Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/Corporal Seyit

Corporal Seyit
Voting period ends on 10 Feb 2017  at 23:27:44 (UTC)
 * Reason:During the Turkish War of Independence which happens after the events of World War I, this gentleman on the photo does the reloading of the artillery manually(!) meaning lifting multiple 276 kgs weighing German made artillery shells all by himself (whilst his battalion was knocked out) inflicting tremendous damage to British Royal Navy which was on the brink of victory, forcing the Alliance to withdraw from the Dardanelles Campaign, changing the course of history. When asked to re-enact his deed (so a picture could be taken) he actually fails to do what he does on rush of the battle and with the help of others a shell gets placed on his back ending up with the one shot here according to the people who witness those moments, surely one great photo with short but quite an interesting story behind it, of course history and records holds many nameless and humble heroes and heroines like this whom I would love to see more of, the image fits most of the criteria except the photograph itself is taken in black and white but it is on a decent resolution scale for its age, it seems to be in public domain and counted as national heritage for Turkey.
 * Articles in which this image appears:Seyit Cabuk
 * FP category for this image:People/Military
 * Creator:unknown


 * Support as nominator – HardMental (talk) 23:27, 31 January 2017 (UTC)
 * Oppose -- Would need a lot of restoration before being FP worthy, IMO. --Janke | Talk 08:03, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Hey, here what is meant by the restoration? I am not an expert on aged photos like this one but thinking if it is the cracks or the noise? Can it be done by digitally or with the physical/original one? If possible, would it lose its reliability if such restoration is done? Such questions comes to my mind on this. I believe with granted permission one could work on the quality on this Image the one provided here but anything more than that would be quite hard since it is on archives of the general staff. And thanks for your input and interests.HardMental (talk) 18:41, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
 * I think many image editors have some way to handle the damage on the photos but maybe Matlab would be a professional approach hence it is more effective on noise detection(with wide variety of filters along with other features) but I never tried it myself on any image like this one here. Need your opinions, thanks again.HardMental (talk) 19:00, 5 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Oppose Per Janke – Jobas (talk) 16:50, 1 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment – Would like it to receive some support all things considered. Please do keep in mind the historical value of the asset, also being the only copy for the scene aforementioned. HardMental HardMental (talk) 19:35, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment To me the whole story seems implausible. It sounds more like war time propaganda. I appears highly unlikely that the corporal was able to singlehandedly carry and reload three 276 kilo artillery shells. This should be evident by the fact that he could not move the shells when later asked to recreate his deed, and instead had to pose for the picture with a lighter shell. Furthermore it is quite an overreach to say that the three artillery pieces "inflicted tremendous damage to British Royal Navy" forcing them to withdrawn. It would be good if his article was improved with reliable sources.  P. S. Burton  (talk)  23:03, 5 February 2017 (UTC)
 * It is still a widely known heroic story on this day, there are actually examples of such seemingly impossible actions, I am sure you have heard the story of the lady whom lifted a Volkswagen beetle car Chevrolet Impala one of the old models I believe which weighs at least 6 times* more than what was claimed here, saving a baby on the process, it even made to newspapers at that time, I think adrenaline is playing a big part here. Also I didn't say "sunk" at any part, I said "damaged", sources point out the Minelayer Nusret did the most damage 'by laying 26 mines in an unexpected position in February 1915 just prior to the ill-fated invasion which sank HMS Irresistible, HMS Ocean and the French battleship Bouvet, and left the British battle cruiser HMS Inflexible badly damaged' according to the sources of its article, Corporal does the effective damage here to 'HMS Ocean' with the shells he must have loaded, there is a discussion over this about which ship got damaged with the mentioned shells but it is over on its original article. But it is definitely something that must have happened, there was even mentions of gushing blood from his nose when he lifts those shells but avoided adding that to prevent exaggeration on the telling. Regardless, thanks for your thoughts on the matter. HardMental (talk) 08:45, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
 * The story of a distressed mother lifting a car, and other similar stories, are most likely also myths or exaggerations. See our article on Hysterical strength or https://skeptoid.com/episodes/4255. P. S. Burton  (talk)  14:17, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
 * I would like to give an example with a more familiar matter known to many, Santa, he/it would be a good example on this I think because he/it is in reality both real and myth at the same time. How? Well it depends who/what you mean by Santa? If you mean Santa the one symbol in the red garments with the joyful laughter and the mission to spread gifts through the world, that would be a myth but there is also a Santa, Saint Nicholas whom is actually a historical person, with his 'green' garments he is given gifts to many children in his time. Now when I say who/what do you mean by Santa there is actually a single and a right answer to this, the one that is gifting presents. From this you can see "the action" surpasses and goes beyond "the subject". So what would matter most here is the whole act he might have done there. You see, even if he wasn't able to lift the shell here, let's just suppose he couldn't lift any then and there and lied afterwards? Would this devalue his story? Would being a lesser soldier/human-being make it less honorable? It couldn't because the lifting act here just like the giving act in Santa's case has become something else entirely. This is why to me reading war stories like this(well first thing comes to mind as another example is a soldier being shot from the chest but getting saved by one pocket watch) gives me the most excitement. I checked and I thank you for that, the articles you have shown supports me on this mentioning that adrenaline would make any person (depending on the situation they are in like danger or desperation) more strong momentarily or in some cases for a short period. Thanks again for sharing your works and thoughts on the matter. Looking forward to more contributions expecting some from others as well. HardMental (talk) 00:09, 7 February 2017 (UTC)


 * Oppose Per Janke.  lNeverCry   23:31, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
 * Comment: The story is found on some Turkish websites. See this, for example. Mbazri (talk) 12:00, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

--Armbrust The Homunculus 04:51, 11 February 2017 (UTC)