The last few days we talked about appropriate nudity in medical images. I have an example of appropriate clothing now.
I think applying such rules as decency, respect, etc. are not totally sufficient.
I think that the main principle should to avoid erotic content in order to focus on the cognitive effort to understand the physiology. And in such a context an erotic content would not only be offensive, it would be a pollution for the cognitive intention.
I just worked on this document ( ~ 7 Mo download) :
http://arnaudherve.free.fr/Sugery_table_with_female_patient.pdf
It comes from a vendor of surgery tables. The document was originally in German and has been translated to French. Anyway you don't have to understand the language, because the medical words are almost the same, and the images are obvious anyway.
What I wanted to show is that the patient is clothed, although in a real life surgery situation, she would be naked.
The answer for that is not really in respect for the person, although it is present here. The main intention is semantic. It mean the sellers work seriously at making tables, they talk to buyers who work seriously using those tables, and the focus is on the tables and not the patient.
By the way you will notice here and there the arm of a nurse, without her face. The arm is naked and the shoulder clothed, which doesn't mean the nurse is decent, it means she is working. So her face would not only be a violation of anonymity, it would be a pollution to showing her arm manipulating the tools.
I think that is the spirit. For images of organs of course it will be more difficult, but still the focus must be on understanding the anatomy, or physiology, or pathology. Or in other words, discourage those who want to drool over female bodies, BUT encourage those who want to acquire knowledge.
I think the principle applies to women in sports too. Have a look at this :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadia_Com%C4%83neci
Here you can see, or at least I can see immediately, that the focus in on the sports feat and not on decency or desirability.
Don't know if that makes sense to you. So to sum it up it would not be sufficient to merely REMOVE the erotic content, it is necessary to IMPOSE the cognitive content. Then if you want to positively impose the cognitive content, the negative removal of erotic content comes very naturally.
Arnaud
On Wed, Sep 14, 2011 at 10:51 AM, Arnaud HERVE arnaudherve@x-mail.netwrote:
The last few days we talked about appropriate nudity in medical images. I have an example of appropriate clothing now.
I think applying such rules as decency, respect, etc. are not totally sufficient.
I think that the main principle should to avoid erotic content in order to focus on the cognitive effort to understand the physiology. And in such a context an erotic content would not only be offensive, it would be a pollution for the cognitive intention.
I just worked on this document ( ~ 7 Mo download) :
http://arnaudherve.free.fr/Sugery_table_with_female_patient.pdf
It comes from a vendor of surgery tables. The document was originally in German and has been translated to French. Anyway you don't have to understand the language, because the medical words are almost the same, and the images are obvious anyway.
What I wanted to show is that the patient is clothed, although in a real life surgery situation, she would be naked.
The answer for that is not really in respect for the person, although it is present here. The main intention is semantic. It mean the sellers work seriously at making tables, they talk to buyers who work seriously using those tables, and the focus is on the tables and not the patient.
By the way you will notice here and there the arm of a nurse, without her face. The arm is naked and the shoulder clothed, which doesn't mean the nurse is decent, it means she is working. So her face would not only be a violation of anonymity, it would be a pollution to showing her arm manipulating the tools.
I think that is the spirit. For images of organs of course it will be more difficult, but still the focus must be on understanding the anatomy, or physiology, or pathology. Or in other words, discourage those who want to drool over female bodies, BUT encourage those who want to acquire knowledge.
I think the principle applies to women in sports too. Have a look at this :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadia_Com%C4%83neci
Here you can see, or at least I can see immediately, that the focus in on the sports feat and not on decency or desirability.
Don't know if that makes sense to you. So to sum it up it would not be sufficient to merely REMOVE the erotic content, it is necessary to IMPOSE the cognitive content. Then if you want to positively impose the cognitive content, the negative removal of erotic content comes very naturally.
Arnaud
Arnaud, I agree with the point that you are making.
It is the same as when we expect article content to have a encyclopedic tone. We often need to rewrite text to make it less like an investigative report, a salacious tabloid story, or a company press release.
Images need to be used in a way that that best illustrates the overall content of the topic being discussed.
This can be a matter of presenting a neutral point of view, or maybe just good recognition of the way that that an image can be introduced into the article to supplement the text.
It is true when introducing all images into an article. But it seems particularly necessary to think of it when writing articles that feature images of women because of the way that women are sexualized in many of the images uploaded to Commons. Forcing them into articles that are not erotic adds a weird connotation to the article.
(The first example image would not load for me but your excellent description helped me understand the point you were making.)
Sydney Poore User:FloNight
On 14/09/2011 18:25, Sydney Poore wrote:
We often need to rewrite text to make it less like an investigative report, a salacious tabloid story, or a company press release.
One of the reasons I insist so much on positive rules is that I fear there might be a perverse use of negative rules, which would paradoxically bring sexuality back to the menu.
For example, it is alright to have rules against groping in the subway, but I think a woman who would walk in the subway with a large signpost saying "Don't grope me" would perhaps be ambiguous.
I think that on clothes articles there might easily be a lot of prudes saying "That's too short" or something like that, who even if they don't want to might bring unease.
I don't have very good examples in mind, but maybe user Valorum27 fits the description here :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Sleeveless_shirt#Is_this_necessary.3F
He is alone in this example but if there were more, it would bring back sexual focus.
A better example is this, which personally I find pathetic :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Skirt#Sexist
And it's the user who didn't want female content who started it, albeit with good intentions certainly.
I imagine that if on the contrary you'd let viewers look away without mentioning decency, it would be much better, and more proper to focus on the clothe.
Arnaud
I don't have very good examples in mind, but maybe user Valorum27 fits the description here :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Sleeveless_shirt#Is_this_necessary.3F
He is alone in this example but if there were more, it would bring back sexual focus.
A better example is this, which personally I find pathetic :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Skirt#Sexist
And it's the user who didn't want female content who started it, albeit with good intentions certainly.
I imagine that if on the contrary you'd let viewers look away without mentioning decency, it would be much better, and more proper to focus on the clothe.
On the other side, years ago, when I saw this discussion (at the top of the page), I blanked it right away because it didn't belong on the talk page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Miniskirt&oldid=115184039
Daniel Case
I will very rarely delete conversations that violate common talk page sense (ie, talk only about the article, and not the subject of the article, don't try to contact the subject of a BLP article, etc.). I then put a template or two on the talk page, like {{Not a forum}}, or {{Q&A}}. Really, the only reason for the rarity of this action is the fact that I don't see it very often.
From, Emily
On Thu, Sep 15, 2011 at 12:11 AM, Daniel and Elizabeth Case < dancase@frontiernet.net> wrote:
I don't have very good examples in mind, but maybe user Valorum27 fits the description here :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Sleeveless_shirt#Is_this_necessary.3F
He is alone in this example but if there were more, it would bring back sexual focus.
A better example is this, which personally I find pathetic :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Skirt#Sexist
And it's the user who didn't want female content who started it, albeit with good intentions certainly.
I imagine that if on the contrary you'd let viewers look away without mentioning decency, it would be much better, and more proper to focus on the clothe.
On the other side, years ago, when I saw this discussion (at the top of the page), I blanked it right away because it didn't belong on the talk page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Miniskirt&oldid=115184039
Daniel Case
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