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] https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Resolution:Controversial_content
On Tue, May 13, 2014 at 1:08 PM, Wil Sinclair wllm@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@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@gmail.com
wrote:
On 13 May 2014 05:04, Kevin Gorman kgorman@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.
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe