Talk:Human/Image

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This is the current image at the top of Human. Although it is an adequate temporary compromise, it should be replaced eventually with a high-quality, informative photograph, for the same reason that articles like Frog aren't headed by an illustration of a frog. The fact that humans are diverse is not reason to use a vaguer image and sacrifice informational value for political correctness, and it demonstrates a double standard to be terrified of giving an example of humans at the top of Human when we are not afraid to do so for much more diverse groups of organisms.

Most of the editors of the Human argument are in agreement that the current image used at the top of the article is sub-optimal; it is a placeholder image used more because it's relatively uncontroversial than because it's ideal. However, we should keep in mind the fact that there are better potential images to adorn the top of the article, and keep our eyes open should such an image ever arise.

In order to focus this long-term search, which can be either passive (just watching out for new images that are uploaded to the Commons) or active (going out and about and trying to take a suitable photograph oneself), we should agree on a set of ideal criteria for such an image. Although we will obviously always end up settling for a sub-optimal image, the more of these criteria an image meets, the better a choice it is for the top of the article. So, an absolutely ideal image for the top of Human would have the following characteristics:

1. It would be a very high-quality color photograph, with nice use of framing and an eye-catching (but not disorienting) perspective.
2. It would be more vertical than horizontal; an overly wide image is much more problematic than a long image because it will stretch the taxobox and interfere with the page's aesthetics and layout.
3. Despite conveying as much important information as possible, it should, above all, not be crowded: simplicity and clarity is one of the most important elements of an informative and eye-catching photograph.
4. It should be clearly focused on the human(s) in the shot, with as little as possible background or side-information.
5. To facilitate this, the background should be relatively simple, and, preferably, it should be in an urban environment, not a countryside scene, so as to peripherally showcase human-made structures such as buildings in the background.
6. It would have 1–3 people focused on in the shot, preferably an adult (35–65 years old) male and female human, accompanied by a male or female child (representing the basic family unit).
7. It would depict the human(s) walking, not standing still or sitting or running, in order to demonstrate the typical, two-legged ambulation that characterizes humans and frees their arms for tool-using.
8. Accordingly, there would be at least one hand-held tool or device being used by the humans, such as a cell phone. This would emphasize the important aspect of humans that they make constant usage of elaborate tools in day-to-day life, most often manipulated by their hands.
9. At least one of the humans would be clearly talking, ideally with accompanying hand-gestures (like pointing off in the distance or making a motion emphasizing a point), in order to demonstrate human communication, another very important aspect of human society.
10. All of the humans would be clothed, because that's how human beings are most commonly encountered: unclothed depictions should be used at the top of the "biology" section, in order to clearly depict their anatomy, but it is potentially misleading to use such an image as the lead image in the article: even though it is more anatomically informative to have a naked picture, it is less informative regarding human society and culture.
11. It must be free-use, not fair-use.

This list should be used to give us a better general idea of what qualities to look for in images. An image doesn't have to meet all the requirements to be sufficient to replace the current pic, but it's certainly something to aim for.

[edit] Things the image should not be

This is everything a lead-section image should not be: it says nothing about how humans look.

"Artsy" images sacrifice informational value for style and beauty.

Collages sacrifice usefulness for political correctness: they provide more human variety, but make images that much smaller and less detailed.

1. Hand-drawn: an illustration is necessarily more stylized and simplified than a photograph, and therefore less valuable as a source of information about what humans look like.
2. Black-and-white: for the same reason, a color photograph is superior to a black-and-white one.
3. Artsy: although such photographs may be beautiful, they are not as useful as straightforward ones, especially when they sacrifice informational content for style.
4. 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.
5. A collage or crowd shot: Such photographs raise the same neutrality problems as the above, in that we must justify why we chose the specific crowd we did, and why that crowd excludes certain groups. In contrast, simply providing a specific random example of humans, which is not meant to represent every major group of humans, sidesteps such NPOV disputes. Furthermore, such photographs are dramatically less useful or aesthetically pleasing, in that they will need to be shrunk so much that they will seem cluttered and have relatively little clear, important information on what individual humans look like.
6. Symbolic or abstract: Attempts to symbolize, rather than directly depict, humanity are useless to readers trying to learn about mankind, and more likely to offend than simple providing a photograph of a human being.
7. Fair-use: No matter how high-quality the image is, if it's not free-use, we can't make it the top image for such a high-profile Wikipedia article.
8. Misleading or confusing: Above all, the image should not unnecessarily promote misconceptions or ambiguities about humanity.

[edit] Discussion

I made this page to centralize discussion about possible future images for the top of the Human article; feel free to provide feedback on criticism on the above statements. If you dispute any of the criteria, they may be removed. Also feel free, of course, to propose images that would make excellent replacements for the hand-drawn one above. -Silence 08:00, 26 January 2007 (UTC)