Spoilers Off
This is an incomplete list of series or bodies of work which are officially free to spoil. Enough time has gone by in enough markets that only one or two humans are left who haven't seen/read it. We feel for them, but not enough to make our wiki look like some sort of weird Swiss cheese.
See also It Was His Sled and Late Arrival Spoiler.
- If the copyright has expired, it's probably free to spoil. In the vast majority of countries, this roughly coincides with anything Older Than Radio.
- Anything from myth (e.g. Oedipus), religion (e.g. The Bible), or even legends (e.g. Robin Hood). If it's Older Than Dirt (or at least Older Than Feudalism), it's definitely OK. That said, occasionally spoilering Biblical events (Jesus dies but comes back to life) is often very funny. Just don't go overusing it.
- The cat is likewise out of the bag for all of William Shakespeare's plays, but not Agatha Christie's, and double not The Mousetrap.
- If you spoiler-tag a fact, something that happened in Real Life, you have our full and express permission to punch yourself in the face. Unless you do it to be funny, then the person who doesn't realize it's a joke and angrily deletes the tag has the face punching permission.
- Quotes from a work. Either it doesn't need spoilers, or it doesn't need to be quoted; use ellipses (...) if need be.
- Spoiling specific media adaptations is still frowned upon. (i.e. just because spoilers are off for The Taming of the Shrew doesn't mean you can spoil 10 Things I Hate About You)
Incidentally, if big blocks of whited-out text turning everything into Swiss cheese look needlessly hideous to you, you can go to your preferences and set it up so that spoilers are always visible. You could also check to see if the spoiler text really has anything to do with the trope. If it doesn't, delete the spoiler template and keep the text.