If I say “The plot of that play stinks,” am I giving a spoiler alert?

Solution 1:

In this context, a spoiler alert on Fish's "Hunger Games" column would have been in the form of a warning message to readers that his column contains spoilers.

A spoiler could be loosely defined as something that gives away a key point in a plot. For example, revealing the ending of a story.

Therefore, a spoiler alert is the warning that something contains a spoiler. Not providing spoiler alerts is often frowned upon, because it can drastically ruin something for the readers. You can imagine, with a large audience... that's a lot of people that you're annoying.

To answer your question in the title; I would not consider "The plot of that play stinks" a spoiler, as you're not revealing any information that would spoil the journey for a viewer of the said play.

Solution 2:

You've defined "spoiler" quite well in your second guess:

“Revelation of the end result of the story to others”.

A spoiler alert, then, is an idiomatic expression that what follows contains a spoiler. It is often used in the context of amateur film reviews (I've seen the expression often on websites such as amazon.com or Netflix). The expression serves to tell the reader: "If you haven't watched the film yet, stop reading NOW!" in just two short words.

As for spoiler, I have to tell the story about what may have been the worst spoiler of all time! The year was 1980; I was in high school, and talking to a friend about going to the movies that night. The rest of the dialogue went like this (SPOILER ALERT for those who haven't seen Star Wars Episode V yet):

She: What movie are you gonna go see?
Me: The Empire Strikes Back
She: Oh, you'll love it! Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's father!

_{Special note (to Patty, in case she's reading this): Don't worry, I eventually forgave you. It took about three years, but this gradually turned into a funny memory that I remember fondly.}

Solution 3:

A spoiler reveals critical facts about a story, not mere opinion as to quality.

"The play stinks" is mere opinion, so it would not be a spoiler warranting a spoiler alert.

"That Darth Vader turns out to be Luke's father is a cheap melodramatic trick" contains critical facts as well as opinion, so would warrant a spoiler alert from a sensitive critic.

Solution 4:

To explain what is meant by the question "Haven’t you heard of a spoiler alert?":

When a person is observed committing a faux pas, a response to that observance is to ask the committer whether s/he is unaware of the social rule dictating against the faux pas.

In the OP's example, the faux pas is revealing key points of a movie plot to people who have not yet seen the movie, and the social rule is that of the "spoiler alert", i.e. giving advance warning before such revelation.

In giving such a response, the responder is assuming the rule to be commonly known and that the committer does in fact know the rule. Thus the responder's question is actually a rhetorical one.

The responder's true intention is to chastise the comitter. When asking the committer if s/he is aware of a social rule which s/he has broken while at the same time the responder knows that the committer is aware of the rule, the responder's intended meanings are as follow:

• The commiter was wrong to break a social rule of which s/he was aware
• If the committer was not aware of the social rule, then s/he lacks common sense and should work to remedy that