HMS Courageous (50) (nom), the lead ship of a class of cruisers built for the Royal Navy during the First World War. The ship was later converted to an aircraft carrier to avoid its scrapping after the Washington Naval Treaty, and became the first British warship sunk in the Second World War when it was torpedoed by the U-29. (Nominated by Sturmvogel 66)
Jovan Vladimir (nom) (c. 990 – 1016), ruler of Duklja, the most powerful Serbian principality of the time, from around 1000 to 1016. He ruled during a war between the Byzantine Empire and the First Bulgarian Empire, which culminated with Tsar Samuel of Bulgaria's defeat and death. In 1016 Vladimir fell victim to a plot by Ivan Vladislav, the last ruler of the First Bulgarian Empire. He was beheaded in front of a church in Prespa, the empire's capital, and was buried there. He was soon recognized as a martyr and saint; his feast day is celebrated on 22 May. (VVVladimir)
Indian Head gold pieces (nom), two identical coins struck by the United States Mint: a two-and-a-half dollar piece, or quarter eagle, and a five dollar piece, or half eagle. The two pieces remain the only US circulating coins featuring recessed designs. (Wehwalt)
Ruby Laffoon (nom), the 43rd governor of the state of Kentucky, who served from 1931 to 1935. He was known for appointing a record number of Kentucky colonels, including Harland Sanders, who used the title when he opened the Kentucky Fried Chicken chain of restaurants. (Acdixon)
Six images were promoted. Please click on "nom" to view medium-sized images:
Stinking earthfan (nom; related article), a species of fungus found in Asia, Europe, North America, and South America. The fruit body is a coral-like tuft, repeatedly branched from a central stalk. The unpleasant smell of the earthfan has led to the accusation that it's "a candidate for stinkiest fungus in the forest". (Created by Commons user Holger Krisp, from Germany.)
Peter Oliver (nom; related article), a self-portrait of the 17th-century miniaturist Peter Oliver. The original painting is only 8.8 centimetres (3.5 in) in height.
The Great Picture (nom; related article), the world's largest print picture, was taken in 2006 as part of the Legacy Project, a photographic compilation and record of the airfield's history before it is transformed into the Orange County Great Park. The project used an abandoned F-18 hangar at the closed Marine Corps Air Station El Toro fighter base in Irvine, California as the world's largest pinhole camera. The aim was to make a black-and-white negative print of the Marine Corps air station with its control tower and runways, with the San Joaquin Hills in the background, marking the end of 165 years of chemistry-based photography and the start of the age of digital photography.
Aldrin saluting American flag (nom; related article), US astronaut Buzz Aldrin on the Moon, during Apollo 11 EVA activity (created by NASA).
2011 flooding in Ayutthaya, Thailand (nom; related article), Satellite photographs showing flooding in Ayutthaya and Pathum Thani Provinces, Thailand, in October 2011 (right), compared to before the flooding in July (left) NASA Earth Observatory image created by Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon, using EO-1 ALI data provided courtesy of the NASA EO-1 team and the United States Geological Survey.).
Cliff House from Ocean Beach (nom; related article), a restaurant perched on the headlands on the cliffs just north of Ocean Beach on the western side of San Francisco, California. It overlooks the site of the former Sutro Baths and a room-sized camera obscura and is now part of the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, operated by the National Park Service. (created by Mbz1).
Discuss this story
Six great featured pictures. I told you it was still going strong! J Milburn (talk) 18:59, 29 November 2011 (UTC)[reply]
J Milburn, I understand what you're saying and I'd already thought through these issues, although you've expressed them in a different way. A featured article or list always requires significant creation by WP editors, who must:
Far be it for me to decry the work of FP nominators in locating and nominating other people's images; but it seems to be of a different order to the nomination of Wikipedians' original creations (and in images we have a quite different regime concerning OR, interestingly). The grey area is where nominators or reviewers undertake restorations of externally sourced images—these are sometimes significant achievements per se. But a NASA pic of the international space station, for example, unchanged and put up as a featured pic nom—this is more like an award by WP to someone who may not even know their work has been thus acknowledged. Are these just fodder for the main page? If so, don't we have a waiting list of some 2000 images for main-page exposure? In the queueing I'd sooner target from this huge body of images those shot or significantly enhanced by Wikimedians themselves. As a repository of free cultural content, Commons has better grounds in its featured pic process (and its POTY awards) to be wider in scope, including original creations by anyone, not just members of the Wikimedia community. But en.WP is not an image repository: it's an encyclopedia that must be written by a community that embraces multiple talents. Featured articles and lists acknowledge those talents and the associated hard work, but featured pics seems to range through a spectrum from two extremes: (i) identify external pic, check copyright, shove into the nom page; through (ii) restore or tweak externally sourced nom; to (iii) create an original creation, nommed oneself or by another WPian. Tony (talk) 11:41, 2 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]