Wikipedia Reveals Secret of 'The Mousetrap' 244
Hugh Pickens writes "CIOL reports that Wikipedia has revealed the secret of Agatha Christie's famous murder mystery 'The Mousetrap' by identifying the killer in the world's longest running play, now at over 24,000 performances ever since its maiden performance in 1952, despite protests from the author's family and petitions from fans who think the revelation is a spoiler. Angry at the revelation, Matthew Prichard, Christie's grandson, who describes the decision of Wikipedia as 'unfortunate,' says he will raise the matter with the play's producer, Sir Stephen Waley-Cohen. 'My grandmother always got upset if the plots of her books or plays were revealed in reviews — and I don't think this is any different. It's a pity if a publication, if I can call it that, potentially spoils enjoyment for people who go to see the play.' Unrepentant, Wikipedia justifies the decision to reveal the ending of the play. 'Our purpose is to collect and report notable knowledge. It's exceedingly easy to avoid knowing the identity of the murderer: just don't read it.'"
Re:Quit yer damn whinning (Score:0, Informative)
Aerith dies!
Re:Boundless technology... (Score:5, Informative)
Not only is Wikipedia aware of the concept, but they have an article devoted to why they're no longer using them [wikipedia.org]
Because David Gerard Removed It (Score:5, Informative)
Why don't they just edit it with "spoiler alert"
Originally it had this classification but it was edited out by David Gerard [wikipedia.org]. And I believe has not been added back since. If you don't know who David Gerard is, he has been very active in Wikipedia since early 2004 [wikipedia.org] and blogs frequently about it [davidgerard.co.uk].
Re:Boundless technology... (Score:1, Informative)
They had spoiler tags. Then a bunch of powertripping admins rammed through a proposal to remove them and deleted all of them from the site.
Wikipedia has many secrets to reveal (Score:1, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeris_dies
Re:Simple (Score:4, Informative)
People should know by now that if you don't want to have the ending spoiled for you, don't read the plot section. It's not a review. It's an encyclopedic article.
Except that if you ever went to the Mousetrap, you would know that it's an incredibly well written, tight play. Without the spoiler, I would venture to guess that despite being given all the clues, around 80% of the audience would fall to one of the many misdirections and identify the wrong actor as the killer. Considering that there are multiple murders performed, meaning multiple times to revise you best guess, you would think that you could narrow things down more efficiently.
Agatha Christie herself would ask the audience to talk freely about the play but not reveal the killer, that future audiences could enjoy it equally as they did. While some tool on Wikipedia is thumping his chest about cataloguing information, it is in incredibly poor taste. A tradition has evolved around both not revealing the murderer and informing the audience of Agatha's wishes to keep the murderer secret. This tradition has stood the test of time for more than half a century, and humanity hasn't suffered. Knowing "who did it" in a "who done it" really does ruin the experience, just look at the namesake "The Mousetrap" movie. Despite being a better than average film, it did poorly in the box office in part to a movie critic revealing the killer.
Re:Spoiler Alert (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Quit yer damn whinning (Score:1, Informative)
The famous oral contract at the end of "The Mousetrap" encourages you to talk about the play, but asks that you don't reveal the killer. Assuming you have enough skill to talk about the play, you probably can avoid outing the killer.
Re:Because David Gerard Removed It (Score:3, Informative)
If one casually reads Wikipedia and isn't familiar with it, they might assume they're not going to give away the ending. I know I was a bit surprised the first time I suddenly ruined the ending of a movie I was reading about on Wikipedia that I had planned to watch before realizing what I was reading.
You're right that if there's a section titled "Ending" then it's clear you shouldn't read that if you don't want spoilers. However, in most cases there is not such a section. Plot summaries can be very short, and if it's not clear what you're reading you can find yourself getting all the big plot twists in less than a couple of sentences. You really have to be careful, or just avoid Wikipedia altogether if you haven't seen/read something, because they usually don't indicate spoilers. Many like to read about things on the internet before spending time watching or reading them, though, and Wikipedia is often a more useful source than IMDB or random sites across the internet. It really makes no sense not to include a spoilers warning. IMDB is very good about this these days (they weren't originally).
They need to be consistent, and it's common courtesy to avoid giving away the ending without warning. There's really no excuse not to. And honestly, I don't expect that if I open any other encyclopedia that I'll get spoilers for anything. That has never been how things worked in the past. I wouldn't expect to even see things that are general knowledge now like (spoiler alert) Vader being Luke's father (sorry if you didn't know). Does that really belong in an encyclopedia? A brief overview of the plot, sure, but not major twists and so on. I realize Wikipedia is more in-depth than other encyclopedias, especially on cultural topics like plays and movies, and I think that's great - but use a damn spoiler tag, because otherwise you're being a jerk to those who haven't seen whatever it is.
Re:Er, that isn't an article, genius (Score:1, Informative)
It's not an encyclopedia article, but it is an article.