Talk:Blond/Archive 5

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Map

There are mistakes in the map. Here is the original: http://strangemaps.wordpress.com/2007/12/04/214-the-blonde-map-of-europe/. See, northern France is not accurate, and especially, there is no reason to make Latvia yellow. Can the author correct please? --Little sawyer (talk) 23:13, 3 July 2010 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Little sawyer (talk • contribs)

You can find various versions of this kind of map. Here's yet another[1] - I believe this comes from one of Carleton Coon's books. I don't think that these maps can ever be regarded as 100 per cent accurate, they just show the general picture that lighter hair is more common around southern Scandinavia and the Baltic, and becomes increasingly less so in concentric bands further away from this region.--Pondle (talk) 01:13, 4 July 2010 (UTC)
In fact, the work of Coon has been made from the studies of other scientists. And there was a huge problem of methodology between the French and the German ones : the first ones have taken adult samples, while the second have taken children samples. This explains the contrast of the map in so close regions. In fact, according to other studies, in the 19th century, southern Germany would have rather the same hair-standard as south-central France (Auvergne, Dauphiné). This must be mentioned in the article. And light-feature isolation of South-Eastern Italy and Galicia is complete original (and fantasy) research compared to the original Coon's work. I will try to draw a better map (with sources of course). --Plombsoldier (talk) 19:55, 28 September 2010 (UTC)

source and date issues

The map does not represent actual measurement, but an hypothesis by an unnamed person. Without sourcing, it's not really proper to include in this article. Also it doesn't say when it is relevant: pre-Roman times? rewinn (talk) 03:21, 14 August 2010 (UTC)

I believe the source is: Peter Frost, where he sumarizes his article Peter Frost (2006), "European hair and eye color - A case of frequency-dependent sexual selection?", Evolution and Human Behavior, n.27, 85-103. The Ogre (talk) 12:12, 14 August 2010 (UTC)
The legend on the map refers to an "indigenous population" which is a rather comical concept in terms of Europe's history of frequent migrations. Perhaps a more precise legend would be helpful; at least name the source since no dates for that distribution have been offered
NOW the map legend refers to an "historic" distribution, which is even sillier. Europe has THOUSANDS OF YEARS of history, and the movement of the tribes is known to have varied widely. The hair color map on the web page cited to appears to refer to modern distribution of hair color but does not say so explicitly. Perhaps it is referring to some 19th century work per http://carnby.altervista.org/lundraces/lundman-races1.htm and if so, it should say so: "19th century distribution of hair color". What does this map add to the objective content of this article? rewinn (talk) 00:37, 12 April 2011 (UTC)

deletion discussion

I have deleted the map since it is weakly sourced, undated, not correct at any known date, and per discussion above most likely not correct at any date at all. The concept that there is a greater frequency of blonds in Northern Europe than elsewhere, if supported, should be supported with more authoritative sourcing and, if illustrated with a map, should be illustrated with a map that is more accurate. I appreciate that someone evidently went to some effort to craft the map but that's no reason to spread inaccuracy. rewinn (talk) 04:36, 27 April 2011 (UTC)

Agreed. I believe there is a pretty well established consensus that this map, while vaguely giving the right general idea, is lacking in accuracy and detail.

Which map? (again)

I see no reason why the original Coon's map should not be included in the article. It is well detailed, and reasonably accurate. The book was published by a respectable publisher and Coon was a known anthropologist. The only reservation is the possible changing population and migration that happened since that time, which only requires to be addressed in the description. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.182.254.170 (talk) 22:39, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

I see someone has replaced a well established and sourced Coon's map with obviously erroneous one from Peter Frost's book which was already here a long time ago, before it(correctly) got deleted. The latter map is taken from a book "Beals & Hoijer (1965) An Introduction to Anthropology" and discusses hair and eye distribution on only one page. Frost not the two anthropologists never collected any actual data, it's just a quickly drawn map to show how pigmentation generally correlates with regions under ice during the last ice age to prove how light hair and eyes evolved. It is not meant to really accurately represent hair or eye color. Coon on the other hand collected 19th century data from various sources as well as regional pigmentation maps from different authors such as (Ranke, Beddoe, Livi , Topinard...) and synchronized them all in one map for the entire Europe. Of course it cannot be 100% accurate, especially due to migration since the data and the map were created. But until newer well sourced data comes is no doubt the best and most accurate map regarding this issue. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.182.10.159 (talk) 13:17, 24 November 2013 (UTC)

Blond hair percentages for France and Portugal

The article first states France is 10% blond, then states Portugal is 11% blond. This is certainly an issue of different definitions as Portugal is obviously not as blond as France. Recommend addressing this as it might misinform or confuse people. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.182.254.170 (talk) 23:00, 28 April 2013 (UTC)

My previous edit was in error, sorry. 213.91.145.85 (talk) 02:28, 26 January 2012 (UTC)

u

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumerian_language

176.249.246.255 (talk) 21:17, 4 February 2014 (UTC)

The map again

This issue has been discussed and I would like to raise it again, since the map is obviously not suitable for the article since it is highly incorrect (Northern Africa having the same blond hair frequency as France an the Balkans?!). I would suggest removing it, since it doesn't contain much usable demographic information. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kreuzkümmel (talk • contribs) 18:41, 3 December 2013 (UTC)

If nobody wishes to take stance on the matter I will remove it. --Kreuzkümmel (talk) 14:01, 5 December 2013 (UTC)


I removed the map, since it is very unlikely that France, Spain and the Balkans have the same blond hair frequence as the Balkans and nobody objected since I commented on this issue on 03.12. Besides, more serious doubts about the credibility of this map have been raised on its discussion pages. --Kreuzkümmel (talk) 19:35, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

I agree that the map should be removed due to lack of proof. However, many North Africans (Berbers) do in fact have light hair, though not as frequent as Southern Europeans. Afro-Eurasian (talk) 23:19, 6 February 2014 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was not moved. Though the votes were fairly evenly split, those opposed have the stronger policy-based arguments, rooted in WP:CRITERIA. While consistency is one of those criteria, it does not sanction unnecessary disambiguation of a group only because certain members of the group require it. Call it the Georgia–Washington Rule. --BDD (talk) 18:07, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Blond → Blond hair – The articles on brown, black, and red hair all include "hair" in their title. To be consistent, this article also should, unless there's a good reason why it doesn't. I realize, however, that "Blond hair" already exists as a redirect, which could complicate things. NealCruco (talk) 18:16, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

  • Oppose. With the exception of brunette, those other articles don't have a masculine and feminine form like blond does. Though the term blond is used for girls and women in addition to boys and men to describe hair color alone, blonde is used to describe the hair color and the sex of the person -- that the person is a blond-haired girl or woman. Two reasons why this article is titled Blond: Number 1 is because blond can refer to either a male or a female. Number 2 (which is actually the primary reason) is that blond almost always refers to hair color (or hair color and the sex of the person). The same cannot be stated of the terms brown, black, etc., which is why they need to be disambiguated with the word hair. Therefore, per WP:Common name, it seems to me that this article should remain titled Blond. Adding "hair" onto it, for the sake of consistency or not, is unneeded. Flyer22 (talk) 20:28, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
  • I think the red, black, and brown articles are WP:NATURALLY disambiguated - they would be at black if there was nothing else that was called black in English. So neutral for now Red Slash 23:57, 16 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose Superfluous disambiguation per wp:concise and wp:precise. walk victor falk talk 07:01, 22 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose. Unlike the other hair colors, blonde needs no further disambiguation. Dralwik|Have a Chat 04:12, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Support. Every example and discussion point in the article refers to blond hair. Leaving the article title as simply "blond" implies that "blond" is some other quality, feature, or aspect of humanity that is very obviously not addressed in the article. Or, to put it another way, if there is something about "blond" that does not refer to blond hair, then the article needs to explain it. Since the likelihood of that occurring is probably zero, I suggest we move the article to "blond hair" just "brunette" is redirected to "brown hair." Vortex4id (talk) 04:18, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
Vortex4id, like I noted above, "blond almost always refers to hair color (or hair color and the sex of the person)." It's common sense that blond means blond hair, which is why disambiguation is not needed in the article title or in the article. Brunette redirects to Brown hair because "brunette" is the feminine form; we don't need an article to cover the feminine form of "brown hair"; it should be, and is, covered in the Brown hair article, just like blonde redirects to, and is covered, in the Blond article (under a title that refers to both the masculine and feminine form). Flyer22 (talk) 05:29, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
Exactly. See my vote below. Andrewa (talk) 17:40, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
  • Oppose. No need to disambiguate, blond specifically and unambiguously refers to hair colour, unlike red (that term would be redhead but is still ambiguous) and also unlike brunette (which carries gender information as well). Andrewa (talk) 17:44, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Eye Colour is NOT associated with hair colour at all!

please remove "Generally, blond hair in Europeans is associated with lighter eye colour (gray, blue, green and hazel)"

I am a very light beige-blond man (muted gold)[level 9] I am from Liechtenstein my mother is Austrian where most of people is either median or Dark-golden-blond haired & my father is German and guess what we all and my family and my closest one regardless of which level of blond hair have (from level 6 = dark blond to level 10 =Lightest pale blond; since the term platinum as a matter of fact DO NOT EXIST when speaking of natural hair)is dark eyed although I agree it is slightly different from dark Asian's

the other thing is that in South America there is a VAST population of dark/medium blond people in northern Colombia (e.g Sofia Vergara YES DO RESEARCH! she is actually Blond!!![Germans,Northern Italians;Norther Spaniards] and in less degree in Venezuela [Italians]) and NOT in Agentina (jews from trieste running of starvation) or Uruguay [Basque population ] SO DO REMOVE THIS INACCURACY!!!

By the way only the 1,6% of white/caucasian people in U.S.A.[that is 15% of the total 370Millions] is actually naturally blond Georg190.66.130.139 (talk) 23:44, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Citation needed. That percentage sounds definitely too low, and there are no 370 million people in the US. Blond does not only mean light blond.
Note that the sentence in question says generally. Isolated exceptions do not disprove a general rule: probably every European knows people with dark hair but light eyes and light hair but dark eyes but the correlation still holds predominantly if not overwhelmingly. And your enumeration of examples from South America when the sentence clearly states Europeans is downright comical. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 05:03, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

"Autochthonous populations"

We have a section called geographic distribution, which makes no reference to autochthonous populations of the regions described. It seems clear to me that the geographic distribution would be the one in the present. And any statistics in the section are from the present, not five hundred years ago. So, I'm reverting Inakhito's deletion of the Americas and opening this conversation here.--[User:Carwil|Carwil]] (talk) 14:52, 27 February 2013 (UTC)

C'mon... it can be infered as it is way too obvious... every person with some of lecture comprehension ability would notice it: as everyone can see, for Oceania there is only mention to aboriginal Australians (and Melanesians) but there is no mention about European-descent Australian blondes (nor New Zealanders); there is also no mention about blondes in Southern Africa where there is a large White population, mainly from Dutch and English ancestry (and it's well known that there are many South African celebrities that are blondes). However, the redaction of the section could be "improved" adding the countries with noticeable blonde population from European ancestry in the section, but any information should come with valid citations from reliable sources,... just 4 days ago [2] User:Bbb23 undid some edits by another unregistered user that included the Americas in this section without any reference. ★ Nacho ★ Mailbox ★ 19:31, 27 February 2013 (UTC)
Briefly, this is a section called "geographical distribution," which clearly implies the present: where people live now. And if it doesn't currently describe that, but "prevalence among major ethnic groups," that's not really geography.
Less briefly, we're talking about a global group of people, a sizeable chunk (maybe a majority) of whom live outside of the regions mentioned in this section. Moreover, since recently formed ethnic groups (I'm thinking white American of mixed ethnic ancestry) are likely to be an important component of the global blond population, there is every reason to describe the situation in 2013, not hundreds of years ago. People have every reason to expect something similar to English_language#Geographical_distribution.--Carwil (talk) 02:31, 1 March 2013 (UTC)
Perhaps, but an article that amounts to "blond people are now present almost everywhere in the world thanks to recent migration" is neither particularly informative nor interesting. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 05:10, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

The number of Adult Blondes are the same as Redheads

Has anyone picked this fact up, that yes, in children, so many of them are blonde, but as they get older, many of them go brunette, or even black. So practically, i was confused why they said only 2% of the world is natural blonde (in adulthood), conceiving that as a small estimate. But the 2% was the same evaluation for redheads worldwide. --75.159.2.59 (talk) 07:01, 17 January 2012 (UTC)

I've never seen anyone go from blond as child to jet-black as adult (when dye was not involved). It is amusing that in countries where the majority of the population has relatively light hair, hair colour terms are often used rather idiosyncratically: dark blond hair is called brown/brunette and (dark) brown hair is called black even though it is nowhere near as dark as East Asian hair for example. In Finland, even merely dark blond hair may be called "black" because the average Finn is rather light or at most medium blond. But "blond" does not only include very light shades. I'd wager that most people by far who were blond as children remain so as adults even if their hair may be a significantly darker shade that, at its darkest extreme, may even overlap with light brown. (However, blond and brown hair can be distinguished from each other using reflexes in natural light, blond shades always having yellow reflexes due to the presence of low amounts of eumelanin, which is yellow in low concentration.) Of course, you've got the same problem with "redhead", which also needs to be defined. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 06:14, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Edit from UK man: I was very blond as a boy, up to the age of about 5, when my hair turned progressively darker, eventually (10ish?) ending up fairly dark brown. My first daughter (whose mother had very dark brown, almost black, hair) was also very blonde before school age, but by 10ish had hair slightly lighter than mine (which colour it has remained). My second daughter (different mother, but also with dark brown hair), had very blonde hair as a small child, and, although it has got darker, her hair is still blonde at 9 (when exposed to strong sun, it turns very blonde, almost white).

So, this certainly does happen. Because of mine and my daughters' experiences, I've often talked to people about this, and I am frequently told that brown haired people were blond as children, or they have had children who were blond(e) and then turned brown.

(My apologies for not signing this, but I don't know how to do it.)

Growing evidence between hair and skin color and Neaderthal genes.

See: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/01/140129-neanderthal-genes-genetics-migration-africa-eurasian-science/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.73.133.221 (talk) 14:59, 13 September 2014 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 18 August 2014

The page shows the percentages for the Americas: 

   Canada: 25%
   United States: 18% (28% among Non-Hispanic Whites)
   Argentina: 14%
   Uruguay: 12%

But none of these have any references. All percentages should be followed by [citation needed]. There is clearly no point in trusting some random person's opinion on the percentage of blond people in the Americas.

CakeSpork (talk) 15:32, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

Done. --Edgars2007 (talk/contribs) 16:03, 18 August 2014 (UTC)

It seem to logical to remove them. I have searched for a source for them.. Non exits.. And they have been there for months..MicroMacroMania (talk) 23:16, 26 September 2014 (UTC)

Cutting down on the amount of unnecessary images

There seem to a fairly large amount of images i the article... Fx we had two pictures of blonde haired aborigines just next to each other.. so I removed one of them. It seem to be somewhat of an overdue. Think about people with slow internet etc. But your welcome to reverse it MicroMacroMania (talk) 10:45, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

I deleted some more unsourced stuff. I have searched for it around the internet no sources cold be found. The current article does not cover hmong blonde. Is it worth covering?

Pictures: https://www.google.dk/search?q=hmong&biw=1366&bih=667&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=v7YmVJ_mMOa_ywOSmIGoAg&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ#tbm=isch&q=hmong+blonde

MicroMacroMania (talk) 13:10, 27 September 2014 (UTC)

Okay there does not see to be alot of applies around here. Anyway is it a good idea to have a map over blond hair in europe.. Seems bette than all the pictures that we have currently that show the same thing..MicroMacroMania (talk) 20:37, 30 September 2014 (UTC)

Asian blonds

need to add: Uyghur girl in Turpan, Xinjiang, China - she's a natural blond with Epicanthus

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.218.23.54 (talk) 05:37, 23 January 2015 (UTC)

Blondes are not the most preferred.

Just because some mediocre book series says they are, doesn't mean it's either true or a stereotype. Please, change it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.130.205.59 (talk) 19:11, 2 September 2015 (UTC)

can we remove a section?

there aren't any blondes in India that are native to there. there was admixture from europeans but it was insignificant and those traces long gone. if there are any blondes then they are only immigrants. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 170.253.176.155 (talk) 15:07, 13 November 2015 (UTC)

There are people with albinism in India. Their existence and social situation is much reported, e.g. here and here. A phenomenon may be uncommon or rare, but never say "there aren't any..." unless you can prove it: Noyster (talk), 11:37, 20 November 2015 (UTC)

Melanesian child

The picture in the article claims the child is a girl, but there is also another version that claims it's a boy.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blonde_girl_Vanuatu.jpg https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blond-haired_Vanuatu_boy.jpg

The boy version is larger, but it's also newer. To me, she looks like a girl. However, I just wanted to bring it to the attention of the article's editors. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.87.73.65 (talk) 01:06, 25 December 2015 (UTC)

Copyright violations

This article has been reverted to eliminate edits by User:Lavezzicavani3, who by all indications appears to be returned serial copyright infringer User:Joeyc91. This reversion is not simply based on the history of the sockmaster, but on demonstrated copying within this article. For instance:

Content added to article Content previously published elsewhere
Ludwig Woltmann studied portrait paintings, busts and written descriptions, to ascertain the physical features of the great men of the Italian Renaissance. He revealed that many of the individuals possessed fair hair and blue eyes. The results of his investigations, were as follows: of the 125 men whose eye colour could be discerned, 102 had blue, blue-grey or blue-green eyes; 18 had brown or brown-grey eyes; and 5 had eyes of mixed pigmentation. Of the 108 men whose hair colour could be accurately determined, 68 had blond or red hair; 26 had brown hair; and 14 had black hair. Woltmann studied portrait paintings, busts and written descriptions, to ascertain the physical features of the great men of the Italian Renaissance. He revealed that many of the individuals in question, such as Leonardo da Vinci, Tasso, Galileo, etc., were of Germanic descent, and that they possessed Nordic racial characteristics. The results of his investigations, were as follows: of the 125 men whose eye colour could be discerned, 102 had blue, blue-grey or blue-green eyes; 18 had brown or brown-grey eyes; and 5 had eyes of mixed pigmentation. Of the 108 men whose hair colour could be accurately determined, 68 had blond or red hair; 26 had brown hair; and 14 had black hair. [Stormfront quotation of Karl Earlson from 2008]
The German classicist Sieglin demonstrated that the family names of most Patrician clans, denoted fair features. He compiled a list of 329 individuals, whose names are indicative of their possessing fair hair The German classicist Sieglin (1935)... demonstrated that the family names of most Patrician clans, denoted Nordic racial features.... He compiled the following list of individuals, whose names are indicative of their possessing fair hair [3]

I apologize for any collateral damage, but all content added by this user should be considered suspect, as he has a broad history of copy-pasting from sources and adding material directly translated from Italian sources in contravention of copyright policy and law. Please do not restore material added by this user. --Moonriddengirl (talk) 19:55, 28 December 2015 (UTC)

European countries

What about Belgium and Ireland? Don't they have a lot of blondes too? Where it says "countries such as England, Scotland, Sweden, Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Belarus, Russia, etc. generally having larger proportions of blond people than countries further south in Europe," shouldn't we add Belgium and Ireland? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.156.7.5 (talk) 19:12, 30 October 2014 (UTC)

France

Geographic distribution in Europe : "26% of French population has blond or light brown hair". The source is too old, today, only 4.5% of French population has blond or light brown hair.--31.35.104.232 (talk) 00:08, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

This source states that 1/5 french females are blonde, half of which are fake. Still a lot more than 5%.
It gets additionally complicated when including light brown hair. Where is the line drawn? What shade is blond, what shade is light brown? It is also in the eye of the beholder based on their reference frame (what people around you look like nowadays). Hair that is considered deep brown in Denmark may be considered blonde in southern Italy. --Tueday Dining In Room (talk) 20:29, 17 April 2015 (UTC)

Please fix that! Blonde hair is most common in the Scandinavia, Baltic States, British Isles, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Belarus and Russia. Countries lying along the Mediterranean are definitely less blonde. Mcdonnolly (talk) 12:54, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

26% of French people being blonde is not too high, light brown shades are included! This concerns only French people of European descent not those of non-European descent. It is actually very low, since in Ireland 54% have blonde/light brown hai, though the later is more common. Mcdonnolly (talk) 13:05, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

5%? That is more for Italy. Mcdonnolly (talk) 13:07, 28 March 2016 (UTC) What about Britain? what's the proportion of blond/light brown hair in Britain?

Inaccurate information

I see a lot of misleading information, like in Asia and Africa. The page is constantly affected propaganda and biased information. Blondes date back to only 10,000-12,000 years and make up 2% of the world (I would like to add, besides natural blondes, blondes in general make up about 16% of the world), yet I see a lot of information about European history referring to people during war/control (that are currently not present in the region) or dating back to millenniums, if the history is even justifiable. Melanesian people are said to be the second largest population, besides Europeans. Also many of the information refers to children, sick or the elderly, that have blonde hair due to sunlight or lack of nutrition. There should also be information about the various forms of albinism and Marfan syndrome as well, which is more common in remote people. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Krisxlowry (talk • contribs) 20:19, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

False. Less than 5% of the world is naturally blonde. You forget that most people in the world are non-Whites! Mcdonnolly (talk) 13:08, 28 March 2016 (UTC)

How about adding a symbolism and meanings behind different hair colours, please?

Iamnofool6 (talk) 05:22, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

Italy and Sardinia

First of all where are the sources? I think those Italian datas are based on a research done by a military doctor called ridolfo livi on conscripted soldiers born in 1863, not by Biasutti, that wasn't a doctor or ananthropoligist, but a geographer. correct it! Sardinia's datas are wrong infact blondism in Sardinia range by 2.4% in the south, and from 2.4% to 4.9% in the north, according to livi's study brought back by biasutti in xxi century, in the book "le razze e i popoli della terra". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Daygum (talk • contribs)

Why are Veneto, Friuli, Valle d'Aosta and Bolzano given as the only examples of 'northern and central regions' of Italy? All four are in the far north of the country, and are not 'central' by any stretch of the imagination!213.127.210.95 (talk) 16:34, 11 August 2016 (UTC)

Source Problems for the The Southern Europe section of the Folklore & Mythology section.

(Novoneiro (talk) 17:25, 24 September 2016 (UTC)) I just checked the Internet Archive for any mention of Pindar describing Athena as "fair-haired", and could not find it, and there is no source cited. However, the Muses of Apollo are described as "fair-haired" in the First Pythian Ode. Bacchus is also called fair-haired in the Seventh Isthmian Ode. But it is possible that I may have missed something.

Also, the source: Myers, John Linton. Who Were the Greeks? University of California Press, 1967, is cited for the other Greek gods, but I just checked the University of Cal website, and nothing came up for this book in their archives. However, it does appear on Amazon under a different publisher. Therefore, the page numbers cited may not be accurate either. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Novoneiro (talk • contribs) 17:25, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

Child

The picture of the child at the start of this page should be changed to a picture of an adult with blond hair. Children with blond hair often grow into brown hair so showing a young girl's blonde hair is not fully reflective of blond hair. — Preceding unsigned comment added by NICHOLAS NEEDLEHAM (talk • contribs) 12:45, 3 July 2018 (UTC) I have changed the picture to one of an adult. — Preceding unsigned comment added by NICHOLAS NEEDLEHAM (talk • contribs) 14:52, 4 July 2018 (UTC) Also I didn't want to say this but to state blondes are "stereotyped as sexually attractive, but unintelligent" when a picture of a prepubescent girl is directly adjacent has paedophilic undertones that I think should be avoided if at all possible. The new picture has the added element of being of a Polish woman with brown eyes, so this may go against certain Nordicists. — Preceding unsigned comment added by NICHOLAS NEEDLEHAM (talk • contribs) 19:56, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

No valid reason to change the long-standing higher quality image. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 09:25, 5 July 2018 (UTC)

Look at Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Lucy Merriam. There are people there mentioning problems with the picture, and this is when the picture is seen in isolation. In this article directly beside it says blondes are stereotyped as sexually attractive but unintelligent. This has clear paedophilic undertones in context. Lucy Merriam is also not a well-known person. Alicja Janosz has a Wikipedia article. I admit the composition of the new picture is not as good but it does not have paedophilic undertones. — Preceding unsigned comment added by NICHOLAS NEEDLEHAM (talk • contribs) 13:15, 6 July 2018 (UTC)

@NICHOLAS NEEDLEHAM: The objections you point to in the link are objections to the image becoming a "Featured Picture," which, in case you were unware, is the highest category of images Wikipedia has. The standard for a "Featured" image is extremely high, much higher than the standard for being used as a lead image. Those objections mean nothing here unless you can demonstrate that the photograph you wish to replace the image with is better. I am not a photography expert, but the image of the blonde girl was clearly taken by a professional photographer and it is a very high quality photograph with many technical merits. The image you are championing, on the other hand, appears to have been taken by an amateur on someone's phone.
As for your complaint that the image has "paedophilic undertones in context," there is nothing about the picture itself, in my view, that even remotely implies sexuality. As far as I can tell, it is just a typical portrait photograph. It is common for parents to hang photographs of their own children not totally unlike this one in their homes. As for the view that it has "paedophilic undertones" specifically in this context because the article mentions that blonde women "are stereotyped as sexually attractive but unintelligent," your argument fails on several points:
  1. The article states this as a western cultural perception, not as something that is actually true, so interpreting the images of blonde people used in the article in the context of this statement at all is just perpetuating a degrading, culturally-specific stereotype.
  2. The article says this about adult, blonde women, not about four-year-old blonde girls. You are taking a stereotype that society only applies to blonde women and applying it to blonde children. If a man wrote an article about blonde hair that included a photograph of a blond man, as well as the statement that blonde women "are stereotyped as sexually attractive but unintelligent," would you accuse him of being a closeted homosexual, since clearly he must be implying that blonde men are sexually attractive? No? Then why are you saying that using an image of a blonde child as the first image in an article about blonde hair must be pedophilia?
As for the notability of the people depicted in the photographs, I fail to see how that is relevant here, since this article is about blond hair, not about the person in the photograph, so the criteria for which image ought to be used should be based on the quality of the image and how well the image reflects the subject of blonde hair, not on how notable the person in the photograph is. (Indeed, your argument about blond hair darkening with age is actually a good argument in my view for why the current main image is a good one, since there are far more blonde children than blonde adults.) --Katolophyromai (talk) 16:46, 6 July 2018 (UTC)
I never made an assessment of the compositional quality of the pictures as an argument to change the current picture.. I only commented on the problem of using the one of a child in a sexualised context. I spent 15-20 minutes searching Wikimedia Commons looking for other pictures. The one I changed it to was the best I could find but there likely are better.
The stereotype is sexually attractive, but unintelligent--there also is discussion of prostitutes. Children tend to have lower intelligence, and look at the comment "Although Wikipedia is not censored, we should protect subjected people especially "children" from all kind of weird people like paedophiles." Even one of the people supporting the picture made a comment about "sexual awareness is developed in childhood" and "Let's not be ashamed of sexuality if we see it, it is part of human nature". There is a paedophilic undertone. The comparison to a picture of a man has two problems: a) girls become women, men don't become women--apart from transgender women which is another topic--so the comparison between the two does not make sense in physical terms b) the comparison only applies if you think homosexuality is the same as paedophilia and homosexuals need to counteracted as paedophiles need to be counteracted.
You say the article content about blondes in cultural terms is about blonde adults so this is an argument in support of using a picture of an adult as it would be more representative of the subject in discussion.
The notability is important because of the need to protect the individual depicted in the picture. If Lucy Merriam were a well-known person it would be less disconcerting to use the picture as she would be a public figure and accustomed to the attention but she is not well-known. — Preceding unsigned comment added by NICHOLAS NEEDLEHAM (talk • contribs) 13:30, 9 July 2018 (UTC)
@NICHOLAS NEEDLEHAM: You seem to be completely missing the point I was trying to make. What I was trying to explain above is that it makes no sense to apply a derogatory stereotype that the article mentions about adult blond women to an image of a blond child that appears at the beginning of it. Yes, prostitution is mentioned in the article, but that has nothing to do with the girl shown in the main image, because it is mentioned in the completely different context of ancient Greek and Roman stereotypes about adult blond women. Likewise, the fact that children's minds are less developed than those of adults is completely irrelevant to our current subject of discussion. While the quotation from the "Featured Image" review page about "sexual awareness [being] developed in childhood" is extremely disturbing, I do not see how it constitutes as anything more than one pervert's depraved opinion. Once again, it is irrelevant to both the image itself and its usage here in this article.
Both of your objections to my analogy about the blond man are completely wrong and irrelevant to the point I was actually trying to make. Yes, blond girls do eventually become blond women, but that does not change the fact that, at the time when they are blond girls, they are not blond women. Your next objection is even more baffling to me. You wrote: "the comparison only applies if you think homosexuality is the same as paedophilia and homosexuals need to counteracted as paedophiles need to be counteracted." No. Not at all. That is not the way in which I was comparing them. In order for an analogy to be valid, the two situations being compared only need to be similar in the specific way in which they are being compared. The purpose of my analogy above was to show how ridiculous it is to apply a culturally-specific stereotype about one group of people mentioned in an article to an image of a member of a different group that appears elsewhere in the same article. I was most definitely not drawing any kind of moral comparison between homosexuality and pedophilia.
You wrote: "You say the article content about blondes in cultural terms is about blonde adults so this is an argument in support of using a picture of an adult as it would be more representative of the subject in discussion." No. That conclusion does not follow at all from what I was saying. I have no idea why you are so fixated on the contemporary western stereotypes about blond women; "blond" is just a hair color. The stereotype you keep fixating on is unsupported by any kind of scientific evidence and is entirely culture-specific. What you are essentially arguing, it seems, is that we should change the main image to agree with the stereotype, which is frankly appalling to me as an actual blond person. The article should talk about the stereotypes, yes, but it should certainly not define the word "blond" in the context of those stereotypes by making the first image in the article reflective of them.
You argued that the fact that Lucy Merriam is not well known means she is unused to attention. In fact, she is an actress and we have quite a lengthy section on the character she played in the article Children of All My Children. She also appeared in the film Marley & Me, which, according to our own article, "set a record for the largest Christmas Day box office ever with $14.75 million in ticket sales." If you search for Lucy Merriam's name in Google, it turns up 416,000 results. I am pretty sure she is more than "accustomed" to attention. The particular image we are discussing was released as a publicity photo and, as the "Featured Image" review page already mentions, Lucy's own mother gave Wikipedia explicit permission to use it.
If you have an image of a blond adult that is of higher image quality than the image currently used, you are welcome to replace the current image with that one. However, I do not see any validity in your argument that the current main image somehow has "paedophilic undertones in context" and I do not think the image you chose is of higher quality. --Katolophyromai (talk) 16:49, 9 July 2018 (UTC)

I added information to dispel the myth, so don't accuse me of wanting to perpetuate the stereotype! And it seems that you are implying the picture I introduced was of a "dumb blonde", which is very offensive to Alicja Janosz who I don't know but have no reason to believe is unintelligent. I am trying to change the image to protect the child depicted in the picture and guard against paedophiles, and relatedly avoid the implicit sexualisation of children. The distinction between a man and a woman is chasmic in comparison to the distinction between a girl and a woman, particularly if girls are being sexualised, so I disagree with the analogy. In the context, a picture of an adult would be sexualised too, which is a negative thing but much preferable to the sexualisation of a child. I think the best possible picture to curb the paedophilic undertones while also representing an adult with blond hair would be a man with blond hair who is well-known, such as Dolph Lundgren but there are no good pictures of him on Wikimedia Commons. Lucy Merriam does not have her own Wikipedia article, and if you have googled her you will have found her Twitter account, which has less than 60 followers. She had some roles when she was very young but nothing since then. She is not a public figure. The google search results is a misleading metric as it reduces hugely if you quote "Lucy Merriam". And if you look through the results you will see many for "Lucy Merriam" which have no relation to the child depicted in the picture. The picture I used is not my favourite picture in the world or anything of the sort. It is just the best one I could find on Wikimedia Commons. I will look for others. NICHOLAS NEEDLEHAM (talk) 10:34, 10 July 2018 (UTC)

My statement about you wanting to change to image to align with the stereotype was specifically in response to your argument that we should use a picture of an adult because the stereotype is about adults. I do not know how to categorize that argument as anything but wanting to perpetuate the stereotype. Once again, you are completely ignoring my whole point, which is that, as far as I can possibly tell, the image of the blond girl is not at all sexual. It is just a picture of a blond girl and I frankly do not see any reason at all why you seem to think that it is sexual. You say that my analogy does not hold up because the girl is being sexualized, but the whole point of my analogy was that she is not being sexualized. It is circular reasoning; you are basically arguing that my argument against your conclusion is wrong because it does not match your conclusion. --Katolophyromai (talk) 06:55, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
@NICHOLAS NEEDLEHAM: You said you would be comfortable with an image of a blond adult man as the lead image, so I swapped the photograph of the blond child with the portrait of Pedro II of Brazil from later in the article. Does this settle the issue? He is definitely not a child and it is actually a fine portrait from an artistic standpoint. Actually, in some ways, now that I think about it, the new lead image actually may actually help combat the stereotype, because it is the opposite of the stereotype in basically every way. If we were following the stereotype, one would expect a photograph of a twentieth-century American woman, but the image is instead a portrait painting of a nineteenth-century Brazilian emperor. He still has blond hair, but he is probably the last person a westerner indoctrinated into the dumb blond stereotype would expect to find at the beginning of an article about blond hair. --Katolophyromai (talk) 07:11, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
Katolophyromai, I reverted because I do not see why we should swap a high-quality, real-life image with a poorer one (the portrait or similar), and your arguments against NICHOLAS NEEDLEHAM's rationale are strong. As many know, I often combat pedophilic POV-pushing on Wikipedia. I see no pedophilic or sexualized tone to the child image. I also do not see any valid reason to lead with an image of a man as opposed to a girl or a woman. I suggest we start a WP:RfC on this matter, similar to what is seen at Talk:Scarlett Johansson/Archive 6#Request for comment on lead image. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 07:31, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
@Flyer22 Reborn: In terms of image quality, I have to agree with you; the original image of the blond child is higher quality. The Pedro portrait is not poor quality by any means, but I will admit it is rather bland and the fact that it is an oval shape probably does not help. My main reason for the swap was because I was tired of arguing. To me, this whole dispute was starting to seem extraordinarily petty and I figured that swapping the two images would be the best solution if it might result in a compromise we could both agree on. I suppose I will open a RfC as you have suggested. --Katolophyromai (talk) 07:36, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
Thanks, Katolophyromai. There's no need to ping me to articles I'm watching. I prefer not to be pinged in those cases; it's redundant and somewhat annoying to me. I understand why you attempted a compromise. As for "poor," I stated "poorer" because I find the long-standing of higher quality due to its photography and that it is a real-life image. I'm not stating that the image is poor on its own. With an RfC, other images can also be added for editors to choose from, but too many options can overwhelm participants. It would also be helpful to note that the dispute concerns one view that the image of the child is sexualized and presents a pedophilic tone, while the other view does not believe that to be the case. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 07:55, 11 July 2018 (UTC)
I apologize for pinging you. I happened to link to your userpage in the section below, which I think automatically pings you, so I apologize for that also. --Katolophyromai (talk) 08:53, 11 July 2018 (UTC)

I think I have found a suitable picture. It checks all the boxes, as well as additional boxes which I did not discuss.

  • It is of an adult
  • It is of a good composition--neutral-ish background and high resolution.
  • It is very difficult to see it as a sexualised picture
  • The subject is well-known
  • It also displays a blond beard
  • The subject is not looking at the camera so without eye contact the focus is more so on the hair

NICHOLAS NEEDLEHAM (talk) 11:01, 12 July 2018 (UTC)

NICHOLAS NEEDLEHAM, do not include any more options in the RfC. The more options there are, the more overwhelmed editors are and less likely they are to vote. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 11:56, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
I have supplanted my original replacement with this new one. But why do you ping me when you criticise others for doing the same? NICHOLAS NEEDLEHAM (talk) 17:32, 12 July 2018 (UTC)
NICHOLAS NEEDLEHAM, I pinged you because you are a new editor and I'm not sure if this article is on your watchlist. You also have not requested to not be pinged for articles you are watching. I have. If you don't want me to ping you to this talk page, I won't. As for this, I also see this. It's best to not trade out any more images either since voting has begun and editors have voted on certain images. For the record, I think that the woman with bleached blond hair was a poor selection. For the lead image, if using a real-life person, the blond person should have natural blond hair. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 03:06, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
If she is a natural blond, it still looks like she over-processed her hair (making her hair lighter). Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 03:15, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
I am monitoring the discussion. This should be evident as I have replied regularly. Why did you post the second link? I didn't add that and I don't plan on swapping out any other pictures. I don't know if the Polish woman has fake blonde hair--she has very light eyebrows--but this is not important as I am not proposing that picture be used, nor is anyone else. What is wrong with the new picture I have proposed? NICHOLAS NEEDLEHAM (talk) 18:54, 14 July 2018 (UTC)
I posted the second link to show a removal by Katolophyromai. And, no, it's not evident that you are monitoring the discussion. Yes, you were debating Katolophyromai above, but Katolophyromai was pinging you; so it's not unreasonable to think that perhaps that's what got your attention to keep replying. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:12, 16 July 2018 (UTC)
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