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Talk:Images of Rachel Corrie

Newer talk regarding copyright status

...

What to do with additional photos

There were/are essentially three options available for the "photo montage":

Remove it completely
Keep it on Images of Rachel Corrie - seperate from the main article
Keep it on the bottom of Rachel Corrie

Currently there is some debate between the second and third options. The reasons for this are discussed below.

In the first two options there is the option of:

deleting Images of Rachel Corrie
keeping Images of Rachel Corrie as a contentless redirect to Rachel Corrie

Currently the article is a redirect - option two. Jtdirl argued passionately against this option, saying "redirecting it will still leave us with a pointless page. We have enough images on the main page". He later clarified this: "the issue here isn't the naming of the article, which could be solved by a redirect. The issue is the principle. There should not be a page like this". The refactorer (Martin) still doesn't understand, but hopes that the reader can figure it out or Jtdirl can clarify.

The arguments for keeping it as a redirect were made by Martin, who threatened "If a sysop deletes it I shall make use of my magical sysop powers to undelete it and then turn it into a redirect". His arguments were:

Doesn't break links, bookmarks, use special sysop powers, etc (IE, the generic arguments from wikipedia:policy on deletion of pages)
Allows the history to be viewed by people interested in seeing what the photos were and/or using them.

Why remove the images?

Most wikipedians who commented wished to remove the images. The dissenters were Martin, user:GrahamN, and the unlogged in user "~ender", who supported the second option. The third option was suggested relatively late in the day by user:Ed Poor.

Arguments for removing the page (attached signatures may not agree fully with the exact choice of words, but give the general flavour

A page of images is a "shrine" that "canonises" Rachel Corrie - this makes it "POV propaganda"
- Jtdirl, Zoe, Danny
Many of the photos are pointless and "add no value" - we can do without them.
- Jtdirl, F1lby, Eclecticology, mav, Jimbo Wales
Some of the images are questionable from a copyright POV and should be removed
- Martin, Jimbo Wales

Arguments for keeping the seperate page:

reduces the number of photos on Rachel Corrie, as requested
- Martin, "~ender", Pizza Puzzle

Arguments for keeping the photos somewhere:

If there are too many photos here, that is because other articles have too few photos, not because this one has too many.
- GrahamN, "~ender", Martin, Ed Poor, snoyes, Pizza Puzzle

Jtdirl felt that having many photos of Corrie made Wikipedia appear American-centric. Also, he noted that many other (more prominent people) have no photos at all, and none have a seperate "images" page. Similarly, RK asked "Why do we have zero photos for people murdered by Hamas, Hizbollah and Islamic Jihad terrorists?"

Martin argued that though Corrie was American her death had been reported around the world, including in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and the UK. Besides lots of subjects have a vast level of detail - the only thing new here is that the detail is in the form of images, not text.

Zoe compared Corrie with the victims of 9/11, which many people wish to move to meta or the sep11.wiki. One issue with this comparison is that most 9/11 victim pages on wikipedia have no (occasionally one) photos. Also, most 9/11 victim pages are still on wikipedia and have not yet been moved (or have been moved but restored).

mav made a good point about how photos can express a point of view, in response to GrahamN's question "how can a photo be POV?". Mav stated:

If a person thinks the GW is a moron the can insert that POV in his article by choosing a picture of GW with a stupid look on his face. This image gives the impression that the man is an idiot. Or if a person thinks that the NATO bombing of during the Kosovo War was a war crime against Serbs they can insert that POV into the article by placing 20 photographs showing mangled bodies of Serbs in that article and fail to include a single picture of what the Serbs did to the Muslims. That is how POV can be slipped into an article. We really need a policy on this.

GrahamN felt that having lots of detail was good - "If we want to create a great encyclopaedia, we should welcome and encourage this kind of obsessive thoroughness". He also felt that problems with bias should be fixed by *adding* photos, not removing them. Martin agreed with the general point: that having extra photos reduces, not increases, bias.

Specific photos: Two halves pointed out that the photo of Rania Noureddine and her child was not actually a photo of Rachel Corrie - at best it was a photo related to Rachel Corrie. whkoh felt that the head shots of Rachel Corrie should be removed because they do not facilitate understanding of the article. Jtdirl felt that we needed precisely one such photo. Martin felt that having a variety of photos of Corrie made the article more balanced, not less, by showing her both happy, and more sombre.

Ed Poor felt the photos should go to the bottom of the Rachel Corrie article, saying "I actually think they look good there! And they don't interfere with the reading of the article".

The article was listed on wikipedia:votes for deletion. Because he felt that it should be redirected, and because there had been no response to this detail, Martin later removed it from VfD. He subsequently apologised for removing the article from VfD without also redirecting the page, given that (including mailing list comments) there was consensus for removing the images.

New Talk regarding keeping the additional photos

I don't care how many pictures S.I. wants to upload of her, as long is the images don't get in the way of the text. I figure, put them at the bottom of the page. --Uncle Ed 22:33 Apr 8, 2003 (UTC)

S.I. ? Martin

I've listed :Image:BabyNamedRachel.jpeg on wikipedia:votes for deletion, because it's not GFDL (AFAICT), and it's not particularly informative or useful, IMO. I've also listed :Image:Rach3.jpg there because it looks like it's already been half-deleted. Martin

Switching photos again to give priority to the GFDL'd photo. See the talk at the top of talk:Images of Rachel Corrie" above.

user:Zoe deleted the "photo montage". I think this should stay. The photos of Rachel balance the photo of her at the top of the article. The photo of the well balances the photo of the flag burning. The photos on the day balance the similar photos in the article text. The photo of the Olympia memorial balances the photo of the Palestinian memorial. Martin

I'm glad the photo montage was dumped. It remains ludicrously OTT and because of the sheer number editorialising the article. This woman was only at most a minor footnote of an American who got killed. Where are the photomontages of others? It is only because she was a blond blue eyed middle class American that makes her seem important. If she was simply a Palestinian or from anywhere she wouldn't be canonised this way. [[User: Jtdirl|STÓD/ÉÍRE]] 17:54 Apr 15, 2003 (UTC)

I'm remaing silent on most of your "balance" statements above except for the one about the Olympia memorial balancing the Palestinian memorial. Since both of these are "pro-corrie" photos, I don't see how they balance each other instead of reinforcing each other. Balance would be achieved by showing an anti-corrie image. -º¡º

I was thinking of balancing reaction in different places, to reduce concerns of being Palestine-centric or US-centric. But you raise a good point. Obviously, there weren't vast numbers of "anti-corrie" pictures, but one image that does spring to mind is the definition of stupidity (http://www.inform.umd.edu/News/Diamondback/archives/2003/03/18/cartoon) cartoon by Daniel Friedman. I'll see if I can get it released under the GFDL. Martin

That cartoon was in the back of my mind as a possible balance, but I suppose strictly speaking the balance to that would just be another cartoon (http://www.danzigercartoons.com/cmp/2003/danziger1600). -º¡º

Why were the photos deleted? Peter Chamberlain

Zoe removed them because they most of them were pointless and irrelevant to the article. A serious encyclopædia uses images to augment a page, highlight the narrative or inform and contextualise. What encyclopædias don't do is plonk a range of irrelevant images at the bottom of a page. Images should be included within the page, not put at the bottom as a form of shrine. That seriously POV's a page by suggesting approval for the person the page is about and the cause she was involved in. Whether or not we might personally agree is irrelevant. This page is about facts, not glorification. One facial shot and some of the incident are all that are needed to provide a readable, visually attractive, reader-friendly encyclopædic article on Rachel Corrie. For example, one of the pictures was of Rachel in Gaza. What was the relevance of the image? We know she was in Gaza. The shot didn't show her in Gaza, just showed a face shot of her. What was it telling us? That she was a woman? We know that. That she was blonde, white and good-looking? We know that too from an earlier shot. The image contained nothing special to warrant its inclusion.

Any professionally edited encyclopædia (and that is what Wikipedia says it is) would not carry such a shot, because it would carried no information that was not already there. It would be culled. So would most of the 'photo montage' images, which wouldn't make it past the first page layout in a credible encyclopædia. They belong on a Rachel Corrie site, which can be promotional and POV and so can carry as many images as it wants. But this isn't a promotional POV site, it is a NPOV encyclopædia, which means we cannot carry every image just because we feel it looks nice. Images if used too heavily, or if not directly factually irrelevant to the article, can unbalance an article's neutrality, by leaving the reader with the impression "well obviously she was important if this encyclopædia gives her so much detailed coverage." Our articles by definition must NEVER do that, simply present people with the facts. ÉÍREman 04:38 Apr 16, 2003 (UTC)

Im not sure I understand what harm can be caused by allowing this photos to remain? These are just photos, not promotions or POVs. I suppose I disagree that the quantity of images unbalances the site. Peter Chamberlain

If they are relevant then there is no problem other than the need to consult a visually attractive page. But if off message (ie, not strictly and unambiguously relevant) they suggest to the reader that the author of the page really wants to put them in, and that poses the question why? Is there an agenda? For example, if you picked up a magazine that had an article on George Bush and which carried a host of 'personality' photographs that aren't strictly relevant to the piece (George Bush smiling to camera, George Bush in London smiling to camera, George Bush in Belfast smiling to camera, etc) you'd get the subliminal message that George Bush is (a) a nice guy, (b) popular all around the world. But if you in an article on the US plant pictures of the US flag being burned in Berlin, Rome, Dublin, Baghdad, etc you'd be sending a different message. An NPOV article needs to be careful that all articles are (i) relevant, (ii) not repetitive, unless they contain some new fact. The photomontage contained two headshots of Rachel. Why? An earlier image in the picture showed us what she looked like. It showed her after being knocked down - that is relevant, if not already covered. One of her hours earlier with a megaphone. Yes it is relevant, if we don't already have one earlier. One of her at a well - so what? If her involvement in protecting wells is mentioned in the text, the image should be there. Plonked in a photomontage below the image is contextless and so irrelevant. It is the same as if we had an article of Mother Theresa, and we followed it with a photomontage of Mother Theresa with a child. MT with another child. MT looking saintly. MT in a generic photograph that was taken in Calcutta (even if it doesn't show that), another MT shot of she looking saintly, you'd say such a montage was OTT and propagandising and you would be right. It is all about a sense of balance and proportion and this article in the way it used the images was unbalanced and disproportional. Without a pointless image overload, it looks far better, far less propagandistic and so better able to do Rachel justice. ÉÍREman 04:59 Apr 16, 2003 (UTC)

Or, how about "one photo is enough. Two at max." q.v. Spanish moss or dragonfly for a way to have more than one included but not in a way that's excessive and takes too long to download. Koyaanis Qatsi

No, I would not feel a photomontage of Mother Theresa at Mother Theresa is propaganda. Both Theresa and Corrie deserve to have their photos displayed. I do not feel the photos here were irrelevant. You state that a picture of Corrie at a well is irrelevant, but seeing as how she was involved with protecting wells from destruction, it doesn't seem so inappropriate to me. If you feel it takes too long to download these, then move them to a seperate page. Peter Chamberlain

Peter, there was originally an Images of Rachel Corrie article, but it now redirects to this article.

--cprompt

I think if the text needs images, then as many as are needed. If an article needs a hell of a lot of images to highlight what it is about, I have no problem with that. The bottom line is revelancy. If it needs 5 and has 5 relevant photos, fine. But if it has 5, of which 4 are just there for padding, not to highlight anything, then kill them. I think wiki should use as many images as possible, but avoid irrelevant images and photo-montages. I have done some pages with a heck of a lot of images, but (and I can think of one article), every image is relevant in what it shows. I could have added more but didn't, because there would have been pointless repetition. If you have 10 relevant images, use them. If you only have one, that is fine. But no repetition for the sake of a cause you personally may believe in. Re the well image, if it is relevant it should be placed next to the place in the text that describes that. And bad as that photomontage was, it was 100 times better than the cringe-inducingly OTT page on its own. If that page ever makes a return, it will be put straight back onto the Votes for Deletion page. ÉÍREman 05:23 Apr 16, 2003 (UTC)

I'm still not clear on exactly why people are so keen to have a whole gallery for this one article, when we have thousands of articles with no illustrations at all? It really does strike me as a subtle attempt to slant wikipedia towards a particular POV; lots of pictures of poor Rachel being victimized by the evil IDF (not that I'm a fan of the IDF, mind you), but very few for any other aspect of the conflict. For instance, do we have any pictures of the Jews that were disemboweled by Arabs in Hebron in the 1920s? I bet a few of the more graphic ones would get the anti-Israeli crowd fuming about "too many inappropriate pictures". What we've got now is a century of intense and complicated conflict illustrated by a dozen pictures of one person and an incident that happened a few weeks ago.

I wonder how this would play out if there were a "three-month" rule, where you couldn't add any info about current events until three months after they happened. This is supposed to be an encylopedia after all, not a newsmagazine. Stan 05:45 Apr 16, 2003 (UTC)

A three-month rule would be terrible, IMHO. We have the luxury of keeping on top of news items as they occur. It is very difficult to go back in time and piece it all together. Wikipedia is a living document. It is healthier for there to be an excess of information that must be fine-tuned and preened rather than not having enough information to work with. As time goes on, so too shall this article and all articles. More information may shed new light or create new connections. That is part of what wikipedia is all about. Or, interest in this topic may die out as other news items enter the fray. These debates are healthy for wikipedia. I'd like to modify your last sentence. Instead, I'd say...wikipedia is supposed to be an living and evolving encyclopedia, not a shrine. Shrines are terrific and important (see: September 11 Memorial Wiki), but this is not the place for one. I am personally against montages on wikipedia. As for this article, I think three images are fine: Rachelcorrie07.jpg, Rachelcorrie04.jpg, and Corrie-after-crushing.jpg. I also wonder why her quotes are so important. No offense, but those quotes are neither succinct nor eloquent. Kingturtle 06:07 Apr 16, 2003 (UTC)

Some responses:

"well obviously she was important if this encyclopædia gives her so much detailed coverage"

If anyone orders the importance of subjects according to wikipedia coverage, sie will come away with a highly distorted view of the world. For starters, poker, Atlas Shrugged, and 30,000 US towns and cities get very good coverage in wikipedia.

One of her at a well - so what? If her involvement in protecting wells is mentioned in the text, the image should be there.

So it was said, so it shall be done. I'm somewhat dissapointed at the if though - you did read the article, right?

It is the same as if we had an article of Mother Theresa, and we followed it with a photomontage

We have an article on Mother Theresa. I encourage you to add good GFDL photos to it. At the moment it has none.

Do we have any pictures of the Jews that were disemboweled by Arabs in Hebron in the 1920s? I bet a few of the more graphic ones would get the anti-Israeli crowd fuming about "too many inappropriate pictures".

I encourage you to add such an article, if there is not one already, and add good GFDL photos to it, if it does not already have them. Note that this article had only two semi-graphic photos (now has one), and they're both fairly bloodless.Martin

Clearly some people are afraid that this article reads like pro Palestinian propaganda. That is not the intent of the article and I for one think the article is NPOV as written. If you are afraid that it makes some Israelis look bad, just come out and say it instead of hinting at it. Then we can address your specific concerns if they are valid.

In other words: if an article about a dead Palestinian activist is less detailed than an article about a dead Israeli activist, that does not make the first article POV. The solution is not to reduce the amount of detail in the first article, but rather to increase the amount of detail in the second.

TEXT MOVED FROM Votes for deletion by Tannin 07:07 Apr 18, 2003 (UTC)

Images of Rachel Corrie
- It was on here a while ago and removed unilaterally. The shrine still exists, the hagiography continues, and it's tiresome. Vote to delete. Danny 11:25 Apr 8, 2003 (UTC)
  - I vote to delete as well, we have a biography already. -º¡º
- Again, detailed talk at Talk:Images of Rachel Corrie
- According to our policy, if this page is deemed to be unnecessary it should be redirected to Rachel Corrie rather than deleted. Martin 11:32 Apr 8, 2003 (UTC)
- The issue isn't the current name, it is the actual existence of this POV shrine. No renaming will solve that issue.
- It would really help if we avoided rehashing the same arguments if people discussed this at Talk:Images of Rachel Corrie rather than cluttering up this page with the debate.
- Actually, whenever that is done, the page mysteriously disappears of the Votes for deletion page and so nothing happens. We have discussed the issue to death there and still this page lingers on. So leave it here and please please make a decision to get rid of this nonsensical POV shrine. STÓD/ÉÍRE 21:17 Apr 8, 2003 (UTC)
- This page is now a redirect to Rachel Corrie so it is no longer the rather cringe-inducing shrine it once was. STÓD/ÉÍRE 01:13 Apr 9, 2003 (UTC)
- Nothing mysterious - I removed it before because this page is called votes for deletion, not votes for redirection. Martin
- We were actually voting on deletion. It was removed well before the content was removed and the page turned into a redirect.
- I've already apologised for that at talk:Images of Rachel Corrie. Anyway, are we agreed that now this page is a redirect and not a "cringe-inducing shrine" that we don't need to delete it? Martin 08:32 Apr 15, 2003 (UTC)

END OF MOVED TEXT

MORE TEXT MOVED FROM VOTES FOR DELETION BY Tannin 07:26 Apr 18, 2003 (UTC)

:Image:Rachelcorrie01.jpg
:Image:Rachelcorriemar.jpg
- possible copyright infringement. Boilerplate copyright notice in place. For details, see talk page of image. Also, various wikipedians oppose the existence of this photo because it is either not needed, or biased (see talk:Images of Rachel Corrie). These twin reasons seem sufficient to delete the image, though I think we should wait a week as for textual copyright violations. Martin
- I object to the deletion of these photos, see Image talk:Rachelcorrie01.jpg and my talk page. They complement the article nicely and there is no reason to remove them, as we have a policy to allow fair use of photos, especially of persons in the public interest. --Eloquence 22:59 Apr 16, 2003 (UTC)
- I wasn't expecting anyone to object - the only person I wondered about was Ed Poor, but he only said the photo "looked nice", which wasn't exactly a ringing endorsement! Given Eloquence's objection, I withdraw my vote for deletion. Martin 00:09 Apr 17, 2003 (UTC)
- The wikipedia has express permission from the International Solidarity Movement to use this photo. How is this possibly a biased photo? Peter Chamberlain
  - please give details of the "express permission" that the ISM has granted. Martin 13:09 Apr 17, 2003 (UTC)
    - I sent emails to all the ones listed on their site, and they responded back. I explained what the wiki was and they liked the idea and said we could use the images. They also wished us luck. Peter Chamberlain
  - Perhaps you could quote the full email you sent and the response you received on :Image:Rachelcorrie01.jpg? Or on talk:International Solidarity Movement? That would help clarify the situation. The reason I'm asking is because there are many photos on the ISM website I would like to use on wikipedia, but I cannot do so until the copyright situation is clarified. Martin

User:RachelCorrie Yet more of the Rachel industry on wiki. This time, it is an "anonymous user" we are told. This page should be deleted because
- it is in extremely bad taste to name a user page after a recently dead person and so have a dead person's name potentially cropping up all over wiki as a 'contributor';
- their user contributions give no indication whatsoever that this is a valid anonymous user. Its contributions are all devoted to loading and moving images of the real Rachel Corrie around the place. Specifically piles of Rachel images plonked on the "anonymous" user's page, producing yet another wiki shrine to Corrie. This is becoming a sick joke in very poor taste and blatently POV
- If this is a genuine user, they should be instructed to immediately change the name of the page. Using a recently dead person's name whether as a joke or as propaganda is so outside the bounds of acceptable behaviour it beggars belief. ÉÍREman 02:35 Apr 17, 2003 (UTC)
- Is this a request for user:RachelCorrie to be banned? btw, user:RachelCorrie made a number of edits on 18 March, but hasn't edited anything since. There is some discussion of the question on user talk:Rachel Corrie[?] (on a similar time frame) If the name is considered a violation of wikipedia:no offensive usernames, we should pick a new name and move content there. see user:TMC for an example of how we've done this in the past. Martin

I agree with ÉÍREman, this is highly inappropriate. Olga Bityerkokoff

And the above "person" should also be deleted because not only is he a troll, but his name violates the obscene user name dictum. -- Zoe

PLEASE NOTE: I have twice, politely asked User:Zoe to remove this unwarranted attack on me and my name. She has ignored both of these requests. Olga Bityerkokoff

PLEASE NOTE: I have never asked for the deletion of Olga Bityerkokoff, but I am asking now, politely. Kingturtle 03:53 Apr 17, 2003 (UTC)

Yes, please. -- Zoe

Seconded. Tannin 03:59 Apr 17, 2003 (UTC)

Or at least a name change, and an attitude change. As for User:RachelCorrie, I posted this before on the mailing list. The taste is debatable and the content of the user page is just a bunch of pictures and links to articles, but other than that, they aren't really violating any policy.

---cprompt

Agree with above jimfbleak 12:51 Apr 17, 2003 (UTC)

Agree with above Peter Chamberlain

I think my agreement should be obvious. -- John Owens 19:54 Apr 17, 2003 (UTC)

:Image:Rachel fractured.jpeg - copyright violation. -- Zoe
- This is not a copyright violation, the International Solidarity Movement has given the wikipedia permission to use this. Peter Chamberlain
- I've emailed the ISM (several times) in an attempt to confirm this permission grant, and have yet to receive a response. I have however heard various wikipedians make this assertion:
  1. Susan Mason was the first, saying The ISM response to, "On behalf of the www.wikipedia.org; I am requestion permission to use images on your website." was, "Help yourself and good luck!" (see talk:Images of Rachel Corrie).
  2. Stevertigo was the second, but failed to respond when I asked for details on hir talk page
  3. "User:RachelCorrie" was the third, but again failed to respond when I asked for details on hir talk page
  4. Next came Dietary Fibre[?], who on talk:Rachel Corrie said "We have permission from the ISM to use everything on their site", but provided no details. Sie suggested emailing Marissa of the ISM, which I did (twice) and got no response.
  5. And now of course Peter Chamberlain states that we've been given permission. The same question applies - what were the exact details of the permission grant? Did you use the boilerplate request for permission? Martin
- The photo is from the International Solidarity Movement (photo by Joseph Smith), Reuters is using it with their permission. Peter Chamberlain
  - Isn't this a moot point anyway, since the photo is not used anywhere but on a personal vanity page? I think we all agree that User:RachelCorrie should be deleted. --Eloquence 12:45 Apr 17, 2003 (UTC)
- What Zoe doesn't understand is that when a Reuters photo is credited with (Reuters, Handout) which this photo is, that means that somebody (the ISM) had a press release and handed out photos to anybody that bothered to show up.
Do you think as Rachel was lying there in pain, with blood streaming from her nose, she knew that moment's copyright status would one day be debated? Peter Chamberlain
- Since she was the model and not the photographer, it doesn't matter what she thought. She doesn't hold the copyright on the photograph. -º¡º

END MOVED TEXT

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