Talk:Human/FAQ

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Q1: Why does the Human article use the third person? Aren't we humans?

A1: The third person ("Humans are..." or "They are..." as opposed to "We are...") is simply the conventional mode of writing for Wikipedia and other reference works. We realize this may cause some phrases in Human to sound quite strange — "a majority of humans professes some variety of religious or spiritual belief" sounds almost like it was written by space aliens. However, the occasional strangeness this approach may lead to is still preferable to the alternative of inconsistency.

If we were to use "we" in the Human article, it would mean sometimes switching strangely between persons as we narrow our topic of discussion. For example, even if an editor were female, she would be forced to write things like "We humans, and especially those females...." Whenever a subgroup of humanity became the article's focus, we would need to switch to the third person; a sentence about humans would use "we", but a sentence about adults, Asians, engineers, or heterosexuals would need to use "they". It is far simpler to just consistently use the third person in all contexts, even if this doesn't always seem completely natural.

A related issue is the fact that, as a general rule, Wikipedia prefers to avoid self-references. In addition to being human, all editors on this site happen to be English speakers — yet we treat our article on the English language the same way we treat every other language article, in order to avoid bias and inconsistency. Likewise, we treat Wikipedia the same as other websites and reference tools. Analogously, we ought to aspire to treat Human in much the same way that we treat every other species article. Ideally, we should make exceptions of Human only where objective, verifiable facts demand that we make exceptions (e.g., in employing a lengthy behavior section). This is the simplest and easiest way to avoid bias and to prevent editorial disputes: When in doubt, follow the rest of Wikipedia's lead.

Q2: Aren't humans supposed to be purely herbivorous/frugivorous despite our modern omnivorous habits? Aren't we jungle apes albeit highly intelligent and largely furless jungle apes? Most jungle apes eat no meat or very little.

A2: No, we really are natural omnivores. Contrary to popular belief, we humans did not evolve in jungles. We actually evolved on open grasslands where fruit-bearing trees are nowhere near as plentiful as in the jungle, where most of our surviving close relatives evolved. Evolving in such a place, we would have always (for as long as we've been humans rather than Australopithecines and other even earlier fossilized genera) had to supplement our diet with meat in addition to plant material. We evolved also eating plant-derived foods to be sure; the Savannah (grassland) has some trees with edible fruit although comparatively few and far between, and grain-bearing grasses are far more plentiful there than any tree. (Some evidence suggests that the first bread and beer were made from these tropical grains long before recorded history.) Even so, the grassland being much less fruit-rich than the jungle caused us to evolve as true metabolic omnivores, not pure herbivores/frugivores. See the Archived Debates on this subtopic for source documents.

Q3: How was the lead image chosen?

A3: The current lead image was added on 15 September 2009 following this discussion and given this explanation. In short, an editor looked at commons:Category:Couples and picked one. Due to alphabetical sorting, this one came up early (the filename starts with "A"), so they picked it. They were looking for an adult couple standing side-by-side. The use of this image has been discussed many times over the years, including but not limited to: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10. The current wording of this FAQ entry was decided following this discussion. See also our policy on photo galleries of people.

Q4: Is it possible for an infobox image to perfectly and accurately represent all of humanity?

A4: No.

Q5: Is it possible for the text of this article to perfectly and accurately represent all of humanity?

A5: No.

Q6: If we can't make a perfect representation, should we still try to make the best representation we can?

A6: Yes. Of course. Because Wikipedia is a work in progress.

Q7: How should the infobox image best represent humanity?

A7: The lead image should illustrate important features of the subject — in the case of Human, these include an upright bipedal gait, hands specialized for manipulating tools, and use of cultural products such as clothing.

Lead images can attempt to encapsulate the broad strokes of the diversity and variation in its subject (e.g. Frog, Primate). The current consensus is that attempting to do further like that for humanity is not practical. There is a guideline MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES that exists due to issues on this topic in the past, stating that we may not assemble a gallery of many images into the infobox.

And regardless of MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES, by picking just one image, we leave space for showing important details of that image which would be obscured if we shrank it in order to fit multiple photos in. Sometimes, what a collage gains in diversity, it loses in detail and clarity. In this case, the current consensus is that the topic covered at Human is best served with a single image — a collage of faces, for example, would fail to illustrate the human body.

Q8: Shouldn't the lead image show more major groups of humans?

A8: There is no good way to decide which groups of humans are the "major" ones. The consensus is that showing more groupings (such as along ethnic lines) is contentious due to the risk of unverifiable species-wide generalizations. As a middle ground, we currently just show examples of a male and a female human to represent sexual dimorphism in humans.

While many Wikipedia articles on diverse subject matter (e.g. Spider, Bird) do attempt to encapsulate that variety through galleries and selections of images, we are prohibited from doing so on this article per MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES even if we wanted to. Other articles on diverse subject matter sometimes similarly have few examples, or even one example, rather than a collage in their infobox (e.g. Whale).

Q9: The current image is [blurry] / [low resolution] / [JPG artifacted], shouldn't it be replaced?

A9: The current consensus is that this isn't that big a deal. When viewed as normal at thumbnail size at a glance, you can't really tell.

Q10: The current image shows two people, not one. Doesn't that violate MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES to begin with?

A10: The current consensus is that group photos probably do not violate MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES. That guideline is based on a RfC, and is to be interpreted narrowly. It specifically only prohibits galleries or photomontages to illustrate ethnic groups or other similarly large human populations. The consensus on this page is that a group photo does not count. Past discussion of this can be found here.

Q11: Could the lead image be a different photo? Perhaps a group photo with more than two people in it? Or a photo of an individual?

A11: There is nothing prohibiting that, it is just not the current consensus to do that on this page. It would likely take a large discussion and very strong arguments for why the alternate image is an improvement.

Q12: Other ethnic groups have lead images such as a flag or map (e.g. of population density). Could that be the lead image (instead of any image(s) of humans)?

A12: There is nothing prohibiting that, it is just not the current consensus to do that on this page. There already is a population density map at the bottom of the infobox.

Q13: Why isn't the lead image more abstract or symbolic?

A13: Because any attempt to symbolically or nonliterally depict humans will subtly express an editorial opinion about what the "essence" or "nature" of humanity is. Even if we pick a famous artist's work to put at the top of Human, the fact that we chose that particular work, and not another, will show that we endorse certain non-encyclopedic points of view about humanity. The only real way to avoid this pitfall is to not pick an image that is even remotely symbolic or nonliteral — a completely literal, straightforward photograph simply depicting a human, with no more "deep meaning" than our lead image for Brown bear has, is the most neutral option available.

It is also worth noting that most abstract depictions of humanity remove a great deal of visual information. Wikipedia's purpose is educational, and our readers include non-native English speakers, young children, neurodivergent people, and other readers who will be best served by a clear, unambiguous, and factually rich depiction of the topic at hand.

Imaginative works also tend to be much more subjective and idiosyncratic than photographs, reflecting the creator's state of mind as much as the subject matter itself. The purpose of an article's lead image is to accurately depict the article's subject matter, which in this case means accurately depicting a human.