On Wed, Aug 17, 2011 at 10:20 AM, Teofilo <teofilow...@gmail.com> wrote: > My attention being caught by the sitenotice to the image hiding > referendum, I came to read the 29 May 2011 board "Controversial > content" resolution [1]. And I was astonished. I have two main > criticisms. > > A) The principle of least astonishment was one compound in a set of > balanced principles, limited to a very specific scope: the management > of redirected titles [2]. It was not meant for contents other than > titles. I am afraid the WMF board is adulterating a good limited > principle into a broad obscurantist ideology. I am afraid some people > will read "content (...) should be presented to readers in such a way > as to respect their expectations" as meaning that they are entitled to > censor anything that does not fit their preconceived ideas. > > B) Is there a philosopher aboard the plane ? Did-it not occur to > anybody in the board that astonishment and knowledge are synonymous ? > If you are against astonishment, you are against knowledge. Learning > is about being astonished. When you are told again something you > already know, you are not learning. When you are told something > important you did not previously know, you are astonished. If you > believe that the Earth is the center of the world, and Galileo tells > you that it is not, you are astonished. Galileo raised a controversy > and his theory was a controversial content. In Plato's dialogues, the > master never stops astonishing his students [3]. > > [1] http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Controversial_content > [2] > http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Principle_of_least_astonishment&oldid=7719182 > [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_method >
The principle of least astonishment was not invented by Wikipedia for the purposes of redirects. Its a fairly well known design principle. It is not a principle of pedagogy, and I think you are misunderstanding the meaning if you believe it could have anything like the effects you describe. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
