Daniel R. Tobias
You and Brandt both like to call Wikipedia an "attractive nuisance",
but that phrase has a precise legal meaning, ...
Correct. Just like "Troll" has a precise D&D meaning:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troll_(Dungeons_&_Dragons)
"The average troll stands nine feet high and weighs roughly 500 pounds, ..."
However, the word has broader, metaphorical, usages in English.
The phrase "attractive nuisance" is used colloquially to denote
a poorly-designed and dangerous creation, with the implication that
the creator or maintainer bears some moral responsibility for the
inevitable damage due to its existence.
http://intertwingly.net/blog/2004/10/20/Attractive-Nuisance/
"Being a text format, XML is an "attractive nuisance" in that it
encourages
people to create documents with technologies as simple text based templates"
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:lUN0vQqMt8IJ:www.smalltalksystems.com/…
"We will see that they are poorly supported in most Smalltalk implementations
and limit reusability. Hence, they are labeled an attractive nuisance. "
http://www.eric.ed.gov/sitemap/html_0900000b800a1338.html
"Qualitative Data as an Attractive Nuisance: The Problem of Analysis."
I do reference the legal doctrine, in order to convey to
people the legal concept of "duty of care", as the predominant Net
moral ethos sometimes seems to support handing a machine-gun to a little
child and saying everyone should be wearing bullet-proof vests anyway.
It would take a pretty adventurous judge to stretch
the doctrine that far.
I think of it as a doctrine which helps to establish a general
reasonableness of critic's views. Maybe I should refine it. But sadly,
there just don't seem to be good forums for that sort of discussion
anymore (or at least, I don't know of them).
--
Seth Finkelstein Consulting Programmer
http://sethf.com/
Infothought blog -
http://sethf.com/infothought/blog/
Interview:
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