Post contains SPOILERS! Oh NO!

[boyofbadgers]

This is just ridiculous: wikipedia includes spoiler warnings when discussing a Borges short story.

I'm not 100% anti people being careful about spoilers. Having watched enough serial TV, I know full well how annoying it can be when someone gives away what happens next because it's already been shown on Sky/Torrented/they know the scriptwriter etc. So, y'know, fair enough.

Except that in this case it's an encyclopedia entry about a particular short story. There's no massive over-arching narrative; it's one self contained piece. If you look it up, you must surely expect the article to contain some plot information? While it's hardly a gripping tale, you can't talk about it sensibly without mentioning that (oh noes) Uqbar turns out not to exist - the article ceases to make much sense without the stuff enclosed between the spoiler warnings. You wouldn't expect a normal piece of criticism to have eg 'SPOILER WARNING: in discussing Jane Austen's attitudes towards the economics of marriage we may accidentally give away that Darcy and Elizabeth GET MARRIED...oh bum' at the front, so why do the plot obsessed geeks of wiki-land feel the need to warn us in big letters that a discussion of a short story might possibly just give away what happens in it?

Bah, ignore me. I'm just a grumpy old git overreacting to being patronised. If I'm not careful, I'll start talking about dumbing down soon.

Comments

[j4.livejournal.com]

Wikipedia attempts to justify the spoiler convention (at least, that's what I think they're doing) by explaining that "Not all visitors will recognize the site as an encyclopedia, which should strive first to inform, spoilers or not."

With my webmaster hat on, I suppose they're making a valid point (though I think it's being taken to silly extremes). With my everyday hat, though, I'm having a big attack of YOU'D THINK YOU'D THINK.

[sbp.livejournal.com]

Well it isn't an encyclopaedia, is it? People keep changing the entries.

[j4.livejournal.com]

Huh? How does that make it not an encyclopaedia? (Or am I having an attack of Not Getting The Joke now?)

OED's most relevant definition of "encyclopaedia" seems to be "An elaborate and exhaustive repertory of information on all the branches of some particular art or department of knowledge; esp. one arranged in alphabetical order." Admittedly, this may be seen as more obviously true of Wikipedia if we accept "fandom and teh internets" as a "department of knowledge"...

[sbp.livejournal.com]

No mention of the quality of the information then, just the elaborate and exhaustive part?

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I generally find that, so long as you steer clear of certain obvious minefields (the Middle East, Microsoft, Dubya), then Wikipedia is pretty accurate. This almost gives me some faith in human nature.

[j4.livejournal.com]

Not explicitly, no. (I say "explicitly" because IMHO the concept of "exhaustive" factual information does imply truth/accuracy, if only because otherwise an exhaustive account of something would have to include both truth and non-truth and irrelevancies and then the whole universe would implode with a big messy boom.)

Wikipedia is good for some things, less good for others. And people who believe everything they read on the web will almost certainly have bigger problems to deal with than Wikipedia telling lies about Harry Potter...

[boyofbadgers.livejournal.com]

From a webmaster POV, well yeah, but that's part of the problem. The extension of the spoilers to everything fictional smacks of a particularly geeky rule-based mindset being applied where it's not really useful or appropriate.

Hmm, this semi-reminds of Colin B.'s old rant about everyone in Cambridge categorising themselves to death.

[j4.livejournal.com]

Always worth repeating, that one. (http://www.biggrandejatte.co.uk/legacy/tatfaq/weeman.txt)

[friend-of-tofu.livejournal.com]

A bloody good rant, which, in my warped brain, ties in rather well with that v recent Grauniad article about middle-class (well, it had to be, didn't it?) devotion to the TLA or Three Letter Acronym.

I love your ranty posts, they are perfect evening fodder. Please don't stop.