Tony Sidaway wrote:
Stan Shebs said:
I think it would be really helpful to the goal of encyclopedia creation if it were possible for, say, the USGS to assign one of their technical writers to the task of improving WP's info on mountain ranges, or seafloor vents, or volcano prediction, plus adding pictures that are not currently available on the net. That kind of win can't happen if we don't come up with some way to better accommodate organizational policies on sexual harassment.
So the situation is this. You think that USGS would be willing to assign one of its technical writers to improve geometric data, but this chap is unlikely to want to use Wikipedia in its current state because he might be falsely accused, by person or persons unknown, of sexual harassment? Curiouser and curiouser!
Welcome to the 21st century. The US Geological Survey is actually a pretty liberal crowd. I've been to their offices in California, and they're the types who would be totally in favor of large-scale contribution to WP; I don't think it's all far-fetched to have some of their scientists and writers contribute as part of their day jobs.
However, the USGS is also an agency of the US govt, which as we know has all kinds of rules and policies that we and the USGS people might find idiotic, but it's not something they can do anything about. So prudent USGS managers will not ask their minions to do anything for WP during work, because the managers could potentially be held liable as well as the minions, especially should the boobie pictures happen to pop up just as the Congressional oversight committee happens to be walking through. (Note that turning off images is counterproductive if part of your work is to upload images.) We likely wouldn't ever hear about such a decision, at most one might notice a scarcity of experts participating in WP.
Ironically, organizations' rules forbidding images of nudity were originally pushed by feminist and other groups combating workplace sexism...
Stan