Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Petty Apartheid

Apartheid Era in South Africa

"Petty apartheid": sign on Durban beach in English, Afrikaans and Zulu

This picture is very clear and speaks by itself. The composition is great. This image was taken in 1989 and donated by [|John Mullen]. It appears in the article "History of South Africa in the apartheid era" and shows one of the worst atrocities the human being can ever do... (and not many years ago!)

"Petty apartheid was the general term for the more apparently trivial aspects of apartheid. It was usually held to mean those measures short of directly affecting employment, residence or voting rights" (Definition taken from the Petty apartheid article).

Nominate and support. - darkinquirer 07:23, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
~~Oppose~~ on grounds of technical quality only: tilted horizon and way too small for a FP. It is a very, very important image in the article, though. --Janke | Talk 08:00, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Support The more I think of this, the technical limitations seem less ans less important. My first vote was explained above, but I do have the right to change it... so, support, on grounds of historical significance. --Janke | Talk 09:45, 8 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Oppose although it is an extremely important picture and I'm very glad we have it. Quality isn't up to FP standard, unfortunately... Mstroeck 17:44, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Forget it, I'll support anyway.Mstroeck 17:46, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Comment: We need a mechanism for singling out (on the front page or wherever) historically relevant but low quality pictures like this one -- without making them run the gauntlet here. The pictures that now typically hit the front page are pretty, but let's face it: Everybody already knows what a sunset or some critter looks like...Mstroeck 17:44, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Well, that's what featured articles are for. I'd like to see this on the front page, too, but as the lead picture to the article. On its own, especially as a thumbnail, it's just a sign in a small image with a tilted horizon. --Janke | Talk 20:27, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Strong support. Important to have. Thankfully, not the most artsy of photos, which is its strong point. It's not huge, but it's plenty big enough. Zafiroblue05 23:48, 6 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong support - Agree with Zafiroblue05; perhaps put it in White supremacy as there are no images on this article? ^KILO-_LIMA 13:12, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support - Featured article or no, this image is so chock full of significance that it ought to be a FP. The kid in the background is the kicker.--ragesoss 18:16, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Support, powerful image, which more than overcomes technical limitations. Put it on the Main Page soon. Tito xd^{(?!? - help us)} 23:41, 7 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Strong Oppose, Faked IMO, or at least heavely enhanced. Ericd 19:14, 8 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
- What makes you think that? chowells 19:42, 8 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
  - I see no indication of manipulation. What I see are compression artifacts, and the same pincushion distortion in the sign edges as in the horizon (I suspect this was shot with a cheap tele-zoom lens, which often has this type of distortion). The distortion in both background and sign is a clear indication to me that the image is not faked. --Janke | Talk 20:20, 8 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
    - Speaking of which, perhaps we should try to get rid of the distortion? Mstroeck 21:53, 8 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
      - Not unless we can get a hi-res version. Modifying this will worsen the artifacts. --Janke | Talk 06:25, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        There's something wrong in the deep of field. The panel is sharp while everything else is out of focus. Ericd 10:42, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        Err, that's a photographic technique called bokeh which is caused by a large aperture and shallow depth of field. I really can't see how you could contrive that it has been manipulated. chowells 12:35, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        Thanks I know it FYI I started the article Bokeh. What is wrong is that the panel is sharp while the piece of wood that hold the panel is unsharp. One inch doesnt create such a difference in sharpness. I took some time to understand what kind of manipulation can lead to such a result. Let's be clear that I don't think yet the photo was faked. However, I am somewhat sensitive to some effects that don't look as the normal result of a "straight" photographic process. Here is probably how this pic was done. This was shot at a focal length around 300mm for a 135 camera. The lens was not of the best one, maybe cheap zoom or a 135mm with a 2x teleconverter. The film used was probably not very fast (100 ISO or less). As a result of the poor performance of the optics and maybe a bit of motion blur the next was not that sharp thus it was sharpnened in Photoshop or PSP or any other software, added to heavy jpeg compression that create a lot of artefacts this doesn't look natural to me. To sum up the photo looks "wrong" to me but is not faked IMO. Certainly not of FP quality in this version. Ericd 20:56, 9 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
        Thanks for the explanation. You did specifically use the word "faked" in your initial oppose however which to me suggests you think some malicious trickery is going on. I can understand your technical critiscism of the image, it isn't the greatest, but I don't believe the FPC criteria state that an image must be 100% technically perfect. I can understand your opposition though. I believe the historical significance far outweigh the technical problems. chowells
~~Oppose~~, the image isn't at the Commons. (Please strike this vote if / when the picture gets uploaded in the right place.) dbenbenn | talk 08:24, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Please stop doing this. Read the criteria for Wikipedia FPs before you vote. If you think that pictures should be uploaded to Commons before we can feature them, propose it on some talk page, but not here. Mstroeck 12:47, 10 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Vote struck out, see below. Raven4x4x 03:58, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Support. Just like the Japanese ship we had recently, this image conveys quite a bit of history, and it's good enough to read the text. enochlau (talk) 15:09, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support this pic and fight racism! - Darwinek 23:44, 11 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose - too small and a bit blurry. Flcelloguy (A note?) 16:03, 12 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support for historical value. We've accepted far lower quality images in the past because of their significance. Diliff | (Talk) (Contribs) 03:40, 13 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. This is an unremarkable photo. It's nice that it conveys history and all that, but that's not enough: it's not exemplary of the best images on Wikipedia. If it gets nominated for Wikipedia:Historical picture candidates then I'll support it there. --Doradus 14:06, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose An important historical topic, but a poor picture. This doesn't convey much of anything: you could simply quote the words from the sign to much the same effect. Apartheid wasn't that long ago, and was intensely covered by the media — surely there must be more interesting pictures? A FP should speak a thousand words; this speaks 28 ~ Veledan • Talk 21:15, 14 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose. Veledan makes excellent points. This just doesn't represent the topic very well. The picture doesn't give you anything that the words themselves don't. --Dante Alighieri | Talk 00:13, 15 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Support The photo quality is irrelevant. As to the comment above, quoting the sign would not show the beach, or the white kids, or the way the sign looks just like any other non-remarkable beach sign.--Colle||Talk-- 04:33, 18 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Oppose per Veledan WP 09:27, 18 February 2006 (UTC)

Promoted Image:DurbanSign1989.jpg. I have uploaded the image to Commons here and so have struck out dbenbenn's vote per his request. Raven4x4x 03:58, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]