Talk:Ray Farquharson

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Featured articleRay Farquharson is a featured article; it (or a previous version of it) has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. Even so, if you can update or improve it, please do so.
Main Page trophyThis article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page as Today's featured article on September 15, 2012.
Article milestones
DateProcessResult
January 11, 2012WikiProject A-class reviewApproved
January 24, 2012Featured article candidatePromoted
Current status: Featured article

Defence Review Board

The article states Farquharson received the "Coronation Medal in 1953 for his work for the Defence Review Board." I wonder if the organization with which he actually worked was the Defence Research Board, now Defence Research and Development Canada (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defence_Research_and_Development_Canada). I know of no Defence Review Board active in Canada at the time.Ab.chaplin (talk) 12:12, 15 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Infobox needs an image

The infobox should have his portrait image in it, as is the common practice on Wikipedia biography articles. Per WP:IMAGE LEAD

"It is very common to use an appropriate representative image for the lead of an article, often as part of an infobox. The image helps to provide a visual association for the topic, and allows readers to quickly assess if they have arrived at the right page. For most topics, the selection of a lead image is plainly obvious: a photograph or artistic work of a person, photographs of a city, or a cover of a book or album, to name a few." Rreagan007 (talk) 16:29, 17 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for finally bringing your proposal to the talk page rather than continuing to edit-war. As you can see from the excerpt you quote above, the inclusion of an image in the infobox is not a requirement. In this particular case, your proposed inclusion of said image in the infobox would be detrimental to the article for several reasons:
  1. Your proposed edit moves the image featuring WWI to the section discussing WWII. This decontextualizes said image and is confusing to readers
  2. Because of the length of the "Career" section, it is helpful to have an image there to break up the text
  3. The image of Farquharson as he appeared during WWII is contextually appropriate to the text it currently accompanies
  4. Images in the lead are, as your quote suggests, used for identification purposes. This image of Farquharson, while appropriate for his WWII service, is not the image that would be visually identifying for him – he was much more recognizable in later years, and it was during that period primarily that he became well known. Unfortunately, we do not currently have a free image from that period, but that certainly doesn't justify this substitution
If you know of a free image that would be more appropriate for the lead, by all means feel free to upload it with appropriate verification of licensing. Nikkimaria (talk) 16:39, 17 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Response
1. I'm fine with that image staying where it is.
2. While I agree it is nice to have an image to break up large blocks of text, that is of secondary concern not covered by the MoS and is a purely aesthetic argument. And from a purely aesthetic argument, I think it looks worse to not have an image in the infobox than to not have an image breaking up a large block of text, as it contravenes standard Wikipedia formatting policy.
3. While I agree the image correlates to the text in that section, the infobox covers the entire article and the infobox image can therefore be related to any text in the article.
4. The infobox image is not merely for people who already know what he looks like to identify him. Per the MoS, "The image helps to provide a visual association for the topic". Visual association is just as important as identification for the infobox image. It allows readers who arrive at the article to instantly connect and engage with the subject matter of the article in a way that they might not if the image is not there. Rreagan007 (talk) 17:15, 17 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  1. You may be, but it would appear that others are not, based on recent edits. Perhaps they will opt to explain their reasoning here.
  2. No "standard Wikipedia formatting policy" applies here. You refer to one section of the MOS, but another states that "An image should generally be placed in the section of the article that is most relevant to the image". You may support the former more than the latter, but there is no clear policy-based reason why it should take precedence.
  3. This argument does not really make sense. Should we put the image of the Farquharson building at York in the infobox? It, after all, is related to text in the article.
  4. This is not the image for "visual association", as this is not an identifying image. Quick identification and the "general idea" of the article is the purpose of an infobox; having information of limited application (whether in text or in images) is actively misleading. Unless of course you're using the psychological meaning of "identify", in which case we could have a long debate about how well that may apply here, but which would be entirely subjective anyway.
As I'm sure you're aware, consensus is built on constructive debate and reasoning, not on mere force of numbers. I would therefore urge you to restrain yourself from edit-warring and leave the stable version of the article intact until the discussion is concluded, per best practice. Nikkimaria (talk) 03:03, 18 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
True, consensus is not just about numbers, but I'm pretty sure you can't have a consensus among only 1 person. Multiple editors have tried to add the image to the infobox and you refuse to let it be there. During the featured article candidate process it was suggested the image be moved there. Be honest, what's the real reason you don't want his portrait in the infobox where it belongs? It honestly just doesn't make any sense to me. Are you one of those people that just hates infoboxes in general? Or do you just like articles you've worked on to stand out as different in some way that other articles? Or is it you just don't want any other editors messing with your article? This whole thing seems to be a case of WP:Ownership to me. And can you please drop the whole "holier-than-thou" attitude about me being the one edit warring. Looking through the article history, I'm pretty sure you are the one who has been edit warring with multiple editors over this image in the infobox thing for quite a while before I got here. Rreagan007 (talk) 05:57, 18 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Do you have any further constructive arguments to make? If not, I'm afraid we'll have to agree to disagree, as your personal remarks are unconvincing. Nikkimaria (talk) 12:47, 18 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
You're unconvinced by my arguments. Somehow this doesn't surprise me. But before we end this discussion, let me just make sure I understand your main objection to using the WWII portrait of him in the infobox. You basically don't think the image is a good enough image for the infobox. Is that right? Rreagan007 (talk) 16:47, 18 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
More like it isn't an appropriate image for the infobox. To give you an analogy, this is a perfectly "good" image, but you wouldn't want it in the infobox at Bill Clinton. Other considerations were laid out above. Nikkimaria (talk) 17:32, 18 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

(outdent) So you think it's inappropriate for the infobox because of his age when the image was taken? You do realize he's like 47 years old in that picture. I agree the Bill Clinton picture of where he is 4 years old would be inappropriate for an infobox, but an image where someone is 47 is perfectly appropriate.

Not only that, but on Wikipedia that image is about as good as you can expect for an infobox image. It's an actual professional portrait photo that he is posing for, vs. most infobox images which are taken by amateurs on the fly and have to be cropped awkwardly to cut out someone else that's in the shot. I think your expectations are way too high here. If that image isn't good enough for the infobox, then 90% of the infobox images currently in biography articles aren't good enough either.

And the man died over 45 years ago. It's not like we can go out and take another photo of him. So what you're saying is we should just wait another 80 years or so until a slightly better photo of him passes into the public domain for us to use in the infobox before we put an image there. Do you realize how ridiculous that sounds? Rreagan007 (talk) 20:58, 18 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I think perhaps you need to calm down a bit. I am aware of the context of the image, and of what other images are available for us to use. While your arguments are still rather unconvincing – you have not addressed the identification issue, and OTHERSTUFFEXISTS is not a valid reason for compromising standards – since it seems to be so important to you, I have rearranged the article to place the image in question in the lead. I would still urge you to keep an eye out for potential replacements – after all, given his date of death, "80 years or so" is an overstatement of the likely term of copyright. Nikkimaria (talk) 02:23, 19 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Okay, so now the infobox is gone. I honestly don't see a qualitative difference between having a lead image and no infobox and having an infobox with an image. I assume this means you've decided the choice is either between an infobox without an image or a lead image without an infobox. Well if that's the choice you're forcing, then I'd rather have the infobox. Rreagan007 (talk) 02:31, 19 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Nope, the choice I'm making is to return to a previous arrangement of the article (plus an additional image added to "Career"). Nikkimaria (talk) 02:41, 19 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
Sorry, but I feel like an idiot each time I browse a biography only to see the person's face and must go through the article to find it.--94.65.35.192 (talk) 19:05, 23 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]
And, anyway, how didn't anyone set a similar problem at any other article (as far as I know)?--94.65.35.192 (talk) 19:06, 23 September 2012 (UTC)[reply]

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