Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Damaged Yorktown

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Damaged Yorktown[edit]

Scene on board USS Yorktown during the Battle of Midway, June 1942, shortly after she was hit by three Japanese bombs on 4 June 1942. Dense smoke is from fires in her uptakes, caused by a bomb that punctured them and knocked out her boilers.
Reason
This is one of the iconic images that came out of the Battle of Midway, the pivotal battle of the Pacific Theatre of World War II. This image was taken shortly after the air raid against the U.S. carriers protecting Midway, and has been used in several notable publications (among them Robert Ballard’s book about the Battle of Midway and his search for Yorktown). For these reasons I am nominating this image for Featured Status.
Articles this image appears in
USS Yorktown (CV-5)
Creator
Photographer 2nd Class William G. Roy, USN
Nominator
TomStar81 (Talk)
  • Support — TomStar81 (Talk) 21:21, 1 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support A bad image, but historical and encyclopedic. | AndonicO Talk | Sign Here 21:27, 1 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Excellent.--¿Why1991 ESP. | Sign Here 22:03, 1 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support Very enc. --frothT C 23:21, 1 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support As above. --Midnight Rider 00:51, 2 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support due to notability and image quality given its age (thank goodness size doesn't apply to it!). -- Altiris Exeunt 06:43, 2 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • question - great subject, but is there no way to get a higher quality scan? Debivort 07:17, 2 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • I have searched everywhere I can think of to get a higher quality photo, and came up empty handed on each account. If you want, you can try to find a higher quality photo, but from where I stand this is as good as it gets.

TomStar81 (Talk) 08:13, 2 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • what I am wondering is if the low res comes from the poor quality of the original, or just a low res scan. If the latter, I'd like to see a new version, but if it's the former, I'll gladly support. Debivort 23:53, 2 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support A good image. It's encyclopedic, powerful, and HiDEF. S h a r k f a c e 2 1 7 08:19, 2 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose - Being (moderately) historically significant isn't reason enough to throw size and quality standards out. --ragesoss 10:57, 2 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

*Support Weak Support. Very high quality. Clearly gives a feeling of how the Yorktown was destroyed.Has no copyright infringement. Wwicki 11:10, 2 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

  • Oppose. Uninteresting, vapid. Olegivvit 12:43, 2 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose. bw does not equal historic value. The image quality and the resolution are low. As for enc, the picture doesn't tell me anyting. All I see is a smoking aircraft carrier. Big deal. --Dschwen 15:36, 2 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • I also oppose this image, for size requirements and quality. But your point "All I see is..." seems odd to me. I could say the same of a photo of Lincoln "all I see is a guy sitting there" or the Hindenburg "All I see is a zeppelin burning." I think a burning aircraft carrier is a big deal! --Bridgecross 16:49, 2 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • Ha ha, I see you point. And I'm even inclined to agree to the Lincoln comment :-). I suppose it is hard to define what makes up historical significance (we should abbreviate that just like enc. I'll call it hist now). We can start arguing now if the explosion of the Hindenburg was a more significant event than the burning of (yet another?) aircraft carrier. What was the media impact back then? We can also argue about the historical importance of a figure like Lincoln, but in that case the significance of the depicted moment is more important to me (example: Lincoln eating a steak - low hist, Lincoln being shot attending a theatre performance - high hist). We can argue about all that... ...or just let it be since we wont resolve that issue here anyways :-). --Dschwen 18:33, 2 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Midway was the first battle won by the Allies in the Pacific and marked the switch from Japanese to American naval dominance. Pretty important I'd say! Debivort 00:13, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Strong Support: Featured Picture guidelines reads: "The more historically-important an image is, or the rarer the content of the scene, the lower the quality that can be allowed", as well as "The more historically-important an image is, or the rarer or more significant its content, the less aesthetically-pleasing it may be".[1] I think this more than justifies this image as a featured picture-- it is very illustrative, as well as very rare. Jellocube27 20:54, 2 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • It is certainly not very rare. WW2 is a well documented epoch, although it might seem like forever ago for younger people. Check this page and its subpages for tons of pics from the attack on the Yorktown. --Dschwen 21:22, 2 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • This most certainly is very rare. WWII was a well documented epoch, as you have stated, but the war ended over 60 years ago. These images are all we have left of the conflict, we can not build a time machine and travel back to these historical events with digital cameras just for the sake of correcting one or two imperfections. Moreover, pictures are not suppose to tell you anything, they are suppose to show you something that would be otherwise difficult to explain with words. If you are objecting to this on the basis of context, then read through our Battle of Midway article (a featured article, no less) and gain some deeper apreciation for the event(s) depicted here in. TomStar81 (Talk) 22:47, 2 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
        • The fact that this shot is not reproducible with a digital camera says nothing about rarity. And you've got it backwards, a FP should make a reader want to know more not the other way around. --Dschwen 22:57, 2 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • Even if it isn't rare, the picture is still historically significant and (in my opinion) does a fine job of illustrating the Battle of Midway, or at least the bombing of the USS Yorktown. Jellocube27 00:22, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Neutral Changed vote per Dschwen. | AndonicO Talk | Sign Here 21:47, 2 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose While the image itself is featureworthy, this version doesn't meet our requirements and there is no reason why a better version cannot be produced. ~ trialsanderrors 00:25, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
    • As I have noted above, I have searched everywhere I can think of to get a higher quality photo, and came up empty handed on each account. If you want, you can try to find a higher quality photo, but from where I stand this is as good as it is going to get. TomStar81 (Talk) 00:41, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
      • I noticed that. But "as good as it's going to get" isn't a criterion except in the rarest of cases. This is a comparatively recent (in photographic history) picture from a well-documented event and a number of pictures have covered similar subject matter, so size and quality requirements shouldn't be cast aside because of the rarity argument. ~ trialsanderrors 00:52, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]
  • Oppose, "I couldn't find a better one" isn't an excuse when the problems are endemic to this version of the image and not with the original. The image is in the archives, you can ask them for access to make a better scan, this one has problems. I'd support the image, but this version of the image has flaws. Quality forgiveness for historical images doesn't apply when the quality issues aren't part of the original image. Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 09:42, 3 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Not promoted Raven4x4x 07:04, 8 January 2007 (UTC)[reply]


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