User:SOTO/Forum Archive/The Panopticon/@comment-3969391-20170722133251/@comment-1432718-20170722202816

User:OttselSpy25 is right, I did explain this on your talk page back when Peter Capaldi was announced. But just for the sake of new users reading this thread, I will explain here.

There are two basic reasons for our very strict spoiler policy: To sum up, I think this issue arises from a misconception of what this wiki is. It is not a discussion site (there are tons of those online). It is not a DW news site. It is an attempt to catalog everything in the DWU that has already happened. That's why we wait for stories to be broadcast/published.
 * 1) We want all users to be able to access this site without fear of spoilers. Sure, you might think that information is available everywhere, but believe it or not, we did have one user (an admin) remain successfully unspoiled about Peter Capaldi becoming the Doctor. If we try to allow spoilers in just specific circumstances, how do we define these circumstances and how do we enforce the policy? It's just easier to have a zero-tolerance policy.
 * 2) It has happened in the past that incorrect information was released (character names, story titles) before the story was released, and we made pages reflecting that information. When the story finally aired, the information had to be corrected across a range of pages. It's easier to wait for the airing of an episode to create pages than to clean up incorrect information. See Forum:Why we sometimes protect article creation: the curious case of Dorium Maldavar for an example and explanation of how this has happened.