Talk:Situation Room (photograph)

Copyright?
Is this actually public domain? On the flickr page, it says "This official White House photograph is being made available only for publication by news organizations and/or for personal use printing by the subject(s) of the photograph. The photograph may not be manipulated in any way and may not be used in commercial or political materials, advertisements, emails, products, promotions that in any way suggests approval or endorsement of the President, the First Family, or the White House." 24.80.227.71 (talk) 00:37, 7 May 2011 (UTC)


 * The place to raise this issue is on Wikimedia Commons. I'm pretty sure the general issue has been discussed there before (though I couldn't point you to a specific location). AnonMoos (talk) 05:10, 7 May 2011 (UTC)

RE: Analysis
As it is, seems like a personal analysis. 66.108.243.166 (talk) 05:28, 8 May 2011 (UTC)Moi
 * They are fine because they are backed by reliable sources.— Chris! c / t 20:36, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

flickr copyright
Regarding this diff: The flickr description does say it's not supposed to be modified, but the flickr "License" specifically says that derivative works are allowed. Anyway the image is public domain, so whoever uploaded it to flickr can't restrict derivative works anyway. The referenced wapo source includes a correction stating that in fact there is no copyright issue. So Der Tzitung disobeyed the white house's request, which wasn't legal in the first place. We don't need to be making a big deal out of this nonsense here. Staecker (talk) 10:17, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I looked into it and this is correct. I went from the reliable sources, which said these photos were not alterable, but the US Govt license on Flickr does specifically approve derivative works. – Muboshgu (talk) 13:48, 10 May 2011 (UTC)

Discussion of various aspects
This discusses several aspects of the photo WhisperToMe (talk) 21:16, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
 * "The Secrets of the Situation Room: From Audrey Tomason to Burn Bags." Powerwall.

DC and Marvel
Article about the photoshop with DC and Marvel: WhisperToMe (talk) 21:23, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Castillo, Michelle. "DC and Marvel unite forces in the Situation Room picture." CBS News. May 10, 2011.


 * The one with everybody wearing Princess Beatrice's hat was funnier... [[Image:SFriendly.gif|20px]] -- AnonMoos (talk) 03:39, 17 May 2011 (UTC)

Audrey Tomason
In relation to Audrey Tomason, the Daily Beast article says: In your opinion, is this piece of information relevant or is it trivial?
 * " trying to figure out who she is has become a sort of Web parlor game."

Also another proposed revision:
 * "Alexis Madrigal, a senior editor at The Atlantic said that Tomason "appeared to be an outlier in a room filled with the Administration's heaviest hitters.""
 * "Tommy Vietor, a National Security Council spokesperson, said that there were other young staffers in the room, but Tomason as the only one in the photograph. Vietor said "[t]here were at least half a dozen people with similar profiles in the immediate vicinity where that photo was taken."[3] Madrigal added "[y]et only one has a Wikipedia page. The luck of the camera's gaze means that history will be able to place Tomason at a decisive moment in war on terrorism, but not her colleagues.""

WhisperToMe (talk) 23:44, 10 May 2011 (UTC)
 * If we can find sources, it's worthy of inclusion. When I saw her in the photo, my first reaction was "who is that?" and I wasn't the only one with that reaction. I looked her up here to see that her article was started after the release of the photo. She seems to be someone with no public profile despite being ranked high enough to be in the room. I find that interesting. – Muboshgu (talk) 01:23, 11 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Anyway, I added the Madrigal stuff, and I'm waiting to see what the reception is to the paragraph WhisperToMe (talk) 08:28, 11 May 2011 (UTC)


 * If you are trying to identify additional persons in the room: The tie on the right side of the picture seems to be the same as the one of the person in the background of File:Obama and national security members during meeting about Osama bin Laden.jpg. -- ¾ sig  at  07:27, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

2021
The lack of a redirect (and corresponding article) for Audrey Thomasson strikes me as problematic. The commentary on this talk page demonstrates the problem fully: discussion here revolves around Thomasson's relevance, not on her career. The discussion centers not on what has been found, but instead on whether she is worthy of inclusion in the first place. It seems everyone else in the photograph has a dedicated article, but not Thomasson. In time, I intend to start an article for Thomasson based on the feedback I receive here. Jborgzz (talk) -- Preceding undated comment added 22:07, 5 February 2021 (UTC)
 * She was apparently a rather junior staffer at the time. I don't think she deserves an article based solely on her appearance in this photograph, but if she's done things since then, that could help. AnonMoos (talk) 09:03, 6 February 2021 (UTC)
 * P.S. Some of those who were there have said that there were a lot more junior staffers crowded around the edges, and that it was kind of an accident of the camera angle that she was included in the photograph while a number of others weren't... AnonMoos (talk) 13:15, 6 February 2021 (UTC)

Sit Room
It's remarkable how different and bare this room looks compared to the sit room on The West Wing. I know it's fictional but the producers did claim that they went to great lengths to ensure accuracy.--Shylocksboy (talk) 02:32, 11 May 2011 (UTC)
 * I had the same exact thought. But, hey, we don't know what they were looking at. For all we know, the big flatscreens from the West Wing have been replaced with animated holograms and Smell-O-Vision. :) ɠǀɳ̩ςεΝɡ  bomb  02:55, 11 May 2011 (UTC)
 * And they nearly all appear to be civilians whereas the vast majority on The West Wing were military personnel. --Shylocksboy (talk) 14:47, 11 October 2011 (UTC)
 * The article is incorrect, as the conference room is part of the Situation Room at large, which has three total. The article actually cites this fact further down. Editing to reflect accuracy.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 198.137.241.197 (talk) 01:11, 25 March 2013 (UTC)
 * This is taken in the White House Situation Room. Top Secret images appearing on the large flat screen monitors have been removed by whiting them out, making the room look rather plain. My76Strat (talk) 20:04, 26 April 2013 (UTC)
 * In his 2018 memoir, James Clapper notes that they were "not in the situation room, but in a breakout room just across the hall". The quote appears about 9/10ths of the way through Chapter 5, "The Second Most Thankless Job in Washington". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pcervelli (talk • contribs) 19:54, 1 June 2019 (UTC)

Irish America
A significant number of the men in the photograph are, or appear to be, of Irish American heritage: obviously the President and Vice President, but also Brennan, Donilon, McDonough etc. This might be worthy of comment. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.155.82.94 (talk) 23:02, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Probably not. But you are welcome to track down a reliable source on the matter ... if one exists. —Diiscool (talk) 00:55, 1 June 2011 (UTC)

artistic
artistic use: Alfredo Jaar: May 1, 2001 http://www.kamelmennour.com/media/5732/alfredo-jaar-may-1-2011.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 138.232.105.227 (talk) 13:07, 26 September 2012 (UTC)

Requesting move
Please move this title to Situation Room over the existing redirect, leaving this title as a redirect to the new title. The iconic image is known as Situation Room as evidenced by the lowercase definite article in the image's source. I have corrected all back-links to the previous title, directing them to the new DAB title at Situation Room (disambiguation). I deem this an uncontroversial move. My76Strat (talk) 19:33, 26 April 2013 (UTC)

gender info
Yes writing out "(female)" is awkward, but her gender *IS* important because the Wikipedia article and its references explain that "She also gained notability as she was the only woman, other than Hillary Clinton, in the photograph." While reading the whole article makes it obvious which depicted person on the photo is associated with the "Audrey Tomason" name in the article, not writing out her gender creates two difficulties that are worse than putting the awkward note "(female)": first, I had *great* difficulty understanding who "Audrey Tomason" is looking at the photo and at the list of people in the photo: the description says "standing" and "from left to right" and if someone closely looks at the photo it's possible to identify her correctly in the first instance, but the chance of mistaken identification is quite high, and I actually misidentified her (I actually thought she was a male standing near her, only much later reading the whole article I understood my mistake). I regularly interpret English Wikipedia articles in Greek to other people, which means I read the English text and I say aloud the Greek translation as I tranlate the text on my head in real time, and I regularly make mistakes regarding the genders of people as I don't know what names are associated with which gender, I actually was reading aloud interpreting this article and I announced to the other people who were listening to me that she was a male near her, then I wondered who this young woman is and I assumed she were probably a low-ranking employee like e.g. a cleaner or a random journalist as I didn't see the list of names containing any other female than Clinton, and then I looked closer in the photo and found out the person whose shoulder is visible and with the list of names I understood my mistake and corrected myself. Because she holds an apparently high-ranking office, someone not being able to understand genders from foreign names would immediately assume she is male because males are more often associated with high government positions. So, the mistake I did could be done by other people as well, some of whom may be interpreters who read articles aloud to other people who listen. Problem is, interpreters can't know that in the next paragraphs the article specifically refers to her as a woman, so such a mistake regarding her gender could go unnoticed for some time. Of this problem regarding genders isn't only in this article, but it's a good case here, so I think we need some way to give the gender info in the encyclopedia, as the English language isn't good at giving the gender info (in Greek it's virtually impossible to refer to any person without giving out the gender info, nearly all words carry the gender information). While the inclusion of gender after names may seem awkard, allowing such gender mistakes to happen seem more of a problem to me. Cogiati (talk) 12:26, 20 November 2013 (UTC)

File:Obama and Biden await updates on bin Laden.jpg
Hello! This is a note to let the editors of this article know that File:Obama and Biden await updates on bin Laden.jpg will be appearing as picture of the day on May 1, 2014. You can view and edit the POTD blurb at Template:POTD/2014-05-01. If this article needs any attention or maintenance, it would be preferable if that could be done before its appearance on the Main Page. Thanks! — Crisco 1492 (talk) 00:08, 16 April 2014 (UTC)

Tagging of "comprised of" in the quotation
I am changing the tagging of "comprised of" in the quote from the "not a quote" template to the "sic" template.

"comprised of" is obviously not a typo, but it is disputed usage and many editors find it suboptimal wording and are inclined to change it wherever they see it. I am one such editor.

Originally, there was no tagging and I believe I nearly edited the quote before I noticed it was a quote. So I attempted to add the normal tagging for such a situation in Wikipedia: the sic template with a hide=y parameter so the annotation "[sic]" does not appear to readers. Because it is obviously not a typo by someone transcribing the quote, "[sic]" is unnecessary. It also tends to anger some people.

But, ironically, I made a typo in my change, doubling a vertical bar (|) and mangled the sentence.

Evanh2008 misunderstood the botched edit and the sic template and fixed the article by removing the tagging and making the article read "comprised [of]" (brackets in original).

Diiscool misunderstood Evanh2008's misunderstanding but understood I had made a mistake and tried to revert Evanh2008's change but correct my mistake. But diiscool misunderstood where the error was and rather than remove the duplicate vertical bar, removed a different vertical bar. This unmangled the article for the reader but caused the phrase not to be hidden from grammar editors.

I therefore came across the same text again, recognized that a vertical bar was missing, and put it back. The sentence of course, was still mangled after this because the other vertical bar was still doubled.

Then came ajfweb, who did not understand the intent of the tag, or that it simply had a typo, and to fix the mangling of the sentence, just removed the tagging altogether.

Diiscool noticed this and realized some tagging is necessary, and tagged the text with the "not a typo" template, perhaps not knowing how to make the sic template work correctly. "not a typo" is not appropriate here, because the reason for letting it stand is that it's in a quote, not that it's not what it appears to be.

So this time, I'm entering the sic tag properly and testing it to make sure. In this case, the proper tagging is a sic template, indicating that whether an editor likes the phrase or not, it's from a quote and should not be fixed. It has a hide=y parameter so that nothing shows up to the reader (the reader simply sees, "comprised of", which is what the source says). It has the phrase broken into two template parameters (there's an extra vertical bar) so that a search of source for the phrase "comprised of" will not find it and waste a grammar editor's time or risk having a bot improperly change it.

Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 01:21, 27 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks for cleaning it up. —Diiscool (talk) 12:35, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

What are they actually seeing?
The article notes that part of the appeal of this photo is in how it pulls us as viewers into guessing/supplying just what the group is watching. Many assumed, when the picture hit the news, that Obama, Clinton and the others are watching a live video feed from bin-laden's hideout or someone just outside. But in fact, IIRC some of the people present in the pic commented that most of the time there was nothing to actually see, they were waiting for information or listening to radioed messages from people supervising the operation. It was explicitly denied that they had been able to watch most of the operation inside the house in real time.

This is clearly relevant to the picture: are there any certifed statements about what they were actually seeing (and listening to)? Just a dark screen with intermittent brief messages or some sort of continuous feed? 83.251.170.27 (talk) 22:47, 13 February 2016 (UTC)

Notebook model
Can someone identify the HP notebook model in front?--Mideal (talk) 13:53, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

Requested move 5 February 2017

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: Moved per unanimous consensus, using the full Situation Room (photograph) variant — JFG talk 00:44, 13 February 2017 (UTC)

– I fail to find evidence why the photograph should continue to be the primary topic. When I currently do a google search of situation room I get usually equal or more results for White House Situation Room, where this photo was taken. I suspect the photo was made the primary topic a few years ago partially due to WP:RECENTISM. But it is now almost six years since this photo was taken, and Trump has now replaced Obama, so recent news sources have appeared to revert back to the original primary meaning. Zzyzx11 (talk) 22:47, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Situation Room → Situation Room (photo)
 * Situation Room (disambiguation) → Situation Room


 * The photograph is referred to by just the two words together, without additional words in the title, while other two have frequently used expanded titles. AnonMoos (talk) 01:23, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

CN¥
 * Support no primary topic, and it appears the title of this article is original research. This isn't an art photo or painting with a title, this is a May 1, 2011 Situation Room photograph according to reliable sources. In ictu oculi (talk) 08:59, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Support, the White House Situation Room should be primary, but this one is far from primary and could just have been moved without an RM. Randy Kryn 16:46, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Support request as no primary topic appears to exist for this title. Care should be given in effecting this move to ensure pages linked to this title are properly re-targeted before it becomes a disambiguation page. And, while it is implied, it is better specifically said: Situation Room (disambiguation) should be left as a redirect when that title is ultimately moved to Situation Room.--John Cline (talk) 22:21, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Support As per the above. Ridiculous it has been the primary topic for this long. AusLondonder (talk) 04:18, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Support Situation Room (photograph); this is the more usual disambiguation. Situation Room should point to White House Situation Room, the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC.|White_House_Situation_Room|The_Situation_Room_with_Wolf_Blitzer--Cúchullain t/ c 14:58, 10 February 2017 (UTC)