 | This is a humorousessay. It containshumorous advice or opinions of one or more Wikipedia contributors and isn't meant to be taken seriously. This is not an encyclopedia article or one ofWikipedia's policies or guidelines and may not representcommunity consensus. |
 | This page in a nutshell: If you tell people not to do something, your advice may backfire and instead tempt them todo it. In fact, they might have not even thought of doing it until you told them not to do it. See alsoWP: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".
For example, don't give potential vandals examples of how to cause disruption. Thismaywill tempt them to do it.[Note 1]
In a similar vein, there are many areas of the encyclopedia that rely on, or benefit from, some level ofsecurity through obscurity, such asWP:SPI. For this reason, specific cases and abuse mitigation are often left undiscussed on-wiki, and this essay is sometimes cited in such situations (often using the shortcutWP:BEANS) to drop the hint that further public explanation of a matter could be unwise. An essay explaining this in more detail isWikipedia:There's a reason you don't know.
