On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 2:19 AM, Andreas Kolbe
<jayen466@yahoo.com> wrote:
Oliver Keyes wrote:
> This is true, but doesn't help with many projects. Some projects don't have
> WP;V as a core principle - what do we do with them? "inappropriate" images
> on Commons would not be bound by such standards.
I see Commons as different in nature from Wikipedia. Pages like this one
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Jean_shorts
are in many ways an embarrassment for an educational project.
On the other hand, that page is pretty much the same as what you get when
you do a Google image search for jean shorts:
http://www.google.co.uk/images?q=%22jean+shorts%22&um=1&ie=UTF-8&source=og&sa=N&hl=en&tab=wi&biw=1333&bih=929
Commons is just what it is. But I would like to retain the idea that
Wikipedia is an educational resource. Wikipedia can link to Commons,
including its collection of pornographic images, in articles on these
topics.
> Frequently viewed articles do not tell readers what we're about, they tell
> us what readers are about. Do you think people go to the Creampie articles
> for an image of line drawings? :P. I'm not saying that soft or hard porn on
> Wikipedia is appropriate, simply that you can't judge *us* by what our *
> readers* look at.
What I was getting at is that the kind of material we host attracts both a
particular kind of readership and a particular type of new editor. The fact
that we have extensive coverage of Pokémon and professional wrestling for
example (have you ever done recent changes patrol? it's amazing how many
edits are about wrestling) attracts editors that like these topics and join
Wikipedia to contribute to them. This is what drives and shapes our community
demographics (including the gender gap).
Like attracts like.
---o0o---
Earlier today there were these comments from a female editor at WikiProject
Feminism:
"Disturbed and shocked by the presence of these images on Wikipedia. Nothing
surprises me on Wikipedia now. In when images of pedophilia?"
When I encouraged her to express her views on the articles' talk pages, she
replied:
"Thanks Jayen for your opinion but I already see the conflicts if I intervene.
I have already made a similar intervention in the French Wikipedia and 2 or 3
men have me made a fool. Nobody of the French administration Wikipedia came to
defend me. The men have the law of the number on Wikipedia: 13 % are women and
87 % are men. It is that the sad reality in Wikipedia."
I've invited her to join us.
Andreas
P.S. Sorry about the horrid line breaks in the previous post, at least as it
displays on the list archive page. It didn't look like this when I sent it
off.