Incidentally, that little piece of original art is also the picture of the day on several Wikipedias' main pages; among them the Russian and Bulgarian Wikipedias.

The image itself has been nominated for deletion in Commons by User:AndreasPraefcke, as out of scope.

A.

--- On Mon, 16/5/11, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@yahoo.com wrote:

From: Andreas Kolbe jayen466@yahoo.com Subject: [Foundation-l] Commons as an art gallery? To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org, "Wikimedia Commons Discussion List" commons-l@lists.wikimedia.org, "Increasing female participation in Wikimedia projects" gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Monday, 16 May, 2011, 16:40 There is a long thread on the Commons and Gendergap lists about today's featured image on Commons:

http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/commons-l/2011-May/ http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/gendergap/2011-May/

It's an original piece of art by a Wikimedian, "in the style of" erotic manga:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:On_the_edge_-_free_world_version.jpg

The picture was removed from the main page by a WMF staff member, acting as an ordinary editor, and then restored a few hours later by a Commons admin.

Aspects of the image that have been discussed include the fact that

• it has no noteworthy artistic value

• it is used to showcase a Wikimedian's artwork on the

project main page

• it lacks educational value, being the work of a

non-notable Wikimedian

• it makes the Foundation look puerile

• it might turn off serious educators

• it might turn off older people

• it might turn off schools

• it might turn off women

• it might turn off institutions owning valuable content

from donating to the Foundation

• it is the victim of cultural fascism directed against

manga/anime

• it is the victim of prudery

• it is the victim of censorship

• not showing the image on the mian page would undermine

the Foundation's mission

etc. etc.

This is really a Foundation topic though. Are projects' main pages there to showcase Wikimedians' fine art? If yes, then why do we not have songs by unsigned garage bands "in the style of ..." as featured media of the day?

Should the Foundation establish guidelines on what type of content to feature on project main pages?

Crossposted to Foundation-l, Commons-l and Gendergap.

Andreas

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