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Engravings, fairies, and a cruiser ship

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By Dank, Adam Cuerden, and Crisco 1492
Edwin Landseer's "Scene from A Midsummer Night's Dream: Titania and Bottom"
This Signpost "Featured content" report covers material promoted from 27 July to 2 August 2014. Anything in quotation marks is taken from the respective articles and lists; see their page histories for attribution.

Eight featured articles were promoted this week.

"Peonies and Canary" by Katsushika Hokusai is one of many examples of ukiyo-e prints, the topic of a new featured article.
The Russian battleship Sevastopol is one of the Petropavlovsk-class battleships in a new featured topic.
  • Horatio Bottomley (nominated by Brianboulton) (1860–1933) was an English financier, journalist, editor, newspaper proprietor, and Member of Parliament. He is best known for his editorship of the popular magazine John Bull, and for his patriotic oratory during the First World War. His career came to a sudden end when, in 1922, he was convicted of fraud and sentenced to seven years imprisonment.
  • The Lewis and Clark Exposition dollar (nominated by Wehwalt) was a commemorative gold coin struck in 1904 and 1905 as part of the United States Government's participation in the Lewis and Clark Centennial Exposition, held in the latter year in Portland, Oregon. The coins are now worth hundreds or even thousands of dollars, depending on condition. This is the only "two-headed" American coin, with a portrait of one of the expedition leaders on each side.
  • HMS Indefatigable (R10) (nominated by Sturmvogel 66) was a British aircraft carrier, completed late in the Second World War. The ship and its aircraft saw action against the docked German battleship Tirpitz, and later bombed Japanese land installations in the Pacific. Decommissioned after the conflict, Indefatigable was used in the 1950s as a training ship before being scrapped.
  • Ukiyo-e (nominated by Curly Turkey) is a genre of woodblock prints and paintings, popular with the prosperous merchant class in the urbanizing Edo period (1603–1867). Themes included beautiful women, kabuki actors and sumo wrestlers, scenes from history and folk tales, travel scenes and landscapes, flora and fauna, and erotica. The bold formalist Hokusai's Great Wave off Kanagawa and the serene, atmospheric series The Fifty-three Stations of the Tōkaidō by Hiroshige are among the best-known works of Japanese art. Ukiyo-e was central to forming the West's perception of Japanese art in the late 19th century.
  • Subway Sadie (nominated by Taylor Trescott) is a 1926 American comedy-drama film directed by Alfred Santell. Adapted from Mildred Cram's 1925 short story Sadie of the Desert, the film focuses on a relationship between New York salesgirl Sadie Hermann (Dorothy Mackaill) and subway guard Herb McCarthy (Jack Mulhall). Many publications wrote positively of the film, praising its acting and Santell's direction.
  • Hurricane Iris (nominated by Hurricanehink) was the most destructive hurricane in Belize since Hurricane Hattie in 1961. The second-strongest storm of the 2001 Atlantic hurricane season, it reached peak winds of 145 mph (230 km/h) before making landfall in southern Belize. It killed 42 and caused $250 million in damage.
  • The Okęcie Airport incident (nominated by Cliftonian) was a dispute between players and technical staff of the Poland national football team in 1980, starting at the team hotel in Warsaw and climaxing at Okęcie Airport. An incident of footballing insubordination at a time when strike action and other forms of civil resistance were intensifying in communist Poland, it caused a domestic press storm, which led first to the suspension of several prominent players, then the resignation of the team manager, Ryszard Kulesza.
  • The 2013 Rosario gas explosion (nominated by Cambalachero) in a residential area of Rosario, the third-largest city in Argentina, occurred on August 6, 2013. It was caused by a large gas leak; a nearby building collapsed, and others were at high risk of structural failure. Twenty-two people died, and sixty were injured.

Fifteen featured pictures were promoted this week.

The cloister of Worcester Cathedral.
DeSoto Discovering the Mississippi, part of a new set of artworks engraved for United States banknotes.
Le Déjeuner sur l’herbe by Edouard Manet.

Two featured topics were promoted this week.

  • Petropavlovsk-class battleships (Automatic promotion from good topic; originally nominated by Buggie111) Only three of these Russian pre-dreadnought battleships were built, and two of them were at the bottom of the sea within six years of launch. The longest-lived of these ships, Poltava, was sunk by the Japanese in 1904 only to be reraised and captured, used against Germany forces in World War I, and then sold back to the Russians; this "undead" ship supported the Bolsheviks in the Russian revolution, was captured by the British, then abandoned and captured by Russia. It was sunk for good in 1924. Hot potato on the world stage?
  • Audie Murphy (nominated by Maile66) This American soldier, one of the most decorated in World War II, rode his fame to a successful film and music career, receiving a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960. He was a Mason too... coincidence, or not?
A magnificent interior shot of Coventry Cathedral, built in a modernist style after the previous building was destroyed in World War II.
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I'm still a little shocked I got away with that one. =) Adam Cuerden (talk) 15:52, 9 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • The title makes me uneasy; the pun relies on a homophobic slur that many people use to demean gay men. I'm also aware that some gay men use it fondly and jokingly among themselves, but I'm still uneasy about how it will make other QUILTBAG readers feel. Sumana Harihareswara 17:49, 10 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm under the impression the word has pretty much been reclaimed, but America and Britain are often poles apart on that kind of thing. It can always be shortened to "Bottoms and asses" if it really is particularly offensive. Adam Cuerden (talk) 23:22, 10 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Seconding Adam here, with the addition that I approved the title because I thought it was pretty obvious that "fairies" refers to ... the fairy in the painting. As a fairy is a fairy, we can't obliterate entire words in the English language simply because some people misuse them! EDIT: after rereading my comments, I've realized that they could conceivably come across as rather offensive. Someone should read them and let me know if this is the case? Ed [talk] [majestic titan] 23:03 and 23:51, 11 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • Hello, I participate in meta:Wikimedia LGBT and I wanted to share some thoughts as an LGBT activist in the United States. For context, the title of this piece currently is "Bottoms, asses, and the fairies that love them". All of these terms come from the Shakespearean play shown, in which the character named Bottom is transformed into an ass (donkey) by a magical fairy. There is also a gay sex joke here, because a bottom is a gay male who is penetrated during anal sex, an ass is the focus of the intercourse, and a fairy is a slang word for gay male. Somehow the headline is a gay anal sex joke. In previous times and still so in some cultures, the term "fairy" was used as an insult, but now it is used just as an old-fashioned curiosity or as a reclaimed-term to be a point of pride.
While I do not think anything about this title is harmful to gay males, and indeed, a big part of the gay rights movement included initiatives to encourage the broader public to talk about gay sex in media channels in which it would not be expected, it is probably right to say that readers of The Signpost do not expect gay sex jokes in headlines. As an advocate for gay rights I appreciate the attention and good will, and I like the encouragement of a sexualized environment on Wikipedia because such environments make for healthy places to address sexual problems including health issues, discrimination, harassment, and many other taboo topics which could not be raised outside of sexualized environments. This headline is not the kind of attention the organized gay community would seek for itself, but in my opinion, it seems like crude humor, not anything offensive, and any friendly mention of gay sex benefits the gay community by normalizing minority practices. The joke is only out of place if The Signpost's image is not one of crude humor.
Please sign on as a supporter of the Wikimedia User Group supporting LGBT empowerment on Wikipedia. Signatures are a useful show of support from all kinds of people who support LGBT issues and anyone can put theirs at meta:Wikimedia LGBT/Participants. Sorry, there are no LGBT jokes on this project page. Blue Rasberry (talk) 08:13, 12 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
I should probably just make this clear: I don't want to attack or degrade anyone, but I also don't want to give reclaimed words back their power to hurt by deleting them as offensive too readily. Adam Cuerden (talk) 13:10, 12 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • I have to admit, I am not easily offended but I thought "Bottoms, asses, and the fairies that love them" was totally unnecessary. I rolled my eyes when I read it, wondered what others would think, but I did not feel offended enough to comment until now. To me, it's more unnecessary than offensive... ----Another Believer (Talk) 19:16, 14 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • I'm with Another Believer. I'm not really offended and I don't have a strong opinion on this, but I'm sure a headline could have been chosen which couldn't have been construed as a slur against gay individuals. CT Cooper · talk 20:03, 14 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • While I'm not offended, it seems like the sort of joke you'd expect from an adolescent rather than The Signpost. And it has the potential for unnecessary offence. Orderinchaos 21:23, 14 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
  • I agree, the headline may not be the end of the world, and I am certainly not suggesting the author had any bad intent, but considering the work that WP has been doing to try to be inclusive of and inviting to all groups, this is a headline that was unnecessary. KConWiki (talk) 03:20, 17 August 2014 (UTC)[reply]
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