[Foundation-l] Appropriate surprise (Commons stuff)

Thu May 13 15:40:27 UTC 2010

Thank you for retaking the thread, Jussi-Ville. Please allow me to
share some thoughts about attitudes on nudity, unneccessary
provocation and Jimmy Wales' action.

I remember something I heard on "Wikipedia Weekly", a year ago or so,
I believe it was even before the Virginkiller issue (the Scorpions'
cover). Andrew Lih said that many Wikipedians laugh about
pornography/nudity issues and have a laissez-faire-I-don't-care
attitude. Like let the world think what it wants, we Wikipedians go
simply on with what we doing.

Andrew Lih disqualified that attitude as immature and ignorant (sorry,
I do not recall the precise words). People who have difficulties with
nudity etc. are a legitimate part of our community and our readership
and we should at least listen to them and try to find a compromise
that does not hurt someone's feelings unnecessarily, even if in many
points they would have to give in.

This came up in me again on March 21st, this year. A group arround
Achim Raschka improved the article "Vulva" in German Wikipedia and
promoted it through the procedure to make it "Article of the day". So
on that Sunday, the Main page of German Wikipedia presented the
article with an illustration. On a Wikipeda meeting on Cologne, then,
I heard people grinning about "the dream of all puberal vandals came
true: a pussy on Main page".

I was not sure what to think about that, but I come more and more the
conclusion that it was an unneccessary provocation, at least the
illustration. I know about some people who are honestly shocked by
graphic nudity (some are religious, others not); so when they go to an
article such as "vulva" or "fellatio" it is at their own risk, but
they should not be confronted with a vulva picture at the Main page
where they don't expect it.

This should apply, I think, also to other pictures people may find
disturbing, for example about people deformed by deaseses or injuries.
There are simply subjects and illustrations that are not like all
others.

So when illustrating the article "Holocaust" you can and should use
pictures of dead bodies [1], but for a link from the Main page it is
preferred to use someting like the Entrance to Auschwitz [2].

Some Wikipedia commuties might want to have rules of their own,
depending on the Wikipedians and the expected readership. I noticed
that while German Wikipedia's article "Penis" has photographs, Arabic
Wikipedia's is illustrated only by a medical drawing.

About the deletions on Commons in the last days: I cannot imagine that
there were significant losses of valuable illustrations. But in
general I wonder that a board member is deleting these pictures in
person. In my humble opinion, if a community is late with important
policy making, the board has all right to take action (as the board,
or the Foundation, is finally responsable for the projects). But there
should be a board decision, and the implementation should be left to a
collaborator of Wikimedia Foundation. You would also find it strange
seeing the Queen of England sweeping the streets of London in person,
or handing you out a parking fine.

Maybe it is useful to install an extra community assistant for
Commons, given the importance of Commons for all projects, with at the
same time an inherent weakness of Commons because many Wikipedians use
it but do not engage in it specifically.

Kind regards
Ziko van Dijk

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bundesarchiv_Bild_175-04413,_KZ_Auschwitz,_Einfahrt.jpg
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mass_Grave_Bergen_Belsen_May_1945.jpg

2010/5/13 Jussi-Ville Heiskanen <cimonavaro at gmail.com>:
> Gregory Maxwell wrote:
>> There are also people who are honestly offended that some people are
>> offended by human sexuality content— and some of them view efforts to
>> curtail this content to be a threat to their own cultural values.  If
>> this isn't your culture, please take a moment to ponder it. If your
>> personal culture believes in the open expression of sexuality an
>> effort to remove "redundant / low quality" sexuality images while we
>> not removing low quality pictures of clay pots, for example, is
>> effectively an attack on your beliefs. These people would tell you: If
>> you don't like it, don't look. _Understanding_ differences in opinion
>> is part of the commons way, so even if you do not embrace this view
>> you should at least stop to understand that it is not without merit.
>> In any case, while sometimes vocal, people from this end of the
>> spectrum don't appear to be all that much of the community.
>>
>>
>>
>
> I apologize for the late reply, but since this issue is of
> a long term nature, hopefully not much harm will come
> from only commenting on it now.
>
> I fully admit I experienced a "Hey, I resemble that remark!"
> moment regarding the middle part of the paragraph. My
> culture is certainly near the end of the spectrum mentioned,
> being as I am from Finland (if it tells you anything, we
> usually consider our neighbors to the west, the Swedes,
> as hopelessly repressed sexually --- and I am not even kidding)
>
> While I am sure there are people to whom the whole paragraph
> applies fully in every respect (and I would imagine as you say
> they will likely be a vanishingly small percentage of the
> community), my personal angle to the issue is completely
> different, and I doubt I am alone.
>
> I am not at all offended that people have the capacity to
> be offended by whatever gets their goat. I too have the
> capacity, but perhaps with respect to other things. I
> absolutely have no problem with that.
>
> Personally what was offensive was not people not
> bowing down before my cultural values, so to speak.
> What *was* offensive however was that people from on
> high chose a matter of such obviously subjective import
> to privilege a *specific* standard of mores. Not the fact
> that it wasn't *mine*, but that it was a specific one.
>
> This problem is compounded by the fact that such
> action hugely legitimizes the argument -- while
> being certainly untrue -- that Wikimedia is not
> genuinely an international project. *This* is the
> real issue that needs to be addressed, if any real
> progress is to be made, in healing most of the wounds
> the community has incurred.
>
>
> Yours,
>
> Jussi-Ville Heiskanen
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>

-- 
Ziko van Dijk
NL-Silvolde