Tony Sidaway wrote:
Stan Shebs said:
I think it would be really helpful to the goal of
encyclopedia creation if it were possible for, say, the USGS to
assign one of their technical writers to the task of improving WP's
info on mountain ranges, or seafloor vents, or volcano prediction, plus
adding pictures that are not currently available on the net.
That kind of win can't happen if we don't come up with some way
to better accommodate organizational policies on sexual harassment.
So the situation is this. You think that USGS would be willing to assign
one of its technical writers to improve geometric data, but this chap is
unlikely to want to use Wikipedia in its current state because he might be
falsely accused, by person or persons unknown, of sexual harassment?
Curiouser and curiouser!
Welcome to the 21st century. The US Geological Survey is
actually a pretty liberal crowd. I've been to their offices
in California, and they're the types who would be totally in
favor of large-scale contribution to WP; I don't think it's
all far-fetched to have some of their scientists and writers
contribute as part of their day jobs.
However, the USGS is also an agency of the US govt, which as
we know has all kinds of rules and policies that we and the
USGS people might find idiotic, but it's not something they
can do anything about. So prudent USGS managers will not ask
their minions to do anything for WP during work, because the
managers could potentially be held liable as well as the minions,
especially should the boobie pictures happen to pop up just as
the Congressional oversight committee happens to be walking
through. (Note that turning off images is counterproductive
if part of your work is to upload images.) We likely wouldn't
ever hear about such a decision, at most one might notice a
scarcity of experts participating in WP.
Ironically, organizations' rules forbidding images of
nudity were originally pushed by feminist and other groups
combating workplace sexism...
Stan