On 2/5/08, Rich Holton richholton@gmail.com wrote:
All question of censorship aside, does it really make sense to have any image of historical persons that is not based on the actual likeness of that person on any page except [[depictions of...]] pages?
Maybe there are a few exceptions, where a particular depiction has become universally identified with the subject. But that's not the case with most historical figures, Jesus and Muhammad included.
Many, many depictions of Jesus look very European, which doesn't seem to be encyclopedic to me. But there's also a trend lately to have other depictions of Jesus that are targeted to a particular audience, without any concern for historical accuracy. This may be fine in liturgical settings, but not in an encyclopedia. But this is only more obviously wrong than a more "historically accurate" depiction. They're both still wrong.
It's worse than that. We still have no overarching policy that would give us even *slight* guidance on what kind of imagery we should include on wikipedia beyond the licensing issues and vague talk about quality. There is no equivalent of NPOV for pictures worth a damn.
Let's say we would like to have an image illustrating an article about Andy Warhols depictions of Marilyn Monroe, to pick a silly one with as few attached strings as possible. Which one of the ones he printed would be appropriate? Any of them? Should we have at least two, to give an idea of the variation between them. Should we depict fakes? Does it matter what the resolution of the images is? Assuming there would be no licensing issues...
Should we be guided by what Andy Warhol himself considered his best copy of the Marilyn Image? Or by the auction price for a particular copy? Or the preponderance of critical opinion on what the most Ur-Marilyn-Copy is?
Really it would help to approach images by starting with the cases that aren't so loaded with controversy. If you want to make progress unraveling difficult issues, start unraveling at a point where you can unravel at least a few loops.
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
On 05/02/2008, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro@gmail.com wrote:
Really it would help to approach images by starting with the cases that aren't so loaded with controversy. If you want to make progress unraveling difficult issues, start unraveling at a point where you can unravel at least a few loops.
Here's one we face regularly for... well, for anyone still alive whose prominence was in the 1960s or so.
Do we have a contemporary photograph of them, or one from their heyday? How do we characterise them - the grand (or decayed!) old figure, or the bright young thing?
Licensing issues, inevitably, point us towards a freely-created image, which almost always means a new creation... but is that the best way to present the article?
On Feb 4, 2008 7:47 PM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/5/08, Rich Holton richholton@gmail.com wrote:
All question of censorship aside, does it really make sense to have any image of historical persons that is not based on the actual likeness of that person on any page except [[depictions of...]] pages?
Maybe there are a few exceptions, where a particular depiction has become universally identified with the subject. But that's not the case with most historical figures, Jesus and Muhammad included.
Many, many depictions of Jesus look very European, which doesn't seem to be encyclopedic to me. But there's also a trend lately to have other depictions of Jesus that are targeted to a particular audience, without any concern for historical accuracy. This may be fine in liturgical settings, but not in an encyclopedia. But this is only more obviously wrong than a more "historically accurate" depiction. They're both still wrong.
It's worse than that. We still have no overarching policy that would give us even *slight* guidance on what kind of imagery we should include on wikipedia beyond the licensing issues and vague talk about quality. There is no equivalent of NPOV for pictures worth a damn.
Let's say we would like to have an image illustrating an article about Andy Warhols depictions of Marilyn Monroe, to pick a silly one with as few attached strings as possible. Which one of the ones he printed would be appropriate? Any of them? Should we have at least two, to give an idea of the variation between them. Should we depict fakes? Does it matter what the resolution of the images is? Assuming there would be no licensing issues...
Should we be guided by what Andy Warhol himself considered his best copy of the Marilyn Image? Or by the auction price for a particular copy? Or the preponderance of critical opinion on what the most Ur-Marilyn-Copy is?
Really it would help to approach images by starting with the cases that aren't so loaded with controversy. If you want to make progress unraveling difficult issues, start unraveling at a point where you can unravel at least a few loops.
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Well *explicit discussion* is not needed to determine consensus where a universal or near universal practice exists. Every article where an image is available to represent someone it ends up getting used, even if there's no particular reason to believe it's accurate. Pick any Old Testament figure, really ancient Greek philosopher, whatever, and there's a portrait if we can get our grubby little mitts on one.
That everyone seems to feel they're useful indicates to me they're useful, even if it's tough to explain exactly why.
WilyD
Perhaps because it has long been traditional to use such images in print encyclopedias, and , though I think we never actually have said so, we think of ourselves as a superset, including all their features, and going on from there.
On Feb 5, 2008 7:59 AM, Wily D wilydoppelganger@gmail.com wrote:
On Feb 4, 2008 7:47 PM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/5/08, Rich Holton richholton@gmail.com wrote:
All question of censorship aside, does it really make sense to have any image of historical persons that is not based on the actual likeness of that person on any page except [[depictions of...]] pages?
Maybe there are a few exceptions, where a particular depiction has become universally identified with the subject. But that's not the case with most historical figures, Jesus and Muhammad included.
Many, many depictions of Jesus look very European, which doesn't seem to be encyclopedic to me. But there's also a trend lately to have other depictions of Jesus that are targeted to a particular audience, without any concern for historical accuracy. This may be fine in liturgical settings, but not in an encyclopedia. But this is only more obviously wrong than a more "historically accurate" depiction. They're both still wrong.
It's worse than that. We still have no overarching policy that would give us even *slight* guidance on what kind of imagery we should include on wikipedia beyond the licensing issues and vague talk about quality. There is no equivalent of NPOV for pictures worth a damn.
Let's say we would like to have an image illustrating an article about Andy Warhols depictions of Marilyn Monroe, to pick a silly one with as few attached strings as possible. Which one of the ones he printed would be appropriate? Any of them? Should we have at least two, to give an idea of the variation between them. Should we depict fakes? Does it matter what the resolution of the images is? Assuming there would be no licensing issues...
Should we be guided by what Andy Warhol himself considered his best copy of the Marilyn Image? Or by the auction price for a particular copy? Or the preponderance of critical opinion on what the most Ur-Marilyn-Copy is?
Really it would help to approach images by starting with the cases that aren't so loaded with controversy. If you want to make progress unraveling difficult issues, start unraveling at a point where you can unravel at least a few loops.
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Well *explicit discussion* is not needed to determine consensus where a universal or near universal practice exists. Every article where an image is available to represent someone it ends up getting used, even if there's no particular reason to believe it's accurate. Pick any Old Testament figure, really ancient Greek philosopher, whatever, and there's a portrait if we can get our grubby little mitts on one.
That everyone seems to feel they're useful indicates to me they're useful, even if it's tough to explain exactly why.
WilyD
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Wily D wrote:
On Feb 4, 2008 7:47 PM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/5/08, Rich Holton richholton@gmail.com wrote:
All question of censorship aside, does it really make sense to have any image of historical persons that is not based on the actual likeness of that person on any page except [[depictions of...]] pages?
Maybe there are a few exceptions, where a particular depiction has become universally identified with the subject. But that's not the case with most historical figures, Jesus and Muhammad included.
Many, many depictions of Jesus look very European, which doesn't seem to be encyclopedic to me. But there's also a trend lately to have other depictions of Jesus that are targeted to a particular audience, without any concern for historical accuracy. This may be fine in liturgical settings, but not in an encyclopedia. But this is only more obviously wrong than a more "historically accurate" depiction. They're both still wrong.
It's worse than that. We still have no overarching policy that would give us even *slight* guidance on what kind of imagery we should include on wikipedia beyond the licensing issues and vague talk about quality. There is no equivalent of NPOV for pictures worth a damn.
Let's say we would like to have an image illustrating an article about Andy Warhols depictions of Marilyn Monroe, to pick a silly one with as few attached strings as possible. Which one of the ones he printed would be appropriate? Any of them? Should we have at least two, to give an idea of the variation between them. Should we depict fakes? Does it matter what the resolution of the images is? Assuming there would be no licensing issues...
Should we be guided by what Andy Warhol himself considered his best copy of the Marilyn Image? Or by the auction price for a particular copy? Or the preponderance of critical opinion on what the most Ur-Marilyn-Copy is?
Really it would help to approach images by starting with the cases that aren't so loaded with controversy. If you want to make progress unraveling difficult issues, start unraveling at a point where you can unravel at least a few loops.
Well *explicit discussion* is not needed to determine consensus where a universal or near universal practice exists. Every article where an image is available to represent someone it ends up getting used, even if there's no particular reason to believe it's accurate. Pick any Old Testament figure, really ancient Greek philosopher, whatever, and there's a portrait if we can get our grubby little mitts on one.
That everyone seems to feel they're useful indicates to me they're useful, even if it's tough to explain exactly why.
There is a fundamental fallacy in this argument. Just as consensus in a discussion represents only the consensus of the participants, so too a universal practice represents only those who actually follow that practice.
I'm sure that many of our editors are addicted to having pretty pictures to decorate an article at all costs. It seems to break up the monotony of straight text. Where do you get the idea that "everyone" finds them useful beyond mere decoration. When we show a bust of Socrates is it verifiable that Socrates.looked like this? Perhaps all these pictures should be properly referenced.
Ec
On Feb 5, 2008 2:56 PM, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Wily D wrote:
On Feb 4, 2008 7:47 PM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/5/08, Rich Holton richholton@gmail.com wrote:
All question of censorship aside, does it really make sense to have any image of historical persons that is not based on the actual likeness of that person on any page except [[depictions of...]] pages?
Maybe there are a few exceptions, where a particular depiction has become universally identified with the subject. But that's not the case with most historical figures, Jesus and Muhammad included.
Many, many depictions of Jesus look very European, which doesn't seem to be encyclopedic to me. But there's also a trend lately to have other depictions of Jesus that are targeted to a particular audience, without any concern for historical accuracy. This may be fine in liturgical settings, but not in an encyclopedia. But this is only more obviously wrong than a more "historically accurate" depiction. They're both still wrong.
It's worse than that. We still have no overarching policy that would give us even *slight* guidance on what kind of imagery we should include on wikipedia beyond the licensing issues and vague talk about quality. There is no equivalent of NPOV for pictures worth a damn.
Let's say we would like to have an image illustrating an article about Andy Warhols depictions of Marilyn Monroe, to pick a silly one with as few attached strings as possible. Which one of the ones he printed would be appropriate? Any of them? Should we have at least two, to give an idea of the variation between them. Should we depict fakes? Does it matter what the resolution of the images is? Assuming there would be no licensing issues...
Should we be guided by what Andy Warhol himself considered his best copy of the Marilyn Image? Or by the auction price for a particular copy? Or the preponderance of critical opinion on what the most Ur-Marilyn-Copy is?
Really it would help to approach images by starting with the cases that aren't so loaded with controversy. If you want to make progress unraveling difficult issues, start unraveling at a point where you can unravel at least a few loops.
Well *explicit discussion* is not needed to determine consensus where a universal or near universal practice exists. Every article where an image is available to represent someone it ends up getting used, even if there's no particular reason to believe it's accurate. Pick any Old Testament figure, really ancient Greek philosopher, whatever, and there's a portrait if we can get our grubby little mitts on one.
That everyone seems to feel they're useful indicates to me they're useful, even if it's tough to explain exactly why.
There is a fundamental fallacy in this argument. Just as consensus in a discussion represents only the consensus of the participants, so too a universal practice represents only those who actually follow that practice.
I'm sure that many of our editors are addicted to having pretty pictures to decorate an article at all costs. It seems to break up the monotony of straight text. Where do you get the idea that "everyone" finds them useful beyond mere decoration. When we show a bust of Socrates is it verifiable that Socrates.looked like this? Perhaps all these pictures should be properly referenced.
Ec
The images in the Muhammad article that are under dispute are actually fairly well referenced, with three of the four giving authors, two of the four naming the source work and all four giving approximate dates - beyond that, the common mantra of "verifiability, not truth" can then be chanted adequately loudly.
As for whether the argument is a fallacy, it's not. I do not mean to imply that such images are useful in the edification of *every* editor, just that out editing process has universally held that such images are of significant educational value such that their usage is universe. Reject rationalism and embrace empiricism, eh?
Cheers WilyD
Wily D wrote:
On Feb 5, 2008 2:56 PM, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Wily D wrote:
Well *explicit discussion* is not needed to determine consensus where a universal or near universal practice exists. Every article where an image is available to represent someone it ends up getting used, even if there's no particular reason to believe it's accurate. Pick any Old Testament figure, really ancient Greek philosopher, whatever, and there's a portrait if we can get our grubby little mitts on one.
That everyone seems to feel they're useful indicates to me they're useful, even if it's tough to explain exactly why.
There is a fundamental fallacy in this argument. Just as consensus in a discussion represents only the consensus of the participants, so too a universal practice represents only those who actually follow that practice.
I'm sure that many of our editors are addicted to having pretty pictures to decorate an article at all costs. It seems to break up the monotony of straight text. Where do you get the idea that "everyone" finds them useful beyond mere decoration. When we show a bust of Socrates is it verifiable that Socrates.looked like this? Perhaps all these pictures should be properly referenced.
The images in the Muhammad article that are under dispute are actually fairly well referenced, with three of the four giving authors, two of the four naming the source work and all four giving approximate dates
- beyond that, the common mantra of "verifiability, not truth" can
then be chanted adequately loudly.
As for whether the argument is a fallacy, it's not. I do not mean to imply that such images are useful in the edification of *every* editor, just that out editing process has universally held that such images are of significant educational value such that their usage is universe. Reject rationalism and embrace empiricism, eh?
The point that would need to be verified is not who created the picture or that these pictures exist, but that they truly represent what the subject looked like, and not merely fanciful caricatures.
"Universally" means "by everyone.".Whether there is "significant educational value" depends on what you are trying to teach. Your particular empirical observations do not imply universality even if all your observations reflect the same view. If only one person, whose views you have not observed, sees things differently your views cease to be universal. What is the educational value of a picture when you cannot establish that the picture is not a true one of what it purports to be?
Ec
On Feb 5, 2008 4:47 PM, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Wily D wrote:
On Feb 5, 2008 2:56 PM, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Wily D wrote:
Well *explicit discussion* is not needed to determine consensus where a universal or near universal practice exists. Every article where an image is available to represent someone it ends up getting used, even if there's no particular reason to believe it's accurate. Pick any Old Testament figure, really ancient Greek philosopher, whatever, and there's a portrait if we can get our grubby little mitts on one.
That everyone seems to feel they're useful indicates to me they're useful, even if it's tough to explain exactly why.
There is a fundamental fallacy in this argument. Just as consensus in a discussion represents only the consensus of the participants, so too a universal practice represents only those who actually follow that practice.
I'm sure that many of our editors are addicted to having pretty pictures to decorate an article at all costs. It seems to break up the monotony of straight text. Where do you get the idea that "everyone" finds them useful beyond mere decoration. When we show a bust of Socrates is it verifiable that Socrates.looked like this? Perhaps all these pictures should be properly referenced.
The images in the Muhammad article that are under dispute are actually fairly well referenced, with three of the four giving authors, two of the four naming the source work and all four giving approximate dates
- beyond that, the common mantra of "verifiability, not truth" can
then be chanted adequately loudly.
As for whether the argument is a fallacy, it's not. I do not mean to imply that such images are useful in the edification of *every* editor, just that out editing process has universally held that such images are of significant educational value such that their usage is universe. Reject rationalism and embrace empiricism, eh?
The point that would need to be verified is not who created the picture or that these pictures exist, but that they truly represent what the subject looked like, and not merely fanciful caricatures.
This criterion, of course, would necessitate the removal of every scrap of information present in Wikipedia, and I suspect that any suggestion we start implementing something like this would be strongly rejected by the community - but feel free to suggest it. Realistically, it'd mean trashing WP:V, which is pretty popular, but you never know ...
"Universally" means "by everyone.".Whether there is "significant educational value" depends on what you are trying to teach. Your particular empirical observations do not imply universality even if all your observations reflect the same view. If only one person, whose views you have not observed, sees things differently your views cease to be universal. What is the educational value of a picture when you cannot establish that the picture is not a true one of what it purports to be?
Ec
Since I can't establish that *anything* is truly what it purports to be, this is a sacrifice I'm willing to make. If we only educate people on what we know to be true, we can't tell them anything. But again, our relevant inclusion principle is now "verifiability, not truth", which is what we're doing now.
Cheers WilyD
On Feb 5, 2008 4:34 PM, Wily D wilydoppelganger@gmail.com wrote:
On Feb 5, 2008 4:47 PM, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Wily D wrote:
On Feb 5, 2008 2:56 PM, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
Wily D wrote:
Well *explicit discussion* is not needed to determine consensus
where
a universal or near universal practice exists. Every article where
an
image is available to represent someone it ends up getting used,
even
if there's no particular reason to believe it's accurate. Pick any Old Testament figure, really ancient Greek philosopher, whatever,
and
there's a portrait if we can get our grubby little mitts on one.
That everyone seems to feel they're useful indicates to me they're useful, even if it's tough to explain exactly why.
There is a fundamental fallacy in this argument. Just as consensus
in a
discussion represents only the consensus of the participants, so too
a
universal practice represents only those who actually follow that
practice.
I'm sure that many of our editors are addicted to having pretty
pictures
to decorate an article at all costs. It seems to break up the
monotony
of straight text. Where do you get the idea that "everyone" finds
them
useful beyond mere decoration. When we show a bust of Socrates is it verifiable that Socrates.looked like this? Perhaps all these
pictures
should be properly referenced.
The images in the Muhammad article that are under dispute are actually fairly well referenced, with three of the four giving authors, two of the four naming the source work and all four giving approximate dates
- beyond that, the common mantra of "verifiability, not truth" can
then be chanted adequately loudly.
As for whether the argument is a fallacy, it's not. I do not mean to imply that such images are useful in the edification of *every* editor, just that out editing process has universally held that such images are of significant educational value such that their usage is universe. Reject rationalism and embrace empiricism, eh?
The point that would need to be verified is not who created the picture or that these pictures exist, but that they truly represent what the subject looked like, and not merely fanciful caricatures.
This criterion, of course, would necessitate the removal of every scrap of information present in Wikipedia, and I suspect that any suggestion we start implementing something like this would be strongly rejected by the community - but feel free to suggest it. Realistically, it'd mean trashing WP:V, which is pretty popular, but you never know ...
"Universally" means "by everyone.".Whether there is "significant educational value" depends on what you are trying to teach. Your particular empirical observations do not imply universality even if all your observations reflect the same view. If only one person, whose views you have not observed, sees things differently your views cease to be universal. What is the educational value of a picture when you cannot establish that the picture is not a true one of what it purports to be?
Ec
Since I can't establish that *anything* is truly what it purports to be, this is a sacrifice I'm willing to make. If we only educate people on what we know to be true, we can't tell them anything. But again, our relevant inclusion principle is now "verifiability, not truth", which is what we're doing now.
Right, we accept verifiability, not truth. But we work pretty damn hard not to educate people with things that we know *not* to be true.
On 2/6/08, Rich Holton richholton@gmail.com wrote:
Right, we accept verifiability, not truth. But we work pretty damn hard not to educate people with things that we know *not* to be true.
Actually, we attempt to cover most significant errors made by humanity.
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]
On Feb 5, 2008 10:03 PM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/6/08, Rich Holton richholton@gmail.com wrote:
Right, we accept verifiability, not truth. But we work pretty damn hard
not
to educate people with things that we know *not* to be true.
Actually, we attempt to cover most significant errors made by humanity.
I was trying to be snappy and clever. Obviously I failed.
My point is that we don't intentionally include erroneous information. We do include information about errors. We do include controversial claims with references.
But we also include depictions of historical figures that we *know* are false, that we *know* cannot possibly be true. But we include them on the article about the person they erroneously depict, as though they accurately depict them. And at least some people find this "useful".
Rich Holton wrote:
On Feb 5, 2008 10:03 PM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro@gmail.com wrote:
My point is that we don't intentionally include erroneous information. We do include information about errors. We do include controversial claims with references.
But we also include depictions of historical figures that we *know* are false, that we *know* cannot possibly be true. But we include them on the article about the person they erroneously depict, as though they accurately depict them. And at least some people find this "useful".
We don't use them "as though they accurately depict them", though. The first image caption on [[Jesus]] explicitly points out that "though depictions of Jesus are culturally important, no undisputed record of Jesus' appearance exists." Though repeating that verbiage over and over would get tiresome, it might still be possible to improve the other captions if that's your issue, such as by making sure to use something phrases like "traditional depiction" and "Renaissance depiction" and so on.
This is hardly limited to religious figures in any case, but covers most famous historical figures prior to sitting portraits becoming commonplace. We have several depictions of [[Nebuchadrezzar II]], for example, only one of which is even possibly accurate, but we point this out as well. I don't see how the article would be improved by removing, say, the William Blake drawing.
-Mark
Rich Holton wrote:
On Feb 5, 2008 10:03 PM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen cimonavaro@gmail.com wrote:
On 2/6/08, Rich Holton richholton@gmail.com wrote
Right, we accept verifiability, not truth. But we work pretty damn hard not
to educate people with things that we know *not* to be true.
Actually, we attempt to cover most significant errors made by humanity.
I was trying to be snappy and clever. Obviously I failed.
My point is that we don't intentionally include erroneous information. We do include information about errors. We do include controversial claims with references.
But we also include depictions of historical figures that we *know* are false, that we *know* cannot possibly be true. But we include them on the article about the person they erroneously depict, as though they accurately depict them. And at least some people find this "useful".
If some people find them "useful" what is the nature of that usefulness? If we know that a depiction is erroneous, we need to express our doubts. Those doubts are as important to NPOV as the depiction itself.
Ec