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_asto… [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_method

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.