[Foundation-l] foundation-l Digest, Vol 61, Issue 44

Anthony wikimail at inbox.org
Thu Apr 30 00:10:06 UTC 2009


On Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 4:03 PM, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com>wrote:

> > Should commons allow images which are biased?
>
> Can an image be biased out of context?


Can text?


> It is the usage of the images
> that may or may not be biased, the images themselves are inherently
> neutral.


It's not clear to me what that is supposed to mean, but from my
understanding of what you're saying I think I have to disagree.  I would say
that
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c9/Racistcampaignposter1.jpg,
the image in itself, is biased, but that the context at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Racistcampaignposter1.jpg renders it
neutral.

But this is probably shorthand for a more precise meaning.  Would commons
accept a racist caricature of Obama with no context, which someone uploaded
as File:Picture834.jpg?  Maybe so.  Or maybe that would fall under some
other rule.  I really don't know.
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Racistcampaignposter1.jpg>


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