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Image idea

Since we appear to be at stalemate, here's a fresh idea*. (I haven't combed the archives thoroughly; it might have been suggested before.) The Pioneer image has already been edited—compare this (the lede image here) with this (over at Pioneer plaque)—so why not edit it again? Surely there's a skilled artist among us who can add a little authenticity to the loins of the female, while retaining the flavor of the original image (in fact, retaining every last pixel). That way, we would eliminate one of the major objections to the image, which is the unequal treatment of the two figures, while keeping the image itself. It could be captioned to say it was adapted from the Pioneer plaque.

Not a panacea by any means, but possibly a compromise which both factions could grudgingly accept (and fence-huggers like me could swoon over). I propose we either submit a request at Wikipedia:Requested_pictures, which appears to be a rather inactive page, or contact one or more artists directly from the list at Wikipedia:Wikipedians/Graphic_artists and see what happens. Anybody want to say amen? Rivertorch (talk) 05:40, 9 September 2009 (UTC) * first proposed here by Cybercobra

Sorry to be a spoilsport Rivertorch after your effort to find an acceptable solution but I do not think that your idea addresses most of the problems raised by myself and Silence. I agree it could potentially address the unacceptable and intentional inaccuracy in the drawing but even doing this is not without its problems.

Firstly, I am not sure what the copyright problems would be. Artists have a moral copyright over their works and the artist who drew this might object to changes of the nature proposed. Secondly, what would we do? If we were to have a drawing I would prefer one with pubic, body, and facial hair; others might not. We would then be drawn onto an argument about what features to add to a not-very-good drawing.

I am convinced that what we need is a realistic depiction of a person or some people. Choosing one is not without its problems but that is what we must to. Martin Hogbin (talk) 09:13, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree with Martin, but I am also very willing to try alternate compromise suggestions out. Copyright's not an issue since the plaque is public domain; the only issue is that this could mislead users about what the plaque looks like (although obviously that's less important on Human than potentially misleading them about human anatomy, culture, etc.). However, policy violations take precedence over all other deviations from convention in the plaque (e.g., the convention of using photos, depicting culture, sticking to the straightforwardly relevant, etc.; the only other potential policy of concern is NPOV, and that, although serious, is a bit less clear-cut), so I would support this solution at least as a temporary measure, until we can agree upon a photo; this would allow us to avoid continuing to barrage visitors with an instance of censorship during the course of our discussions about the 'ideal' solution. -Silence (talk) 11:07, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Firstly, I think that we should check out the copyright issue carefully. In the UK at least, a creator of an artistic work can sell or give away their copyright or even put it into the public domain, but they always retain the right to prevent the work from being used in an offensive way or one that is incompatible with it original purpose. See moral rights (copyright law).

Also, we could easily end up with the worst of all worlds, a badly modified version of a not very good drawing of some humans that remains in place forever because the most offensive aspect has been attended to. Martin Hogbin (talk) 11:46, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

That is not the worst of all possible worlds, as far as Wikipedia policy is concerned. Our primary priority right now is simply to remove the plaque from the main page, so that this article does not break WP:NOTCENSORED. We can do that by replacing it with a photo, a collage, an anatomy drawing, uncensored modification of the plaque, or even temporarily removing the taxobox lead image altogether — whatever works for the time being. Once that's done, we'll have plenty of time to discuss which of the non-policy-violating images is best. Trust me, the last thing you have to worry about is that a replacement image for the plaque will be insufficiently scrutinized and critiqued, once it goes up on Human. :) -Silence (talk) 13:31, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

I still do not think it will work, but is someone wants to give it a go... Martin Hogbin (talk) 13:34, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Martin, I'm not a copyright expert but I doubt there's any issue here under Florida or U.S. law, the two relevant jurisdictions. It's not only in the public domain; it's an iconic image of which even gross parody would be permissible. I have no idea what the artist would say (and don't think it matters from a legal standpoint), but I got to thinking: what would Carl Sagan have to say about it if he were still around? ("What Would Carl Do?": the next trendy question asked by billions of Wikipedians!) It occurred to me that, serious scientist that he was, he might endorse Silence's "It's a biology article" argument and say no dice—it's got to be a photo. On the other hand, as someone who bridged the worlds of science and popular culture rather effectively, he might endorse it as a reasonable compromise. In any event, compromise is the key here; the perfect shouldn't be the enemy of the good. Now let's see if anyone from the other camp will endorse it, however halfheartedly. Rivertorch (talk) 13:39, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

I think you need to check out the Visual Artists Rights Act of 1990 (VARA), 17 U.S.C. § 106A, a United States law protecting artist rights. According to the article 'VARA provides its protection only to paintings, drawings, ... produced for exhibition only'. I am not sure how 'exhibition' would be interpreted, it could be an interesting case. It gives the creator the 'right to prevent distortion, mutilation, or modification that would prejudice the author's honor or reputation' and 'rights granted under VARA persist for the life of the author (or the last surviving author, for creators of joint works)'. It is not clear to me whether these rights would apply to a copy but I think we should be careful. Martin Hogbin (talk) 13:50, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

The plaque doesn't seem to fall under VARA. 'Exhibition' here applies only to art exhibitions. The only possibly relevant U.S. laws are ones prohibiting defamation and applying to cases where a derivative work could potentially compete with the original and cause financial harm to the artist. Neither applies here. As long as the only change is to remove the anatomical censorship, U.S. law clearly allows modification to public domain work. This is also confirmed by Wikipedia policy: "For all practical purposes on Wikipedia, the public domain comprises copyright-free works: anyone can use them in any way and for any purpose". -Silence (talk) 14:08, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

That's my take on it, too. The image has already been edited here, and that has caused no problems to date. Anybody else have an opinion on this proposal? Rivertorch (talk) 19:18, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

The plaque image is fine. I see no reason to edit it. We don't need a realistic image in the infobox. It's not like we don't have any realistic image, it's that we have too many (thousands) of realistic images. What makes the image suited for the infobox is that it is a rare example of a "WP:RS" encyclopedic depiction of humans for the benefit of people who have never seen humans. If we really, truly, cannot agree on the infobox image, the solution will be "no infobox image". It's not really needed. --dab (𒁳) 19:40, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

(A note: If you're going to try to cite policy, I advise reading the actual policy page first. NASA does not qualify as any more 'reliable' of a source regarding human morphology/appearance than a random person picked off the street would. Either everyone is 'reliable' in that respect, because it's common knowledge, or else NASA and Joe Shmoe are equally unreliable, and an anthropologist or the like is needed. That is, unless you think NASA also qualifies as an especially 'reliable source' on Byzantine architecture, mycology, sociolinguistics, etc. :))

Anyway. Presumably you'd concede that the plaque's use here is a rather drastic deviation from ordinary, conventional Wikipedia practices, i.e., from the precedent set in all other comparable articles. I am the last one to suggest that we use a 'one size fits all' mindset and disregard individual articles' special needs. But in highly controversial cases, the best solution is usually to err on the side of adhering to policy and convention, since policy deviations will always, by their very nature, spark more contention than policy adherence, whether you agree with the policy or not (which should really be taken up on WP:NOT's talk page, if you honestly think we should modify or remove the principle that Wikipedia isn't censored). Hence, human needs a neutral, objective photograph vastly more urgently than do the thousands of articles which already have them; it is more important that we be neutral and informative here than on Ring-tailed Lemur or Bird, not less.

So: I would ask a very simple and straightforward request. Explain to me your justification for why Wikipedia should censor the primary sex characteristic of the human female in its most prominent depiction of humans. This is really the nub of the matter (especially with regard to Rivertorch's proposal, which is intended to exclusively correct the WP:NOTCENSORED violation, disregarding the other objections to the plaque or setting them aside for the time being). Almost all defenders of the plaque have totally skirted around this issue, acting as though Wikipedia's anti-censorship policy didn't even exist, or as though Carl Sagan hadn't confirmed that the vulva was initially present in the image in question, but was removed for moralistic (or in his words, "puritanical"/"Victorian") reasons.

To my knowledge, only one argument, in the entire history of this debate, has been made which directly responds to the censorship allegation, rather than trying to brush it aside — and that argument is, as LotLE put it, that the female primary sex-organ is not anatomically important, hence whether or not it's censored is trivial. Accoring to LotLE, "a short sketch line representing a woman's vulva" is not a "defining feature" of humans (let's set aside for the moment the fact that it's the only visible "defining feature" of females qua female — all other external characteristics being neither necessary nor sufficient), and "the exact angle of some missing line" is simply not "interesting" to him. Hence: "I really do not care very much" (and anyone who disagrees with him on any of these points is apparently, according to LotLE, acting in bad faith).

Since this is the only actual argument that has ever yet been put forth to justify the censorship ('this isn't an even remotely important organ, so it's beneath our notice whether the silly little "beaver shot" (as one editor put it) is or isn't censored'), it is the only thing I can actually respond to here without digressing from the central criticism. And my response is: It's not Wikipedia's job to make a judgment on this issue. Wikipedia is not the arbiter of body-part importance, and even if it were, this is not the correct article for covering such issues. Certainly it is not Wikipedia's job to say that male genitalia are more important than female genitalia, as the image currently says; it isn't Wikipedia's job to say anything at all about that, or to endorse any person or organization's views on the matter. It may be some editors' personal opinions that female genitalia are trivial while male genitalia are crucial to depict; and it may be other editors' opinions that the reverse is true, or that the genitals are equally important; but all of that is totally irrelevant, because Wikipedia itself need take no stance on the matter by using censored images. We can kill two birds with one stone, both avoiding the instance of censorship and avoiding adopting the particular POV needed to justify that censorship, by just not using censored images as our primary depiction. It really is that simple. -Silence (talk) 20:55, 9 September 2009 (UTC)

Censorship is when someone in a position of authority prevents you from putting an image in an article. No one is attempting that, it's simply a matter of established consensus. You do not like the image; others do. Johnuniq (talk) 02:26, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

What a couple of editors are attempting to do is change the apparent consensus. I don't know whether that should happen in this case, but I do know that it cannot happen if a dialogue involving the relevant points of policy fails to take place. So far, there really hasn't been a dialogue, and I think that's unfortunate. Silence and Martin have raised some interesting points, and at least a couple of them deserve a more thoughtful response than they've elicited so far.

I'm undecided about the matter of censorship. What Johnuniq describes is what I generally think of as censorship, but I think it can be argued with some validity that by using this image to illustrate Human, we are perpetuating and perhaps lending undue weight to a depiction of humans that was self-censored by the artist.

However, I created this section to propose a resolution that perhaps everyone could accept—even if some don't think any change is necessary, even if others think this proposal is too problematic or doesn't go far enough. Can anyone think of a reason (based on either WP rules or common sense) why this proposal would be unacceptable? (Note, I said "unacceptable", not "imperfect" or even "far from ideal".) Rivertorch (talk) 05:10, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

The problem with changing the image is that it would no longer fit the caption which reads "Humans depicted on the Pioneer plaque". We would have to change the caption to something like "Humans depicted on the Pioneer plaque with cleft of venus added". I do not see the point. Johnuniq (talk) 09:05, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Rivertorch's suggestion was to change the caption to call it an image "based on" or "adapted from" the Pioneer plaque. (Which is, technically, already true anyway, since we've already significantly edited and cleaned up the image.) -Silence (talk) 14:29, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

• Johnuniq, your comment reveals that you aren't familiar with what's being alleged about the image. You say "Censorship is when someone in a position of authority prevents you from putting an image in an article." This suggests you think that we're calling it 'censorship' simply that people aren't putting up the image we prefer on the top of Human. That's deeply silly, and no one has ever claimed that, in all the years this has been discussed. That is also not what WP:NOTCENSORED talks about; that page says absolutely nothing about some editorial authority preventing images from being put on pages. NOTCENSORED is about not removing or euphemizing informational content on an article on the basis of moralistic taboos and the like. The reason this is a clear-cut case of censorship has nothing to do with the conduct of any editor here; it is simply because the image was censored by its creators, as Carl Sagan attests that the image originally had both male and female genitalia depicted, but removed the female genitalia entirely out of deference to potential "puritanical" and "Victorian" sensibilities. The image is thus not merely anatomically inaccurate; it is censored (specifically, self-censored, probably the most common type of censorship), and Wikipedia disallows its use as such, except in contexts where we are not using it to show humans (i.e., it's not censorial on the Pioneer plaque article, because then the image only depicts the plaque, and in no sense is being used by Wikipedia as a depiction of humans). -Silence (talk) 14:29, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

I have read the book by Sagan where there was a nice explanation of the creation of the plaque, and the interesting reactions on various university campuses. I see that you also understand that issue, so I'm puzzled why you think WP:NOTCENSORED applies because that policy merely says, for example, that if the plaque originally contained anatomically correct details, we should not remove them if displaying the plaque here. I am sympathetic to the POV that we do not like how the plaque was created to suit puritanical and hypocritical standards, but to reject the plaque on those grounds would be censorship. Ultimately, however, the censorship argument is silly because we all know that there are many dubious images and articles here, and there is no need to convince anyone that Wikipedia is not censored.

The only issue concerns whether the plaque is a good image for this article. I think it is great because of the concepts it evokes. Counter arguments are possible but the WP:NOTCENSORED link is not relevant. Johnuniq (talk) 00:48, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

The policy says nothing of the sort. Nowhere does it even mention whether an image or other item of content was uniquely created by a Wikipedia editor or not. WP:NOTCENSORED simply states that Wikipedia may contain objectionable content, that it will not employ censored or bowldlerized "words and images", and that taboo or offensive material/information is appropriate as long as it's relevant to the article's topic (and conforms to Wikipedia's other policies, of course). When I asked for clarification on this very issue at Wikipedia_talk:What_Wikipedia_is_not#Censorship_clarification:_Images, my interpretation was confirmed: it makes absolutely no difference whether an image was created by a Wikipedian or a non-Wikipedian. (Indeed, such a distinction is absurd, since a Wikipedian could easily commission a non-Wikipedian to make censored images.)

"the POV that we do not like how the plaque was created to suit puritanical and hypocritical standards..." - No such POV is being advocated here. This is a canard. If I was advocating that we put up an image or text saying "The plaque is censored and evil!", you'd be correct here. Instead, I'm simply advising against Wikipedia advocating the opposite POV: "female genitals are more obscene (and/or unimportant) than male genitals". To suggest that we need to endorse one POV or the other in this debate is a false dichotomy. NPOV means that we endorse neither the POV that female genitals are obscene (or trivial) nor the POV that the aforementioned POV is "puritanical" or "hypocritical" (which is not my personal opinion; I was simply quoting Sagan's choice of words).

"to reject the plaque on those grounds would be censorship" - This patently absurd argument was already made earlier. If we took it seriously, it would mean never enforcing WP:NOTCENSORED — indeed, never enforcing any policy, since removing anything based on the authority of Wikipedia policy would be "censorship" on the exact same grounds. ("You think we should remove this image of Hitler from the Obama article? But that would be censoring an image, since you find it offensive! WP:NOTCENSORED forbids censorship. Ergo the image must stay." :P) Your other arguments are good, so I won't judge them poorly based on this one. I will charitably let you sweep it under the rug. :3

WP:NOTCENSORED is completely relevant; if it were not relevant to this plaque, it would not be relevant to any case, since if your arguments were valid it would make removal of any censorial image itself a form of "censorship". This line of thought is so absurd it's almost satire. :) "You're censoring my censorship!!!" Silliness aside, the image is clearly inappropriate because it does not depict the article subject directly, does not present useful visual information (e.g., human cultural accoutrements like clothing and tools), and is fundamentally culturally and sexually biased. Its iconic status is its only virtue, and on this article even this is a vice, since this article is not about artistic depictions of humans, the space program, NASA, or symbols of humanity. It's simply about the human species. I strongly recommend checking out the points made at Talk:Human/FAQdraft for more detail on why a "symbolic" and "abstract" image is completely unacceptable under Wikipedia standards, conventions, policies, and precedents (even if the censorship were not so profound, and explicitly admitted by Sagan). -Silence (talk) 02:34, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

I wonder if WP:NOTCENSORED has had some wording changed since you last read it, because I can only see a direction that cited words and images should not be censored by editors. It does not say anything about citing words or images that were self-censored by their authors. I may have offended you with use of "POV" but I was actually agreeing with the proposition that the plaque was self-censored for disagreeable reasons, and I am a lot closer to your position than you seem to realize (it's just the NOTCENSORED issue where I totally disagree with you – we know the article is not censored but you are using the policy incorrectly and the conversation you had with one other editor on its talk page did not establish otherwise).

It may be better to restrict the discussion to what would be a good image because no one is trying to censor anything here. The opinion that the plaque has a defect in that its self-censorship is no longer culturally acceptable (in our societies) is valid. I am possibly more inclined to accept the vagaries of the past than you, and so do not see use of the image here as a big problem because such depictions have been very common in human history. The only thing I would really object to is an attempt to correct the defect in the plaque: if that were necessary, another image should be found. Johnuniq (talk) 03:31, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

I've read the policy about a dozen times since the last time it was modified, so no. Quote the line you're talking about. It's a short policy, it should be easy to find.

"was actually agreeing with the proposition that the plaque was self-censored for disagreeable reasons" - Yes, but you were framing it as a POV. This is an absurd false dilemma. You employed two false dilemma fallacies. First, you suggested that removing POVed content means that Wikipedia is taking the opposite POV (when in reality it merely means that Wikipedia isn't taking the first POV, with no suggestion that Wikipedia is taking the reverse stance). And second, you suggested that our only choice is between using a censored image (and thus committing censorship), or censoring the censored image (and thus committing censorship), when in reality removing censorship does not itself constitute a form of censorship (whereas re-using a censored image to illustrate the same subject matter it was originally intended to, as opposed to using it to illustrate cultural perspectives or a historical artifact or the like, is simply repeating the censorship, in the exact same way that using a historically racist image in the lead section of African American would constitute a brand new incidence of racism — where we use the image is what determines whether Wikipedia is participating in censorship, as opposed to simply talking about censorship).

"you are using the policy incorrectly" - No, I am afraid that you do not understand the policy's scope. Ironically, Rivertorch made the exact same argument you made, earlier, prior to forsaking his strong support for the plaque (see the above RfC and Rivertorch's talk page). It reflects a misunderstanding of how censorship works. Wikipedia draws no distinctions between the source of an image in either its NPOV or censorship policies — content is equally censored, or equally POVed, completely regardless of whether a Wikipedian or non-Wikipedian created it. In point of fact, there is no basis in any policy, guideline, or convention in the whole of Wikipedia for inventing such a distinction with regard to these policies. NOTCENSORED spends most of its time talking about a special case of censorship (users trying to remove 'dirty words' and such) solely because that is the most common form of it on Wikipedia. It's not every day we see anatomically censored images trying to be passed off as appropriate and encyclopedic depictions of a major species of life. :)

"I am possibly more inclined to accept the vagaries of the past than you" - "The past"? You think the cultural taboos of our society reflect every society's set of cultural taboos? :P The notion that female genitalia are more obscene than male genitalia is not, as far as I'm aware, a cultural universal, either now or historically.

"if that were necessary, another image should be found." - I have suggested using an alternative image: File:Akha_cropped.png. (I and others have also created a long list of other alternative options at Talk:Human/Image.) I have only endorsed Rivertorch's proposal as a temporary compromise, as a sign of good faith, and as a useful first step in motivating editors to seriously consider the proposed alternatives. The only really unacceptable option is the status quo; none of the other proposed options directly and unambiguously violate any policies. -Silence (talk) 03:53, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

My claim is that WP:NOTCENSORED does not say anything about citing words or images that were self-censored by their authors, so I cannot "quote the line".

I will know in the future to avoid terms like "POV" on Wikipedia (unless I'm referring to WP:POV), but I will explain that my naive usage was correct in that not liking how the plaque was self-censored is a "point of view", although you are also correct that it is not POV to remove a POV from an article. I think it best to skip your analogies about other articles because you would need to show that they apply in this case.

Re your explanation of censorship: Yes, if an article needed an image of, say, a naked woman, it would be inappropriate to select a prudish picture prepared by a moral decency committee – that would be perpetuating a censorship. But the only issue for discussion here is the plaque, including whether its use supports a self-censorship, and whether it is appropriate for this article.

Thanks for the link to Talk:Human/Image – I see it has been a long discussion. Your File:Akha_cropped.png choice is the best of the other displayed alternatives. My suggestion would be for the proposal to edit the plaque image to be withdrawn, and for future discussion to focus on the appropriateness of the image in its current form. We could discuss whether perpetuating a self-censorship is an important consideration (since there is no policy to guide us). Johnuniq (talk) 07:21, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

• IMO the plaque is fine, for some of the reasons stated above. But namely because it is an attempt to show non-humans what humans are. It's instantly recognizable and it has coverage in sources. Might as well take down The Blue Marble from Earth because it doesn't show north america. Protonk (talk) 05:56, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

• A false analogy if ever one there was one.
  • (1) The Blue Marble is a photograph, hence matches Wikipedia convention and is vastly less prone to POV-favoring distortion (like nearly all photographs relative to nearly all drawings).
  • (2) No realistic photograph of the Earth will depict every continent, whereas all realistic photographs with a frontal angle will depict either female genitalia or pubic hair. So in your example an impossible standard (of geographic inaccuracy) is imposed, whereas in this example an absurdly easy standard of anatomical accuracy is imposed.
  • (3) Not depicting a continent due to technological limitations does not constitute censorship, by even the loosest definition. On the other hand, no common definition of censorship can avoid including the Pioneer plaque, since creators of the plaque have explicitly discussed the removal of the primary female sex characteristic from the image, and have publicly admitted that one of the reasons for this removal was a moralistic concern for "puritanical" or "Victorian" sensibilities.
• That the plaque is censored is not even open to question (the only question under discussion at this point is whether Wikipedia policy permits such censorship); in contrast, to fairly call your Blue Marble example "censorship" would, to put it rather mildly, require that we toss the English language in a garbage heap and start a new language of arbitrary homophones bearing no semantic continuity. :)
• As you are not familiar with the substance and details of this discussion, I advise you to check out some of the archives, and also look over Talk:Human/FAQdraft for some proposed problems (e.g., WP:NPOV) with using a 'symbolic' image like the plaque here. -Silence (talk) 06:23, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

• If you are somehow of the opinion that the plaque is censored in a way that even remotely relates to wikipedia policy then might I politely suggest that you recalibrate your understanding of the word censorship. I also won't bother with your unsubstantiated statement that somehow a photograph is inherently neutral. Protonk (talk) 06:32, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

• If you disagree that Wikipedia is not censored in such cases, I would love to hear your reason why. I already brought up this very issue on Wikipedia talk:What Wikipedia is not, so perhaps you would like to disagree with the editorial view voiced there. My understanding of policy can be summarized simply — 'censorship' is not only about the origin of an image, but also about its use. An image created by a Wikipedian or by a non-Wikipedian are equally capable of being used censorially by Wikipedia; the only question is whether the aforementioned image is used to depict the censored subject matter (in which case Wikipedia is participating in censorship, in flagrant and arbitrary violation of WP:NOTCENSORED), or is instead used to depict cultural attitudes, historical/sociological trends, etc., in which case it might be a valid record of such censorship (in addition to its other potential cultural significance). Thus, just as a racist caricature would not be appropriate in the lead section of African American (where its usage is racist), but might be perfectly appropriate in the lead section of Blackface or some other cultural article (where its usage can depict racism without participating in or perpetuating racism), so too can censorship either be depicted or participated in, entirely dependent upon its contextual usage. A censored image of a penis (even a famous one, created by non-Wikipedians) placed at the top of our Penis article would be an instance of censorship, on the part of Wikipedia; yet the very same image, placed on an article like "Cultural views of genitalia", would be completely non-censorial in Wikipedia's usage, and thus completely nonproblematic for WP:NOTCENSORED. For the same reason, an image which censors the female genitalia (as the current lead image of Human does) is blatantly inappropriate as our primary depiction of human beings; but if this image is instead only used in the lead section of an article about the image itself (Pioneer plaque!), it becomes a depiction of censorship, but not a novel instance of it. Capisce? :)
• That's the point of substance. Now, your latter point is a straw man fallacy, as I never said that a photograph is inherently neutral. I said that photographs, in general, are inherently more neutral than drawings, which is of course a fact — a cameraman's bias can infect what a camera captures to a much lesser degree than a hand artist's bias can infect how he draws a subject. They are simply different orders of magnitude ( on some imaginary 'scale of subjectivity' ;) ). -Silence (talk) 06:52, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

So anyway . . .

Getting back to the specific topic of this section—the proposal to further edit the image—I have yet to read in anyone's comments either a policy-based or common-sense reason why further editing would be unacceptable. As I see it, the image could be edited in one of two ways:

1. By the addition of Sagan's deleted line (see Pioneer plaque). This is the simplest method. Even I could do it, although I'd prefer that someone with a stronger background in art do so.
2. By rotating the perspective so that the figures are no longer facing full front. This could be accomplished in various apps but would require careful handling by someone who really knows what they're doing.

I emphasize again that this is not intended to be a perfect solution that will make everyone happy. It is intended to be a compromise that I hope might make no one desperately unhappy. Rivertorch (talk) 06:46, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Making the image is completely and utterly unproblematic, both for Wikipedia policy and U.S. law. (The clearest demonstration of this is the simple fact that Wikimedia Commons, probably the most notoriously copyright-cautious site on the entire Internet, has an entire category of often frivolous modifications of the plaque! :P) The only question is whether we should actually put it up on the page — should we change Human to fit Wikipedia policy, or instead start a petition to make our anti-censorship and NPOV policies conform to the plaque's use on Human? :) (Obviously, I'm also of the opinion that we should simply use a photo instead of a drawing here. But Rivertorch's compromise is at least a step in the right direction.) -Silence (talk) 07:01, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Now see here, if I can't keep the section on-topic, at least I'd really like to keep this subsection on-topic. Everyone knows perfectly well by now that you want a photo, so it is completely unnecessary for you to restate it at every opportunity. I am aware of what the question is—I'm the one who posed it, after all—and was simply fleshing out my proposal by suggesting two ways it could be accomplished. The image would obviously need to edited before it is actually uploaded and placed on the page, so I thought perhaps we might move forward to the next logical step of deciding how best to edit it. Rivertorch (talk) 08:03, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Actually, I only mentioned it because both of the users who just commented directly above seemed not to know my suggestion. (Nor did they apparently know any of the backstory of the plaque.) -Silence (talk) 13:59, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

If you are including me, I certainly knew about the plaque. As mentioned earlier, I read Sagan's book with a full and interesting history of the plaque, years before this page was created. I have also previously seen the commons collection. Johnuniq (talk) 23:26, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

My apologies, I was mainly talking about the backstory of the plaque's discussion here. It sounds like we have similar views and understandings of the issues involved, at least leaving aside the censorship matter. So, I am curious: Regardless of how you feel about Rivertorch's proposal, what are your views on my proposal of replacing the plaque in the lead of Human with File:Akha cropped.png? (Also, my apologies to Rivertorch for again contributing to a digression. Feel free to bracket this conversation off as a separate subsection if you wish.) -Silence (talk) 23:38, 11 September 2009 (UTC)

Lead section

I'd like to propose a substantial revision to the lead section. It's more similar to earlier versions of the page, so I want to check first with other editors here to hear rationales for the current variants. Please compare these two versions and let me know if you agree or disagree, and what changes you'd make. -Silence (talk) 15:06, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

Paragraph	Previous Version	Suggested Revision
Par. 1	A human is a member of a species of bipedal primates in the family Hominidae (taxonomically [Homo sapiens] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)—Latin: "wise man" or "knowing man"). Mitochondrial DNA and fossil evidence indicates that modern humans evolved in east Africa about 200,000 years ago. When compared to other animals and primates, humans have a highly developed brain, capable of abstract reasoning, language, introspection and problem solving. This mental capability, combined with an erect body carriage that frees the forelimbs (arms) for manipulating objects, has allowed humans to make far greater use of tools than any other species. Humans are distributed worldwide, with significant populations inhabiting most land areas of Earth. The human population on Earth is greater than 6.7 billion, as of February 2009.	Humans are bipedal primates belonging to the species Homo sapiens (Latin: "wise person" or "knowing person") in Hominidae, the great ape family. Compared to other species, humans have a highly developed brain, capable of abstract reasoning, language, introspection and problem solving. This mental capability, combined with an erect body carriage that frees the arms for manipulating objects, has allowed humans to make far greater use of tools than any other species. Mitochondrial DNA and fossil evidence indicates that modern humans originated in Africa about 200,000 years ago. Humans now inhabit every continent and low Earth orbit, with a total population of over 6.7 billion as of September 2009.

• The suggested revision is much better (perhaps change "of over" to "over" in the last sentence?). Not many specialists will feel a need to read this article, so the current lead ("Previous Version") is unnecessarily complex with words like "taxonomically" which serve only as road blocks. My Latin is weak, but clearly "homo" in this context was not intended to convey gender so "person" is the right word. Johnuniq (talk) 01:47, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

• "with a total population over 6.7 billion" isn't grammatical, I think. (We would have to replace "over" with "exceeding" or similar.) And, yes, the Latin rendition of "wise man" (as opposed to "wise person") would be vir sapiens, not homo sapiens. -Silence (talk) 01:54, 20 September 2009 (UTC)

A better image

Reply to comment by Silence on 23:38, 11 September 2009, in a new section since this is off-topic for the previous section.

I am going to have to admit some serious brain failure: While in discussion on this talk page, my mental image of how the picture appears in the article was colored by my knowledge of the plaque. Today when I looked at the article again I found myself surprised at the starkness of the figures with no hint of the context. For someone not familiar with the plaque, the images would be interpreted purely as a portrayal of humans, and not, as I had fondly hoped, also as a symbol of human achievement. I have been irritated on other talk pages where people have used WP:NOTCENSORED to argue that an article should include personal information of non-notable people, or should contain some offensive term that is inconsequential to the topic, and my main point on this page was to argue that NOTCENSORED did not apply in this case.

As I look at the article now, all I can see is an attempt to show a representative sample of what humans look like – an attempt that fails. So I have converted to wanting another image (while maintaining my views on NOTCENSORED, although I agree that using an inaccurate picture as a representation of humans is not supportable).

In this version of the article, we see how Silence's suggestion appears, and I like it. I wonder if more zany suggestions have been contemplated: What about a gif which shows (say) 12 different images for ten seconds each? What about a tricky template which shows a different image depending on the current month? These ideas are an attempt to show something a tiny bit more representative than a single image. I agree with the view expressed elsewhere that a crowd shot would not be satisfactory since the carefully-chosen "balance" is getting pretty irritating these days. Johnuniq (talk) 04:47, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Johnuniq, I think this version looks just fine. Martin Hogbin (talk) 10:08, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

GIFs and clear photos rarely go together, but I think I might support your "tricky template" idea if it's workable, especially if the interval were more frequent than monthly. Rivertorch (talk) 05:01, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

I think you are trying to solve a problem which does not exist and is impossible to solve. No image can possible be expected to show all of humanity and it is absurd to even try. However many images you show there will always be the potential complaint that it does not show some sub-section of the human race. We need to tackle this problem head on and just show a reasonably typical image of humans, just as we do with most other species. We then need to be prepared to take the flak (perhaps with an FAQ) that our image does not show: tall people, black people, gay people, disabled people, men with beards (as I would like), and so on ad infinitum. The answer is that it does not do this because no image or collection of images cannot possible show every aspect of humans. Martin Hogbin (talk)

It's a good idea to brainstorm a lot of different options. And yes, 'rotating' multiple different images has been discussed a number of times before. The problem with this is twofold: First, obviously it is highly unusual (whereas the Akha image is so usual it's almost boring, a perfect recourse for such a controversial area :)), but more importantly and problematically, it would be an unambiguous attempt to depict the full range of human diversity. This is an impossible goal. If we even take a stab at showing all the earth's different cultures or races or religions or whatever, we'll immediately just show our bias regarding (a) which traits are most important to show the variety of, and (b) which variants of those traits are the most important variants. Even if we chose a trait which would make it possible to be exhaustive (e.g., one person from each continent rather than one person from each 'race'), we would still be showing our bias in respect to (a) — and, obviously, even if we somehow found a way to be perfectly unbiased in how we selected our images, that would do absolutely nothing to prevent people from complaining (and with some justification) that their own groups are excluded from the gallery of human diversity we've chosen. :P There are only two real ways to avoid this problem: (1) depict zero humans at the top of Human (perhaps via a stick figure or no image at all), or (2) depict any old human, without making even the slightest effort, or the slightest hint of an effort, at representing or symbolizing "humanity" in its infinite diversity. In other words, do the same thing here that we do on almost every other article of this sort, from Bird to Eukaryote to Chemical substance.

So anyway. Although I don't think the Akha image is perfect, my preference too is still this version of the page. I think the wisest strategy would be to simply go with this image, precisely because it's so normal and conventional (relative to other Wikipedia articles), and then take as much time as we want to debate 'zanier' options once the plaque, at least, has been set aside. (I also still think NOTCENSORED is an urgent issue here, but not, thankfully, because I think that some inconsequential datum should be inserted just for 'shock value', as Johnuniq rightly rails against; you'll notice that my suggested image doesn't even depict the very organ which I'm protesting the censorship of. NOTCENSORED only requires that we not censor relevant data; it doesn't require that we put the uncensored material at the very top of its article for the hell of it. In other words, depicting clothed people is not censorship. :P) -Silence (talk) 16:25, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict—replying to Martin) So because no image or collection of images can show every aspect, we settle for as few aspects as possible? I suspect we can do far better than that, hence my tentative support for one of Johnuniq's suggestions. (How you can determine the height, sexual orientation or disability status of the Akha couple is beyond me.) Replying to Silence: That rotating images "is highly unusual" doesn't mean it's unacceptable; humans constitute a highly unusual species. And it would not be "an unambiguous attempt to depict the full range of human diversity"—just arguably an attempt to depict more of the range of human diversity. Rivertorch (talk) 16:33, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, of course its unusualness in no way makes it a non-starter. (However, if our pragmatic goal at the moment is to find a relatively uncontroversial, relatively stable compromise solution, less unusual is probably better.) But, yes, I do think that showing as few aspects as possible is a good strategy — because this is the article on humans, not the article on human diversity. The first advantage of showing fewer elements of human diversity is that we give more prominence to the commonalities between humans — bipedalism, etc. (Commonalities which are verifiable and encyclopedic to focus upon, else we'd spend the lead section giving a laundry list of the differences between people rather than explaining what humans tend to have in common.) The second advantage is that we don't flirt with POV criteria, and we don't piss off people who want more variants shown — if we go out of our way to depict an Asian, a European, and an African, for example, we'll just get angry messages from Oceania and the Americas (as well as from Asians, Europeans, and Africans whose particular groups were passed over).* The only way to avoid this is, as I mentioned, to either not show any human diversity, or to only show a random example, and not make any effort to be representative of different races, ethnicities, religions, cultures, sexual orientations, heights, body types, etc. (just as we make no such effort in the lead of any other Wikipedia article, from Bird to Shamanism). Of these, I think option 2 is more helpful to our readers.

"(How you can determine the height, sexual orientation or disability status of the Akha couple is beyond me.)" - Three profound virtues of the Akha image, for our purposes. :) In any other context, I would have taken those words as a strong vote of confidence; right off the bat, three areas of potential bias and controversy we've totally sidestepped! Haha, even I'm not that optimistic. ;) -Silence (talk) 16:50, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

* (Mind you, I'm not saying we won't get any angry letters from those groups with the Akha image too. :) No image will be completely free of controversy. But the advantage of the 'any old human' approach is that we have a quick, easy, straightforward response to those angry letters: "The image, like all Wikipedia lead images, is not intended to represent 'humanity' or 'human diversity'. It is simply an example of a human. See Talk:Human/FAQ for details." In contrast, when anyone objects to an image or series of images which tries to showcase human diversity we will have to justify, in detail, over and over again, why we picked group X and not group Y.) -Silence (talk) 16:54, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Rivertorch, I think you misunderstood my comments. I support the Akha image, for the reasons given by Silence. Once we go down the path of being seen to be attempting to cover the range of human diversity we are starting something in which we can never succeed. There will always be someone who will complain that this or that aspect of humanity has not been covered. My list of, 'tall people, black people, gay people, disabled people, men with beards', was intended to give some, completely random, examples of the many things people might complain about if they were not represented in the set of pictures. Martin Hogbin (talk) 18:03, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

Silence, I don't agree with you about fewer elements of diversity giving more prominence to commonalities. That seems both counterintuitive and logically suspect. Martin, if we had an ever-growing pool of pictures to rotate into the taxobox, there will eventually be nothing for anyone to complain about. In any case, I ask: is the notion of automatically changing the image periodically something that is technically feasible now at WP? (It may be useful to determine whether it can be done, and how, before we bother going into whether it should be done.) Rivertorch (talk) 18:57, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

"if we had an ever-growing pool of pictures to rotate into the taxobox, there will eventually be nothing for anyone to complain about" - Not true. The larger our pool of pictures became, the more prone to bias it would become, because (1) it would be less carefully regulated, (2) the more groups we include, the more egregious and offensive it is when there are still excluded groups (and there will always be excluded groups, unless we make the pool millions of pictures large!), (3) the more groups we include, the less grounds we have for rejecting pictures of relatively trivial/minor groups ("you have to include my image, you don't have any pictures representing Somali-American chess players from the Bronx!"), and (4) a larger group of images would be harder to keep from becoming biased in the proportions of who is included — emergent, unintended biases will inevitably arise, e.g., "oh shit we just finished bringing the pool up to 500 images and now suddenly we've realized that 80% of them are women!" or "80% of them are old!" or "80% of them are city-dwellers!". Inevitably the proportions would become more and more seriously biased and nonrepresentational the more we tried to inflate the sheer quantity of images, because neither the English Wikipedia nor the photographers contributing to Wikimedia Commons are proportioned so as to be representational of the human race at large. (Also, particularly good images within the pool would become more and more drowned out by mediocre, unhelpful, or potentially POVed alternatives the more lax we were with what we included. All while we have more and more difficulty excluding those unaesthetic, cluttered, or misleading images, because it will be so easy to accuse us of bias if we exclude even images depicting even the most fringe of groupings.) -Silence (talk) 20:56, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

I would also point out that if we opted for an "ever-growing pool of pictures", we would be choosing to prolong this debate over which images to include from now until the end of human civilization. :) If one of our goals here is to eventually basically settle these lead image discussions so that we have more time to focus on other aspects of the article, then this option would have the exact opposite effect, as we would be exhausting all our editorial efforts constantly receiving new image suggestions, having to evaluate them for use at the top of one of Wikipedia's most important articles, arguing over removals and additions and inclusion criteria, accusing each other of bias and agendas for the different images we're favoring, etc. You are in effect proposing that we replace a tiresomely long-lasting discussion on the lead image of Human with an infinitely long discussion of the lead image. #.x -Silence (talk) 21:14, 13 September 2009 (UTC)

I find the arguments against the rotating pool pretty convincing. Another problem would be that in practice a visitor will only see one image, or will be confused when they see another image when revisiting in a week. So, the pool would only serve to satisfy editors. Also, the pool may not work well with some of the attempts to create an offline Wikipedia for education.

I made an attempt to look through commons:Category:People hoping to find an indistinct picture of explorers climbing a mountain or trudging through snow, but it didn't work. Therefore, let's go with the Akha image (and a FAQ to summarize all these arguments). Johnuniq (talk) 02:38, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

I started a possible FAQ at Talk:Human/FAQdraft. Feel free to change or make suggestions if you see anything that could be improved! -Silence (talk) 13:00, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Looks good to me. Martin Hogbin (talk) 18:15, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. Johnuniq (talk) 01:14, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Well, if you think the Akha version is more encyclopedic, feel free to restore it. Since I was the one to originally add the Akha pic, I'd prefer if someone besides me re-added it to the lead, if only to avoid the impression of a one-man campaign. :P -Silence (talk) 03:12, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

Done. We should arrange the FAQ soon. What do you think of the arrangement at Talk:Evolution? Here is an old version of the same page when it just had a link to the FAQ at the top. Let's move FAQdraft to FAQ and add one of the above arrangements as a link. Johnuniq (talk) 05:12, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

The function of an FAQ is to reflect consensus, and to avoid redundant rehashings of issues that have already basically been settled. I think we'll have quite a bit of discussion yet, before the lead image matter is even close to 'settled' and we can switch to FAQ autopilot. :) I only created the page prematurely as an organizational tool, and to ferret out if there are any disagreements with the points there. As for placement, I think the evolution FAQ I made is located just fine at the top of Talk:Evolution. But we have a relatively compact set of superboxes, so I don't think it matters all that much. -Silence (talk) 06:28, 15 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't see a problem with just using the Akha image. Rlendog (talk) 18:34, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

The perennial problem of what image is best representative for the article. Every editor passing through will have a particular preference. It is a problem that I believe will persist for a while. Wapondaponda (talk) 10:31, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

the current idea is silly, it screams "people have spent too much time debating this, grimly determined to overcome all cultural bias". I strongly recommend switching back to the plaque. If people object to that, I will remove the image altogether. Let the infobox be image-less until this talkpage debate comes back on its feet. --dab (𒁳) 17:11, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Homo sapiens articles

the article homo sapiens redirects to humans. Homo sapiens sapiens redirects to Anatomically modern humans. There is also a disambiguation page Homo sapiens (disambiguation). Somehow there may be a need to untangle these articles. Should homo sapiens redirect to human, or should it have its own article. Since homo sapiens is more of a biological phenomenom and human is a socialogical, philosphical and political one as well. Any ideas?. Wapondaponda (talk) 21:46, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

The status quo seems fine here. Homo sapiens is not a "biological phenomenon", it's just a taxonomic name for human beings. In effect, it's the word "human" in science-ese. :P Although this article is also about Homo sapiens sapiens, anyone who bothers to look for such a specific term will probably be most interested in an article explaining its particular usage and significance. However, I could see an argument made for redirecting sapiens sapiens here too, or to a redirect page, if the confusion or misdirection were substantial. -Silence (talk) 23:40, 23 September 2009 (UTC)

The terms human and homo sapiens generally refer to the same creatures. However, as you point out usage of the terms is different. In general we don't refer to "homo sapiens rights" or "homo sapiens nature". Homo sapiens is indeed science-ese, and there may be enough material in science-ese for a separate article. By some definitions, homo sapiens includes Archaic homo sapiens, to which some of the content in the article human, may not apply as Archaic homo sapiens are no longer in existence. Wapondaponda (talk) 05:51, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

All true, but the usage is so nearly synonymous as to make a fork unnecessary. It's not like we can simply remove human biology from this article and place it in a science fork! You could argue that the usage of every taxonomic and common name for the same organisms are at least slightly different, if only because of the different people who use them — saying Brown bear and saying Ursus arctos are not 100% identical in sense and connotation, even if they refer to the same thing in the world. But since 90% of our readers who search for Homo sapiens will simply want to know what that term refers to in common usage, they are best-served by the most straightforward option, of redirecting them to Human and explaining that term in the very first sentence of the article. It's a pragmatic issue, and one of consistency with the other articles; we can easily link to articles further explaining the sense of Homo sapiens (sapiens), e.g., in the evolution and name sections of Human.

I would also note that all species articles technically refer to at least some extinct populations. Yet someone who does a search for Brown Bear or Ursus Arctos expects to have the article spend all or most of its time on the modern populations, and not give equal time to relatively obscure extinct offshoots. It's the same reason our Bird article spends almost all its time on modern birds, even though the vast majority of bird species are long gone. By default, we first assume that someone is interested in a surviving population of animals; then only secondarily do we consider information about extinct groups. -Silence (talk) 17:32, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Least Concern

Not to be cheeky, but I was wondering who decides that humans are in the least concern category?

Here http://www.iucnredlist.org/details/full/136584/0 --NeilN ^{talk ♦ contribs} 03:32, 24 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree with you, but no one else here seems to care. Martin Hogbin (talk) 17:34, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Caring's not the issue. Least Concern is a term of art, defined by the IUCN Red List. WP:NOR settles the matter. -Silence (talk) 17:48, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure whether it applies here. One could make an argument for the label of "domesticated". Are humans even on the IUCN Red List?--Ramdrake (talk) 19:23, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

Believe it or not they are. It looks more like a student prank or an April fool's joke but public money has actually been spent on a proper study which concludes that, 'At present, no conservation measures are required. Humans are present in numerous protected areas throughout their range' and notes that humans inhabit every country of the world. Martin Hogbin (talk) 19:33, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

One could make an argument for many things. WP:NOR. -Silence (talk) 21:01, 25 September 2009 (UTC)

The IUCN reference should probably be cited in the taxobox to avoid confusion. mgiganteus1 (talk) 03:20, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I was about to chime in against putting the citation in the infobox. However, after a quick look at a semi-random half-dozen other "charismatic megafauna", it looks like a citation is usualy (though not always) included there. We should do the same for the human species. LotLE×talk 03:53, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Do we have to have the IUCN classification here? Could we not quote the classification of one of the other bodies, where humans are 'unclassified' or similar? It is not OR to note that is is an insane piece of bureaucracy to attempt to classify humans in the same way as other species. Can anyone tell me what practical significance this classification has, in other words, what action (or lack of action) might be taken as a result of this classification. Martin Hogbin (talk) 09:32, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Of course it is OR (and POV-pushing). The category simply notes how this organization classifies human according to their criteria. This is their justification, "Listed as Least Concern as the species is very widely distributed, adaptable, currently increasing, and there are no major threats resulting in an overall population decline" and their conclusion "At present, no conservation measures are required. Humans are present in numerous protected areas throughout their range.". What's your issue with having the IUCN classification here? --NeilN ^{talk ♦ contribs} 13:52, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Every other species with an IUCN classification has that classification listed in its taxobox. Why on earth would we make an exception for humans? Certainly humans are unique, but humans are not unique in any of the ways relevant for the redlist. Our population is in substantial flux, and our ecology and habits are amenable to study as much as any other species. There is no reason whatsoever to think that humans could never, ever become a threatened or endangered species in the distant future — and with that in mind it becomes clear that we are the most important species to include on the Redlist, since we are the species whose conservation we would consider most important. The fact that we, at this particular moment and as a whole species, don't need conservation in no way excludes us from the list — by that logic, all 'Least Concern' species would need to be delisted. Moreover, including humans is extremely useful simply for providing a 'baseline' to evaluate and contrast how other species are faring; it gives us a sense of perspective. -Silence (talk) 15:27, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I cannot imagine what you think the purpose of the Redlist is and why humans are not unique in any of the ways relevant for the redlist. The purpose of the Redlist is to help decide 'what conservation measures are in place or are needed' for a particular taxon. There are no conceivable circumstances under which 'conservation measures' for humans would be affected by their classification in the Redlist. Martin Hogbin (talk) 17:13, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

It seems like an obvious, no-brainer to include the IUCN classification in the human infobox, just like we do for every other infobox of a species classified. It's not about the uniqueness or moral values of humans. It's not about who might or might not take conservation measures. It's just a stylistic consistency on WP... just about exactly the same as including the Linnaean classification of humans (even though humans are special in having invented the classification, etc). LotLE×talk 19:18, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Well said. I agree completely. Rivertorch (talk) 19:38, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Oh well. It looks like I am on my own on this one. Except that we have had two passers-by who have questioned the classification. I will leave it, for now. Martin Hogbin (talk) 20:30, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Exactly so. In each case, including the classification doesn't express a POV, because it is simply consistent (both with Wikipedia style convention and with scientific usage); whereas excluding it does express a POV about the nature of humanity's place in the animal kingdom and in the world. Sometimes an absence of information is more problematic than its presence. -Silence (talk) 22:23, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Well I guess I do see everything from the POV of a human. Perhaps we should ask some giraffes to help us with the article. Martin Hogbin (talk) 09:29, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

First of all, I was talking about a specific POV about human nature; I wasn't speaking of a universally shared human POV. Second, it's not a problem when we see things from a certain POV; it's only a problem when we can't distance ourselves enough from our certain world-views and the article comes to reflect them. -Silence (talk) 16:41, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

I would like to distance myself from the view that humans are of least concern. Martin Hogbin (talk) 10:00, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Then you don't understand what "least concern" means (or you believe that the entire human species is very likely to go extinct in the next couple of years). Regardless, there's not much distancing to be done; your name isn't cited anywhere in Human. Your reputation is safe. -Silence (talk) 12:52, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

It is mainly the IUCN classification name 'least concern' that I do not like. If it were called 'unclassified', which is exactly what it is since its definition is simply everything that does not fit into any of the other classifications, then I would have less objection to its being applied to humans although I would still prefer 'not applicable'.

IUCN classifications have a purpose, which is to guide and inform out actions and choices when we do things that might affect the viability of a particular species. This purpose does not apply to humans. Martin Hogbin (talk) 17:41, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

If you don't like the IUCN classification system, Martin Hogbin, you should take it up with them. This is not a matter relevant to Wikipedia. If you convince them to change their system, WP articles can and will be updated to reflect that change. Until then, this is a non-starter. LotLE×talk 17:48, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Although we cannot change it, we are not obliged in any way to quote the IUCN classification for humans in this article. Martin Hogbin (talk) 18:01, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps we're not obliged to quote it, but it would be inconsistent not to quote it for this species. Making an exception for our own species would be biased and have neutrality and OR issues, so I think no exception should be made. We're not endorsing, anyway, only reporting. (Fwiw, I think the classification is dead wrong. As long as we have thousands of nuclear warheads and insist on spewing greenhouse gases with wild abandon, most or all species are at risk, and we are more at risk than many others. Which reminds me, my pending mouse-click triggers poised to trigger various electronic processes in Florida, just how green is the power that Wikimedia servers run on? As my edit count slowly builds, am I being part of the problem?) Rivertorch (talk) 23:10, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

most or all species are at risk, and we are more at risk than many others - You're half-right here. Most or all species are at risk. But humans are at less risk than almost all of them, because even a nuke that intended to annihilate humanity would be more likely to wipe out tens of millions of other species and fail at exterminating man from every corner of the globe, considering our technology and distribution. Pigeons and tree squirrels are at more risk of extinction by nukes than humans are, yet no one is advocating that we change them from 'Least Concern' to 'Endangered.'

What people seem to be missing is that "Least Concern" is by definition a matter of degree. Someone who is the "least tall" out of a group can still be enormously tall — provided that the rest of the group is very tall too. In the same way, "Least Concern" clearly suggests that such species are not of no concern (else they'd just say that!), but only that they're of less concern than all the RedList other designations. 'Least Concern' species can still be of great concern, in other words, if all life is so precarious that even the 'safest' is still at substantial risk. What is needed is a sense of proportion and scale. -Silence (talk) 00:16, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

You're right about pigeons, squirrels, and other such species. I was thinking more along the lines of various insects and microbes. Not sure about the numbers, but I'm pretty sure that certain cockroaches and bacteria will outlast us (even if all nukes and carbon-emitting machinery were to disappear tomorrow). Rivertorch (talk) 04:53, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Some bacteria will, though of course there are species of bacteria that only live in our bodies and otherwise depend on us for survival. Cockroaches may not be as fortunate as popularly imagined. Without humans to keep cities heated, they won't be able to survive in their current range and will need to retreat to tropical regions (unless global warming gives 'em a biiig helping hand, of course). Certainly their populations would take a massive hit. -Silence (talk) 05:21, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

The question that no one has addressed is, 'What is the purpose of the IUCN classification system?'. Martin Hogbin (talk) 08:44, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

The question you have not addressed is: 'Why does that matter?' It's our job to report facts, and the classification system is a fact. Unless you're proposing that we remove the IUCN classification from every species articles, you're in effect advocating that biased original research be inserted into Human, since you have yet to cite any reputable sources agreeing with you that 'Humans' are some other classification than 'Least Concern' (which, as has been just established, means 'of less concern than other categories of listed organisms,' not 'of no concern,' obviously). -Silence (talk) 10:01, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

New Lead Image

9-30-09 - You guys spent so much time discussing the minutiae of what single image could represent humanity that you totally ignored the fact that every other article for such general categories (from plants to planets, animals to flowers to arachnids) have collages as their lead image. That way you get a much better idea of the diversity involved when discussing such wide-encompassing categories.

The new image represents a great deal of what is actual discussed in the article. For one it has bio-diversity because it shows humans young and old from across the globe, it also has a diverse range of vocations (thinkers, speakers, artists, kings, queens, politicians). Furthermore, it gives a feel for the great range of human achievements and emotions (creativity, culture, love, religion, language and technology), and plays into the later parts of the article that discusses everything from government to commerce to war.

Lastly, lets face it, the Silence's image was lame. It showed two random and disheveled humans who probably don't even know what wikipedia is. If aliens were checking out wikipedia would you really want that to be the lead image for our entire species?! When we need lead images for animals or plants we don't use pictures of malnourished dogs or wilting house plants, we have pictures of jellyfish and tigers, roses in full bloom and mouth watering strawberries.

Have some pride in the human race folks, without us there WOULDN'T EVEN BE A WIKIPEDIA!!!!!!

—Preceding unsigned comment added by KgKris (talk • contribs) 10:35, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Without Apes, there wouldn't be wikipedia either, so goes for bacteria and every organism in between humans and our inorganic predecessors. Wapondaponda (talk) 11:48, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

---

You are incorrect in stating that all (or even many) general article use collages. In fact, the cherrypicked examples above are very rare exceptions. Not a single Featured biology article uses collages — nor, as far as I'm aware, are there any species articles that employ collages. Yet even higher-level classifications like Frog, Bird, Sauropsid, Eukaryote, Bacteria, Ungulate, Carnivore, Dinosaur, Tetrapod, Bony fish, Insect, Whale, Bat, Land plant, Algae, Marsupial, Shark, Simian, Rodent, Rabbit, Rat, Mollusk, Octopus, Sponge, and thousands of other pages are collage-free, for two simple reasons: (1) once we start down the road of collages, it becomes increasingly difficult to decide which images to include or exclude, and there is significant risk of our biases affecting what gets included; and (2) collages are useful for demonstrating diversity, but at the cost of being useless for demonstrating the important features of the group, because each image is so small in a collage as to be almost invisible.

I don't know why you call the people in the simpler image "disheveled", nor do I see how that's relevant; just because a foreign culture does not meet your own particular culture's standards of decor (which perhaps is why you chose to represent 'humanity' with celebrities, politicians, royalty, etc.) does not make depicting the foreign culture inappropriate on Wikipedia. All that matters is that the 'random and disheveled humans', as you call them, are humans. Likewise, since most humans don't know what Wikipedia is, it's an advantage if the humans we're illustrating probably aren't Wikipedians. The purpose of an article's lead image is to accurately illustrate its subject matter, not to glorify or exalt its subject matter. -Silence (talk) 15:05, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

The collage idea is the worst possible solution. The current image already spells unvoluntary comedy, and I am confident we will persently return to the Pioneer plaque, but a collage image will be everso much worse than no image at all. As I have said before, the Pioneer plaque is the best solution if there must be an image, but if there really cannot be a consensus, the way to go will be no image. It's only an infobox, it's not worth wasting time over something like this. Please help build the pedia instead.--dab (𒁳) 17:07, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure what "spells unvoluntary comedy" means here; could you clarify? If you feel that the plaque is the best image, I'd be very interested in hearing your response to the points raised at Talk:Human/FAQdraft, an effort I made in part to summarize the basic problems with using collages as well as 'symbolic' or 'idealized' images like the plaque. The fundamental reason the plaque was removed was because no one could provide a satisfactory response to the guidelines, conventions, and policies (NPOV, NOTCENSORED, etc.) it seemed to violate, and because no one could point to any major problems with the proposed replacement image(s). If you can do that, the situation will change. -Silence (talk) 18:45, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It's worth noting that this article deals with a subspecies, not a "general category" (i.e., kingdom) or even a genus. In any case, I reverted to Akha not because I love it or necessarily think it's ideal but because it has consensus (and apparently nobody else who knew that was online at the ungodly hour). Rivertorch (talk) 17:09, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

judging from this talkpage, the Akha image was first suggested three weeks ago. The fact that nobody immediately screamed bloody murder about it hardly amounts to "consensus" compared to the years of unchallenged presence of the Pioneer plaque. I am removing the image until there is some actual, solid strawpoll kind of consensus. --dab (𒁳) 17:13, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

in fact, I paused to think and just stopped myself from doing that edit. I figure this is too WP:LAME even for a wiki-addict like myself. --dab (𒁳) 17:15, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Er, dab, you might want to check the Talk archives more carefully. The Akha image was first proposed 11 months ago, and even the current Akha vs. Pioneer discussion began two months ago, not three weeks ago. And I think it's fair to say that some people did scream bloody murder — at first. Unfortunately, consensus is not based on which side is loudest or most fervent, but on strength of argument and good reasons, so the change had to be made ultimately even though not everyone agreed, simply because the legion problems of the Plaque had not been rebutted. Indeed, most of the Plaque's supporters didn't even try to counter the arguments. All of you are still free to do so; explain, for example, why it is Wikipedia's job to make a statement about which image in human history is most "representational" of the human species, or why it is Wikipedia's job to adorn the top of its Human article with an anatomically censored (by Sagan's account, at least) doodle. As I understand it, Wikipedia's only job here is to show a human. -Silence (talk) 18:45, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

I continue to agree that the Pioneer plaque is far better than the two humans Silence put in. I didn't "scream bloody murder" because... well, I think I was traveling when the actual edit was made, and didn't notice it for a few days or more. But also I confess to having been worn down by so many tens of thousands of words that flowed in response to the discussion, with the very same non-arguments against the Pioneer plaque repeated for the hundredth time. So I gave up out of exhaustion. That said, the collage idea is absolutely awful. Maybe some collage (but probably not), but absolutely not a collage of "famous people" (I rather think that Einstein, like the peasants in Silence's picture, also "did not know about Wikipedia... actually, the ordinary developing-world farmers might know about it, Einstein definitely not). This better not be a celebrity gossip page! The two peasants isn't a bad picture in itself. It shows two adults in a pose that indicates the general physiological makeup of humans, and a reasonably "typical" pose for them. LotLE×talk 17:31, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Lulu, there were way too many words flowing in the discussion—you're right about that—but I fear you are overgeneralizing when you speak of "non-arguments". Amid the torrent of words were a couple of perfectly cogent arguments which were policy-based and also just made sense. Rivertorch (talk) 18:07, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps I missed those. I only read about 50,000 words of it, over only about two dozen discussion threads. Maybe the 17th paragraph of that 25th discussion thread had this policy-based argument you allude to, and I missed it. LotLE×talk 18:32, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

I agree that the collage is a bad idea. I think you will find, Lulu, that if you simply look back over random portions of my previous comments, they are quite full to the brim with arguments. That may be the problem: too many rather than too few points. :) So feel free, as a start, to focus on just a few. Explain why Akha is inappropriate for the lead; even better, justify the plaque's deliberate censorship and its role as a 'symbol', rather than actual depiction, of humanity. (This is not the Symbols of humanity article, after all.) If my posts have been too long — for which I apologize — perhaps you'll have more luck rebutting the points made on Talk:Human/FAQdraft, which I think is an excellent summary of why an image like Akha is preferable to an image like the plaque.

It sounds, however, like you don't have any actual problems with Akha; you just think both are good, but the plaque's preferable. In that case, I think going with the 'lukewarm' image which no one has raised a substantial objection to, is a much better tactic than going with the 'love-it-or-hate-it' image that has had many many problems pointed out over the years. -Silence (talk) 19:00, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

This is true, Silence. I know I'm a bit sarcastic in much of this, since the anti-Pioneer discussion has been so long and so silly, to my mind. However, it is indeed true that I find absolutely nothing wrong with the Akha image. If it had been there when I first came across the article, I would have given it no thought and felt it was a perfectly nice image (and I'm sure I would not have independently thought of using the Pioneer plaque instead, although I was of course generally aware of the image for many years). As I comment, I left your Akha image when you made the change... albeit, I did silently roll my eyes when I noticed the edit. I confess also, that the "symbol" versus "depiction" thing you mention just above is interesting.

FWIW, I think like you I am deeply offended by some of the editors here who are making racist or xenophobic comments about the Thai peasants in the Akha image. Those look like perfectly fine humans in a fairly "typical" human environment (inasmuch as any one situation can be typical). LotLE×talk 19:23, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Moral of the story, no matter how perfect Silence thinks his parents are he needs to stop posting them as the model image of lead image for all of humanity. the pioneer image is exactly what is needed to stop anymore "flare ups" or controversy. KgKris (talk) 22:02, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

If you are alleging a conflict of interest, I have never been to Asia, have never to my knowledge met an Akha, and had nothing to do with the original image's creation (I merely cropped it). There is no "model image of all humanity", however, and no Wikipedia article uses a "model" or "ideal" for its lead image. Even attempting to select an image based on how well it 'represents' or 'symbolizes' the whole human race will be a profound violation of Wikipedia policy. See Talk:Human/FAQdraft, Q1. -Silence (talk) 19:00, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

You want to talk verifiable fact, I am having trouble verifying that you have eyes. This is the wiki for all of humanity and you are obsessed with a picture of two random asians, get over your yellow fever and stop vandalizing an image that has served it's purpose since the beginning of wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by KgKris (talk • contribs) 10:35, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

Besides the girl on the plaque looks asian and is haut.

As a note, the collage contains File:Michael-Oscar.jpg, which is a copyright violation. Tim Vickers (talk) 19:29, 30 September 2009 (UTC)

As Mgiganteus1 pointed out in an edit summary, the collages for plants etc are not relevant since "plants" is not a species. The talk about random disheveled humans is revealing but not accurate. I cannot see any arguments in the above apart from what I just mentioned, so my opinion has not changed and I support the Akha image. Johnuniq (talk) 02:18, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

somewhat lifeless and uncontroversial stick figure

Images always attract drama. If the image issue continues to be a distraction, then I would suggest no image at all. Maybe we can use generic stick men instead. Wapondaponda (talk) 05:42, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Oh, but wait: why is its head so large—are we suggesting that humans are typically conceited? And why are we allowing eyes and mouth but no nose . . . it's clearly discrimination! And what's with the smile, anyway? What does a stick figure have to smile about in this age of tipping points and torture and trans fats? I, for one, won't accept any stick figure unless it has a small head, a prominent nose, and a frowny face. Rivertorch (talk) 06:36, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

A stick figure really would get a lot of complaints, but they'd be more like "this image is too silly!", "it makes Wikipedia look all unprofessional!", and "why not just use a photo like every other species page does?". I think we should simply use the Akha image until someone proposes an unambiguously even better, even less problematic alternative. In all the months we've been discussing the plaque and Akha, not one relevant objection has been made to show that Akha is inappropriate here; at this point, everyone who's commented has either been supportive, indifferent, or (a) opposed because they just like the plaque more, even though they have no particular objection to Akha; and (b) opposed because the people depicted in the photograph are "too ugly" and/or "too asian". I think that's about as uncontroversial a status quo as we're ever likely to stumble upon here; even an imageless status quo would be controversial, if only because of rigid taxobox convention. -Silence (talk) 07:57, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Another generic picture of humans

I don't have a problem with the current photo and I support its inclusion, however, I don't see it being sustained for a long period. By itself, the image is not controversial, but the subject of a single photo representing humankind will consistently attract controversy. What could be sustainable, though it may not exist, is an image of a human that is as generic as possible so as to not give any undue weight to any ideas about who humans are. The Stick Man is indeed extremely boring and overly simplistic, yet it is quite generic. This is not the first place this subject has been raised. Businesses that create instructional manuals with pictures try to make them as generic as possible so as to be as inclusive as possible. On Wikipedia there are several threads here, Talk:White people/Archive 21, discussing a similar controversy. Wapondaponda (talk) 08:57, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't particularly care whether we retain the Akha image in the long run; if we find a similarly illustrative and useful image that's larger and higher-quality, I don't see the world ending from a simple switch-off. However, I don't think a more "generic" image (including the plaque) will ever be viable, because (1) it is inconsistent with every other species article, and (2) making an image 'generic' requires idealizing it and explicitly weighing in one which human features are most 'important.' For example, if we did decide to go with a Stick Figure, we'd in effect be saying that amputees are 'less human' than people with all 4 limbs. (Whereas this is less of a problem with the current image, because the current image makes no pretense of being a symbol or representation of all of humanity, anymore than any other species page's image is.)

Or if we used the bathroom stall image you posted, we'd be suggesting that the defining feature of human females is that they always wear dresses. Likewise, instruction manuals tend to be created with a very particular culture in mind, and thus reflect the cultural assumptions of a specific group. The advantage of a photograph is that we can depict culture, without having our depiction of humans distorted by any one culture's conception of humanity. If we did want a 'generic' picture, it would be most appropriate to find an anatomy picture or other biological/anthropological view, since at least then the idealization will be reliably sourced to experts. But honestly, I don't see the need. White people is a sociological article about particular racialist conceptions; Human has the advantage of being primarily a biology article about the human species (which also means depicting human society and culture, of course). Whereas it is very difficult to depict racist notions without indulging in them, it is profoundly easy to depict a biological species; simply follow the convention set by all other species pages. -Silence (talk) 09:12, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

(multiple edit conflicts, third try) I liked my complaints better! But (to lower myself to your level of seriousness), I think you're right about the Akha image and, barring an unexpected epiphany, I now declare myself to have crossed that fence I had sidled up to (i.e., I support the current consensus for Akha). It was not an easy crossing and I have the barbed-wire scars to prove it. And, just to be clear, I'm not way past the fence, only a millimeter or so. The grass still looks lushly green behind me. Rivertorch (talk) 09:21, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Muntuwandi, the main problem with generic figures is similar to one of the main problems of the Pioneer plaque: the image is in the taxobox for the article on a species, so it really should accurately depict a member (or two) of that species, and line drawings and stylized symbols don't do that. In other species articles, it has been the convention to use a photo because that provides the most accurate depiction. This article is unique, of course, being the only one about the species to which its editors belong, but making a special exception here seems unnecessary—are we really that vain a species?—and poses other problems. Your unisex.svg restroom plaque, for instance, puts the woman in a skirt. How retro is that? Rivertorch (talk) 09:21, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

I will support the Akha image for now. Only if there is persistent edit warring or page protection would I resurrect the idea of generic human images. Skirts may be retro, but they still make effective restroom signs. Wapondaponda (talk) 10:23, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree that it should be a photo, for consistency. It should show a man and a woman. Preferably in nature. And with clothes, because that's how we usually are. But must it be one where the subject looks like he is thinking "Bloody tourists and their bloody cameras, get out of my bloody way!"? Just asking... --OpenFuture (talk) 13:07, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Heh. In fairness, he might be squinting in the bright sun. But I won't rule out your explanation. :) -Silence (talk) 15:16, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

Jimmy. An image we could all agree on. Tim Vickers (talk) 21:47, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

A while back, I suggested we should use him for chordate. But, on reconsideration, only if he shaves. Rivertorch (talk) 17:57, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

The new Akha lead image is a considerable improvement in my opinion: more appropriate to the subject of the article, more consistent with other taxoboxes, more encyclopaedic, more "representative" of modern humans (insofar as any individual can represent a group) and their relevant history, more attractive (in my opinion), shows up properly on a dark background, less stylised and most importantly less distracting from the topic. Sorry, Carl, but your cartoon had the principal advantage of making some people laugh when they saw the page because it implied extraterrestrials might read Wikipedia: yet even in that respect it is inferior to the unisex toilets image above, since the amount of excreta produced by humans outweighs the number of space probes. Returning to the subject after several months, I'm agree with Silence above, but am stunned by the amount of thought and discussion it generated, and hope it doesn't need much more. And yes to removing superclass, infraclass, infraorder and subfamily. --Cedders^tk 15:37, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Biology section image: Anatomy

(Disclaimer: Did not read most of this particular section due to its length) I really think the image probably ought to be of nude people as that would display anatomy and the appearance of the body much better than a clothed version (consider the "alien" perspective). --Cybercobra (talk) 08:39, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

The 'alien' perspective: 'Hey, why do people look so different from what the picture said? We thought they'd be smooth and hairless, what's with all the elaborate, multi-layered skin flaps?' Clothing would puzzle an alien more than basic human anatomy. :) But that doesn't really matter; what matters more is that this isn't the Human anatomy or Human body article, hence this page is expected to deal both in human biology and human culture. In order to give culture its fair due, we can't strip humans of their clothes, tools, and other technologies.

However, I agree with you that a nude image should go somewhere early in the article. I recommend picking good male and female anatomy pictures (ideally photographs, but a good diagram can work) for the Human#Biology section. The skeleton is slightly useless. -Silence (talk) 09:57, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Right. Anyone have a problem with File:Human anatomy.jpg for the Biology section? The image is presently used on Human anatomy. --Cybercobra (talk) 10:06, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

That'd be perfect, if you could get a version without the silly inconsistent labeling. Body hair wouldn't go amiss either, but that would obviously require entirely different photos. -Silence (talk) 11:27, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

This article does not need nude humans because there really will not be anyone reading it who needs to be informed what nudes look like. The article has an Anatomy section which links to Human anatomy which already has the suggested image; it is superfluous here. Johnuniq (talk) 11:43, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I see it raising problems as the image is too "European looking". Though I like the anatomy aspect. Furthermore there were some complaints about nudity. Wapondaponda (talk) 11:46, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

And what's wrong with the image depicting Europeans? This is being proposed for the Biology section, not the lead. No ethnic groups are off-limits for depiction in an image. One could argue that we don't "need" 90% of the information on this article, since most of it's common knowledge; that is irrelevant, since (1) general articles are supposed to consist largely of 'basic' information that's fairly widely known; and (2) much information that's 'common sense,' including human anatomy, in fact is not known with any accuracy or consistency by a shockingly large number of human beings. Plus obviously this article will be read by minors who still need to be educated about anatomy and other 'obvious' facts. As for "complaints about nudity", Wikipedia is not censored. -Silence (talk) 16:00, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Personally, I have no problem with nudity, but in this article, any nudity is likely to be a major distraction as it will draw attention to the image not the article. Already the lead image is attracting more attention than the rest of the article. For general articles like this one, low key images that attract the least number of trolls are probably best. No ethnic group is off limits for this article, however according to WP:BIAS, this encyclopedia, in part by its very nature of of being English wikipedia, is biased towards all things European. In this particular article, I think we should make an effort to counter the natural biases inherent in English Wikipedia. Wapondaponda (talk) 18:30, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

• Every image in an article is a part of that article; articles are made of both text and images, since either can serve to convey valuable information to readers. Thus it is a good thing if an image is a 'distraction' (i.e., an attention getter), as long as the image's content is informative and relevant to the subject at hand. If you think that a species' anatomy isn't relevant to that species' article, then you have a lot of pictures to remove from articles, not just this one. Article content is not based on troll appeasement; it is based on what best serves our non-troll readers. If we have to battle a few trolls to defend controversial content, so be it; what happens 'backstage' doesn't hurt our readership anyway. I agree that we should counter biases here, but we should be careful to do so without adopting the reverse bias. An anti-European bias is no better than a pro-European one, and rejecting a potentially valuable anatomical image simply based on the color of the subjects' skin is about as explicitly biased as we can get. There is a middle ground; we do not need to subscribe to either bias, pro or anti. -Silence (talk) 17:39, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

File:Sally Nude Body.jpg

Ok, would this work as a non-Caucasian female? Just needs some simple photoshopping. --Cybercobra (talk) 19:14, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Except I just realized it doesn't include the feet; -- argh! I'm having no luck finding an appropriate female photograph on commons. --Cybercobra (talk) 19:21, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

Okay, would this work for the male? (Again, some photoshopping req'd). --Cybercobra (talk) 19:23, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

(unindent) Since clothing results from either cultural factors or cold climate or both, and isn't intrinsic to the human species, it is appropriate to have one or more photos of unclothed humans in the article. Not sure if two are strictly needed or that full-body frontal exposure is necessarily important, since this isn't the anatomy article. (I don't object to either of the above—just don't think they're definitely needed.) Re Muntuwandi's comment about countering bias, I would just point out that Mann-01.jpg (above, at left) might not be the best choice for that purpose. Rivertorch (talk) 22:48, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

There's no absolutely perfect or neutral image (is affirmative action racist?); FWIW, the photoshopping I was thinking of would remove the background and/or tattoos. --Cybercobra (talk) 23:22, 4 October 2009 (UTC)

•             Affirmative action isn't racist. But it also isn't neutral.
•             As for removing the tattoos and background — ...... why on earth would you do that? The tattoos, although not important for our anatomy purpose here, are great, and help show that human cultural diversity isn't solely about clothing and ornamentation; body art is one of the most common cultural 'universals.' Likewise, the background is great; if you were just going to put the male and female in a vacuum all over again, why bother trying to find brand-new images, since we already have perfectly good ones on Human anatomy we can modify for here? I thought the point of finding a new nude male was to get one complete with environs, to contrast with the more 'diagram'-ish option. -Silence (talk) 17:39, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Using any of the images proposed would be find for the biology section. I also prefer to avoid European/white bias in the selection of images. The article as a whole is fine now, but in earlier incarnations (before I fixed it), it was pretty overwhelmingly white folks depicted. However, definitely don't remove the background or tattoos from images. If we use photographs (as opposed to Gray's Anatomy type drawings), we should show actual people... tattoos are something that some actual people have, and how they "naturally" appear. Likewise, we cannot give them "unmodified" hairstyles either. Along those lines, both the humans in the "anatomy" image (with the labels) have shaved pubes (and face), and the woman in the indoor image seems to have partially shaved as well. It's funny that the lack of pubic hair was one of the hysterical and nonsensical, but oft-repeated, claims about the "censorship" of the Pioneer image. In reality, humans shave and cut hairs... and some of them get tattooed and otherwise modified. LotLE×talk 00:03, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

There is a somewhat funny bias that sneaks into our conceit about what humans "actually" look like. There's this strange idea that anatomy means, "as seen from the front, standing straight with arms reaching down". Humans actually do have anatomy even when posed differently, and the conventional and artificial "anatomical" pose is relatively uncommon as a human posture (i.e. compared to sitting, laying, walking, etc). LotLE×talk 00:08, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

• Lulu, there are two basic reasons for a frontal, dead-on anatomy image: (1) it makes the sex characteristics visible; and (2) it makes all the visible body parts accurately proportioned (unlike a shot angled more from above or below). This is a common convention on other animals' pages, both on and off Wikipedia; you might see multiple angles, but if only one angle is chosen, it won't generally be a top-down or shot-from-behind image. It will be a straight-on view. Obviously any angle will be equally 'anatomical,' but once you think about it, it's really not that strange to prefer the one angle which illuminates so many crucial features. And consistently sticking to this convention will make it easier for our readers to compare the anatomy of different species. -Silence (talk) 17:47, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

I'd have to disagree about the backgrounds; they're distracting and not relevant to viewing the anatomical human form. Your point about the tattoos is fair though. --Cybercobra (talk) 00:25, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

I don't think a "neutral" background is much distracting. E.g. neither a grassy field nor a apartment wall feels like such distraction. However, in the image of the Chinese woman proposed, I do find the shopping bag that has a picture of some model on it to be an "odd" and overly specific detail. If it were just the walls, those look generically "indoors", but I agree about that detail. On the other hand, I have no objection to the blank background of the anatomy image either, and I sort of like the fact that body parts are labeled in that one (albeit, I'm not as fond of them being European, but that's not terrible since some humans are, after all). LotLE×talk 01:27, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

• I don't object to some body parts being labeled, but I do object to how poorly they're labeled in that image. Small, redundant, inconsistent, and strangely detail-oriented. Why are some features labeled in both sexes, while others are only labeled on one side and not the other? The system would make perfect sense if the sex characteristics were labeled individually while the universal characteristics were 'shared' with double labels, but instead there seems to be no rhyme or reason to the labels at all; both men and women have 'calf' and 'neck' and 'genitalia', but apparently only men have 'armpit' and 'little finger' and 'forehead' and 'shoulder', while only women have 'hair' and 'eyes' and 'mouth' and 'navel'. -Silence (talk) 17:53, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

After looking thru commons:Category:Nude_standing_women & commons:Category:Female nude in photography, unless we want to go with a non-color photo or one lacking ankles+feet, I still come up with File:Frau-2.jpg as the only suitable female image (the others are strangely posed or porn stars). Someone prove me wrong. --Cybercobra (talk) 02:33, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Why not use File:Human_anatomy.jpg or request the Image Workshop to create another version with more consistant labeling if those labels are problematic. As for body hair, there exists another version of the male figure there with hair File:Naked human male with pubics.png. As for both of these subjects being Caucasian, why is that even a problem? Aside from skin color the basic anatomy is the same for all races. In this day in age we should be past race and these two are clearly the best images we have at our disposal to illustrate anatomy. — raeky ^{(talk | edits)} 06:09, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

• Ugh. Let's not use the version with digitally enhanced. Pubic hair isn't a crucial issue; we can deal with the hairless anatomy version, especially if we modify the image-page text to note it. If we do consider it crucial to depict pubic hair, just switch to a different person (the nude man on the left seems like a great candidate) rather than digitally altering it. -Silence (talk) 18:01, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Is it just a coincidence that English Wikipedia stumbles upon European looking photos. The same can be said for the pioneer plaque. Of course the above images are already available and are suitable candidates. At the same time I believe effort should be made to look for a "global" image since wikipedia does have a global audience. Wapondaponda (talk) 06:31, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Only you seem to be making this an issue of race, for me it's an issue of what we have available that's best quality. Take the racist glasses off and look at what we have available to us and work with that. It would be GREAT if there was more choices and we had the option to choose other races for such an image, but to me it's not important. This isn't an article about race it's an article about Humans and specifically this section about Human Anatomy. Race has nothing to do with this so why worry about race and just worry about quality?! — raeky ^{(talk | edits)} 06:51, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Comes close to being "global"

Actually there is a sub-section on "race" in the article human. Part of my interest is to find an image that doesn't make "race" an issue. I have previously advocated for generic "raceless" images because having one image that is said to represent all humans will not please everyone. Wapondaponda (talk) 07:03, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

On the bright side, we're doing better than Brittanica. Their illustration for "human being" is a not-terribly-detailed sideways drawing of a nude guy in stride with a strategically placed leg. We, on the other hand, display both genders, using actual photographs, without censorship, and facing forward. --Cybercobra (talk) 07:35, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Wapondaponda, there is no way that we can ever find a real image of a human that has a "global" image. Attempts to do this force us to use images that are not, in fact, of humans at all. This is a bad idea. I agree with Raeky, let is forget the race issue and just look for good pictures, of any race. The job is hard enough without the additional issue of race. Martin Hogbin (talk) 09:39, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

It is not impossible, if one tries hard enough. I am sure there are plenty of "neutral" images on commons or on Flickr. Wapondaponda (talk) 12:25, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

• Of course it is impossible. There is no such thing as a racially 'neutral' person. You might as well ask for a person with a 'neutral' eye color or a 'neutral' parentage. Ridiculous. -Silence (talk) 18:01, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

What is a 'neutral' image of a person? Tiger Woods, for example, is just another human. He is no more neutral or global than anyone else. This is a pointless pursuit. Let us just look for a good picture and leave the issue of race out of it. Martin Hogbin (talk) 14:43, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

The significant and important WP:BIAS issue comes in the balance of attention in the article. One particular image is of some specific person (or of something else), but if nearly every single image selected is of Europeans (as the article used to be, but isn't now), that looks suspicious. If you go through and count the images currently there, we do have a bit of over-representation of white people, but it's only slight not overwhelming. LotLE×talk 16:52, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

Tiger Woods is not just another human—he's a Nike endorser. On second thought, let's not go there :) Rivertorch (talk) 16:57, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

I agree completely with raeky and Martin Hogbin. We cannot make racialistic criteria the first thing we appeal to in discussing new image suggestions. Objectively speaking, rejecting a photograph because the people are "too white" is just as absurd as rejecting a photograph because the people are "too black"; the only real difference is that a bias towards white people is a more likely incipient PR issue for the English Wikipedia. But that's not quite the same thing as Neutrality; it's got more to do with the appearance of Neutrality. A biased selection process can appear neutral, just as a neutral selection process can, entirely by accident, appear biased in effect. That latter scenario is the only case when we should ever really have to listen to that tiny voice in the bank of our heads reminding us to be cautious about not over-representing humans who are similar to us Wikipedia editors (not only racially, but also geographically, linguistically, culturally, economically, technologically, etc.).

To put racial classifications front and center is to endorse the POV that racial diversity is a profoundly important aspect of human diversity. It is not. I would even argue that 'racial' diversity, as usually understood, does not exist. There is no feature shared by all 'white' people that is not also shared by some 'non-white' people.

But I'm not here to advocate that POV, only to shake us from the PC trance which tells us that our first considerations should be racial, even though this article is not about race. We can't forget about race altogether, but to reject a perfectly good, highly informative anatomy image because the photographed people look "too Caucasian" is ridiculous. If we are worried that we already have too many 'Caucasians' on Human, then we can always remove the rest and make the anatomy image our only image of a 'Caucasian'; I see nothing wrong with that.

That aside, I think File:Mann-01.jpg (above left) is an excellent image for this purpose, if we decide to go with an unlabeled image. And there is no reason not to go with a 'white' female either way, so its counterpart could be something like the original, background-possessing Frau.jpg. If these two images were touched up a bit (e.g., sharpened and color-corrected), they'd be excellent.

On the other hand, if we can get a version of the Human anatomy picture without the excessive, redundant, unreadably small labeling, I think that would work perfectly well too. That they're 'white' is completely immaterial. It should really just be a matter of whether or not we want a background, vs. whether we want in-picture labels for particular body parts. -Silence (talk) 17:27, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

• It sounds like the only other issue differentiating the 2 candidates is whether we care about pubic hair. If we decide that we want pubic hair and no background, I recommend digitally removing the background from WP:BIAS, rather than digitally adding pubic hair to the Anatomy man. Either way, the male can then be paired well with Frau (who already has both backgrounded and background-less versions). -Silence (talk) 18:04, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

I prefer pubic hair, and for that matter the beard on the man, they are both important sexual characteristics even though, in some cultures, they may sometimes be shaved off. Martin Hogbin (talk) 18:46, 5 October 2009 (UTC)

This is not an affirmative action issue, we are not trying to introduce "quotas" or specifically state that the lead image should or shouldn't be any particular ethnic group. However, we should not forget that is indeed a real phenomenom. It is not just a coincidence that the pool of available lead images is predominantly "European", The pioneer plaque, Frau, human anatomy etc. I will search through commons to see whether we can increase the pool of suitable images. I am still wary of nudity, not every human being has the body of a model, so their may be a bias towards idealized nudes. Wapondaponda (talk) 01:42, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

If you look through the images used in this article there is not much evidence of WP:BIAS. Neither does this seem to apply to File:Mann-01.jpg, which seems to be the favourite for the male anatomy image. A 'raceless' image would certainly not be the solution if we did have the problem here. Martin Hogbin (talk) 08:35, 6 October 2009 (UTC)

Table stating the chemical composition of human body is wrong

The table stating the Chemical composition of the human body has two columns, one stating the gross weight of the 4 main atomic components and the weight of all the remaining matter, and a second column labeled "percent of atoms". This last column is perfectly wrong! It corresponds to the percentage of the former column, not the percentage of number of atoms, it should be relabeled as "percent of mass", or quantities should be changed to those corresponding to the percentage in number of atoms, for the actual percentage of atoms should take into account the different weight of different atoms! One quick way to realize the table is wrong is to resort to the well-known fact that about 70% of the total mass of the body is water, thus we would clearly expect the percentage of Hydrogen atoms to be roughly the double as that for oxygen atoms. --88.169.117.168 (talk) 16:10, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. The reference (see link in article) got this correct and I fixed the table showing what it says. Better alignment of the numbers in the table would be desirable, but I'll leave that for another day. Johnuniq (talk) 01:05, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Origins in lede

I reverted this edit because it is misleading when taken out of the context of its source. Having done that, I feel I should say that the wording I reverted to isn't very well supported by that source. We have lots of good detail further down in the article, but I'm not sure how it can best be summed up in the lede. I took at stab at rewriting the sentence, adding this Science source to bolster the mitochondrial DNA part, but I felt what I came up with was too long and involved for the lede, so I just reverted. This is not my bailiwick. Rivertorch (talk) 20:37, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

I think it's pretty safe to say that the multi-region hypothesis has been well discredited for about 30 years. It was a reasonable theory in the past, but evidence against it is pretty predominant nowadays. I would rather keep the general 200k years age in there, and find a better source... the way it is with Rivertorch's edit makes it look like "no one has any idea how old the species is" which is misleading. LotLE×talk 21:20, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Lulu, I suspect you're referring to someone else's edit, not mine; my only edit reverted the one shown in the diff at the top of this section, which was indeed misleading (as I noted using that very adjective). Rivertorch (talk) 07:03, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Quite right, Rivertorch. Sorry, it was Bucksburg's edit that I thought wasn't so good, and your restoration is exactly what I want it to have. Kudos. LotLE×talk 07:18, 28 October 2009 (UTC)

Racism; race and ethnicity

"Self-identification with an ethnic group is based on kinship and descent. Race and ethnicity can lead to variant treatment and impact
social identity, giving rise to racism and the theory of identity politics."

This implies that the occurence of racism is based purely on physical appearance and descent, and that none of human history plays a part. Personally I feel the last sentence should read " ...and impact social identity, having a contribution to racism, and giving rise to the theory of identity politics." Any thoughts? Wuku (talk) 21:28, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

Third person

The article in its current state creeps the bejeezus out of me. Was it written by squirrels or something‽ 75.118.170.35 (talk) 19:43, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Does Talk:Human/FAQdraft Q5 answer your question, by chance? -Silence (talk) 21:29, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps only squirrels should be allowed to edit since everyone else has a conflict of interest SpinningSpark 13:19, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

Only squirrels with accounts, though. The thing about IP squirrels is you can never be sure it's the same squirrel twice. Rivertorch (talk) 20:01, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

I wouldn't be all that concerned at such a possibility of squirrel authorship - never in my 26 years have I known a squirrel to say or write anything they could not back up. Sure, they may have a questionably loose grasp on the concept of nut ownership, but I've never heard a false word leave their lips.  ;)  • Gliktch •  ^(Talk)  08:38, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Chipmunks, by contrast, are notorious liars (although I still try to assume good faith). Rivertorch (talk) 16:54, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Fire date conflict

(I don't often edit. Apologies in advance if I'm doing this wrong)

I was cross-checking the dates for fire usage by hominids and noticed a discrepancy. On the wiki page for Fire it says "Evidence of cooked food is found from 1.9 million years ago, although fire was probably not used in a controlled fashion until 400,000 years ago." and there is a citation. On this page it says "The controlled use of fire began around 1.5 million years ago." without any citation. I lean towards using the value with a citation behind it. But should the citation be re-cited here, or is a link to the fire page is sufficient?

68.8.202.217 (talk) 17:59, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Lordy! Just noticed there is an entire page devoted to JUST this topic Control of fire by early humans. I'm way out of my league in trying to determine what value should be used. 68.8.202.217 (talk) 18:22, 3 December 2009 (UTC)

Population density

One of the conversions is an error in the Green-headed column 'Human society statistics'.

Autochtony writes - a square mile is bigger then a square kilometre - by a factor of, roughly, very roughly, two-and-a-half.

Accordingly, if there are about twelve humans in every square kilometre, there should be about thirty in every square mile (because a square mile hass about two-and-a-half square kilomtres in it, and thirty is about two-and-a-half times about twelve). That is for overall planetary area.

190,000,000 square miles, at say thirty per square mile, gives nearly six million people [which is right within a factor of 1.2 - not out by a factor of >7, which the figure of <5/square mile will give].

Now, someone needs to look at the numbers per square kilometre of land and per square mile of land. And then change the number cited (at 2144z, 24.11.09) for each square mile. Thanks.

Autochthony wrote 2144z 24.11.09. 86.151.60.238 (talk) 21:48, 24 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the report. The same blunder is at Population density#Human population density. I don't have time to fix it atm, but here are my calculations:

• Population = 6,799,171,622 popclockworld
• Earth total surface area = 510,072,000 km², land surface area = 148,940,000 km² Earth
• Square kilometers per square mile = 2.58998811

These figures produce population densities:

13.3 per km² (34.5 mi²) by total area

45.7 per km² (118.2 mi²) by land area

Johnuniq (talk) 00:31, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Too many things happening here for me to reliably fix this atm...the figures at Population density are correct... Johnuniq (talk) 00:41, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Antarctica

Technology has allowed humans to colonize all of the continents and adapt to virtually all climates. Within the last few decades, humans have explored Antarctica... although long-term habitation of [this environment] is not yet possible.

Is it just me, or are these two sentences directly contrary to one another? --MQDuck (talk) 08:03, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

Long-term habitation of Antarctica I think is possible with current tech?! Theres quite a few permanent stations there, see here. — raeky ^{(talk | edits)} 16:14, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

No, I was referring to the fact that the first sentence claims that humans have colonized all continents while the second claims that we haven't colonized Antarctica. Is Antarctica not a continent anymore? --MQDuck (talk) 11:52, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Definitely a problem with the wording there. — raeky ^{(talk | edits)} 12:10, 12 October 2009 (UTC)

Yes... more like "long-term habitation of this environment is not yet comfortable." :P

That second line is definitely factually incorrect, it should probably instead say something about the fact that humans have large resident populations on every continent bar Antarctica - it is colonized but not 'settled' (or some other more precise word - I'm unsure of the best term to use).  • Gliktch •  ^(Talk)  08:34, 11 November 2009 (UTC)

Permanent settlement in Antarctica would be impossible without continuous support from outside (particularly for food and fuel). I've lost track of what in the article is being debated here. LukeSurl ^{t c} 20:17, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

"A settlement is a general term used in archeology, landscape history and other subjects for a permanent or temporary community in which people live, without being specific as to size, population or importance." therefore humans" "Colonization, (or Colonisation in British English), occurs whenever any one or more species populate an area." "Human colonization is a narrower category than the related concept of colonialism, because whereas colonization refers to the establishment of settler colonies, trading posts, and plantations, colonialism deals with this and the ruling of new territories' existing peoples." "There are no permanent human residents but anywhere from 1,000 to 5,000 people reside throughout the year at the research stations scattered across the continent" "Antarctica has no indigenous inhabitants, but there are permanently- and seasonally-staffed research stations, and former whaling settlements. The largest of these, McMurdo Station, has a population (summer) of about 1200 residents. Approximately 29 nations, all signatory to the Antarctic Treaty, send personnel to perform seasonal (summer) and year-round research on the continent and in its surrounding oceans; the population of persons doing and supporting scientific research on the continent and its nearby islands south of 60 degrees south latitude (the region covered by the Antarctic Treaty) varies from approximately 4,000 in summer to 1,000 in winter; in addition, approximately 1,000 personnel including ship's crew and scientists doing onboard research are present in the waters of the treaty region. At least ten children have been born in West Antarctica." Therefore this article is not correct. Humans have colonized and settled in all continents including Antarctica.

Technology has allowed humans to colonize all of the continents and adapt to virtually all climates.

It's true since the beginning of humankind. since the invention of fire, through the ice age etc. I think there's no need to explain much here...

Within the last few decades, humans have explored Antarctica...

This is not true. Antarctica was explored long before a few decades ago. Even if you are referring to the exploration of the whole continent itself.

"Belief in the existence of a Terra Australis—a vast continent in the far south of the globe to "balance" the northern lands of Europe, Asia and North Africa—had existed since the times of Ptolemy (1st century AD), who suggested the idea to preserve the symmetry of all known landmasses in the world. Depictions of a large southern landmass were common in maps such as the early 16th century Turkish Piri Reis map. Even in the late 17th century, after explorers had found that South America and Australia were not part of the fabled "Antarctica", geographers believed that the continent was much larger than its actual size. European maps continued to show this hypothetical land until Captain James Cook's ships, HMS Resolution and Adventure, crossed the Antarctic Circle on 17 January 1773, in December 1773 and again in January 1774" "Cook in fact came within about 75 miles (121 km) of the Antarctic coast before retreating in the face of field ice in January 1773" "In December, 1839, as part of the United States Exploring Expedition of 1838–42 conducted by the United States Navy (sometimes called the "Ex. Ex.", or "the Wilkes Expedition"), an expedition sailed from Sydney, Australia, into the Antarctic Ocean, as it was then known, and reported the discovery "of an Antarctic continent west of the Balleny Islands". That part of Antarctica was later named "Wilkes Land", a name it maintains to this day. Explorer James Clark Ross passed through what is now known as the Ross Sea and discovered Ross Island (both of which were named for him) in 1841. He sailed along a huge wall of ice that was later named the Ross Ice Shelf (also named for him). Mount Erebus and Mount Terror are named after two ships from his expedition: HMS Erebus and Terror. Mercator Cooper landed in East Antarctica on 26 January 1853.[14] Nimrod Expedition South Pole Party (left to right): Wild, Shackleton, Marshall and Adams During the Nimrod Expedition led by Ernest Shackleton in 1907, parties led by T. W. Edgeworth David became the first to climb Mount Erebus and to reach the South Magnetic Pole" few decades? wtf?

although long-term habitation of [this environment] is not yet possible.

This must be a joke. long-term habitation is even possible in space and other planets! it's a proved fact that humans have this ability. "not yet possible"? what a joke. __-_-_-__ 03:28, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Image Region

I think it should be mentioned beneath the image that the people featured are east-asian, as not all humans look like that.

e.g. "East-Asian human male and female" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.166.139.127 (talk) 16:07, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

For that matter, not all East Asians look like that. In fact, just about everybody looks different from everybody else. But then, everybody knows that already, right? Rivertorch (talk) 17:53, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Other lead images have captions, I suggest 'An Akha man and woman'. Martin Hogbin (talk) 18:06, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Definitely, absolutely NOT! Captions should describe what is being illustrated. In this case, the image is an illustration of the general body plan and gender differences (and use of cultural artifacts like clothes) of humans. We are most pointedly not illustrating "how Akha people look different than other people", which would be the meaning of Martin Hogbin's proposed caption. LotLE×talk 18:33, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

Right. "Random humans" is the idea, although I suppose that would sound silly in an encyclopedia caption. Rivertorch (talk) 20:22, 26 October 2009 (UTC)

The two people shown are 'random' humans in that there is no particular reason (except for the availability of suitable images) to show them as opposed to anyone else. They are also two Akha people and we have no reason to want to hide this fact. Have a look at say wasp, beetle and tree for example, in all cases an arbitrary example is given but with a caption giving more specific information. We should do the same here. Martin Hogbin (talk) 00:04, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

The examples mentioned by Martin Hogbin are all at the level of Linnean family or higher (in fact, order or higher for his examples). In contrast humans are a species. I do not believe that any (or certainly very few) other articles on a particular species distinguish by variety or breed within the species infobox (the obvious exception here being canis lupus familiaris). We should follow the pattern of the large majority of WP articles. LotLE×talk 00:53, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

This is why the image should be a collage. JPotter (talk) 05:39, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

The FAQ explains why that's not the best idea rather well: Talk:Human/FAQdraft --Cybercobra (talk) 05:49, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Not really, in fact it commits a logical fallacy in the explanation. JPotter (talk) 19:38, 31 October 2009 (UTC)

LotLE By your statement,'"how Akha people look different than other people", which would be the meaning of Martin Hogbin's proposed caption', you seem to have presumed that this caption would have some meaning which is neither stated, implied, nor intended. On the other hand, I have no objection to the current caption, 'Human male and female' Martin Hogbin (talk) 10:28, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Good, I'm glad we agree about the caption. LotLE×talk 21:17, 27 October 2009 (UTC)

Just want to third the motion to keep the caption as-is. Without accusing anyone of prejudice for thinking otherwise, I think including the race of the humans would be essentially racist in meaning. Obviously race exists, and these people are from a particular place, but why build race into the image at all? By contrast, the surprised reaction most humans might have to the generality of the caption has a wonderful set of implications about how we are all one species. It's funny, but I think that the current caption might make us think *more* about race than we would if it was in the caption, but that its a really good and also just plain fun thing about the article. The fact that it's also following the standards for other species is a bonus too, obviously the Human article should follow the standard for other species. Jeremyclarke (talk) 18:35, 8 November 2009 (UTC)

I feel the same way as Jeremyclarke does, and I thought I'd share my findings after a quick trip around WP looking to disprove LotLE's assertion that the breed isn't specified for the example image on species pages. The first place I looked, of course, was dog. This does give the breed. But I then went on to check cat, horse, camellia sinensis and vitis vinifera, none of which specify which breed or cultivar the image portrays. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Balfa (talk • contribs) 19:31, 2 December 2009 (UTC)

I think it's fine the way it is. A good picture of a human male and female. There's no such thing as a "typical" human, though I guess if you wanted the most populous ethnic group you'd have to go for Han Chinese. LukeSurl ^{t c} 22:38, 4 December 2009 (UTC)

The pictures that demonstrate the changes in age should show people who look very similar.

The differences in ethnicity are greater than the differences from aging. Surely the little black girl's skin did not turn white when she went through puberty! I think it would be better to have a selection of pictures that show some of the various skin colors, facial features, weights and heights of humans, and have an illustration to demonstrates the changes through aging. Citizen Premier (talk) 12:52, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

WP is WP:NOT a picture gallery, and even if we had suitable images to show the cross-product of skin tone, facial feture, age, weight, etc. it would disrupt the article to put in dozens or hundreds of images to illustrate such differences. The range we have shows a decent snapshot of humans of two genders in three general age ranges (child/young adult/older adult), which is plenty. Readers can guess that humans (like other animals) vary along many ranges of features. LotLE×talk 17:51, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

Agree. And re "the differences in ethnicity are greater than the differences from aging", how on earth could such visaully subjective differences be quantified and why on earth should we try? The current images are satisfactory. Rivertorch (talk) 19:20, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

To tag or not to tag

I have reverted the edit that removed tags from a sentence that was properly tagged. The sentence is unsourced and it is unclear exactly what document it is referring to. A search (admittedly perfunctory) fails to turn up a document called "Declaration of Race" from 1950, so I'm guessing this might not be the exact title or perhaps the year is wrong. In any case, there should be either an internal link to an article on the document or a citation leading to the exact name and date of the document. Rivertorch (talk) 23:14, 20 January 2010 (UTC)

Google for UNESCO 1950 declarations (without quotes) and that gets the hits you need.. in the [1] it refers to the "1950 Declaration on Race" in which I believe that the document is published for example here, [2] in which the 1950 statement is on page 98. Ttiotsw (talk) 01:09, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. I added the ref. Rivertorch (talk) 04:29, 21 January 2010 (UTC)

Biosafety of human being.....

• http://scholar.google.com.au/scholar?hl=en&q=allintitle%3A+human+being+biosafety&btnG=Search&as_sdt=2000&as_ylo=&as_vis=0

--222.64.219.241 (talk) 01:24, 7 February 2010 (UTC)

Images

Almost all of the images are of mongoloids and negroids. Would it not be more suitable to have images of caucasoids as well? They are at the forefront of modern civilization. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.157.11.75 (talk) 04:37, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Although this is most certainly a trolling attempt, I'll answer it pretending it isn't - this article is not about "modern" civilization, its about the species as a whole. Therefore, the current image is far more representitive than a snapshot of middle-class western suburbia. --Viciouspiggy (talk) 07:24, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Morphologically incorrect image

The two specimens shown both lack pubic and armpit hair. I believe it would be better to show humans in their natural state without artificial modifications. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.170.219.181 (talk) 17:57, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

While I completely see your point, the main reason that we do not have a more typical image is the sheer amount of work that one person would be required to do and the rarity with which Wikipedians actually do that much work on a single project (we tend to like to jump around like fish with extremely short attention spans, that's why we're Wikipedians). Creating an image that would be comparable to the one that is already up there would require someone to say they wanted to create the image, to find two willing models who seem as typical of natural human beings as possible, to take the pictures, to have all the necessary technology and software to put the image together, to label all of the parts, to upload it to Wikipedia, and then go through the immense amount of talk-page work that it requires to change a picture on Wikipedia without someone else reverting the change three seconds later. If you can find someone to do all of that, please do. But frankly, considering how hard good educational diagrams are to come by on this site, I'd say that image is "good enough". from hajatvrc with WikiLove @ 22:12, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

One suggestion might be to point out in the image captions or related text that these images show humans with certain features removed and give some explanation as to why this is the case. Martin Hogbin (talk)