User talk:HalRichards

Rafael Medoff
Please do not arbitrarily change the photo in the article's Infobox. The previous photo shows him looking at the camera, smiling, and is well-lit. Your photo exhibits none of these elements. If you have a legitimate reason why you think your photo is a better choice then the previous one, then please state them. That your photo is four months newer than the previous one, to the exclusion of the photos' respective quality, does not constitute a valid rationale, since his appearance has not substantially changed in the intervening four months. The photo that should go in the Infobox is the one that best serves the article, and part of that is how well it presents the subject. Thanks. Nightscream (talk) 22:37, 3 October 2011 (UTC)

Sure, here are some legitimate reasons.

1. The photo of him at the comic book convention is certainly a fine photo, but a scene in which he is delivering a lecture at a scholarly conference, sponsored by his institute, is a more accurate representation of his life's work than a scene of him standing in front of the symbol of a company with which he is not associated.

2. The fact that he is smiling in the new photo does not make it a more accurate representation of him. On the contrary, as a serious scholar, a photo of him delivering a serious lecture is more representative than one which he is smiling in a pose.

3. The Wikipedia article is primarily about his work as a historian, with only a very small portion of it referring to his connection to anything in the work of comics or animation. Therefore a photo of him speaking to a historical conference presents the subject more accurately than one of him standing near the symbol of a comic book promotion company.

HalRichards (talk) 01:00, 4 October 2011 (UTC)


 * Photos do not have to represent a subject's life work. They only have to represent the subject, and in so doing, they should exhibit basic elements of quality. A photo that is poorly lit, exhibits a bad facial expression, is grainy, etc. is not a better pic than one that is well lit, and features him facing the camera and smiling for it. This is an issue of photo quality, and not "accuracy".


 * In addition, "association" with the setting of the photo both irrelevant and subjective, as it is subject to characterization and spin. Medoff is a scholar in the area of Holocaust studies. Because of this, he has helped collaborate on numerous works pertinent to this subject, including at least five different works in the comics medium. He was at the BAC to help promote the most recent one, They Spoke Out. So he is indeed associated with the setting in question. If he wasn't, he wouldn't have been there, now would he? Didn't he present his work and answer questions while on the panel, just as he would at a lecture held anywhere else? To argue that oh, well, he's not associated with the company, therefore, it's not an appropriate photo, is to engage in hairsplitting, and to dismiss a better quality photos because it was at a comic book convention rather than an academic institute is just snobbery. There is no policy, guideline or principle that requires photos to be taken in the exact building where one works, or that indicates that a photo that is taken at such a place is necessarily a better choice than one that wasn't, particularly when the former is of inferior quality. Photo quality comes first. Nightscream (talk) 04:16, 4 October 2011 (UTC)