User talk:Jimbo Wales

(Manual archive list)

WTF?

This and this astonish me and my first instinct is that surely these stories are wrong in some important way. Can someone update me on where I can read the community conversation about this? Did it happen? How did it happen?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:13, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Not an isolated case, I'm afraid, Jimbo. See here for another example. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 17:27, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

That's not exactly the same thing. The articles complain about people (apparently) removing women from the main category to a "ghetto" of a women's category. Categorization that assumes male defaults is a very bad idea. The case you're talking about is a list, not a category (that's not important, and I know you know it, but I mention it because likely reporters will read this discussion). And having a list for women directors, and a list of all directors, isn't the same thing as having a general list (for men only) and a women's list.

There are still valid arguments against it, of course! But my point is that there is a respectable and non-sexist argument for having a category for women and a general category, namely that there are academic studies on female literature, female film, etc. Some might argue that the existence of such academic disciplines is sexist, but those arguments aren't very compelling since these tend to be highly pro-feminist areas of academic study. I do not think, let me be clear, that we should have any differences in the treatment of gender at all. But I also do respect that a person can be in favor of dual categorization of females for academic reasons and not in favor of dual categorization for males.

What is completely and totally unacceptable - and there seems to be strong consensus on this - is to create a general list or category and only include men, and then a special list for women. That's nonsense and sexist. I haven't seen anyone in favor of it, and so I think the Guardian and HuffPo (and NYT) articles are unfair to us in that regard. It seems that most of this came about because people categorized in a haphazard fashion, rather than through any real discussion or policy about this.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:37, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

The main category actually just includes one article and a bunch of subcategories. I have seen some categories created for "Male x", but there doesn't appear to be one in this case. So, really, it is more like women are getting a special category of their own and men aren't.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 17:42, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Ah, it is talking about the American novelist category specifically, rather than the general novelist category. It isn't actually accurate, though, as many female novelists are still included in the main category.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 17:45, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Oh, there is also a category for men so it isn't only being done to one gender.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 17:49, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Having a main category for an occupation and a subcategory for women with that occupation is the standard around here. It's everywhere in Category:People by occupation/Category:Women by occupation such as Category:Composers/Category:Women composers, Category:Scientists/Category:Women scientists to name just two. Deli nk (talk) 17:44, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

I was hoping someone would take the hint, Jimbo, and merge the two lists. It makes no sense to have a list of all of X (which is very incomplete) and a separate list of women in X (some, but not all, of whom appear in the main list). Either have one list or make the lists separate by gender (although one would have to question why we might wish to do that). We have separate lists of male and female kickboxers, not a list of kickboxers (including males and females) and a separate list of female kickboxers. This is a silly situation caused by the extreme gender imbalance in the Community. I'm surprised that you haven't noticed this before. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 18:25, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

This is just another example of the tendency to micro-categorize pages into sub sub sub categories what makes identifying and finding things via categories almost impossible. If I know X is a novelist and cannot remember the exact name or spelling for some reason I should be able to go to the appropriate category (Category:Novelists) and find the person. However given the policy and practice to shove the article into the most sub-sub-sub category possible it means I must know that the person is a novelist, their nationality and now gender. Getting a efficient category intersection system would make issues like this null. Werieth (talk) 17:29, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Personally, I find those big cluttered categories with hundreds upon hundreds of entries far more difficult to navigate. Dividing them into smaller categories can make it simpler. If you have a particular author in mind, but can't place the name you should know whether said author is male or female, American or British, etc. Should someone only know that x is a novelist then it is going to be nigh impossible to place the person by sorting through any category.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 17:35, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm sympathetic to both arguments, i.e. that big categories are too hard to navigate and should be broken down, and the argument that excessive micro-categorization is hard to navigate. I'm interested to hear more about "an efficient category intersection system". What would that be like?--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:39, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

You know two things about a song, it was written in 2009 and written by Sean Garrett. Using WP:CATSCAN link to example you can filter the two categories Category:2009 singles and Category:Songs written by Sean Garrett from 2,029 items and 52 items respectively to just 7. Without the need to create a category called "2009 song written by Sean Garrett" This would enable the ability to find sort and organize articles using large categories and avoid sub-sub-sub categories. Werieth (talk) 17:50, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

It would probably look like something like Semantic Mediawiki; but you dismissed that years ago as "too difficult" or something. - 68.87.42.110 (talk) 17:49, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

No, you are mistaken.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 19:17, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

It looks like it was done earlier this month en masse by a single editor (although I'm not 100% sure, there may have been others doing it). It seems to go wider than just novelists. I've left the editor a talkpage note pointing them here.Formerip (talk) 17:37, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

I think editors who do things like that should be banned much more quickly and firmly than our usual relaxed approach to banning.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 17:40, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, maybe. These were obviously poor edits. But my general impression is that mass changes to categories are not strongly discouraged or well-policed (hence, undoubtedly, the problem here). This could be an editor who's been caught speeding in a zone with no speed limit (i.e. this may be a failing of the community as much as an individual editor). But I'm not experienced with categorisation, so don't take my word for it, I could just be plain wrong. Formerip (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 17:51, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Unless it is somehow disruptive I fail to see why banning would be appropriate. Dividing a category into sub-categories when the main category gets cluttered (the American novelists cat has 4,000 articles) is a good improvement.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 17:47, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Um, Jimbo, why does the question of banning even come up before it's determined whether the editor in question understands the problem and is willing to work with the community? Is Wikipedia:Assume good faith no longer in effect, or have you already talked with the guy and found him to be intractable? -GTBacchus^(talk) 18:14, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

@The Devil's Advocate: Maybe, but dividing a category into people and women gives an obvious cause for concern. Formerip (talk) 17:55, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

As I noted above, that isn't actually what has happened as a cat exists for men and women are still included in the main cat. The lamestream press are just being their old noobish selves, creating an Internet controversy where none would exist if they actually understood what they were talking about.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 17:59, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

No, that isn't how it happened. The category for "American men novelists" has been created in response to the NYT piece. Originally, all the women writers had been moved into "American women novelists". What the NYT describes looks to be basically accurate in terms of a description of the situation a day ago. Formerip (talk) 18:04, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

As of last night, very few of the "American women novelists" were in "American novelists," largely due to one editor removing them from "American novelists." Some of us have been re-adding them over the past twelve hours or so, which is why a lot of them are back now. --Elysdir (talk) 18:10, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

I think people who actually take the time to look at this more closely will find that the situation described in the press reports (the general category is assumed to be male by default) is more than not the way things are done here. User:Johnpacklambert is an experienced Wikipedia editor and is in no danger of being banned for this. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 18:12, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

If he can't come up with a darned good reason why he did it - one that is in the direct interest of our readership - he should be. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:18, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, why not examine his contributions to the discussion yourself before passing judgment? He's not only given an explanation for his behavior, based on precedent, but he's also offering constructive suggestions on how to address the problem. Is that really the kind of editor we're trying to get rid of? -GTBacchus^(talk) 18:31, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

As a meta-comment, it's long been my impression that categories are more trouble than they're worth. As this case demonstrates, they can create a lot of bad feeling and bad publicity. If I had a nickel for every time a knock-down-drag-out fight develops over a controversial categorization, I'd have several dollars. A number of categories - particularly those with the potential to reflect negatively on living people - expose us to some ethical and legal risk. And I don't think they're useful as a navigation aid. I don't have any formal statistics measuring how categories are used by the average Wikipedia reader, but they don't seem very helpful at all; I find them difficult and inefficient to use after 7 years here, so I can't imagine the average casual reader gets a lot out of them. MastCell ^Talk 17:53, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Yup. Shoving people into boxes and labelling them, even metaphorically, is a nasty little habit. It is high time Wikipedia grew up and stopped doing it. And no, I'm not kidding... AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:08, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Since we aspire to host the sum of all human knowledge, it's probably an unavoidable duty that we involve ourselves in the taxonomy of knowledge. I agree with you both that the way we presently do it, particularly with regard to human and social types, needs improving. I agree with Looie's and Wnt's comments about usability, too. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 00:54, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

• The problem is that someone took it upon themselves to exclude members of the subset American Female Authors from the universal set American Authors. This should be a learning experience why this kind of thing should not be done. There is nothing wrong with that subset, there is a legitimate academic concern with that subset. But making membership in Group A in any way related to inclusion in Group B creates a ghetto and controversy. A person can be part of categories "People born in 1926," "People from Duluth," "Swedish-Americans," "American female novelists," and "American novelists" — all 5. The last two are not and should not be regarded as mutually exclusive. If there is a structural reason why this happened, it should be fixed. If this was done by individual volition, it should be stopped. Carrite (talk) 18:09, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Let me be clear (because it may get lost) that I do not support the movement of women novelists to a separate category. It is a bad idea, but it is not necessarily a mendacious idea. I've deliberately avoided identifying the editor in question, so that I can comment generically. It is not an unreasonable thought to believe that women are under-represented in many categories: novelists, heads of state, architects, and many others. It is not unreasonable for someone to want to study the phenomenon, to look at the differences geographically, temporally, and by occupation. It is not unreasonable for someone wanting to do such a study, or make it easy for someone else to do such a study, to support counting women in various categories over time. It is a small step to think that the categorization started may be helpful to those who are interested in studies. While the specific approach is the wrong next step, it doesn't necessarily follow that it was undertaken with ghettoization as a goal. The effect is clear and should be reversed, but I urge dropping the banning talk. The problem arises because our categorization approach is deficient in many ways. As Jimbo notes, we should address this more broadly, rather than simply decree that this breakout should be reversed. There must be a better way to approach the categorization problem, so that one can, easily, identify women novelists, yet simultaneously be able to see a list of American novelists regardless of sex, or nth century novelists, regardless of country, or many other breakdowns, without having to resort to assemble micro-categories.

Let's:

• reverse the poor decision
• use it as an excuse to think hard about the right way to do categorization
• avoid riding someone out of town on the rails for what might be a sincere attempt at improvement.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 18:25, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

If an experienced Wikipedia editor sincerely thinks that removing women from 'category:American novelists' is an improvement, I sincerely think that we should get rid of him. And I sincerely think that arguing otherwise is missing the point. No matter how you spin it, it is detrimental to the credibility of Wikipedia. And just plain stupid. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:35, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Why wouldn't he think that, when the category says right on it that "It should directly contain very few, if any, articles and should mainly contain subcategories"? People are encouraged to move articles from these parents cats to subcats. Leon Uris isn't at this writing in that category. Why? He's been subcatted. I don't think it's a good decision to remove women only (or even first) or that it's a good decision to put women solely in categories related to gender (as opposed to the handling of Pearl S. Buck, where she is categorized as an author in several ways...but not at this writing, like Leon, in the parent cat). --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 18:40, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Oh, re: Pearl, I stand corrected; she's been added. Possibly in response to an email I sent out via OTRS a few hours ago. :) --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 18:41, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Sorry to intrude, but here is the link to the current discussion. Wikipedia:Categories for discussion/Log/2013 April 24#Category:American women novelists. I may have missed it but I haven't been able to find the link in the above discussion so I thought it may be important. Carry on, and mind the gap. Coffeepusher (talk) 18:39, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. There's also Category talk:American novelists#Preferred gender classification style. -GTBacchus^(talk) 18:41, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Same issue with actors/actresses - Category:American actresses is a sub-cat of Category:American actors.--ukexpat (talk) 18:40, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

And needless to say, Category:African-American television actors is a subcat of Category:American television actors. AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:44, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

These are also down to the same editor, it seems. Formerip (talk) 18:48, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

And that one will be difficult to justify on the grounds that everyone should go into a subcategory, unless he is proposing we have a Category:non-African-American television actors... AndyTheGrump (talk) 18:55, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

To clarify, he didn't create these categories, just moved actors into them. Formerip (talk) 18:56, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

OK, actually he did create the actresses category. But I think we should focus less on the editor, beyond understanding that the problem is about a lack of community oversight. Formerip (talk) 18:59, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

We do have categories for non-Africans by occupation, including for pasty-faced white folk and that editor has created a few of those as well. Still, go on assuming that the editor is a bigot because Lord knows we can't stop and be considerate when people in the press are crying about the ebil nerdy white male privilege of Wikipedia.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 22:19, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Talking about lack of community oversight - the discussion (RfC?) on the subject is still waiting to be closed, after six months. See Wikipedia:Village pump (policy)/Archive 101#Actresses categorization. StAnselm (talk) 21:52, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

"We do have categories for non-Africans by occupation"!!!!!!!!! Holy shit!!!!!! Now I've seen everything. Or rather, I haven't. Could you provide some examples... AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:45, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Here you go.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 00:51, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Er, no. I asked specifically for a Category:non-African..., as the logical subcategory to go with Category:African... - you have merely provided further evidence of Ghettoisation. (Though I have spotted a horrific WP:BLP violation in the entirely obnoxious Category:Chechen criminals, so I suppose I should be thankful...). AndyTheGrump (talk) 01:05, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

I am sorry, I thought you were making a serious request for categories involving non-Africans and not some trolling request for a category that says what people are not. Never mind.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 03:09, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

General rules of categorization would indicate that if we subdivide for women, we should subdivide for men as well. However, given all the attention that "women" get (Women's studies but no Men's studies, not to mention efforts to reward women based on the fact that they ARE women, rather than just on their accomplishments - such as some of our own programs here with Wikipedia) Im not all that surprised that someone made subcategories for women but not for men. To me, its not "ghettoizing" its giving women special status whereas male writers for example are not somehow special because they are men. Similarly, how many times do you see someone noted as a "gay" writer but never as a hetero one. While I agree that we should have a men's category, I dont think the preachiness or self righteousness is really warranted. Make the category and move on.Thelmadatter (talk) 20:01, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Categories as currently implemented are a worthless pain in the ass

This point was made above (by MastCell), but it is worth emphasizing. The value of categories is to expedite searching, but Wikipedia's category system is completely divorced from its search system. If you type "novelists" into the search box, you don't see anything related to Category:Novelists. Unless this can be fixed, the whole category system is a worthless waste of effort. Looie496 (talk) 18:19, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

The problem is broader than that, but that is a good observation. If the point of categorization is to help readers find things, then it ought to be integrated into search. I know a lot of readers who know about the search function, but have never really paid attention to categories.--SPhilbrick(Talk) 18:27, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

It seems to me the only purpose for categories is to give obsessives something to do. Tom Reedy (talk) 18:48, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

They're potentially useful for research. I've used them to quickly find articles in a subject area. But they do suffer from and have long suffered from some issues in consistency, and frankly I don't really understand why large parent cats are a problem. --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 18:50, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

They really are potentially useful -- *if* they are implemented with the intention of serving as navigational aides. If I click on an author who has been determined guilty of plagiarism and then want to see other instances of plagiarism, it's helpful to have a plagiarism category at the bottom of the first article. The difficulty is that people start thinking about categories (particularly for BLPs) as identity tags. That's not what I have in mind when I work with categories, but that's where the drama and controversy kicks off. Nomoskedasticity (talk) 19:47, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Just so long as you don't take the contents of your plagiarism category from a list in a book... Formerip (talk) 20:05, 25 April 2013 (UTC

This is all beside the point. The guidelines specify that "each categorized page should be placed in all of the most specific categories to which it logically belongs. This means that if a page belongs to a subcategory of C (or a subcategory of a subcategory of C, and so on) then it is not normally placed directly into C". That is to say, if Sylvia Plath is put in the cat of 'American women poets', she should not also go in 'poets', 'American poets', or 'American writers', which are parent categories. That is why all the American female novelists were in the 'American female novelist' cat but not also listed under 'American novelists', which would be a duplication. If this isn't how categorisation is structured, then you should change the policy. Span (talk) 20:52, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

I believe this is addressed in WP:Cat gender. Unless "gender has a specific relation to the topic" categories by gender are not split; women are in both the specialist and the "appropriate gender-neutral role category". --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 21:49, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

OK, so we have a guideline that might have prevented this problem. The question is why it didn't, for over two weeks. Formerip (talk) 22:56, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

The whole sentence, "A gender-specific category could be implemented where gender has a specific relation to the topic", actually reads more like a suggestion than a prohibition. As in "you might want to consider a gender-specific category if ...". If the intent is to prohibit such categories in most cases unless there is a strong motivation for them (which seems to be the intent of most of the rest of the page), then I would suggest that the WP:Cat gender section ought to be more clearly written to that effect. Dragons flight (talk) 00:08, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

The mere fact that Category:Male golfers does not exist on this site makes that set of guidelines more lolworthy than useful, and probably explains why the guideline did not prevent the current problem. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.104.124.60 (talk) 02:30, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

I think it's more a sign that WP:TLDR is a real problem. My WP:AGF presumption is that people don't see it because they don't dig that deep. To get to that page from the main guideline, you have to follow the first link below "articles" to Wikipedia:Categorization of people and then to another link below "By ethnicity, gender, religion, and sexuality". That said, I agree wholeheartedly that it should be clarified. And I'd really love to understand better why the Category:American novelists should be depopulated. Is there some technical issue that makes listing all of them alphabetically for easy location impossible? --Moonriddengirl ^(talk) 11:32, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree - we need to fix the category system, period. The limited display sucks, the inability to lump together subcategories into a single list sucks, and just in case someone would be tempted to use templates or Lua to do better, the contents are inaccessible to any kind of transclusion. We end up having these massive 'infoboxes' like Template:The Beatles that spam 200 links into 200 articles because our categories, which should be doing the job, are ugly and unfixable. And yes, we should be able to click on a nationality of our choice and a sex of our choice and a genre of our choice to create a custom intersection of lists. It's something basic the devs should be working on instead of skins and ratings and "wikilove". Wnt (talk) 00:02, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

• There are long-standing problems with wikipedia categories, as I already tried to discuss on this talk page. My very best wishes (talk) 02:43, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
• There are all sorts of problems with categories, probably the main one being that so many are incomplete, and all sorts of things that it would be great if they could do, but they remain a highly useful and flexible part of the 'pedia, way in advance of what other encyclopedias have. We should celebrate them, and improve them, more than we do, and I deprecate the recent trend to set up bottom templates for everything instead. Johnbod (talk) 13:09, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree with Johnbod's statements as expressed here. --Sm8900 (talk) 14:18, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

They aren't useful at all. The drones are forever munging them about so what was a valid category one week isn't so the next, the hierarchies are in constant flux. Taxonomies are stable they don't bloody well change every other day. John lilburne (talk) 08:45, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

• As an administrator of many other MediaWiki wikis, this separation of category from search isn't a Wikipedia specific problem. It is a root problem of MediaWiki itself. On one of the wikis I administrate, we even created a custom namespace to improve searching because categories searching doesn't work. Technical 13 (talk) 16:20, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Speaking as someone who has created a few large categories which were sort of at right angles to what was there before, I find categories to be extremely useful. extremely. I don't feel their lack of coming up in search results means that they are not useful in many other ways. I find them to be of great practical value in finding information and items in related groups here. thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 14:16, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

with that said, I do agree that some the specific problems noted above are genuine problems to be addressed. thanks. --Sm8900 (talk) 14:17, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

No basis for crying sexism other than blind assumption of bad faith

I see that the editor who created this category and did most of this has responded by creating similar cats for men. This is not a simple matter of the editor responding to controversy, however as some would certainly claim. He has created categories for men and women well before this. As can be seen in one instance back in February he created a cat for German male dancers immediately after creating a cat for German female dancers. Similarly, he created a cat for male film actors and one for film actresses within a month. He also created the general cat for American male actors a month and a half before creating the cat for American actresses. Now then, we can all stop buying into the scaremongering from some random "feminist" who lacks any amount of circumspection and thus is quick to assume everything is about sexism. Let no one ever claim again that editors on Wikipedia actually assume good faith. No, we jump to conclusions and have the rope ready before the defendant ever gets a chance to speak.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 22:11, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm glad you put "feminist" in quotation marks so that people know to ignore your opinion on this issue from here on in. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 22:20, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

A feminist is supposed to advocate for equality and part of that should be giving men the same amount of consideration one would give a women. Someone who is so quick to presume a situation is about men trying to demean women is not acting in a manner consistent with her proclaimed creed. Were a female editor doing this with men you would undoubtedly find certain self-proclaimed feminists less likely to notice, less likely to care, and more likely to consider less demeaning explanations. Most identity politics nowadays is about some person assuming the worst, stirring up a controversy, and calling for heads to roll. It really takes away from the goal of equality.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 22:52, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

I rest my case. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 22:55, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

I generally detest using identity politics as a way of whipping up an angry mob to attack and demean individuals without any meaningful consideration of guilt or innocence. If you want to say that makes me less of a person or a person with an opinion less worthy of consideration then fine. However, people shouldn't be labeling an editor a sexist and calling for bans based entirely on some random crap they read in the news.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 23:16, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Has anyone labelled an editor "sexist"? Has anyone (other than Jimbo) suggested banning anyone in relation to this incident? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 23:30, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Just out of curiosity, is someone proposing to create Category:non-African-American television actors? AndyTheGrump (talk) 23:42, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

*Points to DC and motions to Andy*--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 23:44, 25 April 2013 (UTC)

Has anyone labelled an editor "sexist"? Has anyone (other than Jimbo) suggested banning anyone in relation to this incident? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 00:07, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

There are zillions of examples of this so-called ghettoization: Category:American film directors by ethnic or national origin is another one, which has Category:African-American film directors and as another parent, Category:African-American directors, which is a child of the (presumably) paler Category:American directors. Why people are up in arms about this one particular case quite boggles me - it's just an application of a standard that is somewhat inconsistent but it happens constantly all over the wiki (e.g. the standard is, always diffuse to most specific sub-cats - UNLESS you're dealing with gender/ethnicity/national origin - and then don't - unless the person is already diffused to a child, which means you need to know the parent-child relationships of all of the super and sub cats, or if you are working within a national origin tree, and therefore... ugh!) - so it's not at all surprising that this happens. And this is not all the work of one editor - for example, see [1], which "ghettoized" a writer, by a well-respected and long standing admin with no malicious intent in so doing.

Part of me thinks that the cat system is hopelessly broken especially with respect to people - most articles have a few cats, but bios have dozens. If we could implement category intersection - even in a stupid, simple way - that would be a massive help - then we could just assign each bio as {m/f/etc} {writer/actor/politician} {gay/straight/bi/etc} {armenian/greek/russian/etc} {catholic/jewish/muslim/etc} - it would be much easier to maintain, there would be no more tedious debates about whether we should create cats for Category:Catholic authors from San Francisco of Chinese descent, and everyone could easily find the intersections they wanted. Wikipedia, can you do Wikipedia:Category_intersection for us please?? So many of these arguments and endless debates would just go away in a puff of smoke if we had good cat intersects. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 06:25, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

• I did not create Category:American women novelists. Nor were was it my edits that made it so Amy Tan was in that category. Nor was Amy Tan in Category:American novelists before being placed in Category:American women novelists. Just because I added a lot of pages to the category does not mean that I created it. I find it very objectionable that people here at wikipedia are so concerned about their image that they would even suggest banning an editor just because the edits he did caused some ob-ed writer to write ill of wikipedia. The edits were completely in line with policy, Category:American novelists has many genre-specific sub-cats and is not the bottom rung. People are willing to let the misrepresentation of the matter by the New York Times color the issue and then call for banning someone with no good procedural grounds to do it. That is heavy handed disregard for the editors who actually create wikipedia by actually paying attention to policies. No policies were borken, and to call for banning someone in this case is totally unreasonable.John Pack Lambert (talk) 06:26, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

THE STATEMENT ABOVE BY Johnpacklambert is incorrect (although he may be unaware of this). Amy Tan was removed from “American novelists” on 13 September last year (and put into the category “American novelists of Asian descent”) and added to “American women novelists” by a different editor on 24 March. Here are the dates of these two edits: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Amy_Tan&diff=next&oldid=510787230 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Amy_Tan&diff=next&oldid=543063880 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Burkehart (talk • contribs) 21:55, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

That said people are totally ignoring what I was doing. I was primarily in the process of dividing Category:Women novelists into its varioussub-categories. As it was, some of the people in Category:Women novelists were not in any nationality categories. Many of the people currently in Category:Australian women novelsits were not in Category:Australian novelists before the move. People have entirely misrepresented what I did. Some people seem to want to drive off editors who help wikipedia.John Pack Lambert (talk) 06:32, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

• For what it is worth, I did not create Category:American women novelists, Category:Women novelsits by nationality or Category:Women novelists. I believe I have created most other sub-cats of Category:Women novelists by nationality, inclduing Category:Haitian women novelists. I also did not create Category:American men novelists. I did create Category:British men novelists, but that was jsut because I figured that we should not confine such things to the US. My main goal was to split Category:Women novelists into usable parts. Actually, there is another point. Category:Haitain novelists for a time had no one in it, while Category:American novelists has never come anywhere near that. So why is all the outrage about the American category? This seems alot like narrow nationalism. Of course, the American category is also disproprotionately large by any measure. There are only 157 articles in Category:Chinese novelists and all its sub-cats, and that is assuming there is no overlap. There are over 4,000 in Category:American novelists, how much over is hard to tell because I do not know what percentage of Category:American historical novelists or other sub-cats overlap with the parent.John Pack Lambert (talk) 08:21, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

As Delicious carbuncle notes above, the only one suggesting that you be "banned" here is Jimmy Wales. It's quite safe to ignore that threat. --SB_Johnny | ^talk✌ 08:30, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

DC is wrong about that as I noted already. Not sure why DC insists that Jimmy is the only one.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 14:01, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm not insisting, but I have seen no one other than Jimbo suggest this and you have twice failed to respond to my question of who else has suggested a ban. Or provided a diff where anyone has labelled JohnPackLambert as "sexist". Perhpas I just missed your answers - can you repost those diffs? Thanks. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 16:13, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

I did direct you to someone, but apparently you didn't catch it. However, I'm not holding your hand as you were one of the first to label him a sexist and only suggested he wouldn't be banned as a criticism of Wikipedia rather than as a request against it, and thus should know well enough that what I am saying is accurate. Of course, you will deny all that as you have never used the words and think failing to say what you mean magically translates to you not having done it.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 18:32, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Not only didn't I say that JohnPackLambert was a "sexist" in those words, I didn't say it in any other words, either. I have no opinion on whether he is or isn't a sexist, but I don't think it is appropriate to lay the blame for this situation on him (or any other single editor). In my experience, what JPL did is common practice. If there is a problem here, it is that this practice leads to the result that sparked the New York Times op-ed piece and sparked this discussion. I am surprised at Jimbo's reaction, since I think it is not a new situation and it is one of which he ought to have been aware. I am glad that you don't want to hold my hand, but if you with to retain any credibility at all, perhaps you could trouble yourself to provide again those diffs of someone accusing JPL of being "sexist" and the ban suggestions? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 22:28, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Here is one I saw:says JPLs actions are racist and sexist and disgusting, expresses a wish that the press will criticize JPL even more. Outside the wiki, on twitter and blogs, the term sexist has been bandied about a whole lot, and in some cases applied to JPL. In my own little defense of JPL, I've followed him for a long time, and he is both an active editor and active contributor for several years now to CfD discussions - which most of these johnny-come-latelys barely know exists. I don't agree with all of his views, but he is a solid contributor and knows a hell of lot more about categorization that most people I've seen in this discussion, and has been applying that knowledge and work to help clean up cats in wikipedia. He is actually quite knowledgeable about different cultures and ethnicities, and is often fighting for more precise categorization of things so as not to gloss over cultural differences (for example, he argues strongly against categorization schemes based on race like Black so-and-so.) So the flak he is receiving is completely not deserved.--Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 01:13, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Those were made after The Devil's Advocate's statements, but thanks for pointing them out. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 03:17, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

"Devil's Advocate, are you a sock of Silver seren? You "argue" just like him."

I'm sorry, DC, did you want to actually take the steps necessary to back up that accusation? Come on, I dare you. Silverseren^C 02:44, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, Silver seren, I won't be taking you up on your "dare". I was lightheartedly comparing The Devil's Advocate's failure to back up their statements with your habit of doing the same, but I didn't intend that it be taken seriously. I do not think that they are a sockpuppet of yours or vice versa. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 03:16, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

I think you have discovered the problem with categories like this. There are 2,000 British species of Ichneumonoidea, but nobody is going to wade through them all no matter whether they are all listed in one lump, or sub-categorized into families, sub-families, tribes, and genera. For any given species one might walk back up the tree a bit, but one is hardly likely explorer based on cats. So there are currently 4,000 Category:American novelists if they split 1:1 on gender wouldn't 2,000 in each still be too much, and if the number are skewed isn't the larger number still to many? And how is it going to look in 10 or 20 years time? If size is the determinate factor how should one split the category:Living people? John lilburne (talk) 20:51, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

• Comment Much of the rhetoric about this category ignores articles like Emily M. Danforth that was created with the Category:American women novelists and not Category:American novelists, long before I started adding large numbers of articles to this category. I did not create this category, nor was I the first person to put people in it but not its national specific parent category. In some ways I think it would help if there were better ways to trace the history of categories, so we could see how large they were at given times.John Pack Lambert (talk) 16:11, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

Putting a finger on this specific issue

As an opening disclaimer, I know relatively little about policies governing categories, and I know nothing at all about the technical aspects of how the categorization system works. As a second disclaimer, I expect that what I write below will be old hat to those who have thought about these issues for a long time, and also duplicative of twelve other discussions taking place elsewhere around the wiki. My apologies, but please bear with me.

It seems to me that the issue here resolves very simply to "when should members of a subcategory also be listed as members of the broader category."

Suppose we have a category for all the past and present members of the United States Senate. (On checking, it looks as if we actually have 50 separate state subcategories for this, which destroys my example, but I'm too lazy to think of another one.) Now suppose that someone studying the history of African-Americans in U.S. politics wants to create a Category:African-American U.S. Senators. There are obvious reasons that this would be worth doing, and there are equally obvious reasons that while creating this category with an unfortunately small number (currently eight) of members, one would not want to create a new Category:White U.S. Senators that would include 97% of the historial Senate membership, simply in order to work in parallel.

But what is also completely clear is that placing a senator into Category:Black U.S. Senators must not remove the senator from Category:[All] U.S. Senators. What this means is that either the listing of senators in the subcategory must be replicated into the parent category, or else that Black U.S. Senators should be a parallel category rather than a subcategory.

Similarly here, I don't see a problem with classifying Willa Cather and Edith Wharton into Category:American Women Novelists, provided that these novelists are not thereby removed from Category:[All] American Novelists. But if the result of the subcategorization is to create a category of "novelists" that includes all the males, and a category of "women novelists" that includes the females, that obviously is not acceptable. It is unacceptable if it was done by design, which per AGF I expect it probably wasn't, and it is also unacceptable and needs to be fixed if it is the practical result of categorizing edits.

From what I do know about the categorization system we currently utilize, this would mean that if we want to keep Category:American Women Novelists, then each female novelists would have to be separately categorized into both the "all novelists" category and the "women novelists" category. The question going forward (at least until we have a better overall categorization system) is whether this extra work can be done reliably and reasonably quickly so as to avoid the problematic situation that currently exists.

(The other question going forward is, of course, whether to have a separate category for males. To decide that, the key question needn't be whether every category for women should correspond to one for men or vice versa, but simply whether such a category would actually be useful to the editors and the readers.

As I say, I'm sure this is a very naive approach to a problem that is new to me (but which two of my non-wiki acquaintances have asked me about this week), but I think it sometimes helps for someone new to an area to look at a situation free from background assumptions and the like. Newyorkbrad (talk) 23:14, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

I suggest we generally ought to place people into the simplest categories as a rule, and allow for searches using "and" instead of having a gazillion super-limited categories. Thus a search for the categories "Novelists", "Americans" and "Women" would thus find Willa Cather without any real problems. Collect (talk) 00:17, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

yes, that's called WP:Category intersection, and is not yet implemented as a full part of the wiki. You can do simple searches across categories (e.g. (American women novelists + people from queens), but such searches aren't recursive. Perhaps the best outcome of this brouhaha might be wikimedia foundation putting serious resources behind implementing a simple, easy to use category intersection scheme, which would eliminate 99% of arguments around creation of new categories on wikipedia. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 00:35, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Hi NYBrad. I don't think your approach is naive, and it actually mirrors more or less the current consensus - which is to avoid 'ghettoization' in these cases - see Wikipedia:Categorization/Ethnicity,_gender,_religion_and_sexuality. However, there are a few wrinkles worth exploring:

What happens when a novelist is in a thematic sub-cat of Category:American novelists - such as Category:American horror novelists- take Elaine_Bergstrom as an example. She sits in the horror novelists cat alongside her male peers, so it not "ghettoized" - but an automatic bubbling up of her to Category:American novelists causes a problem - because now we have to ask, why should Elaine Bergstrom be in 3 cats (Category:American horror novelists, Category:American women novelists, and Category:American novelists) while other male horror novelists who have the exact same credentials would technically only be in Category:American horror novelists... that's the problem with always bubbling up, and with making a special exception for race/ethnicity/gender/sexuality. How far up the 'parent' tree should you bubble/replicate people up? For example, isn't Elaine Bergstrom also a member of Category:American women writers? Should we 'bubble' her up to that category as well? And once you're there, why not stick her into Category:American writers as well? How would you simply and clearly define the rules for membership in parent categories? Is there some maximum number of steps up the tree she can bubble? What if the structure of the tree changes, and parent/child relationships are shifted - does this mean everyone needs to be recategorized?

If you look at this from a purely set-theoretical/mathematical point of view, this theory espoused above is not practically implementable at scale in a consistent fashion (because of recursion), and the complexity required to understand it and implement it correctly (e.g. you *should* always bubble someone up to the parent, unless they are in a sibling or niece/nephew cat already, but only if that sibling cat is not also one of race/ethnicity/gender/sexuality, and only if the parent cat itself is not based on the same race/ethnicity/gender/sexuality), it's not at all surprising that a massive percent of biographies are inconsistently categorized, and even highly experienced editors here completely don't understand this approach - and when one should or shouldn't diffuse. Remember, when assigning categories, people don't usually have the tree in front of them, and we have multiple overlapping systems, so someone could be beautifully categorized in one tree and "sexistly" categorized in another. While I understand the arguments for avoidance of ghettoization, I've become convinced through this discussion that it is untenable, and that a better solution is, if we categorize on a characteristic, then go full board, define all possible subsets, and diffuse fully - so if that means creating a men cat every time we have a women cat, and vice versa, so be it. The advantage would be simplicity in the rules - you just always diffuse - and there would be never again a question of ghettoization, as everyone would be in their own ghetto. One more point - category intersection would be even better, but it may not happen anytime soon, so we have to rely on outside tools until then. --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 01:03, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

I hope that, while we work to address the problems within the current system, there is still a push to get category intersection implemented. That would solve so many problems, and I would actually use categories to find articles then. -GTBacchus^(talk) 03:35, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree, this has highlighted the need for category intersection (more like "tags" in google speak) over our current category system. I almost never use categories because I don't find them useful. Shadowjams (talk) 18:22, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Op-ed author making more misguided attacks on editors

In a follow-up to her op-ed, Miss Filipacchi is claiming that her BLP is being edited for revenge. Looking at it, these claims are clearly garbage. At the time of the original op-ed piece her article was rightly tagged for being severely lacking in sources with the external links section being cluttered with rave reviews added in by some single-purpose promotional account who was responsible for adding much of the unsourced puffery that has been added to the article. Editors removed those links and another began making the effort to clean up the promotional garbage. People should seriously check themselves before heeding her words on any of this as she clearly isn't making any effort to understand the subject she is discussing or consider any explanations that aren't nefarious.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 03:23, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Unfortunately, she says "But at least I’m back in the “American Novelists” category, along with many other women". She may have been when she wrote that piece, but she is not now. There appears to be an edit war going on to prevent her from being in that category. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 04:18, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Sure, let's ignore the various demeaning and misguided things she has said about editors who are trying to make her bio less of a promotional mess and focus on some trivial bickering over a category.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 04:56, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Her suspicions of revenge are well-founded and not "garbage." The tag that you cite was on April 25. Her article appeared on April 24. Her description of the article history is accurate. Let's face it, this whole thing is a big and well-deserved black eye for Wikipedia. Coretheapple (talk) 14:32, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

It's extremely clear that Filipacchi-related articles are being edited inappropriately. One editor has slapped tags accusing her of self-promotional editing on just about every article related to her, without a shred of evidence suggesting she has ever edited Wikipedia at all. Somebody rather spuriously deleted all the cover images from articles concerning her books, despite the existence of obviously proper rationales; it's hard to see that as anything but malicious vandalism. It's far too common to see editors circling the wagons and teeing off on "outsiders" who rather justifiably view a particular Wikipedia practice as blockheaded. It just adds to the not-entirely groundless perception is run by an odd concatenation of feral children and Afghan warlords. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 16:27, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

The stuff with the images is weird, as policy has been pretty clear since two years ago that it is acceptable fair use to have the cover art illustrating the article about a work (one of them did have an active tag as invalid fair use dating from back in 2007), but the rest is perfectly legit. It does seem there was a lot of promotional wording and unsourced puffery in those articles. See the changes made to Nude Men, Vapor, and Love Creeps. The advert tag was accurate and it is reasonable to suggest there was a COI issue, it wouldn't have to be Filipacchi herself editing the pages for that to be the case. It could have just been a fan gushing over her work, but that tagging was not inappropriate. It may no longer be necessary with all the changes that were made, though.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 17:22, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Given that the editor who placed the tags grouped Filipacchi with "people who've tried to use Wikipedia to promote themselves", their intent is obvious. The tone of the articles may have been favorable, but that's because the books were quite favorably reviewed. The form of the articles was lousy, but that's true of about 90% of what's written here. Removing reviews from major publications like Time and The Christian Science Monitor isn't eliminating advertising, it's at best blockheaded idiocy. And much of that "uncited" content was supported by external links or identified commentary, calling for citation fixes rather than excision. Sometimes, after all, the article about creative work is quite favorable because there's a strong critical consensus that it's really good work. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 18:06, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Oh come on now, you and I both know from the way those articles were written that they were not some attempt to present an accurate and unbiased portrayal. In a grand total of two minutes I found this review of Nude Men, which was hardly favorable and it was not the only one.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 18:56, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

And plot summaries do not need references, the novel itself is the reference. User:Qworty's actions look deliberately punitive to me. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 18:43, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

If it were simply stating what occurs in the book that would be one thing, but it threw in some editorializing and analysis that was not sourced.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 18:56, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't understand why you keep denying the obvious fact, blindly obvious to everyone else, which is that she is being subjected to retaliation for her op-ed. Coretheapple (talk) 11:05, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Of course it's retalation. If an editor were really trying to improve the article, acting in good faith, that editor would have added the ISBN numbers to each work, and linked to her WorldCat page in External links. That's pretty standard stuff. Instead, we have editors only looking for excuses to remove material. (btw DevilsAd, I noticed you referred to her as 'Miss Filipacci' although the Wikipedia style guide uses only a person's last name. iow, I saw what you did there.) 184.78.81.245 (talk) 21:11, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Anon, please note that Wikipedia's manual of style is only applicable to articles, not talkpages. How editors name ppl on talkpages is their own business and depends on editing style and what culture they're from.

Peter ^Isotalo 21:36, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

And what pointy little point was being made. Nice try, though. 184.78.81.245 (talk) 21:45, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The over-zealous removal of content was the work of basically just one person. That person was also engaged in a rather pointless slugfest with a rather suspicious user who was at best an uncivil and cantankerous supporter of Filipacchi. Both were edit warring and filled talkpages with a lot of hot air. While that went on, other editors gave the article a decent scrubbing. I'm all for improving and learning from mistakes, but I'm not keen on having the entire editing community taking a "well-deserved black eye" for cleaning up an article despite having to deal with an overly aggressive editor.

Peter ^Isotalo 21:13, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

If you look at the editor's contributions you will see edits that are effectively identical to the ones made to the Filipacchi-related articles on articles that have nothing to do with her so there is no evidence of special treatment and thus no evidence of retaliation. Seems likely the other articles were noticed when I brought up the promotional editing on her bio after Miss Filipacchi claimed editors were retaliating against her. This is the same misguided thinking that prompted this hurricane in a teacup: jumping to conclusions based solely on appearance and existing prejudices.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 22:00, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

But she had no way of knowing that, so naturally she assumed retaliation. It's a strong circumstantial case for retaliation, and it boomeranged and Wikipedia wound up getting a spanking in the Sunday Times. This kind of thing seems to happen again and again. The first piece appears to have been online only, and I don't think the second one would have appeared, in print, had editors not materialized on her page. Coretheapple (talk) 22:05, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

When people pop up in the news, especially regarding Wikipedia, there tend to be edits to that person's page. In this case the page hasn't been vandalized and has only undergone marked improvement. Are you suggesting that editors don't correct issues with articles on people currently criticizing Wikipedia because it could be misconstrued as retaliation? So does that mean if that person's article is a bunch of fluff talking about how so-and-so is the bee's knees and can kick Chuck Norris' ass we should all just let that stay up there until the period of criticism is over? That is not something I would support.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 22:30, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

The "retaliation" was entirely an issue of a single cantankerous user with extreeemely bad timing (and plenty of help from "pro-Filipacchi" sock puppets/trolls/whatever). But media has has completely ignored that Filipacchi's article has been cleaned up and slightly improved. And it has been even more disinterested in that community consensus is overall in favor of Filipacchi's critical analysis.

So what would you say is the lesson we should learn from this?

Peter ^Isotalo 22:32, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

I guess for me, the takeaway is that what happens on Wikipedia is being watched, and that it can result in adverse publicity. The irony is that the companies and people who appear in Wikipedia care a great deal about their image, but Wikipedia as an entity has no such concern whatsoever. Coretheapple (talk) 22:37, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

The part about being watched struck me as well. After I read this in the New York Review of Books it seems more real than ever. But the "no concern"-bit I don't follow. We're the ones who fixed the problems caused by one user (and some provocateurs), not Filipacchi, or the Times or Salon.com. And that's regardless of how much they try to take credit for it. And we're not the one ones who sidetracked the issue with exaggerated accusations about "revenge editing". So how exactly do we communicate that?

Peter ^Isotalo 22:52, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Hopefully someone in authority will call or write Filipacchi and talk to her about it. Really, I don't know what else can be done. Maybe it already has happened, as well as reaching out to the media in a similarly proactive and friendly fashion. Coretheapple (talk) 22:54, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Believe it or not, I tried mailing her earlier today, pointing out that the articles have been improved, not "dismantled" (wording on Twitter). And I did try to explain that the community overall takes her seriously. But that was before the damning Salon.com article, and before I checked out the rants over at certain users' talkpages. So I doubt that'll get us anywhere...

Peter ^Isotalo 23:08, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Skipping the discussion and focusing on the title: someone really needs to bring Filipacchi to AN/I quick for making personal attacks on Wikipedians!!! More seriously, this is such a typical Wikipedian response and it is so sad...Volunteer Marek 22:44, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

How is it sad? We've been around for more than a decade. Surely we can be at least mildly annoyed that professional journalists still can't be bothered with learning the basics of how Wikipedia works?

Peter ^Isotalo 22:52, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

It's sad in the sense that a lot of Wikipedia editors tend to confuse "criticism of their editing behavior" with these ... "attacks!!!!!!". As in, if anyone points out anything wrong with something they're doing then they are "attacking!!!!!" and then the editor runs to WP:ANI or WP:AE and tries to get them banned or blocked. Ok, that part is mostly just dysfunctional. Sad too, but the "dysfunctional" aspect overshadows the "sad" aspect, as long as it's just your usual Wikipedia battlegrounds. When Wikipedia editors try to apply these same standards to individuals who are not even part of Wikipedia - like NY Times writes, "OMG! This person said something bad about me in Slate! Personal attacks! Personal attacks! How can I file a report on them?!?"... then that part IS sad.

Dude. S/he is not "attacking" you. S/he is "criticizing" you. Grown ups know the difference.Volunteer Marek 23:09, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Uhm, I was talking about my personal frustration about how the community gets to take the blame for the actions of a few specific problematic users, while plenty of media outlets seem to think that their brief and grossly uninformed scrutiny of Wikipedia is what solves the problem. I didn't realize you were literally discussing only the sub-section heading. Maybe you should just change that heading if you find it so crappy...

Peter ^Isotalo 23:33, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Marek, no one should support false allegations being made against other people and concerns about such allegations should not be dismissed as a "typical Wikipediann response" as it should be a typical human response to be upset when people are being wrongly maligned.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 23:11, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Except that

1. She's probably right.

2. This rhetoric of "attack" is very much ridiculous Wiki-speak for "someone has DARED to criticize me!" or in this case, Wikipedia. Jimbo's original query of "WTF?" was meant - I assume - to ask "What The Fuck are you guys doing?" not "Why the Fuck is this person attacking us". That was the right question. So what has been the response to this? True, some people tried to fix the problem. Others went on a revenge-spree against this person's article(s) and then claimed she's "attacking".Volunteer Marek 23:22, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Point of order re Peter: She's an author who's blog is hosted at the NYT web site, not a journalist. These blogs are under even less editorial control than recurring op-ed columns. Don't blame journalism (at least on the NYT end, no comment on the Guardian or others). a13ean (talk) 23:31, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

I'm assuming that NYT has a minimum of oversight about facts in op-ed pieces even online. But maybe I'm not properly informed on how things work there. But what really concerns me is how Salon has turned this into "Wikipedia's shame". A lot of it borders on sheer malice.

Peter ^Isotalo 23:39, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Claims of "revenge editing" are pure fiction and that was the point of my original post. Some editors went to her article, noticed a number of content issues, and corrected them. Editors then began the process of building up a higher quality page, which is what we should expect to happen. Many of the accounts that made the original promotional changes appear to have been created for the sole purpose of making such changes, mostly editing over a few weeks from mid-November to early December of 2007 so it is possible there were some conflict of interest issues with those changes. Criticism is all well and good, so long as it is well-informed and fair criticism.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 23:42, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

FWIW the Marin County Alert has picked this up. (transcript here). Herostratus (talk) 01:41, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

And for all the whining and wailing and gnashing of teeth...I see that Amanda Filipacchi's article is still missing the ISBNs in the Bibliography (should be Works, btw) section, and her Worldcat entry in External links. All this arguing about whether or not her article was improved vs. cut to pieces, whether or not Filipacchi is 'misguided', and the most standard material is still missing. So guess which I believe is being, shall we say, economical with the truth? 184.78.81.245 (talk) 14:10, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

This is a discussion about media response on a talkpage. If you feel the article is lacking, why don't you point it out at talk:Amanda Filipacchi? Or better yet, get yourself an account and fix it yourself.

Peter ^Isotalo 21:23, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

That whooshing sound you hear is the point going over your head. 184.78.81.245 (talk) 23:44, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

The point that you're extremely lazy and want everyone else to do the work for you? Silverseren^C 08:25, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Double whoosh. O ye of little understanding.... 184.78.81.245 (talk) 17:36, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Filipacchi now labeling multiple editors as sexist on a flimsy basis

Several editors are being mentioned in a piece for The Atlantic as evidence of pervasive sexism based solely on their changes involving those categories and making baseless assumptions about Lambert's actions in creating a gender-neutral category. Is anyone from the Foundation talking to her about these things? They should ask her if she knows anything about all the promotional editing on pages about her, her family, and her books, back in November and December of 2007. For some time the page about her and the pages about her books were basically serving as free advertising and now it seems she is using this controversy to promote herself as well (in this recent piece she goes on about how this is getting mentioned in all sorts of publications all over the world).--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 23:05, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

What is the WMF supposed to talk to her about? Do they talk to anyone whose Wikipedia pages promotes their stuff? Maybe they could warn her that she's violating WP:NPA and might end up at WP:ANI if she doesn't drop the WP:STICK. It's a WP:BATTLEGROUND out there in the real world... — alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 23:33, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

LOL, obviously she isn't bound by our silly little policies, but I would think someone who is stirring up all this hostility in the media and causing a lot of trouble for the editors she is wrongly accusing of very serious misdeeds is someone to whom the Foundation would be interested in talking. If she has previously been involved in misuse of Wikipedia for self-promotion then that would be a legitimate concern to bring up as well.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 00:05, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

And in true Wikipedian fashion here we (and by we I mean not me) go down the usual route of attack; if you can't refute a critic's criticisms, you go after them personally, i.e. argumentam ad hominem. Her list of editors and "serious misdeeds" is quite spot-on. Tarc (talk) 00:11, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

I think Filipacchi has done a fantastic job bringing attention to our problematic categorization system which does not work for the reader but functions solely to help bots and other automated tasks. I think we talked about having categories created in realtime from intersection queries (female + author) but I'm not sure whatever became of that proposal or how far along the technology has come. We don't really need editors messing around the categories; that should be a mostly automated process. And if we want to see a list of all American + female + authors, we should be able to construct the query in natural language. The problem is that we aren't where we want to be and we won't get there unless we have more people interested in human-computer interaction working on the site. Filipacchi has identified important problems that need immediate attention: how do people use the site, what are they looking for, and what do they expect to find? I recommend that the Wikimedia foundation consider hiring her as a consultant. Viriditas (talk) 00:26, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, she definitely is not about to let go. If she has said anything inaccurate, someone should make that point to the Atlantic. If not, then yes, listen to what she says. Coretheapple (talk) 00:44, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

I am not particularly concerned about her criticism of Wikipedia, except with regards to its accuracy, but by "calling out" editors as sexists or accusing them of revenge editing, she is exposing them to personal targeting by online vigilantes and with nothing more than her own prejudices and misguided assumptions to back up her accusations. My concern is with the people who are being flippantly maligned in the press and subjected to harassment because of these half-truths.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 01:00, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

You're right. I think that her Atlantic piece was overkill in some respects, including the singling out of specific editors. Coretheapple (talk) 18:37, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

At this point our main overriding concern should be with how Wikipedia works and how it appears to outsiders. I realize that Qworty and others have spoken vociferously at length about how they don't care about how Wikipedia is seen in the world, but that kind of thinking isn't acceptable. We do care, and we're working on meeting the needs of our readers. Viriditas (talk) 01:07, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Filipacchi may have certain things wrong, but nothing that she has written in the past week can possibly compare to the venomous outpouring against her, the New York Times, her mother, her career, her personal background and the "thugs", "meats" and "socks" on Qworty's talk page in recent days. That was an astounding spectacle. What have you said about that, The Devil's Advocate? Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 01:24, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Cullen is entirely correct. The failure of the community to respond appropriately to Qworty's behavior is direly disturbing. As is the extraordinary willingness of some highly visible segments of the community to trivialize and dismiss Filipacchi's criticisms and their support from literary figures as elevated as Joyce Carol Oates[2]. (Is there any genuine evidence, aside from Qworty's agitated and obviously off-target accusations, that "online vigilantes" are "targeting" the self-appointed nemeses of Filipacchi here?) And while the Filipacchi debacle was proceeding, Qworty had the chutzpah to endorse what they called "a very worthy effort to drive a naive but disruptive editor straight off Wikipedia"[3].Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 02:48, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

When people are harassed, as Qworty was, they sometimes react in a defensive manner and become hostile. Not surprisingly, a person stirring up tempers in major media outlets by making charges of bigotry then accusing people of retaliating for those charges lets out some people's lesser tendencies. The editor in question was being viciously hounded by several persons who were turned on to this editor as a consequence of Miss Filipacchi's baseless claims of "revenge editing" when that editor made an effort to fix a lot of promotional editing that came to light after Miss Filipacchi's op-ed. You should also know the editor has stated that he or she was receiving death threats as a consequence of Miss Filipacchi's accusations. Naturally, Wikipedia acts the way much of society acts when people react poorly to harassment, by condemning the victim for reacting and ignoring the conduct provoking it.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 02:17, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Qworty was asked to forward all alleged off-wiki harassment to arbcom, and if he does, I'm sure they will deal with it and/or contact law enforcement. However, based on the evidence we have on-wiki, it looks like Wikipedia pages belonging to Filipacchi and her family were unfairly targeted. I agree with Jimbo that any editor who engages in this kind of behavior should be banned/blocked. With respect to Qworty and other editors, it's really hard to see this behavior on-wiki as anything less than outright revenge editing and provocation. Wile there may always be valid concerns about promotional eidting and COI, it's really important for editors to respect our subjects and to not forget our audience. Qworty's words in this regard were very disheartening, and demonstrated either an obvious immaturity attributable to youth, or a willful disregard of our best practices. We don't seek to provoke our subjects nor revenge edit their pages, and if there is even the slightest semblance of such behavior, it needs to be put down like a rabid dog. Viriditas (talk) 02:29, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

"Unfairly" targeted my ass. She was in the press so people looked at her bio and saw that it was an unsourced promotional mess. It was fixed up and she cried "revenge editing", which turned attention on other articles related to her that were also unsourced promotional messes. They were fixed up as well. A few editors on-wiki who are either fans or associates of Filipacchi began hounding Qworty in response to Filipacchi's allegations in the press.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 02:41, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

If someone is in the press, then we need to be extra-careful and dial down the rhetoric. What we don't do is put the pedal to the metal and ramp it up. Seriously, that's just wrong. We need to spend more time working with our BLP subjects and addressing their concerns. That means not going after their family and leaving nasty messages everywhere. You seem to be arguing that she and her family were fair game. That's not right, TDA. Wikipedia isn't a video game where you get to go "after" people. I'm afraid your attitude here isn't really a good fit for the job we're trying to do. Viriditas (talk) 02:49, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

If someone, or more than one, threatened Quorty, then that is reprehensible, and the Wikimedia Foundation ought to make appropriate reports to legal authorities. I do not condemn Quorty, as that editor's words speak for themselves. I speak to the edits, not the editor. The response was ugly, it was belligerent, it was confrontational, it was scatalogical, it was off topic by a decade with regard to Judith Miller, it was a vicious counter-attack, and it was completely contrary to the advice that the editor in question received from several other editors in the hours before, including myself. While condemning Filipacci, you continue to rationalize Quorty's response. And when media outlets pick up on Quorty's words, quoting them word for word, you blame the media. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 02:37, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

The talkpage ranting is one thing, but speaking of the actual article editing, is it really justifiable to call it "revenge editing". What's the worst example we can point to in this case? Over-zealous removal of info that (very strictly speaking) lacked citations and cleaning out link farms? I don't really like that type of editing myself, but the community appears to find it perfectly acceptable behavior in plenty of cases, particularly when it comes to biographies of living people.

Peter ^Isotalo 02:52, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

We must avoid not only misconduct but the appearance of misconduct. Why haven't you, The Devil's Advocate, or Quorty or any other editor involved in this imbroglio added new referenced content to this group or articles? Do you really think that the world at large will be able to look at the edits to her biography, the articles about her books, the article about her mother and the article about her father and the article about the company her father was associated with, and conclude, "all above board", all motivated only and strictly and scrupulously by the neutral point of view, with not a hint or a trace of revenge? Yes, we can say so because the editors in question bent over backwards to add new, properly referenced content. They added ISBN numbers and WorldCat data, and uncovered reviews of her work, both positive and negative, and cited them. They expanded and fleshed out and referenced the articles about her notable family members and their business ventures. Yes, that was what it was. It wasn't that ugly thing called "revenge editing". No, not at all. Bridge for sale in Brooklyn. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 02:54, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Please don't get hyperbolic. I'm not taking the same position as The Devil's Advocate. Those articles might not have turned into FAs, but they were improved and in some cases slightly expanded. And they weren't in the best condition before this either. People here are suggesting disciplinary action against what was done, but I'm merely posing the question: we're very tolerant of over-zealous removals in other situations, especially if someone refers to WP:BLP. But here, it becomes pure "revenge editing". I might be wrong here, which is why I'm asking the question again: which of the edits would we suggest punishing users for and publicly acknowledging as retaliation?

Peter ^Isotalo 09:29, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Color me a whole lot of not fucking surprised that some of you care more about "appearances" and "PR" for this site then you do about the damn people editing here. Were some of the things Qworty said inappropriate? Of course, but there is a context here that the media are ignoring or not giving much consideration. If any of these other editors Filipacchi has now called out should get harassed because of her misguided accusations, then I guess they better not get too agitated about it, because everyone here is just going to pounce on them for acting poorly when we need to keep up appearances for the press.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 03:37, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, but you need to be this tall to edit this site. Filipacchi did not cause any problems, our editors did. Are you getting it yet? Appearance is not just everything, it is the sum total of everything we stand for, and if we don't want to be seen as sexist, or appear to engage in revenge editing or harassment, then we must give every appearance that we do not condone this type of behavior and we must not only give credence to this appearance, we must act on it. Our appearance reflects our actions, and our content reflects our contributors. This isn't an either/or situation, and black and white thinking isn't helpful. If anything, Filipacchi did us a favor by bringing home several points that the community has failed to address, namely the equal treatment of BLP's and the complete failure of our categorization system. She should be hired as a consultant for doing so, and the editors responsible for turning this into a conflict should change the error of their ways. Viriditas (talk) 03:56, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Do you care far more, The Devil's Advocate, for the "damn people editing here" than for the subjects of our BLPs, and their mothers, and their fathers? Have you read and understood WP:BLP, a policy which applies just as as much to user talk pages as it does to main space articles? Editing here is entirely voluntary, and any one of us is entirely free to step aside at any moment, but when voluntary editors here go on a rip-snorting ranting and raving vendetta against someone who wrote a couple of opinion pieces somewhat critical of Wikipedia, you think that "context" is a mitigating factor? The subjects of that rage have no such freedom to step aside. I am one of those "damn people editing here" too, and I am appalled by this editing, and deeply concerned by your ongoing defense of it. Do you have any concerns for those editors among us who find it shocking? Or will you continue to try to defend and explain the indefensible? Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:07, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Editors here are living people too, in case you all forgot, and most don't have the luxury Miss Filipacchi has of being able to defend themselves and demonize their opponents in the popular press. It is the easiest thing in the world to do what you said, just appeal to the angry mob outside our doors and sate their bloodlust without any show of compassion or respect for the truth, but it does not make for an encouraging code of ethics.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 05:14, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Read the articles in question with an NPOV attitude (required here), and then read the responses among some Wikipedia editors. The tone of an "angry mob" is overwhelmingly evident among some defensive Wikipedia editors, especially on Quorty's talk page, and here on Jimbo's talk page, and not at all in the critical commentary in the media. And it was Quorty who argued so forcefully that the New York Times is dead and obsolete and has a tiny penis, and that Wikipdeia is the dominant media force. So much for the power of the "popular press". Pot? Kettle? Black much? Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 05:57, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Let's be realistic here, we have some random nobodies on the Internet versus a somewhat successful author born into privilege with ready access to the news media. Who do you think has more legitimate cause for concern about personal safety when it comes to being maligned by the other?--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 07:59, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Lets be even more realistic: If random nobodies start dicking about with the categorisations or the content of "TEH WORLDZ ONLINE ENCYCLOPAEDIA" then they should expect to have their activities questioned. John lilburne (talk) 10:02, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

As should someone who stirs up hostility in the press. Questioning and criticizing need not entail baseless attacking and demeaning.--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 18:02, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Women's literature isn't a thing that doesn't exist

The thing I find amazing about all the discussions on this is the idea that women aren't special, that women's literature isn't a thing. Of course they are special, the whole world recognizes this. That's why there are specific fields of academic disciplines devoted to the works of women and women alone. The same thing occurs for non-white ethnic groups. And we all already know the reason for it, because history, literature included, has been dominated by white men. And so the subjects of works by women and by minority groups is largely un-looked at, which is why they are fields of study.

There are whole classes on this topic alone, so I won't go into any more depth, but i'll reiterate that women are special. Separating them into their own category as novelists wasn't segregating them or making them less important, it was meant to be doing the exact opposite, it was meant to be emphasizing them, making them more important and focused upon. It's why we have subcategories for different racial groups as well. Now, while that may or may not mean that a male novelists category is appropriate, it doesn't change the fact that the creation of a women novelists category was a completely appropriate, pro-women, academic, and encyclopedic thing to do. Silverseren^C 08:49, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Also sexist. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 08:58, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

So you're saying Women's studies is sexist? Silverseren^C 09:01, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

If it presumes that everything any woman ever does is because of her gender, yeah. That's sexist. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 09:05, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Then where exactly do you go from there? Women are generally focused on more in academic disciplines because they have a history of being ignored (and often still are in favor of men outside of these specific disciplines). Equality is nice and all, but when you throw everyone in a group together, it doesn't change the fact that a large part of the world IS still sexist and will act in such a manner as to minimize the existence of women within the group. That's why feminism focuses on women's achievements as women. It's why women's studies is also called feminist studies.

So, again, while equality is a nice thing in name alone, it actually has to be worked on specifically to get beyond prejudices. And it is indeed a fine line to tread. But, hey, if you want to say that you know what sexism is better than all the feminist groups in the world and throughout history, feel free. Silverseren^C 09:12, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Maybe one should start by not paying attention to feminist groups but using one's own brain. If available. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 09:18, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

People's brains is what led to everything being sexist and racist in the world in the first place. Silverseren^C 09:23, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes. True. But mine didn't. :) Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 09:25, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

The issue is not that women were put into a category of women novelists. The problem was that they were also removed from American novelists. While this is an artifact of our categorisation system, the concern was that it presented women, and not men, as something other than novelists. Women are both novelists and women novelists, not just one of the two.

As many have mentioned, we need a better classification scheme. Wikipedia has become too large for the current model, which was more suitable to a much smaller project. - Bilby (talk) 09:28, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Except women novelists is a subcategory of novelists, so there's already the implication that they are novelists. I do agree that we need a better categorization system, that's obvious, but for anyone to actually take the subcategory and purposefully misconstrue it in their minds to mean that it isn't a part of the higher categories takes a significant amount of mental effort. Or a complete lack of familiarity with how categories work in general, which would then mean you don't really have the right to criticize it. Furthermore...why has no one complained about this for all of the racial subcategories? Silverseren^C 09:34, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Oh I have at times, but of course no-one listens. The whole thing could simply be solved by creating "man/male" and "white XYZ" categories. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 09:38, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Probably not - it's quite likely people would still complain. Regardless of whether women authors are in Category:Authors or Category:Women Authors, some non-trivial chunk of feminists (and non-feminists) will complain it's sexist; that's not surprising; feminism is not a strongly hierarchical thing where everyone marches in lockstep. The only actual solution I can imagine is to re-jig categories so the members of the subcats are automatically displayed in the parent categories as well, so that women authors are both "authors" and "woman authors". But that's a technical fix we're unlikely to see, I suspect. WilyD 09:46, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

How is that useful? If you are doing a research project on women's literature in the early 20th century, and you wanted to see a list of all female authors who wrote about suffrage, how would our current category system help? It's not setup for readers, it's setup for bots and cyborgs like User:Hmains who have an abnormal, obsessive need to "refine" every category so that they are impossible to glean the least bit of information from. We need to start designing categories so that humans can use them to mine useful information. Right now, they are only useful for bots (and Hmains). Seriously, we need to look at this from a different point of view and stop "refining" the cats. Hmains and others have made them completely unusable. Viriditas (talk) 09:50, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

It would solve the sexist and racist-issue. Of course it wouldn't make categories more useful. For that, as you say, fundamental changes are needed. I cannot imagine why anyone would possibly find any of the ways persons are categorized useful. Choyoołʼįįhí:Seb az86556 ^{> haneʼ} 09:58, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Of course, you could argue that that's why we have List of women writers in the first place. Silverseren^C 10:06, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

If you want categories to be useful, we dump the hierarchical model and build in a faceted model. So that we tag someone as "Female" "American" and "Writer". It would be wonderful to say "I want all fantasy authors from Australia born after 1970" and have that list built. Hierarchical models hit all sorts of problems as they grow. A faceted model would fix the problem and make them more useful at the same time. And I must admit, I'm surprised why it isn't automatically recognised that having a system where you click on the non-gender-specific "American novelists" category and be given a list of exclusively male authors is a Bad Thing. :) Amanda Filipacchi had a pretty good point, even if she was unaware of the technical reasons for it arising. - Bilby (talk) 10:11, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Except how does she know we weren't planning on also making a Male novelists category and moving the men over there and we were just starting with the women first? When someone's first thoughts jump to sexism or racism for something as innocuous as this, it really does make you wonder if they didn't just want it to be that for their own purposes. Especially since the user in question that was moving so many over has clearly made a number of categories for men and women in the past, so there's no reason to believe that a male novelist category wasn't next on the list. Silverseren^C 10:40, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Wikidata is already going down this line. A person will have corresponding wikidata of 'female' 'author' 'american' for example. Only in death does duty end (talk) 11:27, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

• Are there really people taking part in these discussions that feel that "women's literature isn't a thing" ? Tarc (talk) 12:25, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Yes, and they seem to think that if they think that "women are special" then everything will be OK. Maybe they can pick up some flowers on the way home from work and then everything will be OK.

What I really want to say is that women writers are studied in women's studies departments and in literature departments. They should be categorized as women writers and as writers. This is obvious to anyone who's not trying to justify the sexist categorization system ex post facto.

@Seren, your "how does she know we weren't about to" argument has been widely used and justly ridiculed for centuries in many contexts. You can hear people making it about slavery in the US still. "If only the Yankees hadn't taken our slaves away by force we were about to let them go due to economic constraints and christian love and then it wouldn't have been so violent and things would have been better." You can hear it about abortion rights: "If only the supreme court hadn't forced the states to legalize abortion they would gradually have allowed it and there would have been no anti-abortion-rights backlash." Dude, if something is wrong you say it is wrong when you see it is wrong. No one believes that anyone was "about to fix it". Finally, you say it's innocuous, but the world disagrees with you. It's not only not innocuous, it's actually sexist. It actually is.

@Bilby, I'm glad you can see that Filipacchi was right, but if you think this kind of thing can be blamed on technical reasons you're ignoring the reality of the situations. It happened because Wikipedia is sexist, and that caused the "technical" decisions that led to a sexist categorization system. It's ridiculous to say that she was right even though she didn't understand why it was happening. When sexist results occur they occur because of sexism. That's how you can tell where there's sexism: there are sexist results. So-called technical reasons are also ex post facto justification. Good lord, but Wikipedia is insular and myopic.

@Everybody else except Tarc. No technical fixes are needed, although a tag-based category system would be nice. All that's needed is to put the goddamned articles in as many categories as apply and everyone shut up about not having them in parent categories. That's all it would take for now. Put Maya Angelou in American writers and American women writers and African-American writers and African-American women writers and American Southern writers and American Southern women writers and all those same things with "poets" too and "essayists" and "memoirists" and so what if she ends up in 700 categories? Fix the problem now, fix the technicals later. — alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 14:24, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

It's a question of perspective. When a reader (for whom this is all, I believe, written), clicks on "American Novelists" and gets a list of men, but no women, they are going to be confused, and maybe annoyed or outraged. If we identify a "technical reason" this has happened then what we have identified is an internal wikipedia matter that has caused this to happen. We can react in many ways, but we should consider what we intend to achieve with that reaction.

I suggest that any business which blamed its 'systems' for my lack of satisfaction with its provided service would lose my custom, unless it did so in a clear way identifying its regret at my inconvenience/confusion/outrage and indicating how it proposed to fix the problem, and perhaps how I could "work around it" in the meantime. I'm pretty certain I'd like an apology in there as well (customers like that).

It doesn't always work that way, of course. Some businesses would view me as an inconvenience, and maybe even become aggressive, or attempt to belittle my valid complaint. Those would be the ones I no longer deal with, and which I advise my friends to steer clear of.

But I forget - wikipedia is written by the "editors", for the "editors". Readers must feel like those people who have to interrupt a pair of shop assistants openly gossiping about what a "bitch" the previous customer was, in order to get served, if they ever stumble across discussions like this.

And Seren - what on earth is the whole strawman premise of your OP about? Who suggested that they don't think "women's literature is a thing", or that "women aren't special"? where?... diffs? Begoon ^talk 15:27, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

There were some that were arguing that rather than double categorization, that there shouldn't be a women specific category, that they shouldn't be specialized out. That in itself makes the assumption that women specific fields of study aren't a thing, because you're saying they shouldn't be noted. Silverseren^C 18:51, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

On structural and categorical sexism

The words sexism and racism have been thrown about with abandon these past few days, and I don't think any of us would disagree that there is a widespread perception of sexism in the wikipedia, and especially in our category structure. A recent expose at wikipediocracy here and others have laid out strong claims for this sexism that go beyond perception to hard evidence, which we need to address as a community (the discussion on this page about a topless girl on commons is an excellent example) However, I'd like to posit that this particular case, if we only look at the categorization of women (and men for that matter), the word "sexism" is a bit trickier. While the perception of sexism is certainly there, the reality is much more fuzzy, and its solutions much less obvious. So to start with, allow me to attempt a definition of "categorical sexism", which is to say, sexism as manifested by membership of a biography in (and lack of membership in) certain categories. (Categorical racism would follow a similar set of rules). I'm not going to tackle the question of whether gendered categories should even exist at all (we have ~8000 devoted to women) - that's a different discussion - the question at hand is, given the structure we have, where (and why) do so-called "sexist" categorizations crop up? Based on my reading of the outside attention to this issue, "categorical sexism" seems to be defined in the media by the following two characteristics:

1. Membership in a gendered category X and
2. Non membership in the parent category of X that is non-gendered. (e.g. what is relevant here is membership by the article in the non-gendered parent category - whether the gendered category is a member or not doesn't seem to matter)

I should note here, for the record, that our guidance on this is clear (if a bit muddily written): WP:EGRS states that one should never be ghettoized, so the claims of Alf.laylah.wa.layla that "When sexist results occur they occur because of sexism." are ridiculous. This was the actions of a few editors categorizing against policy or misunderstanding policy. Look at the guidance - it was simply not followed in this case, but the guidance is clear on this point. The problem is, actually following that guidance is harder than it looks - so the non-following of the guidance we have is endemic, and I've estimated that 75-90% of bios are classified in a way that could lead to accusations of categorical sexism, racism, religion-ism, or heteronormism/anti-LGBT.

I will give a few examples - take a look at these, and see if you can tell, without going to the tree, which one is sexist or racist according to the definition above:

• Mary, a politician from New York. Suppose her cats are as follows:

• Category:African-American women in politics
• Category:African-American women activists
• Category:African Americans' rights activists
• Category:Women state legislators in New York
• Category:New York State Senators

Here is another one:

• John, a gay, feminist, scholar and actor. His cats are:

• Category:Feminist studies scholars
• Category:Male feminists
• Category:American male television actors
• Category:Gay actors

If you look at these two examples in detail, following the rules above, and without spending 10 minutes in the tree, which most editors won't do - you may notice it is not always easy to determine where the 'racism' or 'sexism' comes in, since many of the parent categories in question are diffusing - so both bios fail miserably according to that first set of rules (e.g. you must always be in the non-gendered parent cat) - but the reality is more subtle. Mary is not, for example, a member of the (grand)parent cat Category:American politicians, but she doesn't need to be, since she is in Category:New York State Senators, which is a sub-cat of that one - but she would need to be part of Category:American women in politics. So the original rule above, which suggests someone needs to be a member of the parent category, is inherently flawed, as this would mean we would violate the idea of diffusing categories, and in some cases you'd need to join the grandparent, or go up multiple levels of the tree. There's also a trick in the above, which is that Mary is gender-ghettoized by her non-membership in Category:African-American activists, which would be easy for someone to miss, given she's in Category:African Americans' rights activists (she would also need to be in Category:American activists and Category:American women activists by the same reasoning). While Mary has examples of both categorical sexism and racism above (I leave the others as an exercise for the reader), John does not - because he is in a gendered sub-category of Category:Feminists and in a relative as well - e.g. Category:Feminist studies scholars, and he is not ghettoized by his sexuality either, since he is in a subcat of Category:Male actors that is not sexuality specific. And, a more subtle point, John's acting career is not ghettoized by gender in this case, because all actors are fully diffused by gender.

As a side note, there are about 30 Category:Male feminists who aren't elsewhere categorized in the Category:Feminists tree - and thus ghettoized by definition. It's rather interesting no-one has mentioned this - is this an example of systematic anti-male bias? Category:Male prostitutes is another example where these poor fellows are ghettoized. Are the sexist editors of wikipedia to blame for that one too? :)

In any case, we have to modify our rule, which now becomes: (Categorical sexism/racism/anti-LGBT/anti-religion-ism is defined by)

1. Membership in a gendered or ethnic or sexuality or religion or category X and
2. Non membership in an ancestor or "blood relative" category (e.g. sibling, cousin) of X that is non-gendered, non-ethnic, non-sexuality-based, and non-religious. (again what is relevant here is membership by the article in the non-gendered parent category - whether the gendered category is a member or not is not really relevant)
3. If multiple categorizations are applied (e.g. gender, ethnicity, sexuality), as you go up the tree, you must also be a member of each extant iteration that removes a facet while retaining the same noun. (e.g. Category:African-American women poets members should also be in Category:African-American poets, Category:American women poets, and Category:American poets - unless the bio is are already in a non-gendered sub-cat of same.
4. The above rules do not apply for any characteristic which has been fully diffused - e.g. if all men and women are fully categorized, there is no need for membership in a super-cat.

Now, this is where it gets tricky. How far does "blood relative" extend? Let's take another example:

• Sadia, a poet. Her cats are:

• Category:Poets of the early Islamic period
• Category:Medieval women poets

• She has a friend, Aliah, who is in these cats:

• Category:Sufi poets
• Category:Medieval women poets

Can you tell, just by looking, which one has been ghettoized and which one gets a clean bill of health? The answer is, Aliah has been ghettoized - Sadia is in a women-specific medieval poetry sub-cat, and in a several-times-removed cousin under the same tree (e.g. Category:Medieval poets)., so she's technically safe, and she sits alongside other men in harmony. Aliah, on the other hand, is in a non-gendered Category:Sufi poets cat alongside other men, but it's arguably based on religion, so she needs to bubble up (somewhere?), but more importantly, Category:Sufi poets is not a subcat of Template:Medieval poets, so it is a more distant relative. Thus, she has been ghettoized by both gender and religion, but I'm still not quite sure how to put my finger on why - how far of a distant relative do you have to be before it no longer counts as a de-ghettoizing category? If we put Sadia in Category:11th-century writers, that doesn't help her either - she still remains ghettoized from her medieval poet peers, but with Category:11th-century poets, she's back in business - ghettoization-by-gender has been removed. The mathematics of this is worthy of a PhD thesis in my opinion - because it comes down to a subtle interplay of identity and grouping, and you need to carefully study how far you must go up the tree, and how deep into cousins and second cousins you're allowed to go to ensure you've been able to find a de-ghettoizing category. To all those, like Alf.laylah.wa.laylah, who would say "just stick them in every parent", you're sort of missing the point of diffusing categories - if we did that, then why not put all novelists in writers, and all writers in arts occupations, and so on. If you don't diffuse on something, there is no real point in having categories at all. Now, we've tried to create rules that say certain types of cats should be non-diffusing, which is reasonable, but it's also very hard to do correctly in the general case. This non-diffusing special case rule also means that each bio must embed and repeat within it the full logic and structure of the tree - and this leads to a different set of problems, which I've called "retroactive sexism". Let's look at an example:

1. Susan is a romantic novelist, and is placed in the following cats:

• Category:American women novelists
• Category:American romantic fiction writers

For now, she's good - she sits along side her male peers in a non-gendered sibling cat of Category:American novelists. Now however, a wily editor comes along and decides that Category:American romantic fiction writers should be moved up to Category:American writers as it's actually a broader category - this is a single edit change to a category that most people may not notice. However, in that action, said wily editor has now ghettoized hundreds of women in the Category:American romantic fiction writers cat, since they are no longer in a non-gendered child of Category:American novelists. To fix this, you now have to go back to all of your romantic fiction writers and add a new category, or stick them in the novelist parent. Thus, a non-sexist categorization *becomes* sexist after the fact, based on the (relatively innocent) actions of someone else - hence retroactive sexism.
Here's another example of what you might call retroactive-reversal-of-sexism. Much has been said about how Category:American novelists is the "main" category, the "lead" category, and that membership in this category means you have arrived as a novelist. All of the hubub around this ignores the simple fact that there are 3000 bios - both of men and women, that are not, and have never been in Category:American novelists - they sit happily in the subcats below. The reason we can't just bubble all women novelists up to Category:American novelists (as many have argued) is this now becomes unfair to the men who aren't there - (say those sitting peacefully in the mystery novelists cat) - to be fair, we'd have to bubble them up too. And then all novelist sub-cats become non-diffusing, so why not make novelists itself non-diffusing, and up everyone bubbles to Category:American writers - this is a recursive problem.
But now, we get to retroactive-reversal-of-sexism - a clever wikipedia programmer creates some code that will allow a toggle to display not just the direct members, but all sub-members of a given category. (As a note - I've now added this feature, just go to Category:American novelists and click to see it, using the catscan tool.) Now, when Amanda from the NY Times swings by wikipedia, she can click on Category:American novelists, click on "see all including subcats", and see the full list of everyone, including those in subcats. Thus, with a stroke of programming genuis, the so-called "sexism" has been erased. Now, whether you're a member or not in the super cat doesn't matter so much anymore, as we've fixed the display issue - so the "sexist" acts of categorization are hence, with a few lines of computer code, rendered non-sexist!
If you want to explore this more deeply (even though I gather most of you are sick of this and just want to get on with your lives), please please please come take the quiz I put together, it's a real-life example and I challenge all of you, especially you, alf laylah wa laylah, to do your best. I'm quite confident that you, like others who have tried, will fail (I myself spent an hour making the answer key, and I still failed). Not because you're a bad person, nor because you're a racist or sexist, but because doing this right is really really hard. We've spent so much time and focus on Category:American women novelists where the answer seems to simple (duh, move them up), but avoiding ghettoization in the *general* case is much harder. I welcome your thoughts and comments on the above, and sorry I'm a bit wordy... --Obi-Wan Kenobi (talk) 16:57, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

In a shorter sense, I too would like to see a change to the way we categorise people. Take, for example, Ed Balls: he's an MP, he's in the Labour Party, and he's a Labour MP. I think it would be much easier to have a sort of "tag" system a la Wikidata, and visible categories maybe as something distinct but related to tags? So I could tag Ed Balls "Labour (UK)", "Members of Parliament", "55th Parliament", and "Current Labour (UK) MPs" could be int[Labour (UK), Members of Parliament, 55th Parliament]? It's something to think about among the devs, I'm sure. Sceptre ^(talk) 17:37, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

• Thanks for putting that message in the category pointing people to the toolserver app that was recently mentioned; this is progress. But I would like to see this message generalized and polished a bit and placed as an editnotice for the entire category: namespace! (Categories need a lot more help than this, but shunting people away from them is a good start) Wnt (talk) 19:14, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Wikidata

The category/list/superset/subset/Venn diagram problem is being addressed via [Wikidata]. Please read it, especially noting the List of Properties Sections for people, literature, etc. I suspect there was an assumption they could automagically populate some of the tags using Wikipedia categories. This is still possible of course, but perhaps not in the they assumed. Keep calm and carry on! 184.78.81.245 (talk) 17:31, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Commons isn't getting better, it seems

Are the adults at WMF ever going to get around to demanding respect for fellow human beings at commons? Any father of a daughter (like you, or I) should be enraged at crap like commons:Commons:Deletion_requests/File:Mardi_Gras_Flashing_-_Color.jpg#File:Mardi_Gras_Flashing_-_Color.jpg. I'm not upset about the boobs, but I am appalled by the incredible lack of decency on the part of the people commenting there. --SB_Johnny | ^talk✌ 23:56, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

I think we need to remember the daughters who aren't in the picture also. If one of them loses control over a topless cellphone photo, how humiliated will they feel? I think they will feel less humiliated if we don't suppress the "background noise" of photos like this on the Internet than if we do. Normality is a competition, a zero sum game, and when we push one girl up in the rankings, some other one must come down to occupy that place of social disapproval from those foolishly judgmental about ordinary human anatomy. This is true no matter whether society's threshold is an exposed breast, an unveiled face, or a flash of ankle. The difference is that the one we show now in some way volunteered to step out of the fold, and may therefore feel less injured than the one who takes her place. And that when we move the threshold with our uncensored coverage, women everywhere are just a little freer. Therefore, we should simply go by the routine policies that apply, maintain the image and forget about it. One day people throughout the world, moved by legal precedents like in New York and Canada, and heroic protesters like FEMEN, will come to appreciate that there is nothing any more improper about a woman's body than a man's. Wnt (talk) 03:56, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Insofar as there are arguments that this image is harmful, it's harmful to an individual. We cannot justify harm to an individual on the grounds that it's generally good for the world. Individuals matter; that's why we have BLP in the first place. Ken Arromdee (talk) 19:18, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Consensus is great, bit only as long as it agrees with you. I am not sure what you hope to accomplish by filing a complaint predicated on an appeal to emotion fallacy. Resolute 04:44, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Appeal to emotion, yep. Emotions are not false, they're real. They count. argumentum ad passiones is inducing emotions, such as greed, hatred, fear or pity in the listener, solely in order to beguile them. It is not false or wrong in any way to take into account how our behaviour affects the emotions of others. It's natural and normal for humans and, I think, a number of other primates. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 13:48, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Depressingly the 'keep' votes all centered on 'is it legal?' ignoring moral, ethical or even 'encyclopedic value' grounds. Why when I saw this here did I know that Russavia would be involved.... Only in death does duty end (talk) 07:49, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Why doesn't my argument above count as ethical grounds? The problem here is not emotionalism or moralism per se, but a lack of imagination. You see only the single most easily pictured possibility and not the many less likely scenarios. Wnt (talk) 15:13, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

The day may come when no girl regrets flashing, and every girl is thrilled to see herself flashing on a webpage visited a thousand times a day. Until then, putting this image on that article is callous and morally irresponsible. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 15:37, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

This discussion was about the Commons image - I'm not even sure what article you're referring to at the moment. Wnt (talk) 16:40, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

For a while, the image was at the top of Exhibitionism. I forgot where I was. Still, for all the same reasons, it's wrong to host it on Commons. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 17:58, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, it might have been more debatable there - how well do we know that what the girl was doing was "exhibitionism" rather than something else? (As can be exemplified by asking whether you would categorize her as an "exhibitionist") The article starts by describing a festival much like Mardi Gras, but doesn't actually mention Mardi Gras and focuses more on individual decisions than group action. Undressing in the locker room for a swimming pool isn't exhibitionism (remember nowadays the 'polite' assumption that everyone is heterosexual is gone) Is Mardi Gras more like that or more like an individual who decides to go streaking? Wnt (talk) 18:32, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Hm. Anyone who knows me on Commons should know I'm a keen advocate of improving respect for BLP and privacy - but I find it hard to see how this image could be deleted within Commons' current policies. There is good evidence from the source Flickr stream that image was taken in a public place in the US, and that subject was well aware of the photographs being taken - so legality of hosting is not an issue unless we want to argue about age. The photograph was taken in 2008, so well into the Internet age, which reduces the moral "she might not have known it would end up on the internet 20 years later" argument that sometimes applies (which is anyway weakened here by the clear exhibitionist intent). There are good arguments made at WP:BLPN for not using the image in the Exhibitionism article, but to justify deletion from Commons, you'd have to alter Commons policy - and I'm not even sure how. I've argued for explicitly or implicitly applying the precautionary principle commons:Commons:Project scope/Precautionary principle, which as written is for copyright issues, to BLP - but I don't think that would cover this case. Feel free to make suggestions. Rd232 ^talk 09:19, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Kept: Please note that Commons is not English Wikipedia, and what may not be ok on English Wikipedia does not make it not ok for Commons. This photo is from this Flickr set entitled "Mardi Gras 2008 (Wild Girl Edition)". Here is the same person with a camera stuck up to her boobs, so she is well aware (and obviously consented to the photos being taken). One will see that she is present on the left hand side of the photo. If one looks at the rest of the set, we see all sorts of public exhibitionism (which is what Mardi Gras in New Orleans is famous for!), including a photo of a guy getting a blowjob. OK, so people on English Wikipedia object to it's usage on that project, but this photo is utilised on numerous projects on articles related to exhibitionism, so scope is automatically met as far as this project is concerned. There is also no problem with COM:IDENT in relation to this photo.

It would be great in future if people, instead of drumming up dramuh elsewhere to import to Commons, would do a little homework (it took me all of 10 seconds) and present this before making out that Commons is broken blah blah blah. Based upon the above information, appealing to emotion fallacy has no more sway on this project, as would the argument of this woman possibly being someone's mother.

So in light of all the above, we'll close this circus down now so y'all can go and do something that is useful for this or other projects. russavia (talk) 05:20, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Russavia, this statement is so horrific that I am more convinced than ever that commons is ethically broken. You should be ashamed.--Jimbo Wales (talk) 01:27, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

How the hell did someone like Russavia wind up in a position of authority, again? Does he have dirt on somebody or something? Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 00:18, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, Jimbo, you are right. As somebody said yesterday Russavia is just a little troll with a very dirty mouth, yet Russavia is an admin and a bureaucrat on Commons that "is ethically broken". Now, Jimbo, as co-founder of Wikipedia maybe you could do something about that "ethically broken" Commons? 173.255.139.16 (talk) 18:00, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

So you think that because she doesn't know she's being videoed by the camera 6 inches from her chest? It was a good close IMO - clearly shows there are no "did not consent" issues. -mattbuck (Talk) 10:25, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Someone that is flashing their breasts at a Mardi Gras parade most probably isn't expecting the photos to appear on a top 10 website. People do stuff in public which is a momentary thing, and haven't thought through the consequences of the actions, its a few minutes of fun, caught up in some event at one particular time. For a top 10 website to upload the images from a flickr account where the images are NOT indexed by Google is a sleazy sort of thing to do. For others to justify the collation of the images is pretty slimy. That is what Jimbo is hinting at when he says "this statement is so horrific that I am more convinced than ever that commons is ethically broken." BTW watch as you walk about there is also pool of slimy at your feet. John lilburne (talk) 10:44, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Sorry, I guess my boyfriend is leaking. -mattbuck (Talk) 10:48, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Should we send arm-bands? You seem to be out of your depth here. John lilburne (talk) 11:26, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Can people unlearn their naked shame? Count Iblis (talk) 15:59, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

This is less complicated than that. There are already plenty of perfectly good cultures where women's breasts are routinely visible. We don't have to do basic research to see if it is possible. The U.S. culture is just one of those societies like the Taliban that have sexist taboos about parts of women's bodies. Any decision we make here should be equally applicable to images of unveiled women from Saudi Arabia, for example. Wnt (talk) 16:52, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

If Wikipedia cannot consider the idea of harm to a person because different things count as harm in different cultures, you've pretty much discarded the idea that Wikipedia may consider the possibility of harm to a person at all. This contradicts Wikipedia policy. Ken Arromdee (talk) 19:27, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

What I think is that we shouldn't delete something merely because someone thinks "even if someone consented to being photographed and video-taped that person will surely regret it in the future and will not want to immortalize those crazy banner days of youth!"--The Devil's Advocate _{tlk. cntrb.} 19:59, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

I agree here. If we are allowed to invoke the unknown future, one can just as well argue that if in the future being naked is the norm and people would feel embarrassed if they are seen wearing clothes, all pictures of people wearing clothes should be deleted. Count Iblis (talk) 21:42, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Incidentally there is a BLPN discussion: Wikipedia:BLPN#Photos_of_private_people_doing_things_they_might_be_embarrassed_about_later and one on the talk page of Exhbiitionism: Talk:Exhibitionism#Image_at_top_of_page which might bear reading. Half the arguments seem to be "keeping it is legal, so we shouldn't care about the subject of the image". Ken Arromdee (talk) 19:27, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

I come here to add a link to the same BLPN discussion that Ken Arromdee just mentioned. I won't repeat here the comments I've posted there. Newyorkbrad (talk) 19:35, 27 April 2013 (UTC)

Commons isn't the only thing that's broken. When the Wikimedia Foundation can send what amounts to a cease and desist letter to someone who's editing historical logic subjects by adding useful information, but ignore the likes of Russavia, Wnt and mattbuck, then that foundation too, is broken. Good to see you lot have a solid grasp of what the "terms of service" should be used for. Not. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 101.118.133.243 (talk) 12:10, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

We could also replace all such contentious pictures by digitial ones that are ab initio computer generated. They then depict people who look 100% real but these are not pictures of people who really exist. Count Iblis (talk) 13:07, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Not sure whether that is meant as a serious suggestion, but I can't think of an situation where replacing a photo with a computer generated alternative would be a good idea.

In any case, consensus seems clear and the photo has been replaced, so I reckon this is a discussion to continue, if at all, at Commons. Formerip (talk) 13:13, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

In the media, when there is concern for the privacy of people the faces of such people are blurred. What I'm suggesting is similar. Since the real identities of people don't matter for us anyway in these sorts of cases, we can just replace the real people by fake ones. So, one can illustrate the act of a woman showing her breasts safely in the appropriate Wiki article. It can be based on the same real world event; we take the real picture and we then modify the woman so that she looks totally different. Count Iblis (talk) 14:01, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Give them a finger and they'll take your whole hand. I've seen some commercial TV shows that have been intimidated by bogus legal things - they end up half blur - numbers on license plates, logos on T-shirts, brand names on boxes, images of people on the street - once they get that first little bit of momentum down the slippery slope, they don't stop until it is too sad to even watch. Commons recognizes that private people doing non-profit educational writing have the right to take pictures on a public street without some Soviet minder running along behind them saying "don't photo this" every time something seems in some way unseemly to someone. Wnt (talk) 15:00, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Why is it that every reasonable proposal is hijacked by someone making a poorly informed "slippery slope" argument? Logos on t-shirts and brand names on boxes are blurred because such things appearing on screen are seen as essentially free "advertising". If a given television series utilises, for example, cans of Coca-Cola in product placement, they will almost certainly blur out a Pepsi logo if it happens to appear. Even if they don't have a competing advertiser, things are usually blurred anyway, as allowing logos to appear lessens the incentive for the company in question to purchase advertising on the show. That is a decision made by advertising departments, not legal departments. There is no legal consideration in the matter whatsoever. Until Wikipedia begins selling advertisements, your argument is a complete non-starter.

Also, I can't resist making a finger joke, so: Give Commons a finger and they'll find somewhere to put it... Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 15:27, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

• Russavia says above "Please note that Commons is not English Wikipedia...'", as if we're not all we're not all aware of that by now? Yes Russavia, you're quite correct; degenerate, prurient behavior gets one blocked on en.wiki, while on Commons it gets congratulations and high-fives from the top down. Tarc (talk) 13:55, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

• So, Wikipedia is similar to Saudi Arabia while Commons is similar to Britain? Count Iblis (talk) 14:21, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

• More like a crack house to a cigar lounge, really. Tarc (talk) 15:44, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

• I rarely ever venture over to Commons, let alone check any of the discussions, but I'm certain I lose IQ points every time I do so. I'm aware that there have been some attempts made in past years to make it less of an amateur porn hosting service, but it seems that other problems are cropping up and/or getting worse all the time. As far as I can tell based on the discussion linked by SB Johnny, a lot of the editors there would do well to read "Don't be a dick" (but ohgod that's not a Commons policy! like zoinks!). While everyone wastes time making sure they retain as many pictures of boobs as possible, deletion requests for files that are blatant copyvios can remain almost untouched for months at a time (last month I was informed that a "speedy deletion" is generally considered anything that takes less than two months for someone to get around to closing). Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 14:18, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

• I have a difficult time getting hot and bothered about this specific image, it having at least theoretical encyclopedic applicability. That's my opinion and I appreciate that I might be in the minority here. The basic issue is that the administrative corps at Commons has been effectively taken over by a clique of individuals holding aggressive pro-porn ideas about Commons' scope, rallying around the slogan "Wikipedia is not censored." Change there is not going to come internally, it is going to come through the volition of WMF, who is going to have to either shut down Commons in favor of image hosting by the language encyclopedias themselves, or else clean house on The Usual Suspects who have wormed their way into the Commons Administrative corps (which would be highly controversial), or is just going to have to accept that there will always be a certain percentage of prurient Commons images and that periodic crises will recur owing to the massive divergence between the ethical standards and perception of their project's scope by Commons administrators and the ethical standards and perception of what an encyclopedia should be of the mass of human society. For me, I will not participate in Commons and I urge other volunteers at En-WP to do likewise. Use the { { keep local } } template whenever you upload files and make sure that bots don't abscond with images to Commons. Carrite (talk) 15:30, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Maybe change could come from over there, if a similar amount of energy were invested into moaning about it there as opposed to here, where it makes zero difference. Just thinking out loud. Formerip (talk) 15:56, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

The problem, of course, is that there is very little centralized discussion at Commons. The closest they have is the Village Pump, and that sometimes goes days without any new comments. Moving the discussion there rather than here, where it actually has an audience, would be... what's the opposite of pissing in the ocean? Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 15:59, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

What's the point of an audience that doesn't disagree but has limited interest (speaking for myself)? The flipside of a tumbleweed-strewn village pump is that if team prude go over there with a proposal, team pervert are going to have to turn up or face defeat. Of course, reality is it would likely take a while for both sides to work through their issues and start engaging constructively, but the stir-up-drama-on-Jimbo's-talkpage strategy is definitely starting to look a bit George Osborne. Formerip (talk) 16:13, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Now, now, I suspect you are exactly as representative a sample of the audience here as I am — that is to say, not in the least. You have the ability to ignore this conversation; no one is forcing you to read it or to reply to it. Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 00:14, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, the simple solution would be for the WMF to actually start giving a damn about what people are doing to their projects. 99% of the problems on Wikipedia and Wikimedia Commons could be solved instantly if someone from above exercised some executive decision-making instead of deferring to ArbCom (and whatever the godawful equivalent at Commons is) to decide weighty, legally complex issues in which the people making ex cathedra decisions have absolutely no expertise. Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 15:36, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Commons editors and admins will have tears (of joy) in the eyes at the idea of being left alone by the prudes of en.wiki. Béria Lima ^msg 15:51, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, dismiss everyone's opinion by not reading it and calling them "prudes." Everyone get your stuff together, pack up your things; we have a winner. Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 15:55, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

I saw 2 opinions dear, one disregarding all laws in favour of a "she might regret go naked in the street when she is 50" and another to fork my home project, neither I find - as a woman or commons admin - valid to a answer. And when one doesn't want to fight... Béria Lima ^msg 16:12, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

Nonsense. "Disregarding all laws" sounds as if you're saying we're legally bound to post as many pictures of naked people we can find. Since I have no idea what "valid to a answer" means, I'll just stop right here. Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 16:15, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

There have been enough legal threats that when none of them pan out it is worth noting. The ethical arguments are just as barren, but that is harder to quantify. The slippery slope is indeed open for business. Some immediate steps down the slope that deserve to be answered:

• Do we delete or avoid all use of pictures of FEMEN protests because the women might change their minds?
• Do we cut out any images of women in Muslim countries going unveiled in public whether as a protest or if given as evidence that "Islam isn't/wasn't that strict in that country at that period of time because some women felt free to do so"?
• Do we blur the faces of protesters at an anti-gang protest in Mexico City because cartel people might recognize them and decide to kill them?
• Do we omit coverage of American servicewomen involved in a political action against rape because their fellow servicemembers might target them for sexual abuse (with about a 99% chance of not being punished)?

The problem with being God is that you'll have to spend all your time on these weighty matters, deciding whether each and every picture is really a good thing or a bad thing to post. You'll need those plenipotentiary powers from WMF so that none dare naysay your divine omniscience. Wnt (talk) 17:21, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

So your concern is that Wikipedia editors shouldn't be in the business of making content decisions about what to include and not include in Wikipedia. Seriously? Formerip (talk) 17:43, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

No, I'm saying they should be making those decisions based on the core priority of education, instead of substituting new goals. Wnt (talk) 17:59, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't know the answers to those questions. In fact, no one does, because in so far as the questions relate to future images, those questions have not yet been raised. Commons, like Wikipedia, is governed by consensus. Ideally, that consensus should be informed, and should not by the result of a pack of disrespectful trolls chanting Borg-like "Wikipedia is not censored" every time someone raises a valid question.

The solution to this, like the solution to most problems, is structure. Maybe file uploading isn't a right that all, or even most, users should have. Maybe we could have something similar to PC protection, where anyone without the file uploader right would have to submit their upload for review. Maybe that review would determine that, after the first 2,000 images of naked breasts, that 4,002nd nipple just isn't unique enough to warrant spending five megabytes of the foundation's server space. Maybe instead of just accepting every image of a topless woman that crops up, Commons editors should give serious consideration as to whether those images fulfill an extant educational need.

I can understand a few images of this sort of thing being educational; really, I can. Maybe we need ten, or even twenty of them to keep everything diverse. But sixty-seven? Really?

Hell, the answer to that could be "yes" for all I know, but we have to be able to discuss it. And the current state of things at Commons is that things are not being discussed properly; bullies like Russavia are steamrolling over conversation and driving away people who disagree with him.

And yes, it is reasonable to consider blurring out faces in images like this. The law doesn't say we have to do it, but for God's sake, is it really that much to ask that we at least be able to discuss it on a case-by-case basis, even when we're not required to? Is it really that much of an inconvenience to the project/s that maybe, from time to time, editors might determine that a certain individual should not be personally identifiable in a given image? Is it actually absurd to assume that consensus can be agreed upon for reasons other than potential legal ramifications and WIKIPEDIA IS NOT CENSORED!!!!11! Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 00:37, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

And yes, it is reasonable to consider blurring out faces in images like this... - no it isn't. We really have to get away from blurring (or related things like cropping) being a good option - it is far too commonly the case that the subject can still be identified fairly easily. See commons:COM:BLP#Identification. Rd232 ^talk 00:45, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Yes, because every woman who flashes her breasts at Mardi Gras is exactly as identifiable as the Mona Lisa. Thank you for showing me the error of my ways. Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 00:48, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

I know it's tempting to look at pretty pictures, but the text in the guideline isn't actually just lorem ipsum. The third sentence is in fact Outside of the image, clues may be obtained from the image title, description, origin, source url, geolocation and date. (Source URL is particularly relevant for Flickr-sourced images, as the original unblurred image is then just a click away from the file page.) Well, feel free to tweak the section to make it clearer. Rd232 ^talk 01:04, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

I read it (I skimmed a little, admittedly, but I read it), and I'm exactly as unconvinced as I was before. Acting as if thinking about considering the idea of maybe, from time to time, discussing the possibility of blurring a face, is actively harming the project is moronic. You can quote guidelines at me all day; that isn't going to change. Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 01:09, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Acting as if I said or implied that is, er, "moronic", to use your word. Blurring/cropping/etc may sometimes be acceptable, if you're really sure there aren't other identifying clues, or unaltered versions easily available elsewhere. Personally, it would need to be a really, really valuable image before I'd think it worth discussing seriously - otherwise, just delete it or don't use it. YMMV. Rd232 ^talk 01:20, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Well, what you said was, "We really have to get away from blurring (or related things like cropping) being a good option," and you specifically said that it was not "reasonable" to consider blurring, so I assumed you meant that. Since apparently you did not, I apologize for taking you at your word. Thanks for the link. Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 23:49, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

@evanh2008: re your "how many of these images do we need" issue - see the current (but languishing) commons:Commons:Requests_for_comment/scope. Some injection of energy wouldn't hurt it. Rd232 ^talk 08:58, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

So what would work as a Commons policy change?

My remarks above seem to have been lost in a blizzard of prudes v perverts silliness and slipperyslopery. But the real concern is surely BLP, so why can't we be grownups and focus on that? The situation is that commons:Commons:Photographs of identifiable people is focussed on (a) protecting privacy (as in "images taken in a private place") and (b) respecting local consent laws (commons:Commons:Country specific consent requirements). This gives a fair handle on media that intrude on privacy or were taken in (or may have been taken in) countries with strong local consent laws (applying at least partially in public places). The image that sparked this thread was taken in public in the US, so neither (a) nor (b) applies (because US requires no subject consent for publication of images taken in public places).

Start from there. If you want this image to be deletable from Commons under COM:BLP, make suggestions on how COM:BLP can be changed to accommodate that objective. Nothing's going to change from talking here or raising hopeless deletion requests - policy needs to change, and that starts with discussion about how. Rd232 ^talk 00:25, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

In case of pictures of a sexual nature where the concern is that despite (implicit) consent, the person may regret having taken that picture later, blurring or otherwise modifying the picture is a solution. While in theory you can then still identify the person in the picture using other features, in these sorts of cases that's not going to be a problem. The nature of the problem here is one of instant recognizability of such pictures. So, if you get new job, a colleague who watches porn sites can see an old picture and then instantly recognizes you. What is not going to happen in practice is that every pornographic picture on the internet is going to be analyzed in detail to see if perhaps it could be you. Count Iblis (talk) 12:23, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

A noble, unprovable theory that is completely irrelevant. We'd link from the derivative version (pixellated) to the original (unpixellated) version (as required by policy and license) meaning she'd be trivially identifiable even if the non-technological factors (e.g. squinting) are ignored. The problem isn't that she's identifiable (if it were we would have no pictures of identifiable non-notable people) but that some people wish to hold images of people displaying body parts a mainstream western cultural attitude says shouldn't be shown in public to a different standard to images of people displaying body parts that other cultures say shouldn't be public but western mainstream cultural attitudes are fine with. I also note that you're classifying this image as "pornography" - a value judgement that an NPOV encyclopaedia does not make as it is inherrently POV. Thryduulf (talk) 13:52, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Count Iblis should be aware that pixelation of faces is specifically noted as an unsatisfactory solution in the Commons policy, sorry, guideline which deals with images of identifiable people. Hmm, you'd think such an important piece of guidance would be a policy, wouldn't you, but Commons, as always, remains hopelessly broken. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 17:09, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Well obviously it should be policy (I noted this a while ago (here) - but I have to say that a lack of wikilawyering about whether something is guideline or policy is a good thing about Commons. Rd232 ^talk 14:52, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Issues with Flickr imports

• one solution is to close down the "data mining" of Flickr type sources because the majority of issue come from them, thats not to say Flickr isnt a useful its just that with bot one transfer 100's of images an hour which makes the miners less selective in both usefulness and quality. Its rare for a Commons Photographer to be source of such images and when they are they have to obtain consent of the "model". Not every Admin on Commons is a problem many do try to be both conversant with copyright and the cultural needs but there is no single solution. Gnangarra 00:21, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
  • Agreed - so many of these problem images come from Flickr. See commons:Commons:Village_pump/Proposals/Archive/2013/03#Moratorium_on_COM:PEOPLE-affected_Flickr_imports. Rd232 ^talk 00:26, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
    • Fortunately, the under-supported and under-powered Commons UploadWizard has at least been getting Flickr import functionality, which in no way requires lots of developer time to get it to work properly. Rd232 ^talk 01:01, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
      • Does Flicker itself have a reputation for being a reliable source for the licenses of the files uploaded to it? If not, (and I suspect the answer is "no" based on the various flickerwashing scandals) then what basis does Commons have to rely on the stated license for Flicker-uploaded files? Jclemens (talk) 02:38, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

• Flickr doesnt actually specify what version of the CC license is in use, currently images uploaded from there are tagged with version of cc...3.0 without further clarification sort from the source. Gnangarra 07:46, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Flickr doesnt actually specify what version of the CC license is in use - to my knowledge that's not true (though it's a bit hidden under "some rights reserved", linked to a CC license deed), and if it were, those images would not have a valid license, and would fail verification. Verification of licensing statements on Flickr imports is automated and fairly effective, AFAIK (the problem comes with judging whether the statements are true, which is a whole other issue). Anyway, let's not get side-tracked into copyright. Rd232 ^talk 08:48, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

So your solution is to give up trying to assemble a library of free-licensed images, and just let a private company be the custodian of these things, just to avoid the possibility of being at risk of being accused of being "unethical" for not stopping users from uploading legal images? This is entirely wrong, but if it were not, then WMF should recognize more generally that maintaining free content is a chore that will only be done by for-profit enterprises that have a profit motive to hire PR men and lawyers to defend their hoards. And, therefore, close up shop entirely. Wnt (talk) 03:29, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

the solution isnt to "give up" assembling a library of freely licensed images because that was never Commmons focus. Commons scope specifies freely-licensed educational media content, whats is ethical when "image/data mining" from sites like Flickr cause both harm and requires admins to spend time deleting bot uploads as out of scope even one of Commons crats has a page dedicated to deleting out of scope/policy images. As I said Flickr is a good source but individuals should be doing uploads one at a time reviewing, the licensing, whether the image is useful/educational and whether its of a reasonable quality, the same process a person goes through when uploading work they themselves have produced. Gnangarra 07:46, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Nothing stops users from contributing freely licenses images to commons themselves. What I propose is to stop taking people, some of whom lie to Flicker, at face value and perpetuating such licenses without first-person verification, nothing more. Commons is quite fastidious about not taking fair use images, but seems to be quite inclined to look the other way as long as a pseudonymous third party is willing to say "Yeah, I'm the author and this is OK, honest". Jclemens (talk) 04:15, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

This case had nothing to do with any doubt that the photo had been freely licensed, so any proposal in that direction has no more likelihood of removing it than removing any randomly chosen content item from Commons. Wnt (talk) 05:13, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

I was responding to Gnangarra's post, not the specific issue here. I have no opinion on the underlying photo, which is why I didn't express one. I am actually drawing more from an ArbCom case and some OTRS work I've done myself for the suggestion rather than anything directly related to this drama du jour. Jclemens (talk) 05:34, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

This was previously discussed at Commons:Requests for comment/images of identifiable people. The BLP and COM:PEOPLE policies need to be harmonized to prevent Flickr images from being used unless consent is available, particularly if the image is of a sexual or embarrassing nature. Don't hold your breath waiting for consensus, as only the Foundation could introduce this as policy.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 05:59, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

There's nothing to stop English Wikipedia declaring, for example, that Flickr-sourced images where WP:BLP issues are raised regarding the image need some evidence of subject consent for publication. Wording might be a pain to nail down, but the principle is clear enough and sensible enough. Rd232 ^talk 08:42, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

That's pretty much the main problem: As long as there is someone (A random Flickr account, a redlinked throaway-account) saying "I'm the author, trust me." the images will be accepted, and the burden of proof will be on those wanting to delete the images. And nothing but 99% certainty that the images are indeed problematic will get them deleted. It's no wonder that 85% of all current porn images on Commons were uploaded by throwaway accounts with <15 edits in total. --Conti|✉ 11:06, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Is that a real statistic, or did you just pull it out of... thin air? -mattbuck (Talk) 11:19, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Flickr is too much of an online rummage sale to be able to say for sure that a person wanted a photograph to be uploaded, or that the uploader is the copyright holder. This has been stated *many* times before in deletion debates on Commons, but there is still a tendency to ignore this. For images with WP:BLP issues, Flickr should not be the go-to source.--♦IanMacM♦ ^{(talk to me)} 11:34, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

It's my experience from going through various porn categories that practically all of the images I find are from redlinked throwaway accounts, or from Flickr accounts (which have more likely than not been deleted by now). So I should probably have included Flickr in that number. It should be easy to get some real numbers for this. --Conti|✉ 12:41, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

This and similar imaes are from fully public settings where photography is permitted without the subject's permission as a matter of policy, which is why the sourcing from Flickr doesn't matter. Wnt (talk) 12:45, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

If this was a response to me: What image are you talking about? --Conti|✉ 12:49, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

The one that started this thread, or for that matter, any Flickr-originated image from the category mentioned by Dan Murphy below. Wnt (talk) 12:59, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

A tit flashing image on flickr is NOT made visible to non-logged users that have stated that they want to view such images. Porn images are not made available to under 18s. Commons scrapping of the images makes them indexable by search engines. I've been around flickr long enough to know. That there is no guarantee that any image on flickr is the work of the account uploader, nor that the uploader has made a conscious decision to make that specific image CC-BY-SA. Additionally the denizens of Commons also know from the number of complaints about scrapped flickr images that the flickr uploaders don't understand what CC-BY-SA means. John lilburne (talk) 13:27, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

CC-by-SA refers to the rights of the person taking the picture, not the subject, and my guess is that these have been stared at very hard already for copyright trouble. Flickr's corporate policy is apparently a concession to the kind of people who have demanded image-filtering here, but some people just don't believe in that nonsense. The extra click and the imaginary age limit is just pointless ritual. Wnt (talk) 14:14, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

My guess is that your guess is very, very wrong. I have found countless copyright violations (some quite blatant) on Flickr, and I have found lots of those making their way to commons. The number of not so obvious copyright violations on Flickr (the kind you cannot find out with 10 seconds of google image search) should be way higher. And that doesn't even include people publishing their image under a CC license without knowing what that actually means. --Conti|✉ 14:56, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Your guess would be right. I've seen countless accounts full of images which are put into sets labelled FROM THE WEB, or where the profile of the account says "I don't own a camera I just collect images I like.", many of those accounts also add a CC-BY license becuase all their images are "Public domain" (snagged from the web they mean). Mostly those accounts don't last long before flickr deletes them. Other accounts where the uploader changes the license to CC-BY then a week later it becomes ARR, then the images are made private, then they are back to ARR. John lilburne (talk) 15:30, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

• How and when exactly did Flickr come to be considered a good source for Commons images? As far as I can tell, there would be nothing to stop me from registering a Flickr account, uploading a few thousand images copyrighted in all jurisdictions, and "licensing" them under a CC 3.0. It's a resource over which we have no oversight and no authority. There is (again, as far as I can tell) no way to "fact check" the idea that these licenses are even legitimate. Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 17:30, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Going through the lovingly curated commons category Female Breast Flashing 60 out of 67 images (90%) are from flickr, 1 is scraped from Salon (of a picture associated with the Abu Ghraib torture and abuse scandal -- the only picture with the face blurred) and six come either from the porn blog "lukeisback" or the porn website "reviewerhell" (which appears to be mostly pictures that the owner, who goes by "dirtybob," has scraped from other commercial sites.Dan Murphy (talk) 11:54, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Gendergap writ large?

I find it fascinating, in a painful way, to read this discussion about whether we have the ethical right to disseminate images of women's breasts when we don't have consent from them, look at the usernames, and realize that there appears to have been a grand total of two comments to the discussion by anyone female (hi, Béria!) - and that's here, on the Commons discussion, and on the BLPN discussion. Although I'll admit that I don't know everyone here personally, so I couldn't swear there's been only one female commenter, I think the male-editor domination of this conversation is yet another example of how our remarkable gender gap weakens our ability to have conversations in which all viewpoints and life experience types are represented. Speaking personally, for example, knowing (because I'm an American female, and we're socialized to be aware of things like this in ways our male counterparts aren't) how damaging the release or identification of sexual images of a woman who lives a "private citizen" life can be to her reputation and livelihood, I'm astounded to see anyone arguing that we have an inalienable right to disseminate images of the breasts of a woman who signed no release and who was almost certainly too drunk to consent to a legal contract, anyway. It seems perfectly clear to me that this issue should be covered by BLP ("[...]the possibility of harm to living subjects must always be considered when exercising editorial judgment."); I wonder how this conversation would be going if it were populated by a more natural distribution of genders. It certainly possible it would still be leading to "too bad for the image subject, she can't sue us so what's the problem?" - women are as able to have different perspectives and disagree among themselves as any other group - but it's also possible that women's perspectives on this issue would inform the discussion in ways that would enhance the our approach to these matters. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 15:28, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Someone uploaded a nude pic of me to Wikicommons from my flickr account. Raquel Baranow (talk) 15:37, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

OK - but that's just a statement of fact. What is your point? Rd232 ^talk 18:30, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

That i support creative commons uploads of nudest exhibition to wikimedia commons, not ashamed. Jesus said: When you unclothe yourselves and are not ashamed, and take your garments and lay them beneath your feet like the little children (and) trample on them, then [you will see] the Son of the Living One, and you will not be afraid. Raquel Baranow (talk) 19:21, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

It is valuable to hear your perspective, Raquel Baranow, but do you think most people share your attitude? Delicious carbuncle (talk) 20:47, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Do you have to have majority support to provide images for the WMF projects? The Gospel of Thomas is not part of certain canons but certainly some people hold it in high esteem, and what more can you reasonably ask of a religion? Wnt (talk) 18:26, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Fair enough - a wider variety of perspectives would be helpful; there is a sort systemic bias here, notably towards Western, male, youngish views. And the views of readers don't figure at all (in theory, reader surveys could be done on key issues, instead of depending solely on editor discussions). Rd232 ^talk 15:41, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Have we ever canvassed the views of the readers? Have any Wikipedias? --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 15:45, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

WP:CANVASssing is probably a term to be avoided here ;) Well yes and no. There was m:Research:Wikipedia Readership Survey 2011 but that didn't cover the kind of questions I have in mind about future directions of Wikipedia. Well, m:Research:Wikipedia_Readership_Survey_2011/Results#Search.2C_translation_tools_on_top_of_agenda_for_readers covers some of it... But being conducted by the WMF, there was a particular focus to it. A reader survey done by an individual Wikipedia could do it from a different perspective; and just developing a set of questions to ask readers could be a very interesting exercise. Rd232 ^talk 18:29, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Mmm. I wouldn't mind putting this to our readership. Maybe it's time for another reader survey. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 10:07, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

There. Let's see what happens. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 15:45, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

The lack of female opinions probably has more to do with the lack of female participants than anything else. The latest blog post on Wikipediocracy is somewhat enlightening about the ol' boyz network on commons. --SB_Johnny | ^talk✌ 23:29, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

You mean the one which pretty much accuses me of being a paedophile (again)? -mattbuck (Talk) 01:56, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

You know perfectly well no one accused you of that. They made a reasonable (at least on the surface) argument that you and other Commons admin have not behaved responsibly with regard to sexual images of minors posted to Commons, often described as child pornography. Your response here, frankly, reinforces the argument. Hullaballoo Wolfowitz (talk) 12:07, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Like HW said. Otherwise the point is that if someone doesn't want their image being used, and says so somewhere, they risk the Streisand effect because rather than just quietly deleting, it ends up being part of a big public debate. We should worry about the ethics of using an image just as much as whether it's "legal", rather than subjecting subjects to the commons peanut gallery. --SB_Johnny | ^talk✌ 12:44, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Most slopes in life are not slippery. And most appeals to slippery slopes are red herrings, designed to disguise the actual issue at hand (e.g., "If they take away our framitzi, eventually they'll take away our children!" when actually the person just wants to keep her framitzi, which may be fine but should be argued on its own merits). In fact most slopes are stairs with clear stopping points where the wisdom of taking the next step is subject to debate. And especially here where people will argue about anything and everything. Some people here might be all like "Well, I think such-and-such is a terrible idea, but we did implement thus-and-so, and this is the logical next step, so I guess we have to do it". But not many. So don't worry about it. And if you're not really worried about it but are just using rhetorical tactics, you should probably stop doing that.

And getting back to your original post, the one that began "I think we need to remember the daughters who aren't in the picture also. If one of them loses control over a topless cellphone photo, how humiliated will they feel? I think they will feel less humiliated if we don't suppress the "background noise" of photos like this on the Internet than if we do. Normality is a competition..." well a couple points First of all, yes it is a competition, but we're not here to move the bar of normalcy, and I came to make an encyclopedia not to sign on to your or anyone else's libertine crusade. We had a sexual revolution and sex won, so let's not run it into the ground for crying out loud. Stop trying to hijack this encyclopedia for your purposes. Second of all, and I'm trying to think of a nice way to say this, ah I think your understanding of these issues and how most women feel about this sort of thing is a tad jejune. I understand why you're worried about slippery slopes: ("This is true no matter whether society's threshold is an exposed breast, an unveiled face, or a flash of ankle...") no it ain't, but I get where you're coming from: you're not able to distinguish between these things. So of course you don't expect others to. But we can. Really. Trust me on this. Herostratus (talk) 16:32, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

If we're not here to move the bar of normalcy, then let's leave it right where our contributors set it with their uploads. Those scenes are out there; the purpose of Commons' photos of Mardi Gras should be to document the event just as it is. As for unveiled faces, that's not purely hypothetical - I can indeed imagine that if Iraq had good internet coverage that we would have women coming to us asking for us to remove pictures of them walking about unveiled from the good old days of Saddam Hussein. (see Women's rights in Iraq for further information - it's not actually one of Wikipedia's shortest articles) As with the topless photos, I can picture indulging deletion requests from the subjects one by one as a courtesy, but imagine what happens if these moralists come back and tell us that every photo of an unveiled woman from Saddam times has to go, because they are probably embarrassed by them now. We would be letting the modern fanatics rewrite history, so that anyone looking up topics about Iraq would see them all illustrated with dutifully veiled women from the 1980s. And Iraqi women don't really have to have Internet access for the moralists to start up that crusade - they could do it right now, if that were the prejudice they wanted to advance. Wnt (talk) 19:16, 30 April 2013 (UTC)

Our position versus public policy

While people here wring their hands about whether it is wrong to allow people to upload street scenes containing images of breast flashing by people as long as it is in public, the subject is not identified by name, and the subject has not come to us specifically requesting removal, please consider what the public policy is: Women who show their breasts at Mardi Gras are thrown in jail when the police see them. [4] They end up with criminal records. I have even seen a few non-reliable sources online claiming that women have ended up on the sex offenders registry over this! [5] Based on [6] in San Francisco it is at least plausible this could happen. Now when we put our gentle, educationally motivated policy of not censoring our encyclopedia side by side against their unjust, vindictive, judgmental and deliberate attempt to permanently stigmatize women for having "lady parts", who do you think is the bigger problem? Yet - that is the actual law of the land. Are you going to tell me that in order to be a good Wikipedian you have to condemn New Orleans for doing this? Wnt (talk) 16:26, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Typically, you have missed the point entirely and are now droning on about some imagined scenario of political repression. The concern here is for the people pictured in images, especially those where there is reason to believe that they may cause embarrassment. If people consent to be being photographed and consent to those images being used indiscriminately, I don't think anyone here is trying to prevent their upload to Commons. The question is not about people voluntarily exposing themselves, it is about the use of images of that act and consent for that use. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 17:02, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

• If it's true that showing one's breasts at Mardi Gras is illegal, then we've transcended the original issue of ethics. You're saying we're/Commons is hosting photographs of people doing things that could get them arrested, without their consent. We oversight, not just delete, accusations of people committing crimes if the accusations are textual; why would we not do the same to a photo that could have been photoshopped or otherwise manipulated to show a woman committing a crime she didn't commit? The presumption when it comes to allegations of criminal activity should always be that we don't publish it unless it's notable and eminently well-sourced. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 17:10, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Gee, I thought the accusations were oversighted because they might not be true. Are you saying that it is every Wikipedian's duty to engage in deliberate "Spoliation of evidence" if not obstruction of justice? I appreciate the sentiment but not when it is so unlikely to work and so much in conflict with the simple mission of just getting on with documenting what Mardi Gras looks like, warts, breasts, and all. Wnt (talk) 17:26, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

No, I'm saying that if an unsupported accusation is made, we oversight it, because we are proactive in protecting BLP subjects from real-world harm. If we were talking about textual matters, "I dunno, some guy on Flickr said so, and he wouldn't lie, would he?" wouldn't be considered adequate sourcing for something like "Jane Doe flashes people in public and is probably on the sex offender registry." So if it is true that what the person is doing in a photo is a crime, I would expect similarly strong support for that "accusation", as well as a justification for why Jane Doe's alleged crimes are notable enough to be the subject of our coverage. Off the top of my head, that strong support could be, say, the photo being published in a reliable source, or Jane Doe writing to OTRS to release her personality rights as the subject of the image - but not "it got scraped from some bloggy, non-editorially-controlled place on the internet, so we took that place at its word." A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 17:39, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

If the photo is not sufficient to show a crime was committed, then it is not an accusation of one either. It is what it is. You might argue that if it has a title or content that suggests she is doing something illegal then the en.BLP would push for that to be changed (not the image), and that is just barely plausible, but it doesn't apply to Commons. Wnt (talk) 17:45, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

A statement "X has committed a crime" isn't sufficient to show a crime was committed. But it's certainly an accusation of one. Ken Arromdee (talk) 19:20, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

I don't often say this, but I believe the Fluffernutter is right. If there are BLP concerns, those almost certainly apply to anyone who is personally identifiable. This doesn't make photos of such acts the problem, exactly, but it does mean that any photo that shows (or, as we damn well ought to make clear purports to show) anyone doing something illegal a problem if the individual remains identifiable. If I have access to a copy of Photoshop and a photograph of some random individual I happen not to like, there's absolutely nothing stopping me from sticking their face into a file such as (to pick a random example) File:Jeffrey-dahmer.jpg, along with a statement that they are some kind of horrendous criminal, perhaps sourced to some unsupported claims in a Flickr photo description.

So where exactly do we draw the line? How illegal is too illegal for Commons? Maybe rape could use a few illustrative, "educational" photographs, and I'm certain there is a sick individual somewhere in the world who would be willing to provide them. (I was going to make an argument involving photos of public urination, but I now see that the Foundation is hosting those, too. Christ...)

And just to make this clear, I am not making a "slippery slope" argument. I am questioning how we would apply what seems to be a currently standing open-door policy to photos of identifiable individuals engaged in illegal activity, not baselessly speculating on how someone in the future might decide to blur out the Pepperidge Farm logo. Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 17:46, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Well, we have photos like File:AG-10B.JPG of the sexual sort of abuse by Lynndie England. The suggestion that Commons not cover any photo of any illegal activity is exactly the reason why I don't want to fall down this slope. Our coverage of FEMEN is one of the specific things I want to preserve, and often women have been arrested at those protests. I want us to cover 4/20 legalization rallies, soccer riots, the Bosnian civil war, all manner of public disturbance, small or large, the harmless and especially the reprehensible, just as it happens. Wnt (talk) 18:12, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Well, I want us to cover those things too, and the Abu Ghraib picture you linked to is a great example of what is not legally problematic for us to include. It is a photograph of an individual engaging in illegal activity, of which she was convicted, against victims who are not personally identifiable (they literally have bags over their heads, and you're still concerned about blurring?). What I don't want us to cover is unverifiable accusations of criminal activity against specific private individuals, which all photos of illegal actions anywhere should be assumed to be. You bringing up Abu Ghraib is only making my point for me. If a high-profile female celebrity went to Mardi Gras and flashed her breasts, and someone happened to snap a free photo of the event, we might have a decent rationale for specifically making the individual's identity clear, particularly if third-party sources covered the event as factual (and not alleged). What you don't realize is that I am making an education-based argument as much as you are; I just fail to see how being able to individually identify those exposing themselves in public fulfills a legitimate educational need.

"The suggestion that Commons not cover any photo of any illegal activity is exactly the reason why I don't want to fall down this slope." — Yet again, you're seeing things that aren't there. No one has suggested that "Commons not cover any photo of any illegal activity." I have said exactly the opposite multiple times. Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 18:40, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

I actually hadn't been expecting that you'd object less to the inclusion of a named principal than an unnamed principal, but in any case the FEMEN photos very likely have some people in them who are unindicted or unconvicted - many of those cases are taking some time to go through various courts. The girl Putin complimented ... if she is never prosecuted, can we never include her photo? I would say a photo is just a photo. It's not an accusation. It doesn't pretend to be anything other than what it is. The person taking the photo isn't asserting that so-and-so broke a law, only that this is what you would have seen if you were walking around New Orleans that day. Wikipedia is supposed to be about sharing our knowledge of the world, and that's what this is. Wnt (talk) 18:55, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm astounded that intelligent people, or at least those that can fasten their shoes, are find it so difficult to discriminate between abuse of power and staged political protest on the one hand, and a drunken party goer on the other hand. Its almost as if they believe that all three instances are equivalent. Is it the bare flesh that has you so confused? John lilburne (talk) 20:10, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Wnt's ability to sidetrack a discussion whilst sincerely trying to contribute to it is probably unparalleled. Wnt, sorry, but based on your past form, the best contribution you can make to discussions like this is to leave them well alone. Rd232 ^talk 18:21, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

The "sidetracks" here are simply attempts to consider general principle. Do we do this first, when we reject a slippery slope, or afterward, when people use any one wrong decision as carte blanche to cut out "anything like it"? I prefer first. Wnt (talk) 22:09, 29 April 2013 (UTC)

Mmm, no. "Slippery slope" arguments are almost always half-baked; yours was nothing short of mythical. Feel free to come back if and when you have an argument that doesn't hinge on a complete misunderstanding of how and why other media censor certain things. Stop pretending you said something that made any sense. Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 17:28, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Fortunately Commons has rejected your point of view, so I'm not the one who needs to prove something here. But I do weary of the namecalling. Wnt (talk) 18:16, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

"Half-baked" isn't a name. I attacked your argument, not you. Evanh2008 ^{(talk|contribs)} 18:27, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Let's be clearer then. Every time your side has asked me a question I've answered. But with epithets like "half-baked", I still honestly don't know whether you or anyone agreeing with you would favor removing images of unveiled women from Iraq during the Saddam Hussein era or not. If your answer for that is different from your answer about Mardi Gras flashing I'd like to hear what the difference is. Wnt (talk) 18:45, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

RFC/English Wikipedia readership survey 2013

Above, User Rd232 said they'd like to put something to our readership. I've got something I'd like to ask them, too, so I've started Wikipedia:Requests for comment/English Wikipedia readership survey 2013. --Anthonyhcole (talk · contribs · email) 17:14, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Sadly, Wiki is now officially Facebook With Articles

• See Wikipedia:Notifications. Can I get my fucking orange bar back? PumpkinSky talk 18:10, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

• The new system could use a tweak, certainly. I've just raised a potential problem wrt new contributors, although in my particular sphere of activity such people often tend to ignore even the orange bar and just carry on until they are blocked. Then they sock. - Sitush (talk) 18:15, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
• Ask, and ye shall receive. A fluffernutter is a sandwich! (talk) 18:16, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

(edit conflict)In the short term, see this discussion (towards the end): [7]. But in general, I agree with your sentiments. Begoon ^talk 18:21, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

I find it more than a little annoying that with all the problems in Wiki such as the RFA process, the Arbitration Enforcment board, vandals and all the other serious problems we are spending our time developing nonsense like this that has no improvement. We should nt be wasting our time creating things that do not "fix" anything. As PumpkinSky put it above, we are becoming like Facebook changing things simply for the sake of a change with no obvious purpose or improvement. I don't mind the number next to my name but I do really like the orange bar. Kumioko (talk) 18:30, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Can you point to a way Engineering can fix RfA, please? Otherwise I'm not quite sure what you want us to be doing. This improves a lot of things, because it's a vector for notifications about things that happen that weren't previously tracked. watch. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 18:33, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Probably the first time I've ever used this sentence, but Randy and Kumioko are 100% right here; if people want their name to act as a fucking hashtag they should be on Twitter, not here, and if the WMF really thinks this is a good idea then it's a sign Wikipedia needs a new foundation. Aside from tame WMFers, has anyone actually supported this change? To judge by Wikipedia talk:Notifications it appears to be you and Erik Moller getting ever-shriller in your defence of a change which nobody except you appears to support. – iridescent 2 18:41, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Not really; I don't support the change. I told the development team six months ago that they needed to find a better way of informing people of talkpage messages than a tiny red '1'. I've said this multiple times. I'd point to GabrielF's comment below, by the way - one of many ways in which you can fail to communicate your needs to the WMF is to start effing and blinding in conversations about changes. Do you really think it leads to a world in which we're less, rather than more likely to just walk away from the thread? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 19:03, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Kumioko is going to take every opportunity they can to bitch and cry about the things they hate, even (and especially) when it is irrelevant to the topic. As with most trolling, the only proper response is to offer no response. Resolute 19:33, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

That being said, they are right in their criticism of this specific feature. This is something along the lines of the WikiLove nonsense. Technical resources are being wasted on touchy-feely nonsense when the editing interface remains problematic for new users. Perhaps it is time to stop reaching for low hanging fruit? Resolute 19:37, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Resolute: Tackling hard problems, like fixing our problematic editing interface, is being done. In fact, fixing the editing interface is the single largest features development team at the Foundation right now. Unlike the days of yore, we now have the capacity to work on multiple hard engineering problems at the same time. Another example are the resources devoted to admin tools development, at the same time that we're working on features like notifications. Steven Walling (WMF) • talk 19:51, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

On the specific issue of "touchy-feely nonsense", there have been academic studies that show that receiving a barnstar specifically, and feedback in general, does lead to more contributions from a user. GabrielF (talk) 19:45, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Links? I'm sure that's correct. It's like advertising - it works even if you know how it works. Even when I know I'm being coddled and encouraged by silly software features they do still tend to work on me... But I'd love to see the surveys you mention, to see some numbers on that. Begoon ^talk 19:55, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Here is one paper[8]. I will try to dig up more links later. At the moment I would point you to the work of two researchers: David McDonald at U. Washington and User:Benjamin Mako Hill at MIT/Harvard's Berkman Center. GabrielF (talk) 20:18, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

• How about, as an exercise, instead of bitching about changes we focus on (1) how we as a community can communicate our needs to the foundation's engineering team more effectively and (2) how we can let the foundation know about which of their efforts have been effective. GabrielF (talk) 18:45, 1 May 2013 (UTC)
• The feature sounds useful - getting a notification when somebody reverts you should certainly be ... interesting. The orange bar script also might be a good idea but I notice it relies on cookies. I delete cookies every few hours, yet the old orange bar worked correctly anyway somehow. I do wish the devs would put a rewrite of the category system at the top of their list, though. I get more and more spam hits for Wikipedia in Google every day because every article has got some godawful infobox with every possible thing I might be looking for spattered across the bottom of an article that's not about it. The categories should be our navigation templates, and they should look just as pretty and be more flexible even than navboxes to use. Wnt (talk) 19:04, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Well, there's a first time for everything... I agree (a bit) with wnt. Generally, wnt, every time I see your name I cringe and wonder what irrelevant, self serving tangent you'll be taking us off on. Your seeming fixation on "freedom" of information over potential personal harm often offends me deeply. But here, on this trivial Orange Bar thing, I agree. See my talk page - I want my Orange bar, but I also want to see what "notifications" brings to my door. And yes, categories are fucked and should be dynamited and rebuilt. We'll get there. Begoon ^talk 19:17, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Well, I'm glad you agree, kind of ... I just don't understand the level of disparagement I'm getting here when I've been supporting the status quo - how Commons presently actually does things, how Flickr does things, how Google does things, how America does things. Wnt (talk) 19:25, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Cool - this is just something from personal experience. If I'm feeling confused because everyone is taking the opposite position or there's a sense that people keep saying: "Oh, Begoon, for god's sake, not again...", then I have to give myself a kick up the ass. I wasn't able to do that properly until my 4th decade, so either I'm a slow developer, or self awareness tends to come late. Either way I recommend it. Not easy, but a life-changing thing you can either embrace or look forward to. Begoon ^talk 19:41, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm so glad that people have found a new Wikipedia specific variant of Godwin's Law. All discussion of an change can be made utterly futile by dropping "Wikipedia is becoming Facebook". —TheDJ (talk • contribs) 19:28, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

You are missing the point. You're trying to defend a change that's got widespread disagreement by trying to focus on the fact that we mention facebook. But the real thing is that "We don't fix things unless they're broken." The orange bar wasn't broken, but the red button is. TheOriginalSoni (talk) 19:47, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

I'm not a fan of the change, but I'm at a complete loss on how the change makes us Facebook. --Onorem♠Dil 19:50, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

+1. The comparison always seems to be tending to pretend that a community-edited encyclopedia doesn't need an actual, well, community. Rd232 ^talk 20:44, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

There was a change (ability for ability to an admin to mark their own block as an error in someone's block record) agreed to unanimously with many weighing in over weeks at the pump. Communicated it to the official channel, the "dead letter office" "Bugzilla" system and they buried it, while working on things that nobody decided. So, answering the question above, step 1 on better communicating needs will require them getting the cotton out of their ears. A good way to do that would for representative of them to participate at a forum. North8000 (talk) 20:07, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

Maybe WP:DEVMEMO wasn't a great idea (it certainly didn't work), but I've yet to see anything better happening. It should be said that crosswiki watchlists would help, since besides bugzilla, a lot of developer activity is on mediawiki.org. Rd232 ^talk 20:44, 1 May 2013 (UTC)

The handling of child pornography on Wikimedia Commons

Jimbo, just to make sure you don't have to start another WTF section here, I want to point you at a blog post I have written about Common's handling of child pornography and the actions of one particular admin there. I know this was mentioned in passing in the thread about Commons further up the page, but I don't want you to be blindsided by another op-ed or report about this in the media if you missed that part of the discussion. Thanks. Delicious carbuncle (talk) 20:47, 1 May 2013 (UTC)