Wikipedia:Spoiler

Discussion about this page is currently going on at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Policies/Wikipedia:Spoiler warning.

For software, see Wikipedia:Software (WP:SOFT); for Spoken Wikipedia, see Wikipedia:WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia (WP:WSW). For Wikipedia guidelines regarding non-spoiler warnings, see Wikipedia:No disclaimer templates (WP:NDT).

A spoiler is a piece of information in an article about a narrative work (such as a book, feature film, television show or video game) that may reduce one's enjoyment of reading, viewing, or playing the work by revealing certain plot events or twists. If someone hasn't read, watched or played the material to which the warning refers, they might wish to avoid reading the spoiler before fully experiencing the work.

Although Wikipedia strives first to inform and so may include spoilers, not all visitors will recognize this function, so some people will appreciate a spoiler notice. An article may contain analyses and background detail not available or at least not obvious in the work described. Where this is the case, some people feel a spoiler notice should be made prominent as a simple courtesy. Some WikiProjects, such as WikiProject Final Fantasy, have decided to limit use of this guideline.

It is also recommended that editors avoid placing spoilers in edit summaries or section headers (unless the spoiler warning is before the table of contents) and avoid linking from another article to a section inside the spoiler area. Information that may be a spoiler for a narrative work may sometimes be relevant in articles about other subjects than the narrative in question, for example in the article about another fictional work, an actor, or an author; in these cases, spoilers can still be preceded by a spoiler warning.

The question of spoilers should never influence decisions about article content and structure. If moving a spoiler from an article's lead section decreases the quality of the article, the article quality is more important than warning readers about spoilers.

Where spoilers may be inappropriate

Spoiler warnings are generally redundant in sections covering plot summaries or synopses; it is expected that such sections will include details of the plot.

They are also generally inappropriate in respect of factual works, classic works of fiction (including films), or subjects where plot twists have been the subject of considerable external debate.

Where plot details genuinely are not widely known, take especial care that including them does not violate policy against original research.

Suggested templates

One standard way to warn is to insert {{spoiler}} before the revealing text. On the real article this will appear as this:

If you wish to specify the spoiler's nature (particularly if this isn't clear from the article's / section's title), you may use {{spoiler-about}} before the revealing text. {{spoiler-about|(a particular element)}} appears as:

[Replace (a particular element) with the appropriate phrase.] This template also can be used to specify that spoilers affect multiple works, as the phrase can be a list or description of several works that are spoiled by the article involved.

If an article contains spoilers pertaining to both the titular subject and a subject or subjects other than the one indicated in the title, you may use {{spoiler-other}} before the revealing text. {{spoiler-other|(other subjects)}} expands to:

[The text displayed above as Spoiler will be the article's title. Replace (other subjects) with the appropriate phrase.]

Unlike the {{spoiler-about}} template, {{spoiler-other}} emphasizes the distinction between the article's titular subject and the other subject(s) potentially "spoiled," and should be used only in an applicable situation.

Note that some editors encourage the use of {{spoiler-about}} instead of {{spoiler-other}}, especially if you're unsure of which to use. The former can be applied to any situation that calls for the latter (albeit with less than ideal results), but the reverse is not true. Therefore, whenever in doubt, it's best to use {{spoiler-about}}.

If an article contains spoilers regarding any other subject not covered by the previous templates, you may use {{spoiler-blank}} before the revealing text. {{spoiler-blank|(subject)}} expands to:

[Replace (subject) with the appropriate phrase.]

If only part of the article contains spoilers, and you wish to indicate where these end (so that a reader can skip the spoilers and read the parts below), you can insert {{endspoiler}}. This expands to:

Specialized templates

If these general-purpose templates are not suitable for the particular article you are working on, feel free to custom-design your own warning template, but please link back to this page.

The following spoiler templates are for specialized uses.

Secrets of magic tricks

{{magic-spoiler}}

Puzzle solutions

When a puzzle, word problem or similar question is presented, you may wish to insert {{Solution}} before giving the solution. This expands to:Template:Solution

Unacceptable alternatives

The following methods should never be used to obscure spoilers:

• Making "spoiler free" parallel versions (content forks) of an article. (Since Wikipedia content is available under the text of the GNU Free Documentation License, creating parallel versions outside of Wikipedia is generally acceptable.)

• Deleting relevant, neutral and verifiable information about a narrative work from Wikipedia "because it's a spoiler" instead of properly applying spoiler templates.

• In various Internet discussion forums, a widespread convention is the insertion of blank (or virtually blank) lines before a spoiler (which removes the offending text from the reader's view, until he/she scrolls to the next page). Obviously, this is unacceptable in a general-purpose encyclopedia.

• On the Usenet computer network, a popular method of concealing spoilers (and sometimes, offensive material) is ROT13 encryption. Again, this is unacceptable in a general-purpose encyclopedia.

• Another common method of hiding spoilers from readers is to change the color of the text to match that of the page background, thus rendering the text unreadable until highlighted by the reader in a selection. Hiding text in this manner is unacceptable here because it requires explanation to readers unfamiliar with the practice, and because it may be incompatible with computer accessibility devices such as screen readers. Also, some web browsers highlight text by inverting the colors of the text and background. In these browsers, for white text on a white background, highlighting produces black text on a black background. Also, it is possible for a user to set their browser to refuse to change text color (just as they can refuse to display images); text-only browsers (such as Lynx) may likewise disregard requests to change text color. In addition, it renders the text unprintable.

Turning spoiler tags off

Those who wish to not see spoiler warnings could use the following Cascading Style Sheets rule:

.spoiler { display: none; }

Any web browser which supports CSS (as almost all do) will then hide the spoiler warnings. (You will still see them in the Wikitext when editing.)

There are lots of ways of doing this, especially for users of Firefox or Opera. Doing it locally on the computer you are using will work both for anonymous and logged-in users.

An alternative method is available to users with a Wikipedia user account; this will work without changing browser settings:

1. Go to your monobook.css page

   (This is the default skin/style. If you are using another skin, substitute the name of your preferred style for monobook, for example nostalgia.css.)

2. Click on the link to create the page, or click edit this page.
3. Enter .spoiler { display: none; }
4. Save the page.
5. Follow the instructions in Wikipedia:Bypass your cache.

Spoiler warnings are now hidden as long as you are logged in, no matter what computer you are using. (Applies to CSS compliant browsers.)