Talk:Human
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Frequently asked questions (see also: the FAQ) 
Q1: Why does the Human article use the third person? Aren't we humans?
A1: The third person ("Humans are..." or "They are..." as opposed to "We are...") is simply the conventional mode of writing for Wikipedia and other reference works. We realize this may cause some phrases in Human to sound quite strange — "a majority of humans professes some variety of religious or spiritual belief" sounds almost like it was written by space aliens. However, the occasional strangeness this approach may lead to is still preferable to the alternative of inconsistency.
If we were to use "we" in the Human article, it would mean sometimes switching strangely between persons as we narrow our topic of discussion. For example, even if an editor were female, she would be forced to write things like "We humans, and especially those females...." Whenever a subgroup of humanity became the article's focus, we would need to switch to the third person; a sentence about humans would use "we", but a sentence about adults, Asians, engineers, or heterosexuals would need to use "they". It is far simpler to just consistently use the third person in all contexts, even if this doesn't always seem completely natural. A related issue is the fact that, as a general rule, Wikipedia prefers to avoid self-references. In addition to being human, all editors on this site happen to be English speakers — yet we treat our article on the English language the same way we treat every other language article, in order to avoid bias and inconsistency. Likewise, we treat Wikipedia the same as other websites and reference tools. Analogously, we ought to aspire to treat Human in much the same way that we treat every other species article. Ideally, we should make exceptions of Human only where objective, verifiable facts demand that we make exceptions (e.g., in employing a lengthy behavior section[broken anchor]). This is the simplest and easiest way to avoid bias and to prevent editorial disputes: When in doubt, follow the rest of Wikipedia's lead.Q2: Aren't humans supposed to be purely herbivorous/frugivorous despite our modern omnivorous habits? Aren't we jungle apes albeit highly intelligent and largely furless jungle apes? Most jungle apes eat no meat or very little.
A2: No, we really are natural omnivores. Contrary to popular belief, we humans did not evolve in jungles. We actually evolved on open grasslands where fruit-bearing trees are nowhere near as plentiful as in the jungle, where most of our surviving close relatives evolved. Evolving in such a place, we would have always (for as long as we've been humans rather than Australopithecines and other even earlier fossilized genera) had to supplement our diet with meat in addition to plant material. We evolved also eating plant-derived foods to be sure; the Savannah (grassland) has some trees with edible fruit although comparatively few and far between, and grain-bearing grasses are far more plentiful there than any tree. (Some evidence suggests that the first bread and beer were made from these tropical grains long before recorded history.) Even so, the grassland being much less fruit-rich than the jungle caused us to evolve as true metabolic omnivores, not pure herbivores/frugivores. See the Archived Debates on this subtopic for source documents. Q3: How was the lead image chosen?
A3: Q4: How should the infobox image best represent humanity?
A4: The lead image should illustrate important features of the subject — in the case of Human, these include an upright bipedal gait, hands specialized for manipulating tools, and use of cultural products such as clothing.
Lead images can attempt to encapsulate the broad strokes of the diversity and variation in its subject (e.g. Frog, Primate). The current consensus is that attempting to do further like that for humanity is not practical. There is a guideline MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES that exists due to issues on this topic in the past, stating that we may not assemble a gallery of many images into the infobox. And regardless of MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES, by picking just one image, we leave space for showing important details of that image which would be obscured if we shrank it in order to fit multiple photos in. Sometimes, what a collage gains in diversity, it loses in detail and clarity. In this case, the current consensus is that the topic covered at Human is best served with a single image — a collage of faces, for example, would fail to illustrate the human body.Q5: Shouldn't the lead image show more major groups of humans?
A5: There is no good way to decide which groups of humans are the "major" ones. The consensus is that showing more groupings (such as along ethnic lines) is contentious due to the risk of unverifiable species-wide generalizations. As a middle ground, we currently just show examples of a male and a female human to represent sexual dimorphism in humans.
While many Wikipedia articles on diverse subject matter (e.g. Spider, Bird) do attempt to encapsulate that variety through galleries and selections of images, we are prohibited from doing so on this article per MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES even if we wanted to. Other articles on diverse subject matter sometimes similarly have few examples, or even one example, rather than a collage in their infobox (e.g. Whale). Q6: The current image is blurry/low-resolution/JPG-artifacted. Shouldn't it be replaced?
A6: The current consensus is that this isn't that big a deal. When viewed as normal at thumbnail size at a glance, you can't really tell. Q7: The current image shows two people, not one. Doesn't that violate MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES to begin with?
A7: The current consensus is that group photos probably do not violate MOS:NOETHNICGALLERIES. That guideline is based on an RfC, and is to be interpreted narrowly. It specifically only prohibits galleries or photomontages to illustrate ethnic groups or other similarly large human populations. The consensus on this page is that a group photo does not count. Past discussion of this can be found here. Q8: Could the lead image be a different photo? Perhaps a group photo with more than two people in it? Or a photo of an individual?
A8: There is nothing prohibiting that, it is just not the current consensus to do that on this page. It would likely take a large discussion and very strong arguments for why the alternate image is an improvement. Q9: Other ethnic groups have lead images such as a flag or map (e.g. of population density). Could that be the lead image (instead of any image(s) of humans)?
A9: There is nothing prohibiting that, it is just not the current consensus to do that on this page. There already is a population density map at the bottom of the infobox. Q10: Why isn't the lead image more abstract or symbolic?
A10: Because any attempt to symbolically or nonliterally depict humans will subtly express an editorial opinion about what the "essence" or "nature" of humanity is. Even if we pick a famous artist's work to put at the top of Human, the fact that we chose that particular work, and not another, will show that we endorse certain non-encyclopedic points of view about humanity. The only real way to avoid this pitfall is to not pick an image that is even remotely symbolic or nonliteral — a completely literal, straightforward photograph simply depicting a human, with no more "deep meaning" than our lead image for Brown bear has, is the most neutral option available.
It is also worth noting that most abstract depictions of humanity remove a great deal of visual information. Wikipedia's purpose is educational, and our readers include non-native English speakers, young children, neurodivergent people, and other readers who will be best served by a clear, unambiguous, and factually rich depiction of the topic at hand. Imaginative works also tend to be much more subjective and idiosyncratic than photographs, reflecting the creator's state of mind as much as the subject matter itself. The purpose of an article's lead image is to accurately depict the article's subject matter, which in this case means accurately depicting a human. |
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,_early_1900s,_Central_Africa,_Democratic_Republic_of_the_Congo,_Pende_people,_wood,_fiber_-_Cleveland_Museum_of_Art_-_DSC08700.JPG){kind=small}
Semi-protected edit request on 20 September 2026
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- Change requested
Please modify the taxobox of the article to explicitly display the missing sub- and infraorder (respectively, Haplorhini and Simiiformes) in the lineage sidebar.
- Rationale for the change
The current default taxobox layout hides these clades. This inadvertently reinforces a widespread, unscientific misconception in vernacular language, namely the cultural belief that Homo sapiens is entirely excluded from the monkey clade (Simiiformes).
From a modern cladistic perspective, humans are cladistically nested within Simiiformes. Displaying sub- and infraorder would provide critical educational clarity. Umbranimus (talk) 11:08, 20 September 2026 (UTC)
Not done: Your rationale is not compelling; should we also display all of the intermediary ranks up to Primates from Homo? I think not. By default, we show intermediary ranks from the article's subject to the next higher primary rank, and then only primary ranks above that. I have, however, made it so that when the user clicks on Hominoidea in the taxobox, the article they go to shows the ranks you are desiring to see. These ranks should have been displayed there, in alignment with our standards. - In solidarity, UtherSRG (talk) 14:41, 20 September 2026 (UTC)
- Hi, I don't think it would be useful to display every intermediate rank either, especially since the taxobox already allows ancestral taxa to be displayed. Nor am I disputing the rationale behind the default layout. My point is specifically that, in the particular case of Homo sapiens, explicitly displaying the Simiiformes infraorder would provide useful educational clarity given the widespread misconception that humans are somehow excluded from the monkey clade.
- I agree that broadening the exception globally would not be appropriate, since infraorders are generally low-importance taxonomic clutter for most species. My proposal is specifically for a narrowly scoped exception on the H. sapiens page only, so that Simiiformes would be displayed there without changing the default behavior of other primate taxoboxes, if this is technically feasible.
- Given the particular educational value of making this relationship explicit on the H. sapiens page, I think such a narrowly scoped exception is warranted. Umbranimus (talk) 16:00, 20 September 2026 (UTC)
- Simiiformes is a technical term not many people will be familiar with. So adding it would provide very little educational value. The taxbox already includes Primates, which is a term more widely known and better clarifies the potential misconception you mention. Vpab15 (talk) 10:29, 21 September 2026 (UTC)
No direct mention of "The arts" in the lead?
Creating and engaging with art is something that sets humans apart from other species, and almost every human engages with it in some way, even if it's just listening to music or watching films. Given that stuff like science, philosophy and religion are all mentioned, I see no reason why the arts/art shouldn't be in the lead as well.
Would appreciate your thoughts. Gauzecard (talk) 11:52, 2 October 2026 (UTC)
- I completely agree; this could potentially even be worth mentioning in the first paragraph, after the mention of science and technology. ARoseThorn (talk) 04:34, 5 October 2026 (UTC)
- Agreed. Art is one of the important benchmarks, and in my understanding there is evidence its use extends beyond just the extant homo sapiens members of the human family tree. GeogSage (⚔Chat?⚔) 05:50, 5 October 2026 (UTC)