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I was just about to answer an old question with newly-released information, but I stopped: the answer came from an issue of a recent comic, and basically the whole answer would be spoilers. The question was of the "Has this ever happened" style, and answering in the affirmative at all would give away major plot points of an ongoing story...

What's the policy here? Should an entire answer be wrapped in spoiler tags? If the question is "Has X ever happened?" and it happened in this month's issue, even just saying "Yes, it happens in Comic-Name #12" would be a spoiler, before anyone even got to the spoiler text outlining exactly what happens in Issue 12.

I know from this Meta answer that timeframe shouldn't really be weighed in giving spoilers, since someone will always be new to the franchise. But it also seems wrong to read a comic on the day it comes out, and then jump on the site and shout "Yeah! That totally happens! It just happened in the issue you haven't had time to read yet!"

Is there a policy for this? Wrapping a whole answer in spoiler tags seems ugly, but so does giving away spoilers without wrapping them in spoiler tags...

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There are plenty of answers on this site that are mostly spoilers, but an answer that was entirely a spoiler would not be very useful.

For me, when I have those situations, I will try to summarize the answers with all identifying information removed as much as possible, and then expand on the details in the spoiler.

At the very least, you want to get the basic answer out in the open, so if the question is "Has XXX ever happened in Y universe?" you would format your answer something like:

Yes, it has, at least once:

Details here

That is enough to let people, especially the OP, at least know the answer to the question; if they want to know more details it's up to them to risk the spoilers. If it's a very recent event, as in your case, you may want to point that out:

Yes, it has happened recently:

In Issue #10 stuff happened

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  • Fair enough. I like that.
    – Nerrolken
    Commented Mar 6, 2015 at 1:25
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    It's important to have some context outside the spoiler block. Otherwise, you don't know what the spoiler spoils. Like 'in issue #10, [SPOILER BLOCK]'.
    – user1027
    Commented Mar 6, 2015 at 16:08
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You could also preface you're answer with a disclaimer, explaining why everything is wrapped in spoiler tags.

Answering your question would be a spoiler, so continue at your own risk.

 

Yes, it has happened, in issue #10 (details here).

On the other hand, the OP wants to know, so they want to be spoiled, whereas people not wanting to be spoiled have no business reading the question in the first place.

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I'd consider how big of a spoiler the answer would be. As you said, you could start off with where the answer is found, then wrap the answer in spoilers. If the spoiler is short, I see no problem putting it all in spoilers. If it's gonna be long, then maybe consider breaking it up into several spoiler chunks separated by nonspoiler context. Or if that's difficult, maybe work in some minor spoilers as context.

We don't really have a policy about this. Just try to be spoilery as little as possible, and if there's big readability problems, it will get edited or commented on. It's hard to give a hard and fast rule on this, so just stay on your toes.

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