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We've previously come to the consensus that spoilers should not be included in question titles.

However, some community members on this site have been including spoiler warnings in the question title. For example, the title of this question originally read "Did this character do this in The Physics of the Dead? [Spoiler]".

Out of consistancy and readability, could we agree on not using spoiler warnings in question title? We're already assuming that questions about a book spoil a book. In addition, warnings like "[spoiler]" look really ugly.

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    "Did this character do this in The Physics of the Dead?" - This is pretty much the epitome of ugly titling even without any superflous spoiler tags in it.
    – Cahir Mawr Dyffryn æp Ceallach
    Mar 21, 2017 at 15:33
  • I'm closing this question as a duplicate because we've already come to the consensus that spoilers should not be contained in titles. There's nothing new to discuss here.
    – user111
    Mar 21, 2017 at 17:19
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    @Hamlet this is not the same issue, but is not apparent anymore because of the new title of the question linked to..
    – VicAche
    Mar 21, 2017 at 17:20
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    @VicAche oh, OK, I see what you mean. Sorry about that, this was my fault. I'll reopen the question now.
    – user111
    Mar 21, 2017 at 17:26
  • @Hamlet I was insisting because I wrote this meta post to open the discussion on formatting here. For a literature SE, we have terrible formatting habits!
    – VicAche
    Mar 21, 2017 at 17:32
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    @VicAche this was a good question and I'm glad you asked it. I closed it because I was dumb and had no idea what I was doing. Sorry about that, and thank you for starting this important discussion!
    – user111
    Mar 21, 2017 at 17:37

1 Answer 1

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(based on the linked meta discussion) If you see someone added [spoilers] to the title - edit it out. If someone wants to put a spoiler warning in the body, that's fine, but don't include stuff like that in the title - just make sure your title doesn't contain any actual spoilers.

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    But don't go overboard with “non-spoliy” titles. “Did this character do this” is not a useful title.
    – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
    Mar 21, 2017 at 11:35
  • @Gilles - yes; I'd recommend having the character's name but not the action.
    – Mithical Mod
    Mar 21, 2017 at 11:41
  • @Gilles agreed, the title should provide enough info to at least, find the question with no precise memory of its phrasing
    – VicAche
    Mar 21, 2017 at 12:27

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