Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/delist/Bison skull pile

Bison skull pile

Bison skull pile, 1870s

Reason

576 × 461 pixels, file size: 175 KB. Encyclopedic, but not even close to minimum on the technical side. A 2005 nomination that may have been the site's best back then, but just isn't up to par anymore.

Previous nomination/s

Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Bison skull pile, ca1870.png, Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/delist/Image:Bison skull pile, ca1870.png

Nominator

Durova³⁵¹

• Delist — Durova³⁵¹ 05:32, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
• Delist Fails current criteria, by a long shot.  Nezzadar [SPEAK]  07:15, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
• Delist I remember this being used recently as an example of where historical value trumps dimensions. That's a bad lesson to be teaching people, interesting image but way below standards. Staxringold _talk^contribs 15:35, 1 November 2009 (UTC)
• (Weak) Keep I tend to agree with the arguments put forth in the previous delist attempt--historical value trumps the size in this case. The information is conveyed acceptably. Cowtowner 05:34, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
  • The previous delist attempt was two and a half years ago. It's been a very long time since editors have promoted a nomination with technical shortcomings as severe as this (been a regular since late 2007 and can't recall it once). No one is suggesting deleting the image from the project, but if this were a new FPC nomination it would probably be speedily closed. This simply isn't Wikipedia's best content. Not by a longshot. Durova³⁵² 15:08, 2 November 2009 (UTC)
    • I completely and utterly agree with this sentiment. This is just too awful to be a FP, despite its EV. Mostlyharmless (talk) 22:48, 12 November 2009 (UTC)
• Keep, if someone ever finds an image to better represent such an important period in the history of the American bison, or human factors causing endangered species then I will vote to replace this image with that. As of now this is what we have and historical value does trump dimensions. If it didn't then we would have no old photos because their dimensions are usually resultant from scan quality and not the original image. This image is incredibly striking and is one of the few images of this size that deserve to be featured. An image like this is better quality but just doesn't have the same effect of scale. gren グレン 15:37, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

To a degree you are correct, but I thought it was a pile or rocks before reading the caption, it's that bad. Nezzadar ^[SPEAK] 23:56, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

While I can appreciate the sentiment, the caption is there for that reason; the same could likely be said about a number of other FPs. I've also changed my earlier vote to a weak support. Cowtowner (talk) 04:48, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

• Delist It's not the size, it's the detail. I certainly can't tell that those are bison skulls. We can make exceptions for historic images, but this is too far below the standards for an exception. Makeemlighter (talk) 05:29, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
• keep I am against delisting in the first place .,, it is like rerwriting history. GerardM (talk) 11:49, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Then you should abstain, as your voting skews the process. I don't think "I don't like the process" holds up that well anyways. Nezzadar ^[SPEAK] 20:22, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

• Delist. I really don't see why everyone is so mad about this picture. J Milburn (talk) 12:31, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
• Delist The poor quality image is unrecognizable without the caption. Featured pictures means worthy pictures themselves, not have to resort to the one line of "caption", but the picture is far away from that standard. --21:37, 3 November 2009 (UTC)

Edit history says this ^ ^ ^ was Caspian blue voting.

• Delist for poor image quality. However I would consider it for a Valued Picture nomination. Is there a straightforeward process of transfer from WP:FP to WP:VPICS? Elekhh (talk) 22:19, 3 November 2009 (UTC)
  • Touchy subject. upstateNYer 03:22, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
• Keep - you can't retake this and there were no "megapixels" in 1870s for anyone to complain about them.--Avala (talk) 11:11, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
• Weak keep The wow factor has me, but not fully. upstateNYer 03:22, 5 November 2009 (UTC)
• Keep per Gren. A rare monument to such an abject human folly, it blows me away every time I see it. Would a bigger version have any more impact? No. Unique, striking, poignant, encyclopedic and irreplaceable. Keep. mikaul^talk 21:34, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

I think is reasonable to assume that a better version would have more impact. One has to admit that at 250px as it appears in the articles is not recognisable that those are skulls. And even a zoom to max size is very unclear. Certainly is a great image, but its visual quality is very low. Elekhh (talk) 22:15, 5 November 2009 (UTC)

• "Please leave a note on the talk pages of the original creator/uploader and/or FPC nominator to let them know the delisting is being debated." Thanks. Makeemlighter (talk) 03:50, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
  • The original uploader has not edited since 2005.[1] The original nominator has made fewer than 100 edits in 2009, most of which were in January.[2] Will notify the latter. Durova³⁵⁷ 03:58, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
    • Thank you. It's more procedural than anything. With a close nom like this, I prefer to see everything go by the book. Makeemlighter (talk) 05:12, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
      • You're absolutely right. Should've thought of that myself. Thanks for the catch. :) Durova³⁵⁷ 18:04, 6 November 2009 (UTC)
• Keep per Mikaul, et al. If there's a comparable higher quality version I would be happy to support a replace, but until then this looks irreplaceable, and huge EV. There seems little reason to shuffle this sort of stuff out of FP, when things with a fraction of the EV are still going in just because they're big. --jjron (talk) 12:08, 7 November 2009 (UTC)
• Keep per above. --Muhammad(talk) 15:06, 7 November 2009 (UTC)
• Delist. I am going to make the assumption that this photograph is essentially irreplaceable for what it represents - photography in the field was still rare in the 1860s and 1870s, and in frontier country even more so. There are not likely to be very many any photographs that illustrate large piles of dead buffalo in this way, at least not that have survived and are accessible publicly. I also assert that this has very high EV in the sections of the articles it illustrates - it shows the deliberate extermination of a species in a very clear and visible way. It also is a powerful image that has an effect on many viewers. Despite this, it should be delisted. Some things that are amazing just simply can't be featured pictures, and this is one of them. It is a particularly bad photograph in almost every respect except for its notable subject, even for a photo taken in the early 1870s - it is not due to technical limitations of photography at the time that this is bad. Mostlyharmless (talk) 00:53, 8 November 2009 (UTC)
• Weak Keep On one hand this is an immensely irreplaceable image and overwhelming EV, on the other it's a horrible resolution. Presumably the original for this scan still exists, if only it could be tracked down and digitized by today's standards. I'm still in favor of keeping these historic images around, do we even remotely have anything better to illustrate the bison slaughter during this time? — raeky ^{(talk | edits)} 07:49, 10 November 2009 (UTC)
• Strong Keep Screw the idiotic size guidelines, if a picture has high EV and is irreplaceable which this is then there is no good reason to delist it and those who want to delist this should really go through the archives and see the spirit of the older days of FPC and if they can't then in my opinion they should stop coming to this page. Cat-five - talk 05:56, 11 November 2009 (UTC)
• Keep. For reasons given. I also like that it's inspiring. --Silversmith Hewwo 09:53, 13 November 2009 (UTC)