Several very vocal editors at Wikipedia seem to be swaying consensus on spoilers. Very soon now “spoiler warnings” may be banished from Wikipedia, meaning that it will be impossible to visit an article about, say, a recent movie or book, without being exposed to plot twists and ending details. As someone who frequently visits Wikipedia pages about movies and books I have not yet consumed, this makes me sad. Said one commentor:

I’m afraid it all boils down to my blank incomprehension of suggestions that we should put redundant warnings into our articles just to mollycoddle people who, knowing of their own personal wishes not to have foreknowledge of the details of fictional works, would stupidly or perversely choose to read articles about those works.

Well, err, I got some useful information about _The Departed_ out of the article without being spoiled, including a good write-up of the Boston setting, information about awards won, actors in the film, the soundtrack, box office gross, and its origins. And I was able to easily avoid plot details because of the clear spoiler tags. But apparently I’m just an idiot who doesn’t deserve to read Wikipedia?

(Warning: the discussion itself contains several spoilers for recent notable books and movies. Jerks.)