Should commons allow images which are biased?
More concretely, in terms of photography, should photographs adhere to the
standards of ethics adopted by photojournalists?
++++
There are few suggestions more destructive than good ideas misapplied.
Let's look at a few featured pictures.
Blatantly racist and disrespectful of basic human dignity. Also historic
and very encyclopedic. It illustrates the en:wiki article 'Racism', also
the article on 'Disfranchisement after Reconstruction era (United States)'
and the individual biographies of two politicians.
Certainly not neutral: it accuses the president of France of gross
misconduct.
Again, not neutral. It's a war recruitment poster.
Try viewing this from the perspective of the indigenous peoples whose
ancestral lands were being sold.
Those aren't photographs, you might say? Apply the principle only to
photography? Okay, neutralize this:
And although this last one is not hosted on Commons and may never be (due to
German law), think of the historic value here.
(shakes head)
-Durova
On Wed, Apr 22, 2009 at 10:18 AM,
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Today's Topics:
1. Re: Board statement regarding biographies of living people
(Gregory Kohs)
2. Re: NPOV as common value? (was Re: Board statement regarding
biographies of living people) (David Gerard)
3. Re: Board statement regarding biographies of living people
(Thomas Dalton)
4. Re: NPOV as common value? (was Re: Board statement regarding
biographies of living people) (Milos Rancic)
5. Re: NPOV as common value? (was Re: Board statement regarding
biographies of living people) (David Gerard)
6. Re: NPOV as common value? (was Re: Board statement regarding
biographies of living people) (Milos Rancic)
7. Re: NPOV as common value? (was Re: Board statement regarding
biographies of living people) (Anthony)
8. Re: Anarchopedia changed its license (Jussi-Ville Heiskanen)
9. Re: NPOV as common value? (was Re: Board statement regarding
biographies of living people) (Anthony)
10. Re: NPOV as common value? (was Re: Board statement regarding
biographies of living people) (David Gerard)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2009 09:23:16 -0400
From: Gregory Kohs <thekohser(a)gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Board statement regarding biographies of
living people
To: foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Message-ID:
<14b1e7be0904220623k556519dai7e02fce4aaab41c1(a)mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
Says Michael Snow:
The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees urges the global Wikimedia
community to uphold and strengthen our commitment to high-quality,
accurate information
++++++
So, the "community" is urged to do this work at the request of the Board,
but the
Board itself is going to do virtually nothing (other than this collection
of
words
that urges the community to work harder) to strengthen the commitment to
high-quality, accurate information.
How many Board members were in attendance in Berlin, and what was the mean
travel distance of the Board attendees for this excursion?
--
Gregory Kohs
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2009 14:32:00 +0100
From: David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] NPOV as common value? (was Re: Board
statement regarding biographies of living people)
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
<foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Message-ID:
<fbad4e140904220632x64ebbcd0v952ebf9e12a0559e(a)mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
2009/4/22 Ting Chen <wing.philopp(a)gmx.de>de>:
NPOV is mainly a principle of Wikipedia, later
also used by Wikibooks
and Wikinews. There is at least one project (Wikiversity) which
explicitely allow participants not to follow NPOV, but the Disclosure of
Point of Views in Wikiversity follow in principle the ideal of NPOV: It
tells the reader and participants that the content has a point of view
and thus gives the reader and participants to be aware of this and
accordingly to adjust their judgement in reading and writing the content.
I think the point is to have whatever would be the locally relevant
version of neutrality. On Wikipedia it's NPOV. On Commons or
Wikisource, I expect it would be neutrality of subject matter. Etc.
The key point would be (something like) that Wikimedia projects are
not for pushing views.
- d.
------------------------------
Message: 3
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2009 14:34:26 +0100
From: Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Board statement regarding biographies of
living people
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
<foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Message-ID:
<a4359dff0904220634k4eced895s746959d26b1c1f7a(a)mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
2009/4/22 Gregory Kohs <thekohser(a)gmail.com>om>:
Says Michael Snow:
The Wikimedia Foundation Board of Trustees urges the global Wikimedia
community to uphold and strengthen our commitment to high-quality,
accurate information
++++++
So, the "community" is urged to do this work at the request of the Board,
but the
Board itself is going to do virtually nothing (other than this collection
of
words
that urges the community to work harder) to strengthen the commitment to
high-quality, accurate information.
Basically, yes. Content has always been the responsibility of the
community.
How many Board members were in attendance in
Berlin, and what was the
mean
travel distance of the Board attendees for this
excursion?
This was far from the only thing they did while in Berlin. Their
schedule was even more crowded than that of the Chapters'
representatives, and I found the chapters meeting the most exhausting
thing I've ever done.
------------------------------
Message: 4
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2009 17:04:25 +0200
From: Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] NPOV as common value? (was Re: Board
statement regarding biographies of living people)
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
<foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Message-ID:
<846221520904220804q1efb6fadl3cb5fefcfb4e75ba(a)mail.gmail.com>
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On Wed, Apr 22, 2009 at 3:32 PM, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:
I think the point is to have whatever would be
the locally relevant
version of neutrality. On Wikipedia it's NPOV. On Commons or
Wikisource, I expect it would be neutrality of subject matter. Etc.
The key point would be (something like) that Wikimedia projects are
not for pushing views.
NPOV transformation to general neutrality will work in the most of the
cases. A clear example for such transformation is Wikinews. Even
called as "NPOV", Wikinews neutrality is a different kind of approach
because it is a journalistic one.
*But*, even neutrality is not always possible. Wikiversity is the case
because, for example, you are not able to teach/learn about
impressionist critics of art by applying any kind of neutrality. While
this is an extreme example, a lot of scientific fields are more or
less there.
And if you want to force any kind of neutrality there, you would get
the same kind of scientific production which existed in East European
countries during 50s and 60s: A (very good) book about ancient Greek
literature starts with 20-30 pages of Preface in which author explains
relations between ancient Greek literature and Marxism. But, there
were a lot of not so good books which had a lot of grotesque
connections between Marxism and its content not just inside of their
prefaces.
There should be a way how to protect projects' integrity, but it is
not insisting on NPOV or neutrality if it is not possible.
------------------------------
Message: 5
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2009 16:20:44 +0100
From: David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] NPOV as common value? (was Re: Board
statement regarding biographies of living people)
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
<foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Message-ID:
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2009/4/22 Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com>om>:
NPOV transformation to general neutrality will
work in the most of the
cases. A clear example for such transformation is Wikinews. Even
called as "NPOV", Wikinews neutrality is a different kind of approach
because it is a journalistic one.
And even then, some of the most interesting original content is
interviews, which are all about the subjective POV of the interviewee.
And if you want to force any kind of neutrality
there, you would get
the same kind of scientific production which existed in East European
countries during 50s and 60s: A (very good) book about ancient Greek
literature starts with 20-30 pages of Preface in which author explains
relations between ancient Greek literature and Marxism. But, there
were a lot of not so good books which had a lot of grotesque
connections between Marxism and its content not just inside of their
prefaces.
I'm not clear on the connection between neutrality and Marxism ...
could you explain the logical steps between the two clauses of your
first sentence?
- d.
------------------------------
Message: 6
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2009 18:37:04 +0200
From: Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] NPOV as common value? (was Re: Board
statement regarding biographies of living people)
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
<foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
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On Wed, Apr 22, 2009 at 5:20 PM, David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:
And if
you want to force any kind of neutrality there, you would get
the same kind of scientific production which existed in East European
countries during 50s and 60s: A (very good) book about ancient Greek
literature starts with 20-30 pages of Preface in which author explains
relations between ancient Greek literature and Marxism. But, there
were a lot of not so good books which had a lot of grotesque
connections between Marxism and its content not just inside of their
prefaces.>
I'm not clear on the connection between neutrality and Marxism ...
could you explain the logical steps between the two clauses of your
first sentence?
I wanted to say that if neutrality is forced in a field which is not
possible to present neutrally, you'll get bizarre explanations why
some course or book is neutral. (As young revolutionary authorities
demanded connection between any field of knowledge and Marxism.)
Even further... Book in elementary algebra may be written well
according to the NPOV (but, not by following neutrality!) because NPOV
has clause which is related to the "common knowledge". But, if you try
to make a book with a specific approach to a number of micro and macro
dimensions in the Universe, by using NPOV or neutrality, you would get
a book which is not useful:
If A, B, C and D are some logical structures, statement "A x B = C" is
not a neutral statement. If there is some other approach which has
statement that "A x B = D", the author of the book will have to
mention and explain that as well. And this is a kind of a recursive
process.
We may rationally say that we won't demand from contributors to do
that. But, then, the approach is not according to NPOV or neutrality.
There are other important principles, too, like verifiability and NOR.
Both of them may be applied fully to Wikibooks if we say that we
really don't want OR in books. At Wikiversity, NOR may be applied for
sources. It is not reasonable to apply those principles for didactic
methods because didactics of teaching and learning on Internet is not
well developed. And it is not possible to implement those principles
for the process of teaching and learning: course in any applied
science must have OR during the process (and OR is not verifiable).
------------------------------
Message: 7
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2009 12:46:13 -0400
From: Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org>
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] NPOV as common value? (was Re: Board
statement regarding biographies of living people)
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
<foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Message-ID:
<71cd4dd90904220946n7d544ee9ld3417e0281c15a15(a)mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
On Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 11:21 PM, Brianna Laugher <
brianna.laugher(a)gmail.com
wrote:
2009/4/21 Michael Snow
<wikipedia(a)verizon.net>et>:
The Wikimedia Foundation takes this opportunity
to reiterate some core
principles related to our shared vision, mission, and values. One of
these values which is common to all our projects is a commitment to
maintaining a neutral point of view.
I find it a bit strange to talk of Wikimedia Commons as having a NPOV
policy.
Should commons allow images which are biased?
More concretely, in terms of photography, should photographs adhere to the
standards of ethics adopted by photojournalists?
------------------------------
Message: 8
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2009 19:57:10 +0300
From: Jussi-Ville Heiskanen <cimonavaro(a)gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Anarchopedia changed its license
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
<foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Message-ID: <49EF4C66.1060806(a)gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed
Crazy Lover wrote:
Just by the way, completely inconsequentially to anarchopedia;
the foundational proponent of Agorism was a genuinely awesome
dude, and whoever got to know him in real life, was blessed.
I somehow think Konkin would have grokked wikipedia, if he'd
lived to see it flourish.
SEK3 was the kind of guy wikipedia articles talk pages could
sorely need more of. Defending courteus disagreement in
discourse, even when odious in the subject matter to many.
Yours,
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
------------------------------
Message: 9
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2009 12:57:53 -0400
From: Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org>
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] NPOV as common value? (was Re: Board
statement regarding biographies of living people)
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
<foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Message-ID:
<71cd4dd90904220957k5e6a5b5vc2bb12df8ce04f5b(a)mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
On Wed, Apr 22, 2009 at 12:46 PM, Anthony <wikimail(a)inbox.org> wrote:
On Tue, Apr 21, 2009 at 11:21 PM, Brianna Laugher
<
brianna.laugher(a)gmail.com> wrote:
2009/4/21 Michael Snow
<wikipedia(a)verizon.net>et>:
The Wikimedia Foundation takes this opportunity
to reiterate some core
principles related to our shared vision, mission, and values. One of
these values which is common to all our projects is a commitment to
maintaining a neutral point of view.
I find it a bit strange to talk of Wikimedia Commons as having a NPOV
policy.
Should commons allow images which are biased?
More concretely, in terms of photography, should photographs adhere to
the
standards of ethics adopted by photojournalists?
Here's the NPPA Code of ethics:
1. Be accurate and comprehensive in the representation of subjects.
2. Resist being manipulated by staged photo opportunities.
3. Be complete and provide context when photographing or recording
subjects. Avoid stereotyping individuals and groups. Recognize and work
to
avoid presenting one's own biases in the work.
4. Treat all subjects with respect and dignity. Give special
consideration to vulnerable subjects and compassion to victims of crime
or
tragedy. Intrude on private moments of grief only when the public has an
overriding and justifiable need to see.
5. While photographing subjects do not intentionally contribute to,
alter, or seek to alter or influence events.
6. Editing should maintain the integrity of the photographic images'
content and context. Do not manipulate images or add or alter sound in
any
way that can mislead viewers or misrepresent subjects.
7. Do not pay sources or subjects or reward them materially for
information or participation.
8. Do not accept gifts, favors, or compensation from those who might seek
to influence coverage.
9. Do not intentionally sabotage the efforts of other journalists.
1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, and 8 all deal with neutrality. Should they apply to
photos made for commons?
------------------------------
Message: 10
Date: Wed, 22 Apr 2009 18:18:35 +0100
From: David Gerard <dgerard(a)gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] NPOV as common value? (was Re: Board
statement regarding biographies of living people)
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List
<foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Message-ID:
<fbad4e140904221018xb7dd0fan9e4a80a9f2c5886b(a)mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
2009/4/22 Milos Rancic <millosh(a)gmail.com>om>:
On Wed, Apr 22, 2009 at 5:20 PM, David Gerard
<dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>> And if you want to force any kind of
neutrality there, you would get
>> the same kind of scientific production which existed in East European
>> countries during 50s and 60s: A (very good) book about ancient Greek
>> literature starts with 20-30 pages of Preface in which author explains
>> relations between ancient Greek literature and Marxism. But, there
>> were a lot of not so good books which had a lot of grotesque
>> connections between Marxism and its content not just inside of their
>> prefaces.>
> I'm not clear on the connection between
neutrality and Marxism ...
> could you explain the logical steps between the two clauses of your
> first sentence?
I wanted to say that if neutrality is forced in a
field which is not
possible to present neutrally, you'll get bizarre explanations why
some course or book is neutral. (As young revolutionary authorities
demanded connection between any field of knowledge and Marxism.)
Yes, that makes sense :-)
Even further... Book in elementary algebra may be
written well
according to the NPOV (but, not by following neutrality!) because NPOV
has clause which is related to the "common knowledge". But, if you try
to make a book with a specific approach to a number of micro and macro
dimensions in the Universe, by using NPOV or neutrality, you would get
a book which is not useful:
en:wp has experienced this - the arbcom finally had to say "no,
peer-reviewed journals are more reliable sources on global warming
than Rush Limbaugh radio transcripts or Michael Crichton novels, and
fifty faith-based science advocates don't get to vote the UK's top
climate scientist off the island. Don't be bloody stupid." In a few
more words than that.
- d.
------------------------------
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