Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Whaling in the Faroe Islands

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[edit] Whaling in the Faroe Islands

Reason

A large, high res and compelling photo of whaling in the Faroe Islands that I feel is very encyclopaedic. A bit POV, yet displays similar content to the holocaust-era images of mass graves. This is simply what happens. The number of whales I think shows that the practice is of economic significance, essentially summing up the two main arguments behind whaling. (part of a series - here)

Articles this image appears in

Dolphin / Faroe Islands / Whaling / Whaling in the Faroe Islands / Atlantic White-sided Dolphin / Hvalba

Creator

User:Erik Christensen

Nominator

- Jack (talk)

• Support edit 1 — - Jack (talk) 22:25, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support Good, encyclopedic picture. S h a r k f a c e 2 1 7 00:54, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
• Comment it would be nice if the picture page itself had a more descriptive caption. And just idle speculation - from all the faeces and intestines, I would expect some birds to be hanging around - I wonder why there aren't any in the picture? Mak (talk) 02:14, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
  • The dolphins are on a concrete floored dock at a small port called Hvalba, which is in the Faroe Islands, north of the UK. They've been caught for food, as has been done for at least a thousand years. As for the birds; they're there, just not in the picture. It is best to view the photo in context, as part of the series of images that where taken of the same catch, which can be found at commons here - Jack (talk) 14:11, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
    • According to WIAFP "The picture should be displayed with a descriptive, informative and complete caption. The image description page should have an extended caption that is suitable for featuring the image on the Main Page." Last time I looked there was practically no caption on the image description page, in fact the image description page just has "Whaling in the Faroe Islands", which is somewhat misleading, as the creatures pictured are dolphins. Basically, could you please add a more descriptive caption to the image description page please? Thanks, Mak (talk) 01:11, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Support, thanks for putting the caption on the image page. Very interesting, encyclopedic, and well done picture. Mak (talk) 19:01, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
• Comment We seem to have a thing for the graphics images lately (eye surgery, decapitated prey, guinea pigs...). Very visually compelling, but what floor is this on? There are horizontal stripes which could be ripples in the concrete or image artifacts. ~ trialsanderrors 08:47, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
  • Comment Guinea Pigs are graphic? {I would admit to them not being especially attractive, I've never liked rodents very much). --Pharaoh Hound (talk) 13:37, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
• Weak support. While it's a very impressive image (at least as subject matter goes) it is somewhat blurry. --Pharaoh Hound (talk) 13:37, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
• Weak oppose, blurry and dully lit (although I can't really fault the photographer, overcast skies will do that to you, and blurriness seems to be the result of the camera). Night Gyr (talk/Oy) 14:54, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
• Support per both of the above. This image is very encyclopedic. — Arjun 20:05, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

Weak Oppose Per above - image quality isn't that great. (Not to mention the yuck factor!! :) --Fir0002 01:12, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

• weak Support edit 1 - efficiently conveys what text cannot and illustrates many articles. slight blur seems to be on the 1.5-2px scale, reducing the effective resolution to at least 1200x500, which is barely within the acceptable range. Debivort 09:22, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
• SupportHigh-quality. Clearly gives an image of whaling in the Faroe Islands. Wwicki 11:02, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
• Support. Per wwicki. --froth^{T C} 23:27, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
• Support Very encycolopedic in both quality and subject matter --UCLARodent 23:28, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
• Weak oppose. Not good enough to be a featured picture. It describes the subject matter, but it should be clearer to be featured. --RandomOrca2 00:51, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
• N Oppose a bit dark and blurry. Reywas92^Talk_{Sign Here} 02:34, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
• Oppose. Unpleasing to the eye. Olegivvit 12:54, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Could you please elaborate? I suspect you don't like it because of the "yuck" factor, and I don't feel that is fair. If your objection is on the grounds of photographic quality, that's fine, as long as you explain yourself - Jack (talk) 14:46, 2 January 2007 (UTC)
    • I don't like it because it is disgusting to me. In the same way I would oppose a high quality and encyclopaedic image of shit. I think, this is fair. Olegivvit 14:08, 3 January 2007 (UTC)
  • Support to cancel out Olegivvit's vote, since it would be a pity to lose this picture's FPC status simply because of the yuck factor. It's an important and genuine issue - if anything, the disgustingness should add to the importance. --Kizor 09:38, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
• Support, fascinating picture -- Chris 73 | Talk 21:47, 2 January 2007 (UTC)

• Comment The crop is not optimal, I think. There's a little too much empty space (i.e. the concrete) on the left. It might work better with a narrower crop, showing principally the two complete rows of whales on the right. — BillC ^talk 00:09, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Add: crop shown on right:-

• Oppose crop - way too small! - Jack (talk) 15:02, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

• Are you referring to the size of the overall image? Because that's not I was proposing. I shrunk the size of the cropped image to be kinder on the servers; the image to the right is only for discussion as a proposal for where to crop the image, not a proposal to shrink it. — BillC ^talk 19:27, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

• Oh, OK. Though it's usually best to create a ready-for-promotion picture as your edit. Although I partially agree with your idea, I think you definitely cropped too much. Perhaps a 100px shave off the left? Still, I do like the image as it is, I feel it gives the impression that more dolphins are yet to be added. I'm not sure - Jack (talk) 02:58, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Promoted Image:Whaling in the Faroe Islands.jpg Raven4x4x 06:57, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Discussions posted after the discussion had closed

• Oppose It's disgusting, vile, sickening, and has no place on the front page of Wikipedia. Perfectly fine for an article, but there's no need for it to be on the front page, where people will accidently look at it when scrolling to the links at the bottom of the main page. And yes, I know the vote's late, take it off if you'd like, but had I known about it a week before the strabismus surgery picture came up, I would have said the exact same thing. Kevin 23:35, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
• Comment I like the image and whatever, I would like to make a note about the description of the image as reminiscient of "holocaust-era images of mass graves." Descriptions such as this to further an anti-whaling cause necessarily trivialize the Holocaust and the true magnitude and horror of such an event. To compare the slaughter of over 10 million people to any smaller scale killing of animals is inaccurate, rude, and disrespectful. Otherwise, great image.--Blingice 00:36, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

As per above, the photo does not belong on Wikipedia's front page. And I wholeheartedly agree with Blingice's sentiment--comparing any hunting/environmental event to the Holocaust is completely inappropriate and tasteless. I hope it was no more than a poor choice of words. Theonlyedge 02:39, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

• Oppose. I do not agree that it should be excluded do to the graphic nature, but rather that it lacks the "wow" factor that I expect from a featured picture. It's shocking, no doubt, but if a shocking picture was a good picture, than the infamous hello.jpg would be FP quality without question. When you see a featured picture, you should want to learn more. Take this, for example:

Now, when you see that, don't you want to know more about plasma? Do you get that same feeling about whaling from this picture? no!--Munkel (talk) 16:50, 29 April 2007 (UTC)

I do. When I first saw this picture, I had only a vague knowledge that whaling was still legal anywhere. *boom* Suddenly, the reality is brought home to me, and I want to know where it's legal, under what circumstances, etc. --Herald Alberich 11:42, 30 April 2007 (UTC)