[Commons-l] Fwd: [Gendergap] Photo of the Day on Wikimedia Commons

[Chris McKenna]

On Tue, 17 May 2011, Andreas Kolbe wrote:
> The images from today and yesterday are:
>
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Turbo_imperialis_01.jpg
>
> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:On_the_edge_-_free_world_version.jpg
>
> If you are unwilling to recognise the difference in terms of educational vs.
> artistic content, nothing I say is likely to make any difference. Frankly,
> it's not even worth discussing.
>

"Featured pictures are images that the community has chosen to be 
highlighted as some of the finest on Commons." Both today's and 
yesterday's main page images are featured pictures.

I am not making any judgement regarding educational or illustrative 
content, (both images are equally usable for educational purposes, albeit 
different ones) other than if two images are recognised to be of the same 
standard ("featured status") then they should be treated as having equal 
value to the project. If we want to treat artistic and illustrative works 
differently then we need separate standards to judge them by (instead of 
or as well as "featured status", I can see arguments for both). If we want 
to say that some featured pictures are more valuable to the project than 
others then we need some other status for one or other of the groups.

Yesterday there were calls that we should not be featuring the work of 
non-notable Wikimedians full stop. Today were are featuring the work of an 
equally non-notable Wikimedian and there are no calls for the image not to 
be shown on the main page on these grounds.

Obviously there are no calls not to show today's image on the grounds of 
being inappropriate for school children as it is very unlikely to be 
offensive to the school children in the cultures of those commenting.

My point is that if you want to apply any criteria for the showing or 
non-showing of any image on the front page you need to appply the criteria 
consistently.

----
Chris McKenna

cmckenna at sucs.org
www.sucs.org/~cmckenna


The essential things in life are seen not with the eyes,
but with the heart

Antoine de Saint Exupery