There are simple examples of where an illustration makes an agreeable “significant contribution” such as in technical or scientific illustration. Such an example can be seen in the moustache styles illustrations we collaborated on for the Moustache article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moustache#Styles

The thing is, technical illustrations including the moustache styles illustrations are following the same pattern of thought as text. They are predominantly left-brain literal descriptions of a visual representation. By that they might make an easily agreeable “significant contribution” as these have been defined by a rule set predominantly favoring the word, the literal, the left-brain type of knowledge over the image, the visual, the right-brain kind of knowledge.

There is a statement in what we do, and that is that there is room for ambiguity in culture and in its documentation. This ambiguity has always been a part of culture and of knowledge construction, you can even see it in text within the pages of Wikipedia (in articles such as Bathroom Singing for example). The technocratic urge to disambiguate should be taken with a grain of salt. We do agree Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, it should be neutral, should strive for verifiability and accuracy. But we also think this does not necessarily contradict the use of illustrations. Take the illustration for Little Albert Experiment for example. There is some low quality video footage from the experiment’s documentation, it is unusable for Wikipedia because of licensing restrictions. The illustrative interpretation is obviously not a photographic one, but it serves the article well. The same can be said about the use of courtroom illustrations, they serve to visualize where photography cannot or should not be available. And while doing that they function on more than just the literal interpretation of written language.

Finally, there’s the issue of Conceptual Blending (look it up ). Neuroscientists are discovering new and surprising things about how our brain works. The non-linear, multichanneled, often unfocused way of thinking is a huge part of what makes us do more than just simple cognition, it helps us analyze often critically the information in front of us. Images have a role in that, an illustration immediately flags itself as an ambassador of this type of thinking. Making an illustration less literal does not mean it is misleading or unhelpful (quite the contrary, a literal representation might be much more problematic in that sense). For example, the use of color on the Little Albert Experiment is not factual or verifiable, it is based on B&W footage. The anatomy in the illustration is not 100% correct and that as well would not make anyone argue the image is misleading.

To summarize, yes we do realize this proposition might be tough to swallow in the highly literal culture of Wikipedia (I won’t use the ‘P’ word, I know you don’t like it). But out of sincere admiration to Wikipedia’s achievements and concern for its future we do think this debate is important, should take place and should not be dusted under the rug. It is tough rejections like your that are helping us better define our message and even if you’re not convinced we hope you do appreciate the importance of the debate.

I see you’ve not answered my question whether you’ve made a significant contribution to the written text of some wikipedia articles. Does this mean “no”?

The right brain cannot, should not be part of encyclopedic creation. Generally, these should be neutral, factual and documentary, not creative. Wikipedia does not, nor should it, prepare artistic illustrations; the only images prepared are documentary: pictures of people/places/objects, diagrams and maps, etc.

There is nothing old or mediocre about this approach – it is necessary to maintain encyclopedias which provide readers with fact, rather than impression and interpretation, i.e. fiction. There are no tough questions here, these are very basic qualities of wikipedia or any other encyclopedia. Have you ever tried to make a significant contribution to some wikipedia articles (and I mean the text…)? It usually doesn’t take one much time to realize that it is necessary to insist on verifiability, neutrality, factuality etc, – which your images can’t meet. “only a few image makers interested in contributing to Wikipedia” – are you quite sure this statement is factual, for example? Have you checked how many image makers contribute to wikipedia (in the ways described above, obviously — artistic illustrations are not contributions in wikipedia and similar projects)? If you check, I’ll think you’d be quite surprised at the number of image contributors, and the number of contributed images.

You can make your own and add illustrations as you fit, using your wildest imagination if you so wish, just don’t attempt to call it an encyclopedia, because it isn’t.

So no worries really… Plus for reference the edits will always live in the history pages of the Wikipedia article.

So yes, if you directly translate the guidelines for text into image making you would get what you have now, only old or mediocre imagery and only a few image makers interested in contributing to Wikipedia. The rules as to what images fit into Wikipedia are much more fuzzy than most people think. We want to start addressing them and hopefully change Wikipedia and its culture for the better.