Ethical concerns

IMO, rewriting in own words is always best.

No, summaries shouldn't have spoilers.

Short of that, taking the first sentence or two from an official recap would still be "official." Assuming it actually summarizes the plot. In my experience, the first couple of sentences of a recap rarely do.

Without specific examples from older shows, it's hard to answer your concern better than that.

I'm not sure about your second point. Where on The Flash home page is it revealed who the actor is who played Zoom? I couldn't find anywhere else where it indicates earlier in the season who the actor playing Zoom is. If so, it would have to have been some kind of retroactive edit, because nobody knew for sure who Zoom is until fairly recently.

How long should a spoiler be considered a spoiler, tho...

Gadfly wrote:
IMO, rewriting in own words is always best.
No, summaries shouldn't have spoilers.
Short of that, taking the first sentence or two from an official recap would still be "official." Assuming it actually summarizes the plot. In my experience, the first couple of sentences of a recap rarely do.
Without specific examples from older shows, it's hard to answer your concern better than that.
I'm not sure about your second point. Where on The Flash home page is it revealed who the actor is who played Zoom?

I'm filling summaries for the Stargate: Atlantis now. And i think, that introductory paragraph of the full summary is pretty much works, as a brief summary for the episode. English is not my first language, so i doubt, that i'm able to rewrite summary grammatically :)

As for The Flash – no, of course there's nothing on the home page of the show, because Zoom is the guest character. But Reverse Flash is there, and it is also a spoiler for the good part of the first season. Zoom was just an example.
BTW, somebody already edited Zoom's page, so now the actor in question is not listed as Zoom anymore :)

But again, maybe i'm just overthinking it :)

Aidan wrote:
How long should a spoiler be considered a spoiler, tho...

Until you watched the episode of course :)

If the introductory paragraph summarizes the entire episode, then yes, I'd say it's acceptable. If it doesn't, it isn't. Basically, a summary has to be a summary to qualify as a summary. :)

Glancing over a few SG:Atlantis summaries, they don't appear to be the first sentence of a recap. So I don't know if you wrote them, or got them from somewhere else. I'd say the former.

Spoilers on characters is indeed an issue, as is updating them in general. For instance, if a character is only known by their last name for the first season, but their first name is given in the second season... adding the first name will change it for the first season as well. Unless you create two separate character pages, which is presumably undesired. Mitchell Ellison on Daredevil was only known as "Ellison" in the first season. But they gave him a first name in the second season since he plays a bigger role.

Also for instance, Neal Cassidy on Once Upon a Time is listed with a spoiler character name as well. But again, that is a season or two past being a spoiler.

For the characters, for later revealed names, why not just add them as an AKA?

gazza911 wrote:
For the characters, for later revealed names, why not just add them as an AKA?

Most likely because the most current name is the one that the characters are commonly known as. What may be a spoiler to people just coming to the show is old news to those who have been watching it since the beginning.

Which means the new people are going to change the name as they find out the newer more "accurate" name. And some old viewers will go back and change it to add the AKA, unaware that an AKA is already there. Because AKAs for characters aren't very visible...

I suppose there's also the... ethical? concern, which is how this thred started. For instance, Columbo's first name is given onscreen early in the series. But there's such a mystique around the character and his supposed lack of a first name, that it seems kind of a shame to ruin it for anyone who stumbles across the main Columbo page.

I don't know how much work it would be, but if you had an additional field for a spoiler name.

Then based on preferences hide or show it, or alternatively set the episode it's revealed and only show it on that (or the one after it) and future episodes.

gazza911 wrote:
I don't know how much work it would be, but if you had an additional field for a spoiler name.
Then based on preferences hide or show it, or alternatively set the episode it's revealed and only show it on that (or the one after it) and future episodes.

I like that idea! I was thinking about more complicated way, when "spoiler name" visibility is depends on how many episodes of the show you've watched. So, e.g. you wouldn't know, who Reverse Flash is, until you mark specific episode as "watched".