I don't think our NPOV policy makes things unobjectionable.  I think what it does is provides us with a way to take objectionable or controversial things and frame them in a detached way, from which they can be understood or appreciated critically.

My point is that the issue is not the difference between POV and NPOV (as if some things are clearly one or the other); I think the real issue is the relationship between a thing and its frame, or context.  Many of us have struggled, with varying degrees of success, to learn how to use one set of words to provide this kind of context for another set of words.  But the question of drawings or photographs creates another dimension to the text/context distinction.

By the way, I am not sure I see much of a difference between a drawing and a photograph as such.  I think some people think photos have more potential to disturb because they are presumably photos of a real person (that is, a photo of a clitoris is the photo of a specific woman's clitoris; a drawing of a clitoris can be a drawing of no one's clitoris -- but I think this is a side issue).

On the one hand, we expect photos or drawings to illustrate an article.  In this sense, a photo can be a good or bad illustration, and we should be careful to select photos that illustrate something in need of illustration, and no more.  But what would be controversial would not be the photo itself but rather the thing the photo illustrates.  Photos illustrating mistral shows or the Holocaust will be disturbing because they are illustrating disturbing things.  The question of NPOV pertains to how the article itself presents these disturbing events or practices.

On the other hand, the relationship between text and context is not static or stable -- text and context often swap places easily.  In other words, it is not just the written article that "frames" the photo; the photo "frames" the article.  I think this is what lay behind some people's objection to the  presence of nail-polish in the photos.  The implication (not a necessary implication, but I think reasonable) is that the image conveyed information besides the form or location of the clitoris, that re-framed -- in a way, biased (or "POV'd") the article.  I think this is a reasonable concern.  People will not just interpret the photo based on what the article says, they will interpret the article based on the kind of photo.

I don't know if this is a very constructive comment.  I guess I am saying that
1) photos can be useful to illustrate
2) photos in and of themselves are neither offensive or inoffensive; the emotional or intellectual value of a photo has to do with its context
3) we need to accept that if people will have sensitivities to the topic of the article, they will be sensitive to anything that illustrates it -- I think this is unavoidable
4) it is still useful to remember the spirit of the NPOV policy, that we must be careful not only about what we write but how what we write occurs in a context, or calls for a context, or provides a context, that can be judgmental or exclude someone's views, or that can be non-judgmental and that is more inclusive of different views.  I think this principal can guide us both in our use of words and images.

Well, just some thoughts.  Steve
4)


At 12:54 PM 5/16/2003 -0700, you wrote:


--- "John R. Owens" <jowens.wiki@ghiapet.homeip.net>
wrote:
> On Fri, 16 May 2003, Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
>
> > Date: Fri, 16 May 2003 05:38:49 -0700 (PDT)
> > From: Daniel Ehrenberg <littledanehren@yahoo.com>
> > Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] JohnQ / MaryMary - the
> clitoris guy
> >
> > --- Ray Saintonge <saintonge@telus.net> wrote:
> > > Daniel Ehrenberg wrote:
> > >
> > > >You're missing MY point. From a relistic
> > > perspective,
> > > >sexually explicit images are in a different
> > > category
> > > >than articles describing christianity in
> Western
> > > >culture. I know it is POV, but I think it is
> > > >nessessary in a situation like this.
> > > >
> > > Each category has its own range for what is
> > > objectionable.  "Sexually
> > > explicit" runs from suggestive almost nudity to
> > > goatse.cx.  Others might
> > > find the extreme views of "creation science" and
> > > "holocaust denial" to
> > > be just as objectionable.
> > >
> > > Ec
> >
> > Creation science and holocaust denial are
> > objectionable, but they are presented as opinion,
> not
> > fact. That is the main difference. You cant make
> an
> > NPOV photograph.
> >
> > --LittleDan
>
> So, umm, just what opinions does a photograph have?
> As long as they aren't
> doctored or staged, photographs are about as NPOV as
> it gets around here.
> You _can_ make a POV photograph, but you have to
> try.
> The inclusion or not is where the POV usually starts
> to creep in. And it
> seems to be trying to do so now.
>
> --
> John R. Owens

Sorry, I misphrased myself. What I mean was that you
cant take a photo and make it unobjectionable.

--LittleDan

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