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Wikipedia Reveals Secret of 'The Mousetrap'
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.'"
Now the mystery is solved. It was Agatha Christie that accused Julian Assange of rape!
Why don't they just edit it with "spoiler alert"
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.
Unrepetant (sic), 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.'
Wikipedia then coughed and got into its Bentley and instructed the driver to take it to the nearest pub where it drank profusely. Then it went home and beat its wife.
Sound absurd? Because Wikipedia is such a diverse collection of individuals it's possible that all of the above is true.
If you're interested in who made that original statement quoted in the article and summary, it appears to have been a reader named CyclOpia according to The Signpost. And the full quote is cited as:
"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. Asking Wikipedia not to reveal the identity of the murderer is like asking a library to remove copies of The Mousetrap book from shelves because someone could just go and read the end."
Whether or not you agree with that analogy, it's difficult to find who wrote it and when officially. And even then you're dealing with a pseudonym. Does anyone know what current administrators think? If not, the best you can do is read the policy on spoilers. If you're quoting users, the Signpost offers a totally different view from "Wikipedia":
I would argue that, however trivial it may appear, the revelation of the ending breaches an oral contract between the actors and the audience. Such is the fame of the secrecy that an audience member cannot reasonably attend without knowing their role to play in guarding it, and thus an oral contract, implied in fact, has taken place. Given the importance of Wikipedia on the internet, I believe that they have a duty to protect this contract, as its breach is completely disrespectful of an old and well-kept tradition.
My work here is dung.
Gesh so now we can't even talk about stuff cause we "might spoil" it for another. Get over it. Grandma and you have made your money so hush.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
...and Wikipedia can't come up with 'spoiler tags'. We really haven't gotten anywhere.
Friend: "The NIC is misconfigured..." Me: "No prob, I'll just telnet in and fix it." *Silence*
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mousetrap#Identity_of_the_murderer
The play's twist is, of course, that Agatha Christie has been dead the whole time!
And clearly you are just such a moron.
Caveat Utilitor
Why don't they just edit it with "spoiler alert"
Originally it had this classification but it was edited out by David Gerard. 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 and blogs frequently about it.
My work here is dung.
Perfect case in point there, cheers for spoiling it for everyone else. Either that was some damn impressive meta-commentary about the incredible difficulty of avoiding spoilers, especially when someone takes a special joy in ruining a surprise, or....well we all know what the alternative is.
So sue me.
... goes as follows:
You turn the crank that turns the gears, it turns the lever that swings the boot, it kicks the bucket and drops the ball, it rolls down the stairs and down the slide, it hits the pole and pushes the hand and knocks the marble down the chute, into the bathtub and down the hole, onto the seesaw launching the man, THE TRAP IS SET HERE COMES THE NET!
What is the great mystery?
Why is it news that one particular play has a key fact about the plot published?
Maybe it was cruel of WP editors to remove the spoiler warning/spoiler box, and expand that into the article. But that's just the sort of stuff that happens on WP, you can't rely on having a warning.
If you are thinking of watching a play or reading a book, you should watch the play or read the book before you read a plot summary about it.
People research works of literature without reading them or watching the play, imagine that. 100 years from now, when the play is no longer running, the public and researchers will still want to know all about the plot of the story, even if they never actually can go to a play or read the book.
The difference as usual is in the details. The wikipedia entery should be expected to reveal all of the possible details. However, the wikipedia entry should also make it clear that it is doing so beforehand.
Bring back ROT13, problem solved.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aeris_dies
(The Fifth Element is Love, Snape kills Dumbledore, and Bruce Willis was dead the whole time.)
Addendum: He appears to have an account on Slashdot if he wishes to defend this edit.
The Mousetrap was story that introduced me to Agatha Christie...she really was an immensely talented writer and storyteller. My grandmother collected her books for years, and happened to come upon a hardback set that included every book she ever released. It's modeled after the older-style hardbacks, and is absolutely gorgeous.
Living With a Nerd
Waldo?
You can't handle the truth.
Snape kills Dumbledore.
Unrepetant, Wikipedia justifies the decision to reveal the ending of the play.
It's bad enough when a corporation tries to pretend it is one person with one consistent opinion, but can the Wikipedia even be said to have a single, consistent opinion? Yes, the edit wars usually end when one party gets tired and they find a way to convey both sides of the matter, but that's not what's going on here. The information is either revealed or its not. There's no compromise and compromise is an integral part of converging on a particular choice of words.
The Wikipedia article on Cristie herself includes a big spoiler as to the ultimate fate of one of her major characters. A long time ago I tried to give that spoiler protection, considering that someone looking at that article wouldn't necessarily think that it would contain plot spoilers for Christie's works. I was overruled by edit war (well, I didn't really fight that hard, so you can't really call it an edit war).
Ironically, now I tend to use Wikipedia to read up on current media, including spoilers. It's a way to prevent wasting my time and money on commercial entertainment while still trying to maintain some connection with current popular culture.
I defy anyone of sound mind to read the set up to this play and *not* guess the surprise ending.
I think the solution has been on Wikipedia for some time - it's presumably why the article is semi-protected from edits, and there's a lot of fierce talk on both sides on the discussion page.
What is somewhat interesting is that after 60 years, the performance rights of 'Mousetrap' have only just been made available in Australia. Sydney's Genesian Theatre will produce the Australian premiere of the play in 2011. The rights holders really have been very strict about keeping the secret for many years, so it's hardly surprising they're upset at finding out it's on Wikipedia.
But I guess Australians will no longer have to travel to London or Wikipedia to find out the ending...
It's sad that Wiki thinks it makes any difference to tell people the plot but it's not really that big a deal. In a month's time everyone will have forgotten anyway, and it only really affects you if you've been DYING to see that particular play.
I love The Mousetrap. I try to take all my friends to it at least once. It's in the tiniest little theatre, hidden among dozens of huge monstrosities. The first time I tried to get there on my own, I spent an hour walking around asking in shops where the place was, despite having been there before - I eventually found out it was OPPOSITE the shop where I'd asked a store-owner and he'd said he'd never heard of it and didn't know where the theatre was. Considering it's the only play in that theatre, and the only theatre it's been in for the last few decades, and it does several showings every day, that was pretty impressive. It's very "old-fashioned" because it is the world's longest running play, mostly in that same theatre for the majority of that time: St. Martin's Theatre. It's a simple, fun thing to watch. It's a good, old-fashioned play. Not a spectacular, not a circus, not some pantomime or musical made famous because some actor from TV is in it, just a good, old-fashioned play in a theatre.
The play actually includes a part at the end where the actors come together on stage, and ask you to "keep the secret of The Mousetrap in your hearts" now that you know it. In all the time I've spoken to people about it, nobody has ever told me the ending even when they knew I'd seen it myself.
This *will* ruin things for some people - they'll go on Wiki to look up the play before they go to see it and, bam, the whole plot of the play is ruined. For them. It's inevitable that such people will want to spoil it for others but you can't avoid that. More fool them.
And, although I always thought that the "murderer" was obvious from the outset, apparently that's not a majority view. I now use the play as a sort of test. I take friends to it, let them get to the interval and ask them if they know "whodunnit". Nobody that I've taken has yet managed to do that correctly - including scientists, a barrister, and research students. As far as I can tell, from all the friends I know that have seen the play, I'm the only one to have worked it out before the interval - and I didn't just guess.
The Mousetrap is great. Cheap, basic, entertainment if you're ever in London. Just be sure to ask for directions, don't be looking for HUGE signposts showing the way, and don't expect some modern special-effects extravaganza.
You mean there is someone in the world that does not know that THE BUTLER DID IT?!?!?!?
So, till now, nobody except those who did watch the play/read the book had a way to discover who was the killer? Really?
The spoiler template was deleted, despite the discussion seeming to indicate that most people wanted to keep it. Anyone who has used wikipedia for a while know its not a democracy.
Articles, templates, whatever are kept or deleted based more on the strength of the argument rather than witless bean-counting. So no, it isn't a democracy, and that is a good thing.
because the ending is probably utterly stupid. After reading many crime novels, I've come to the conclusion
that:
--writers first write the novel without knowing who is the criminal.
--then they take a dice and use it to decide who is the criminal.
--make up a convoluted explanation to justify their choice
--backtrack to add two or three clue sentences in the book so they can say:
"it wasn't completely random since it was foreshadowed".
--laugh at the readers who think: "oh what a smart writer"
I always thought the secret was, "she's a man."
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
Anything prefaced by "Wikipedia:" like that is an internal policy or guideline, not an encyclopedia article.
Snape kills Dumbledorf
Someone who hasn't seen it yet might find out who Luke's father is!
I've never seen the play nor plan to. So, I just read the Wikipedia article. The Wikipedia has a brief Synopsis of Act I & II and then a section titled 'Identity of the murderer'. My guess was correct after reading the breif synopsis. Really after the twist endings of The Usual Suspects, Palahnuik, and dare I say M. Night Shamwow, this is not a big shocker, and really it's very predicable.
*drops monocle into the tea* Good Lord! Get a hold of Sir Digby Chicken Caesar quickly, he will fight for all that is good and pure.
Carbon based humanoid in training.
Right. That's why the article on Christie herself contains spoilers connected with the ultimate fates of Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot.
I still haven't managed to twist my mind around the logic of not having/using a spoiler prevention mechanism in Wikipedia (e.g., the German edition) because such mechanisms don't exist in dead-tree encyclopedias.
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It was Sergeant Trotter.
There, that wasn't so hard, now was it?
wikipedia's articles also tend to get searched - not everyone just reads them top to bottom. If I would want to know, about a specific person in the book, I might just search on the page. If the character in question is the culprit, then the search might take me straight past the 'SPOILER ALERT' note without me seeing it.
What I would suggest in such cases, is to have one page: "The Mousetrap", and on that page, in a section "spoilers" (or whatever you might want to call it) link a second page "The Mousetrap (spoilers)". A tad more effort to edit the page to make sure the first one doesn't contain spoilers, but it DOES allow for people to search through the page as they see fit without accidentally hitting on any spoilers. And if someone WANTS the spoilers, just click on the link and all is revealed.
Seriously, only use a separation with "SPOILER ALERT" if you are absolutely sure, the page is read sequentially with no jumping around.
No, perfect case in point. If you go read something that is CLEARLY marked with *spoiler alert* and then go complain that it spoilt something.
Just like the GP said, if you don't want to know the plot ahead of time, don't read the plot section on Wikipedia! And don't read things marked as spoiler.
Isn't that what wikipedia is for?
This needs more cowbell!!!
And clearly you're just the type of moron who reads something marked *spoiler alert* and then acts surprised that it contains spoilers.
Sergeant Trotter did it.
By tradition, at the end of each performance, audiences are asked not to reveal the identity of the killer to anyone outside the theatre, to ensure that the end of the play is not spoiled for future audiences. The murderer's identity is revealed towards the end of the play, when Sergeant Trotter assembles everyone in the dining room with the plan to set a trap for one of the suspects. In a twist ending, it is revealed that the murderer is Sergeant Trotter, who is not a policeman at all but an insane killer seeking to avenge his brother's death;[9][10] that Miss Casewell is actually his sister who came looking for him; that Mollie Ralston taught the children as students when she was a teacher; and that Major Metcalf is, in fact, an undercover police detective, looking for the murderer.
Also, Bruce Willis is a ghost, and Kevin Spacey is Kaiser Soze.
Dumbledore shot first!
Many years ago, I was going to see the play "Wait Until Dark" (Marisa Tomei and Quentin Tarantino were in the play the time, neither of them very good, but that's besides the point).
I mentioned to my Mom that I was going and she said "Oh, is that the one where he uses the light in the refrigerator at the end?"
"Gee, thanks. I don't know. I've never seen it before."
I spent the play looking at that damn refrigerator waiting for the spoiler.
Anyway, someone going to see a murder mystery has no business researching it online except for maybe reading reviews of known publications if they must. If they look at the Wikipedia article or discussions of the work somewhere else, then it's their own fault for getting spoiled...
-S
--- What parts of "shall make no law", "shall not be infringed", and "shall not be violated" don't you understand?
I was going to, like, contribute some stuff to Wikipedia...but now I know what happens, I guess I'll do something else that evening.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
The online encyclopedia Wikileaks stands accused of revealing the ending of The Mousetrap , recklessly endangering the income of Agatha Christie's descendants.
"My grandmother always got upset if the plots of her books or plays were revealed in reviews," said Matthew Prichard, who personally put in the years of hard-working effort one would expect it to take to accumulate the stream of income from the play when it was given to him as a ninth birthday present, "and I don't think that a site whose purpose is supplying encyclopedic information just going and supplying encyclopedic information is any different as far as my money is concerned. They should go and get real jobs, like decent working people. But it's not a question of money, or anything like that."
The article on The Mousetrap reveals that Vader is Luke's father, Rosebud was Kane's sled, Kristin shot J.R. and Snape in turn was killed by Barry Trotter. And something about a war in Afghanistan and shooting journalists.
The encyclopedia does, however, include a comprehensive spoiler warning, noting that they use the forward motion of a car to push it down, helping the tyres grip the road better — thus slowing it down, rather than speeding it up. Barryboys across east London pointed out the unreliability of Wikileaks as a source and questioned the veracity of the references.
(on the right article this time)
http://rocknerd.co.uk
Our purpose is to collect and report notable knowledge
Because no "true encyclopedia" would have articles on things that aren't notable, it stands to reason that anything that Wikipedia defines as notable must be so, because Wikipedia is a true encyclopedia.
Wikipedia still hasn't revealed the mystery of the composer of Vampire Killer, Wicked Child, and other tunes from the original Castlevania game. So why should they say "Our purpose is to collect and report notable knowledge."
So what?
This is a typical Occidental biased article _and_ complaints. In classical Chinese police litterature, the suspect is revealed in the first pages, have they ever complained about that?
Gee.
Eco's essay is on Google Books (Google "Umberto Eco porn"; mercifully the book is so far the first hit). The essay's all there, except for the naughty bit at the end.
It is unreasonable to expect that any secret that is published will be kept a secret for any length of time. It is true that people had been remarkably good-natured about keeping the plot-twist of the Mousetrap to themselves. But had they gone the other way, Agatha Christie would have no grounds to complain. That is the nature of the beast: a secret that is told, is no longer a secret. I don't see why this would impact the arts. After all, people still read Shakespear even after knowing that Macbeth turns evil (yes - sue me), and read "The wizard of Oz" even after knowing that the Wizard is an old man from Omaha (again - sue me), and watch Friends reruns on TV even after knowing that Rachel and Ross get together in the end (once again - sue me). People still go to see the Mona Lisa, climb the Eiffel, visit the Sistine Chapel, even though they know full well what they will see. In most of the arts, its the journey that matters - not the punch line at the end.
I do appreciate that some stories are fully about the plot twist. To take an example from Christie's work - nobody can forget who the murderer is, once they know who killed Roger Ackroyd. But publishing a work of art does not give one a license to muzzle one's audience. So, while Agatha Christie (and her descendants) may politely request people to refrain from spoiling details, they should shut up when people excercise their freedom of expression.
There is no such thing as luck. Luck is nothing but an absence of bad luck.
Nope. "Spoiler alert" was a suggestion for a tag, not a warning for this thread. So you're a disingenuous moron, wjousts (1529427). Also commonly called an asshole.
How many times have you been in this situation: many of your co-workers and friends have gone to see a movie and everyone seems to be chattering about it. You find yourself left out of lunch discussion or not getting jokes because your missed it. The problem is, the movie just doesn't sound interesting to you, or you don't have time, or you're waiting for the DVD release. Now replace "movie" with "video game" or "book" or maybe even "technical paper outside your area of expertise."
Spoilers in Wikipedia allow me to be "in" on every piece of pop culture that I don't particularly care about without commitment of time and money. If I decide I want to see the whole picture, I'll check it out. Usually, though, all you need to know are the bullet points!
Wikipedia is so shitty.
Can I download all of Wikipedia, re-host it, and then run shitipedia.org and leave it completely open?
Christie wrote riddles, not stories.
One thing I learned from being an English literature major: if knowing the ending ruins the story, it's not a story. Stories are about how people change over time. Frequently, stories will let you know how they end right away, so that you go in wondering how the person at the beginning of the story becomes the person at the end. With a decent story, even if there is a "surprise" ending, when you reread the story, all sorts of details leap out at you that you didn't notice on the first reading, that set up for that ending.
With Christie, the characters are caricatures, and the whole thing is a riddle, which is completely uninteresting if you already know the answer to the riddle. The game is that Christie gives some strange clue early on, which you'll inevitably miss, and you get to feel how much smarter Christie is than you are, because the entire book is about distracting you from what the answer to the riddle is. In fact, since most of the writing is distraction, you end with the feeling that 198 out of 200 pages were irrelevant, and you wasted your time reading them. If somehow you actually figure out the riddle before the end, there's nothing to do but skip to the end and check your answer; there's no pleasure in reading the intervening material.
Why don't they just edit it with "spoiler alert"
Originally it had this classification but it was edited out by David Gerard. 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 and blogs frequently about it.
The referred "minor" edit was justified as: "Removing redundant per Wikipedia:Spoiler - using AWB". It was originally placed under the "Ending" section of the article and I must say I fully agree with its characterization as redundant.
Kernel Mustard, in the Library, with the Candlestick.
Surprised?
No brain, no pain.
Please, as if we should take this very seriously, almost as serious as the caramilk secret???
It is just a play or story, it does not give food to the starving, it does not educate the masses, it does not generate revenue for
a government or REAL company...it might generate revenue for those actors in that play, however, having seen the nutcracker, they seem to revolve around the fact that people want to go see them over and over again, not that the masses are usually too stupid to figure out a whodunnit..and have to go a second time to catch missed clues...
So getting back to my point, is it really worth even mentioning this on /., also what is a story about a play doing in here, aside from having a wiki link to it, does not seem to me important enough to even appear on this site!??
A number of years ago I decided to catch up on my Alfred Hitchcock movie viewing. I rented Rebecca, which I had never seen. The movie was preceded by several trailers from the video series. It included a short cut from Rebecca which showed a man saying "I killed her." Nooooo! They put a spoiler in the trailer preceding the movie I was about to watch. Man was I ticked off.
It is unwise to ascribe motive
I'm pissed off that the train I wanted to catch this morning was late. I shall be raising this matter with my housemate when he gets home from work later.
Well, at least this is one leak that Julian Assange won't be harangued for.
Huh, you know the really sad thing? I didn't even notice the heading there - when I was reading through everything was out in the open and the eyes just slid from the original post on down.
Of course now I feel like a complete dickhead, so *spoiler alert* sorry 'bout that.
I believe Penny Arcade has a pretty good stance on spoilers.
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2005/12/5/
Try actually thinking for yourself. It's quite refreshing.
I guess Wiki feels it is honest and fair to reveal the conclusions to novels, plays, movies, etc. My view is that there are legal rights, and then there are moral rights. I think it is morally long.
I never really got this "boho, it's ruined now!" issue people have. I can happily read the full description of a new movie before i go and see it and still enjoy it. But then i also find myself speculating about various "reveals" ahead of time in media i have yet to read up on, because it's become very "formula". And given the existence of tvtropes.org, i am clearly not alone (the "Chekhov's gun" being a particular repeat).
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
Wait, what?
An oral contract is not an implied contract. An oral contract is spoken, and verbally accepted. I have a hard time believing that everyone who attends verbally agrees to not disclosing the ending. And I have a hard time understanding how there is an implied contract by attendees that they won't disclose the ending.
BTW, where did you get this quoted text? I didn't see it in TFA or TFS.
Software sucks. Open Source sucks less.