One Piece Wiki:Guidebook/Spoiler Rules

What is a Spoiler?
A spoiler is any piece of information that reveals plot elements which some people may wish to remain unrevealed so that they may enjoy the source material to its fullest extent, without having any previous knowledge of the outcome. Some examples of spoilers would be the death of a major character or an unexpected plot twist.

Even though One Piece is known for its sharp plot-twists and unpredictable events, we will still record them here. If you don't want to be spoiled, you'd best not look at them.

Are they accepted by fans?
In general, yes. However there are many fans who hate to be spoiled and do not want to know the outcome of current manga events in One Piece. Many are still reading early chapters of the manga or watching early episodes of the anime. Often knowing what the current storyline holds puts off fans from watching the past storylines, or the anime altogether. Spoilers can anger many fans as they feel they have been robbed of some enjoyment in watching the past episodes.

Are there false Spoilers?
Yes there are.

While the majority of One Piece fans in the English Speaking community do not know how to speak Japanese (or for that matter read the kanji which is in the raw manga), there are several that do. It has been known for them to release fake Japanese text and/or translations into the fandom to confuse or mislead others. Many English speaking fans therefore take this as true spoilers without knowing they are being duped. Fake spoilers are sometimes released by Japanese fans, hoping to confuse or mislead others - which fans from other languages will sometimes innocently use as real spoilers.

Sometimes the spoilers take form of fanfiction materials or an attempt to make predictions that seem true but prove to otherwise be false. It is important to remember this when adding spoilers upon their first day release.

Often fake spoilers come in one of these forms:
 * Common fanfiction materials
 * Speculations
 * Predictions
 * False or misleading Translations.

Example of a fake Spoiler:
This is an example of a fake spoiler posted with Chapter 433 of the manga:

扉絵「うさぎ人間とエネル」

木材アダムの前に海軍以外集合、そして船の着工に取り掛かる 回想ガープ、用件はレヴエリーが開かれるのでその前にルフィを七武に勧誘 ルフィ断り、ガープ去り際に次会う時は捕縛するが今日は祖父としてきたと帰る コビーも同じく警告するがルフィ笑顔で「しょうがない」と答える 画面切替アラバスタ、コブラが通路を歩きながらイガラムとビビと会話（レヴエリーの為に出航） 白ヒゲとシャンクス対面、エニエスロビーの話題からルフィの話題になりエースの話題へ 白ヒゲ、エースは裏切り者の黒ヒゲを追っていると言う 海の上でエース居眠り中、目を覚ますと遠い所に黒ヒゲの旗の船発見 エース「見つけたぜ！」

In this spoiler Igaram, Cobra and Vivi were seen to be talking about Shanks and Whitebeard meeting each other. It also stated that Ace had found Blackbeard. It stated that Garp offers Luffy the Shichibukai position but Luffy refused, it spoke of Garp warning him he will arrest him next time.

This was later proven false. It was actually fanfiction material written by otaku (Japanese geeks/nerds) or attention-grabbers. However there were several things in this text that were true and made several translators believe this was a true spoiler. It should be noted that Luffy being offered the Shichibukai position was common in many many speculations, predictions, assumptions and fanfictions even before this fake spoiler was released.

Other examples of misleading information released in fake spoilers has included:
 * "Lucci killing Spandam"
 * "Aokiji turning out to be Lucci's brother"
 * "Buster Call possessing laser beams"
 * "Sengoku calling Blackbeard"
 * "Luffy punching Usopp in the sea train and leaving him in the middle of the ocean"

Fake Spoilers are dangerous
Fans can easily and innocently be duped by the fake spoilers. For the benefit of everyone rules are now enforced on Wikia to avoid such embarrassments. The aim of this site is to be a reliable source for all One Piece fans. For this site to be enjoyable for One Piece fans is advisable to reference any source material based on the chapters and SBS.

Posting fake information, insane or wild predictions, speculations, and assumption on a site is very dangerous and can hurt that sites reputation as well as your own.

For further reading, please see Mythbusters for related material.

Spoilers may be out before even the Japanese themselves get the chapter
While there are some spoilers on various forums that are confirmed and otherwise, these spoilers don't necessarily mean that the chapter itself is out even in Japan. SJ magazine comes out every Monday, however spoilers often have already been leaked onto the net several days beforehand.

How Spoilers Appear
Sometimes someone working on the SJ mag production line, either at the factory producing it or something else not too far down the line, will get an early look at a chapter that is not released and will be tempted to post such information on the Internet. They do this through posts which usually contain a snap shot an image or two which they took their phone cam or any similar device. These images get spread throughout the net and often land in spoiler threads. While these images can prove the validity of some spoilers, they do not mean that the chapter itself is out in Japan.

Consequences and Risks
Spoilers images in fact, while nice to look at, are a copyright violation and any employee caught distributing them without permission can be and will be fired by their higher ups. Furthermore, they can also face prosecution and arrest as this is considered a serious breakage of law. The Scanslation groups who release scans of manga before the release date on the following Monday, also violate copyright law.

Rules

 * Do not post fake information from fake spoilers.
 * When the spoiler is released, do not add the information until the first English scanlations are released, normally a day later.
 * Remember: pictures as well as text are both counted as spoilers.
 * If you read a 'spoiler' marked page and are 'spoiled' as a result, do not complain about it as you were given warnings that you yourself choose to ignore.
 * Do not jump the conclusion once the spoiler is out - many translations in the past have proven to have been mistranslated or incorrectly written by a translator. Usually, such mistranslations will be cleared up within a week of being released.
 * Talk pages will often contain spoilers, it is not required for them to be marked as spoilers as they are open discussions on current page related issues.

When to Post
Of course things such as a bounty or a character's meeting, although very important and likely to have a large impact, generally you will need to wait awhile, for it to become easily researched. This means raws for those that can read Japanese Kanji, and a scan for those who can't. Wait at least an hour after the raw appears. After that, any information in there that can be confirmed and is not speculation, may be added.