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 :



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

That is beyond the intelligence, sensitivity and creativity of the parasitical runts.

Sorry ... did I miss out 'adolescent' in "parasitical runts"?

Oh, imagine the precendent it would set for them, the arguments, the gaming ... Wikipedia excluding information? They much rather just fuck someone else over and bother not a bit.

These terms seem to ensure I'll live the rest of my life without seeing a performance of this play or any film adaptation thereof. How many royalties could they possibly be losing?

In other news, check out the earliest edits to The Crying Game, circa Sept. 2001. This came up on the mailing list in the last big argument about "spoilers".

Why should this play have any more (or less) protection against spoilers than any other suspenseful work of fiction?

SNAPE KILLED [censored]!
[censored] IS LUKE'S FATHER!
SOYLENT GREEN IS [censored]!
ROSEBUD IS [censored]!

For the same reason why BLP victims should be accommodated: the/a principal is making the request.

THE NEW SHERIFF IS A [censored]

What in the world is wrong with using a collapse box for spoiler information, so that someone simply needs to click once to read it? I'd prefer that courtesy, myself, so I could choose to see it or not. I did, from this here, go read the article, and I'm a little sorry I did, if I ever am able to see the play. It's a spoiler. Sometimes we forget that knowledge has purposes.

LIFE IS A STATE OF [censored].
I'M A BIG, BRIGHT, SHINING [censored].
ASH IS A GODDAMN [censored]!
MICKEY, I'M [censored].
FORGET IT JACK, IT'S [censored].
GOOD GRIEF—IT'S [censored].

These are probably too easy.

You knew the plot was going to be spoiled. If you don't want to understand the work, read a review instead. I'm steering clear of this article! ;-)
The writing of a review that doesn't spoil the story line is very subjective, and temporal, and is best left to professional writers writing for a specific audience.
Wikipedia articles about fiction are writing for a) people who are stupid enough to click on a Wikipedia link while searching for a review, or b) wanting to read an encyclopedia style article about the work.

The 'Wikipedia has spoilers' issue did make sense when we first removed the spoiler collapse boxes, but people have had a long time to be stung by this, and should have learnt the hard way by now, if common sense didnt kick in the first time.
The only improvement to the current situation would be for Wikipedia articles about fiction to have a prominent notice above them indicating that the page that follows does include spoilers, so googlers have an extra chance to realise and click back.
Reading a great novel the second time is more enjoyable, rather than less. The same goes for seeing plays. I've never watched the same play by the same company, but I doubt that the experience is diminished the second time if it was good the first time.

You mean you're saving up to watch this play?

I'm not saving for this play, but a holiday could put me in the right spot at the right time.
I don't normally read Wikipedia articles about fiction until after I have read/seen/walked out on/etc the work, unless I am pretty confident that I am unlikely to be interested in enjoying it first hand.

For most people interested in this stuff, reading the same murder mystery again is about as exciting as solving a solved crossword puzzle.

That play is still running in London? I saw it 20 years ago. I barely remember anything of the production today, whereas I can I recall details of shows that I saw on Broadway when I was a kid in the 1970s.

It may not be as 'exciting' the second time, but it can be equally enjoyable, if it was well written.

Well, I tried, but got soundly defeated.

"I see dead people...." They don't know they're dead. Some of them are editing wikipedia....

The Sixth Sense film is a case where you have to see it again even after you've seen it once. Spoilers remove only part of the fun.

I saw The Mousetrap in London in 1977, and it had been running for many years before that. I'd see it again today, as that was so long ago I don't remember a damned thing about it, except that it had an O. Henry style ending. Which don't tell me, as I may be in London some time again before I die (you see, I'm not yet sick of it ). Though, with so many unvisited places in the world, don't bet on this unless I get rich or somebody invents an antiaging pill.

Useful article in the New York Times today. I must say I did enjoy Holmes' (Rupert, not Sherlock) comment:

Bull's eye, mate.

Now that's funny. Wikipedia is so pathetic, even a mediocre-pop-singer-turned-mediocre-playwright can criticize them effectively.

(And in the interests of full disclosure, I must say that I always thought Mr. Holmes's music was unlistenable drivel.
The kind of awful sappy MOR stuff that radio stations calling themselves things like "Soft And Warm, The Quiet Storm" play repeatedly.)

So, you don't like pina coladas. But don't tell me you don't like getting caught in the rain?

So I waited with high hopes
Then I thought I'd collapse:
He was dressed like a tranny
And and on top, leather straps.
It was our own Poetlister,
Straight from e-Harmon-y
And I gagged for a moment,
And I said, "Well, fuck me..."

So you like Coleridge and Kipling
And lists of all kinds of Jews?
And you're way into bondage--
I guess that last isn't news...
And you like playing games on B-boards
Like you're a cute female friend--
You're the chat pal I've prayed for--
Go log on; we'll pretend!

How can sane people possibly reject a perfectly reasonable compromise proposal like that? Even if it wouldn't be a positive PR move, which it obviously would be, you'd think the purpose of Wikipedia should be to help people, and unavoidable spoilers quite simply have the opposite effect. (Whereas roll-up spoilers, IMO, would be perfectly fine.)

Even after all this time, their behavior can be almost completely mystifying, and not in a good way, either. Roll-up technology exists, it's perfect for these situations, why not use it?

I should note that I've never seen The Mousetrap, and I won't be reading this article any time soon just in case I do, and therefore I'm just going to assume that it's poorly-written, badly-illustrated, inaccurate, and full of misplaced emphasis.

I don't believe you.


Are there special circumstances due to which you think this is likely?

Which part? If you don't like any of the story above, I've got something else.

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!


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.

I agree about the mystifying bit.

There seems to be a real fear that by compromising, you sell your soul or something, and the world as we know it will come to an end.

If you make a concession on The Mousetrap, next thing you won't be able to prominently display a large picture of a rotting leg in the Gangrene article, and next thing after that you won't be able to have any electrocuted penises in Cock and ball torture (sexual practice) (T-H-L-K-D).

And where would the Foundation's encyclopaedic mission be then, eh?

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. :-)

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.

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.

Wikipedia could do what Wookieepeda does

The Neoseeker wikis have a spoiler tag.

There also a MediaWiki extension.

Is this a rhetorical question?
Because to me, it's a serious and real question. Not that I expect the torch-and-forks folks here to get it.

This is a prime example of the fallacy of simplistic assumptions. A lot of "you mustn't do this because of the consequences" arguments on Wikipedia seem to work on the premise that a reasonable action must lead to an unreasonable action.

It is all part of the "if it isn't simple, we don't want to know" logic that underwrites Libertarianism, Objectivism and so on. It is assumed that decision-making must be demonstrably consistent without consideration of changing environments.

I mean, how stupid is it to suggest that the reasoning for hiding an ending to a mystery is the same reasoning as to why it is appropriate to hide pictures that are not appropriate for some of the various audiences that access Wikipedia. Of course Wikipedians seem to think that the idea of presenting different information to different audiences is just too hard and therefore need not be done.

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?

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.

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).

However, you are being deliberately perverse. The suggestion on the table is that there are ways of presenting information that allow people to make an informed decision as to whether they are presented with information or not.

In simple terms, if someone goes to see Mousetrap, one of the conceits of the performance is that the audience at the end is told not to reveal the ending. If you mentioned to someone you were going to see it (and I would implore people not to as when I saw it it was an appalling production) you would think it most improper for someone to tell you the ending without you explicitly requesting that information (and you would be considered somewhat odd for asking to be told). Why Wikipedians think that there is a duty to impart this information in a way that it can unwittingly be read is beyond comprehension.

The recent investigation on Wither Wikipedia? very much recognised respect for its audience was an issue. This is a trivial but telling exchange on that matter.

Why do people think that going in an article called "The Mousetrap" and scroll to the ending (which is advertised with a big heading called "Plot" and another slightly smaller heading called "Identity of the murderer") can happen "unwittingly", is beyond comprehension.

The duty to impart this information openly and without spoiler boxes or other gimmicks is simple. It is an encyclopedia. It is not a school book for dummy bamboozled braindead babies. It is supposed to contain information plainly and openly. Even the one that people don't want necessarily to read. If you want to create the Happy Baby Pedia, with nice flowers in place of the gangrene images, cute kittens in place of sexuality articles, and "Woohoo this is a funny play" instead of information about a play well: by all means please do. But meanwhile, let's respect adult readers that have enough grey matter to 1)understand what an encyclopedia is about 2)not scream in panic when they see something that is not as cute and glittery as their baby world used to be.

I don't want to be treated as a braindead baby, and I respect readers enough to not want to treat them as braindead babies. WP shouldn't act as a nanny, "we know what it's best for you" kind of thing. It should be a service: This is a collection of information of public notable information on subject X. It aims, with all its shortcomings, to be as complete as possible. Do what you think of it.

Great, Cyclopia; I agree with you! Let's begin with you. Have you ever done anything that was notable and public? How about anyone in your family? Any of your closest friends?

If so, have you documented this all in Wikipedia, down to the very last publicly-available detail?

If not, why are you and your family and your friends such boring, non-notable losers?

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.

So your response is a series of strawmen. That's a bit typical, isn't it? Is everyone who disagrees with you some kind of fascist, then, who sees readers as "brain-dead babies"?

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.



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 )



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.



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.



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

(What happened with the bbcode?)

I am not talking of your intentions. I am talking of what the practical,final effect would be.

Also, for example, it seems that a lot of cinema-loving guys in the comments of this post (not everyone but a reasonable majority) actually endorse WP containing spoilers without warnings and other gimmicks. A nice surprise.

I'm not talking of my intentions either...?

I see little evidence that the practical, final effect would be any different than what it's likely to be now, other than that fewer people would be pissed off at Wikipedia. (So hey, maybe I shouldn't be arguing for this.)


Read it again, then.

I see a lot of people arguing that spoilers should be included, and several people arguing that tags/warnings are unnecessary - after all, they can be distracting. But very few people there are arguing against rollups (I'm just going to call them that from now on) - in fact, I'd say most people are either for them, or don't even know what they are, or that they're an available option.

(There might also be some selection bias here - it seems to me that "cinema-loving guys" who watch a lot of movies and like to discuss them on internet forums are more likely to want to know the endings to movies than not, so that they can pretend to have seen them when they argue the merits of those movies with other forum members.)

Also, rollups are not a "gimmick." A "gimmick" is an animated GIF flashing naked boobs at you every 10 seconds. Rollups are a "handy feature" that serve a legitimate purpose, which include improving readability and aesthetics. I've been considering trying to work out the BBCode so that we can have them here on WR, in fact. (One of these days!)

It's not "missing" if it's in a rollup... Admittedly, some people here are arguing that the spoilers be taken out altogether, but again, to me the issue is unwillingness to compromise from a community that supposedly prides itself on its ability to achieve "consensus" on difficult and controversial issues.


Good choice. Could you tell the Google folks about that, so they can de-index the whole site?


You're saying the ending itself is the most notable feature, even though until now, most people who hadn't seen the play had no idea what the ending was?

I think you're confused; the most notable feature (other than its success, and its author) is the fact that the ending has been kept a secret by so many theatre-goers. Not quite the same thing, but either way you don't have to reveal the ending to make the point that the ending is "notable."


Again, that's not what I said at all, nor would I say such a thing. If I'm writing an encyclopedia for the benefit of readers of that encyclopedia (as opposed to writing it primarily fr my own benefit), I'm going to take their needs into account; I'm not going to say "this information has value to me, and therefore it has to go in." That's been Wikipedia's problem all along, in terms of article content. You might say it's their entire content problem in a nutshell.

What I did say is that there's no inherent value in revealing that particular bit of information without at least some sort of extra action required on the part of the reader, and of course I stand by that.

Earlier I made a misstatement, in that I suggested that a paper encyclopedia couldn't do something similar to an HTML/JavaScript rollup box. In fact, the paper encyclopedia could simply offload certain pieces of "spoiler" or other information into the back of the book, or even a separate value - IOW, they'd be available to people who wanted to see them, but not without a little extra effort. It's the same reason used for the existence of glossaries, indexes, and so on - there are certain things that don't have to be, or shouldn't be, part of the main text, so you give people the choice. What is so wrong with that?


Are you sure you really, really mean to say that information is an end, not a mean? I suspect you're using a different definition of the word "information" than most people use, and that's me being charitable.


There is a reason; you just don't think it's a good reason. FYI the reason is that if you're a parent it would be nice if your kid wouldn't wake you up in the middle of the night to tell you he can't sleep because he saw a horrible picture on Wikipedia and now he thinks his leg is going to fall off. (And if you're the kid, it would be nice not to have nightmares of that nature) However, I'll admit that reasoning is extremely tenuous, and in that case I wouldn't make an issue of it... but then again, that might be simply because I don't have kids.


Sure, that's understandable from the perspective of a person who isn't particularly sensitive to, well, much of anything. I feel the same way, or at least I would, if I had no compassion or ability to see things from perspectives other than my own. Can you?


Sorry, Gomi was trying something there. I, uh, fixed it...

You call that a life?

Still, it is nice to know that people are reading us.

Wait. I replied to what you said:

not to:


In the second case, I wouldn't be feeling the piece of information missing (of course) but I would find the whole thing ugly and unnecessarily distracting. And also philosophically distracting, in the sense that it's simply not right that I have to go through unnecessary hoops to find something that it is expected to be there.

It's any way disrespectful because it seems to me that in the rollup case, WP goes out of its arm to acts as a nanny, by saying "see, we know you don't really want to know this". WTF?



I understand your chuckle at consensus. But for once, it truly was one: on the rollup, all editors apart Jayen466 rebuked it.



What has this to do with that? Google doesn't force me to click on WP links.



And how do I understand why the ending is kept secret, and why it is such a famous whodunit, without knowing such ending? It would be frustratingly incomplete information.



I don't understand. The "need" that an encyclopedia aims to solve is that of information on notable, public subjects. There are no other needs we should care of -curing common cold is a need for me, in this exact moment, but I don't expect WP to help me in that. If your need is to look at a glance at a play without having spoilers, well, it's a reasonable need, but that's not the need general purpose encyclopedias are made for.




It's probably my awkward English coming into play (I'm not native-English speaking, I'm an Italian horse-eating barbaric thing, remember?) but what I mean is that knowledge (perhaps a better term) has a value per se, disconnected from practical use, and that as such it is an end. Probably it is my mind-set: I am a researcher, and my job is all about digging knowledge for knowledge's sake.



In this case, the parents should reassure the kid, and explain him/her that in the world, unfortunately, there are also a lot of bad things, not only good ones.

I personally find extremly diseducative to hide from kids the unavoidable fact that the world is not a 100% nice place. I think kids should get to grasp that from the very beginning. "There are good things, there are nasty things, my son. Both are part of our world. You must be enjoy the first, and be strong enough to stand the latter, and if possible work to avoid/fight them. "

But even if you disagree with that, it's simple: keep WP away from your kids. Or use some kind of filtering.



I can. I only think that in the end it would lead, globally, to a worse outcome, to care about all of this, for everyone (even for these sensitive, compassionate people). A world where information is censored to make the world like a Teletubbies episode is not the kind of world we want to live in.

(There is again the bbcode doing something wrong with quotes. Is it my fault? I hate bbcode, wouldn't plain HTML be better?)

Okay, Cyclopia. Here's a question for you.

Do you know what a BLP is? Biography of living person.
How do you feel about Wikipedia's treatment of BLPs?

And oh, by the way, are you aware of how Daniel Brandt was treated when certain powerful
Wikipedia administrators created a BLP about him, against his wishes, and with the apparent
reason being to "punish" or "belittle" Mr. Brandt?

Yes, it happened. First, back in 2006.
And it kept happening, over and over and over and over.......

One idiot even tried to nominate it as a Featured Article.
Another idiot created an account on Wikipedia Review, for the express purpose of attacking Brandt.
All for one reason, and one reason only: to punish Brandt, for criticizing Wikipedia.

It happened, because the people who run your "encyclopedia" are a bunch of crazy bastards.
They are not stable. They cannot be trusted to make sound, rational decisions.

A single mouse click doesn't qualify as "hoops," surely?

The issue of whether or not it's "expected" is also quite arguable, but I'm not really arguing that point.


No, they'd be saying, "we know there's a chance that you don't really want to know this." WP wouldn't be acting as a "nanny" in that scenario (though they probably would be if they left the spoiler out altogether). They'd be acting as a "friend to the reader," and while I realize it's not necessarily an encyclopedia's job to be friendly to the reader, it's not its job to be unfriendly to the reader either.

I'm more than willing to accept the idea that you'd feel disrespected, though... and sure, I could be wrong, but I just happen to believe you're in a tiny minority of people who would even care, much less actually feel that way. And unfortunately, on WP that "tiny minority" seems to hold sway over a lot of fairly important and significant editorial practices.


We hear that argument quite a lot, and yes, of course they don't force you, but regardless the argument is bogus when you understand the reality. The reality is that WP and its scrapers have so completely dominated the search-engine environment that it's becoming extremely difficult to find general information in encyclopedic format about most subjects that hasn't been tainted by WP, either by direct scraping or by simple reference linking. Wikipedia is worse than Wal-Mart and Microsoft in that respect. Just because it doesn't have advertising doesn't mean it doesn't promote a monoculture, or that it isn't using its "charity" status (not to mention its negligible operating/publishing costs) to destroy competitors.


Well, that's a good point. For people to simply take Wikipedia's word for it that the ending is a clever surprise twist, thereby not requiring disclosure of the ending itself, Wikipedia has to have something called "credibility."

I'm merely saying that Wikipedia's credibility is not improved or enhanced by including the disclosure. Its reputation for arrogance and insensitivity to the work of artists is certainly reinforced, but as to whether that's an improvement... I guess that depends on your perspective!


And who, exactly, determines what needs "general purpose encyclopedias" are made for? (Hint: It's not an either/or thing; the writers should respect the preferences and sensitivities of the readers, just not to the point of being unreasonable. You simply have a different definition of "unreasonable" than I do.)


So once again you're allowing your personal values to dictate what other people should and should not be presented with. Which is fine, if you're also willing to see it from their perspective too, which you're (apparently) not.


Presumably they've already done that...? Obviously we see a lot of this "it's the reader's responsibility to know that this article is going to be {obscene/disgusting/biased/disturbing/nightmare-inducing/take-your-pick}" stuff, and to some extent I even sympathize with it, but again, I'm not a parent and I have a relatively high personal tolerance for gore, obscenity, and so on. Whatever happened to "err on the side of caution," anyway? Was that a pre-21st -Century-only thing?


So who's being the "nanny" now, then? Isn't that what the nanny does, ensure that the kids are getting what's best for them? Maybe even if the parents would rather make those decisions themselves...?


There's that word "censored" again, followed by the strawman (and Teletubbies? That's not even a very good strawman. You know that Jerry Falwell thinks they're promoting homosexuality, right?)


Actually, we reduced the quote-embedding limit from 10 to 5 because of something Moulton was doing, I think. I raised it back to 10, but we both blew past that several posts ago, so now I've raised it to 20... We're going to have to look into this, but you're right, quote-embedding problems are one of the most annoying things about BBCode. But if you allow raw HTML, you get people embedding all sorts of nasty little tracking pixels and JavaScript, or worse. Anyway, sorry about that, it's definitely annoying, but luckily it doesn't happen all that often. In fact, it's usually me who's doing it, when it happens!

We're never going to agree on this, so fine. I explained on the RFC why I don't think we should put a rollup. Almost all of the editors agreed: it doesn't mean I am right, of course. But it means the issue is not as simple as you put it.




What escapes me is why having the spoiler is unfriendly to the reader.
Again: an encyclopedia is supposed to give the reader certain things. An IMDB entry is supposed to give others. A film review is supposed to give others still. Different things for different purposes.

If people use an encyclopedia (which is supposed to have complete information in plain view) for something an encyclopedia is not made for (for example, looking for information on a play without knowing the plot), then it's them being wrong, not the encyclopedia. It's like buying a pint of hydrocloric acid, drinking it, then complaining it burned your throat. That's not the use it was supposed for.



I don't know: almost all people I talked with (not WP editors) agreed with me. Probably each one attracts similar acquaintances, however.



This is a very interesting point. It would be nice indeed to see some strong alternative. Citizendium is one example, I guess, but it is still too slow and it is failing to grow reasonably, as far as I know.

Well, that's a good point. For people to simply take Wikipedia's word for it that the ending is a clever surprise twist, thereby not requiring disclosure of the ending itself, Wikipedia has to have something called "credibility."



You know, I don't care very much about Wikipedia PR. I think Wikipedia (and especially Jimbo) are too sensitive to PR. Wikipedia should do its job as good as possible. It will attract haters and critics, of course, like in this case, for just doing it. It should be no problem.



Probably because we have different definitions of what a general purpose encyclopedia is made for.



You see, the asymmetry goes this way:
- If controversial information X is presented, and I don't want to see it, I can easily avoid it: I just avoid to see it.
- If controversial information X is not presented, and I want to see it, it is usually a much harder work.

That's why presenting it is the best solution. By showing something you do not dictate anything, because you always have the choice to avoid (unless you are Alex of the Clockwork Orange under the Ludovico treatment). By restraining, instead, you keep people away actively from stuff. The job of an encyclopedia is to make finding information easier, not harder.

(This reasoning doesn't include the rollup thing, of course: but again, there are other reasons for that, see above discussion/RFC)




But they can already make the decisions themselves! Block WP from your kid's computer, and hoopla! problem solved for everyone. It requires a line of text in your /etc/hosts file (or the Windows equivalent, I don't know).



Hahah, no, I didn't know the homosexuality bit. That said, I understand you see it as a strawman, but I see it as the unavoidable -even if not desired, perhaps- outcome of the "err on the side of caution" point of view.



I understand that, but, perhaps some strict HTML subset? Or -oh the irony!- MediaWiki syntax? After all, it is presumed for people here to be familiar with it!