[Gendergap] High-heeled shoes as a case study (and what makes me mad about Commons)

Sun Sep 4 20:36:13 UTC 2011

*http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDH9Jq5AWkQ
It's this uncomfortable tension that I feel when I log into Commons. I'm on
the Warriors side.

***(and rant below)

> I know that some of the images have been nominated before and kept, and
> some of the images have to be repeatedly re-categorized, too. I get
> frustrated and at times feel that it is a time sink with no end in sight.
>
>
I really do think a bunch of sociopaths try to control what happens on
Commons. I get more pissed off on Commons than I do on Wikipedia, which is
bizarre. I actually *fear* the commons-l list, and I always fear that I'll
have my account banned again because of another stupid mistake which I blame
on the double-speak known as Commons documentation.

Commons is broken, and I really hope Wikimedia Foundation and others realize
that something has to change. It's as if people are afraid of Commons,
afraid of the gang of users who have commandeered control within it, and the
majority of people who wish to utilize it for what it is have to often tread
lightly for risk of screwing something up or pissing some nut job
"anti-censorship" control freak who thinks bad art and women getting off
with toothbrushes are educational materials.

People are freaking out over the idea of an imagine filter. I mean come
on..why?? It's going to be something each user (if I'm correct) can control,
no one is being *forced* to use it.   It's as if these Commons users are
afraid of being dominated. Something has to change if this website is going
to get healthy.

> That is the reason that I wrote to the mailing list to discuss the matter
> as an community issue. I have come to believe that is rooted in the culture
> values of the WMF editors who add loads of these images to commons.
>
>
Thank goodness we have this mailing list.

And I know I come off like a total nut when complaining about Commons, but,
I'm getting sick and tired of it. I'm sick and tired of fighting about
categories, educational material definitions, and double standards.

In a bit of a trollish mood, if you couldn't tell,

Sarah

> We can't walk away from the issue because it is too important. We need to
> discuss it so that we can better understand why that we are having trouble
> addressing the issue in a way that is promotes an inclusive editing
> environment.
>
> Sydney
>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Sep 4, 2011 at 9:20 AM, Toby Hudson <tobyyy at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Sarah,
>>>
>>> The principle of least surprise is roughly the following:
>>> People who go to a category/gallery/encyclopedia-article expecting
>>> something (shoes) should not be surprised by something they may find
>>> offensive (naked women wearing shoes).
>>>
>>>
>>> One way to ensure this is to make clearly labelled subcategories for the
>>> potentially offensive material.  In this case, I made a subcategory:
>>>
>>> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Women_wearing_high-heeled_shoes
>>> and within that
>>>
>>> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Nude_women_wearing_high-heeled_shoes
>>>
>>> so everyone who visits that category knows exactly what they're going to
>>> see in advance.
>>>
>>>
>>> Regarding your Flickr question: Whether the account is deleted or not
>>> doesn't usually change whether or not the picture is in scope.  But deleted
>>> accounts do make the copyright status more questionable.  At the time of
>>> upload, the bot would check that the license is correct, but that doesn't
>>> eliminate the possibility that the Flickr user is uploading copyright
>>> violations to their Flickr account ("Flickrwashing").  If there are other
>>> likely signs of copyright violation, I would nominate for deletion (as I did
>>> for the other image mentioned in this thread
>>> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Young_girl_with_see-through_tops_and_shorts.jpg).
>>> When the account is still active, you can also check the rest of the Flickr
>>> user's contributions to get a good sense of whether they are really the
>>> author of the photos they're uploading.
>>>
>>> Snapshots aren't necessarily out of scope just because they're snapshots,
>>> they're sometimes realistically useful for an educational purpose.
>>>
>>> Toby
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sun, Sep 4, 2011 at 10:55 PM, Sarah Stierch <sarah.stierch at gmail.com>wrote:
>>>
>>>> Hi Toby -
>>>>
>>>> Sorry to be a n00b but, can you explain what you mean by "refactoring
>>>> this category according to the principle of least surprise?"
>>>>
>>>> For anyone else - if you find an image that has been uploaded by a
>>>> Flickr bot, and the Flickr account has been deleted what do you do? I notice
>>>> a large portion of images like this are often snapshot uneducational photos
>>>> (here is an example:
>>>> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Labace_%2824%29.jpg) I was going
>>>> to nominate it for just being out of scope because Commons is not a
>>>> repository for snapshots.
>>>>
>>>> ;)
>>>>
>>>> Asking questions like this on Commons-L isn't very pleasant, so thanks
>>>> for helping!
>>>>
>>>> Thanks,
>>>>
>>>> Sarah
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Sun, Sep 4, 2011 at 6:48 AM, Toby Hudson <tobyyy at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> I've made a start on refactoring this category according to the
>>>>> principle of least surprise.  Feel free to do this whenever you notice a
>>>>> "surprising" image in a mundane category.
>>>>>
>>>>> Regarding consent, if any of the identifiable women are in private
>>>>> locations, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/COM:PEOPLE<http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:High-heeled_shoes>applies, and the uploader should state that permission was obtained to take
>>>>> & publish the image.  If this has not been done, please either contact the
>>>>> uploader or propose deletion.
>>>>>
>>>>> Toby Hudson  /  99of9
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Sun, Sep 4, 2011 at 8:05 AM, Sydney Poore <sydney.poore at gmail.com>wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Category:High-heeled shoes is an excellent example of the current
>>>>>> problem WMF projects are having with creating and disseminating content that
>>>>>> is unbiased.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:High-heeled_shoes
>>>>>>
>>>>>> This category is different that most all the other categories about
>>>>>> footwear because it contains many images that are not primarily examples of
>>>>>> high-heeled shoes. Most other categories about footwear contain mostly
>>>>>> images of shoes or the lower leg(s) with a shoe or shoes.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> The number of images in Category:High-heeled shoes is higher than most
>>>>>> categories about footwear. Approximately one- third of the images are of
>>>>>> full body shots of attractive females who are wearing high heeled shoes, and
>>>>>> a significant number of them are nude or posed in sexually provocative
>>>>>> positions.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> There are random women who are wearing shoes and are mixed in with the
>>>>>> porn-stars and strip-tease dancers. These women are being objectified and
>>>>>> sexualized without their consent because of the way the the images are
>>>>>> displayed in  the category. See Wikipedia article on Sexualization
>>>>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sexualization for a description of the
>>>>>> term.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> In each language that has Wikipedia articles about high-heeled shoes,
>>>>>> the content is about a type of footwear, so the links in the articles that
>>>>>> lead to commons are directing people to nudity or sexual content that they
>>>>>> would not anticipate. There are other problems with some of the images,
>>>>>> including unclear consent for the image to be uploaded by the subject of the
>>>>>> image.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I see this category as a concrete example of systemic bias coming from
>>>>>> having a male dominated editing community.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Leather boots is only other category that I found that also has a
>>>>>> large number of images of people. It also contain a disproportionate number
>>>>>> of images of women who are nude or in sexually provocative poses.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I think that it is important to continue to talk about these issues in
>>>>>> the hope that more people with became educated about the problems with with
>>>>>> our current methods to collect, categorize, and disseminate content.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Sydney Poore
>>>>>> User:FloNight
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>>> Gendergap mailing list
>>>>>> Gendergap at lists.wikimedia.org
>>>>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap
>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> Gendergap mailing list
>>>>> Gendergap at lists.wikimedia.org
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>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> GLAMWIKI Partnership Ambassador for the Wikimedia Foundation<http://www.glamwiki.org>
>>>> Wikipedian-in-Residence, Archives of American Art<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SarahStierch>
>>>> and
>>>> Sarah Stierch Consulting
>>>> *Historical, cultural & artistic research & advising.*
>>>> ------------------------------------------------------
>>>> http://www.sarahstierch.com/
>>>>
>>>>
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>>>>
>>>
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>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> GLAMWIKI Partnership Ambassador for the Wikimedia Foundation<http://www.glamwiki.org>
>> Wikipedian-in-Residence, Archives of American Art<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SarahStierch>
>> and
>> Sarah Stierch Consulting
>> *Historical, cultural & artistic research & advising.*
>> ------------------------------------------------------
>> http://www.sarahstierch.com/
>>
>>
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>>
>
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-- 
GLAMWIKI Partnership Ambassador for the Wikimedia
Foundation<http://www.glamwiki.org>
Wikipedian-in-Residence, Archives of American
Art<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SarahStierch>
and
Sarah Stierch Consulting
*Historical, cultural & artistic research & advising.*
------------------------------------------------------
http://www.sarahstierch.com/
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