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 | This page in a nutshell: If you tell people not to do something, your advice may backfire and instead tempt them to do it. In fact, they might have not even thought of doing it until you told them not to do it. See also WP:NEEDTOKNOW for a more in-depth presentation of this maxim. |
As an old story goes:
The little boy's mother was going off to the market. She worried about her son, who was always up to some mischief. She sternly admonished him, "Be good. Don't get into trouble. Don't eat all the chocolate. Don't spill all the milk. Don't throw stones at the cow. Don't fall down the well." The boy had done all of these things on previous market days. Hoping to head off new trouble, she added, "And don't stuff beans up your nose!" This was a new idea for the boy, who promptly tried it out.
In our zeal to head off others' unwise actions, we may put forth ideas they have not entertained before. As the popular saying goes, "don't give 'em any ideas".
In other words, don't give potential vandals examples of how to cause disruption. This may will actually tempt them to do it.[Note 1]
Perhaps the boy's mother could have said the following instead:
Keep your nose clean!
Modern essay usage
Throughout the 19 years this essay has existed, it has adopted a different meaning to that suggested by the above text. There are many areas of the encyclopedia that rely on, or benefit from, some level of security through obscurity, such as WP:SPI. For this reason—citing this essay—specific cases and abuse mitigation are often left undiscussed on-wiki. An essay explaining this in more detail is Wikipedia:There's a reason you don't know.
See also
- Special:PrefixIndex/Wikipedia:Don't
- Wikipedia:Avoid instruction creep
- Wikipedia:Do not disrupt Wikipedia to illustrate a point
- Wikipedia:Don't delete the main page
- Wikipedia:Don't stuff beans up the developers' noses
- Wikipedia:No climbing the Reichstag dressed as Spider-Man
- A counterpoint to this essay
- Every time someone clicks this link, an innocent kitten, a person, a cow, a bat, a frog, a whale, a dolphin, an axolotl, and a tiger die. (not necessarily in that order)
Articles
Notes
- ^ The truth of this proposition is evidenced by the controversy of Monty Python's Life of Brian and the impact of this at the box-office. To quote Michael Palin: "There is not a great deal of religious satire in Brian, although there is some comment on organised religion. The religious critics in America told people not to go and see it, which was wonderful for the box office."[1]
References
- ^ Luck, Richard (26 September 2016). "The Making Of Monty Python's Life Of Brian". Sabotage Times. Archived from the original on 28 October 2011.