Wikipedia:Spoiler warning

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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).

This page is  part of the Manual of Style, and  is considered a  and  guidelines">guideline for Wikipedia. The consensus of many editors formed the conventions described here. Wikipedia articles should heed these guidelines. Feel free to update this page as needed, but please use the discussion page to propose major changes.

Shortcut: WP:SPOILER WP:SPOIL WP:SW

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, he or  she might wish to do so before reading the spoiler in the article.

Not all visitors will recognize the nature of Wikipedia, which strives first to inform, spoilers or  not. 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.

[...] The only disclaimer on wikipedia should be the spoiler warnings, because you don't know where they are, and  they ruin things for you. You can choose to ignore medical-related content on Wikipedia, but once you've read a spoiler, you can't just pretend you never read it. -Frazzydee|✍ 12:45, 30 Apr 2005 (UTC)

from Wikipedia:Templates for deletion/Log/Deleted/April 2005#Template:Medical

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.

Contents 1 Suggested templates 1.1 Specialized templates 1.1.1 Secrets of magic tricks 1.1.2 Puzzle solutions 1.1.3 Comic book solicitation 2 Unacceptable alternatives 3 Turning spoiler tags off

[edit] Suggested templates

One standard way to warn readers of potential spoilers is  to insert {{spoiler}} before the revealing text. This expands to:

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)}} expands to:

[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 warning 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:

[edit] 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.

[edit] Secrets of magic tricks

{{magic-spoiler}}

[edit] 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:

[edit] Comic book solicitation

When adding sales information for a yet-to-be-published comic, you may wish to precede it  with {{Spoiler-solicitation}}. This expands to:

[edit] Unacceptable alternatives

• Making "spoiler free" parallel versions (content forks) of an  article.

• 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.

[edit] 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 Firefox users. Here is  one way. it  has one big disadvantage: it  only works if (1) you are  logged into your wikipedia account and  (2) you use the "monobook" skin (which most of us do — it's the default skin). On the other hand, this method is  simple to explain.

1. Go to your monobook.css page
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.