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Template:Did you know nominations/Jane Withers

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The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by Cwmhiraeth (talk) 06:33, 19 November 2020 (UTC)

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Jane Withers

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Jane Withers
Jane Withers
  • ... that Jane Withers (pictured) rose to child stardom in the 1930s playing mischievous little girls, "tomboy rascals", and "America's favorite problem child"? Source: "Withers has been described as 'a tomboy rascal' ('All Dolled Up!') and 'America's favorite problem child' (Zierold 97); 'wild-eyed, mischievous, uncontrollable...') Fantasies of Neglect))
    • ALT1: ... that 1930s child star Jane Withers (pictured) got her big break in Hollywood by being mean to Shirley Temple? Source: "Her first big film role in Bright Eyes explicitly sets her in opposition to Temple: she plays a rich spoiled brat who torments Temple's sweet orphaned character" (Fantasies of Neglect)
    • ALT2:... that Jane Withers (pictured), a box-office child star of the 1930s, gained new popularity as "Josephine the Plumber" in television commercials for Comet cleanser in the 1960s? Source: "Now remembered mostly, if at all, as 'Josephine the Plumber' in commercials for Comet Cleanser throughout the 1960s and 1970s, Withers was an extremely successful child star...Withers was among the top-ten box-office stars of 1937 and 1938" (Fantasies of Neglect)

Improved to Good Article status by Yoninah (talk). Self-nominated at 21:36, 4 November 2020 (UTC).

General: Article is new enough and long enough
Policy: Article is sourced, neutral, and free of copyright problems
Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
  • Cited: Yes - Offline/paywalled citation accepted in good faith
  • Interesting: Yes

Image eligibility:

  • Freely licensed: No - The licensing on these photographs is rather dubious. The evidence provided does not show that they were *originally* published without a copyright license.
  • Used in article: Yes
  • Clear at 100px: Yes
QPQ: Done.

Overall: Approved but not the images. (t · c) buidhe 21:51, 4 November 2020 (UTC)

@Buidhe: thanks for the quick review. I deleted the first alt and added another one (ALT1); could you look at that? The image licensing is not dubious at all; I've worked with image editor GRuban on correctly licensing the images. Both front and back of the images are provided to show there is no copyright, and I have done due diligence by searching the copyright records as well. Kindly reconsider. Yoninah (talk) 22:00, 4 November 2020 (UTC)
@Buidhe: perhaps you are unaware that both images are crops. Please look at the original image pages. Yoninah (talk) 22:01, 4 November 2020 (UTC)
I did. If you were able to establish that these were the first publication of the images, then I agree, they would not have copyright. However, I see no evidence that this was the case. I've struck the new alt as misleading because the source does not say that she was mean to Shirley Temple, only that her character was mean to Temple's character. (t · c) buidhe 22:05, 4 November 2020 (UTC)
  • @GRuban: would you mind explaining to this reviewer why the image licensing satisfies the tags I gave them? Thanks, Yoninah (talk) 22:09, 4 November 2020 (UTC)
Sure. The source for the image says this is "JANE WITHERS Original Vintage 1930s 20th CENTURY FOX PORTRAIT Photo by POWOLNY". We have the front and back of the image, which clearly lacks any copyright statement. The stamp on the back asks to credit Frank Powolny. We don't have an article on Frank Powolny, but he may well qualify for one: here is his obituary https://www.nytimes.com/1986/01/11/obituaries/frank-powolny.html and here is the photo he is best known for: Betty Grable#Frank Powolny poster. So everything adds up to this being what the photo source says, a publicity photograph from 20th Century Fox, which Jane Withers was a player for. As the NYT obituary says, he made thousands of these: "As head portrait and still photographer at 20th Century-Fox, and a predecessor company, from 1923 to 1966, Mr. Powolny captured thousands of stars in photos that ended up in newspapers, magazines and theater lobbies around the world." Many of these were not marked with copyright statements, the idea was to publicize the movie stars and sell movie tickets: in many cases, if someone wanted to go to the effort of reproducing it and reprinting it - possible, but not exactly trivial, in the 1930s - the motion picture studio would be only too happy. What's more, it doesn't even actually have to be the original publication, it just has to be a publication by the copyright owner, 20th Century Fox, and their employee Frank Powolny. For it to be other that what it is claimed to be is certainly possible with 21st century image editing technology, but would take quite a bit of effort, and would require someone to create a deliberate fraud (not just the photo, but the markings of Fox on the front and Powolny on the back) for no obvious reason, so seems rather unlikely, and we can only go so far in our doubts. We have 252,183 files in https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:PD_US_no_notice and more in the subcategories, many or most with evidence like this: front and back of the image and publishing information, often just date. --GRuban (talk) 23:34, 4 November 2020 (UTC)
  • As the original reviewer doesn't seem to be responding to my ping or post, I'd like to call on a new reviewer to okay the image, which is sharp and clear for the main page. All the images have been properly licensed and passed the GA review. Pinging Kingsif and evrik if you're available. Thanks, Yoninah (talk) 22:30, 10 November 2020 (UTC)
  • Image good. Kingsif (talk) 12:06, 11 November 2020 (UTC)
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