On Wed, Jun 13, 2012 at 1:44 PM, Michael Peel <[email protected]> wrote: > My understanding of this line of argument was that images would be displayed > where you would expect them to be displayed (e.g. the article on penis or > vagina would naturally include a picture of a penis or vagina), but wouldn't > be immediately displayed where you wouldn't expect them (e.g. if you want to > find information on necklaces made of pearls). > > Whether that is called 'principle of least surprise' or 'principle of least > astonishment' or something else is semantics... > > Thanks, > Mike
That's exactly how I understand the idea as well. As for where it came from -- from my imperfect memory, the idea has been kicking around in the English Wikipedia style guide and in Commons for some years (I found it in a style guide history in 2004, also cf Nathan's research). In the context of this discussion, however, the "principle of least astonishment" had I believe been brought up early on; it was highlighted in the Harris report as a potentially useful concept for thinking about the whole range of issues around handling controversial content. This was actually a separate bullet point/idea from the recommendation to allow readers to hide images. They're not necessarily connected; overall I haven't heard a lot of complaints about trying to implement the principle of least astonishment, i.e. by improving search etc. The concept itself, as a usability term, has been around for a while; there's a (not very good) article, which was started in 2002: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principle_of_least_astonishment I don't know when it came into use in the world at large. -- phoebe _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
