[Gendergap] Hardcore images essay - HELP!

[Oliver Keyes]

This is true, but doesn't help with many projects. Some projects don't have
WP;V as a core principle - what do we do with them? "inappropriate" images
on Commons would not be bound by such standards.

Frequently viewed articles do not tell readers what we're about, they tell
us what readers are about. Do you think people go to the Creampie articles
for an image of line drawings? :P. I'm not saying that soft or hard porn on
Wikipedia is appropriate, simply that you can't judge *us* by what our *
readers* look at.

On Thu, Feb 17, 2011 at 12:12 AM, Andreas Kolbe <jayen466 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> --- On *Wed, 16/2/11, ChaoticFluffy <chaoticfluffy at gmail.com>* wrote:
>
> From: ChaoticFluffy <chaoticfluffy at gmail.com>
>
>
>
> > Joseph and Andreas, I think you're assuming facts not in evidence here,
> so to
>
> > speak. If you disapprove of porn or the pornmaking process, that's got
> nothing
>
> > to do with wikipedia.
>
>
>
> Whether a woman in Budapest derives sexual pleasure from receiving five
> facials
>
> a week from ten men for $200 a go, as some Wikipedians appear to believe,
> is not
>
> actually the issue here. The issue is this:
>
>
>
> Wikipedia’s mission is to reflect coverage in reliable sources. We have
> basic policy
>
> commitments to that effect – WP:V, WP:NOR, WP:NPOV. When it comes to sexual
>
> or otherwise controversial images, we should be featuring the same types of
>
> illustrations that reliable sources writing about these matters use. We
> should be
>
> neither more liberal nor less liberal than topical sources are, on balance.
>
>
>
> What happens in Wikipedia is that editors argue that we are bound to
> reliable sources
>
> in text, but not in illustrations. As far as illustrations are concerned,
> NOTCENSORED
>
> applies. NOTCENSORED is touted as the community’s right to substitute its
> own
>
> editorial judgment in matters of illustration for the editorial judgments
> made by reliable
>
> sources. Our demographics are skewed. The typical Wikipedian is an
> 18-year-old,
>
> single childless male. As far as we can tell, women make up about 1/8 of
> our editorship.
>
> Compounding matters, women comment very rarely at discussions concerned
> with
>
> curating sexology articles. (Three cheers for Carol!)
>
>
>
> There is no support in basic policy for the position that Wikipedia should
> knowingly,
>
> wilfully and systematically depart from the standards espoused by reliable
> sources
>
> when it comes to sexually explicit images. Yet this is what happens. We
> don’t do
>
> this in our articles on dinosaurs, say. Our illustrations of dinosaurs look
> just like
>
> the illustrations of dinosaurs in reliable sources.
>
>
>
> This is just a gap that has opened up in our policy fabric. As a result, we
> are at times
>
> more explicit, gratuitous or inept in our use of sexual or pornographic
> images in
>
> Wikipedia than reliable sources would choose to be, as in the examples
> discussed
>
> (and, in part, since addressed on-wiki).
>
>
>
> Remember that these articles are some of our most frequently accessed. Both
> the
>
> Creampie article and the Bukkake article e.g. are ranked among our top
> articles by page
>
> views (ranks 1,300 and 2,000 or thereabouts). They are viewed significantly
> more often
>
> than Hilary Clinton’s biography, say.
>
>
>
> Frequently viewed articles like that are calling cards. They tell readers
> and potential
>
> new contributors what we are about.
>
>
>
> What we should be about is what reliable sources are about. This is not
> about protecting
>
> women; it is about protecting Wikipedia from becoming something else than
> an
>
> educational resource. Women do however have a key role in that, and the
> gender
>
> gap is intimately related to this issue. What sets reliable sources apart
> from porn sites
>
> is that reliable sources are written for a mixed readership, just like
> Wikipedia should be.
>
> Reliable sources – newspapers and scholarly writing – take women’s views
> into
>
> account. Our editorial process does a poor job of doing that, and the
> general gender gap
>
> as well as the even more extreme gender gap in curating these articles
> compounds the
>
> issue.
>
>
>
> One thing we could do to address this, beyond increased female
> participation, is to
>
> enshrine in policy the principle that editorial standards for article
> illustration should not
>
> depart significantly and systematically from editorial standards in
> reliable sources.
>
> That would help address the problem.
>
>
>
> Andreas
>
>
>
>
>
>
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>
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