Wikipedia "Spoiler" Button

http://jaymachalani.com/blog/2013/11/6/wikipedia-spoiler-button

by TechnoFou • 13 years ago

20 25 13 years ago

avar2• 13 years ago

I see this person didn't use Wikpedia before 2007, it used to have exactly what he's suggesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Spoiler#Why_spoiler_...

In addition to the arguments listed there the thing that bothered me most about it was that it imposed a straitjacket on the editorializing of any article that contained spoilers, you now had to bend over backwards to partition it into spoiler and non-spoiler sections.

TechnoFou2• 13 years ago

Yeah I just saw a comment on my site with this link. I honestly didn't know that Wikipedia had a system like this before. Thanks for the link!

I still think though that they should do a better separation between the actual information and the story elements though.

avar2• 13 years ago

The article does have such a separation, but you navigated down to the section about the fifth season. Honestly, what were you expecting if not a summary of what happens is that season?

Also, who should spoiler warnings in an article about a TV series benefit? People who haven't seen the latest series? People who haven't seen it at all?

Should the summary say nothing about how Walt turns to crime (which wasn't apparent to me when I started watching it), and instead describe Breaking Bad in vague terms as the struggles of a New Mexico man to provide for his family?

Spoiler warnings are inherently at odds with writing a succinct and accurate summary of a given subject, which is what Wikipedia strives to do.

Other commenters here are right, if you don't want something spoiled for you then simply don't read encyclopedia articles about it.

You wanted some information about the structure of the aired episodes, there's plenty of TV-guide like sources for that that aren't encyclopedias.

jellicle• 13 years ago

If you don't want to learn about a subject it might be best to avoid reading an encyclopedia article on it.

RexRollman• 13 years ago

This. I am tried of all the spoiler whining.

croisillon• 13 years ago

It's not always that easy. I was recently reading a fantastic book, not all at once from beginning to the end. So at some point, thrilled by the book, I just wanted to quickly check if the author was famous, if the book sold well, etc. I checked quickly the wikipedia page of that book trying (and succeeding, but still) to avoid getting spoiled. If you want to read it, it's "the fault in our stars" (but don't check wikipedia for it)

davidgerard6• 13 years ago

I remain proud to have done my bit to destroy the spoiler warning.

lmm• 13 years ago

When wikipedia turned user-hostile in about 2006 that was one of the things that went. Just use a better wiki (e.g. tv tropes).

davidgerard6• 13 years ago

We didn't stab the spoiler warning through its whiny little heart until 2007.

pyre3• 13 years ago

Good to know that Wikipedia contributors/editors have a healthy respect for their users! /s

talles• 13 years ago

It's an encyclopedia for god's sake.

toxik• 13 years ago

... You just spoiled Breaking Bad for me, thanks!

fluxon2• 13 years ago

Wow, man, you have to binge-watch faster.

fluxon2• 13 years ago

Because of a very strong community-driven notion that Wikipedia is not censored, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_disclaimers_in_art...) spoiler warnings won't make it into articles directly. This has been heavily discussed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_comment/...

But indirectly, this functionality could exist in a Javascript widget/gadget/script that users who do not wish to see spoilers can install themselves, into their registered account's settings. The installation process is usually very simple, a small copy/paste into a configuration file.

I think that no direct modifications to articles to accommodate the script would be allowed; this includes special templates, , or even the existing benign {{anchor}} template (usually used to mark HTML URL#link targets), if it's used to mark text {{anchor|spoiler}} for the script.

So the script has to be smart and dependent only the article text itself. It could selectively activate on articles in any category containing the words Television or Film, on sections named Plot or Synopsis, and simply collapse (autohide), or redact (blackout) any paragraphs which contain proper names, or keywords present in a list (die, dead, death, kill, wed, wedd*, marry, married, etc.)

A good starting point would be the text selection and redaction functionality as shown in the ProseSize.js script, which also presents a "Page size" link in the left navigation bar and, when clicked, instantly styles all the eligible article text background in yellow. Our widget could just use black.

I leave it to Javascript and CSS wizards to go further.

duskwuff• 13 years ago

Another idea: Maintain an external database of Wikipedia articles (or sections!) that contain spoilers.

ta_delited• 13 years ago

This is a stupid suggestion that has no place in an encyclopedia, then again wikipedia is not an encyclopedia, but still this suggestion belongs on a specialized community forum or website.

Wikipedia is already dying a slow and painful agony and has been for a while, no need to accelerate it by adding more trivia and irrelevant features to it.

dsrguru2• 13 years ago

WARNING: Do not read this article if you haven't watched the end of Breaking Bad. (This post is safe though)

I, like the author, am very sensitive to spoilers and completely agree that people for whom spoilers ruin the enjoyment of a work should still be able to reap the benefits of an encyclopedia for the work's "metadata" -- information about the cast, running time, season and episode count, production, etc. However, the article, ironically and much to my horror (Edit: actually the author has a warning at the top of the page, which I missed), spoils the end of Breaking Bad, one of television's most popular shows, a show that is/was still on my to watch list.

TechnoFou2• 13 years ago

That's why I added at the top of the post a WARNING line! Actually, just the Wikipedia screenshots I added are enough to spoil, thus the reason of this article!

dsrguru2• 13 years ago

I apparently missed that! Hopefully my redundancy here will help prevent others from doing the same.

Wikipedia "Spoiler" Button

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