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Wikipedia Reveals Secret of 'The Mousetrap'

Posted by timothy on from the take-that-wikileaks dept.

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.'"

14 of 244 comments (clear)

  1. Ha ha! by wjousts · · Score: 4, Funny

    Now the mystery is solved. It was Agatha Christie that accused Julian Assange of rape!

  2. Spoiler Alert by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Why don't they just edit it with "spoiler alert"

    1. Re:Spoiler Alert by Pinky's+Brain · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Wikipedia is a MMO, with deletions being the #1 game objective.

    2. Re:Spoiler Alert by Deag · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I agree, I do think that the spoiler issue in Wikipedia betrays the group think that goes on there sometimes placing ideology over pragmatism. It wouldn't hurt them to include spoiler warnings and it certainly lessens for me the utility of it. I simply do not read articles in Wikipedia on any works of fiction that I may want to read in the future for this reason. You can't even read the introduction.

  3. Simple by bjoast · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Simple by Anonymous Coward · · 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.

  4. On Anthropomorphizing a Diverse Website by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

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    My work here is dung.
  5. Quit yer damn whinning by Stumbles · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

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    My karma is not a Chameleon.
  6. Re:Boundless technology... by Tar-Alcarin · · 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

  7. Because David Gerard Removed It by eldavojohn · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

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    My work here is dung.
    1. Re:Because David Gerard Removed It by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Yep. You're talking about the second most corrupt asshole in the whole Wikipedia hierarchy, second only to Jimbo himself.

      Then again, "corrupt" and "wikipedia admin" ought to be a combined entry in the thesaurus anyways.

      Revert David Gerard, and you're going to have yourself an instant life ban. Revert one of the people he protects, likewise. It doesn't matter if you are right or wrong, have good reason, or even have the weight of "community consensus" behind you - he'll simply ban enough people, lie and claim "oh they were all sockpuppets", and there you go, poof, no more "consensus." He keeps a sitting list of people to accuse as sockpuppets that will get someone a "no questions asked" ban - look at the number of times his shitheaded tool followers accused people, with no evidence or reasons, of being "Enviroknot", or "Pigsonthewing", or any of a dozen other names.

      Take a good look at "Dreamguy", one of his followers with extreme ownership issues over anything "fantasy fiction." This asshat got into a tiff with someone and accused them of being "Enviroknot" a few years ago. Response from corrupt ass DG? "instant ban, no questions."

      He pioneered most of the tactics described in detail by former wikipedia admins, he was the one who set up most of the Wikipedia "organize in private" setups (like the Durova List) that makes people think "cabal"... because, yes, if you didn't know, corrupt assholes like him actually DO organize behind the scenes, hold secret trials, and determine who to harass and attack.

      He's one of the worst abusers of the "don't bite the newbies", and according to many users, deliberately teaches many of the current worst wikipedia admins - the ones who "patrol", or Troll, the "request for unblock" template and attack, insult, and harangue any user they can find so they can claim "yay I banned someone." You know, people who do stuff like this, who post worthless "replies", leave insults, and generally know that because they are admins or have admin backing, they don't have to care at all about the rules.

      David Gerard isn't just a symptom of what's wrong with wikipedia. He's a walking example of the disease.

    2. Re:Because David Gerard Removed It by moonbender · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Regardless of the person who removed the spoiler template, this seems to be a fairly straightforward edit. His edit comment referred to the guideline on spoilers: "Wikipedia has previously included such warnings in some articles on works of fiction. Since it is generally expected that the subjects of our articles will be covered in detail, such warnings are considered unnecessary. Therefore, Wikipedia no longer carries spoiler warnings, except for the content disclaimer and section headings (such as "Plot" or "Ending") which imply the presence of spoilers."

      This is just a guideline, so it's not like it's totally set in stone, and I have no idea if the guideline is representative of the general opinion; however it seems fairly reasonable to me: you really would expect an encyclopedia article to contain spoilers in the plot summary, particularly since pretty much anything can be considered a spoiler (personally, I'm very picky about it). That said, I think the article summary, that is the introductory paragraph before the table of contents, should be free of significant spoilers.

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      Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
    3. Re:Because David Gerard Removed It by JoshuaZ · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I'm someone who argued strongly against removing of spoiler warnings from Wikipedia and someone who has argued with David Gerard over lots of stuff on Wikipedia. I can say pretty easily that most of the above is utter nonsense. Of course, I'm someone who also seems to get on the list of corrupt Wikipedians pretty often. So take it as you will...

  8. The secret of "The Mousetrap" by Drakkenmensch · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... 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!