I have little respect for Brandt -and I personally think he should have a BLP- yet I agree that a lot of jerkiness was put on him and that doing things like proposing its article for FA is in utter bad faith at best. But Brandt is a bit of an edge case (he did his part in pissing editors off -not that it is a justification of any sort). About BLP in general, my opinion is that there is a mix of reasonable concerns and misguided paranoia on them (I think the whole "burn unreferenced BLPs!" affair was in the best case an utter waste of time, in the worse case a net loss for the encyclopedia), but I strongly agree that pending changes or whatever it is called should be enabled by default on all BLPs -random IP vandalism is a big no-no on such articles.

But this has little to do with The Mousetrap, I think?

It cuts both ways, clown...

Well, if you want "The Mousetrap"...

I was just forgetting why I didn't bother to write here. You know, the high level of conversation probably.

Sure, the same goes for pictures of kids having sex or pedo cartoons. "We must document it!!!" ... and if people are offended by it ... then they just should not read the articles ???

The problem is, we all here have good insight into the minds that create the Wikipedia with none of the buy-in encouraging us to unquestionably believe in its tenents. As with a lot of nasty and self-made porno pictures (including the kiddie porn), I'd be more inclined to believe they are just placed their for puerile shock value. Like why does it need x 100 pictures of ejaculations?

Ditto with the spoiler issue. A large proportion of Wikipedian like spoiling things. They are senseless, conceited, puerile spoilers themselves. They are the site is too full of its own importance. They are young, immature, irresponsible, incapable of seeing a bigger picture. Many are actually vengeful, hateful, obsessive.

It is easy to argue that what is notable about The Mousetrap is that you are politely requested not to divulge the murderer at the end. The request is part of the performance and 'The Mousetrap Experience', its success or notability based on it. As far as I understand, it is a fairly mediocre piece of middle of the road theatre; in other words, not otherwise notable at all.

And so we have to ask whether the exposure is genuine (and I would argue there is no genuine need), or just some jerk off have a laugh cocking a snoot at a convention and using the Pee-dia to propel it to the top of Google.

Then you have the vocal minor that will fight against anything like sitewide spoilers because they know they are incapable of managing them due to the lack of consistent editorial overview ...

About kids having sex, I guess that stuff is illegal for good reasons (being the product of child abuse), so it's quite clearly fine not having it.

About cartoons depicting underage sex (like, say, a cartoon of Bart Simpson having sex), I have always been totally baffled by the fact that they are illegal in several jurisdictions. It is clearly a victimless crime (T-H-L-K-D). The reason for them being illegal seems to be based only on the mass hysteria around pedophilia. I mean, I understand the main reason to have pedo pics illegal is that of cutting down the market of such stuff that is inextricably related, obviously, to child abuse. But cartoons? Are we protecting Bart Simpson or Charlie Brown from pedophilia? It makes no sense.

(Depictions of real people with clearly recognizable faces would be another story).

So, for the second, yes: on an article about such cartoons, I would expect an image (victimless crime laws notwithstanding), and if people are offended by it, then they should just not read the articles.



There is a lot of people of course posting a lot of stuff for exhibitionist reasons, or even perhaps for shock value. But why should I care of people's intentions? I care of the result. If such behaviour leads to have multiple good quality images for a subject, that's only good.



Funny, I'd say the same of many WR regulars (perhaps because they were/are wikipedians for the most part?) I mean, it's them that consider posting doodled pictures of their interlocutors as reasonable dialogue.

Apart from that, I'd say that in this case it is people who wants stuff removed/hidden that doesn't see the big picture. They see the short-term, small advantage of making people less offended, and don't see the wider benefit that open, complete information gives to everyone. It is a much more subtle and much more difficult to quantify one, but it is a bigger one in my opinion. Of course, YMMV.



I am honestly not sure to understand what you mean, sorry.

Could I have a link to your homepage/blog so that I can know more about you, please? I find your position hard to understand without knowing more personal details.

It is not just about taking personal offense. It is both about our collective crafting of society and a concern about how society is being crafted.

For sure, one can sit at home with headphones and blinkers on "not being offended". That does not stop society being made by others.

How old are you by the way and what positions of responsibility do you or have you occupied?

Thank you.

I am an Italian 29-years old postdoctoral biophysics researcher at the University of Cambridge, UK.
What about you?

(That said, what has my background to do with the discussion? Opinions are opinions, their validity doesn't change depending on who is saying them)

I'm sorry, but you are offering arguments, not opinions. The validity of an argument, which we can define here as the willingness of a typical reader to accept it without extensive in-depth research, is indeed related in some sense to who is making it. It just happens that in this case your credentials as a biophysics researcher are completely beside the point re: spoilers in articles. Get it?

Not only that, but your argument is complete nonsense anyways, even if you had the reputation capital in this area.

As I understand them: you demand the solutions to murder mysteries be placed in articles. Anything else is a terrible insult to the reader.

Well, there is also the business that giving away the answer -- which is mainly why people like this sort of thing in the first place -- is also going to offend some readers. Probably more.

Oh no! What to do? Well, it's pretty obvious what can be done, the technical means to do it already exists, and there is no reason why not to do it. Well, except that the entire population of Wikifreaks made up, out of whole cloth, the whole spoiler shit some time ago. Remember? It used to be that spoilers were clearly marked, giving the reader a chance. But then More Senior fruitcakes at the project decided this was Morally Wrong and in an wiki version of Kristallnacht they hunted down and destroyed all the spoiler warnings in the entire project. This act effectively set your bullshit as de facto policy, and as we all know that the ill-informed opinions of the wikicrats are far, far more important than the mere readers. Oh yes indeed, anyone who objects, well, "They can all go fork themselves.", right?

Not really. I don't think this is a forum of experts on the subject of the public exposure of plot details on online encyclopedias. Are you, or any other guy here, an expert on the subject?

If so, let us know about that, so that we can share your expert knowledge on the subject -perhaps with some link to an academic bibliography that we can read. If not, you and me are just people who happen to discuss on a forum, without any academic qualification, and so we're at the same level -thus our backgrounds are irrelevant.



So, my background is indeed irrelevant, despite what you said above.



Yes. To me it is pretty clear. The answer is: nothing.
Offending readers is not something that can be taken into account when dealing with encyclopedias. Encyclopedias collect notable facts and notable opinions. They should not invent anything: they should collect what exists. If the existence of something offends you, it's not the encyclopedia problem: it is your problem.

See for example the infamous gangrene pictures. Gangrene is a fact of nature, just like magnolia flowers or water ice. It only happens that there are more people that dislike to see gangrene pictures than magnolia flowers pictures. But we cannot take into account what people like and dislike: that is simply not our job. Most importantly: it must not be our job. That's because what an encyclopedia is meant to is to document, and to do that objectively and fairly: to take into account subjective judgements of some population categories (e.g. people who can't see gangrene pictures) would make the encyclopedia equally subjective. And where would it end? Who knows what offends Scientologists, for example: should we hide Xenu (T-H-L-K-D) for them? Should we hide material on satanism (T-H-L-K-D) to make Christians happy? What next? Everyone can scream "X offends me!" and require deletion/hiding of content on such grounds.

We create a collection of structured information where everything is on (proportionally) equal grounds. But then, it's up to the user to decide to avoid what he/she dislikes. Nobody forces anything on the user: it is full of technical and less technical means to avoid information you dislike. I do it all the time exactly to avoid spoilers: I simply avoid to read. Simple, isn't it? Or you are free to use another encyclopedia. It's not like everyone is forced to read Wikipedia. Or you could create a, so to say, family-friendly mirror of WP. Why not?

Or Soggy biscuit, perhaps?
It's been up for deletion FOUR TIMES.

Real encyclopedias don't do insane nonsense like that.

Well, yes, it is a fact of nature the same. It seems to be surprisingly notable from the AfD you link. It's also "insane nonsense" but alas, the world is full of notable insane nonsense. It deserves to be documented nonetheless -that I personally don't care/don't like the subject is irrelevant when deciding such things.

(Funny stuff. Thanks for letting me know -I'll remember not to play if someone asks!)

Questions ignored by Cyclopia. I wonder why?

I don't know, I would start from the utter niceness of the last question, perhaps?
If you want to have a peaceful conversation, fine, but this doesn't seem a way to start one.

That said, no, nothing notable and public so far, apart from a small bunch of academic papers perhaps.
You happy now?

Not really what? That you are not offering arguments?



You said "Opinions are opinions, their validity doesn't change depending on who is saying them".

You are not "opinioning", but arguing. I pointed out arguments are indeed weighed by who is making them, contrary to your claim. I know that wiki-logic disagrees -- you do not need to waste your precious wiki-time spewing forth on that. I also know that wiki-logic is bullshit. As you say, "your problem, not mine".



Can you understand English? I said that even if you had the capital, your argument is shit. That is to say, your argument is so flawed that it overwhelms any possible reputation you may have in this subject.

Do I have to spell this out in so many words for you? Are you really a biophysics researcher? You truly are evidencing precious little ability to abstract.



Yes, yes, we have heard this all before. Per formal WikiPolicy, it is always the victim who is at fault. Suck's to be them, of course! This is why BLP's are such a massive fuckup at the project, and this is why you "aren't even wrong." Honestly, you are just going to have to accept the fact that few people here are willing to drink as much and as deeply from that font of Wiki-Aid.



So you like to write articles that no one should read? This has always been a source of amusement to me, how the whole purpose of the project is to create something that no one really should read in the first place. You know, how unreliable it all is.

I'll also point out that I predicted you would say "Y'all can go fork yourselves!" (The wiki-version of the "America: Love it or Leave it" bullshit 'argument'.)

Anyways, I simply have no idea -- absolutely none! -- how you can segue from revealing the answer to a notable work of puzzle art (be it novel, play, movie, etc) to gangrene, Xenu or Christian sensibilities. These pieces of art exist in big part to engage the viewer, to encourage them to conduct their own 'investigation' so to speak. When you reveal the answer, you markedly reduce the value of the work in question.

Truly there is a superficial resemblance to all the red-herrings you raise. Nevertheless, despite them, this is not a censorship issue, it is not a religious thing nor a matter of intellectual property. It is simple courtesy to the reader. Not much different than how you hold doors for people rushing for the elevator. The readers are the beneficiary of all the work you do, and I frankly have no idea why you would choose to disrespect them in this manner.

But you know, Cyclopia, let's just say that you are absolutely correct anyways. Now, you are full of shit (and be sure, I'm about to prove this another way!), but let's just pretend for a moment, or seven, that you are not full of shit. (I'm being very careful here due to your previous troubles with abstraction; I'm hoping that contra-factuals are within your ken). That allowing for an "expand-a-spoiler" tick-box somewhere on an article about a play is a moral corruption, and that it is inevitable that censor boards in Saudi Arabia and China are next in line. Then come the Xenu-ists, and supporters of boy-raping priests in the Catholic church, and parents who are disgusted by images of horrifying medical conditions.

Now then ... hm ... what is the problem again? Some readers may be offended by some content? Some readers may choose not to want to read some stuff, but others is fine? Worse, that there are groups with mutually incompatible community standards?

While all that is true, I'm afraid that the answer is much simpler (but more complicated). The problem is you are unwilling to create and operate a framework wherein all of these conflicting views can be sustained. Let's list some examples:

The "date formatting" issue. There is also the ongoing Cold War between the UK and the US. Is it "organize" or "organise"? Should units of measurement be SI or Imperial? Both? Should the article on Piss Christ be visible to Christians? IUPAC nomenclature vs. dominant professional jargon? Should spoilers be mainlined into the article, or hidden in special boxes?

You see, it's all the same thing. Not only that, but a lot of these issues have been the basis of many of the nastiest Wiki-wars ever fought (and, generally for the project, lost). This raises an ominous question for you and the other Wiki-Juicers: Is it possible that blind and dogmatic adherence to the Wiki-Way of "lay it out, lay it all out, and to FUCK with anyone who disagrees with us" has caused more problems than it supposedly could solve? Is it possible that creating an encyclopedia is more than just collecting a bunch of disparate data and presenting them all, warts and farts, in some weakly organized form?

You speak of "structured data", but to what purpose is this "structure" to be put? If this is the "readers problem", then why structure the data at all? Or is this just some form of plausible deniability re: "neutral point of view"?

Are you, as an editor at the project, basically lying?

I'll answer that last question for you: yes, you are. This is why that even if you are right (see above), you are still woefully wrong. The problem is not the reader, the problem is you and your lazy-ass attitude, your incomplete encyclopedia that refuses, absolutely refuses, to accommodate any other agency beyond your brainless editors. You could create a system that would accommodate almost any viewpoint, and all of them at the same time. Rather than "forking", these readers can just create a few simple "prisms" (to name these things) which just filter and massage the data, helped along by all that high-falutin "structure" you are creating.

But this would shift the balance of power to the consumers of the content, and that's not allowed, is it? "Go fork yourselves!"

Isn't it interesting that almost all issues surrounding Wikipedia eventually make it down to this?

You raise a lot of interesting points; yet if you assume that I am lying, what is the point of a conversation?

Note that I said mirror, not fork. You could build a mirror of WP which is family-friendly, or USA-centric, or the like. What I mean is that, WP being free reusable content (under certain very reasonable conditions), you could build the "prisms" you talk about.

I personally find the idea of creating an in-wiki integrated, baroque system of filters to accomodate every conceivable quirk of the user an amusing monstrosity (imagine maintaining such a thing, if anything else).

But the idea of an ecosystem of mirrors where each group makes a filtered version according to its needs is very nice and would settle most of the problems. Each group would be responsible for its own mirror, independently from WP, and decide by itself.

Most users simply want not to see crap when idly browsing content. To not suddenly be confronted with certain content at inappropriate moments. If your solution is go buy something else you have failed.

No, I'm afraid that doesn't make me happy. You have thus far led a boring, insignificant life. Okay, that covers you. But what about all of your family members? What about all of your friends?

No audience should have public and notable information withdrawn from it. We demand to know, Cyclopia!

Since who are my friends is not a notable or public information, I guess there is little to give to the audience.

Always the same demonstration for us. "We (often pseudonymous) Wikipedians will decide what is notable and public information. If you are not a dyed-in-the-wool Wikipedian, you have no say in what is notable and public information, and furthermore, you have no right to apply our rules to us, the way we apply rules to you. We Wikipedians don't have to abide by our own rules for you, on the outside."

Cyclopia, if you are ever wondering why there are people in the world who would like to punch people like you in the face, review this post.

You are always a gentleman.

This whole situation indicates to me just how committed to silly, adolescent thinking Wikipedia has become. Maintaining their stupid little system has become more important to them than common sense, sensitivity to the ordinary user, their public reputation, and usefulness.

Ultimately, the reason they're so intransigent in defense of the new policy against spoiler warnings has nothing whatsoever to do with "NPOV"; they're simply dead-set against acknowledging the legitimate interests of their users, interests which might impose some independent constraints on how they do their work. After reading the discussion leading up to the rejection of spoiler templates, it strikes me that the idea of putting warnings or labels on their porn is absolutely never going to happen. Acknowledging the interests of school children, who arguably stand to benefit more from Wikipedia than anyone, would be an even bigger concession. Wikipedians want to remain free to do whatever they in their collective fantasy imagine is required by encyclopedia. If they can stick it to ordinary, decent sensibilities, that only makes them happier, because it proves how clever and wise they are.

Basically, Wikipedia is an adolescent encyclopedia. Call it the Peter Pan encyclopedia; it will never grow up.

What a simply idiotic thing to say. No response is necessary.

Following Jimbo Wales, the head WP puer aeternus. See narcissist as eternal child. All that happens is that as they grow older, they grow more subtle at finding ways for the world to serve them.

Quote of the year!

This is another gem:

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.

Here's another way to explain it. Basically, Wikipedians noticed that spoiler warnings are a concession to convention: when revealing the ending of a story, writers generally follow the convention of warning the reader in advance, so they do not unwittingly stumble across information that they did not want to know. That's the convention and the reason for it. But Wikipedians, who (like this alleged Cambridge man) fancy themselves committed to the unvarnished truth, are above such piddling conventions. They prove their superiority by flouting the convention, just like any adolescent nonconformist.

I don't pretend that this isn't the case, nor I ignore it.

Simply, in the case of an encyclopedia, I expect spoilers to be present, in plain view, because giving me a resonably complete plot summary it's one of the things that are not only expectable, but desirable in an encyclopedia article.

I said without reason: let's specify, without an encyclopedic reason. I expect encyclopedias to help me find reasonably complete information on a topic, not to help to "appreciate a whodunit". An encyclopedia is a tool for a certain purpose (having complete summary of information on a topic). You talk of using encyclopedias for the wrong purpose (enjoy a play). There is an old proverb in Italy that says: "non puoi avere la botte piena e la moglie ubriaca". I don't know the English equivalent, it translates roughly as "you can't have both a drunk wife and a full barrel".

So, since sometimes I enjoy "whodunits" (so to say), if I have any problem with a certain spoiler, I avoid the related encyclopedia articles. That's what I practically, actually do, as I said above. You know: it works!

Again: you seem to reason like people is forced to look Wikipedia. But it isn't the case. You don't want to see the sexual content on Wikipedia? Don't see it. You don't want to see the spoilers? Don't see them. It's not like you wake up with random Wikipedia articles on troublesome topics printed on your retina. You have Citizendium, Sanger, which is a noble project: use that.

Oh, I think Cyclopia knows this "truth." He just doesn't care about other people's feelings, pleasure, or enjoyment. That's what you're missing.

You assume all sympathy fails at the point of understanding, and mostly, in this world, you're right. But in a few rarer cases, empathy fails and a later and more scary spot, up the chain from mere knowledge and understanding. The actor knows exactly what "the other" is feeling and why; he just doesn't give a shit.

Doesn't care what others are feeling? You make Cyclopia sound like some kind of Fascist!

Obviously, very few people agree--indeed, people outside of Wikipedia commenting on this issue appear to be united in saying they hate the fact that there are no spoiler warnings (at a minimum). Unlike you, they don't want to be told, without a very clear warning, the ending of the story. You get that, right?

So, on the one hand, you are pretending to give "a reasonably clear plot summary," in the interests of revealing the full unvarnished truth in the service of humanity, but on the other hand, you are imposing your own idiosyncratic and annoying views of what humanity wants to know, and how they want it known to them.



Are you familiar with the weird English concept of a reasonable compromise?

Does Cyclopia think Clara Petacci was a good looking broad?

Lol. I am not. I happen to have a curiosity about far right movements and ideologies, but I am definitely a left-wing guy. In particular, I find nationalism utterly meaningless (even if fascinating to study). I am curious about that stuff for two reasons 1)Because it's miles apart from my worldview, and as such I am intrigued by it 2)Because it's really underdocumented.

You can start by understanding that fascism is not "far right." It's just that "far right" is the only real insult that leftists know, and there's no movement leftists hate more than another leftist movement.

Left = big goverment and centralized control. It is right wing when business runs the government. Once government runs business, you'll already crossed the center line of the political divide. They didn't call it German SOCIALISM for nothing.

I already linked a cinema blog, quite clearly populated by people who love to see movies and enjoy them, and let's see what they say:



There is of course a minority disagreeing, to which the answer is:


And it goes on:


So... what you were saying about people united on the fact that they hate... what, sorry?



I am not imposing anything. As a bunch of film-loving people showed you above, you are more than free not to read. Or not?



Are you familiar with the even weirder concept of "if I don't want to know X, I will avoid to read about X"?

That's very true. It is called "far right" or "radical right" for sake of simplicity, but it encompasses a very different political spectrum from the "business runs the government" kind of right that became dominant in Western democracies post-WW II. Mussolini was born a socialist, after all.

The point is that of course "left" or "right" are nonsensical in themselves, because the political spectrum is multidimensional.

You should be fascinated by the "nazimaoists", a tiny weird movement that, at least in Italy was born from Franco Freda (T-H-L-K-D) teachings, and that advocated a sort of North Korean-like totalitarian state.

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?

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.

Leaving aside the demographics of the people visiting this blog, and how representative they are of the general WP readership, the second-most popular comment on the topic is this one:

The most popular comment presents the problem as a black-and-white dichotomy: whether to have spoilers, or whether not have them at all. Here the majority is in favour of having them.

I agree with both of these positions: have the spoiler, but in exceptional cases, for example when the movie has not been released yet, as in the New York Times example, or in a case like The Mousetrap, include it hidden in a roll-down that the reader can reveal. That is a reasonable compromise.

We did expose Cyclopia. We had a photo of him up, and even put a clown cosmetic whiteout makeup around the mouth. He wasn't very happy about it, but then we don't know as many embarrassing things about his life that we know about Jimbo's.



Please note that Jimbo thinks it would be nice if everybody ELSE had an open BLP on the web. His isn't, and he and his lackeys will never allow it to be. But eventually a crowd editable Wiki on Jimbo's life will be on the web, not under Jimbo's control, and draw some attention. Then (methinks) we'll see some "whaling" from his direction.

That, unfortunately, is the problem in a nutshell.

Exactly right. I'm actually in favor of having spoilers, generally--maybe even having them for The Mousetrap. But not announcing them in advance, because you declare they aren't necessary for you, ignores the large portion of people who, bless their souls, do not think the way you do.

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.

Because you are a worthless speck of insignificant, non-productive, non-notable fluff, correct?

Unlike some of the minor rugby players who played once or twice for Welsh teams in the 1960's, because they have Wikipedia articles, right?

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.

Just for the record: I took my Ph.D. in Italy, not in Cambridge. I'm here for a postdoctoral fellowship.

Now, since you talk about logic, this is all about assumptions (axioms, so to say) and consequences from that. You start by attributing me a wrong axiom:



while my axiom is:



See? Public and notable is part of the axiom.
If this wasn't clear, then I apologize.

There are lots of reasons to not want private and unnotable information go public, and I am sure you know them well. And it's not what encyclopedias are for to show.

There also a lot of reasons to desire public and notable information to be presented in an encyclopedia: and also, that's what encyclopedias are for.

Is it clearer now?

(Oh, and please, go into your . That's what makes of you a person willing to have a reasonable conversation, I suppose.)

No. "Public" and "notable" are almost infinitely elastic concepts, suitable for gaming either way by those whose interests are at stake.

Your birthdate is on file somewhere in Italy, thus public, as also your ancestry. You will argue that it's not notable, but you're wrong. The fact that I'm interested in it, makes it notable for ME. And it's ME that is important. Me. Me. Me.

I think your bio and photo should up on the web with your birthdate, all the info your alumni association has about you, plus anything else I collect about anything you've ever done outside the four walls of your house, where you had no expectation of privacy. Your credit history is public-- I can legally buy it (wanna bet?).

And all of this should be summarized, indexed, and Google-connectable to you, whenever anybody looks at anything you ever accomplish, ever again in your life.

And we'll keep it up for your family after you're dead, too. Especially the naughty bits.

Legitimate interests of their readers, is what I suspect you meant to say there...

We should note that Mr. Cyclopia is clearly somewhat of an extremist on issues like this (i.e., he thinks of "inclusionism" as a legitimate content-management philosophy rather than a red herring meant to legitimize the "information must be free" quasi-libertarian approach to website building). His point seems to be that you'd expect to find spoiler warnings, rollups, and non-inclusion on a review site or maybe even a news site, but not an encyclopedia, where you (in his opinion) expect to see everything, untrammeled.

It strikes me that this sort of attitude may be a result of having people like me constantly saying things like "it's not a real encyclopedia, it's just an encyclopedia-like website," or worse (it's a "big lake of shit," for example). So their reaction is we must be as much like a real encyclopedia as possible, even to the point of not improving on a real encyclopedia's way of doing things.

In other words, this issue could be just as easily be interpreted the other way: Spoiler rollups would be an improvement over the way something like this would be handled in a paper encyclopedia, but if implemented, Wikipedia would be less like a paper encyclopedia, therefore it must not be implemented. The same holds true for popouts, popups, colored text, and extra tags for content-filtering in general. And yet, time and time again, we see how "controversial" sections of articles are "off-loaded" to subpages. This is almost exactly the same thing, and yet there's no problem with doing that, in most cases.

Just as a personal disclaimer, one of the reasons I'm interested in this issue is because of something that happened on Uncyclopedia in 2006. There was (and still is) and article called "Euroipods" that one of the administrators thought was such a ridiculously obvious and stupid spam attempt that it was funny purely on that basis, and he decided it should be featured on the main page - which caused a huge fuss, because at least half of the users didn't have that reaction and thought it should be deleted, not featured. As a side-effect, the fuss caused the article to be lengthened to an absurd extent, causing it to lose even its original dubious humor value (i.e., one of the reasons it was funny was because it was so short). It also began to be used by certain admins as a means of getting revenge on users they disliked, by including their user names in the article against their wishes.

I saw fairly quickly that since the admins weren't going to relent without a way to save face, a rollup was the common-sense compromise solution to practically the whole situation. So, I lobbied to have the rollup extension installed, and once it was working, I made almost all but the original article a rollup - and it turned out that I was right. The fuss died down, pretty much everyone backed off, and the rollup is still there, to this day, four years later.

Anyhoo, I guess all I'm saying is that people invent things like rollups for a reason - and Wikipedia should embrace things like rollups, not reject them for being "non-encyclopedic." And FWIW, I can essentially guarantee that the reasons people say WP isn't a real encyclopedia have nothing to do with the presence (or lack) of rollups.


Indeed, he gets the top-line blurb link for that one. Congrats, Doc!


Another good way of putting it. It's an example of mass narcissism in action, really - those rules and conventions don't apply to us, we're an encyclopedia is basically the same "not our fault" mode of thinking as, "it's the parent's responsibilty to filter inappropriate content" or "if the person doesn't want his personal details to be anonymously edited by anyone whatsoever, he/she shouldn't have become 'notable' in the first place."