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Talk:Human skin color/Archives/2013/June

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Predicted Skin Colour Map

I (actually Che829 beat me to it) have temporarily reverted the addition of a skin colour map from the start of the page pending discussion by other editors. I have reverted it for two reasons:

1. It changes the first image seen when a user comes to the page - I feel that such a major change should have agreement from a number of editors before being implemented.

2. It's labeled as "Map showing true skin variations of pigmentation of people from around the world" when if fact it's not. It's a map of predicted variation from various environmental factors.

My personal opinion is that this image isn't needed in the article, and certainly not as the main image. A map of the actual variation is already included further down the page (under the "Geographic variation" section) and is noticeably different in a number of places. If it is going to be included then it should be contrasted with the other map which to my mind is the more relevant of the two.

I'd like to hear what others think about whether it should be reinstated or reverted permanently. Tobus2 (talk) 07:37, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Tobus2, you mean that you are this editor? If so, do you have a legitimate reason for using two accounts?
As for the map, I don't mind it being in the article as long as it's accurate. But I agree that it shouldn't be in the lead. I have also reverted the editor, who, as seen with that revert, added it back as an IP. Flyer22 (talk) 19:12, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
Sorry for any confusion, I never got to do the revert as I said I did above - I added this section to the talk page first, then went to edit the article but it had already been done by Che829. I've changed what I said above to reflect this.
In regards to accuracy, the map itself is from one of Jablonski's papers on UV-to-skin colour relationship. It's accurate in terms of predicted skin colour (which is how it labels itself), but not so accurate in terms of actual skin colour (which is what the caption claims). Tobus2 (talk) 22:07, 27 March 2013 (UTC)
I was going to state that we should only present it in a way that it's accurate, if we are to use it in this article. But it's been deleted; see this version of the article showing its deletion. Flyer22 (talk) 22:35, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

I agree the image shouldn't be in the lead. The present lead image is an excellent illustration. As for the inaccurate caption, you could just fix that. I am not sure what a "map of actual skin colour" would look like, a given geographical coordinate does not have a skin colour, only the people who happen to live there do, so yes, obviously, the map shows some sort of rough average.

The image has now been deleted as copyvio, but it would be a valuable addition to the article, so we should see if we can conjure up a free version. --dab (𒁳) 05:42, 19 June 2013 (UTC)