Wikipedia:Mediation Cabal/Cases/2006-08-12 Coulrophobia

Wikipedia Mediation Cabal
Article	Coulrophobia
Status	closed
Request date	Unknown
Requesting party	Unknown
Mediator(s)	Cowman109 (talk · contribs)
Comment	Discussion occuring on talk page.

Mediation Case: 2006-08-12 Coulrophobia

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Request Information

Request made by: 69.181.120.218

Where is the issue taking place?

At the article for Coulrophobia, some users (including myself) are offended by the insistent use of a rather obnoxious photo of a clown right on the main page. Since Coulrophobia is the fear of clowns, while it would appear at first glance that such a picture might in fact be illustrative, it really does not illustrate the article in any reasonable manner and adds nothing to it of value. Previously, the photo had a caption of 'Ahh! A clown!' which was blatantly insulting to people sho suffer from coulrophobia.

In fact, phobias do exist, and there is no photo of a tarantula or other spider at the article on Arachnophobia. While there may be some academic debate as to the validity of certain phobias (which to this user seems absurd for scholars to debate whether or not people unknown to them might have a given fear or not) this is not a reason to blatantly bait and tease sufferers thereof.

It should be noted that this author does not have coulrophobia, but simply a strong dislike of clowns. I have, however, known at least one person who would, if surprised by a clown (or mime, but not a normally-dressed person nor someone dressed in some other ecentric fashion such as ren-garb or as a pirate) literally run away in fear.

Since some of the more likely people to browse the Coulrophobia wikipedia entry wold be, in fact, sufferers of coulrophobia, it seems unnecessarily cruel to include this picture right there at the top of the page.

As the picture illustrates a clown and does not in any way illustrate the fear of clowns it's neither necessary nor useful to the article. Its only valid purpose in being there is as decoration, and as such is inappropriate decoration.

Supporters of the image have both ridiculed people for fear of clowns in some middle-school antics, and have claimed that removal of the picture counts as censorship. This author disagrees with this viewpoint, in that censorship is the suppression of information and the blatantly obnoxious image of a clown on a page focused on the fear of the same is not informational (the article on clowns is clearly linked any curious reader who may not, in fact, know what a clown is can easily peruse the relevant link, whereas the article should remain on topic and deal with the fear of clowns rather than illustrating clowns themselves. The fact that this coincides with sympathy and non-cruelty to alleged sufferers of this symptom should underscore the need to avoid the pointless image.

Who's involved?

See talk page for Coulrophobia.

What's going on?

See above

What would you like to change about that?

The picture should be removed and left removed. If another picture which somehow demonstrated the fear of clowns were to be added, even if this image did frighten coulrophibiacs, it would at least be valid (though such merit would almost certainly also be the subject of debate).

Would you prefer we work discreetly? If so, how can we reach you?

I think discreet in this instance would be a bad thing. You can reach me on my ip address talk page here.

Mediator response

This matter seems to be solveable by a talk page discussion, so I have accepted this case and will try to provoke som conversation there. Cowman109^Talk 23:46, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Well, the issue seems to have died down, so I am closing this case. There seem to be no objections to keeping the current image out, but the page remains on my watchlist. Cowman109^Talk 03:26, 20 August 2006 (UTC)

Compromise offers

This section is for listing and discussing compromise offers.

Discussion

While using the talk page of the article in question to solve a dispute is encouraged to involve a larger audience, feel free to discuss the case below if that is not possible. Other mediators are also encouraged to join in on the discussion as Wikipedia is based on consensus.

I'm not a party to this, but wouldn't it make more sense to use a (free) image of a scary clown? Not to be terrifying people who are scared of clowns, but because this article is about being scared of clowns. - A Man In Bl♟ck (conspire | past ops) 23:44, 12 August 2006 (UTC)