Forum:When to use spoilers?

Forums: Index > Wiki DiscussionWhen to use spoilers?

Note: This topic has been unedited for 5172 days. It is considered archived - the discussion is over. Do not continue it unless it really needs a response.

Time to implement?

Seeing the well deserved kudos being sent Tierrie's way makes me think we should start the changeover. Anyone disagree? Loleil ^Talk 23:45, February 4, 2010 (UTC)

Nope I have been waiting :D but last I heard, we were still waiting on to make sure the policy was nailed down first?  Hollowness | Talk | Contr 23:50, February 4, 2010 (UTC)

I hear that Tierrie guy likes cats and turtles. How can you disagree with someone who likes cats and Turtles? -- tierrie talk contr 23:52, February 4, 2010 (UTC)

Well not me, but I like animals, even alarming wide eyed turtles with gaping maws, so let's get going! Even though the policy isn't completely nailed down, I think we'll get a better idea of where it needs to go once we start looking through them all, but my basic spoiler ethos is going be based around the idea that spoiler warnings will protect readers from surprises.

Sooo how shall we do this? Will you handle it yourself Tierrie? Will we have someone starts at at the "a" spoilers, and someone starts at "z", and then meet in the middle? The possibilities are endless! Loleil ^Talk 00:25, February 5, 2010 (UTC)

I prefer to work on technical aspects of the wiki - templates, transformers, javascripts, stylesheets. Its where my passion lie. I have another huge project lined up so I'd like to work on that surprise instead ;) Having said that, I can never say no to the second most amazing admin here - so, if you need me to start from "a", just say the word. -- tierrie talk contr 00:53, February 5, 2010 (UTC)

Yay for new projects and awesomeness. I shall make a start and see how I go. Loleil ^Talk 02:37, February 5, 2010 (UTC)

Spoiler Policy

Nicely done Tierrie! As to policy, I stand by what I said earlier, spoilers warning are appropriate for major plot elements, not things like insignificant side quests or most equipment locations. I think we'll have to have a good sort through the codex entries too, to see whether a warning is warranted for all entries. Loleil ^Talk 00:44, February 1, 2010 (UTC)

I completely agree that we should rein back on use of spoiler flags. Just reading your sentence, I get the feeling that there's a gap between "major plot elements" and "insignificant side quests or most equipment locations" that it would help to have some guidance on, but I really tried and can't think of any obvious examples that fall between the camps so perhaps it is clear enough. (As an aside, should we treate the fact that Cailan and Duncan die at Ostagar as a spoiler any more, given it's mentioned in marketing for RtO?)

Oh, and regarding codex entries, I'm turning off spoiler warnings on a lot of 'em as I go through. Except for spell combos and controls, I asked Pwr to default spoilers to "On" for codex entries when Caridin was creating the individual pages, just to be safe. In hindsight, that probably was overkill and if I were doing it again, I'd probably only turn them on for characters. Still, it's done now and by the time I finish my codex project (hopefully some time in February, or at least 2010!) I will have reviewed all the codex entries for spoilers and, where they are appropriate, switched the spoiler tag over to use the new template. ♦ Zoev ^talk 01:17, February 1, 2010 (UTC)

Update: I've just been through the character codex entries and converted them to use the new spoiler tag, and have changed Template:CodexSinglePage so it no longer displays the old style spoiler tags. (I can't think of any non-character codex entries with spoiler tags, but will check them, especially the quest-related ones.) Oh, and use of the new spoiler tag on, eg, Codex Entry: Alistair is a good illustration of the issue with the width of the new spoiler tags that I mentioned below. ♦ Zoev ^talk 14:38, February 1, 2010 (UTC)

Copied from comments on tag format below for ease of reference (Zoev): I've been rolling with the idea that if they are using the wiki(or are linked to the wiki by someone else), they don't care about spoilers or should pay more attention to the links they click on. They can do a search for the problem area/quest in their playthrough and leave everything else alone. Mictlantecuhtli 15:37, February 1, 2010 (UTC)

Just fleshing out the policy a bit more (and making sure I understand it), and picking up on Mictlantecuhtli's point above. Can we agree that quest walkthroughs should not have spoiler tags - surely someone wouldn't read a section entitled "Walkthough" and expect it to be spoiler free!? And because the page would be almost entirely a spoiler, we'd run into the problem of multiple spoilers/headings within spoilers that Hollowness notes at the bottom of the page. However, on lore, character, creature and location pages, which people could reasonably be reading for background, plot points should be marked with spoiler tags? An alternative would be to not put spoilers on such pages where it can possibly be avaoided, and instead just have links to walkthroughs in the involvement sections, rather than any details. This, however, might make a number of pages a bit thin. ♦ Zoev ^talk 09:08, February 2, 2010 (UTC)

I think that if we have a general ethos that we use warnings to inform people there are spoilers in a place they might not expect that might not be a bad way to go. As you mentioned Zoev, saying there are spoilers in a page about a major quest is probably already clear. I think this also applies to characters from the novels. For a character like Maric the headings probably give enough warning that his involvement in said novels is going to be discussed. The same probably applies to all characters that appear only in novels. However, I think the spoiler tags for the novels work best when characters appear in multiple mediums. To take Loghain, people might be disappointed to discover that by reading his background they discover everything about his involvement in The Stolen Throne. So in conclusion I think spoilers are most valuable on character pages (so people can look at things like stats and trivia without having to worry about spoilers), lore that is not general knowledge, and and also for upcoming releases, as it will be great to help people avoid spoilers about new games. Loleil ^Talk 05:32, February 3, 2010 (UTC)

Implemented

I implemented Style 2, with a picture of Alistair. I might change the quote and picture later, but the style's nailed down now. The templates are SpoilerDAO, SpoilerTST and SpoilerTC. I implemented them on Loghain's page as an example.

Now lets settle on the policy. And then we can start using them. I'll let Loleil take it from here. -- tierrie talk contr 02:58, January 29, 2010 (UTC)

I made some changes to the spoilers - I shorted the spoiler by 100px, and reverted back to the mocha colors. If there's any other changes, post them in the comment sections below. -- tierrie talk contr 19:43, February 1, 2010 (UTC)

Comments

Brilliant news that you've made it so a simple to create new spoiler tags for new titles! Whilst I think I like the Morrigan image slightly better, with the "Swooping. Is. Bad." text - which I think is great - I think it should be Alistair, and my vote goes with the final image, 5. Though it could perhaps be a little smaller: the spoiler tag seems taller than the others, or is it my eyes? --Zoev 18:25, January 25, 2010 (UTC)

Yeah it was! The size specifies width, not height. The ratio for Image 5 was a little more narrower than the previous 4.-- tierrie talk contr 19:37, January 25, 2010 (UTC)

They all look so good! I think I would put I think would go with number five too, with number two close behind. I can't wait to see them in action. Loleil 05:03, January 28, 2010 (UTC)

Nobody likes Style 2? I just thought of Style 3 too.... -- tierrie talk contr 06:30, January 28, 2010 (UTC)

Oh I like it for sure, especially the border, I'm just used to having the bar a bit smaller. I shall await style three! Loleil 07:27, January 28, 2010 (UTC)

Oh, I don't know! Did I somehow look at this page before you added style 2 as I don't think I saw it before I commented the first time!? I do like the border in style 2 as it makes it clear it's a link rather than just an image (and I like the yellow as it's consistent with our hyperlinks). I also think I might like the fact it stretches across more of the page. But I like "Swooping. Is. Bad." Still, on the whole, I'm now coming down in favour of style 2. I really like the fact that style 3 doesn't change the overall layout of the page, but it seems wrong not to remove the risk of accidentally seeing spoilers completely when we can. And for the background to spoiler text, I'd go with the default page background rather than the red - the red would be really nice when it's just the odd paragraph with spoiler info, but some pages will have more than that, with headings and/or additional formatting within the spoiler tag (eg the Codex Character Pages) and I think a coloured background might be a bit much. But I could be convinced of anything. Perhaps we (or Tierrie!) should just pick one, we can start applying it to major wiki pages, then review how the template is working and tweak if necessary? ♦ Zoev ^Talk 21:25, January 28, 2010 (UTC)

I actually like them all and can't decide exactly which one I prefer. Style 1 was heavily influenced by our current spoiler template. Style 2 was influenced by the other spoiler templates I saw on other Wikia sites - they preferred wide templates. And Style 3 was a sudden inspiration for using transparency to make the text hard to read. On that subject, I can make it even harder to read by lowering the opacity of the page. And I like it because it doesn't modify the layout, but its just faint enough that people know that there's something there.

I'm going to tweak the opacity settings and background per your suggestions and see if you suddenly favor Style 3 over the rest. -- tierrie talk contr 22:56, January 28, 2010 (UTC)

Actually, I like Style 2 the best (only thing I think be nicer is if the spoiler icons wasn't white, I am use to my black bg when reading this site). The others I find a little to elaborate for a spoiler. And it might just be me but people might need the assistance of 'click here' on the spoiler because I actually did the nub move and went, "Oh shit you can click these and they open the text". I love how there is quotes. But the biggest pro with style 2, the spoilers all open or closed or half and half, this style looks the best. Also the spoilers becoming a part of the paragraph as an image is subtle classy touch. The others as cool as it looks with multiple spoilers open and the opacity gives a busy look and an effort to read. The black bg red dragon is my fav spoiler tag its simple and doesn't take too much away from the article.  Hollowness | Talk | Contr 23:21, January 28, 2010 (UTC)

You won't be seeing a lot of the white spoiler icon. Its for the books - The Calling and The Stolen Throne and there's just not that many articles from those sources. The main spoiler will continue to be the red one, until we have an awakening one. Then I will probably continue to use the red one but use a different icon.

So it looks like Style 2 is the overwhelming choice. With Alistair. Really girls? Alistair? :) -- tierrie talk contr 01:24, January 29, 2010 (UTC)

No, not Alistair, I mean, I <3 and all but I this concept art > screen shots, for more official look. I am trying to convince the bf to get my Photoshop on this computer, so I can throw some ideas out there.  Hollowness | Talk | Contr 01:33, January 29, 2010 (UTC)

It was only Alistair because of the quote. If it were anything to do with me being a girl, I sure wouldn't be picking him! And now that I see the tags in action on Loghain's page, I'm having second thoughts, as follows (I recognize some of these may be too late for the current phase of spoiler tag development, now the style has been picked - I'm not sure what sorts of changes qualify as tweaks and what would mean more time-consuming development):

• I agree that the book tags do look significantly tidier than the DA:O one, and I think that's because the Alistair pic doesn't really look right on the style of tag we chose (my fault for trying to cherry-pick from Tierrie's various examples, I think!). The previous Alistair examples were shorter so he wasn't cut off at the neck (or rather the tag always ended when his neck did, not just when the spoiler was displayed).
• I'm only now really taking on board the fact that, once DA:O spoilers are turned on, the wiki will be littered with little pictures of Alistair. I'm therefore coming round to Hollowness's way of thinking that a more "official" image that people will immediatedly associate with DA:O would be better (and we already know from the trailer that Alistair makes an appearance in Awakenings as well).
• The Morrigan pic, which is/was used in the DA:O marketing probably, therefore, fits the bill better. Though it is a bit small - would it be possible to zoom in a little? I wish I were any good at image stuff (or indeed had any image manipulation software other than Paint!) so I could do more than nitpick about this.
• I also agree that it's not immediately obvious to someone who's never seen such a thing that you can click on the tags to reveal the spoilers. When spoilers are hidden, the text could perhaps make this clearer - eg, "This article contains spoilers for Dragon Age:Origins. Click here to show information that reveals the storyline." (though I know it's not good practice to use "Click" in instructions - perhaps someone has a better suggestion?)
• When spoilers are being shown, I agree the current approach of minimizing the amount of text is exactly the right one. Would it be possible to have a tooltip pop up when hovering over the image explaining that clicking it toggles spoiler information?
• I'm really with Tierrie in liking the fact that style 3 doesn't muck around with the page layout. But I think the tweaked version is now too dark - perhaps it's my old eyes, or my old monitor, but I can barely make out that there's any text there! And for the style to really work for me, I think there would need to be a bit of explanatory text either in a tooltip or under the image, and I'd still go for a non-red background when the spoiler text is brightened.

Hope that's helpful. If not, then I owe you all a huge apology for forcing you to wade through all that! ♦ Zoev ^talk 07:34, January 29, 2010 (UTC)

I just noticed the spoiler picked has a yellow border, whats with that I'd think the mocha brown match way better and looks way better than the yellow. Or is this still in being debated and its a sample.  Hollowness | Talk | Contr 16:54, January 30, 2010 (UTC)

First, I liked the yellow surround because it's the colour we use for links, and so I thought it made it clearer that the tag was clickable. However, I agree the mocha is classier. I'll be swayed by majority opinion on that one. Second, sorry for not commenting on your images earlier, Hollowness. However, I notice the image currently in use on Loghain's page looks like a smaller version of one of the images you produced and it looks great, so I guess you and Tierrie sorted this out without me! ♦ Zoev ^talk 18:07, January 31, 2010 (UTC)

Only thing I have wrong with if it is gonna be yellow its isn't the same yellow as the links it is a brighter one and less of a gold (or at least appears to be). I haven't seen any response from Tierrie yet, on my stuff, but thanks :)  Hollowness | Talk | Contr 18:10, January 31, 2010 (UTC)

Aargh, don't know where to put my comments now! Hope they'll be found here. I think the style and size of image (and the quote) on the current spoiler tag on the Loghain page is great. I think Hollowness's preferred eg below is slightly different (image slightly bigger and text to the right instead of underneath), but I'm not sure it's different enough to make it worth changing from the current version - in fact, I'm not keen on word-wrapping in the text, so I think it's better to have the text starting underneath the image so it all fits on one line (or two lines, rather!). This is so especially because I think Hollowness is quite right about having a narrower spoiler tag. I know I explicitly supported the wider one, and I think it does look better, but I didn't think it through properly. When there's an infobox or picture to the right of the spoiler text, the tag will be pushed underneath it when spoilers are hidden, then ride up when spoilers are shown - I don't like the text jiggling around like that. So I'd be behind narrowing the spoiler tag so that on the average monitor there's room for the spoiler tag and, say, a 320px wide image on the same line. And sorry I keep changing my mind! ♦ Zoev ^talk 21:06, January 31, 2010 (UTC)

Ya, I keep looking at it and the yellow doesn't do it for me, especially if we start seeing the new tables next to it. I do just really like the mocha with the red, has this been decided yet? I only seen opinions still.  Hollowness | Talk | Contr 15:29, February 1, 2010 (UTC)

I've been rolling with the idea that if they are using the wiki(or are linked to the wiki by someone else), they don't care about spoilers or should pay more attention to the links they click on. They can do a search for the problem area/quest in their playthrough and leave everything else alone. Mictlantecuhtli 15:37, February 1, 2010 (UTC)

Okay, I'm convinced - the mocha is better. In terms of the width of the tag, what's the "standard" screen resolution we're developing for? I have my monitor set at 1152x864px and the tag and an infobox won't fit on the same line, but if my resolution is lower than the standard then fair enough. Or maybe it doesn't matter that tags and infoboxes don't fit on the same line? I suppose in the majority of cases, the tag isn't going to be on a level with the infobox so, unless anyone else has a strong feeling that the tags should fit on the same line as infoboxes, I'll shut up about it! ♦ Zoev ^talk 20:25, February 1, 2010 (UTC)

JoePlay once said that the resolution we need to meet is 1024. I can shrink it further but I need to change the blurb.-- tierrie talk contr 20:48, February 1, 2010 (UTC)

I personally have a wide screen but open my explore to about a regular size screen and maximize when I format so everything looks good both ways, and they do seem a bit long for a reg screen but great for a wide screen. But I am sure however it works out is to benefits any resolution.  Hollowness | Talk | Contr 05:33, February 2, 2010 (UTC)

Update 28th January 2010

The choices are going to be between one of the three Styles. What do you think is going to be the best style? And why? Is there anything you'd improve on? Is there a particular color scheme you like? A particular image?

• User:Tierrie/Sandbox_1
• User:Tierrie/Sandbox_2
• User:Tierrie/Sandbox_3

Cheers. -- tierrie talk contr 11:03, January 28, 2010 (UTC)

Update 25th January 2010

I have updated the code so that each spoiler is now tracked individually. Creating new spoilers is also going to be trivial - copy the existing spoiler code, change the picture, and modify the class="splr_dao" to class="splr_awk" and we have a new spoiler that is independent of the old one. So simple that even a Oghren can do it. As for the picture of the spoiler, I will put a few samples up here. Feel free to comment and/or add your own images and we'll pick the best one. Given enough time, I may have the chance to design some new styles as well instead of just picking pictures. -- tierrie talk contr 09:34, January 25, 2010 (UTC)

Current Style

Template:DAOSpoiler

Image 1

"Swooping. Is. Bad."
-- Spoilers for Dragon Age: Origins within.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Praesent ac eros arcu, quis consequat ante. Aliquam lacinia vulputate dui, sed laoreet nulla adipiscing eu. Fusce porta aliquam massa, ut facilisis massa egestas quis. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Aenean eget sapien turpis, at tempor ligula. Nam diam nibh, consequat in adipiscing eget, malesuada at mi. Morbi facilisis, nulla in tempus tristique, sem orci porttitor odio, at tempus dui mi et orci. Aenean non eros ac eros vestibulum egestas at ac turpis. Fusce enim nibh, lobortis non aliquam ultricies, hendrerit nec nibh. Sed eget orci massa, nec tempor nisl. Integer mi tellus, aliquam ac elementum in, consequat ac risus. Etiam imperdiet mauris ut nulla eleifend eu consequat orci varius. Suspendisse eros nisi, egestas quis consectetur nec, tristique nec leo. Nulla eget congue ligula. Sed ligula felis, congue at gravida et, aliquet in sapien. Aliquam bibendum mattis velit, et pharetra mauris posuere sit amet. Aliquam vehicula pulvinar tempor. Donec pharetra, elit ut scelerisque tempus, libero tellus pretium sapien, a vestibulum lectus enim eget sapien.

Image 2

"Swooping. Is. Bad."
-- Spoilers for Dragon Age: Origins within.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Praesent ac eros arcu, quis consequat ante. Aliquam lacinia vulputate dui, sed laoreet nulla adipiscing eu. Fusce porta aliquam massa, ut facilisis massa egestas quis. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Aenean eget sapien turpis, at tempor ligula. Nam diam nibh, consequat in adipiscing eget, malesuada at mi. Morbi facilisis, nulla in tempus tristique, sem orci porttitor odio, at tempus dui mi et orci. Aenean non eros ac eros vestibulum egestas at ac turpis. Fusce enim nibh, lobortis non aliquam ultricies, hendrerit nec nibh. Sed eget orci massa, nec tempor nisl. Integer mi tellus, aliquam ac elementum in, consequat ac risus. Etiam imperdiet mauris ut nulla eleifend eu consequat orci varius. Suspendisse eros nisi, egestas quis consectetur nec, tristique nec leo. Nulla eget congue ligula. Sed ligula felis, congue at gravida et, aliquet in sapien. Aliquam bibendum mattis velit, et pharetra mauris posuere sit amet. Aliquam vehicula pulvinar tempor. Donec pharetra, elit ut scelerisque tempus, libero tellus pretium sapien, a vestibulum lectus enim eget sapien.

Image 3

"Swooping. Is. Bad."
-- Spoilers for Dragon Age: Origins within.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Praesent ac eros arcu, quis consequat ante. Aliquam lacinia vulputate dui, sed laoreet nulla adipiscing eu. Fusce porta aliquam massa, ut facilisis massa egestas quis. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Aenean eget sapien turpis, at tempor ligula. Nam diam nibh, consequat in adipiscing eget, malesuada at mi. Morbi facilisis, nulla in tempus tristique, sem orci porttitor odio, at tempus dui mi et orci. Aenean non eros ac eros vestibulum egestas at ac turpis. Fusce enim nibh, lobortis non aliquam ultricies, hendrerit nec nibh. Sed eget orci massa, nec tempor nisl. Integer mi tellus, aliquam ac elementum in, consequat ac risus. Etiam imperdiet mauris ut nulla eleifend eu consequat orci varius. Suspendisse eros nisi, egestas quis consectetur nec, tristique nec leo. Nulla eget congue ligula. Sed ligula felis, congue at gravida et, aliquet in sapien. Aliquam bibendum mattis velit, et pharetra mauris posuere sit amet. Aliquam vehicula pulvinar tempor. Donec pharetra, elit ut scelerisque tempus, libero tellus pretium sapien, a vestibulum lectus enim eget sapien.

Image 4

"Swooping. Is. Bad."
-- Spoilers for Dragon Age: Origins within.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Praesent ac eros arcu, quis consequat ante. Aliquam lacinia vulputate dui, sed laoreet nulla adipiscing eu. Fusce porta aliquam massa, ut facilisis massa egestas quis. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Aenean eget sapien turpis, at tempor ligula. Nam diam nibh, consequat in adipiscing eget, malesuada at mi. Morbi facilisis, nulla in tempus tristique, sem orci porttitor odio, at tempus dui mi et orci. Aenean non eros ac eros vestibulum egestas at ac turpis. Fusce enim nibh, lobortis non aliquam ultricies, hendrerit nec nibh. Sed eget orci massa, nec tempor nisl. Integer mi tellus, aliquam ac elementum in, consequat ac risus. Etiam imperdiet mauris ut nulla eleifend eu consequat orci varius. Suspendisse eros nisi, egestas quis consectetur nec, tristique nec leo. Nulla eget congue ligula. Sed ligula felis, congue at gravida et, aliquet in sapien. Aliquam bibendum mattis velit, et pharetra mauris posuere sit amet. Aliquam vehicula pulvinar tempor. Donec pharetra, elit ut scelerisque tempus, libero tellus pretium sapien, a vestibulum lectus enim eget sapien.

Image 5

"Swooping. Is. Bad."
-- Spoilers for Dragon Age: Origins within.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Praesent ac eros arcu, quis consequat ante. Aliquam lacinia vulputate dui, sed laoreet nulla adipiscing eu. Fusce porta aliquam massa, ut facilisis massa egestas quis. Vestibulum ante ipsum primis in faucibus orci luctus et ultrices posuere cubilia Curae; Aenean eget sapien turpis, at tempor ligula. Nam diam nibh, consequat in adipiscing eget, malesuada at mi. Morbi facilisis, nulla in tempus tristique, sem orci porttitor odio, at tempus dui mi et orci. Aenean non eros ac eros vestibulum egestas at ac turpis. Fusce enim nibh, lobortis non aliquam ultricies, hendrerit nec nibh. Sed eget orci massa, nec tempor nisl. Integer mi tellus, aliquam ac elementum in, consequat ac risus. Etiam imperdiet mauris ut nulla eleifend eu consequat orci varius. Suspendisse eros nisi, egestas quis consectetur nec, tristique nec leo. Nulla eget congue ligula. Sed ligula felis, congue at gravida et, aliquet in sapien. Aliquam bibendum mattis velit, et pharetra mauris posuere sit amet. Aliquam vehicula pulvinar tempor. Donec pharetra, elit ut scelerisque tempus, libero tellus pretium sapien, a vestibulum lectus enim eget sapien.

Style 2

"And now we have a dog. And Alistair is still the stupidest member of the party." -- Morrigan
This article contains spoilers for Dragon Age: Origins. There might be information that will reveal the plot and storyline.

Morbi nisi dolor, gravida a rhoncus at, interdum pellentesque ligula. Quisque feugiat nibh in erat tempor facilisis id eleifend lorem. Suspendisse elementum turpis ipsum. Nulla facilisi. Aliquam auctor mattis elit, et laoreet elit mattis facilisis. Duis quis mauris massa. Maecenas at est lectus. Morbi ante sapien, bibendum quis vehicula sed, rutrum nec arcu. Suspendisse potenti. Integer iaculis, elit nec ultrices cursus, dolor leo semper lorem, a semper est mi volutpat erat. Sed congue interdum lectus, sit amet feugiat tortor tincidunt in. Morbi consectetur diam ut elit feugiat ut placerat orci sollicitudin. Ut pulvinar nisi eget tellus imperdiet pellentesque. Sed pretium consectetur ornare.

Donec ac velit eget nibh tincidunt dictum id sit amet diam. Duis malesuada ligula nec nisl dapibus iaculis. Sed nisi ligula, sodales a dictum ut, aliquam ac metus. Praesent scelerisque congue magna, at consectetur nibh fringilla in. Suspendisse sit amet neque aliquam neque porta ultrices. Fusce sem sem, dictum ac porttitor id, gravida vel leo. Integer lacus mi, dapibus in vehicula a, varius tempus libero. Etiam eu lacus et arcu pellentesque sagittis. Etiam eleifend condimentum facilisis. Suspendisse vitae sapien urna. Integer ullamcorper viverra dui sit amet porta.

Color 2

"And now we have a dog. And Alistair is still the stupidest member of the party." -- Morrigan
This article contains spoilers for Dragon Age: Origins. There might be information that will reveal the plot and storyline.

Morbi nisi dolor, gravida a rhoncus at, interdum pellentesque ligula. Quisque feugiat nibh in erat tempor facilisis id eleifend lorem. Suspendisse elementum turpis ipsum. Nulla facilisi. Aliquam auctor mattis elit, et laoreet elit mattis facilisis. Duis quis mauris massa. Maecenas at est lectus. Morbi ante sapien, bibendum quis vehicula sed, rutrum nec arcu. Suspendisse potenti. Integer iaculis, elit nec ultrices cursus, dolor leo semper lorem, a semper est mi volutpat erat. Sed congue interdum lectus, sit amet feugiat tortor tincidunt in. Morbi consectetur diam ut elit feugiat ut placerat orci sollicitudin. Ut pulvinar nisi eget tellus imperdiet pellentesque. Sed pretium consectetur ornare.

Donec ac velit eget nibh tincidunt dictum id sit amet diam. Duis malesuada ligula nec nisl dapibus iaculis. Sed nisi ligula, sodales a dictum ut, aliquam ac metus. Praesent scelerisque congue magna, at consectetur nibh fringilla in. Suspendisse sit amet neque aliquam neque porta ultrices. Fusce sem sem, dictum ac porttitor id, gravida vel leo. Integer lacus mi, dapibus in vehicula a, varius tempus libero. Etiam eu lacus et arcu pellentesque sagittis. Etiam eleifend condimentum facilisis. Suspendisse vitae sapien urna. Integer ullamcorper viverra dui sit amet porta.

Style 3

"And now we have a dog. And Alistair is still the stupidest member of the party." -- Morrigan
This article contains spoilers for Dragon Age: Origins. There might be information that will reveal the plot and storyline.

Morrigan's Ring is a gift given by Morrigan to a male Warden during the course of a romance.

The ring was originally owned by Flemeth and it was given to Morrigan so Flemeth could keep track of her.

Morrigan claimed to have altered the magic before giving it to the Warden. The ring allows Morrigan to sense the Warden and find his location. When asked if the ring does anything else, she will state that it's a link between two people, it may work in both ways but she cannot confirm whether The Warden can actually use it to sense Morrigan in return.

There seems to be a glitch when she gives you the ring. If you start immediately another conversation, she will give you another one. The conditions under which this happened were high approval ratings with both Morrigan and Leliana, which made Morrigan precisely to ask you to choose one of them.

Gratuitious The Calling Spoiler

This is included as an example of The Calling's Spoiler and so that you could play around with it. Template:TCSpoiler

Older Notes

With Tierrie working away on a new spoiler template, it seems like a good time to discuss when to use them. I put a spoiler tag up whenever I think people might read something and feel "I wish I hadn't known that". However, I have seen spoilers put up for side quests which amount to "go here, fetch that, and return". I don't see that people reading those sort of articles would feel spoiled in any way, so I would suggest those are removed.

We also have Ausir's suggestion that spoiler templates are only used for upcoming releases, and that everything that has been published goes spoiler free. I'm slightly hesitant to use this, as it may not be the most accommodating to new players, but it would certainly make it easier to know when to use them. Loleil 05:37, January 22, 2010 (UTC)

The new spoiler tag will alleviate but not solve this problem. I can create a different tag with a different cookie for each expansion. That will "hide" spoilers by default for those expansions. For example, it can be possible to have spoilers shown for DAO, TFT and TC, but have them hidden for Awakening. Hiding and showing spoilers is a simple matter of clicking on the banner/icon and will toggle all spoilers of that "class" site wide. If this is how we want do it, I can make it so.

It will be frivolous to create new cookies for each DLC. However, I can temporary create a new one for each DLC that will expire in 3 months. After that time, it uses the generic DAO cookie. In the grand scheme of things, I prefer sporadic use of the spoiler tags - preferring to use them for big spoilers. For example, finding out the reason Sten killed the farmers, or Shale's gender. That Caridin's alive. Or that Alistair's royalty. Those are, to me, spoilers. Going to Redcliffe to get Effort, is not. -- tierrie talk contr 06:44, January 22, 2010 (UTC)

So we are resolved to only use spoilers on major plot elements, not menial side quests or most equipment locations. Loleil 02:26, January 24, 2010 (UTC)

Spoiler Suggestions

Template:DAOSpoiler

Click ^ the banner -- tierrie talk contr 00:55, January 22, 2010 (UTC)

Good Idea, but don't like the picture. :) Can't we do this for tables like plot items, click on Redcliff and it expands them? Polexian ^{♦♦Talk♦♦ ♠♠Leave Message♠♠} 01:17, January 22, 2010 (UTC)

I changed the picture from Morrigan to the bad ass Captain Generic Warden. I preferred Morrigan but its really a bike shed issue. What do you want it to be Loleil? -- tierrie talk contr 01:33, January 22, 2010 (UTC)

Very spiffy indeed! And to be difficult, I think I like the look of the The Calling spoiler tag that you've done up the best. Loleil 05:35, January 22, 2010 (UTC)

One problem... more than one on the page and it makes all of them disappear.. Normal or unexpected? This one looks a lot better. Can I use it on the companions page for

Template:DAOSpoilerPolexian ^{♦♦Talk♦♦ ♠♠Leave Message♠♠} 19:38, January 22, 2010 (UTC)

That's by design. In fact, its not just across the page, its across the whole wiki. The goal is that the user either wants to see spoiler or the user doesn't. There's no halfway. And due to the cookie requirements, its not feasible to have individual cookies per spoiler tag.

@Loleil, The other way to do it is to not use cookie, and that way, each spoiler tag can be toggled individually. However, it will not be persistent. Reloading the page or coming back to it later will show it as "hidden" again. As a player who has finished the game, I do not want to have to click "show" everytime. So persistence is the tradeoff decision I chose to make. -- tierrie talk contr 19:51, January 22, 2010 (UTC)

What if we have a page that the user can activate the spoilers or disactivate the spoilers persistant within the wiki. If disactivated, they they are gone across the wiki, if active then they are on the wiki and it would be an individual deactivation? Polexian ^{♦♦Talk♦♦ ♠♠Leave Message♠♠} 20:05, January 22, 2010 (UTC)

I'm moving this conversation to the forums instead of cluttering up Loleil's page. -- tierrie talk contr 20:43, January 22, 2010 (UTC)

These are the ideas I've got after checking the new spoiler tags....

• I believe the width should be reduced and length should be increased.
• I prefer an image with red colour (just like the current Morrigan Spoiler image) rather than coloured one (the coulored Warden image).
• Since we have to keep the all the spoiler tags in a standard width / height format, you should change the other spoiler tags also.

-- Snfonseka 10:30, January 23, 2010 (UTC)

@Polexian, The short answer is - I'm not interested that. The long answer is that it adds a new level of complexity to the spoilers. It will double the code size and take up to 8 hours of coding and testing. I don't have the time to do that at this time. Additionally, this extends the spoiler in ways it was not meant to designed to be used. I keep my projects focused on the goals and not succumb to feature creep. In the future, when I have more time, I will revisit the Spoiler template. I'll consider all the feature suggestions at that time and incorporate them into that project. For the time being, this meets my criteria. -- tierrie talk contr 20:46, January 22, 2010 (UTC)

Added the rest of the convo for clarity.

@Snfonseka, Tierrie has already started making multiple spoiler tags.

I've been thinking about how many spoiler tags we need, as for someone like Maric, multiple spoilers tend to clutter up the page, so perhaps we can just cut back one general spoiler tag, to save having to create a new spoiler tag for every new, game, novel, DLC, comic, and whatnot.

As the creator, I'm happy if you have the final say on appearance Tierrie, and I like the idea of turning off spoilers for good, though I suppose this could cause problems for new releases if we go with one spoiler tag. Hmm I shall think on it. Loleil 02:26, January 24, 2010 (UTC)

Oh, I like these! Good stuff, Tierrie. For what it's worth, I agree with whoever's said that we should go with a companion pic rather than the generic Warden - with the swooping is bad text it maybe should be Alistair, but Morrigan would do! And my feeling is that if it's not too hideous to implement, a spoiler tag per release would be better. I'd really like to be able to hide spoilers for upcoming content (I'm currently avoiding any page that might have RtO info like the plague!), but if we just had two tags (already published and upcoming) then presumably there would then be a tidy up effort required after each new title is published? Unless the "upcoming" spoiler tag allowed a parameter specifying the title, or some other text string that would allow Caridin to find and update such tags for a specific piece of content to the already published ones? Oh, and are we ready to start replacing the old spoiler tags as and when we come across them? --Zoev 03:45, January 24, 2010 (UTC)

---

I like the generic warden and morrigan, spoilers. But if there was to be a new suggestion, I'd say a small simple collage of the main companions (Alistair/Morrigan/Leliana/Sten, imo, but any combination would be fine) for no favoritism. Swooping is bad, now that I just love <3  Hollowness | Talk | Contr 10:00, January 25, 2010 (UTC)

A collage at that resolution would just be a bunch of bobbling heads. Keeping it to a single subject and then doing either a framed shot or a super close-up would show the most details. -- tierrie talk contr 18:02, January 25, 2010 (UTC)

I wasn't thinking a wack-a-mole of heads, if I had my photoshop on this computer I'd give an example, maybe whenever I get photoshop on this computer I'll show ya what I mean, even if spoilers are done that collages even in a small space can look good. I use to be an avatar viking knowing how to make due with 100px by 100px and headers similar dimensions of the spoilers, in all sorts of ways.  Hollowness | Talk | Contr 21:14, January 25, 2010 (UTC)

I definantly like Image 5. Looks the cleanest and most professional. Polexian ^{♦♦Talk♦♦ ♠♠Leave Message♠♠} 00:24, January 29, 2010 (UTC)

Yay I gots Photoshop

"And now we have a dog. And Alistair is still the stupidest member of the party." -- Morrigan
This article contains spoilers for Dragon Age: Origins. There might be information that will reveal the plot and storyline.

Loghain is responsible for devising the tactics that will be used in the Battle of Ostagar. Although Loghain advises Cailan not to fight on the front line, Cailan wants to fight with his men, away from Loghain. As part of his plan, Loghain and the bulk of the army will stay apart from King Cailan and the Grey Wardens and wait for a beacon to be lit, signalling Loghain and his men to come in and flank the darkspawn. However, the Wardens are delayed and the beacon is not lit on time. When the beacon is lit the valley of Ostagar is already overrun with darkspawn and Loghain retreats, leaving King Cailan and the Grey Wardens to die.

"Magic is meant to serve man and not to rule over him" -- " As quoted from the Profit Andraste
This article contains spoilers for Dragon Age: Origins. There might be information that will reveal the plot and storyline.

Loghain is responsible for devising the tactics that will be used in the Battle of Ostagar. Although Loghain advises Cailan not to fight on the front line, Cailan wants to fight with his men, away from Loghain. As part of his plan, Loghain and the bulk of the army will stay apart from King Cailan and the Grey Wardens and wait for a beacon to be lit, signalling Loghain and his men to come in and flank the darkspawn. However, the Wardens are delayed and the beacon is not lit on time. When the beacon is lit the valley of Ostagar is already overrun with darkspawn and Loghain retreats, leaving King Cailan and the Grey Wardens to die.

"Magic is meant to serve man and not to rule over him" -- " As quoted from the Profit Andraste
This article contains spoilers for Dragon Age: Origins. There might be information that will reveal the plot and storyline.

Loghain is responsible for devising the tactics that will be used in the Battle of Ostagar. Although Loghain advises Cailan not to fight on the front line, Cailan wants to fight with his men, away from Loghain. As part of his plan, Loghain and the bulk of the army will stay apart from King Cailan and the Grey Wardens and wait for a beacon to be lit, signalling Loghain and his men to come in and flank the darkspawn. However, the Wardens are delayed and the beacon is not lit on time. When the beacon is lit the valley of Ostagar is already overrun with darkspawn and Loghain retreats, leaving King Cailan and the Grey Wardens to die.

"Magic is meant to serve man and not to rule over him" -- " As quoted from the Profit Andraste
This article contains spoilers for Dragon Age: Origins. There might be information that will reveal the plot and storyline.

Loghain is responsible for devising the tactics that will be used in the Battle of Ostagar. Although Loghain advises Cailan not to fight on the front line, Cailan wants to fight with his men, away from Loghain. As part of his plan, Loghain and the bulk of the army will stay apart from King Cailan and the Grey Wardens and wait for a beacon to be lit, signalling Loghain and his men to come in and flank the darkspawn. However, the Wardens are delayed and the beacon is not lit on time. When the beacon is lit the valley of Ostagar is already overrun with darkspawn and Loghain retreats, leaving King Cailan and the Grey Wardens to die.

"Magic is meant to serve man and not to rule over him" -- " As quoted from the Profit Andraste
This article contains spoilers for Dragon Age: Origins. There might be information that will reveal the plot and storyline.

Loghain is responsible for devising the tactics that will be used in the Battle of Ostagar. Although Loghain advises Cailan not to fight on the front line, Cailan wants to fight with his men, away from Loghain. As part of his plan, Loghain and the bulk of the army will stay apart from King Cailan and the Grey Wardens and wait for a beacon to be lit, signalling Loghain and his men to come in and flank the darkspawn. However, the Wardens are delayed and the beacon is not lit on time. When the beacon is lit the valley of Ostagar is already overrun with darkspawn and Loghain retreats, leaving King Cailan and the Grey Wardens to die.

---

Ok, I just got Photoshop back and these were some quick spoiler pics I thought I'd show. They aren't the best I don't have my brushes on this photo shop and apparently my hard drive is dying and needs to be copied over to a new one soon so I have a bit of lag so it takes me longer to do do stuff. But if any of these are liked or if there is a concept art people want, I can work with whatever and produce samples. This is just if my help is needed, I am not forcing the 'look at me', take mine! or anything. :P  Hollowness | Talk | Contr 00:08, January 30, 2010 (UTC)

---

Ya, I decide I like this one the best of my own, straight from my user page too. Shorter for spoilers near the info boxes or non-wide screen peeps.  Hollowness | Talk | Contr 20:03, January 31, 2010 (UTC)

"Magic is meant to serve man and not to rule over
him" -- As quoted from the Profit Andraste
This article contains spoilers for Dragon Age: Origins.
Click here to proceed.

Role playing wise, I back stab Jowan every time with no regrets. If I can't get Cullen; then he can't have Lily. With polite, I'll help everyone but alway be obliged to fight if they think they can take me, demon bullying attitude, I ensure party manipulation to make minimal disapproval during plot dialog. I romance Alistair because I have a thing for templars (corrupting what was to be forbidden fruit), once I find out he is heir I keep his as far from the throne as I can, he made it clear he doesn't want it. I lead Zevran on till he wants to get intimate, then end it with lets be friends. I don't romance with Leliana (too much baggage) instead, I play the "omg I love shoes!!!" with her. If there was a "toying with people's emotions" achievement, I'd definitely get that every play through. I did both A Dark Promise and Warden-Commander, I disliked both, I wanted to do The Ultimate Sacrifice but with a romance with Alistair (which I want) he doesn't allow it... and I want both... damn! But at least an expansion will remedy that. :D

Multiple Spoils on a page

Do we use multiple spoilers for each article, since spoiling in multiple headers breaks the TOC links? What is the discretion on this?  Hollowness | Talk | Contr 06:20, February 2, 2010 (UTC)

This is a good point, there's also some bugs in the template for cases where you're placing the spoiler around a wikitable or in a wikitable. Also I think it could be a little less wordy for those who may skip over it thinking it's just a header or a random quote. There's also a bug in the wiki's JavaScript that once you show a spoiler it stays shown along with any other spoiler there after. Because of this I think it would be good to include a spoiler warning before the '1' in the template. Jmjimmy 01:20, February 8, 2010 (UTC)

!User:Jmjimmy, that isn't a bug. I designed it so that anyone who has played through the game can turn off spoiler by clicking on them. As time goes by - there will be more people that want their spoilers shown and it was designed to be hidden or enabled across all of them. The spoilers work as designed. -- tierrie talk contr 05:17, February 8, 2010 (UTC)

Fair enough. I'm not sure how to go about fixing the wikitable issues though... ie:

{{SpoilerDAO|
{| class="wikitable" 
|}
}}

will result in

---

This section contains spoilers for:
Dragon Age: Origins.

---

{

Jmjimmy 05:36, February 8, 2010 (UTC)

Ack! Gonna have to take a closer look at that wikitable issue. It was originally designed to hide words - not so much tables. But I'm going to see if I can make it work with tables anyway. -- tierrie talk contr 06:04, February 8, 2010 (UTC)

Looks like the problem occurs because wiki markup parses the pipe character as a delimiter - anything past it is the second argument of the SpoilerDAO and not put towards defining the table. Mediawiki documents the problem here. The solution is to use subtemplates to proxy the pipes. Templates like {{col-begin}}, {{col-end}} and {{!}}. An example follows this message. -- tierrie talk contr 06:32, February 8, 2010 (UTC)

---

This section contains spoilers for:
Dragon Age: Origins.

---

A	B
C	D

I am going to tweak those tables a little bit. But that's the gist of it. -- tierrie talk contr 06:32, February 8, 2010 (UTC)

Doh! I remember running into this issue before when I did the skill templates for incgamers's diablo 2 wiki... I'm going to double check those, I think I was able to come up with an in-template method of encapsulating them so that users could still work with tables normally. Jmjimmy 06:58, February 8, 2010 (UTC)

nvm - I took a look at it and remembered the only way I could figure out to resolve this in a user-friendly way was to re-design the template and hard-code the tables. There was a loop method that could have taken care of it far more elegantly but they didn't have the loop extension installed at the time. Jmjimmy 07:23, February 8, 2010 (UTC)

There's many ways to get around this - the easiest and most flexible way is to template the table constructors <code>{|</code>, <code>|</code>, <code>|-</code>, etc. Programatically, the best way to handle this is to create a table opener - and then use templated rows to fill in the content. -- tierrie talk contr 09:12, February 8, 2010 (UTC)

Assuming of course that you know the parameter is going to be a table or that a table is the desired as the end result. Otherwise it's up to the user to know which content needs to be escaped. Either way it's more trouble than it's worth. Jmjimmy 17:24, February 8, 2010 (UTC)

Spoilers Rollback

There has been two instances where people have rolled back edits because they did not know that they should click on the spoiler to reveal it. I propose two solutions - one is to have spoilers shown by default. The other is to have a more prominent message in the spoiler template saying that they should -->CLICK HERE<-- with bright neon signs, or something to that effect. -- tierrie talk contr 19:28, February 11, 2010 (UTC)

Ya I knew this be a problem, maybe it should be mentioned on site news so everyone can get it and get use to it, and soon it won't be such an issue especially if everyone active gives a tell off to the unregistered user, CLICK IT MORON :P. Or maybe a 'how to: use and add spoilers', as a guide for dummies linked under the banner (temporarily) so maybe people will read that before the undo's.  Hollowness | Talk | Contr 19:39, February 11, 2010 (UTC)

I think just the fact that the quote is the prominent text and not something like Spoiler Alert! CLICK HERE TO REVEAL is the problem. Once that is fixed people should get it. Jmjimmy 23:39, February 11, 2010 (UTC)

Hmm seeing yet more undoing of spoilers I might write a news item, and add my support to enlarging the "CLICK HERE" message. Loleil ^Talk 07:22, February 12, 2010 (UTC)

How about a Show Spoiler in the top right hand corner and hide spoiler when showed in the top right hand corner? Polexian ^{♦♦Talk♦♦ ♠♠Leave Message♠♠} 14:09, February 17, 2010 (UTC)

Ahh! I have to undo 1-3 a day (thats the ones I catch) because people don't get it, I want to cry.  Hollowness | Talk | Contr 00:35, February 18, 2010 (UTC)

Is there like a way, when people edit a disclaimer bright and shinny BEFORE YOU ADD HAVE YOU CLICKED THE SPOILER BANNER SPOILED TEXT IS HIDDEN THERE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! lol  Hollowness | Talk | Contr 00:38, February 18, 2010 (UTC)

Hehe tempting! I'm hoping once it's completely replaced, it will be a little smoother. Loleil ^Talk 04:28, February 18, 2010 (UTC)

Draft Policy Statement

"On the Dragon Age wiki spoilers are not used whenever plot information is revealed. This is because we expect our readers understand that, for example, a walkthrough section, will indeed contain a walkthrough of any given quest. Instead, we use spoilers where there is a risk of readers encountering information that they aren't expecting. For example, many character's backgrounds, rather than containing generic information, contains information that is not revealed well into the game."

After going through a few of our spoiler pages that what I'm feeling, but what what about others, more spoiler warnings, less spoiler warnings, or is that general ethos acceptable? Loleil ^Talk 04:28, February 18, 2010 (UTC)

Sorry, this statement is a little confusing wouldn't you mean something more along the lines of:

"When the Dragon Age wiki spoilers are not used and plot information is revealed, this is because of the understanding of certain terms. Terms of which we expect our readers understand that, for example, a walkthrough section, will indeed contain a walkthrough of any given quest. Instead, we use spoilers where there is a risk of readers encountering information that they aren't expecting. For example, many character's backgrounds, rather than containing generic information, contains information that is not revealed well into the game."

I am not the best at wording, but you get my drift, I just don't get the use of "On the Dragon Age wiki spoilers are not used used whenever plot information is revealed." Sounds odd to me and don't understand that opening line.  Hollowness | Talk | Contr 04:44, February 18, 2010 (UTC)

Hmm I suppose it's always difficult when you know what you mean to think about how to rephrase it. Does "The Dragon Age wiki does not always use spoiler warnings when plot information is revealed" work any better as a lead sentence? Loleil ^Talk 04:54, February 18, 2010 (UTC)

Oh, much! :D  Hollowness | Talk | Contr 04:56, February 18, 2010 (UTC)

Good stuff! Now we just need to make sure everyone's happy with the general message and it will be another policy decision made. Hurrah! Loleil ^Talk 05:20, February 18, 2010 (UTC)

I'm thinking Click here..... should be in a bright color that stands out. I know when I read spoilers I don't see the click here and if I was a noob to this I wouldn't read the banner. Polexian ^{♦♦Talk♦♦ ♠♠Leave Message♠♠} 13:02, February 19, 2010 (UTC)