Misplaced Pages

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This page documents an English Misplaced Pages ]. Editors should generally follow it, though exceptions may apply. Substantive edits to this page should reflect consensus. When in doubt, discuss first on this guideline's talk page.

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The fundamental fallacy of instruction creep is assuming that everybody reads instructions.

Instruction creep occurs when a person or persons add to a list of instructions repeatedly, causing it to increase in size and complexity over time. Instruction creep is generally frowned upon, as it causes instructions to be unmanageable and daunting. In general, people will be less likely to read and follow long instructions. Although those who partake in instruction creep may be acting in good faith, they are in fact often being counterproductive. Also, some new rules brought about by instruction creep arise with the deliberate intent to control others via fiat without an adequate attempt for consensus or collaboration. This tends to antagonize others even when it appears to the instigator that he's acting with proper intent.

Instruction creep is common in complex organizations where rules and guidelines are created by changing groups of people over extended periods of time. Note that Misplaced Pages is not supposed to be bureaucratic.

Instruction creep on Misplaced Pages

In general, try to avoid instruction creep on Misplaced Pages, or what you think may be perceived as instruction creep by others. Procedures are popular to suggest but unpopular to follow, due to the effort to find, read, learn and actually follow the complex procedures. Therefore, it is more favorable to employ the KISS principle when writing instructions on Misplaced Pages. Note that our editors are volunteers, and are not obliged to follow procedures.

Page instructions may have to be pruned at times. Feel free to remove excessive requirements as you see fit. All new policies should be regarded as instruction creep until firmly proven otherwise.

See also

• Creeping featurism — when a computer program ends up doing more and more to the detriment of simplicity, compactness, or stability
• Functionality creep — when a physical document or procedure ends up serving unexpected or unplanned purposes.
• Red tape
• Bureaucracy
• Iron law of oligarchy - on inevitable instruction creep

Source

This page was inspired by the meta-wiki concept: m:instruction creep.