Wikipedia ruins "The Mousetrap" by giving away the ending...., ...and gets a mention on French Radio tonight.... Options

[the fieryangel]

Wikipedia puts the ending of Agatha Christie's "The Mousetrap" on the play's article.... and the Christie heirs are pissed.

The issue is discussed ad naseum by the usual cast of Wikipediots...

Among the gems in the discussion :

It would seem best to me, in order to avoid controversy and still provide the requested information, to create a "Killer in Agatha Christie's 'The Mousetrap'" article, move the entire plot spoiler there and then reference it in the introduction to the article. In this way, the final wishes of the author are upheld (and a fundamental part of the play's structure) and Wikipedia gets to post everything just as before.--eleuthero (talk) 13:55, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

I disagree. We don't do that for other articles and we shouldn't do it for this one. If you don't want to know the plot, don't read the plot section of the article (or maybe don't read the article at all). --Two Bananas (talk) 14:55, 1 September 2010 (UTC)
This would just be another form of spoiler, and would still be covered by WP:SPOILER. If a section called "Identity of the murderer" isn't enough of a clue to the reader that the identity of the murderer is about to be revealed, an article entitled "Killer in Agatha Christie's 'The Mousetrap'" presumably wouldn't help them much either (and could even be worse, if they got there from a Google search and the one-paragraph article got straight to the point). I'm not sure how hiding the ending behind a link would uphold Christie's final wishes any more closely - the Telegraph article suggests that her grandson considers it a "pity" when any reference work includes the plot in its entirety. --McGeddon (talk) 14:59, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Or they could just not include the spoiler in the article...

[Cock-up-over-conspiracy]

God, that arsehole Garrett 'SarekOfVulcan' Fitzgerald has to chime in too with his illogic. I suppose he picked up on this from reading WR here.

These people have no spirit of fun at all. A consensus of arseholes is always going to be arseholery. No big surprise there.

I suppose his logic also determines that "if they did not want people outside the theater to find out the ending, they shouldn't have performed the play either".

I must check the Santa Claus and Tooth Fairy topics to make sure the child in Africa knows they DO NOT EXIST either!

No. There is no reason to treat this any differently than any other published work. If they didn't want people outside the theater to find out the ending, they shouldn't have published the play.--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 14:58, 5 September 2010 (UTC

Of course, he misses the point too. Folks had been seeing the play for much longer than it was published (if it has been).

The whole thing is about a 'spirit of fun' that everyone entered into voluntarily for the sake of entertainment.

[SarekOfVulcan]

God, that arsehole Garrett 'SarekOfVulcan' Fitzgerald has to chime in too with his illogic. I suppose he picked up on this from reading WR here.

Unlike you, I _do_ have a life that doesn't involve posting here. :-)

http://www.facebook.com/#!/album.php?a...id=135705273259

ETA: Um, I suppose I should suggest _not_ scrolling to the bottom if you haven't read the Wikipedia article. :-)

This post has been edited by SarekOfVulcan:

[Cock-up-over-conspiracy]

Unlike you, I _do_ have a life that doesn't involve posting here. :-)

Sure, we know. Indeed, it is a wonder how you fit it all in ... and reading here!

I still think your, and much of the Wikipedia, sucks though.

This is a case where, if there was good editorial control, a sense of style and a spirit of fun could be entered into. It really is not necessary to spoil everything just because one can.

Looking at the topic, they even highlight that the identity of the murderer is included. Now that's just being insensitively churlish.

And insensitivity seems to be pretty much what others are accusing you of being over a period of years.

[EricBarbour]

And insensitivity seems to be pretty much what others are accusing you of being over a period of years.

It's hopeless. Sarek's such an arrogant twat, if he believed the sky was yellow, he'd probably buy
15 pairs of glasses with yellow lenses. Wear them every day, and accuse anyone who told him the
sky is blue of "incivility". He's the Perfect Wikipedia Douchebag, in other words. His delusions are
airtight and ironclad.

Damn glad he's in Maine, 3000 miles from me.

This post has been edited by EricBarbour:

[Cock-up-over-conspiracy]

No, it's not that it is hard. It is simply nonsensical. No audience should have public and notable information withdrawn from it.

Oh, for goodness sake ... it is a bit of fun, an Olde English tradition. It really is not going to kill the girl in Africa, for whom the Wikipedia is really all about, if she does not get to know. Must you spoil everything for everyone? Do you feel so much more superior for knowing it?

It's hopeless. Sarek's such an arrogant twat, if he believed the sky was yellow, he'd probably buy 15 pairs of glasses with yellow lenses. Wear them every day, and accuse anyone who told him the sky is blue of "incivility".

He's the Perfect Wikipedia Douchebag, in other words. His delusions are airtight and ironclad.

Part of my fear is that is dealing with such a disproportionately nerdie community, as one does on the Wikipedia, is that one is dealing with a disproportionately high number of individuals suffering from borderline personality disorders.

Or perhaps it is a question of having to spend time with too many individuals who spend so much time dealing with unfeeling software rather than human beings that they inevitably end up treating other human beings like software glitches. Discretion ... spirit of fun ... does not compute.

I don't know ... just send the Order's Most Worthy Matrons a whole load of Wikipedia hard core porn and links, and get him to justify pulling the wings off newcomers as a community leader rather than dealing with all the filth to them.

"Logic is the beginning of wisdom; not the end." -- Spock of Vulcan

This post has been edited by Cock-up-over-conspiracy:

[Cyclopia]

No, it's not that it is hard. It is simply nonsensical. No audience should have public and notable information withdrawn from it.

Oh, for goodness sake ... it is a bit of fun, an Olde English tradition. It really is not going to kill the girl in Africa, for whom the Wikipedia is really all about, if she does not get to know. Must you spoil everything for everyone? Do you feel so much more superior for knowing it?

I don't understand. Superior to who? I don't feel superior to anyone. I simply know that it is public and very notable knowledge, and it oughts to be reported in any encyclopedia. I would have been very much annoyed to read an encyclopedia article, read that it has a notable plot twist etc. and then having the twist not revealed. That would have been disrespectful towards the readers expecting a complete entry.

I live in Olde England, even if only since 18 months, and I understand the Olde English tradition. Still, we're not screaming the murder's name in front of the theater. You can simply not read the article, and be happy with that. I just finished to see The Prisoner 1967 series a couple weeks ago. Did I go to WP reading about it before seeing the end? No, of course, I just waited and enjoyed it, and then I was happy to see a complete entry on WP about it, to try to understand it (gee, talk about psychedelic ending).

[Somey]

I would have been very much annoyed to read an encyclopedia article, read that it has a notable plot twist etc. and then having the twist not revealed. That would have been disrespectful towards the readers expecting a complete entry.

First of all, that's a ludicrous assertion - the reader isn't going to feel disrespected because an encyclopedia entry fails to provide the twist ending to a whodunit. And if you put the spoiler in a rollup (or rather, rolldown) box, you're giving the reader the choice of whether or not he/she wants to read it - that's actually far more respectful than making an assumption one way or another.

In other words, you can safely assume that if someone goes to the WP article for The Mousetrap, he/she is going to want some general info on the play, how long it's been running, who wrote it and when, etc., and probably the essentials of the story (who the characters are, what's the setup, what the mystery they're trying to solve). But you can't assume the reader is going to want the article to spoil it for them.

This applies to the photo of the gangrenous leg, too. You talk about these things as though it would be "censorship" to put them in rolldown boxes, but how is that censorship? What it is, is serving the needs of a diverse readership. But Wikipedians never, ever, ever want to do that; they only want to serve their own needs, whatever those may be. Except that in this case, I can't see how even their own needs would be served by this - that's why it's "mystifying." At least with the gangrenous leg, the photo has some chock value in itself, and the reader therefore gets as clearer idea of how serious gangrene is. But with the Mousetrap spoiler, there's just no inherent value there whatsoever.

I realize that some of us have chuckled at WP'ers in the past for getting so worked up over the spoiler issue, so maybe we're being a bit hypocritical now for getting worked up over it ourselves... But in my case, the issue is unwillingness to make a simple compromise for the benefit of readers. What's more, it's one that you couldn't even make in a paper encyclopedia - the WP'ers are opposed to the use of something that, if used, would help to further prove the inherent superiority of data over paper as an information medium. So why are they so against it? Are they really that afraid that they're going to have to change half-a-million other articles to use rolldown boxes, just to be "consistent"? That's the only thing I can think of, and it's a pretty shitty excuse.

[Cyclopia]

I would have been very much annoyed to read an encyclopedia article, read that it has a notable plot twist etc. and then having the twist not revealed. That would have been disrespectful towards the readers expecting a complete entry.

First of all, that's a ludicrous assertion - the reader isn't going to feel disrespected because an encyclopedia entry fails to provide the twist ending to a whodunit.

I would. I would feel to be treated like a moron, and I would be feeling that an important piece of information is missing without reason.

And if you put the spoiler in a rollup (or rather, rolldown) box, you're giving the reader the choice of whether or not he/she wants to read it - that's actually far more respectful than making an assumption one way or another.

But this choice already exists: if you don't want to know, don't read the article. I don't know where you live, but here people are not compulsively obliged to read all the WP (maybe if it's what happens in your place, I understand the hatred you have for it (IMG:smilys0b23ax56/default/rolleyes.gif) )

In other words, you can safely assume that if someone goes to the WP article for The Mousetrap, he/she is going to want some general info on the play, how long it's been running, who wrote it and when, etc., and probably the essentials of the story (who the characters are, what's the setup, what the mystery they're trying to solve). But you can't assume the reader is going to want the article to spoil it for them.

Why? The ending is, if anything, the most notable feature of the play. It's only plain that I'd want it to be in open air in the article.

This applies to the photo of the gangrenous leg, too. You talk about these things as though it would be "censorship" to put them in rolldown boxes, but how is that censorship? What it is, is serving the needs of a diverse readership. But Wikipedians never, ever, ever want to do that; they only want to serve their own needs, whatever those may be. Except that in this case, I can't see how even their own needs would be served by this - that's why it's "mystifying." At least with the gangrenous leg, the photo has some chock value in itself, and the reader therefore gets as clearer idea of how serious gangrene is. But with the Mousetrap spoiler, there's just no inherent value there whatsoever.

The point is that you treat information like it had only some "external" value. Like it makes sense only because it is useful.

It has, of course, and a lot of it. But most importantly, information has value in itself. It's an end, not a mean. If I want to know how a Chaetognatha (T-H-L-K-D) looks like, I expect to see a picture of it. Not because I need to recognize arrow worms now or in the foreseeable future, but because it is an essential part of the information I was looking for.

Same for gangrene. It's not that I want the images because they can help the public realize that gangrene is serious. It's, much more simply, because these images are the answer to the question "how does gangrene actually looks like?" and there's no reason on earth to hide this, on an encyclopedic article on the subject.

I realize that some of us have chuckled at WP'ers in the past for getting so worked up over the spoiler issue, so maybe we're being a bit hypocritical now for getting worked up over it ourselves... But in my case, the issue is unwillingness to make a simple compromise for the benefit of readers. What's more, it's one that you couldn't even make in a paper encyclopedia - the WP'ers are opposed to the use of something that, if used, would help to further prove the inherent superiority of data over paper as an information medium. So why are they so against it? Are they really that afraid that they're going to have to change half-a-million other articles to use rolldown boxes, just to be "consistent"? That's the only thing I can think of, and it's a pretty shitty excuse.

No, I am afraid that instead of an encyclopedia providing information we become a neutered nanny thing.

(What happened with the bbcode?)

[Larry Sanger]

This is another gem:

I would have been very much annoyed to read an encyclopedia article, read that it has a notable plot twist etc. and then having the twist not revealed. That would have been disrespectful towards the readers expecting a complete entry.

First of all, that's a ludicrous assertion - the reader isn't going to feel disrespected because an encyclopedia entry fails to provide the twist ending to a whodunit.

I would. I would feel to be treated like a moron, and I would be feeling that an important piece of information is missing without reason.

Missing without reason? And even if we are talking about hiding the information, or merely warning people in advance--that is being done without reason?

Obviously, there is a reason: revealing a significant spoiler ruins the show for people who haven't seen it. Not knowing the ending is crucial to appreciating a whodunit, of course.

How it is that you can pretend this isn't the case, or ignore it when it is the crucial point, is beyond me. Someone who pretends to love the truth as much as you do sure has a funny way of showing it.

This post has been edited by Larry Sanger:

[Cock-up-over-conspiracy]

Obviously, there is a reason: revealing a significant spoiler ruins the show for people who haven't seen it. Not knowing the ending is crucial to appreciating a whodunit, of course.

Yeah, well, Larry ... you see ... we don't need reality anymore. Just a 34kb badly written, ever changing, POV document of it. Then were 'know' it. Its ours. We don't need to go and see it, let alone ask if we left it in a sustainable state (like other real world encyclopedias).

On the same topic, do they insist on spoiling every magic trick in the book too?

Cyclopia ... I was thinking more about the plot spoilers of your life. You know, the heartbreaks, the fuck ups, the really nasty things you did to other people, details of your dirty habits. That kind of stuff. The stuff that, as adults, we learn to filter out, keep private, not ask about.

Remember the Jimbo quote about how wonderful it would be if everyone had an openly editable online biography? "What's wrong with that?" or something.

I suppose this discussion is intersected by the other big one, "inclusionism versus deletionism". And, of course, there is censorship on a whim, "deletionizing", POV exclusionism.

This particular question is not about "offense". No one has claimed "offense". For me, it is just about something around tact, style and discretion.

What we are talking about here is The Mousetrap - "The longest running show in the world". If we have to expose it, then why cannot we expose you? Why does not the argument go two ways?

[Cyclopia]

What we are talking about here is The Mousetrap - "The longest running show in the world". If we have to expose it, then why cannot we expose you? Why does not the argument go two ways?

Because "The Mousetrap" is a book that you can buy in every bookshop for a few Euros, or read in every library. My parents had the book (I tried to read it as a kid but I found it very dull). It is already public, in every sense of the word.

My life is not published on any book, nor reported on any newspaper that I am aware of. So, it is private.

And make no mistake: I am openly against publishing private information about people. I am openly pro re-publishing already published and available information that comes in reasonably public sources (books, magazines, etc.)

When people will write my biography and publish it with a diffusion comparable to that of Agatha Christie works, we can talk about that.

This post has been edited by Cyclopia:

[Larry Sanger]

What we are talking about here is The Mousetrap - "The longest running show in the world". If we have to expose it, then why cannot we expose you? Why does not the argument go two ways?

Because "The Mousetrap" is a book that you can buy in every bookshop for a few Euros, or read in every library. My parents had the book (I tried to read it as a kid but I found it very dull). It is already public, in every sense of the word.

So? Knowledge is an end in itself, not a means. That means our knowledge of all of your nasty secrets is an end in itself. Doesn't matter if it's public or not.

Or, if you want to say that being public or not is somehow a constraint on what knowledge is revealed, or perhaps how it is revealed, then you are going to have actually defend your position on every other similar constraint that you might want to place--or not place--on the revealing of knowledge. In light of these (rather obvious) observations, simply saying "it is information, and we want information to be presented in the most direct, unvarnished way possible" proves absolutely nothing. We are discussing whether there should be an exception to this general rule. You already concede that there should be some exceptions. We have given a truly excellent reason for why there should be spoiler warnings on egregious spoilers like the whodunit of The Mousetrap: it ruins the experience for the audience who hasn't seen it, and a lot of people won't know that a spoiler might be coming if you don't tell them. As far as I can tell, you don't have any reply to this at all. Saying, "I personally would assume that an encyclopedia article on the play might have spoilers" is not a response, because it isn't about you (unless you're a grown-up adolescent narcissist), it's about serving an international, highly diverse readership, who (again) might not share your provincial, idiosyncratic assumptions.

This post has been edited by Larry Sanger:

[Cyclopia]

What we are talking about here is The Mousetrap - "The longest running show in the world". If we have to expose it, then why cannot we expose you? Why does not the argument go two ways?

Because "The Mousetrap" is a book that you can buy in every bookshop for a few Euros, or read in every library. My parents had the book (I tried to read it as a kid but I found it very dull). It is already public, in every sense of the word.

So? Knowledge is an end in itself, not a means. That means our knowledge of all of your nasty secrets is an end in itself. Doesn't matter if it's public or not.

Or, if you want to say that being public or not is somehow a constraint on what knowledge is revealed, or perhaps how it is revealed, then you are going to have actually defend your position on every other similar constraint that you might want to place--or not place--on the revealing of knowledge. In light of these (rather obvious) observations, simply saying "it is information, and we want information to be presented in the most direct, unvarnished way possible" proves absolutely nothing. We are discussing whether there should be an exception to this general rule. You already concede that there should be some exceptions.

I concede the exception is that private information about people has to be kept private. By WP and by anyone else.

I don't concete the exception that already worldwide published information about a play has to be kept restrained by Wikipedia (and, judging at what it is said here, by WP only, apparently: why don't you launch a campaign to remove the ending from the whole Internet?).

The two things do not compare by any standard. In one case we're talking of something that's no one's business, that is released nowhere, and unverifiable. In the other, we're talking of a famous book, a famous play,published worldwide in thousands of copies. You get the difference?

This post has been edited by Cyclopia:

[Larry Sanger]

So? Knowledge is an end in itself, not a means. That means our knowledge of all of your nasty secrets is an end in itself. Doesn't matter if it's public or not.

Or, if you want to say that being public or not is somehow a constraint on what knowledge is revealed, or perhaps how it is revealed, then you are going to have actually defend your position on every other similar constraint that you might want to place--or not place--on the revealing of knowledge. In light of these (rather obvious) observations, simply saying "it is information, and we want information to be presented in the most direct, unvarnished way possible" proves absolutely nothing. We are discussing whether there should be an exception to this general rule. You already concede that there should be some exceptions.

I concede the exception is that private information about people has to be kept private. By WP and by anyone else.

I don't concete the exception that already worldwide published information about a play has to be kept restrained by Wikipedia (and, judging at what it is said here, by WP only, apparently: why don't you launch a campaign to remove the ending from the whole Internet?).

The two things do not compare by any standard. In one case we're talking of something that's no one's business, that is released nowhere, and unverifiable. In the other, we're talking of a famous book, a famous play,published worldwide in thousands of copies. You get the difference?

Wait, wait. You aren't replying. The rest of the Internet isn't Wikipedia, and you haven't established that the killer's identity is readily available all over the Internet anyway--so all that is a silly red herring, a dodge, an attempt not to reply to the basic point. So let me repeat it and give you another chance to dodge reply:

If you want to say that being public or not is somehow a constraint on what knowledge is revealed, or perhaps how it is revealed, then you are going to have actually defend your position on every other similar constraint that you might want to place--or not place--on the revealing of knowledge. In light of these (rather obvious) observations, simply saying "it is information, and we want information to be presented in the most direct, unvarnished way possible" proves absolutely nothing. We are discussing whether there should be an exception to this general rule. You already concede that there should be some exceptions. We have given a truly excellent reason for why there should be spoiler warnings on egregious spoilers like the whodunit of The Mousetrap: it ruins the experience for the audience who hasn't seen it, and a lot of people won't know that a spoiler might be coming if you don't tell them. As far as I can tell, you don't have any reply to this at all. Saying, "I personally would assume that an encyclopedia article on the play might have spoilers" is not a response, because it isn't about you (unless you're a grown-up adolescent narcissist), it's about serving an international, highly diverse readership, who (again) might not share your provincial, idiosyncratic assumptions.

Now, what is your cowardly dodge response to this? Bear in mind, I am holding you to the logical standards someone who actually has a Ph.D. at Cambridge would be expected to be able to fulfill. In other words, I expect an actual response, or else I will go into full-on mockery and dismissal mode. You have been warned.

[Larry Sanger]

From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Cyclopia , the last quotation on the page:

“ Wikipedia really, truly does not care what the real-world consequences of distributing verifiable, educational information are (or might be). Someone else may have a problem with Wikipedia providing 'potentially harmful' educational information -- but we don't, full stop. ”
— WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:31, 8 September 2010 (UTC)

This is no more than posturing. Someone who says this (or quotes it) is merely congratulating himself (or herself) on an unwavering commitment to knowledge and reason, and wants others to believe that he is extremely admirable for his courage in the face of the forces of ignorance. That is easy to say, but when you come down to it, there are exceptions, of course: bomb-making instructions, national secrets that cost lives, detailed descriptions of how still-young children were abused, the identity of the dead before their family is alerted, and more. And if you're really going to be brave and bite the bullet, then why not child pornography? We are told that drawings of pedophilia count as "educational information" of "historical" importance, you know--so why isn't actual child pornography "educational information" of "sociological" importance? The caricatured argument would go like this: "someone who is studying criminology, and who wants to catch pedophiles, might really need to know what actual child pornography is like"; and haven't we seen arguments just like this? But, no. Suddenly, when it comes to child pornography, there is An Exception. But--no, of course this isn't Educational! Really? Why?

Your declaring categorically that all "educational information" must be included in the encyclopedia sounds brave, but it is merely a silly, ridiculous exercise in self-congratulation. I think that commitment to knowledge and reason is demonstrated not through such declarations but through a whole pattern of behavior.