Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Boston Skyline

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[edit] Boston Skyline Panorama

Original - The skyline of Boston, Massachusetts. Taken at dusk from the north side of the Charles River.
Original - The skyline of Boston, Massachusetts. Taken at dusk from the north side of the Charles River.
Edit 1 Horizon corrected, better noise reduction.
Edit 1 Horizon corrected, better noise reduction.
Edit 2 Ok, folks, this is the largest of the sets that I took, 6x2 segments, downsampled, minimal noise reduction on the buildings, strait horizon, and sharper, and I added the original to the Boston article. Anything else ; )
Edit 2 Ok, folks, this is the largest of the sets that I took, 6x2 segments, downsampled, minimal noise reduction on the buildings, strait horizon, and sharper, and I added the original to the Boston article. Anything else ; )
Reason
I'm hoping 6th time's the charm. I haven't nominated any Boston cityscapes not for lack of taking them, but for lack of them turning out usable. I've been living in Boston since August but I'll be moving back to Oregon in about two weeks. Since August, I've gone to take a cityscape panorama about 6 times. Somehow, there was always a number of motion blurred segments, in all, I probably took 20 sets of images and finally I have on that I feel able to nominate. Anyway, I think the picture is good in many ways. There is a bit of noise in the sky, I can do more to remove it if people mind it.
Articles this image appears in
List of United States cities by population
Creator
User:Fcb981
  • Support as nominator Fcb981(talk:contribs) 15:38, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Unfortunately most of the image is tilted to the left. But I guess that can be corrected with a restitch. --Dschwen 16:18, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
    • Ok, I admire the work you obviously put into the picture, the light is nice, I like the framing. Still, I'm probably picky, but in several areas it looks like you tried to compensate camera jitter by downsampling and sharpening. Was it wind? Lack of a tripod? --Dschwen 02:26, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Support Edit 1 a straightened version. I straightened this one on my computer, but I don't know how to upload edits. If anyone cares to tell me how, just write on my talk page. Clegs (talk) 19:09, 12 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment. Can't it find a bit of a happier home? I'm not sure that any of the 50 or so images in that article are really adding a lot of value. --jjron (talk) 10:36, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Yeah, assuming that it gets featured, I was going to add it to the Boston. See, It's not really useful at 150px wide and the Boston article is FA so I just thought before going in there with an 800px wide thumbnail I'd be better if I had some firepower. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Fcb981 (talk • contribs) 13:39, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Firepower? Ok, I realize you are joking here, but seriously, isn't this taking the process backwards? FP doesn't make a picture worthy to be included in an article, it's exactly the opposite. --Dschwen 18:01, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Hmmm, well I was actually thinking about it, and at FPC the criteria stipulate that the image needs to both be in an article and be encyclopedic. Well, assuming that we find it very encyclopedic, it shouldn't really matter if its in an article for it to become FP. Sure, the encyclopedia as a whole benefits if the picture is in as many articles as it represents, but what articles its in shouldn't really matter here. So, I followed the criteria and the image is in an article, and if you and other voters like it, I'll definitely add it to other articles. As we've seen, it can be hard to be perfectly objective about ones own images, I think this image has a spot in Boston, but I could be deluded. See what I'm saying? -Fcb981(talk:contribs) 22:49, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Nah, sorry, I disagree. I find myself regularly going back to the first sentence on this page which defines what an FP is:

    Featured pictures are images that add significantly to articles, either by illustrating article content particularly well, or being eye-catching to the point where users will want to read its accompanying article.

    This is an attractive image, but it doesn't illustrate "article content particularly well" for List of United States cities by population, and if it made users "want to read its accompanying article" they'd feel pretty gipped when they got there. I have to agree with Dschwen; the idea behind FPs is that they illustrate an article well before, not after, their nomination. This was largely what was behind that extensive discussion on the talkpage about 'noms with short legs'. --jjron (talk) 07:27, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
  • I see that I'm the minority here, so I'll spare you a sermon. My questing becomes, should I add it to the Boston article and then renominate or just do it during this nom and update the "Articles this image appears in" list? -Fcb981(talk:contribs) 16:04, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
  • I think the picture is in a good place in the population centers article; it matches the mood of most of the other pictures, the purpose of which is to show the skyline of the city, which this picture does very well. This gives it the article that it needs to be a candidate for FP. On a side note, I have heard several people here say that being in an article is one of the guidelines that can be easily fudged on, because once it becomes featured, it will be added to many articles. Clegs (talk) 19:42, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
  • People that espouse that notion are usually those that wander over from Commons, or go between the two, and get the criteria confused. If you want to nominate images because they're nice and high quality, do so on Commons. If you want to nominate images that are eye-catching, high quality, and illustrate an encyclopaedia article well, then nominate here. Incidentally, the idea that FPs magically get added to articles after becoming an FP is also a nonsense; some may, but the vast majority don't (in fact, as we've commented before, many editors who have no concept of a good photo vs a bad photo will strip FPs from articles willy-nilly; the Melbourne article for example recently had something like 2 or 3 existing FPs pulled out after a discussion on the talkpage about it having too many photos or something; some of them were replaced with absolutely crap photos, some weren't replaced at all.) --jjron (talk) 08:47, 16 January 2008 (UTC)
  • With all due respect, that was the point I was trying to make. That most editors don't really know too much about photography and they certainly aren't judging the pictures at full size. They do however notice a shiny star on the image page and the star in the top corner. Instead of arguing: Keep this picture because it is really high resolution and is sharp and is well composed and has awesome light. You can argue: Its an FP, and you want FP's in the article. See what I'm saying. Seriously, you say: FP's don't get added to more articles. I ask you this: Do you think that non-FP's that are FP quality get added to more or fewer articles. Thats right, the FP status can't hurt the image getting into more articles, and if its FP quality that is the goal. I feel like you are contradicting yourself. You want articles to use FP's because of their high quality, yet you won't support an FP quality picture because it isn't in enough articles... Or at least thats the impression I'm getting -Fcb981(talk:contribs) 01:37, 17 January 2008 (UTC)
  • No, I'm not contradicting myself. Unfortunately too many article editors don't understand good images as you say. We as image people, may tend to put them in articles where the regular article editors don't like them. You (I suspect like myself) probably don't lurk around any particular articles that much; i.e., I add what I consider to be positive contributions, images or otherwise, and move on. Some editors basically spend a lot of time on one or a few particular articles, whether it be Melbourne, Boston, or whatever. Those regular contributors don't always appreciate our contributions or good images. Whether it's an FP or not doesn't really matter to them; forget about looking at the images fullsize, they don't even open the image page to see the shiny star. The point I'm trying to make is that we usually need to get our images where we think they're contributing to an article, perhaps leave them there for a while to establish them and prove they're contributing, and then perhaps claim them as worthy of being FPs. For some articles that's harder than others, and big ones like Boston are usually going to be difficult as you've pointed out, smaller ones like that duck you nominated last week, it probably doesn't matter so much if you put it in and nominate virtually straight away because there's possibly no regulars on those articles (and in those articles it's also often easier for you to recognise whether your image is really contributing). And whether FP or not, it's more often than not going to be you who spreads it to articles where you think it belongs. --jjron (talk) 03:33, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Ok, I see your point now, and it is a very valid one that I essentially agree with. I hadn't thought about it from the point of view that its better to do a quick nomination when its in smaller and less consequential articles. I think you may be right in that. Anyway, this one looks like a non-promotion. I'll see if I can find it a good home in the article after some communication with the editors. Maybe, in a few months or so. I'll give it another shot, I feel like photographically its good. Anyway, it was good for me to get to the bottom of this matter. Until next time... -Fcb981(talk:contribs) 03:47, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Cool, I'm glad I've made some sense. I do think this may be worth a renom if it can be established in an article (Boston, perhaps there's also an article on the Charles River it may be useful for?). BTW, I haven't looked at the third one fullsize, but at thumbnail there appears to be some banding in the sky, especially from a bit over a quarter to about halfway across; is that right? If so, it could probably be fixed up easily enough. The third one has superior composition, especially at the right, where the other two cut that building off. Otherwise, it looks good to me. --jjron (talk) 10:23, 18 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment I need convincing that the horizon is level. Samsara noadmin (talk) 13:02, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
  • it was tilted in the original, I corrected it in Edit 1. If you want to check with a horizontal rule, you'll see that the left most point on the river bank in the dame height as the right side, but it bows slightly up in the middle. This is by design, the river has a bend there and so it appears that it raises there. I think the edit is as close to the real profile of the horizon as it can be. -Fcb981(talk:contribs) 16:29, 13 January 2008 (UTC)
  • OpposeHmmm... Edit 2 is definitely better on the lines, but I'm still not conviced on the detail, especially at far left. It's good, but it really just isn't up to the standard of your Portland panorama. I don't know what it is (my bet is on noise reduction), but you've lost too much detail it too many places. Look at tree at the far left or the concrete blocks of the building of the rightmost buildings; fine, low-contrast detail is largely lost. The other problem that I see is the strange lines around the picture at (from left on edit 1): 1069px/sky, 1079px/water, 1572px/sky 1828px/water, 2456px/water, 5552px/water, 5223/sky (I think that's all). If you can upload a picture with more detail, even at the expense of some noise, and those lines gone, I would support. thegreen J Are you green? 01:54, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Ok, I'll go through more of them and see what I can do. You should keep in mind though, that Portland is a significantly easier city to photograph. The downtown area of Portland is compact, where as the Downtown area of Boston is sprawling so getting the sane level of detail on individual buildings just is not possible. -Fcb981(talk:contribs) 16:08, 14 January 2008 (UTC)
  • Comment. Caption to be improved (for example, by identifying some of the landmarks that can be seen in this photo). Spikebrennan (talk) 17:47, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

No consensus MER-C 02:08, 20 January 2008 (UTC)