Andreas Kolbe wrote:
Well, you need to be clear that you're using the word "neutral" here with a different meaning than the one ascribed to it in NPOV policy.
Neutrality is not abstractly defined: like notability or verifiability, it has a very specific meaning within Wikipedia policy. That meaning is irrevocably tied to reliable sources.
Neutrality consists in our reflecting fairly, proportionately, and without bias, how reliable sources treat a subject.
Again, reflecting views != adopting views as our own.
We're going around in circles, so I don't care to elaborate again.
Your assumption that reliably published sources do not publish the images you have in mind here because they do not wish to upset people is unexamined, and disregards other considerations – of aesthetics, didactics, psychology, professionalism, educational value, quality of execution, and others.
I referred to a scenario in which an illustration is omitted because of a belief that its inclusion would upset people, but I do *not* assume that this is the only possible rationale.
I also don't advocate that every relevant image be shoehorned into an article. (Many are of relatively low quality and/or redundant to others.) My point is merely that "it upsets people" isn't a valid reason for us to omit an image.
As our image availability differs from that of most publications (i.e. we can't simply duplicate the pictures that they run), we *always* must evaluate — using the most objective criteria possible — how well an image illustrates its subject. It's impossible to eliminate all subjectivity, but we do our best.
It also disregards the possibility that Wikipedians may wish to include images for other reasons than simply to educate the reader – because they like the images, find them attractive, wish to shock, and so forth.
No, I don't disregard that possibility. Such problems arise with text too.
Basically, you are positing that whatever you like, or the community likes, is neutral. :)
If you were familiar with my on-wiki rants, you wouldn't have written that.
In an earlier reply, I cited ultra-Orthodox Jewish newspapers and magazines that refuse to publish photographs of women. If this were a mainstream policy, would that make it "neutral"?
Please answer the above question.
You said in an earlier mail that in writing our texts, our job is to neutrally reflect the real-world balance, *including* any presumed biases. I agree with that.
Yes, our content reflects the biases' existence. It does *not* affirm their correctness.
David Levy