Wikipedia:Featured picture candidates/John McCain (2009)

John McCain
Voting period ends on 20 Feb 2014  at 00:30:26 (UTC)
 * Reason:Seems to meet the criteria. Natural pose and high resolution. Tasteful studio aesthetic.
 * Articles in which this image appears:John McCain, 2008 Republican National Convention, Family of Barack Obama, John McCain presidential campaign, 2008, Current United States Senators, Vietnam Veterans Against John McCain
 * FP category for this image:People/political
 * Creator:United States Congress


 * Support as nominator --JJARichardson (talk) 00:30, 10 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose — Why? Are we going to run official pix of all 535 members of the U.S. Congress? I doubt it. ( Disclaimer:  This comment has nothing to do with my politics.) Sca (talk) 16:31, 11 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Honestly, some of the official portraits are terrible. But if we have good photographs, why the hell shouldn't we? Adam Cuerden (talk) 12:10, 12 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Sorry, but I just don't see any journalistic or encyclopedic point in running official pix of politicians in a stand-alone, featurey format. Official pix are meant to be suitable for promotional purposes. Where politicos are concerned, timely candid shots are much more legitimate as illustrations of life on Planet Earth. This one is already five years old. Sca (talk) 14:50, 12 February 2014 (UTC)
 * We already have featured images which are studio shots of American politicians. I fail to see how this is any different. JJARichardson (talk) 16:24, 12 February 2014 (UTC)
 * What's interesting about it? Sca (talk) 22:12, 12 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Oppose per Sca. -- ELEKHHT 05:27, 14 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Oppose I don't see an issue with using studio shots, so long as the quality is there. We promoted studio shots of Civil War generals (a ton of them), the President of Brazil, some US Military and US political figures, and a handful of notable entertainers. For the process to at all be credible, we can't say that studio shots of entertainers are okay, but studio shots of politicians aren't. That being said, this is a particularly bad shot of John McCain. The facial expression isn't natural and there is some weird distortions between the side of his face and the flag. Sᴠᴇɴ Mᴀɴɢᴜᴀʀᴅ   Wha?  05:58, 14 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Running official (and probably Photoshopped) photos of serving politicians amounts to free political advertising. Sca (talk) 15:35, 14 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Sca: How is it different from running commissioned studio portraits of entertainers, or video game screenshots released under free licenses, or images taken by editors who add to the file description a prominent link to their personal websites, which offer commercial photography services? Are photographs from NASA advertisements? Those images were the reason why I got so upset when they were thinking of letting the Hubble telescope decay a few years ago, and I saw those images on the main page. For that matter, what makes McCain different from Nils Torvalds, who's FP nomination you have not opposed? As to your concern about photoshop, we've promoted hundreds of images that have been edited after the fact. Every studio shot we have has likely been touched up, most of our space shots are artificially colored, and literally everything that Adam Cuerden has nominated has been restored using an image editing program. It would certainly be inappropriate to put an image of a politician up while they're in active re-election campaign mode, but if it's not election season, I don't see it as being at all a big deal. What I'm trying to say is that, ultimately, just about everything we put on the front page could be considered advertising if you tried hard enough. I don't think it's a good argument, especially when it's only selectively applied.  Sᴠᴇɴ Mᴀɴɢᴜᴀʀᴅ   Wha?  05:45, 15 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Sven, chill!
 * Four observations:
 * I did oppose Featured picture candidates/Barack Obama with artistic gymnastic McKayla Maroney on exactly the same grounds, even though that pic. arguably has human-interest value.
 * I didn't oppose the nomination of Mr. Torvald, a Finn, because he's not a U.S. politician and thus rather beyond my scope. (I am somewhat knowledgeable about German politics, however.)
 * In the U.S., at least, politicians are always assumed to be running for reelection and thus eager for free publicity/exposure.
 * Not running official photos of serving politicians — except as mugshots with, or illustrations of, stories featuring said politicians — is journalism ethics, to avoid the appearance of pandering to their interests. But if candid news shots are available, they are preferred even in such cases.
 * Sca (talk) 15:56, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

-- — Crisco 1492 (talk) 03:41, 20 February 2014 (UTC)