Talk:The Mousetrap

Edit request

{{editsemiprotected}}

Could this please be added to the Theatrical performances section:

The Genesian Theatre in Sydney, Australia recently announced a new production of The Mousetrap to be staged at their Kent St location from 1st September to 15th October 2011 to celebrate the 60th season of the West End run.

Uhm, could you elaborate why it is notable information? --Cyclopia^talk 12:56, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

this is the first production of the play to be staged in Australia, as the rights have never before been made available in Australia while the original West End run continues.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 125.255.2.30 (talk • contribs)

Ok, thanks. Can you give me a secondary source about that (say, a newspaper)? --Cyclopia^talk 15:37, 15 July 2010 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Dabomb87 (talk) 21:23, 18 July 2010 (UTC)

More and more often on our wiki, some entries remain the property of very few contributors while many many people in talk pages disagree about the way an entry is built. That's why I shall not dare to do the job myself even if --- me too ;-))) --- I feel fully in good faith (see far below) saying that imho this source is enough : http://www.genesiantheatre.com.au/index.php?mode=view&s=2011&i=3 --ONaNcle (talk) 18:05, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Mollie's Connection

I do not have permission to edit this article but there is an addition to be made. Under "Identity of the Murderer" is this list of involved persons:

"... it is revealed that the murderer is Sergeant Trotter, who is not a policeman at all; that Miss Casewell is actually his sister who came looking for him; and that Major Metcalf is, in fact, an undercover police detective, looking for the murderer."

It should also be included that Mollie Ralston had the children as students when she was a teacher.

Luci6424 (talk) 03:55, 21 July 2010 (UTC)

Missed this because it didn't have the correct formatting for an edit request, but it's now  Done--McGeddon (talk) 12:17, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from 92.1.144.241, 29 July 2010

The identity of the murderer in THE MOUSETRAP by Agatha Christie is kept a secret by many people, and indeed it is noted on this page that audiences that see the performance are pleaded to keep the Whodunnit? mystery under wraps. So why does Wikipedia reveal the result, directly below acknowledging this?! It should have a warning, or not be there at all, as you are not aware that the surprise ending is about to be spoiled until you read it. I'm appalled this has gone unnoticed. Please sort this out ASAP.

92.1.144.241 (talk) 15:39, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

 Not done: - I'm not sure how you can say this has "gone unnoticed" when there are at least a dozen separate threads on this talk page with titles like "Revealing the murderer in The Mousetrap" and "Terrible Decision To Name the Murderer", and discussing exactly this subject. As is stated in every single one of those threads, WP:SPOILER states that Wikipedia does not include spoiler warnings, nor delete significant material because it might spoil the plot. --McGeddon (talk) 15:44, 29 July 2010 (UTC)

Last will

Spoiling under the title Identity of the murderer is against Agatha Christie's last will 82.224.88.52 (talk) 10:22, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

If there is any sort of legal issue with this article (I'm not sure how a "last will" could have the power of injunction over future discussions of a work), I'd suggest contacting Christie's lawyers. I'm sure they'd already be aware of this article, though, if there were any serious legal issues in naming a fictional murderer. --McGeddon (talk) 12:15, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Too early archiving

The people removing ad nauseam the spoiler alerts year after year must be proud since hundreds of people are reading this entry each day that the theater has seen bookings decline. Michel Alençon aka 82.224.88.52 (talk) 11:36, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Please assume good faith of other editors. We're writing an encyclopaedia and making information available to anyone who wants to study or learn about Christie's work, we're not trying to shut down a production. --McGeddon (talk) 12:15, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

About this good faith problem someone can make mistakes while being in good faith ;-))) imho you are not making information available to anyone when you or your robot keep on hiding recent POVs in an unreferenced page such as Talk:The Mousetrap/Archive 1 --ONaNcle (talk) 17:43, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Any thread that hasn't had any activity in over a month gets automatically archived here. Archiving talk pages in some way or another is standard procedure, per WP:ARCHIVE. If you think this is a problem, feel free to edit or remove the bot template from the top of this talk page, but I can't see that we're losing any unfinished discussions - most traffic on this talk page is people being concerned about the ending being spoiled, and an editor pointing out WP:SPOILER. --McGeddon (talk) 17:51, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

It's not "unreferenced", it's linked right at the top of the page, where it says "Archives: 1" -- which, I presume, is how you found out about it?--SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:52, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

You could have presumed right but actually I had to manage through view history to discover at the end those badly-referenced-robotized-archives. --ONaNcle (talk) 20:00, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

SPLIT (another early arc.)

To throw in my two-penny worth, I would argue that, however trivial it may appear, the revelation of the ending breaches an oral contract between such audience member. 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 its place. Given the importance of Wikipedia on the internet, I believe that they have the duty to protect said contract, as its breach is completely disrespectful of an old and well-kept tradition. However, given that the tendency seems to be to side with complete encyclopedic knowledge, as a compromise, I would advocate the creation of a separate page with discussion of the twist. I believe it to be a solution which would not diminish the content of Wikipedia whilst protecting a tradition and a contract which many thousands have sought to protect.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.106.151.183 (talk • contribs) 12:58, 19 April 2010

Even if the German wikipedia tells us about the murderer, the Italian http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trappola_per_topi_(Christie) and (another latin one) the French don't ; I've no idea about how many edits have been thrown away from the talk page by this robot but the only solution seems to vote here on the British wiki about splitting or not this entry ; i.e. to tell or not the average reader in a separate entry about the killer's identity. --ONaNcle (talk) 19:23, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

The messages are all archived at Talk:The Mousetrap/Archive 1 - nothing has been "thrown away".

The English-language Wikipedia has already debated the issue of spoilers in detail, back in 2007, and ended up deciding to remove all the "spoiler warnings" that existed at the time, introducing the policy of WP:SPOILER: "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." - splitting some content onto a separate page would count as an inappropriate spoiler warning. (It also wouldn't be very useful to a reader who'd printed the article out, or was reading it in a published book.)

If you think it's worth reassessing that policy, or wish to discuss it, you should raise your concerns at Wikipedia talk:Spoiler. --McGeddon (talk) 19:44, 21 August 2010 (UTC)

Since the play has been published, and it's easy to go to the library and find the identity of the murderer without entering into any sort of "oral contract", I don't think this is a valid reason for considering withholding the information. --SarekOfVulcan (talk) 19:24, 25 August 2010 (UTC)

I feel that as a Wikipedian, one who documents and lauds wonderful culture and tradition, it's our duty to maintain the tradition. It's all splitting hairs, at the end of the day it should come down to a vote; a vote which fans would ultimately weigh in on and win. So, shall we be democratic? Or shall the vocal minority stfu and move on to other articles? :) BaSH PR0MPT (talk) 17:04, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

I laud wonderful culture and traditions as well, but I laud a general reference work like WP even more. Our duty is to report notable information, and if you don't want to know about the ending of the Mousetrap, then I wonder why you're reading the article on it. It's not "splitting hairs", it's part of our essential mission as an encyclopedia. --Cyclopia^talk 17:21, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

I believe Cyclopia was entirely correct here. If I would give any concession to the opposition, it could only be that we might have some one-line informational template or just an italicized statement to alert the reader that we do not withhold spoilers. We do have quite a few informational templates cluttering up our articles, after all. Even this is probably too much to concede, and I'm not advocating it at this time, but perhaps people could work out an acceptable wording for some limited number of conflict hotspots, perhaps focusing on edit-warring etc. rather than purely as a spoiler warning. (If adopted, the same wording should be sharable with Rorschach test, if found acceptable).

The section containing the spoiler is titled "Identity of the murderer". I can't think of something warning the reader more clearly of what he/she's going to find in that section. --Cyclopia^talk 23:54, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Spoiling on Facebook too

One can find here [1] one sentence from an external web site but pretending to be extracted from wikipedia. Whatever entry it comes from, it should imho be removed not to give one more clue about the murderer. --ONaNcle (talk) 09:22, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

It's not "pretending to be extracted", it's lifted from the article on The Real Inspector Hound. I'll take a look to make sure it's not carrying inappropriate spoilers for a separate work. --McGeddon (talk) 10:06, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

You've indeed done a very nice job there ; anyway, I wonder if it remains still spoiled since you have left this sentence the audience wonders where the real Inspector Hound is .../... The twist is similar to that of Agatha Christie's play The Mousetrap --ONaNcle (talk) 12:01, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

So it is spoiled. Why should we care? We are an encyclopedia. We report information. If you don't like spoilers, don't read encyclopedic articles about fiction works. --Cyclopia^talk 16:34, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

It's a bit much to ask people who don't like spoilers to avoid reading any articles about fiction, in case an article about Film A happens to give away the ending to Film B by way of analogy. We should "make sure that an encyclopedic purpose is being served" by any spoiler, per WP:SPOILER. It does seem that the Inspector Hound connection is worth mentioning, if Stoppard was being deliberately provocative about The Mousetrap - it shouldn't be too hard to phrase it in such a way that the reader will realise that the ending of The Mousetrap is about to be revealed (or at least implied) by the article. I'll look for sources and get back to it in the week. --McGeddon (talk) 17:49, 22 August 2010 (UTC)

It's not too much at all. Part of the job of an encyclopedia is to locate a work within the culture that created it. Identifying similarities in two works that may illuminate that is precisely what we should be doing and I would consider a comprehensive encyclopedia that did not do this to be defective. -- ۩ Mask 14:09, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

Hear, hear. --Cyclopia^talk 23:55, 29 August 2010 (UTC)

• I have never seen the play, I won't bother now. The secrecy concerning the ending was an eccentric and very harmless British institution, what a pity you had to spoil it - all for a little cheap publicity. I hope Wikipedia feels it was worth it - I suspect it wasn't.  Giacomo  22:22, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Why did you read the article if you didn't want to know the end? Especially the section titled "Identity of the Murder". JDDJS (talk) 22:40, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

...because every British newspaper I have read yesterday and today has directed me there, and I wanted to see if Wikipedia was being quite so cheap or had decided to do the decent thing and revert.  Giacomo  22:47, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

By the way, it wasn't revealed for publicity. Wikipedia doesn't need publicity. Editors in the past have decided it was relevant enough to reveal who the murder is. JDDJS (talk) 23:03, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

"it wasn't revealed for publicity" Really? That's not the way it currently looks from where I am sitting - I hope Wikipdia realises publicity comes in two forms; in my experience, PR was never one of the projects better points.  Giacomo  23:08, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Just read the archives talk pages. Editors didn't say "Oh, lets reveal the ending so that we'll get some publicity." they said that the end was important enough to reveal. I don't understand what is so hard about not reading an article! I have avoided reading articles on many books, movies and TV shows that I was planning on watching/reading to avoid having the end spoiled. Why can't other people just do that? JDDJS (talk) 23:18, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

The Decision to keep the ending in Article was made in 2007 And it took until 2010 for the Sunday Papers to pick it up. If they hadn't picked it up, Half of the comments here wouldn't be here.Floul1^{Talk To me} 05:13, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

The "anyone can go into a library and read the ending of a book" analogy is completely inaccurate; this is more like taping a sporting event, only to have some MORON tell you the result as you sit down to watch it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.233.238 (talk) 22:44, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Yes, and I agree with my anonymous friend above too.  Giacomo  22:48, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Actually it is more like taping a sporting event, but then deciding to read about the game in the newspaper first. You don't have to read this article. If you don't want to know the end then don't read it. JDDJS (talk) 22:50, 30 August 2010 (UTC)

Yep. It seems that the concept of "If I don't want information, I avoid to read it" is something incredibly hard to grasp for a lot of people. Well, I hope this article teaches them a lesson: Don't look on Wikipedia if you don't want spoilers, guys. --Cyclopia^talk 12:58, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I also lend my voice in support of not censoring relevant encyclopedic material. As per the well-established principle, Wikipedia is not censored. While a certain prudence may benefit particular articles dealing with sensitive real-world events, sensitivity to 'spoilers' in works of fiction is not the role of an encyclopedia. --Xaliqen (talk) 13:13, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Edit request (other editions)

{{editsemiprotected}} "The short story has still not been published within the United Kingdom but it has appeared in the United States in the 1950 collection Three Blind Mice and Other Stories."

The section on the publising history of the short story is incomplete: It is safe to assume that it has subsequently been published in other countries as well.

(eg: there is a greek translation from the late sixties or early seventies - "lychnari" editions, currently out of print, since the publishing house has closed down). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.66.231.188 (talk) 08:57, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

•  Not done You need proper references when making this request. Please read WP:SOURCE. -- Crazysane (^T/_C\^D) 17:13, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Edit request from Newgubea, 31 August 2010

{{editsemiprotected}}

Newgubea (talk) 17:04, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

•  Not done You haven't requested anything? -- Crazysane (^T/_C\^D) 17:13, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

The Independent

What this new paper article did was wrong. They took random posts from the talk page and wrote them as official statements. They claimed one user was "a spokesperson" and that an IP user was "an approved member of the community." That was wrong. These people are making stories out of nothing. JDDJS (talk) 19:02, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

That's a good point. You can send a comment to the editor, and they may find it helpful. Newspapers are still trying to figure out how to deal with the internet. -- Ssilvers (talk) 22:43, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for the good idea. I have just sent the editor an email. JDDJS (talk) 00:21, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Ending spoiler

• This spoiler was complained about in today's issue of the Daily Telegraph (a UK newspaper). I have put the spoiler in a {{navbox ... }} which hides it until the reader clicks on the word "show" at its right end. Anthony Appleyard (talk) 22:01, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

To assist non-tech-savvy readers, shouldn't we add an instruction to click on the word "show" at the right end of the navbar? -- Ssilvers (talk) 22:42, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

What on earth for? Wikipedia:Spoiler Skomorokh 22:48, 31 August 2010 (UTC)

I'm glad to see that WP:SPOILER has not been forgotten here, though the Daily Telegraph just printed that "There is no official Wikipedia policy on revealing the ending of films, plays and books with different methods being adopted by different editors."[2] With the sustained press coverage we are rapidly approaching the point where the Wikipedia article should report on itself. This will prove particularly... unusual... to deal with when the coverage is inaccurate. Wnt (talk) 11:43, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

I was thinking the same. I feel we could use the occasional IAR exception and report it correctly, by rectifying a bit of information. OR? Perhaps, but to propagate inaccurate information on ourselves that we know for certain being inaccurate is grotesque. --Cyclopia^talk 12:03, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

This would not be the first time that this kind of problem comes up. There are some fundamentalists, including some admins, who insist that we have an obligation to lie about Wikipedia when the press gets things wrong. Hans Adler 12:09, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Well, it's a perfectly logically tenable position: after all, if we hold the principle that we report what RS say, that's the exact outcome we should expect. That is why I explicitly invoked WP:IAR above. This seems to me a textbook example of an exceptional circumstance where we should break the rules for once, to provide a better service to our readers (i.e. accurate information). --Cyclopia^talk 12:24, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

Cyclopia's correct (on that point, at least). We can point out that a report on Wikipedia by a normally Reliable Source has got a Wikipedia policy wrong. I'm far from convinced that Wikipedia's citation of a Wikipedia Policy which contradicts an inaccurate "RS" report constitutes research, original or otherwise. From WP:NOR "The term 'original research' refers to material - such as facts, allegations, ideas, and stories - not already published by reliable sources." It would be perverse to argue that Wikipedia is not a primary source for a wikipedia policy, even if it it not in general a reliable source. And a primary source may be used on Wikipedia "to make straightforward, descriptive statements that any educated person, with access to the source but without specialist knowledge, will be able to verify are supported by the source." Quoting the relevant policy article would seem to fit. And even if it didn't, WP:IAR would be appropriate! - Paul (talk) 13:12, 1 September 2010 (UTC)

It would seem best to me, in order to avoid controversy and still provide the requested information, to create a "Killer in Agatha Christie's 'The Mousetrap'" article, move the entire plot spoiler there and then reference it in the introduction to the article. In this way, the final wishes of the author are upheld (and a fundamental part of the play's structure) and Wikipedia gets to post everything just as before.

Televised version?

The ending mentioned here didn't seem much of a surprise to me, because I'm near-certain that I've seen it before in some murder mystery that aired on PBS in the U.S. around 20-25 years ago. But though I see some mention of parodies and tributes, I don't see mention of a televised version. Anyone know if there was one? Wnt (talk) 12:05, 1 September 2010 (UTC)