Wikipedia:Talk:Human

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Request for comment on lead image

Longstanding question: Is the image from the Pioneer plaque acceptable for use in the taxobox at the top of the article? The image was first added to the article at least six and a half years ago and has been the topic of numerous discussions. Rivertorch (talk) 05:04, 5 August 2009 (UTC) Added comment: in just under four years, there have been at least 22 threads on this topic:

My hope, in opening this RFC, is to settle the question not permanently or definitively but perhaps conclusively enough to discourage endlessly recurring discussions involving the same objections and arguments. Rivertorch (talk) 06:52, 5 August 2009 (UTC) 06:52, 5 September 2009

Thanks for submitting the request. To clarify the issues that have been raised regarding using the Pioneer image as the lead image for Human (and as Human's only nude anatomy image): It has been discovered that the female's visible sex organ in that image was self-censored by the original creators; evidently the image initially featured a "short line indicating the woman's vulva" that was subsequently removed, according to Sagan, because "we may have judged NASA's scientific-political hierarchy as more puritanical than it is". Even more problematic than the fact that this self-censorship creates an anatomical inaccuracy in what is currently the most prominent depiction of a human on Wikipedia, is the fact that the male genitalia were left completely uncensored, apparently on the basis that the female sex-organ is more obscene in our culture than the male one.
The second issue, unrelated to the first, is that the image is very low in informational content. No other species article with available photographs uses a crude, black-and-white caricature (even a famous one) of the organism instead. The Pioneer image lacks body hair, fingernails, and even the most rudimentary shading, and is exceedingly selective and stylized about what features it does show — the heads are depicted on an arthropod-like joint, the hair is a featureless blob, the "eyes" are practically black pits, and the mouths are small mustache-like shapes with lines underneath. All of these make the image next to useless as a depiction of human anatomy, when plenty of useful alternatives are available. (The image also lacks the sort of information one would except in most species' lead images, e.g., habitat and accoutrements — just as one would expect to see a spider with a web or a hermit crab in its shell, we should expect the lead image of Human to include clothing, tools, and other cultural artifacts. But this is something of a side-issue, since it is simply a suggestion that, when we switch to a superior anatomy image, we also move the anatomy image to the 'Biology' section and use an ordinary photo of some random human for the top of the article, much as we'd do for any other organism.)
I realize that this is a famous image, but its fame is relevant to its own article — Pioneer plaque. Considering its shortcomings, it is inappropriate as the main illustration of Human, for the same reason that the Mona Lisa or Vitruvian Man would be. For other problems (and suggested alternative lead images), see Talk:Human/Image. -Silence (talk) 05:32, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Via RfC: One problem that seems to have been overlooked is that we just do not look at pictures of humans in the same way that we look at a picture of other species simply because it is our own species -- and we have to accept that. I have skimmed the list that describes "the ideal candidate" for an alternative picture, and the complicated yet simple truth is that there is none:
  • nudity: the fact is that we are born naked, yet we do not run around like that. What we wear is not nature-specific, but culture specific. Any given attire will reflect a certain culture. That remains true, whether you pick a bikini or a burqa.
  • race: any picture will depict one subtype of human physical appearance, and though proponents of the view that it is -- biologically -- not the main feature of our species, we cannot help but see it. For other species, we can pick a "typical example" because ultimately, they all look the same to us; for our own species, we are incapable of doing that.
The question is futile. It should be posed to the first extraterrestrial that comes to visit us. If you're concerned about NPOV, send a signal into space and wait for an answer. None of us can possibly be NPOV; we're all part of the group "human," we'll never be anything else, never have been. Until then, just leave it. The present choice is still the most neutral abstraction, though we cannot help but interpret things into it. (...makes me wonder what the article on zebras would say if zebras actually got to write it...) Seb az86556 (talk) 06:09, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
  • I know I am repeating a great deal, but he picture issue on this article really is a "damned if you do, damned if you don't". I think the only picture that would work to cover the bases would be a group of individuals representing a large swath of cultures (both genders, and of course, all in the nude). I find it unlikely that such a picture exists, and even if it did, squeezing all of those people in creates a loss of resolution; I'm not sure how helpful it really would be. In the absence of that option, you are almost certainly forced to have a duo that will be lacking in terms of racial representation (though I suspect that there will always be people on all sides claiming bias no matter what picture is ultimately used). To cut to the chase, I don't think there is anything especially wrong with using the Pioneer image, but I wouldn't have a problem with practically any image that attempted to communicate what a human being truly looks like, whether it be the current image, or a photograph of a nude man and woman. I understand it is a biology article, but the human species is a little different in regards to its abilities to communicate and express. LonelyBeacon (talk) 06:36, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

YOU
Another point: Do we need a picture? What's a picture for? Pictures for other species are for those in the audience who've never seen a creature like it. If you want a picture of a human, take a mirror and look at it. Once the technology becomes available, we should have that part of the screen become reflective and imitate a mirror. I saw that once in a zoo, a cage with a mirror inside, to remind visitors that they, too, are part of nature. Bottom line is, we can't do that yet. Seb az86556 (talk) 06:09, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
These are some very deep, thoughtful comments we've gotten on the matter so far. But they seem almost completely unconcerned with the pragmatics of the issue. I realize that it's "futile" to ever find the perfect image — for any article, including this one. All I think we can expect is that the image will be adequate — it will depict a human accurately, without censorship.
That very trivial, minimal requirement is not reached by the Pioneer plaque. The female genitals have been deliberately censored (as admitted in the above quote), the male genitals left intact. That is the problem. We can easily draw our own, accurate, 'racially neutral' (if that is so desirable and important, though I hardly see why it matters a hair since we would only need to focus on depicting racial diversity if racial diversity were the most important indicator of actual biological and/or cultural diversity, or indeed an indicator of any significance at all) picture, if we're so afraid of simply picking some random human photo like we do for every other article on Wikipedia, from Society to Sadness to Blacksmith. But what matters is that, whatever image we use, it not spread inaccurate and misleading information.
We may all know what humans look like in broad strokes, but it's a fact that many of our readers (e.g., younger ones, and possibly even adults who live in areas where such information is suppressed) will not have a prior familiarity with what external female sex-organs look like, and it is therefore our responsibility not to replicate the censored Pioneer drawing here as though it were an accurate anatomical sketch. Wikipedia's job is not to make deep existential points about the nature of humanity, nor is its job to avoid offending people who misunderstand our lead image policy such that they'd think we need every flavor and style and brand of ice cream (rather than a single random example) at the top of Ice cream; its job is to spread information rather than misinformation. I honestly do not see why that is such a controversial principle in this case: In anatomical education, "First, do no harm." -Silence (talk) 06:57, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
You are right, as is everybody else. What I like most about this is that this discussion will be archived, and will remain here for as long as the article exists. That's what drew me to this RfC. In the end, it will therefore not matter (to me at least) what actual image will be chosen. The beautiful thing is that anybody who's willing to take the time to do so will be able to go back and see all the thoughts and opinions, and then they'll be able to think about it for themselves. You can take any picture or image you like, knowing that there were people who agreed and others who disagreed... and that we must agree to disagree. Seb az86556 (talk) 07:06, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
So back to the main point, Silence: I know that the pioneer-picture was censored, and I do see that problem. If we simply drew a line or whatever to revert the censorship, would that be ok? (I wouldn't mind. That was done in a time when it was called "down there"...) Also, there are (presumably) race-neutral CG-fused pictures of "average" human features (I've seen them online somewhere, can't recall where right now)... how about that? Seb az86556 (talk) 07:24, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
Drawing a vulva would eliminate one problem, but create a new one: The image, in the process of being made to accurately represent Humans, would as a side-effect no longer accurately represent the Pioneer plaque. To escape this dilemma, why not simply use an image that we made, so we can modify it freely without tampering with a historical treasure?
As for the race issue, allow me to quote a criterion I listed at Talk:Human/Image#Things the image should not be: "Intended to represent every group of humans in existence: This is a practical impossibility, and a Neutrality nightmare. Which groups we choose to represent will reflect our biases, not just in that we will favor groups that are more like us, but in that we will try for an image that is diverse in ways that conform to our biases regarding what is important to emphasize. For example, if we try to find an image of every human race, that will just demonstrate Wikipedia's bias that race is one of the most important characteristics of human diversity; in reality, race is a relatively minor factor in human diversity. Likewise, if we try to include a lot of different human faces, it will demonstrate Wikipedia's bias that differences in facial features, rather than body types, is important."
We should do the same thing here that we do on other Wikipedia articles; just as we pick a random frog to illustrate the top of Frog (even though there are thousands and thousands of species to choose from, rather than just one), and a random ice cream flavor to illustrate the top of Ice cream (rather than making a collage of brands or flavors), we should simply pick a human or two, like in the images suggested on Talk:Human/Image#Candidate images. The human does not need to "represent" all humans (an impossible, silly, Platonistic idea to begin with), it merely needs to show important features of humans, while avoiding the inaccuracies and biases in the Pioneer image. There is, after all, only one human race. -Silence (talk) 07:41, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
I completely agree with you.
At the same time, and having followed the (often lame and tedious) discussions on images chosen for articles like White people, Black people, and, most recently (though hard to believe), Uyghur people (roughly 100k wasted on what "that blonde girl" is doing in a group of "Turks"...) -- I'm trying to avoid edit wars over whatever image would be chosen, though they cannot be avoided completely. Once that is done, you would have to (unfortunately) either request permanent protection for this article or sit here 24/7 reverting the replacements and complaints by all the sleeping morons you'll wake. Right now, the main complaint is "bad picture." Once you choose a picture of a real person, you'll invite all the people who will complain about (and possibly vandalize the page for) "why is there a white person?", "why a black person?", "why blonde?", "why so fat?," "why not fat enough?".. and all that (frankly) --- junk.
You might think that the present discussion here (this one) is "complicated," but the bits I've read so far are extremely "civilized." I'm sure you are somehow aware of all this, but you should read some of the discussions on Talk: White people (for example whether a blue-eyed, light-skinned photo-model should be included, based on "yeah, but she's Jewish"). Since I've made myself part of this now, I've added this article to my watchlist, and whatever the outcome or ultimate decision, I'll keep an eye on it and revert any vandalism immediately. Seb az86556 (talk) 08:16, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
I'm aware of, and expect, all of that. For a high-profile article like this, some level of controversy is always to be expected. No matter what photo we choose — or even if we use no photo at all — there will be complaints. But that's true for the Pioneer image too, and always has been. My primary goal isn't to make the Human lead image totally unobjectionable to every person in the world (though I think that, once we've established a photo like File:Akha cropped.png here and the regulars are more used to it, there will likely be a marked decrease in the severity, intensity, and frequency of disputes), but to make the lead image conform with Wikipedia standards and policies, by making it informationally rich and as NPOV as any such image can be. That doesn't mean the image will be perfect, but if it's at least as informative (Regarding Human) and NPOV as the image topping Ice cream is for that article, I'll be more than satisfied, and our readers will no longer be done a disservice. If some people decide to stretch sanity to the breaking point and put forward complaints like "zomg wikipedia is run by a pro-akha-indigenous-peoples-cabal!!!" or "zomg this image is biased in favor of grasslands" or "zomg this image is too pro-hat!!" or the like, so be it. At least we'll have replaced valid and reasonable criticisms of the image with unreasonable one; that's the best we can hope for, since that's all that's within our power to improve. -Silence (talk) 09:04, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
"Replacing reasonable objections by unreasonable ones." -- I like that, and it's very convincing. So I'll go back to "my neck o'the woods" (I'm not a biologist), and like I said, I'll keep an eye on it. ;) Seb az86556 (talk) 09:36, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
I'm amused that Silence now considers picking a random image to be a suitable suggestion whereas when I suggested using a random algorithm to pick pictures then I was accused of "unWikipedian" behaviour (your RNG suggestion is the latest in a series of the most bizarrely unWikipedian suggestions I've heard you put forward as a criterion for how to pick a suitable image. Again, I hope you're just joking here.). Given the accusations of being "unWikipedian" and "anti-Wikipedian" and the demands for apologies, it feels like this is some meta study in conflict management initiated by the Office. Though I'm feeling more like the species Rattus norvegicus I look nothing like the picture on that page BUT I look more like one of the people in the picture on the top of the Human page. As a rough guess, of ALL the species pages we have the Human page is the closest to what I look like.
Silence has failed to show how the current image fails in its duty of allowing someone who would not recognise a "human" to identify a human. Silence has no evidence that the current image fails in that role or evidence that another image would be better in that role.
  • Sorry if I wasn't clear, I was suggesting "some random" image in the sense of "any old image," not in the sense of a true "randomly generated image." The problem with a randomly generated image is that it likely won't be the best available image on the list, which discussion otherwise might have arrived at; and if we have the random algorithm 'switch' between the image candidates periodically, that will just introduce instability to the article. If we have multiple images that are so overwhelmingly good and informative, then we shouldn't be trading between them anyway; they should both be in the article, one as the lead image and one lower down. I do think it is unWikipedian to use a RNG to pick the image; that's not meant as some sort of slur, it just means I've never heard of any editorial decision, anywhere, resolved in such a manner.
  • "Silence has failed to show how the current image fails in its duty of allowing someone who would not recognise a "human" to identify a human" - This is a straw-man, since that isn't the only criterion for qualifying as a lead image, and it's not the criterion it's ever been suggested that the Pioneer plaque fails to meet. Someone looking at the Vitruvian Man (or a stick figure!!!) would probably identify it as 'human,' but that doesn't make it a good candidate for lead image, for the same reason the Pioneer plaque is a poor candidate: They may all be recognizably 'human,' but they are heavily caricatured and stylized such that they lack much visual information; in the plaque's case, it is deliberately censored; and they are noteworthy in their own right, hence distract from the specific focus of this article, which is upon humans and not upon space flight (or Leonardo da Vinci) nor even upon artistic representations of humans. -Silence (talk) 19:43, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
I hinted that adding a picture would lead the article open to edit wars and I still feel that this would be true and more so because we only need to add a picture of one person i.e. we don't need a heterosexual couple as few other species articles have both sexes shown unless they are radically different morphology. We only need one race. Few other species articles show all varietals of a species. As I'm an advocate of the Out of Africa theory I propose a photo of a black african which closely matches the genetic makeup of the people who did the initial migrations. I think this would be a photo of the ǃKung people as they have the highest percentage of the Haplogroup L1 (mtDNA) (from which branched L2 -> L3 and then M etc which is the rest of the world. I pick female because its using mtDNA which comes from the mother side. So that's my other choice - a !Kung female.
Only a theory - probably will be called unWikipedian or something for suggesting an objective criteria to choose photos. Ttiotsw (talk) 09:30, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
  • "As I'm an advocate of the Out of Africa theory I propose a photo of a black african" - First of all, I think OoA is practically established fact now; we only need "advocates" for it in the sense that we need global warming "advocates." Anyway, if this were the Out of Africa or human evolution article, I might agree with you. But this article is about modern humans, not just about how humans came to be; thus, while I'd have no problem with an African (several of my candidate images feature Africans), I don't think racialist categories should be our first criterion, especially given that it's a fallacy to think that "black africans" as a group are any genetically closer to our ancestors than any other human: all humans are equally close to "the source" (as you yourself note later, we're all equally "evolved"). Fundamentally, Africans are unique only in that they happen to inhabit a significant geographic area. You are also incorrect, as far as I know, in suggesting that just any modern African "closely matches the genetic makeup of the people who did the initial migrations" (this might be based on the old, discredited notion that Africans are biologically "primitive"); Africa is the most genetically diverse continent in the world, such that there is more variety and dissimilarity between two Africans, in many cases, than between two random non-Africans. They would have to be far more homogeneous to even stand a chance, as a group, of particularly resembling the ancestors of humanity.
  • There's nothing even remotely "unWikipedian" about this suggestion of yours; I just happen to disagree that this somewhat arcane issue should dominate our image selection criterion. Again, if we were on frog, phylogenetic concerns about which frog is most basal would be the least of our interests in selecting an appropriate lead image; if anything, a particularly basal group would arguably be inappropriate for the top of the image because it would be more relevant in the "Evolution" or "Phylogeny" section. The best choice for a lead image would be one of the most common types of frogs.
  • Even though it's not really the normal way we select images on species pages, I don't really have a problem with it if you want to look for a suitable free-use image of a !Kung person. All I want to point out is that it shouldn't be the primary concern (our primary concern should be that we convey basic information about humans in the image, without spreading inaccuracies like anatomical ellipses), and that if we can't find a good enough !Kung image that's grounds to use a different photograph instead, not to revert back to the dewomanized plaque. Gotta make sure we keep a sense of priorities and perspective.
  • To clarify a point you raise below: If "the genetics of some people are less commonly found in other people", you're agreeing that those people with rarer genetics are slightly worse candidates for the top of Human than the ones with common genetic features, correct? Since an outlier will be less 'representative.' Is that your argument? -Silence (talk) 19:43, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
But I thought the !Kung were primarily haplogroup L0, the earliest group of humans to be genetically isolated for a significant period. I think your suggestion of a photo of a !Kung woman would be appropriate, not because she genetically matches the groups who migrated out of Africa, but because she represents a line close to the origins of all modern humans. Another problem is that clothing obscures the human form to various degrees. A photo of a nude person would be most representative. However, I am uneasy at the idea that we should use a photo of a nude !Kung woman, as this would raise comparisons to the attitude that it is OK to show pictures of nude "natives" because they are, you know, not "us". Besides which, one theme in the criticism of the Pioneer plaque is that it depicts nude people, so I presume that those who object to the plaque on those grounds would object even more to a photograph of a nude person of either sex or any ethnic group.
As an aside, I would ask those editors who are concerned that the penis on the Pioneer plaque is not long enough to look at the "ideal" form depicted by Michelangelo on his sculpture of David. -- Donald Albury 11:25, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
Ah yes, Kung seem to be in L1a which I'm guessing maps to L0a. This article (albeit oldish) [1] by Mark Schoofs in The Village Voice highlights some of the background that would make them a good candidate given their genetic origin. Another study [2] (which is also quite old) mentions that the Biaka have one of the most ancient RFLP. I think using genetics is an objective mechanism of providing a suitable source as it eliminates cultural bias. Ttiotsw (talk) 16:32, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
  • "Another problem is that clothing obscures the human form to various degrees." - True, but that's why I suggested that we include nude humans in the Biology section, to illustrate the human form.
  • "A photo of a nude person would be most representative." - No, it wouldn't, because it would fail to represent human culture. An image of any clothing, even one in a very obscure and particular culture, would tell an alien far more about human beings than an image of a naked human. The fact that we wear clothes (and other bodily ornamentation), use tools, etc., is something that unites pretty much all humans; it is trivial by comparison that we don't all wear the same clothes, and it is not "clothesist" to pick a particular garment over another, for the same reason that it's not "flavorist" to pick a particular ice cream flavor for the top of Ice cream.
  • "Besides which, one theme in the criticism of the Pioneer plaque is that it depicts nude people" - Those criticisms should be disregarded as misunderstanding or willfully ignoring Wikipedia policy. Wikipedia is not censored. The only reason not to feature a nude on the lead image of Human is because (a) it's more relevant in the Biology section, and (b) it doesn't accurately repersent how humans normally interact with their environment — covered in culture. WP:NOT censored. (Though of course it would be hypocrisy to exclude using clothed images because they'd be too "controversial," while ignoring the controversy surrounding nude images; one type of controversy is not more substantive than the other.) -Silence (talk) 19:43, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
As one of the editors who has objected to the current lead image let me just state my reasons for objecting here. I have several objections to using the Pioneer plaque as the lead image but the most serious is that a part of the body has been intentionally removed. The story of how this happened is shown in the Pioneer plaque article. As will be seen from this article, the image was hastily drawn and a decision was made to remove 'one short line' in order to ensure that it flew on the spacecraft. I accept that what happened was not part of some dark plot to mislead but it nevertheless results in the imposition of a very local (perhaps even non-existent) cultural taboo on our readers by means of the the most insidious form of censorship, which is the quiet removal of material. This, in my opinion, rules out the Pioneer plaque as a lead image regardless of anything else. This view does not constitute a complaint about the plaque itself (which has been criticized by others in many respects). It was produced in very difficult circumstances and those responsible did a good job in getting any kind of image on Pioneer before it had to be launched.
The plaque was intended to be indicative of many racial types. The fact that most people do not realize this shows that it failed in that respect and questions the wisdom of trying to produce any form of composite human. There are many other reasons why the plaque is not suitable, such as the lack of any body or facial hair, the quality of artistry, and the fact that it is a line drawing. There is only one reason that the plaque is proposed, which is that it is the only representation of humans to be launched out of our solar system. This is a very interesting and exciting fact that seems to be overriding all other rational thought amongst it supporters.
Regarding Ttiotsw's suggestion above of using a !Kung female, this may not be my first choice but it is much better that what we have now. Martin Hogbin (talk) 11:38, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
  • "questions the wisdom of trying to produce any form of composite human" - I agree with this. It is better to show a picture of a human of any race than to show a made-up hybrid. All 'races' (assuming such a category had actual biological validity) are equally human; only a made-up composite would be nonhuman. -Silence (talk) 19:43, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
Or a member of the Biaka as we also have references that claim they are genetically closest the our Most recent common ancestor in genetic terms, though obviously we all are equally evolved but the genetics of some people are less commonly found in other people.
My suggestion is much better only if we accept genetics as a representative criteria. Ttiotsw (talk) 16:32, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
Regarding the "censorship" of the woman's vulva, I would note that you cannot normally see (at the resolution and angle of the Pioneer image) the vulva of a nude woman unless she has shaved off her pubic hair, or has very light-colored or very thin public hair. So including a line representing a vulva in the image would imply that the woman was blond (not very representative of humanity as a whole) or that she belonged to a group that shaved off public hair (again, not representative of most of humanity). -- Donald Albury 11:49, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

[outdent]There are two answers to your point. Firstly look at the Pioneer plaque article. It is quite clear the the line was originally there and then it was removed, for whatever reason. Secondly, it is quite clear that both the man and woman are shaved, they have no body or facial hair. I would have preferred them to have both been shown with natural pubic hair, and the man with a beard, but that is clearly not the case. Martin Hogbin (talk) 13:00, 5 August 2009 (UTC)

Have you actually seen the image that has then been censored ? Was one ever actually made ?. To have no editorial input into an image we really would need a CCTV snap of some random person. Every picture that is taken that is a presentation of the subject will have some care taken in the presentation of the subject. It appears that this is now "censorship" when the presentation doesn't meet your opinion as to what the presentation should be (almost as if you are saying 'Well that is not how I would have drawn a heterosexual couple !')
Neither you nor Silence have shown if the current image actually confuses the WP reader as to what a human looks like. Until that time you really just do not like it.Ttiotsw (talk) 16:32, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
I cannot understand why you continue to argue about this point. The Pioneer plaque article makes quite clear that, a 'decision to omit a very short line in this diagram' was made. This is a direct quotation from Sagan. It matters not when in the process of producing this plaque that decision was made. The point is that a decision was made to omit a line that had once been drawn, at is quite clear that this decision was made because there might have been objections raised for 'puritanical' reasons. This is censorship, of the worst kind. Martin Hogbin (talk) 18:51, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
Donald, neither plaque image has pubic hair, or any visible body hair; they only have hair on their heads. I also still don't see why this buzzword "representative" of humanity keeps popping up; objectively speaking, all humans are equally "representative" (because everyone is equally human, even the atypical humans), even if for the sake of avoiding controversy we have to eschew certain un-PC candidates, e.g., an upper-class white male sipping a cup of coffee. What we need is not a 'representative' of all humans (an impossible goal, since every human is different), but a good example of a human, the same as we do on the images for ice cream, frog, kangaroo, etc., etc. Just wanted to remind y'all of that. It is not the job of any lead image to encapsulate every possible variation or subtype. But if we are concerned with selecting the most common group of humans, it makes more sense to select someone from the (by far) most populous continent, Asia (which many of my example candidates in fact do). Still, it doesn't particularly matter, as long as we do pick one.
If you want evidence that the image was censored, simply read the quotes I posted, which are also on the Pioneer article. To quote that article: 'according to Mark Wolverton's more detailed account, the original design included a "short line indicating the woman's vulva."' Sagan himself attests that the decision to remove the line reflects the fact that they '"may have judged NASA's scientific-political hierarchy as more puritanical than it is."' There ya go. Case closed. :) -Silence (talk) 19:13, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
No, you quote-mine and conflate "censorship" with "self-censorship". We have it that Sagan himself wrote that "The decision to omit a very short line in this diagram was made partly because conventional representation in Greek statuary omits it. But there was another reason: Our desire to see the message successfully launched on Pioneer 10." Face the facts that the launch window was tight and the last thing would be if some jobs-worth decided to censor the image. Amazingly enough given what you seem to imply, NO censorship actually took place (self-censorship isn't actually censorship, it is just an unambitious view on what is acceptable). Heck if they had enough time they could have put back in all the missing bits that you so desire should have been included given they got no bounceback on the presented version. Obviously nowadays if you want to push back the envelope you'd link the viewer to hello.jpg so we've got a lot of latitude.
I will say this to you this time (I said it to Martin last time) that you want to censor the image because you think it is censored. If you have a problem with this interpretation well just live with it. I will not apologise for my interpretation of how you conflate censorship with self-censorship and artistic license.
In INTENT of the image was to inform 'x' what a human looked like; you have not yet shown how people have been actually misinformed as to what a human looks like by viewing this image. The sheer volume of talk (which now exceed the binary size of the images in discussion) suggests WP:POINT. Ttiotsw (talk) 20:27, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
Uhh, Ttiotsw, are you familiar with what distinguishes 'quote mining' from simply 'quoting'? When I don't quote anyone you accuse me of making up the (explicitly acknowledged!) censorship out of whole cloth; then when I do quote people who were directly involved in the image's creation (including Sagan himself), explicitly stating that the female sex-organ was removed from their image in part because they were worried about "puritanical" views, you accuse me of quote-mining? Apparently I can't win.
In reality, quote mining is when the intended meaning of a passage is distorted. (It's not just the act of quoting someone briefly; that's citing your sources.) Demonstrate to me how I "distorted" the meaning of those passages? They mean the same thing as they do in context. If you think I'm quote-mining, then you must also think that the Wikipedia article I directly quoted, Pioneer plaque, is quote-mining; you might want to bring that up with the editors there. :)
Self-censorship is a type of censorship, by definition. The effect is the same; the only difference is who is doing the censoring. Notice that the article Self-censorship is in Category:Censorship? :P By conceding that the image is self-censored, you are also conceding that it is censored (just as conceding that an animal is a black dog also requires conceding that it is a dog).
Moreover, it's doubly ironic that you'd accuse someone of quote-mining for citing only part of a quote, then a few seconds later do the exact same thing with only another part of the quote (the part not directly relevant to our discussion). :) Why not just quote the whole thing, friend? Here it is:
"The decision to omit a very short line in this diagram was made partly because conventional representation in Greek statuary omits it. But there was another reason: Our desire to see the message successfully launched on Pioneer 10. In retrospect, we may have judged NASA's scientific-political hierarchy as more puritanical than it is. In the many discussions that I held with such officials up to the Administrator of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and the President's Science Adviser, not one Victorian demurrer was ever voiced; and a great deal of helpful encouragement was given." — Sagan
"(self-censorship isn't actually censorship, it is just an unambitious view on what is acceptable)" - Again, you're arguing with Wikipedia and the dictionary (not to say common sense) here, not me. :) To quote our Self-censorship article: "Self-censorship is the act of censoring or classifying one's own work". But maybe I should stop quoting articles, you might accuse me of quote-mining Self-censorship too. XD
"you want to censor the image because you think it is censored" - Ladies and gentlemen, the English language is over. That's it. Expression has, ouroboros-like, devoured itself. Good night, and good luck. :) -Silence (talk) 20:58, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
Like you, Silence, I despair. People seem able to convince themselves of anything. Let us hope that we hear from some more editors. Martin Hogbin (talk) 21:16, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
Now, now. I never despair. :) I just found the quote amusing. We still have yet to hear any valid response to the problems surrounding the image, which is the thing that really matters; the side-issues are interesting, but don't constitute defenses of a 'penis yay, vulva boo' plaque as a remotely accurate representation of human anatomy. -Silence (talk) 21:26, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
The allegations about "censorship" really strike me as something of a red herring for two reasons. First, Wikipedia isn't censored, but the wording in the relevant policy, WP:NOT, appears to caution about the omission of potentially offensive content, not the inclusion of content censored by its original, non-Wikipedian creators. Second, the term "censorship" applied to off-wiki content is inherently subjective and potentially non-neutral. Indeed, the only time the word appears in the Pioneer plaque article is in a quote from Sagan seeming to rebut the question of censorship: "The idea of government censorship of the Pioneer 10 plaque is now so well documented and firmly entrenched that no statement from the designers of the plaque to the contrary can play any role in influencing the prevailing opinion. But we can at least try." This is important to consider because one person's censorship may well be another person's stylized depiction or plain old artistic license. The plaque article also notes that the decision to omit the line "was made partly because conventional representation in Greek statuary omits it".
Like most line drawings, the image is intentionally unrealistic in various subtle ways. It is supposed to be a stylized depiction and, as such, it is well suited to be be a universal symbol of all humans. Choosing a photo of one actual human in its stead would not only be opening the door to endless controversy, it would also put us in the awkward position of deciding which human to choose. You say "it doesn't particularly matter" which one we choose, but, in fact, it does matter. Selecting an Asian because there are more of them may be rational, but it still is picking one sort of person over all the others. Picking a woman over a man or vice versa is equally problematic, as is picking an adult over a child or a standing human over a human in a wheelchair or an ugly human over a beautiful human or even, for that matter, a live human over a dead human. The permutations are endless. Humans are humans are humans, and there are way too many variations for any one to be more validly representative of all the rest than any other. What suits the Pioneer image so well for this context is that the difficult choice has already been made—by notable people, in a notable context—leaving us Wikipedia editors, with all our conscious and subconscious biases, free of having to make it ourselves. Is this a cop-out? Maybe so, but it's analogous to lot of things we do at Wikipedia, including eschewing original research in favor of citing reliable sources.
The Pioneer image is the most famous image ever created for the express purpose of representing all of humanity. As such, it seems very appropriate at the top of Wikipedia's article about humans. Rivertorch (talk) 20:55, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
Being the most famous representation of all humanity ever (which, incidentally, the plaque is not) would be a valid reason to use the image if this were the article 'artistic representations of humans'. But this article is about humans; it is not some meta-article about famous depictions of humanity. There is a hugely significant difference. Imagine if our Margaret Thatcher article was illustrated by a caricature or drawing of Thatcher, instead of a photo — that would be confusing Margaret Thatcher with Cultural depictions of Margaret Thatcher. Well, there is a difference between a "Human" article which happens, as a meta issue, to require appeals to how humans see themselves, and an actual article that is deliberately about "How humans see themselves". I think a lot of the confusion surrounding the Plaque has derived from people not seeing the important, but for semantic reasons subtle in Human's case, distinction between those two sorts of articles.
"the omission of potentially offensive content, not the inclusion of content censored by its original, non-Wikipedian creators" - What matters is how the image is being used. Context determines whether an image is censorial, because it determines what is being illustrated. The image is not censored when it is meant only to accurately depict the Pioneer plaque, which is its use on Pioneer plaque. The image is censored if it is meant to accurately depict human beings (hence the actual Plaque, inside Pioneer, is censored; and the reproduction of that image when used on Human to depict human anatomy, is likewise censored). It's the same as if we took some historically significant 18th-century anatomy book which had white spaces over the genitalia; if we used that image in an article about 18th-century culture, it would be a depiction of censorship rather than an instance of censorship (just like using censored images on the Censorship page itself is not a new instance of censorship — nothing is beinge censored by the Censorship article). On the other hand, if we used this 18th-century anatomy drawing, missing the genitalia on pictures of nudes, as our anatomical image on Human, it would be a brand-new instance of censorship, because we'd be willfully employing an image that lacks genitalia in lieu of hundreds of viable uncensored images as a supposedly-accurate depiction of the human form (and not just as a depiction of a manuscript or plaque).
Analogously (and no, to nip things in the bud, this is an analogy, not in any way an equivalence), one could argue that it's fair to put a racist caricature at the top of our article on African Americans because the caricature is intended to depict African Americans, and because we're not the ones being racist — all we're doing is accurately depicting an instance of racism. But this would be an absurd argument, because of the context of the image: using a racist caricature at the top of African-Americans becomes a new instance of racism, whereas using it on the top of the Racism article would merely be "depicting" racism. This same principle is what's happening on Human: Because this is the Human article, and not the Pioneer plaque article, the primary significance of our images are how accurately they represent human beings, not how accurately they represent some plaque from the '70s. If we use a censored anatomy image here, we are participating in the censorship, because we're choosing to pick an image that erased the female genitalia over countless images that have not.
"Second, the term "censorship" applied to off-wiki content is inherently subjective and potentially non-neutral." - That's incorrect; if we both agree that it's a fact that women have vulvas, and we both agree that it's a fact that the vulva on the Pioneer plaque was removed in part because of concerns about (to quote Sagan) "puritanical" or "Victorian" sensibilities — and those are both, I'd say, unambiguous facts — then it is a fact that censorship is at work here (at the very least in the original plaque!), whether or not you think the censorship is appropriate, insignificant, etc. 'Censorship' has a well-defined, specific definition; if any fact can be established without being POVed, then at least certain instances of censorship can be.
"it is well suited to be be a universal symbol of all humans." - Trying to choose a 'universal symbol' for all humans is a violation of WP:NPOV no matter what symbol is chosen. Trying to choose an image that portrays an example of a human is not inherently POVed (for the same reason that it's not inherently POVed to use a photo of a particular part of Chicago on Chicago, or a photo of a particular age of Thatcher on Margaret Thatcher, or a particular frog on Frog; even though some editorial decision is needed to pick which image to use, if it were inherently a violation of NPOV to select some random human, then every editorial decision on Wikipedia would be a violation of NPOV, since some discretion is always needed in choosing one image over another, anywhere). Compare if we tried to find a 'universal symbol' for frogs, or African-Americans, or ice cream, rather than just picking some image of an instance of the article subject; in every case, the symbol would reflect more editorial bias and POV than any old photo. (Likewise, drawings tend to be more POVed than photos because they are more subjective and idealized.)
"opening the door to endless controversy" - "opening the door"? We've already had 5+ years of endless controversy. This is not a dispute between an uncontroversial drawing and a controversial photo; it's a dispute between a highly controversial drawing and various potentially controversial photos (but then, everything is potentially controversial, including no image at all — not everything, though, is equally anatomically inaccurate).
"too many variations for any one to be more validly representative of all the rest than any other." - No lead image on any article on Wikipedia is representative of every permutation of its subject. Nor are any of them intended to be. They're merely supposed to illustrate significant features of the subject, sans inaccuracy. -Silence (talk) 21:26, 5 August 2009 (UTC)
The image on the Pioneer craft was intended to show some salient aspects of human beings (e.g. with the raised arm) rather than being complex image showing all it can about human beings. Like us, it has only a small amount of space in that location, but unlike us in Wikipedia, we can add numerous other images to the article to our hearts content (content policies notwithstanding) to show in as fine a detail as we like, all aspects of the human body. Arguing over what was included to fit the space constraints in that one image makes as much sense as complaining that a picture of a car that, for example, fails to show some trim option that opinion has it that all models of that car have (though the angle of the photo or diagram whilst capturing the approximate shape, failed to include). Given a female actually drew the Pioneer image perhaps it is simply a preoccupation by some about certain female body parts that is emphasising that the image should have included this 'trim'. No picture or diagram of any species can ever represent all members of that species. Even a cut-open diagram showing muscles excludes some people e.g. a cut-open diagram showing the Peroneus tertius present fails to accurately represent the [3] 5-17% of white males which miss this muscle. If we accept that 100% inclusive is an impossible goal then what criteria should we use for such a picture or diagram that is inherently not fully inclusive but close enough ? The beauty of the Pioneer image is that it has been decided for us. We don't have to do any original research to find a suitable picture of the species. Picking any picture of a species is OR unless you are able to confirm that it is a member of that species. We presume for humans because everyone knows what this one species looks like (human) that having the WP editor claim the photo is that species is acceptable. Do we allow that for the information on ALL other species ? I don't think so. Obviously with humans is seems a bit silly to question if what we see is a human or not when it patently is but this highlights that the human species seems to be an exception to all other species articles. Should we allow this exception ? The editors who cite commonality with other species articles say no so by using the pioneer image we are divorcing ourselves from making a decision that 'x' shows humans in the same way that if we were picking an image of a rare species we would let someone else who is notable in that area decide that the image was an example of that species. Don't forget that the Pioneer image isn't just Sagan work but also input from Frank Drake of the Drake equation and Arecibo message which has a great stick man that is also trying to represent some aspects of humans and (more importantly) someone notable is suggesting this. With this human article some here seem to be suggesting that we allow editors to add their own research with self-published photos of humans. Why should the human species article be excluded from the policy on original research ? This is not to say that the Pioneer image is the best but it is better than self-published works. If we could compare it to some other image that was better in that it got closer to showing "humans" (notwithstanding that it can never show all humans) and it wasn't self-published then perhaps we can then try swapping the images out. Until such time I'm biased towards reverting any OR especially for such contentious subject. Ttiotsw (talk) 10:09, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
The raised arm also raises subtle POV problems, since the male is the one portrayed as dominant, active, and assertively communicative, while the female is in a meek, silent, static pose. This would be less of an issue if it was a photo, since it would seem much less staged and deliberate, but with a hand drawing every single detail is a reflection of the author's state of mind, agendas, biases and preconceived notions, etc.
I agree that the image we use should be clear and not overly crowded, but it shouldn't be more "clear" than an actual human is, because then we are sacrificing accuracy to highlight details. Notice that other species articles, even species humans would not be familiar with (and thus, you'd think, would be more benefited by simplifying the form to just a few exceptional details), do not resort to drawings for the lead image — you might think that Frog or Kangaroo or Ice cream would just resort to a diagram illustrating the "Platonic ideal," the essence, of their subject matter, by just making a line drawing of the basic shape of the topic at hand. But they do not; no such article does, with the current exception of Human. Instead they use a photo in order to avoid the informational lack a mere diagram would have; they simply use a photo that focuses on the subject matter, avoiding 'crowd shots' that would clutter and obscure the actual organism. That is entirely sufficient. They also use a photo instead of a diagram or sketch in order to avoid emphasizing their biases in picking and choosing which anatomical features of the human are "important".
For example: If the index finger of the humans was self-censored on this image, instead of the female sex-organ, the image would most likely have been rejected long ago for its inaccuracy. The fact that we are apparently OK with censoring the vulva, but would probably not be OK with censoring the five-fingeredness of a human, suggests that we are biased toward the perspective that the female sex-organ is less anatomically important than the index finger. Worse still, I bet most editors don't even realize that this is the case; the most insidious biases are the ones we least pay heed to.
"Given a female actually drew the Pioneer" - This would only be relevant if I'd ever complained that the image was drawn by a male. Since that's never been discussed in any form, this is a red herring; moreover, since the original line drawing, according to our Pioneer plaque article, "included a 'short line indicating the woman's vulva.'[2] It was erased as condition for approval by John Naugle, former head of NASA's Office of Space Science and the agency's former chief scientist.[3]", the implication is that Sagan's wife included the vulva in her art, but it was subsequently removed, either by her, by someone else, or in a joint decision. So we have no idea whether it was self-censored by a woman or a man (or both), nor does it really matter in the slightest, since the source of the censorship has nothing at all to do with the effect of the censorship.
"No picture or diagram of any species can ever represent all members of that species." - Which is what I've been saying all along, contrary to your repeated claims that the Pioneer plaque is the best 'representation' of all humanity. The best any picture can achieve, for our purposes, is to be an educational and accurate image of a member of the species — something the plaque can't even attain, since the plaque has no real humans illustrated, only a symbolic line drawing. Since no image can possibly represent the whole human race, we have a choice between picking an image of a human for Human, or picking an image of a drawing (of a human).
"The beauty of the Pioneer image is that it has been decided for us." - No, it hasn't — because we have decided how to use the image. The image was never intended for use in Wikipedia (or, indeed, in any reference work for human consumption). If we choose to use a censored image to illustrate the subject matter that was originally being censored (as opposed to using a censored image merely to illustrate the image itself, or merely to illustrate censorship or cultural attitudes toward female genitalia or the like), then we are participating in that censorship, entirely regardless of who originally made the image. (To illustrate the basic principle here, see my above analogy regarding the African American article.)
As for your argument that it would be original research to use a self-published photo because it's original research to identify a human in a photo as "human" (uhh..) unless an expert verifies that it really is a human — I don't really think the patent absurdity and ignorance of WP:NOR needs much response here (leaving aside the fact that humans are not a "rare species", so your "if we were picking an image of a rare species we would let someone else who is notable in that area decide that the image was an example of that species" principle, if we took it even remotely seriously, would require that we delete just about every image from every biology article on Wikipedia for being "original research"), so I'll simply note that the creators of the Pioneer image are neither biologists or anthropologists, and being an astronomer or writer does not qualify one to to any greater degree than a layperson to identify whether or not a photo has a human in it. :) Now I feel intellectually dirty for even legitimating that argument with a response. If anyone else used that line against you ("you can't put that photo of a human in this article, an expert committee of astronomers hasn't confirmed there's really a human in it!!"), you'd simply have mocked it and moved on. -Silence (talk) 14:28, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

as Rivertorch thankfully points out right at the beginning, there have been epic debates about this for more than four years, various solutions have been tried, and we always returned to the Pioneer plaque. The image has its issues, but they aren't worse than the issues you'll get with any other selection. It is the only image that can claim to have anything approaching stable consensus over several years. As far as I am concerned, this is the permanent solution. Nothing you are going to say here will be anything but a stale rehashing of past discussions. --dab (𒁳) 10:19, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

I am well aware, as are you, of the long history of the image. That isn't what this discussion is about. I am not here to suggest that I am some profoundly new thinker whose points have never been discussed in this article's history (although when they have, looking at the logs, it has almost always been very perfunctory); that isn't really relevant, since the fact that something was discussed does not mean that the right conclusion was necessarily reached (or that any real conclusion at all was). I am simply here to suggest that past discussions have ended inappropriately, contrary to Wikipedia policy, because they have considered upholding an arbitrary status quo more important than adhering to:
  • WP:NPOV (the image is explicitly being used because it advocates a POV about what humans' "greatest achievement," most noteworthy scientific accomplishment, most important and all-encompassing depiction, etc. is, rather than taking the most NPOV approach, and the approach other articles tend to take, and simply picking an actual image of the subject matter—a real human.)
  • accuracy and verifiability (the image is anatomically inaccurate because it removes the vulva, in addition to its obvious lacunae)
  • WP:NOT being censored (the image is, according to its own creators, deliberately censored in response to imagined "puritanical" and "Victorian" (quoting Sagan) sensibilities — also an obvious NPOV issue because we, from what I can tell an exclusively male group of editors, have decided that while of course the male sex-organ must be depicted, the female sex-organ (or "beaver shot" / extraneous "trim", as Ttiotsw is fond of calling it) is a trivial, minor footnote and it is not at all significant if it is censored)
  • utility to readers (we deliberately use a crude drawing with very little informational content and only indirect relevancy to Human (as well as the aforementioned anatomical inaccuracy), in part based on this recurring argument that "it doesn't really matter" that we actually illustrate humans correctly, since our readers already know what humans look like — forgetting the fact that our readers include non-native English speakers, young children, neurodivergent people, and others who will be best served by not visually parroting misogynistic cultural taboos as though they were scientific, anatomical facts)
.. and so on. Pretty much any random photo would be a huge improvement at the very least upon those problems, even if otherwise it was quite mediocre. But since the original suggestion I put forward was that past discussions had not realized the breadth and severity of the problem, responding by merely pointing out that we've discussed this a lot in the past misses the point. I certainly understand and appreciate editorial exhaustion, but being tired of thinking about a problem and fixing a problem are two quite different things. Moreover, as I noted above, Wikipedia:Consensus explicitly states: "Consensus can change. Consensus is not immutable. Past decisions are open to challenge and are not binding, and one must realize that such changes are often reasonable. Thus, "according to consensus" and "violates consensus" are not valid rationales for making or reverting an edit, or for accepting or rejecting other forms of proposal or action." (That's assuming of course, that the Pioneer plaque ever even had a real, solid, or stable consensus at any point, rather than just the benefit of lacking an adequate singular rival for editors to consolidate upon. But it doesn't really matter at this point.) -Silence (talk) 13:49, 6 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Incidentally, from what I can tell, over the past 4 years a photograph has never even been tried (at least, for more than a few minutes at a time), and as you yourself can attest, the Pioneer image has been continuously controversial and problematic almost since its first use. Is it so unreasonable suggest that, for once, we try another option — an option conforming with the standard practices of every other Wikipedia article, and in particular other species articles — for a more sustained period? It's not like Human has been a Featured Article, or even a Good Article, in a very long time; this is the ideal time to experiment a little and try new ideas in the hopes of revitalizing the article and generating creative, feasible new solutions and substantive improvements. The only thing standing in the way of that is the weight of status quo, a self-perpetuating pseudo-'consensus' that has never been based on any relevant educational value or anatomical accuracy in our lead image, but, in purely pragmatic (rather than more political and cultural) terms, only been based on the fact that we didn't have any high-quality, free-use, full-color, full-body images of a man and woman standing side by side when this article was created. (Indeed, it took me many, many hours to find the few examples meeting these criteria — and no, the plaque doesn't fill any of those criteria except "free use" — that I've finally tracked down.) -Silence (talk) 15:14, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

Silence, I appreciate your points, and I simply disagree with your conclusions. For reasons that have been debated time and time again over the years. The images you suggest simply aren't preferable, for the infobox. They will just create pages and pages of controversy and end up being removed again. We do not need anything more than a rough sketch of the human form for the infobox. --dab (𒁳) 15:38, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Even if you think we should use a rough sketch, that does not justify using a censored rough sketch. An anatomically accurate sketch would merely be a strange eccentricity compared to most lead articles; I would support a change to that, at least temporarily. An anatomically inaccurate one, with the penis uncensored and the vulva excised, is an NPOV emergency, not just a quirky little deviation. Moreover, 'it would be controversial to follow Wikipedia standards' is not a reason not to follow Wikipedia standards; and I happen to have a lot of experience with controversial topics, enough to know that there are tricks and methods (such as those employed on the perpetually controversial Evolution) for keeping the talk page from being dominated by already-rebutted objections, once we've finished hashing out the substantive issues (which do indeed need to be discussed). Besides, if none of the objections to a photo would be relevant to Wikipedia's image policies and conventions, I don't see why our decisions should be ruled by them — especially when, after all, these are purely hypothetical invalid objections that have never actually been given a chance to be made in the last 4 years, vs. the entirely real and valid objections which have been made for the actual lead image. -Silence (talk) 17:00, 7 August 2009 (UTC)


Section break

As the editor who filed this RFC, I'd like to say at this point that I believe I understand most of the objections to this image (they have been stated in ample detail) and agree with many of them; I simply do not think they outweigh the advantages of the image. At this point, rather than repeating ourselves and creating vastly more text for uninvolved editors to plow through, I wonder if we might sort of back off a little, give it a little time, let some fresh voices be heard and new discussions develop. (This is only a suggestion, not a desperate plea or anything like that.) Rivertorch (talk) 19:30, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

OK. Martin Hogbin (talk) 11:03, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

what you can do is present a specific suggestion for a replacement image and do a strawpoll on it. This will be much more useful than yet another round of circular debates. I can alredy tell you that I am going to object to any photograph replacing the Pioneer sketch. Because any single photograph pretending to represent "humans" is going to be shot down. The Pioneer sketch has the unique quality that it is a notable image that was in fact intended to represent "humans", i.e. exactly what we are looking for in the infobox. If you have another such image, i.e. (a) free to use, (b) notable and (c) clearly intended as an icon to represent humankind, all races, male and female, let's hear about it. Anything else will be a non-starter. --dab (𒁳) 15:38, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Straw polls are not usually a good way of discerning consensus, because they're based on how many editors happen to be involved in the discussion, rather than being based on the strength of argument. Plus I'm guessing that a straw poll, much like the above RfC, would be inconclusive because there are a lot of people on both sides of the issue. I have already presented a specific image as a replacement (the Akha one), but discussions have not focused on it because (a) it is of very low importance whether we use one adequate/mediocre/good image or another, whereas it is of extremely high importance that we do not use a hideously bad (as a depiction of the human form) censored and inaccurate image; and (b) no one has been able to come up with a single substantive problem with the image I suggested — the worst that can validly be said about it is, perhaps, that it's kind of boring and not full of deep evocations of the human spirit, which is an obvious advantage in this context. :) So there doesn't seem to be a lot to discuss there; once we have agreed to move on from the Pioneer image to an uncensored one, it won't be a big deal at all if we cycle through several good-quality images before we settle on a lasting one. That is a healthy, natural, and ubiquitous part of the Wikipedia method for improving articles, so long as we make sure to resolve differences through Talk rather than edit wars.
Because any single photograph pretending to represent "humans" is going to be shot down. - You do not seem to understand the function of a lead image. I've addressed this point many times before. Lead images do not represent, symbolize, or capture the 'essence' or 'nature' of their subject in every permutation. They do not summarize the full range of human diversity; if you are attempting with a drawing to represent 'humans', then the NPOV problems with the drawing are even worse than I feared, because now you're suddenly calling millions of physically disabled people 'less human' than the people who look more like our image — in addition, obviously, to the western hairstyles (and, unfortunately, the white background we chose) subtly suggesting that the most 'human' people are of European descent. The real function of a lead image is only to provide an informational (and accurate) example of the subject matter, not to point a 'representative' example that summarizes every subtype, nor to provide an important example (see Molecule, etc.), which would only distract from the subject matter. A drawing that seeks to symbolize or encapsulate the whole human race is by its very nature ten thousand times more biased and POVed than a photograph that does not seek to encapsulate humanity, but only (like every other species' lead image) seeks to provide an example of a human.
(b) notable - Any notable image is inadmissable here. Would you use the White House to illustrate the top of House? 'Notability' is a sufficient criterion for rejecting any candidate lead image for Human, now and in the future. Non-notable images are admissable, because they will not carry the cultural baggage, agenda, and distracting, merely indirect relevance of a notable image.
(c) clearly intended as an icon to represent humankind - This, again, is sufficient grounds on itself for rejecting any image. Any image that is "clearly intended as an icon to represent humankind" is automatically inadmissable as the lead image for Human, precisely because it is by its very nature a violation of NPOV — not to mention that it will out of necessarily be factually misleading and lacking in relevant visually information, since it will suggest that it is representative of humanity, whereas no image can possibly be truly representative of the whole human race. Least of all Pioneer plaque, but this principle applies to all attempts to advocate a POV about what sort of depiction 'symbolizes' or 'represents' the entire species. -Silence (talk) 17:00, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

It is pretty amazing the verbal and rhetorical excesses and contortions that two editors are going through to prove that they don't like the Pioneer image. Every new batch of five thousand word essays on the topic brings yet another novel reason why the consensus image is unsuitable... so far, I haven't actually seen a reason that makes a bit of sense to me, but I confess I may have missed one of the volumes of this long series somewhere in the last few years. LotLE×talk 22:56, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

The reason is the same that's been proposed since the beginning: the image is censored (the creators deliberately removed the female sex-organ, while leaving the male sex-organ intact), and therefore inappropriate as our main illustration of a human. In addition to this POVed anatomical inaccuracy, it is also low in informational content, and doubly POVed in that it attempts to represent all human beings with a single image (something it is not Wikipedia's job to be doing, ever). The image is fully appropriate on its own article, Pioneer plaque, but is even more inappropriate for use on this particular article than Vitruvian Man or even a mere stick figure would be. If the plaque's meant to be a symbol or representation of man's 'essence', then it violates WP:NPOV; if it's meant to be an actual depiction of human anatomy, it instead violates WP:V and WP:RS (in addition to WP:NOT), because it deviates from the expert anatomical consensus of biologists, anthropologists, etc. Its ambiguous symbolic-literal status compounds the problem by making it both anatomically misleading and POVed.
I apologize for the lengthy comments, but they've been necessitated by the fact that such a variety of clearly fallacious defenses of the image's use have been made, none addressing the substance of the problem. As Ttiotsw himself conceded in our user talk discussion, his rather 'unusual' defenses of the plaque have in some respects just been "playing devils advocate: I'm going to try every trick in the book that I've spent learning over the past 3 years so if you do survive my arguments then I'll support what you suggest as a solution". I feel that the plaque's severe issues have survived this gauntlet of spirited defenses unresolved; if you disagree, I welcome yet more explanations for why it is Wikipedia's job to "symbolize mankind" or reinforce cultural taboos regarding genitalia on any species' article. -Silence (talk) 23:13, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Lulu, perhaps you could explain what 'verbal and rhetorical excesses and contortions' I have used. Martin Hogbin (talk) 08:06, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

It hardly matters here. I will assume good faith on Lulu's part even if he does not wish to return the favor. If you wish to discuss an editor's misconduct, feel free to take it up on that editor's Talk page (here's mine); this Talk page is for discussing the Human article, where the Pioneer plaque at this point is in desperate need of some justification for suspending ordinary policy on its behalf. If I continue to refrain from accusing any of you of "just liking" the plaque, even though many of your arguments have been admitted to be of the form 'throw everything against the wall and see what sticks', I think it's only fair that you cease questioning our good faith by suggesting that we simply "don't like" the plaque (in fact, the plaque is one of my favorite hand-drawn pictures for its historic-symbolic value, but I've tried not to let that bias me), when we have consistently relied on substantive, policy-based objections. Thanks! :] -Silence (talk) 16:50, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Restored RfC

This RfC was archived while still active due to a programming problem with MiszaBot. Although no comments had been received in 5 days, User:Rivertorch would like to keep the RfC open for the full 30 days in case any other community members wish to comment. Accordingly, I've reopened the bot-closed RfC.

To recap: Of the 9 users who commented on this RfC...

  • ... Silence, Martin Hogbin, and Seb az86556 recommend replacing the Pioneer image with a photograph of at least one human (reasoning: Pioneer is noteworthy, censored, anatomically inaccurate, not directly relevant, POV, etc.)
  • ... dab, Donald Albury, and LotLE recommend keeping the Pioneer plaque as the lead image (reasoning: Pioneer is noteworthy, intended by NASA to represent humans, less controversial than any other possible image, etc.)
  • ... and Rivertorch, LonelyBeacon, and Ttiotsw seem to be somewhere in the middle (based partly on Talk page comments).

(Outside of this RfC thread, counting only recent discussions, 4 other users have supported alternatives to the Pioneer image, while 1 other user has supported keeping Pioneer.)

Feel free to make new comments in this section or elsewhere on the page. -Silence (talk) 17:17, 16 August 2009 (UTC)

For the record, Rivertorch is not on the fence, although he has been sidling up to it. Rivertorch (talk) 05:09, 17 August 2009 (UTC)
Feel free to change my comment to better represent your views, then. I only included you in the 'and the rest' category because I didn't want to speculate about the views of anyone who wasn't completely obviously in one camp or the other. Same for Ttiotsw; his comments in usertalk are ambiguous, which is all I meant by 'on the fence'. -Silence (talk) 20:10, 19 August 2009 (UTC)
  • Bump. (Protecting section from auto-archive until RfC expires.) -Silence (talk) 06:11, 28 August 2009 (UTC)

life

i LOVE that we're of "least concern" on the conservation list. Fuck those people dying needlessly. Let's save a whale. 193.188.33.23 (talk) 02:02, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Since you are new here, I'll assume in good faith, for the moment, that your previous multi-posted edit was an error. However, I caution you against disruptive or uncivil comments. The reason the species as a whole is listed as "least concern" has nothing to do with what individual subpopulations' status is. It simply means that the population of the entire human species is increasing, rather than decreasing. The purpose of the conservation rankings is to identify species that are at risk of immediate extinction, not species who have subpopulations in need emergency assistance. Check out IUCN's page on human beings: "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." If this issue troubles you, I encourage you to check out Wikipedia's policies on WP:NPOV and WP:RS, and then contribute to articles on humanitarian disasters. -Silence (talk) 02:48, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
193.188.33.23 does have a point. The IUCN article is clearly written about somebody else. It always worries me when a bunch of conservationists start kicking some humans around in order to protect an endangered species. Martin Hogbin (talk) 09:00, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
Just to explain what this may have to do with improving this article, there may be a case for not pointing out quite so prominently that the IUCN status of humans is 'least concern' or for adding some commentary to that classification. Martin Hogbin (talk) 17:09, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
I'm not sure I understand your argument. The IUCN article isn't written about "somebody else"; it's written about the human species, our subject matter here. I share your distaste for the most extremist, ALF-style activists who denigrate the value of human life in the course of defending nonhumans; but this has absolutely nothing to do with the IUCN or with its conservation status, which is simply being applied consistently to the human species as it would be for any other species that has a rising population in the billions and has spread to every continent. It would be original research to comment upon a cited, straightforward international organization's ratings. -Silence (talk) 18:43, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
At best the classification of humans as 'least concern' is pointless. What I mean by this that, if some for of human activity (say the building of power stations) displaced a small rodent from its natural habitat, and that rodent was classified as 'least concern', then the expected reaction would be: 'that is too bad', 'tough luck on the rodent', 'there are plenty more somewhere else'. If some agrichemical accidentally killed a 'least concern' insect, no one would care. But this reaction would not apply to humans (we hope). The purpose of the classification scheme is not relevant to humans, their only logical classification is 'not applicable'.
Worse still, there have been times in history when classifications of some humans has been taken literally. There is a vast potential for abuse of a classification system that classifies humans by default as 'least concern'; no doubt those doing the classification would find a way to exclude themselves from being of least concern. That was what I meant by, 'written about somebody else'. Martin Hogbin (talk) 21:47, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
It's not pointless, because it puts humans in their context in the natural world; it provides a 'baseline' against which to compare numerous other species, e.g., our close hominid relatives. The function of the IUCN is to evaluate species as a whole, not individuals. "Least concern" is a technical term in this context with a technical meaning, as is made clear by the explanatory link directly above it, Conservation status. This link, which is used on all species articles, is all the explanatory text we need, since it provides access to more information for anyone curious.
Your second paragraph doesn't make sense in this context, so I'll just direct you to the relevant Wikipedia and off-site pages so you can become more informed on the issue. IUCN classifies species, not individuals, so the only way for the researchers to be excluded would be for them to not belong to any species, i.e., to be non-humans. -Silence (talk) 21:55, 11 August 2009 (UTC)
Can you explain to me then what 'least concern' means when applied to humans.
You might like to think that no human could attempt to classify themselves apart from other humans but history shows us otherwise. Martin Hogbin (talk) 22:21, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

I think the anon is, maybe, making trouble just for its own sake. In any case, Silence and Martin Hogbin are entirely right here. The conservation status is used pretty consistently for most/many animal species that have articles. It is not meant to evaluate the moral significance of the death of an individual of a species (nor really even of the species as a whole), but simply to indicate the ecological probability of extinction. For humans (as for some other animals), that risk is minutely small, hence "least concern". LotLE×talk 22:12, 11 August 2009 (UTC)

Humans are least concern because although people panic when millions of people die from wars and other violent ways, if 1 million people die today the human population doesn't decrease in the point were we are going to go extinct. The stats only tell you if humans are safe from extinction or not. ~HIKARIxz —Preceding undated comment added 04:36, 19 August 2009 (UTC).

The least concern description is a measurement. It's a point on a scale. I think objecting to this is like objecting to giving an average tallness for the human species. Would you say, "What about short people"? Short people would contribute as much as tall people ... wait a minute ... no that's right:). The number of people dying are contributing as much as the number of people being born and living. HarryAlffa (talk) 14:45, 26 August 2009 (UTC)

Add "series" to the scientific classification box?

I think "Series: Amniota" should be added to the box. I have read all mammals (inc humans) are amniotes.

Also should subkingdom be changed to clade?

I would change this myself, but I am too scared to change such a major article if I am wrong, thanks. 220.253.58.95 (talk) 12:42, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

The infobox is the Template:Taxobox. Any changes made to it would effect just about every article about living things in Wikipedia (excepting only those that don't have a taxobox yet). I would strongly advise against changing the taxobox on your own. You would do better to offer any suggestions at Template talk:Taxobox. -- Donald Albury 17:20, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

It's bothered me for a while that we seem to have such a large, and rather arbitrary, taxonomic list in Human — mainly because I've yet to see such a sprawling listing for any other species. Now, I'm a huge fan of taxonomy, and I think that Human warrants a lot of taxonomic material more than any other species article (because it's in some ways the informal 'gateway' to the whole animal kingdom, being the most frequented animal article), but perhaps we should look back over precisely which entries we do and don't need. As a beginning to that endeavor, I've done a survey of about 115 articles, almost all of them featured articles, covering animal species. Every animal species page I've so far found lists the following: Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, and Species. Most species only use those 7 designations, including the following:

Bonobo, Eastern Gorilla, Western Gorilla, Lar Gibbon, Rhesus Macaque, North American Beaver, Domestic pig, Horse, American Black Bear, Brown Bear, Tiger, Archaeopteryx, Black Vulture, American Goldfinch, Andean Condor, Arctic Tern, Australian Green Tree Frog, Australian Magpie, Bald Eagle, Barn Swallow, Blue Iguana, California Condor, Cane Toad, Cattle Egret, Chiffchaff, Common Blackbird, Common Raven, Common Treecreeper, Cougar, Emperor Penguin, Emu, Greater Crested Tern, Green and Golden Bell Frog, Hawksbill turtle, House Martin, Island Fox, Jaguar, King Vulture, Lion, Macaroni Penguin, Mourning Dove, Northern Pintail, Ocean sunfish, Peregrine Falcon, Platypus, Pygmy Hippopotamus, Raccoon, Red-backed Fairy-wren, Red-billed Chough, Red-necked Grebe, Red-winged Fairy-wren, Ring-tailed Lemur, Ruff, Rufous-crowned Sparrow, Song Thrush, Splendid Fairy-wren, Sumatran Rhinoceros, Superb Fairy-wren, Tawny Owl, Tree Sparrow, Turkey Vulture, Variegated Fairy-wren, White-breasted Nuthatch, White-winged Fairy-wren, Willie Wagtail

The random species I found that use other designations (in addition to the above 7) are, listed by the ones they use (with extinct species crossed out to differentiate them):

This should give some initial sense of which ranks are more or less rare (e.g., the only non-rare ones seem to be suborder and subfamily, though this varies by clade, e.g., all the dinosaurs have Superorder Dinosauria too). This in itself won't tell us which to use, since different species obviously warrant different included taxonomic designations, depending on how important that particular rank is (both inherently and in regard to the species in question). But I think it's reason enough to rethink our current listing: 60% of the species I found don't use any ranks other than the standard 7, and most of the remaining 40% only use 1 or 2 extra ranks, whereas Human uses 14 extra ranks (for a grand total of 21!.. not counting subspecies). We should look carefully over each rank and decide which ones to keep, which to remove, and, yes, also which to consider adding. -Silence (talk) 20:38, 21 August 2009 (UTC)

I suspect that Humans have such a detailed listing because humans and their close relatives have received a lot of attention from taxonomists. I also suspect that many other organisms have similarly long 'pedigrees' if you dig into the scientific literature, but have not received as much attention from WP editors as this article has. That said, I found this style guidance in Wikipedia:Taxobox usage#Unranked taxa, "Use unranked taxa sparingly. The need to include unranked taxa generally indicates that you are following phylogenetic nomenclature. It is usually better to abbreviate the classification to the major ranks and then discuss the classification in more detail in the article". I think that justifies trimming the list of taxa in the taxobox as long as the classification (from, say, Primates downZ) is included somewhere in the article (and better as a discussion than as a list). I see no reason to include all the minutiae of non-Linnaean taxonomic nomenclature from Eukaryote to Euarchontoglires in this article. -- Donald Albury 12:33, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
Perhaps I was unclear. Pretty much all of the 115 species I listed above have equally long, equally detailed taxonomic listings. At most, some might have 1 or 2 more rankings specified than the rest, but the level of detail is pretty uniform for well-studied, extant species. The entire point of my above post has nothing to do with which taxa are known for species; the post was discussing which taxa are noteworthy enough to actually list in the taxobox. I was demonstrating that most species articles, including almost all FAs, have only 7 rankings listed, even though there are usually 40-50 actual rankings known for any relatively common species. Just look at our Human taxonomy article.
You also don't seem to have noticed what "unranked taxa" means here. A taxon is unranked if and only if it does not have "Magnorder", "Class", "Subfamily", etc. next to its name. In my above examples, only a single one of the species (T. rex) had any 'unranked' clades in the taxobox. So the unranked rule is irrelevant here, because zero of the current entries we've listed are unranked. If it was Wikipedia's job to list every ranked clade, we'd have all of the following listed (ones currently already on Human bolded):
  • Domain: Eukarya
    • Subdomain: Unikonta
      • Superkingdom: Opisthokonta
        • Kingdom: Animalia
          • Subkingdom: Eumetazoa
            • Infrakingdom: Chorodonia
              • Superphylum: Deuterostomia
                • Phylum: Chordata
                  • Subphylum: Vertebrata
                    • Infraphylum: Gnathostomata
                      • Superclass: Tetrapoda
                        • Series: Amniota
                          • Class: Mammalia
                            • Subclass: Theriiformes
                              • Infraclass: Holotheria
                                • Superlegion: Trechnotheria
                                  • Legion: Cladotheria
                                    • Sublegion: Zatheria
                                      • Infralegion: Tribosphenica
                                        • Supercohort: Theria
                                          • Cohort: Eutheria
                                            • Magnorder: Euarchontoglires
                                              • Grandorder: Archonta
                                                • Superorder: Euarchonta
                                                  • Epiorder: Primatomorpha
                                                    • Order: Primates
                                                      • Suborder: Haplorrhini
                                                        • Infraorder: Simiiformes
                                                          • Parvorder: Catarrhini
                                                            • Superfamily: Hominoidea
                                                              • Family: Hominidae
                                                                • Subfamily: Homininae
                                                                  • Tribe: Hominini
                                                                    • Subtribe: Hominina
                                                                      • Genus: Homo
                                                                        • Species: H. sapiens
                                                                          • Subspecies: H. s. sapiens

This absurdly sprawling listing is already excluding the unranked clades, which include: Biota, Cytota, Neomura, Eumetazoa, Bilateria, Coelomata, Craniata, Sarcopterygii, Mammaliaformes, and Placentalia. -Silence (talk) 17:44, 22 August 2009 (UTC)

My personal recommendation would be to go over the current ranks we have listed, and see (a) when the less-common ones are used by other articles, to see if Human meets similar requirements; and (b) what biological information the rank signifies for Humans (e.g., what anatomical information does being a Gnathostome tell us? does it differentiate humans from a large clade, or a small one? assuming it's a significant deviation from a large clade, will the distinction be obvious, or is it subtle yet important?); and (c) whether that information, if not broadly important (like 'Animialia' or 'Eukarya' is), is at least specific enough to humans that it isn't redundant. For example, a clade shared only by humans and chimpanzees might be more important than one shared by all placental mammals on this particular article. For this reason, I'd be inclined to recommend that we include more taxa that are 'lower down' on the ladder, since these will be the ones that you can't find on just any old mammal, animal, deuterostome, etc. article; for the higher clades, we should only include those that are especially important and distinct, like Eukarya and Chordata (whereas I'd be more hesitant to assume that we need to list Chordata and Vertebrata, since there are so few species differentiated by one and not the other). -Silence (talk) 17:52, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
At this particular moment, although in lieu of the rigorous analysis I suggested, my recommendation would be to remove: Subkingdom Eumetazoa (which only differentiates us from sponges and placozoans), Subphylum Vertebrata (which only differentiates us from lancelets and sea squirts), Infraphylum Gnathostomata (which only differentiates us from lampreys and hagfish), and Subclass Theria (which only differentiates us from platypuses and echidnas). I can't see a strong case being made for any of these that wouldn't also require us (with better reason!) to include Euarchontoglires, Unikonta, Amniota, etc. -Silence (talk) 18:03, 22 August 2009 (UTC)
Let me be more specific, I think it would be best to use only 'Linnaean' ranks (kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species, which, incidentally, are the only taxa actually coded into the taxobox template) in taxoboxes, at least for the higher taxa (say above 'family' in an article about a species', above 'class' for an article about an 'order'), but I guess that needs to be discussed over at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Tree of life. On a second note, please stop copying in the full lists from the taxoboxes you cite. A link is sufficient, and copying in those long lists makes your posts, which are already very long, even longer. -- Donald Albury 13:47, 23 August 2009 (UTC)
I haven't copy-pasted anything; I spent several hours collating and hand-writing all of the above lists, for the purpose of improving the article by having this data on hand. As far as I see, this information was not already available anywhere on Wikipedia (though I already linked to a page with much of the information, albeit more difficult to parse and contrast). Also, my posts on this thread are not very long, excepting the lists. And your idea is a poor one (for many species, some of the Linnaean ranks will be uninformative, whereas other ranks, like the 'Dinosaur' taxon, will be very important), but feel free to propose it at WikiProject Tree of Life. -Silence (talk) 19:43, 23 August 2009 (UTC)

Reconsidering the lead image

As the editor who filed the RFC above, I want to note that following an extraordinarily lengthy dialogue with Silence and an even lengthier internal monologue, I have modified my position on the lead image of this article. While I still believe that the Pioneer plaque is, on balance, a reasonable choice with certain advantages, I have arrived at the conclusion that its drawbacks are significant enough to warrant serious consideration of an alternative.

Silence has argued that Human is primarily or fundamentally a biology article. (I paraphrase.) I don't fully agree with that, but I do think that biology is one of the key bases of the article. As such, use of the Pioneer image in the taxobox is at variance with the respective images in the taxoboxes of articles about other animal species, and I am inclined to wonder whether there is any sufficiently good reason for this one—a simple etching rather than a photo—to be so different.

Silence has also argued—and I paraphrase again—that by using the Pioneer image here, we are perpetuating an instance of self-censorship. If this is the case, then I'd say we probably should take a careful look at the reasons behind the altering of the woman's depiction on the plaque because, by reproducing the image in such a prominent place where many readers are bound to see it as symbolic, we may be inadvertently giving tacit approval to a subtly damaging form of patriarchal bias. To rephrase that in wikispeak, while I don't see that the image violates the "Wikipedia isn't censored" policy per se, it may well be at odds with the spirit of WP:NPOV.

A third point in favor of changing the image is that it may mislead or misinform certain visitors to the article about a certain anatomical feature. I don't believe that would happen often, and it might not happen at all, but if it did (and it's not inconceivable), that would be an unfortunate thing in an encyclopedia article. In other words, the image is inaccurate, and inaccuracy is not a good property for the most prominent image in a major article.

Whether these points give sufficient reason to change the image, I don't know, but I hope that various regulars and passersby will give them some serious thought (and refute them if I got it wrong). By no means am I arguing we should abandon the current image; I simply have moderated my vehement opposition to abandoning it and am now . . . hugging the fence, shall we say. Rivertorch (talk) 09:17, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

But again, do you prefer another image? If so, which one? I don't see a consensus to remove the Pioneer plaque image, much less what to replace it with. -- Donald Albury 12:35, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
I don't prefer another image but I'm trying to hold my personal opinion and instinct at bay and consider first only whether the current image is appropriate. If consensus develops that it isn't, then the question of a replacement can be considered separately at that time. Not sure, but I think that approach might streamline the discussion. Rivertorch (talk) 15:54, 30 August 2009 (UTC)
It's clear that there isn't consensus for any particular image — including the plaque. And I don't think it will be possible to develop a consensus unless we seriously consider the alternatives. To do that, we have to evaluate all the options on a level playing field, based on their merits. Pretend, for example, that a photograph of humans had been at the top of Human, criticized at times but basically stable, for many years now, and the plaque were being proposed as a replacement. I think the number of unrebutted problems surrounding the plaque are solid grounds for at the very least taking away its "default" status and permitting editors to try out constructive new image ideas. -Silence (talk) 18:07, 30 August 2009 (UTC)

The draw of the plaque is based, to some extent at least, in that it is ostensibly a unique attempt by mankind as a sort of inter-species greeting card: "Hi. This is us." Understanding, of course, that no other animals' pages include such a thing, I would point out that we have very few ladybird beetles currently contributing to Wikipedia... /cough

Pretending to be objective, in this case, is just a little silly--and while, obviously, any image selected to represent humanity at the top of this article is going to draw a significant amount of flak--thought not always from the same quarters--I think this image's ability to not get pulled through all this time is indicative of some level of suitability for the job. (Note that I am not saying there are not other images which, had they been selected at the same time as this, would not have served just as well--and I don't even mean to rule out photographs.)

I would suggest, however, that a second factor in this image's longevity is the very fact that it seems to do such a poor job of representing us. The people in this picture look so little like anyone that it's difficult to fault it (compared to other representative images) for being biased in any particular fashion. That is, I propose that a less detailed image will serve better in this capacity than a more detailed image. Not that I'd like to see a stick figure in that box, but perhaps one of those silly--and famous--Da Vinci sketches?

...again, I would draw attention to my first point: we are the only species, thus far, to have submitted an image to the universe as a representation of "Us." Obviously, not all of us got a vote on the Pioneer image, and a lot of us hate it, but simply because it doesn't look like us is really no excuse; there are billions of us, and most of Wikipedia's users can tell the difference between each and every one. J.M. Archer (talk) 22:08, 3 September 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for the input! All of your points are arguments supporting this proposition: "The plaque is relatively uncontroversial." Even if that were true, it would not be relevant. What should matter here is not the question "Is the plaque uncontroversial?", but rather "Is the plaque encyclopedic?". An encyclopedia's job is to inform with accuracy (which means no censorship) and relevance (which means an image of a human, not an image of an image of a human).
If the nicest thing we can say about an image is that "it seems to do such a poor job of representing" our subject matter, its inappropriateness should be self-evident. Stability of course isn't a bad thing, but it is not Wikipedia's job to be (Ameri/Eurocentrically) politically correct. I'd be very interested in whether you disagree with the points made on Talk:Human/FAQdraft. -Silence (talk) 00:42, 4 September 2009 (UTC)
Given that humans are reading Wikipedia, the article does not urgently need to inform the reader what a naked human looks like. The table of contents helpfully lists "Anatomy" which says "For more details ... see Human anatomy...", and the linked article has all the details, including a precise picture and links to vulva and penis. That is exactly as it should be: all the information is readily available, with full illustrations. As explained above, the Pioneer plaque is the only representation of humanity that has been purposely sent to the stars, and as such it is a very fitting illustration of the human spirit. In summary, the Pioneer plaque is an excellent illustration for this article (which is not an anatomy lesson). Johnuniq (talk) 08:06, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
No one is claiming that the lead image should be an anatomy lesson or even that it should show humans without clothes. All we are asking is that what is shown is correct and, in particular, not intentionally incorrect. Although I liked the concept of the plaque at the time I do not see it as an illustration of the human spirit. This certainly was not the artist's intention. However, even if the image were a perfect representation of the human spirit that would still not be what was required for the lead image in a WP article on humans. We need to show a typical example of real humans, just like we do with every other article of the same type.Martin Hogbin (talk) 15:55, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
It is neither necessary, nor is it permitted by Wikipedia policy, for us to endorse an image as a "representation of humanity", much less the best "representation of humanity". To use the Pioneer plaque as a symbol for all mankind at the top of our Human article (as opposed to simply using it at the top of its proper article, Pioneer plaque) is to explicitly state that anyone deviating from the ideal set by the image is 'less human' than the Western-looking, androcentric couple we have preferred. As explained in Talk:Human/FAQdraft, this is not an article called 'Human nature' of 'Artistic depictions of humans'; it is an article called Human, which means that it should simply depict a human in its lead, in the same way that a Frog and Bird are depicted at the top of their respective articles. No vague symbols. We don't put doodles of frogs and birds at the top of Frog and Bird just because we think that our readers know what frogs and birds are already!! We put photos there, because the animal itself (and not art illustrating the human) simply is the article's topic, and because it would be less visually informative and to-the-point to use a crude caricature.
It is just an added bonus that in this case, it is also vastly more NPOV to use a straightforward photograph. Ah yes, a Wikipedia article dominated by Western users like me finds it natural to pick a U.S.-centric representation of humanity (as opposed to, say, possibly the most common 'representation of humans' in human history—and one with the added bonus of not misleading users with the illusory impression of anatomical accuracy), and a Wikipedia article dominated by male users like me finds it natural to pick one which deliberately (to avoid offending "puritanical" or "Victorian" sensibilities, according to Sagan) censors the female genitalia, presents the male as active and the female as passive, etc. I am sure it is a coincidence, and if the male's penis were missing and the woman's vulva present instead, editors here would be just as undisturbed by the censorship and inaccuracy. :P Just sayin'.
As for your point that "Given that humans are reading Wikipedia, the article does not urgently need to inform the reader what a naked human looks like", I agree. (Though it is obviously not a bad thing if we do educate our readers on this point, along with other important points.) That is why I am suggesting an image, Akha cropped, where the humans are clothed (thus clearly, directly depicting culture); an accurate (i.e., uncensored) anatomy image would be fine in the Human#Biology section, if anywhere. What is urgent is not that we plaster our readers with pictures of genitalia wherever possible. What is urgent is that we not misinform them when we do present images which appear to be anatomical sketches. -Silence (talk) 16:08, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Unfortunately, it appears to be necessary to chime in on each and every duplication of this exact same discussion that comes up (for what, 4 years now?!). It has long been, and continues to be, the case that the Pioneer plaque is a far better lead image than any proposed alternative, is encyclopedic, and has numerous nice features positively recommending it over various photographic/clinical alternatives. Silence is a voice in the wilderness arguing against this, and I continue to think it shows somewhat bad faith for him/her to try to hoist a so-called "FAQ" that consists of his/her unilateral opinion. LotLE×talk 08:19, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Lulu, Silence has given very detailed reasons why the Pioneer image is not suitable for the lead, based on WP policies, comparison with similar articles on other animals, and general good practice for an encyclopedia. Rivertorch, to his great credit, has engaged in a long dialogue with Silence on the subject and has accepted at least some of Silence's points. All you have done is repeatedly claim that our objection to this image is just because we do not like it. In fact, your support for the image is just because you do like it. I can understand that, it was an interesting and exciting concept to send a human image beyond our solar system but that image used was produced for that specific purpose and affected by many technical and social issues as well as the rush to get it ready in time to meet the launch schedule. It was not designed or intended to be an image in an encyclopedia article on humans.
You talk about 'numerous nice features'. Perhaps you can tell us exactly what they are and why the make the image suitable for this specific purpose. You have complained about the FAQ. Why not show us your detailed counter arguments to the points made. Martin Hogbin (talk) 15:46, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
Lulu, this is a carbon-copy of your last few comments here. I enormously appreciate new input and arguments, especially if you can directly explain to me where I've erred in the many policies I've explicitly cited and the suggestions I've made. Best of all, you could cite policy pages explicitly supporting your position, which would resolve this mess at once. Instead, like your last few comments, all you're doing here is accusing editors you disagree with of bad faith, asserting your opinion on the plaque without supporting it, and alleging that the plaque is the perfect image for no immediately apparent reason. The fact that this image continues to be controversial is a good reason to try a new alternative. No user has pointed to even a single actual problem, much less a policy violation as with the Pioneer plaque, that the Akha replacement suffers from. I'm surprised I even have to point such a silly and obvious thing out, but the fact that it wasn't sent into space is if anything an advantage, since this isn't the article on space flight. (See Wikipedia:Images, which explains image relevancy with examples like "Rice is best represented with an image of plain rice, not fried rice." And an artistic picture of a human would be worse than plain rice or fried rice: it would be illustrating Rice with an impressionistic sketch of rice.) It has been pointed out multiple times that this image violates Wikipedia policies, conventions, guidelines, precedents, and the fundamental purpose of Wikipedia, which is to encyclopedically educate users on all immediately relevant topics (including, on this article, most primarily human culture and human biology!), not to authoritatively decree which artistic depictions of human are the most 'representative' of the entire human race, on an article which isn't even about artistic depictions of the entire human race, any more than Earth is just about artistic depictions of Earth.) -Silence (talk) 16:08, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
Also, I made Talk:Human/FAQdraft in the hopes of starting a collaborative endeavor to work out what we should, and shouldn't, be looking for in a lead image. I made the points explicitly there because I want people who disagree with them to explain why they are incorrect, providing relevant counter-examples, policies, etc. The FAQ has zero authority; as the name says, it is but a possible draft. Its real function is to try and get you pro-plaque editors to directly respond to the points there so that we can finally work out why you think that Wikipedian precedent would favor the plaque over an accurate and uncensored photograph. So: Tear the FAQ a new one!! Where is it right? Where is it wrong? This is discussion, and discussion is the soul of consensus. -Silence (talk) 16:16, 5 September 2009 (UTC)
I find myself largely in agreement with both Martin and Silence in terms of procedure. As tedious as it may be to revisit this topic yet again, I think that the image is controversial enough to warrant another look. I think some new arguments may have been made, and I suspect that some old arguments weren't analyzed adequately before. By no means am I sure that such arguments are correct, but I am confident that some are valid and deserving of serious consideration rather than reflexive replies. Rivertorch (talk) 20:37, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

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