Hi Wil -
It is indeed based on the idea from software design. To quote from the WMF
board's iteration of it ([1]): "
- We support the principle of least astonishment: content on Wikimedia
projects should be presented to readers in such a way as to respect their
expectations of what any page or feature might contain."
Best,
Kevin Gorman
[1]
On Tue, May 13, 2014 at 1:08 PM, Wil Sinclair <wllm(a)wllm.com> wrote:
I've never heard "Principle of Least
Astonishment" used this way. I've
only heard it used in the context of software design- specifically
user experience- and never to describe content. WP seems to agree:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_least_astonishment
Certain terms seem to have special significance in the WP community;
is this one of those cases?
FWIW, I'm not taken aback by words like "fuck," but in my experience
it always undermines serious arguments that it is used in.
,Wil
On Tue, May 13, 2014 at 12:39 PM, Kevin Gorman <kgorman(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Pete: there's not really any point in making
this thread a laundry list
of
times that admins and crats on commons fucked up
vs times they didn't
fuck
up. There are plenty of historical decisions on
Commons that I agree
wholeheartedly with. There have even been cases where I advanced
arguments
in deletion nominations that I honestly
didn't expect to be accepted that
were, including one instance where someone who initially voted keep took
the time to go ahead and read the laws of the country the photograph was
taken in w/r/t identifiable people and changed his vote. Instances like
that are absolutely commendable, but they're also far from universal.
Admins and crats on commons have also historically made a large number
of
decisions that fly in the face of WMF board
resolutions, often
repeatedly.
Commons doesn't speak with a unified voice,
but people with advanced
userrights on Commons do speak with a louder voice than the rest of the
community, in that they have the ostensible authority to actually carry
out
their actions. A project where people with
advanced userrights fairly
regularly make decisions that fly in the face of WMF board resolutions
and
are not censured by their peers is a project with
problems.
David: I haven't seen anyone assert that the image in question isn't a
violation of the principle of least astonishment. I've seen several
people
suggest the image was acceptable for other
reasons. If you can
articulate
a reasonable (i.e., not full of snark and one
that indicates you've read
at
least most of the ongoing discussion) argument
that putting the image in
question on Commons frontpage (and the frontpage of numerous other
projects
in the process,) is not a violation of the
principle of least
astonishment,
I'd love to hear it. Especially if you craft
your argument to recognize
the fact that the image was both displayed on projects that didn't speak
any of the languages it was captioned in, and given that most Wikimedia
viewers can't actually play our video formats. I guess you could argue
that the resolution only says that the board "supports" the POLA rather
than requires it, but that's a rather weak argument for putting a grainy
black and white stack of dead corpses linking to a video many can't play
that's only captioned in a handful of langauges on the frontpage of a
project that serves projects in 287 different languages.
----
Kevin Gorman
On Tue, May 13, 2014 at 12:14 AM, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
> On 13 May 2014 05:04, Kevin Gorman <kgorman(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > No, Russavia: I'm not suggesting that Commons' policies should mirror
> those
> > of ENWP. I'm suggesting that Commons should have a process in place
that
> > ensures that it follows the clearly
established resolutions of the WMF
> > board, which I would remind you *do* trump local policy. This
particular
> > incident failed to do so, and it's
not the first time that such a
thing
has
occurred on Commons.
See, there you're asserting that this is a slam-dunk violation, and
it's really clear just from this thread that it really isn't. Your
personal feelings are not the determinant of Wikimedia comment, and
won't become so through repetition.
- d.
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