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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