>My beef with Wikipedia is the squeaky wheel gets the grease problem: a vocal minority easily drowns out the more rational but less rabid. For example: why does the article on pregnancy need a naked woman on it? The talk page dismisses all arguments of "why is this necessary, what's wrong with this other photo of a clothed pregnant woman" with "we don't censor".
The irony is palpable. Upon reading this, I went to the Wikipedia article on Pregnancy and looked at the talk page. I found a lot of surprisingly decent and rational discussion about the choice of the image, including some gems:
"There is no profanity in any of the later 3 images. These images depict the natural condition of pregnancy (external manifestation, physical changes, etc), to which image 1 alone would not be able to do justice."
"Someone recently used the phrase "adolescent glee" to describe the attitudes of some editors who argue for the most prominent possible placement of nudity, and that resonates with me. Just because we can (and IMO should) include this image somewhere in the article does not mean that we should make it be the first and largest image—or that we should have zero images of pregnant women who aren't in a state of undress. If you want to present pregnancy as a part of normal life, then showing exclusively images of women who are undressed isn't the way to go about it."
Regardless of whom you agree with, both sides are putting forth legitimate arguments. Your intentional misrepresentation of the discussion raises questions about your motives.
I've had similar concerns with many articles as the GP (as clarified in the sibling comment): namely that so much of it is a clash of ideologies, and it's inconstant with my own. I don't have the time or inclination to deal with ideologues—I had enough of that as an elected public education official.
As a specific example, consider the pregnancy article already under question. In my mind, a reasonable compromise would be to move to image (not remove it) and put it behind a link labeled "image of nude pregnant woman" or a mask (like the spoiler codes in game forms) or some other easily identifiable method. I won't argue whether images like that has value or not [1], but the clash between opposing moral standards (if you'll pardon the potentially charged term) is pervasive in the talk pages.
There are some images that I don't feel the need to look at, and more particularly, don't wish my young children to look at. I understand that not everyone feels that way (I'm not telling anyone how to raise their kids), but by placing such images front-and-center, I feel blindsided or robbed of the choice to seek out such things. Yet on Wikipedia, this sort of perspective is consistently rejected ("No censorship!"). I see it as the amoral being preferred to the moral, and I'm uncomfortable supporting an organization that consistently acts in such a way. In recognition of opposing views I'm not suggesting that images like this be removed--just labeled or easily masked so that I can choose to see it if I want, and similarly choose not to.
I'm not trying to push my view on others, but Wikipedia (as embodied by its editors) pushes its view on me.
1: It seemed to me from the talk page that some of those in favor of keeping the nude pictures had emotional attachments to the image rather than objective reasoning.
What questions does it raise about my motives? Please ask the questions explicitly and I will address them, because although it reads like I should be offended in some way, I can't figure out what exactly you seem to be implying. Maybe I'm a paid shill for some wikipedia competitor?
It's hard for me to intentionally misrepresent the discussion since I refuse to visit the page from work because I don't want an image of a naked woman on my computer screen at work.
There are arguments there that say "hey, that's unnecessary, distracting, and this picture that would not be construed as inappropriate for work or school suits the article just as well". I don't recall what "the later 3 images" refers to. Assuming it was support of the naked image (because otherwise, you've presented no support of rational argument in favor of it), it supports my point: saying that people should not consider it vulgar is not a legitimate response to "we should not unnecessarily alienate users who may be uncomfortable accessing a site with unexpected naked women"
The irony is palpable. Upon reading this, I went to the Wikipedia article on Pregnancy and looked at the talk page. I found a lot of surprisingly decent and rational discussion about the choice of the image, including some gems:
"There is no profanity in any of the later 3 images. These images depict the natural condition of pregnancy (external manifestation, physical changes, etc), to which image 1 alone would not be able to do justice."
"Someone recently used the phrase "adolescent glee" to describe the attitudes of some editors who argue for the most prominent possible placement of nudity, and that resonates with me. Just because we can (and IMO should) include this image somewhere in the article does not mean that we should make it be the first and largest image—or that we should have zero images of pregnant women who aren't in a state of undress. If you want to present pregnancy as a part of normal life, then showing exclusively images of women who are undressed isn't the way to go about it."
Regardless of whom you agree with, both sides are putting forth legitimate arguments. Your intentional misrepresentation of the discussion raises questions about your motives.