that these names only be applied to sections which do, in fact contain spoilers.
:* Sections such as "plot" or "history" are considered to be expected to contain spoilers.
:* Sections containing background information about the story, but which do not contain spoilers (such as might be found in reviews or book jackets), should be put under a heading such as "background information", "themes", etc.
:* Sections containing information on characters are ambiguous, and may reveal plot twists to readers unexpectedly. Where plot twists are revealed in a character history, background or other similar section, spoiler tags should be used.
This is of course far too prescriptive: "Care should be taken that these names only be applied to sections which do, in fact contain spoilers."  Why on earth?
Obviously normal commonsense can be used to give sections good names.  "Character histories" is preferable to "Characters" for instance because it distinguishes a section containing plot elemenets from mere list of names.
I've removed the section because, in its current form at least, it's very unhelpful.  --Tony Sidaway 13:14, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  A couple of additions by [[User:Kierano]] 

message: Doesn't it seem to anyone else that that phrasing conflicts with "it is not set in stone and should be treated with common sense and the occasional exception"?  "May not" sounds pretty set in stone to me.  How would we feel about a phrasing that uses "discouraged" instead of "may not"? --Jere7my 23:35, 29 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: All WP policies should use "should" phrasing instead of "must" phrasing, I agree. — Carl (CBM · talk) 04:31, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

text: Definitely. Self-contradictory guidelines are not exactly the display of professionalism Wikipedia means to attain. JimmyBlackwing 06:35, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I've changed the name of the section to say "should not" instead of "may not".  The wording that implies that spoiler tags must not interfere with our core policies is correct, and so I've left that as it is.  Obviously a style element must never compromise article quality in any way. --Tony Sidaway 07:49, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  On Tony's advice above, I've made a few more edits, to remove the "may" permission language and to make the policy more neutral. As I said on the mediation page, since the anti-spoiler folks think there's broad consensus that spoiler tags are bad, granting more leeway to local editors shouldn't (in their eyes) lead to a lot of new spoiler tags. Please consider my edits seriously before reverting — I think they're representative of a broader compromise. (Essentially, I tried to tone down the "You have this option — but you really shouldn't do it" language.) --Jere7my 12:23, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Tony, if you're going to revert my edit, leave the "might" in there — "may" implies that people need someone's permission to add spoiler tags. As for the rest of it, if you believe that there is widespread consensus against spoiler tags, my revisions won't lead to "indiscriminate sprinkling" of tags — they won't survive the consensus. --Jere7my 12:34, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

text:  I think "may" and may not" are pretty plain, but feel free to move it back.  Widespread consensus or no, simple entropy will put them back into articles about fairy tales if we're not careful.  I've popped some wording in to make sure that consensus rules.  No automatic popping of spoiler tags in "because I think this ending is particularl significant." --Tony Sidaway 12:45, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: From what I've heard, the only fairy tale spoiler tag was inserted as a joke by an anonymous IP (in Three Little Pigs).  It went unnoticed for a long time, but I don't think we actually need to worry about fairy tales acquiring spoiler tags.  If it was more widespread than that, let me know. --Jere7my 17:57, 30 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Incidentally, I appreciate you taking my edits seriously, and I agree with your consensus language. I do think the "history headings" and the "fairy tales" bits are overspecifying — sensible editors should be able to figure them out on a case-by-case basis, and I think they only still exist because of historically isolated cases. I don't expect them to come up very often, and including them may give the impression we're trying to cover all bases. But *shrug*. --Jere7my 18:05, 30 June 2007 (UTC)

text:  Many, many fairy tales had spoiler tags on them and if you look at the discussions over the past month you'll even see people openly advocating this practice.  Until about mid-May some editors were adding spoiler tags to newly created articles about fairy tales.  --Tony Sidaway 14:36, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "May not be used" 

message: It's been requested this non-encyclopaedic template be moved. Matthew 10:25, 1 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, yes, it's been requested, but the discussion there is running about 3:1 against the move, so consensus to move seems unlikely. The claim that the tag is non-encyclopaedic has come in for some strong opposition there too. Andrewa 02:19, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tag move 

message: Ummmm
So people keep dropping by Memories of Matsuko and remove the spoiler tag with various and assundry reasons not listed in the WP:SPOILER policy.
Sethie replies, pointing this out, then they don't reply, Sethie waits a week, puts the tag in then another person comes by and does the same thing over again. Sethie replies, pointing out that they are not listing reasons contained within the policy. they are silent, then another user comes by.
So Sethie's request of the wikipedia community is:
Will someone re-write this policy so it is actually workable- whether to include or exclude spoilers?
Will some people who are neutral on the whole spoiler thing- come by the Memories of Matsuko page and help us decide what to do. This is getting old! Sethie 01:43, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Meh, it's a moot point for that page. Just removed the whole section due to copyright violation. --- RockMFR 02:19, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

text: It's not a good idea to discuss individual cases on this page.  Discuss problems pertaining to an article on the talk page of that article. --Tony Sidaway 13:15, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: First, the point is not moot.  There is now a summary which doesn't violate copyright, and the same issues of the spoiler warning remain.  Second, I for one am interested in seeing how this guideline, and the actions of various editors are impacting real articles.  It's not just an academic debate.  Third, the editor on that page has a valid point.  We actually don't have a guideline that clearly calls for the removal of spoiler tags on that article, and the editors who have come in to change the article don't have any real interest in the article or the film it describes.  They simply want to remove all spoiler tags.  The best approach would be to first establish a viable guideline, then get articles in line with the existing guideline.zadignose 01:16, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Sethie agrees with Tony, this the page to discuss the large issues. Sethie still would like to see any NEUTRAL people (people who are on the fence about spoilers) to come to the Memory of Matsuko page and discuss the application of this policy there. Sethie believes he is following the policy and believes those who are removing it are not... and he would like further opinions. Sethie 01:47, 3 July 2007 (UTC)

text: The arguments are set out in the spoiler guideline. I suppose they could be cut'n'pasted into the edit summary or onto the talk page each time ... or just link to the page - David Gerard 22:47, 3 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Or, in theory, you could actually think about the article you're removing tags from.zadignose 00:00, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Or, let me make that more explicit, you could actually think about the article you're editing.  Here you are espousing the editing of an article without looking at it, and simply cutting and pasting some "argument" from a guideline that shouldn't be full of arguments, but actually should be clear and explicit on the matter.  If a guideline states explicitly "no one should use spoiler warnings," then yeah, you can just point to it when removing a spoiler warning.  But if the guideline doesn't explicitly forbid the use of a warning on a particular article, and an editor has posted a defensible explanation as to why a warning should be used, you can't just shrug your shoulders and point to an ambiguous guideline to justify your edits.  It's time to think about the edits your making, or get a better guideline.zadignose 00:07, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's not always necessary to point to a guideline - in the case of that article, the general principle that a plot section shouldn't need a spoiler tag has been brought up several times, and nobody seems to have a strong argument why that article is exceptional. The guideline reflects this argument, but in the end guidelines are never written with no exceptions, wikilawyering is not well respected, and it's up to editors on an article-by-article basis to decide on the content, following site-wide consensus. — Carl (CBM · talk) 01:46, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Whether or not it is always necessary to point to a guideline, in fact this guideline is being pointed to as the reason for an article edit (or perhaps tens of thousands of edits).  As I pointed out in the article talk page, this guideline offers absolutely no guidance on what would constitute an exception to the "usual" case where warnings are considered redundant, and it's not explicit enough on when such "redundancy" is grounds for removing a spoiler tag.  As for the idea that "guidelines are never written with no exceptions," if that's the case then I think it's time to remove the text "fairy tales should never have spoiler warnings."  As for "wikilawyering," I'm not sure what you're referring to, but I don't think that's a good description of what I see as asking for clear guidance.  Regarding decisions made by editors on an article-by-article basis, this seems a strong argument against edits made by automated process, or maintained by editors who haven't even begun to consider the individual merits of the articles they are editing.zadignose 04:28, 4 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  As for the idea that "guidelines are never written with no exceptions," if that's the case then I think it's time to remove the text "fairy tales should never have spoiler warnings."  - I concur with this statement from zadignose.  By way of illustrating the problem with that part of the guideline:  Who decides if a particular story is a fairy tale or not?  For example, Peter Pan is a novel, not a historical fairy tale.  But parents tell it to their kids like a fairy tale.  So, which is it, fairy tale or novel?  Who decides?  --Parzival418 Hello 00:53, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Absurdity 

message: (Copied from #Change guideline tag to proposal)
::"Why did you remove the guideline dispute tag when there is a guideline content dispute? Milo 22:15, 25 June 2007"
:::" There is no significant opposition to the guideline. --Tony Sidaway 22:18, 25 June 2007"
The Help Desk told me that only one editor with a talk page explanation is needed to place a dispute tag, but that there are no formal rules for such things. Therefore, the editors who have placed the dispute tag have as valid a claim as Tony's claim of "no significant opposition to the guideline". This calls for a poll, to determine whether or not there is a dispute with the Wikipedia:Spoiler guideline to be indicated by a Dispute tag. Milo 00:38, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Unfortunately, one part of the dispute is about what constitutes consensus.  If anyone changes the guideline, you'll just insist "there are tens of thousands of spoiler warnings removed and few put back, so there's consensus for the guideline.  I'm changing it back."  It's impossible to "change it and see if there's consensus" when the definition of consensus is being warped in this way. Ken Arromdee 13:24, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Btw, polls are not evil, and should not be confused with voting. George Gallup said polling was the only way to truly know the will of the people. Milo 10:07, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Disputed Dispute tag poll 

message: Putting aside your opinion of the guideline itself, do you agree that there is a Wikipedia:Spoiler guideline dispute and that a guideline Dispute tag should be in place? 
*Agree, a dispute exists and a dispute tag should be placed. Milo 00:38, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Unfortunately, one part of the dispute is about what constitutes consensus.  If anyone changes the guideline, you'll just insist "there are tens of thousands of spoiler warnings removed and few put back, so there's consensus for the guideline.  I'm changing it back."  It's impossible to "change it and see if there's consensus" when the definition of consensus is being warped in this way. Ken Arromdee 13:24, 26 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Btw, polls are not evil, and should not be confused with voting. George Gallup said polling was the only way to truly know the will of the people. Milo 10:07, 27 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Poll question: Is there a taggable dispute? 

message: I changed the nutshell from this:
to this:
I made this change because there is no policy that requires editors to "demonstrate consensus" in advance of making an edit, except perhaps in the limited situation of an edit war or RFC or other special circumstance under ongoing discussion.  We are encouraged to edit boldly, then discuss for consensus if our edits are reverted, not the other way around.
If anyone disagrees with this approach, please elaborate.  Thanks.  --Parzival418 Hello 07:19, 5 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: changes to the nutshell